He said an inch from her nose, “Stop sneering at me. I know threats don’t work with you, so I won’t bother. Why don’t you tell me where you think we should start with all the info you extracted?”

It was terrible that she couldn’t indulge her anger at him, but she recognized the olive branch—really more of a twig—and the fact was, business was business. She saved her anger for later.

“Get off me, you baboon, so I can breathe.”

Savich rolled off to the side, but kept one leg on top of her.

“All right. My guess is that all that stuff Claudia told me probably happened in the past year or two. We have a number of details about Claudia’s mother that must have led to an investigation. And maybe Claudia is her real name. So you need to fire up MAX and get on it. Now let me go before I get seriously upset and hurt you.”

He leaned over and kissed her, still angry and frustrated, then rolled off the bed. He looked down at her for a long moment, brooding, before he walked back into the bathroom and shut the door.

He heard her laugh and yell, “Hey, Dillon, maybe you should call Director Mueller, fill him in on what I got Claudia to tell me.”

Savich stood in front of the bathroom mirror, a razor in his hand. He’d heard every word quite clearly; Sherlock had a piercingly clear voice when she wanted to. But beneath that laughter, he thought, she was still angry at him, perhaps as angry as he was with her. He sighed as he soaped up his face.

He was not in a happy place. He cut himself twice.

His phone rang again ten minutes later with the news that Moses and Claudia were no longer at the Denny’s.

Savich called Jimmy Maitland to give him a report, then Dix to say they wouldn’t make it for dinner. They had a lot of work to do.

CHAPTER 26

SHERIFF NOBLE’S HOUSE

MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

THURSDAY EVENING

RAFE MOWED ACROSS his corn on the cob without stopping. Rob, not to be outdone, managed an even wider swath of his own, four rows of kernels at a time. For a moment, Ruth thought he was going to choke. She clapped him on the back and handed him a glass of water, then gave him a thumbs-up when he sat back and smiled contentedly at his brother.

“Neither of you took a single breath,” Ruth said. “That’s remarkable. Next time I’m going to find really, really big ears of corn and test your limits.”

Dix looked up from his own corn at his boys, then over at Ruth. The boys acted natural around her, not at all prickly, as they often did when they thought a woman was threatening to take their mother’s place.

She’d known them since Friday night. It was amazing how comfortable they all were.

Dix said, leaning back in his chair, “Do you know I can’t remember ever felling an ear of corn in under six seconds?”

“We did it faster, right, Ruth?”

Ruth laughed. “I wasn’t timing you but I bet you beat that. My older brother and I always competed to see who could be the grossest as well as the fastest. Drove our parents crazy.”

Rob said, “Grandpa Chappy usually laughs when we do a gross-out for him, like stuffing chewed-up green beans in front of your bottom teeth and peeling down your lip. Uncle Tony gets all uptight and Aunt Cynthia looks like she wants to lock us in a closet.”

“How about your uncle Gordon?” Ruth heard the words come out of her mouth before she even realized what she’d asked.

“Uncle Gordon? Hmm.” Rob looked over at Rafe, then said, “Fact is, we’ve never been gross around Uncle Gordon. He always looks so perfect, you know?”

“So does your grandpa Chappy,” Ruth said.

“It’s not the same,” Rafe said, shaking his head. “And when the two of them are together they’re so busy fighting we might as well not even be there.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Ruth said.

“How about you, Ruth? What did you and your brother do that was real gross?”

“Well, my favorite gross-out was chugging a Coke while I was ice skating. You come to a fast stop in front of one of your friends and belch really loud right in their face.”

The boys laughed. Dix knew that until tonight his sons had been putting up a brave front, trying to act as natural as they could while all hell was breaking loose around them—three people murdered in their town in less than a week while their father was the one responsible for finding out who killed them.

Rob stopped laughing first. He looked down at the pile of baked beans on his plate.

Well, impossible to ignore reality forever, Dix thought. He said easily, “Thanks for the visual, Ruth. When we go skating, no soft drinks allowed,” but the boys looked thoughtful.