Dane wanted to kill the little bastard. He felt Savich’s hand on his arm, squeezing very lightly. He fought for control, managed to keep it. He said, “It’s over now, Linus, all over. You’re dead meat.”

Linus said, “You do know I’m the one who sent that picture of you and Miss Nick to the media. All I had to do was make a couple of calls to the SFPD to find out who she was. And now she was here, sniffing around, looking at everyone, but I knew she wouldn’t recognize me.”

Dane said, “But you hired Milton to kill her. You were afraid that she might recognize you eventually.”

Linus shrugged yet again, his fingertips tapping a mad tattoo. “Why take a chance? Too bad Milton was such a lousy shot.” He looked at Nick. “Pity he missed you. Just a graze. Bummer. But I would have gotten you, Miss Nick, oh yes, I would have killed you dead.” He gave a short laugh, then turned back to the show. He pressed a button, lowering the volume even more. He said, never looking away from the episode playing on the wall, “Father Michael Joseph was my first big challenge. He told me he was going to blow the whistle on me, leave the priesthood if he had to. I was going to kill him anyway, but I had to speed things up.” He looked at Dane and smiled. “It was a beautiful shot. But you know what? The damned priest looked happy, like maybe he realized that he’d saved some lives with his sacrifice. Who can say?”

Dane was breathing hard now, struggling to keep his hands at his sides, to keep himself from wrapping his hands around Linus Wolfinger’s neck and choking the life out of him. He was a monster, maybe even more of a monster than his grandfather, but that would really be saying something.

“What did you do with the gun?” Sherlock asked.

He grinned at her. “Who knows?”

Dane smiled at him. “You’re going to pay now, Linus. You’re going into a cage and you’re never going to come out except when they walk you down to the execution room to send you to hell.”

“I don’t think so,” Linus said, lifted his hand, and in it was a gun, a derringer, small and deadly. He aimed it at each of them in turn.

“Don’t even think about it, Linus,” Savich said. “It’s too late. We don’t want to have to kill you. Don’t make us.”

Linus Wolfinger laughed. “Do you know running this studio isn’t even much fun anymore? Nothing’s much fun anymore.” He said, in a very good imitation of Arnold Schwarzenegger, “Hasta la vista, baby.” He stuck the derringer in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

THIRTY-THREE

They’d just returned to the Holiday Inn. Linus Wolfinger had been dead for only an hour. It seemed much longer.

Nick stood in front of the TV and watched John Rothman, senior senator from Illinois, face a slew of cameras and a multitude of shouting reporters.

“. . . We’re told it’s your wife, Senator, the one everybody believed ran away with one of your aides three years ago. They found her body, but where’s your aide?”

“. . . Sir, how did you feel when they told you they’d found your wife’s body?”

“. . . She’s dead, Senator, not off living with another man. Do you think your aide killed your wife, sir?”

“. . . How do you think this will affect your political career, Senator?”

Nick simply stared at the TV screen, hardly believing what she saw. She felt a deep pain, and rising rage. John Rothman had finally tracked Cleo down, and killed her. To shut her up. And to get revenge for the letter she’d written to Nick?

She looked at that face she’d believed she loved, that mobile face that could show such joy, could laugh and joke with the greatest charm, a face that could hide hideous secrets. She watched him perform, no other word for it. He was a natural politician, an actor of tremendous talent. To all the questions, Senator John Rothman said not a word. He stood quietly, like a biblical martyr as stones were hurled at him. He looked both stoic and incredibly weary, and older than he had just a month before. She couldn’t see any fear leaching out of him; all she saw was pain, immense pain. Even she, who knew what this man was, who knew what he’d done, what he was capable of, even she could feel it radiating from him. If she had been asked at that very instant if he’d killed Cleo, if he’d ever killed anyone or tried to kill anyone, she would have said unequivocally no. He was the most believable human being she’d ever seen in her life.

He continued to say nothing, didn’t change his expression at any of the questions, whether they were insulting or not. All the questions seemed to just float past him. Finally, and only when he was ready, Senator Rothman took a single step forward. He merely nodded to the shouting reporters, the people holding the scores of cameras, made brief eye contact with many of them as he gave a small wave of his hand. Immediately everyone was quiet. It was an incredible power he had, one she’d always admired. Even before she’d met him she’d wondered how he did it.