smart.”
And Sherlock, her brilliant red hair shining brightly in the fading afternoon light, led them back to Jacob Marley’s house.
They found caulk, an electric sander that worked, and some wood stain in the basement, on some shelves near the hole in the brick wall.
They took the front door off its hinges and brought it inside. While Savich sanded it down and Adam caulked in the bullet holes, Becca and Sherlock kept watch, their guns in their hands, watchful. Very soon, Sherlock had Becca talking and talking. “… and when he called me just a while ago, he said the same sorts of things, like I would contact the governor as soon as he was well enough again and have him come to me.”
“You know,” Adam said, “he doesn’t believe you’ve slept with the governor. It’s just part of a script. He needed something so that he could claim you needed punishment.”
“You’re right,” Sherlock said, giving Adam his first look of approval, for which he didn’t know whether to be pleased or snarl. “Yes, you’re perfectly right. Go ahead, Becca, what else did he say?”
“When I asked him about Dick McCallum, he wouldn’t admit that he killed him, but I know that he did. He said I’d gotten all pissy, that I’d gotten too confident, that he was coming for me soon. I tell you, when I hung up, I was ready to throw in the towel. He calls himself my boyfriend. It’s beyond creepy.”
“Yeah,” Adam said, raising his head to look at her, “she was ready to throw in the towel for about three minutes.” Then he said toward Savich, “Then she put her Coonan in her pocket and went out into the woods. Why’d you go out there, Becca? It wasn’t real smart, you know.”
She looked inward for a moment, all of them saw it-and the sanding and caulking stopped. Not one of them was surprised when she shrugged. “I don’t know, really. I just wanted to go there, alone, and sit under the sunlight against that tree. Jacob Marley’s house was getting to me. There are ghosts here, the air is filled with remnants of the people who lived here, residue, maybe, not all of it good.”
“Before I finally found her, I nearly croaked,” Adam said, realizing he was grinning at Savich. Well, hell, why not? He was here and he did seem competent, at least so far. Maybe he’d still fall flat on his face.
“Listen, I’ve got to contact my men,” Adam said. “The stalker-or whatever he is-is here. He tried to kill us, or maybe he was just after me-that’s more likely. We’ve got to close this town down. And we need to finish with this damned door before he just walks right up and shoots us.”
“He won’t even get close,” Becca said and raised her Coonan.
“Agreed,” Savich said. He winked at Sherlock. “You want to tell Adam about how we’ve got everything covered?”
“Yep. A half dozen guys from Thomas are on their way here.” She looked down at her wristwatch. “In about an hour, I’d estimate. And here we were worried that there wouldn’t be enough for them to do. We were really wrong on that one.”
“The timing’s perfect,” Savich said as he wiped all the sawdust off his hands. “Don’t anyone fret that they’ll all be piling into town and staying at Errol Flynn’s Hammock. Nope, they won’t stick out at all, but they’ll have this place well covered. Now, we need to get busy as soon as we’re done with this door. We need to bug the phone. He’ll probably call again, soon. Also, we need protection around the house. The guys will be calling in and we’ll set up a guard rotation. Also, Adam, you can show them where the blood is and they can get it analyzed. We’ll at least verify that it’s human.”
“I know I hit him.”
Savich nodded to Becca. “Yes, I’m sure you did. We’ll see if anything interesting shows up in the blood work. Now, it would probably be a smart thing if you stayed inside, Becca.”
Sherlock said, “If he was trying to kill Adam, to make things easier for him, then that makes all of us open season. It would be wise if this Tyler McBride kept himself and his kid away from here. It isn’t safe.”
And Adam thought,
Becca said, looking Sherlock straight in the eye, “No, I don’t want Tyler or Sam in any danger, either. Now, who’s this Thomas?”
“He’s Adam’s boss,” Savich said, well aware that Adam was on full alert, “or he used to be. Now Adam is on his own. Actually, as I understand it, Adam is doing Thomas a favor. Hey, don’t worry about it, Becca, you don’t know him. Adam, you did a good job of filling in all the holes. A bit of stain and the door will look perfect again.”
Becca jumped up. “I left it in the kitchen.”
“I’ll go with you,” Sherlock said. “I think I’d like to look at that gash in the basement wall again.”
“Of course he was after you,” Savich said easily, once Becca was out of hearing. “He wanted you out of the way, wounded or dead, it didn’t matter to him. It still doesn’t.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“He wants her. He wants to take her so he figured he’d have to knock you out of the way.”
“That’s what I figure.”
15
Becca held the can of stain in front of her. Adam, instead of taking the can, found himself just standing there staring down at the too thin, formerly pale young woman who was now flushed red to her eyebrows.
“I’m really mad now,” she said, and he believed her, and smiled. “He shot up Jacob Marley’s damned door. That’s beyond the line.” He couldn’t cut off his smile, because her eyes were glowing. Her soft blue eyes were hard and pulsing with rage. Her dyed hair was nearly standing on end. “I heard the two of you talking. He tried to kill you, Adam, to get to me. That’s beyond the line, too.” She was panting now. She was major-league pissed, and she wanted to protect him. He took her face between his big hands. His mouth was nearly touching hers. He immediately straightened and took the damned can of stain. He didn’t want this, but he couldn’t help it. An enraged Becca Matlock who still wanted to protect him did something to him, something strange and wonderful that seared him to the soles of his scuffed boots.
He looked at her mouth again, but instead of kissing her, he started to laugh. And he kept on laughing, he wanted to kiss her that bad.
She blinked at him and then took a step back. “Don’t get stain on your clothes. I’m not going to wash them for you.”
“When it’s necessary, I’ll wash my own clothes,” Adam said, then added on a grin, “if you’ll show me how to work the washing machine.”
“Mechanical things defeat you, do they? No, don’t say it, only mechanical things that involve work could defeat a guy.”
Adam eyed Savich’s outstretched hand, grunted, and handed him the stain. His arm burned and ached and Savich knew it, the damned interloper. He said to him, “You know something? I’d really like to rearrange your pretty face when this is all over.”
Savich stared at him, then laughed. “If you think my face is pretty, then you’ve got a big problem, because that’s what I think about yours.”
“Bullshit.”
Savich shook his head. “You want to play at the gym? Fine by me.”
Becca stood by the front window as Savich stained the front door, her Coonan held loosely in her right hand, looking all around, just like a pro. After a bit, Adam couldn’t stand it and took the brush from Savich.
Savich grinned at him. Sherlock said, “I love to see a real macho guy in action.”
Adam brushed on the stain, slowly, carefully, gritting his teeth because his arm hurt. But he wasn’t about to whine. He whistled low, between his teeth, hoping Savich heard it.
Tyler showed up with Sam an hour later. “Hey, what’s that smell? Who are these people?”
Becca went blank for a moment, then said, “I didn’t like the stain on the front door. It was looking tatty and old. I just finished re-staining it.” She waited to see if Tyler would say anything about hearing bullets, but he didn’t.
