“That’s thirty-one,” Gillette said. “That’s young.”

“Young enough,” Rachael said as she blew on the coffee that Uncle Gillette had just poured in the big stone mug with her name on it. “You’ve only got thirty-six months on me.”

“Thirty-six months and decades of nasty experience,” Jack said.

Rachael sneered at him. “Oh yeah? You ever spend any quality time at the bottom of a lake with only a block of concrete for company?”

“Okay, I spoke too fast, but you’ve got to admit, that little phrase sounded profound.”

She couldn’t help it, she poked him in the arm and laughed. “All right, you’re loaded with hard-nosed experience. Now, tell us about your house.”

“It’s old and needs lots of updating, but it’s mine. I’m still living in my apartment since there’s so much major work to do. My folks loaned me the down payment. I pay them ten percent interest. My dad told me to take my time paying them back, they like the interest rate too much. You built this house yourself, Gillette?”

Gillette nodded and walked to the shining silver Sub-Zero refrigerator. “After I came home from the marines—”

“Wait a minute,” Jack said, staring at the man who looked like he should have been playing polo, his valet waiting in the wings. “You’re a marine?”

Gillette nodded. “Yeah, I spent ten years in the Corps before I hung it up. I grew up here in Slipper Hollow, went to school in Parlow, couldn’t wait to go out into the big bad world. Since home appears to be embedded in our genes, I came back here when I got out. Rachael and her mom lived here until she was twelve or so, I believe, when they moved to Richmond.”

Rachael added to Jack, “My grandparents were killed in an avalanche while cross-country skiing when I was about eight. I never knew them very well, they were always bum ming around. ‘Hike the world’ was their motto.”

“Yes, that’s right. After you and your mom left, it was tough being here alone, but I didn’t want to leave. That’s when I tore down the house and started building this one. It was a work in progress for a long time. Been finished about three years now. I’ve enjoyed every project, Jack, and you will, too, so take your time and don’t cut corners. I made a cheesecake. Who wants strawberries with that?”

This handsome, fit man who looked like an Italian count in his pale blue cashmere V-neck, white shirt, black slacks, and butter-soft loafers, was a down-and-dirty marine? He made vegetarian stew and cheesecake and laid that incredible kitchen floor; he built this entire frigging house?

After his first bite of cheesecake, Jack said, “I have a sister who would hunt you down like a dog, so great would be her desire for you.”

“Hmm. She likes cheesecake, does she? Is she a lawyer like you?”

“How do you know I’m a lawyer?”

“The way you process information, the way you speak. It helped, too, that after Rachael called me, told me your name, I Googled you. You were second in your class at the University of Chicago. Good job. That’s a tough program. You went directly into the FBI after graduation?”

Jack sat back, folded his hand over his belly. “No, I started out in the Chicago DA’s office, stayed only a year and a half before joining the FBI. My sister was first in her class, also at Chicago, eight years before me. Plus, she’s a vegetarian. So is Savich.”

“Funny,” Gillette said, frowning at a laptop that sat next to a bowl of green apples on the long kitchen counter, “for an FBI agent.”

“Yeah, I’d have to say that most of us are predators.” Jack thought about Gillette Googling him, about the state of privacy now, and knew anyone could find out he’d made a B in Torts in his second year.

At ten o’clock that night, Rachael led Jack into her mother’s old room, which, naturally, Uncle Gillette had prepared for him.

“I was wondering, Rachael, how does Gillette make his money? It’s obvious he isn’t hurting, plus he built this house and it’s really high quality.”

“He does computer troubleshooting for several large international corporations. Exactly what this involves, you’ll have to ask him. I remember once he started talking about a tax scam he was hunting down in Dubai, and my eyes started glazing over. Go take a pain med, Jack,” she added. She raised her hand to lightly cup his face. “Thank you. You fall out of the sky at my feet, then you become my bodyguard. Add to that you’re fixing up your own house and I’ve gotta think you’re quite a miracle.”

“I like being a miracle,” he said, and stared at that sexy braid before he left her. Jack took his pill and settled between lavender-scented sheets, unconscious in two minutes flat.

As for Rachael, for the first time since Friday, she felt safe to her bones even though she knew intellectually that anyone with the proper motivation and a certain degree of skill could locate her and Slipper Hollow without much fuss.

She lay on her back on her narrow childhood bed and looked up at the high-beamed ceiling that she couldn’t see in the dark, and wondered how she was going to prove Jimmy’s brother and sister murdered him before they added her scalp to their belts.

She wanted more than anything in the world to make them pay. She’d had only six weeks with Jimmy because of them. Talk about miracles, Jimmy had been the biggest miracle in her life, and he was taken from her. After so little time. She fell asleep thinking that Jack was a pretty nice miracle himself.

SEVENTEEN

Washington Memorial Hospital

Washington, D.C.

Tuesday morning

Chief of Neurological Services Dr. Connor Bingham said to Savich and Sherlock, “Dr. MacLean regained consciousness an hour ago. He was in considerable pain from the broken ribs and the cut in his chest, so he’s medicated, a bit on the drowsy side. Maybe all the physical stimulation, the noise and activity of the helicopter ride, helped speed his awakening. But he is by no means a normal man, as you’ll see. With his dementia, he’ll never be.

“When you speak to him, keep it short. If you have questions afterwards, I’m available.”

As a matter of course, Savich and Sherlock showed their IDs to the agent posted outside Dr. MacLean’s room, even though they knew one another.

Agent Tom Tomlin was tall and rangy, his dark eyes alight at the sight of Sherlock as he said, those eyes of his never leaving her face, “Agent Sherlock, my mom sent me a photo from the San Francisco Chronicle.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his wallet, and unfolded the newspaper clipping. “See, here you are standing in front of a burning house, your face blacker than mine, your clothes torn and dirty, and I can tell you’re wearing a Kevlar vest. My mom told me to ask you out. She was really bummed when I told her you were married.” He beamed at her.