Sherlock said, “We’ve also inputted everything we know into the PAP to see what comes out. Remember, the computer can analyze more alternatives more quickly than we can. We’ll see.”
Thomas said, “All right. What exactly did the profilers have to say, Sherlock?”
“Back to a label. He is psychotic. He has absolutely no remorse, no empathy for any of the people he’s killed. None of them mean anything to him. They were detritus to be swept out of his way.”
“I wonder why he didn’t kill Sam,” Becca said.
“We don’t know,” Savich said. “That’s a good question.”
“It just doesn’t seem possible,” Adam said. “Just not possible. Why would a colleague or some bloody friend-no matter how close to Krimakov-go on this rampage? Even if he is a psychopath, always has been a psychopath, why wait more than twenty years after the fact? Why take over Krimakov’s mission as his own?”
No one had an answer to that.
Adam said, “Now we’ve got to find out who would follow up on Krimakov’s vendetta once Krimakov himself was dead. What’s his motivation, for God’s sake?”
“We don’t know,” Sherlock said, and she began rubbing Sean’s back with her palm. He was cooing against his father’s shoulder, the graham cracker very wet but still clutched tightly in his hand.
“There are graham cracker crumbs all over the house,” Savich said absently.
Becca didn’t say anything. There were few things she’d ever been absolutely sure were true in her life. This was one of them. It simply had to be Krimakov. No matter how infallible the handwriting experts usually were, they were wrong on this one.
But what if they weren’t wrong? A psychopath obsessed with finding and killing her father? He’d called himself her boyfriend. He’d blown up that poor old bag lady in front of the Metropolitan Museum. He’d dug up Linda Cartwright and bashed in her face. No empathy, no remorse, people were detritus, nothing more. God, it was unthinkable.
She looked over at Adam. He was looking toward Savich, but she didn’t think he really saw him. Adam was really looking inward, ah, but his eyes-they were cold and hard and she wouldn’t want to have to tangle with him. She heard her father in the other room, speaking to Gaylan Woodhouse on the phone.
Sherlock and Savich left a few minutes later, leaving Adam and Becca in the living room, looking at each other. He said, his hands jiggling change in his pockets, “I’ve got stuff to do at my house. I want you to stay here with Thomas, under wraps. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I want to do some stuff, too,” she said, rising. “I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’ll stay here. It’s safe here.”
And he was gone.
Her father appeared in the doorway. She said, “I’ll see you later, sir. I’m going with Adam.” She picked up her purse and ran after him. He was nearly to the road when she caught up with him. “Where are you going?”
“Becca, go back. It’s safer here. Go back.”
“No. You don’t believe any more than I do that some colleague or friend of Krimakov’s from the good old days is wreaking all this havoc. I think we’re missing something here, something that’s been there all the time, staring us in the face.”
“What do you mean?” he said slowly. She saw the agents in the car down the street slowly get out and stand, both of them completely alert.
“I mean nothing makes sense unless it’s Krimakov. But just say that it isn’t. That means we’re missing something. Let’s go do your stuff together, Adam, and really plug in our brains.”
He eyed her a moment, looked around, then waved at the agents. “We’ve got to walk. It’s three miles. You up for it?”
“I’d love to race you. Whatcha say?”
“You’re on.”
“You’re dead meat, boy.”
Since they were both wearing sneakers, they could run until they dropped. He grinned at her, felt energy pulse through him. He wanted to run, to race the wind, and he imagined that she wanted to as well. “All right, we’re going to my house. I have all my files there, all my notes, everything. I want to scour them. If it is someone who knew Krimakov, then there’s got to be a hint of him in there somewhere. Yes, there must be something.”
“Let’s go.”
She nearly had his endurance, but not quite. He slowed in the third mile.
“You’re good, Becca,” he said, and waved his hand. “This is my house.”
She loved it. The house wasn’t as large as her father’s, but it sat right in the middle of a huge hunk of wooded land, two stories, a white colonial with four thick Doric columns lined up like soldiers along the front. It looked solid, like it would last forever. She cleared her throat. “This is very nice, Adam.”
“Thanks. It’s about a hundred and fifty years old. It’s got three bedrooms upstairs, two bathrooms-I added one. Downstairs is all the regular stuff, including a library, which I use for a study, and a modern kitchen.” He cleared his throat. “I had the kitchen redone a couple years ago. My mom told me no woman would marry me unless the stove would light without having to hold a match to a burner.”
She smiled. She nearly had her breathing back to normal.
“I had one of the two upstairs bathrooms redone, too,” he said, looking straight ahead. They climbed the three deep steps to walk across the narrow veranda to the large white front door. He stuck a key in the lock and turned it. “My mom said that no woman wanted to bathe in a claw-footed tub that was so old rust was peeling off the toes.”
“That does sound pretty gross. Oh my, Adam, it’s lovely.”
They stood together in a large entryway, with a ceiling that soared two stories, a chandelier hanging down over their heads and a lovely buffed oak floor. “I know, you redid the floors. Your mom told you no woman would marry you if she had to be carried into a house across a mess of old ratty linoleum.”
“How did you know?”
He’d preserved all the original charm of the house-the deeply carved, rich moldings, the high ceilings, the lovely cherry wood carved fireplaces, the incredible set-in windows.
They prepared to hunker down in the library, a light-filled room with built-in bookshelves, beautiful oak floors, a big mahogany desk, and lots of red leather. She looked around at the bookshelves stuffed with all kinds of books-nonfiction, fiction, hardcovers, paperbacks-stuck in indiscriminately.
Adam said as he handed her two folders, “My mom also told me that women liked to read all cozied up in deep chairs. It was just men, she said, who preferred to read in the bathroom.”
“You’ve even got women’s fiction here.”
“Yeah, it seems a man can never stack the deck too much in his favor.”
“I want to meet your mama,” Becca said.
“Undoubtedly you will, real soon.” Then he couldn’t stand it. He walked to her and pulled her tightly against him. She looked up at him and said, “I want to forget Krimakov for just a minute.”
“All right.”
“Have I told you lately that I think you’re really sexy?”
He smiled slowly and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Not since last night.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, stood on her tiptoes, and kissed him back, thoroughly.
“I don’t want you to forget it,” she said after several minutes had passed. “You’ve gotten me a bit breathless. I really like it, Adam.”
“We’re in my house now,” he said, and this time he kissed her, really kissed her, no holding back, letting himself crash and burn, letting himself burrow into her. He brought her tightly against him, feeling all of her against him, and he wanted to jerk down her jeans, he wanted to devour her, take her until both of them shattered with the pleasure of it. He wanted to kiss her breasts, touch and kiss every inch of her, and not stop until he was unconscious. And then there was her mouth. Jesus, he was making himself crazy. It was so good he really didn’t want to stop, and why should they stop?