gross mismanagement. He lost the bank a great deal of money in the recent financial crisis. The bank may be insolvent, and if the FDIC closes it, he will lose all the equity he has left. There’s even the possibility of an indictment. So, we can’t write off financial motives on his part, if he’s involved.”
“One more thing, Lucy,” Savich said. “Whoever tried to kill you failed spectacularly. They’re going to be afraid now, afraid and maybe desperate. I want you and Coop to be very careful. Remember, close as a pair of jeans.”
CHAPTER 57
Savich felt the length of his wife’s body beneath him, all loose and relaxed now. He breathed in the scent of her as he nuzzled her neck. He finally managed to lift himself off her and rest his weight on his elbows, but he couldn’t resist kissing her again. He loved her mouth, her tongue. It made him crazy. “Do you remember way back when you were staying with me so I could protect you? Like Lucy and Coop? And you had that very fortuitous nightmare?”
She hummed deep in her throat. “And you came galloping in on your white horse to save me. No, wait, it was white boxers. And you stayed, to my everlasting gratitude. Goodness, what a time that was, Dillon.” She hugged him tight. “The luckiest day in my life was when I shot you in Hogan’s Alley.”
He kept kissing her, then said, “Do you know I still have those pants I ripped that day?”
“I’ve seen them hanging in the back of the closet. Do you want to get them mended?”
“Oh, no, it would be like destroying a wonderful memory.” He laughed, rolled over on his back, and brought her against his side. “More than six years we’ve been together. Now we’ve got Sean, and another big honking mess on our hands, just like we did then.”
“Big honking messes—nothing new in that.” She kissed his neck, lightly rubbed her palm over his chest, then rested her face against his shoulder. “Our lives, I suppose, aren’t what you’d call exactly normal, are they? Not like the Perrys next door, for example, an accountant and a paralegal.”
“Would you want us to be in those types of professions? To be nine-to-fivers?”
“Since it’s never even been a consideration, I’d have to guess no. The thing is, Dillon, both of us are a perfect fit for what we do, a perfect fix for what we are, and that makes us really lucky. Sometimes I wonder what I’d have become if I’d never met you. I don’t think it would be a pretty picture, Dillon.”
He ran his palm down her hip, pausing here and there to knead. “Have I ever told you that you’ve got a lovely, twisted brain? I love to watch the way you figure your way through the murkiest problems. Let me add that when you take chances, it scares the bejesus out of me.”
“You’re not alone in that, but I guess it’s part of the job description. It’s what we are, Dillon, and I pray every day it’s what we will continue to be until we’re too old to aim our SIGs.”
“I find myself thinking it’d be nice to go fishing in a nice mountain lake somewhere—we’re eighty or so—and when we finally manage to row back to shore, there’ll be Sean and his family waiting for us, and all our grandkids.”
“What a lovely thought. Only thing is, I really hate fishing.”
“I’ll do all the dirty work for you, not to worry.”
She grinned against him, and he felt it. She leaned up to look down at him. “I know a couple of wives married to cops, and they’re always stewing about danger, and I’ve seen the fear of something happening to their husbands come to define their marriage.”
“The reason for so much divorce,” Savich said.
“At least both of us are together, to help each other, to look out for each other. I think we’re right where we need to be, Dillon, as long as we feel we make a difference.”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I hope we do make a difference.”
She sprawled again against him. “Dillon, do you think Coop and Lucy are sleeping together? I mean, they do remind me a bit of us, and look where that led.”
“They don’t dislike each other any longer, that’s for sure.”
“And it’s you who put them together because they weren’t getting along. Coop’s reputation—I guess that isn’t a problem any longer. Now it’s like a red beacon glowing whenever the two of them get within six feet of each other.”
“I never believed his reputation, anyway,” Savich said. “It didn’t fit the man.”
Sherlock sighed. “This whole ring-and-letter business—at least she did tell Coop about the letter, so that’s no longer a big secret.”
He said, “It’s driving me nuts trying to figure out what the blasted ring can do. How could it have saved Lucy’s mother? If it could have, somehow, then it’s something miraculous, I know it in my gut. But what?”
She said, “That word—SEFYLL—it means to stop, to be stationary, right? What does that mean? What stops?”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’ll come out.”
“Maybe, but I don’t hold out much hope. Lucy’s a clam, and maybe she has to be—or maybe she’s supposed to be.”
“If they get married, do you think they can stay in the unit together?”
“That’ll be up to the director and Mr. Maitland. I’d have no problem with it. It would be pretty weird if I did.”
“Can you imagine the jokes? We’d be known as the dating service of the bureau.” She added, “I forget to tell you, I got a call from Dane before I came up to sing a bedtime duet with Sean. Dane thinks he’s got a bead on the guy who may have driven the other white van. He’s betting his name’s Andrew ‘Hoss’ Kennen, a twotime felon, spent time in Briarwood with the dead guy, Ben Eddy Dukes. The two of them got paroled about the same time.”
Savich heard her voice slow, knew she was about ready to hang it up. So was he.
He kissed her, said against her temple, “I heard the weather’s going to be great tomorrow. Why don’t we ask Coop and Lucy to go to the park with us tomorrow morning.”
“That’d be good,” Sherlock murmured, tucked herself closer, and went to sleep.
CHAPTER 58
Savich flicked the Frisbee to Sean, who yelled as he caught it, then whipped it off to Coop, who, surprised, had to back up ten feet to snag it out of the air.
