“What’s going on here?”
This last was from a huge man with crew-cut white hair, a white apron stained with spaghetti sauce, coming around the kitchen counter to Savich’s left, carrying a long, curved knife. The smell of onions wafted off the knife blade.
“Hey, fellow, is this a holdup?”
Savich slowly lowered his gun. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, just couldn’t believe that he’d come through a dank storeroom into a café and scared a good twenty people nearly to death. Slowly, he reholstered his gun. He pulled out his FBI shield, walked to the man with the knife, stopped three feet away, and showed it to him. He said in a loud voice, “I’m sorry to frighten everyone. I’m looking for a woman.” He raised his voice so every diner in the big room could hear. “She’s mid-twenties, tall, light hair, very pale. She has only one arm. Did she come in here? Through the storeroom door, just like I did?”
There were no takers. Savich checked the bathrooms, then realized Tammy was long gone. She might have remained hidden in the storeroom, knowing he’d feel such urgency he’d burst into the café. He apologized to the owner and walked out the front door.
In that moment, standing on the Bar Harbor sidewalk, Savich could swear that he heard a laugh-a low, vicious laugh that made the hair on his arms stand up. There was no one there, naturally. He felt so impotent, so completely lost that he was hearing her in his mind.
Savich walked slowly back to Hamlet’s Pics. When he got there, he stood a moment outside the shop, incredulous. There’d been mayhem when he’d burst out of there. But now there were no cop cars, no ambulance, no fire engines. Everything was quiet, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.
He walked into the photo shop. There were three agents standing on the far side of the shop just staring down, talking quietly among themselves.
Agent Possner wasn’t burned. There was no sign that there had ever been a fire in Hamlet’s Pics. Agents Briggs, Lowell, and Possner stared back at him.
Savich walked out. He sat down on a wooden bench on the sidewalk just outside the photo shop and put his head in his hands.
For the first time, he thought the FBI needed to assign someone else to catch this monster. He’d failed. Twice now, he’d failed.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and slowly raised his head to see Teddi Tyler standing over him. “I’m sorry, man. She must really be something to get past you guys.”
“Yeah,” Savich said, and he felt just a shade better. “She’s something. We’ll get her, Teddi. I just don’t know how as of yet.”
She was still somewhere in Bar Harbor with Marilyn, she had to be. He got slowly to his feet. He had to get a huge manhunt organized.
In that instant, he realized that even if they didn’t find her, she had every intention of finding him. She would hunt him down, not the other way around. And the good Lord knew, he was much easier to find.
Gothenburg, Sweden
It was cold, so bloody cold Lily didn’t think she could stand it. Strange thing was that she knew she wasn’t really conscious, that she didn’t really know what was happening or where she was, but her body just kept shuddering, convulsing with the cold. The cold was penetrating her bones, and she felt every shake, every shudder.
Then, suddenly, she felt Simon near her, no doubt it was him because she knew his scent. She already knew his damned scent, a good scent, as sexy as his hair curling at his neck. His arms were suddenly around her, and he hugged her hard against him, pulling her so close she was breathing against his neck, feeling his heart beat steady and strong against hers.
He was breathing deeply, and cursing. Really bad words that Savich had never said even when he was pissed off, which had been quite often when they were growing up. What a long time ago. Sometimes, like now, she thought as she shivered, being an adult really sucked. She pressed closer, feeling his warmth all the way to her belly. The convulsive jerks lessened, her brain began to function again.
She said against his collarbone, “Where are we, Simon? Why is it so cold? Did they leave us beside a fjord?”
His hands were going up and down her back, big hands that covered a lot of territory, and he rolled her under him so he could cover more of her.
“I guess we’re in Sweden. It’s sure too cold in this room for us to be in the Mediterranean near Ian’s yacht. I just woke up a while ago. They drugged us. Do you remember?”
“Yes, Nikki forced something down my throat. I guess you were already under. How much time has passed?”
“A couple of hours. We’re in a bedroom, and there isn’t even a heater working. The door is locked, and the bed is stripped, so we have no blankets or sheets. I didn’t realize you were so cold until just a minute ago. Are you warming up now?”
“Oh yes,” she said, against his neck, “definitely better.”
He was silent for a long time, listening to her breathe, feeling her relax as she grew warmer. He cleared his throat and said, “Lily, I know this is an awfully unusual place and perhaps even a somewhat strange time to mention this, but I have to be honest here. You didn’t do well picking your first two husbands. I’m thinking that you need a sort of consultant who could help you develop a whole new set of criteria before you try a third husband.”
She raised her head, saw his bristly chin in the dim light, and said only, “Maybe, but I’m still married to the second one.”
“Not for much longer. Tennyson is soon to be only another very bad chapter in your history. Then he’ll be a memory, and you’ll be ready to begin work with your consultant.”
“He’s scary, Simon. He married me to get to my paintings. He fed me depressants. He probably tried to kill me by cutting the brake lines in the Explorer. He’s a very bad chapter, maybe the biggest, baddest yet, and my history isn’t all that long. It’s not particularly good for the soul to have both Jack Crane and Tennyson Frasier in your life.”
“You’ll divorce Tennyson just like you did Jack Crane. Then we’ll figure out these new criteria together.”
“You want to be my marriage consultant?”
“Well, why not?”
“I don’t even know your educational background or your experience in this area.”
“We can discuss that later. Tell me about your first husband.”
“All right. His name is Jack Crane. He was even worse than Tennyson. He knocked me around when I was pregnant with Beth. The first and last time. I called Dillon and he was there in a flash, and he beat Jack senseless. Loosened three of his perfect white teeth. Cracked two ribs. Two black eyes and a swollen jaw. Then Dillon taught me how to fight so if he ever came around again, I could take care of him myself.”
“Did he ever come around after you divorced him so you could beat him up?”
“No, dammit, he didn’t. I don’t think he was scared of me. He was scared Dillon would get every FBI agent in Chicago on him and he’d be dead meat. You know, Simon, I don’t think having a consultant to select new criteria would help. You can be sure that I thought long and hard about Tennyson, given that Jack was a wife beater.”
“You didn’t think long enough or hard enough. You have trouble with criteria, Lily, and that’s why you need a consultant, to keep your head screwed on straight, to see things properly.”
“Nope, it’s more than that. I’m simply just rotten at picking men. Your counseling me wouldn’t work, Simon. Besides that, I don’t need you. I’ve decided that I’m never going to get married again. So I don’t need to consult you or anyone else about it.”
“A whole lot of men aren’t anything like your first or second husbands. Just look at Savich. Do you think Sherlock ever has any doubts about him?”
He felt her shrug. “Dillon is rare. There are no criteria that fit him. He’s just wonderful, and that’s all there is to it. He was born that way. Sherlock is the luckiest woman in the world. She knows it; she told me so.”