The next evening, Sherlock and Savich arrived with thick folders of papers, MAX, and Sean, who reared up on Savich’s shoulder, staring about sleepily at everyone, a graham cracker clutched in his hand.
Sherlock looked at everyone in the living room. She didn’t look happy as she said, “I’m really sorry here, guys, but our handwriting experts turned up something we didn’t expect.”
“What have you got, Sherlock?” Adam asked, rising slowly, his eyes never leaving her face.
“We were hoping to learn whether or not Krimakov’s mental state had deteriorated, at least determine where he was sitting presently on the sanity scale, in order to give us a better chance of dealing with him, predicting what he might do, that sort of thing. That’s off now. We have no idea, you see, because the two new samples of handwriting Becca gave me aren’t Krimakov’s.”
Thomas looked like someone had slapped him. He said slowly, “No, that’s not possible. Admittedly I just looked at the ones from Riptide briefly, but they looked the same to me. You’re sure about this, Sherlock? Absolutely?”
“Oh, yes, completely sure. We’re dealing with a very different person here, and this person’s mind isn’t like yours or mine.”
“You mean he’s not sane,” Thomas said.
“It’s difficult to say with absolute certainty, but it’s possible he’s so far over the edge he’s holding on by his fingernails. We could throw around labels-psychopath comes readily to mind-but that’s just a start. The only thing we’re completely certain about-he’s obsessed with you, Thomas. He wants to prove to you that you’re nowhere near his league, that he’s a god and you’re dirt. He sees himself as an avenger, the man who will balance the scales of justice, the man who will be your executioner.
“It’s been his goal for a very long time; it could at this point even be his only reason for living. He’s rather like a missile that’s been programmed for one thing and one thing only. He won’t stop, ever, until either he’s killed you or you’ve killed him.”
“So it was never Krimakov,” Adam said slowly. “He really was killed in that auto accident in Crete.”
“Probably so. Now, not all of this is from our experts’ analysis. Profiling had a hand in it, as well.” Sherlock turned back to Thomas. “Like you said, the two different sets of handwriting look close to a layman’s eye, which probably means that this guy knew Krimakov, or at least he’d seen his handwriting a goodly number of times. A friend, a former or present colleague, someone like that.”
“We’re sorry, guys,” Savich said. “I know that Krimakov’s former associates have been checked backwards and forwards, but I guess we’re going to have to try to do more. I’ve already got MAX doing more sniffing around Krimakov’s neighbors, business associates, friends in Crete and on mainland Greece, as well. We already know that he had a couple of side businesses in Athens. We’ll see where that leads.”
“No, all that has already been checked,” Thomas said.
Savich just shook his head. “We’ll have to do more, try anything.”
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
