'Your lover didn't want to take the chance I'll slap him with a sexual harassment complaint so he couldn't fire me.' 'I thought you denied leaking my relationship to a murder victim to the press.' 'I did deny it.'
'Then how could Savich have fired you without proof? Oh enough, Hannah. Say what you have to say and go about your business.'
'You're really cute, you know that? Tell me, Sherlock, did you set your sights on Savich while you were still at Quantico?'
'No.'
'He'll screw your eyes out but he won't marry you. Has he made love to you in the shower? He loves that.'
'Hannah, it's none of your business what either of us does. Please, let it go. Forget him. You know I'm irrelevant in all this. Even if I weren't here, Savich still wouldn't be going out with you.'
'Maybe, maybe not.'
'Good-bye, Hannah.'
Ollie was waiting outside for her. He said only, 'I just didn't want her to shoot you.'
'So you were waiting out here to see if a gun went off?'
'Something like that.'
'I'm fine, Ollie. Any word yet on Martin Jones?'
'Nope, nothing. Oh yeah, your father called, asked that you phone him back. He said it was really important.'
She didn't want to pick up that phone. She didn't want to, but she did. She felt an urgency that she'd never felt before. Even as she was dialing her parents' home number, she was terrified.
'Isabelle? It's Lacey.'
'Oh God, Lacey, it's your mama. Let me get your daddy on the phone. You just caught him in time. He's just leaving now for the hospital.'
'The hospital? What happened to Mother?' But Isabelle had already hit the hold button. 'Father?''
'Lacey? Come home, my dear, it's your mother. There was an accident. She's in the hospital. It doesn't look good, Lacey. Can you get some time off?''
'What kind of accident? What is her exact condition?'
'I was backing out of the driveway. She darted out from the bushes that line the street. I hit her. It was an accident. I swear it was an accident. There was even a passerby who saw the whole thing. She's not dead, Lacey, but her spleen is ruptured and they're taking it out as we speak. I feel terrible. I don't know what's going to happen. I think you should come home now.'
Before she could say anything, he hung up. She stared down at the receiver, hearing the loud dial tone. What more could happen?
At nine o'clock the next morning she was on a nonstop flight to San Francisco. Dillon took the Dulles shuttle with her to the terminal to catch her United flight, using his FBI identification to get through the gate. 'You'll call me,' he said, kissing her hair, just holding her against him, his hands stroking down her back. 'It will be all right. We'll get through it. Remember in the Bible how God kept testing Job? Well, these are our tests. Call me, okay?' And he kissed her again. He watched at the huge windows until her plane took off.
He didn't like her to go alone but he couldn't just pick up and leave, not now. Everything was coming to a head, he knew it. More important, she knew it. It was just a matter of time. Actually he was rather relieved that she'd be three thousand miles away, although he'd never tell her that. She'd blow a fuse because he wanted to protect her and she was a professional and could take care of herself.
He stepped back onto the shuttle, realizing, as he stared blankly at a businessman with a very packed briefcase, that she would be justified smacking him but good if he'd said that to her. He had to remember that she was well trained. She was a professional. Even if his guts twisted whenever he thought of her going into the field, he'd just have to get used to it.
He shook his head as he walked to his Porsche. Could her father have deliberately hit her mother?
For the first time that Lacey could remember, her mother looked all sixty-one of her years. Her flesh seemed loose, her cheeks sunken in. And so white and waxy, tubes everywhere. Mrs. Arch, her mother's ten-year companion, was there, as was Lacey's father, both standing beside her bed.
'Don't worry,' her father said. 'The operation went well. They took out her spleen and stopped the internal bleeding. There's lots of bruising and she'll have some sore ribs, but she'll be all right, Lacey.'
She looked over at her father. 'I know. I spoke to the nurse outside. Where were you, Mrs. Arch, when this happened?'
'Your mother got by me, Lacey. One minute she was there watching a game show on TV, the next minute she was gone. I'd just gone down to the kitchen for a cup of tea.'
She looked at her father. He seemed remote, watching the woman who had been his wife for nearly thirty years. What was he thinking? Did he expect her to say something against him when she regained consciousness? 'Father, tell me what happened.'
'I was backing out of the driveway to go to the courthouse. I heard this loud bump. I'd hit your mother. I never saw her. The first thing was to get her to the hospital, then I called the police. It was a Sergeant Dollan who found a witness to the whole thing. His name's Murdock.'
'What did he tell them?'
'That she ran out into the driveway. He said he couldn't figure out why she'd do such a stupid thing.'
She had to go talk to this Mr. Murdock herself.
'You don't believe your mother's crazy tale that I tried to run her down, do you?'
'No. You're not stupid.'
He'd been tense before but now he relaxed. He even smiled. 'No, I'm not stupid. Why did she do that?'
'Probably to get your attention.'
'Now that's nuts, Lacey.'
'Maybe more of your attention would be a good thing.'
She looked down at her mother. She was so still. Here she was lying in a hospital bed with a squirrelly brain and no spleen.
'I'll think about what you said. Where are you going?' 'To talk to Mr. Murdock. No, Dad, I don't doubt you. I just want to hear him tell it. Maybe it will help us both understand her a bit better.'
Lacey left her mother's hospital room and stopped again at the nurse's station.
'Mrs. Sherlock will be fine,' Nurse Blackburn said. 'Really. She'll be asleep for another three or four hours. Come back to see her later, about dinnertime.'
Lacey called the precinct station. Ten minutes later, she was driving to a Mr. Murdock's house, three doors down from her parents' home on Broadway. It was a fog-laden afternoon, and very chilly. She felt cold to the marrow of her bones.
It wasn't nearly dark yet, but a light was shining in the front windows of his house. A desiccated old man, stooped nearly double, answered the door just when she was ready to give up. Standing next to him was a huge bulldog. Mr. Murdock nodded to the dog. 'I walk him at least six times a day,' he said first thing. 'Bad bladder,' Mr. Murdock added, patting the dog's head. 'He needs more potty time than I do.' He didn't invite her in, not that she wanted to step into that dark hallway behind him that smelled too much like dog and dirty socks.
'You saw an accident, Mr. Murdock? A man in a car struck a woman?'
'Eh? Oh that. Yes, I did see the whole thing. It happened yesterday afternoon. This real pretty women I've known by sight for years is standing kind of bent over in the thick oleanders. I start to call out to her, you know, I thought she must have some kind of problem, when she suddenly just steps out into the driveway. I hear a car hit her. It was weird. The whole thing was weird. That's what my nephew said too when I called him about it. What do you want, Butchie? You got bladder needs again? All right. Go get your rope. Sorry, little lady, but that's all I know. Either the woman ran out into the , car's path on purpose or she didn't, and that makes it an accident, plain and simple.'
Lacey walked slowly back to her rental car. Why had her mother done such a ridiculous thing? Was it really that she wanted more attention from her husband? That was far too simple, but maybe it was a place to start. She hadn't understood her mother for nearly all her life. Why should she begin understanding her now?
Her father came back to the hospital at seven o'clock that evening.
