Split Second

she would do with it? No, because she was going crazy, that was why. But her grandfather hadn’t been sure Lucy could make it work. Did it work for her only because it had been her grandmother’s? Evidently so.

Her father had seen his mother stab his father to death, but had he known about the ring? He must have known something about it; she’d heard her grandmother screaming about it to him the day her grandfather died.

The doorbell rang, but she ignored it, barely heard it.

Then someone was pounding on the door. She heard Dillon’s voice calling out, “Lucy! Come, open the door!”

She looked over at the giant clock in the corner. It was well past six o’clock. It was dark.

She slid the ring off her finger and quickly slipped it onto the gold chain she wore about her neck, stuffed it into her shirt. She realized as she ran to the door that her middle finger, once warm where she’d worn the ring, now felt cold.

“Lucy, open this door or I’m breaking in.”

“I’m coming, Dillon, I’m coming.” And she thought, tears stinging her eyes, Grandmother, if only you’d had the ring with you when my mother was hit by that drunk. If only.

CHAPTER 35

Lucy finally opened the door, wondering whether Dillon would really have broken it down. He looked at the banked excitement in her eyes, watched her as she said in a voice as bright as a new penny, “Sorry, Dillon, I was washing up,” and knew she was closed down tight. For the moment.

So he handed her the bag stuffed with Chinese takeout that included her favorite moo shu pork, and followed her to the bright kitchen to chow down on his own vegetarian delight. As they sipped the lovely hot tea that Sun Li, his and Sherlock’s favorite waiter, had insisted he take with him, he told her about Sherlock and Coop’s breakthrough in New York at the First Precinct, and showed her a printout of the sketch of Bruce Comafield that Sherlock had e-mailed to him.

Lucy bounced up and down, hooted. “Sherlock is unbelievable! Oh, yeah, it’s him. This is incredible, Dillon. Can you believe he’s wearing those same aviator glasses? Why don’t we go get him right now? Let’s grab him and haul him in.”

“Sorry, but we already thought of that. According to Lansford, no one has seen his aide since the evening we visited him at the Willard. No word as to his whereabouts yet.”

“We spooked him. I guess we should revisit all the witnesses in the other cities, see if anyone else saw this guy with her.”

Savich nodded and took another bite of the vegetarian fried rice.

Bruce Comafield. They were nearly to home plate. Lucy looked over at Dillon, marveled at him. And at Sherlock. Would she have been good enough to get that information and sketch out of the witness, Thomas Hurley? She didn’t know, but she’d missed out on an incredible find. She became suddenly aware of the ring pressing itself like a living thing against her skin, her incredible ring that had cost her grandfather his life. It was more than she could begin to understand, or begin to deal with at that moment. No, she had to focus here. She wanted more than anything to find Comafield, and she wanted Savich to trust her again with that assignment, rather than worry about her. She wanted to show him she was ready to throw herself back into the hunt for Kirsten Bolger. It hit her between the eyes that her boss was too perceptive, that any lie she told him, he’d recognize easily as a lie. Maybe he could help her.

“Lucy, you want some of this rice?”

She snapped back, fully aware he’d seen her distraction and known it for what it was.

She spooned up some rice and took a big bite, not caring if it was getting cold, because she hadn’t eaten since that morning and she was starving. As she chewed, she felt the weight of her sins pushing down on her head. She swallowed the last bite, fanned her hands in front of her. “So much has happened. I didn’t mean to worry you or alarm you. It was very nice of you to care enough about me to come over, and then you brought me dinner and told me about Bruce Comafield.”

A black eyebrow went up. He said in that deep, calm voice of his, “It’d be nice if you’d talk to me, Lucy, if you’d tell me the truth about how you’re feeling, and what you’re thinking.”

She looked guilty, she knew it to her heels, but she couldn’t help it. She could keep her mouth shut, and so she did. She shook her head.

He searched her face, then nodded as if to say, So be it. “Coop will catch you up on everything. He and Sherlock will be back from New York later tonight. I’m thinking things will move smartly forward now that we know about Bruce Comafield. If he was her supply line from the real world, he can’t be that any longer. Now he’ll be with her full-time.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “I’m concerned about you, Lucy. Coop told me you visited a safe-deposit box today, picked up something that belonged to your grandfather?”

She nodded. “Yes, and it upset me, Dillon.” She drew in a deep breath. “The box contained an old ring, but nothing more than that.” She kept her head down so he couldn’t see the lie in her eyes, and pulled the ring out of her shirt and showed it to him.

He held out his hand. He could tell she didn’t want to, but she unfastened the gold chain, let the ring slide into her palm. She waited only a moment, then gave it to him. She watched him examine it. “Was there any explanation of this ring in the box?”

Lie, lie, no choice. “No, but I thought it could be the ring I remembered my grandmother screaming about, the ring she stabbed her husband to death over, when he took it from her.” Her words hung between them. He said, “And he left it in a safe-deposit box, specifically for you?”

“Yes.”

He waited a beat, then, when she didn’t say anything, he said, “What did you do this afternoon?”

He was giving her that steady sort of questioning look now, one that made her want to fling herself at his feet and confess every sin she could remember committing since the age of three. “I slept some. I didn’t feel too well, and then I had bad dreams, about my grandfather.”

Savich sat back, pushed away the remains of his dinner. He looked again at the ring on his palm. “This ring must have meant something significant to both of them. Isn’t that ironic? She killed him, put him in that steamer trunk, covered him with a white towel, never imagining that he’d put this ring in a safe-deposit box for you. And that’s a question, isn’t it, Lucy? You weren’t yet six years old when he went missing, yet what he’d done was save the ring for you. How did you discover it was there, waiting for you?”

“Our old family lawyer called me, told me my grandfather’s instructions were to give it to me after the death of my father.”

She knew this raised a lot more questions in his mind, but to her relief, he said, “The ring looks very old, doesn’t it? Is that a triangle of dull rubies set on top of it?”

“It is very old, and yes, it’s ugly, too, Dillon, not worth much, I don’t think. The stones aren’t rubies; I’m thinking carnelians. I have no clue why Grandfather bothered to save the ring for me.”

Yeah, right. You’re really a bad liar, Lucy. But what are you lying about? Savich wanted to shake her, but trust was a funny thing.

He said, “These symbols, I don’t recognize them. Do you?”

“No. I’ve never seen them before.”

“They could designate some society, or sect, or cult of some kind. And that inscription, ‘SEFYLL.’”

Lucy froze. He was holding the ring when he said the word, but he had no reaction. He would have known, he would have been shocked, as she had been, if everything had happened again for him, starting eight seconds ago, or would all he feel be a shimmer in the light? Or was that what her grandfather meant by her having a gift? Could no one else experience what she had?

She had to ask, had to. “Do you know the word, Dillon?”

“Easy enough to find out.” He pulled out his cell phone.