“Count on Mr. Monk to help with all that. I bet you Mr. Monk doesn’t have all that sterling a reputation. I’ll check into that right away.”

“Yes,” Lily continued, her head cocked to one side, still thinking. “He could have killed me immediately, and then he would have owned the paintings. He could then have sold them legally, right up front, with no risk that someone would turn on him, betray him. Probably he would have made more money that way, you know, in auctions.”

“First of all, Lily, killing you off would have brought Savich down on their heads, with all the power of the FBI at his back. Never underestimate your brother’s determination or the depths of his rage if something had happened to you. As for legal auctions for the paintings, you’re wrong there. Collectors involved in illegal art deals pay top dollar, many times outrageous amounts because they want something utterly unique, something no one else on the face of the earth owns. The stronger the obsession, the more they’ll pay. Going this route was certainly more risky, but the payoff was probably greater, even figuring in the cost of the forgery. It was trying to kill you that was the real risk. As I said, something very threatening must have happened. I don’t know what, but we’ll probably find out. Now, you ready to go have some lunch before you go home to bed?”

Lily thought about how tired she was, how she could simply sit down and sleep, then she smiled. “Can I have Mexican?”

13

Quantico

Savich was seated in his small office in the Jefferson dorm at the FBI academy when two agents ushered in Marilyn Warluski, who’d borne a child by her cousin Tommy Tuttle, now deceased, the child’s whereabouts unknown. They’d nabbed her getting on a Greyhound bus in Bar Harbor, Maine, headed for Nova Scotia. Since she’d been designated a material witness, and Savich wanted to keep her stashed away, they’d brought her in a FBI Black Bell Jet to Quantico.

He’d never met her, but he’d seen her photo, knew she was poorly educated, and guessed that she was not very bright. He saw that she looked, oddly, even younger than in her photo, that she’d gained at least twenty pounds, and that her hair, cropped short in the photo, was longer and hung in oily hanks to her shoulders. She looked more tired than scared. No, he was wrong. What she looked was defeated, all hope quashed.

“Ms. Warluski,” he said in his deep, easy voice, waving her to a chair as he said her name. The two agents left the office, closing the door behind them. Savich gently pressed a button on the inside of the middle desk drawer, and in the next room, two profilers sitting quietly could also hear them speak.

“My name is Dillon Savich. I’m with the FBI.”

“I don’t know nothin’,” Marilyn Warluski said.

Savich smiled at her and seated himself again behind the desk.

He was silent for several moments, watched her fidget in that long silence. She said finally, her voice jumpy, high with nerves, “Just because you’re good-lookin’ doesn’t mean I’m gonna tell you anythin’, mister.”

This was a kick. “Hey, my wife thinks I’m good-looking, but I’m wondering, since you said it, if you’re just trying to butter me up.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, “you’re good-lookin’ all right, and I heard one of the lady cops on the airplane say you’re a hunk. They were thinkin’ that a sexy guy will make me talk, so they got you.”

“Well,” Savich said, “just maybe that’s so.” He paused a fraction of a second, then said, his voice unexpectedly hard, “Have you ever seen the Ghouls, Marilyn?”

He thought she’d keel over in her chair. So she knew about the Ghouls. She paled to a sickly white, looked ready to bolt.

“They’re not here, Marilyn.”

She shook her head back and forth, back and forth, whispering, “There’s no way you could know about the Ghouls. No way at all. Ghouls are bad, real bad.”

“Didn’t Tammy tell you that I was there in the barn, that I saw them, even shot at them?”

“No, she didn’t tell me…ah, shit. I don’t know nothin’, you hear me?”

“Okay, she didn’t tell you that I saw them and she didn’t tell you my name, which is interesting since she knows it. But she did tell you that she wanted to have at me, didn’t she?”

Marilyn’s lips were seamed tight. She shook her head and said “Oh, yeah, and she will. She called you that creepy FBI fucker. I don’t know why she didn’t tell me that you saw the Ghouls.”