windows boarded up, obviously vacant. Beyond that decrepit house stretched a narrow two lane road that disappeared into the thick oak and pine trees. Every-thing looked limp.
“If the locals don’t take care,” Sherlock said, looking around, “the forest is going to consume the town. Nothing but oaks and pines everywhere. It looks like they swallow up the road.”
“I wouldn’t mind sitting under an oak tree about now,” Savich said, looking up at the afternoon sun, hot and high in the cloudless sky, “what with the temperature hovering around a hundred, and the humidity at two thousand. Do you know what the problem is—the sun’s too big down here.”
“We could join that golden retriever over there snoozing away under that pine tree. Everybody must be huddled around their air conditioners.”
“If Cully and Bernie are watching the apartment building from close by, they could be inside that empty house,” Savich said. “Do you see anyone? A car? Anything?”
They looked around carefully, saw nothing but the sun beating down. The trees were utterly still, not a breath of moving air.
Savich turned the car around and headed back toward town. He parked a couple of blocks from the apartment building, between a Toyota SUV and an F-l 50 truck. They walked back toward the building, their SIGs pressed against their sides to avoid any panic from passersby. They needn’t have bothered. Not a single soul appeared, not Cully or Bernie either. They could be well hidden, Savich thought, but surely they’d have recognized them, at least recognized Sherlock’s bright hair. This wasn’t good, Savich knew it.
Savich would swear the air pulsed with heat. He saw the humidity was making Sherlock’s hair curlier. She turned to him. “Why don’t Cully and Bernie let us know where they are?”
Savich said nothing; what was there to say? He opened the apartment-building front door and stepped into a tiny lobby that held one palm tree and six mailboxes, painted white. The temperature dropped at least thirty degrees.
“It’s like I’ve died and gone to an ice locker,” she said. She flapped her arms, enjoying it.
They looked at the mailboxes even though they knew Victor lived in apartment 403, but why was there a number like that in a two-story apartment building?
“Let’s take the stairs,” he said. “Stay alert.”
They didn’t meet anyone on the stairs. Savich imagined a lot of people were inside, eating dinner. They heard children arguing over whether to watch an old
The hallway was wide and dark, all the apartment doors painted different colors. Victor Nesser’s apartment was at the very end of the second-floor hall. His front door was painted bright green, with big brass numbers— 403.
Sherlock stepped forward, knocked on the door, and waited a moment, her SIG ready. “Mr. Nesser? It’s Clorie Smith, from the
No answer.
She knocked again. “Mr. Nesser?”
No sound, nothing from inside the apartment.
Savich pressed his ear to the door.
He didn’t hear anything at first, pressed his ear closer. He heard a muffled sound—
Empty.
A muffled voice yelled, “In here!”
The voice was coming from the bedroom. Savich stepped toward it when the man shouted again, “No! Don’t come in! There’s a bomb and a trip wire!”
58
SAVICH FROZE, Sherlock behind him. He called out, “Okay, we’re not moving. Cully, is that you? What bomb?”
“Just a second, got to get this duct tape off my mouth. Damn, it’s hard to talk without any lips. Okay, listen, the young guy—Victor Nesser—I saw him string a wire across the bedroom doorway, floor level. I guess he didn’t mind I saw him, figured I would see you coming and not be able to do a thing about it. Thank God I finally managed to get the tape off my mouth or we’d all be dead.”
Savich knelt down and saw the wire, maybe a quarter inch off the floor, stretched taut. He called out, “We’re stepping over it. Are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m okay, just humiliated. I’m here, on the other side of the bed. Like I said, I finally got the tape off my mouth, but I’m still tied up. Victor’s got me connected to a wire, too.”
“Okay, don’t move,” Savich said and walked slowly over to the bed.
Cully said, “I can see the bomb from here. It’s by the dresser.”
“Got it,” Sherlock said. “You just don’t move, Cully. Dillon and I are going to check it out.”
Cully said, “The girl—Lissy Smiley—she was laughing, really enjoying it, crowing that the instant some stupid fed tripped the wire the whole building would go boom—a hundred feet up, burn up the air, maybe all the way to heaven, she said. Then she hooted, doing a Madonna bump and grind, and said something about sending you, Savich, to heaven.” Cully sucked in a breath. “I usually don’t remember exactly what people say, but she was over the top.”
Sherlock said, “Hey, we’re really glad you got the duct tape off your mouth. No heaven for any of us yet.”
Cully Gwyn, amazingly, laughed. “I knew you guys would come here when you didn’t see me at the Chevron station and I didn’t answer my cell. Please tell me you’ve spoken to Bernie.”
“No, we haven’t,” Savich said. “We don’t have his cell number. Okay, Cully, I won’t try to get you free until we see what’s going on with this bomb.”
Sherlock dropped to her knees beside an ancient pine dresser, vintage Goodwill. “Okay, just eyeballing it first. What we’ve got is a large black metal box about the size and shape of a small suitcase. There’s a wire running from inside it across the floor over to the bedroom door and another to you, Cully, so don’t move a whisker.”
Cully said, “There’s no bomb squad in Winnett, no surprise there. Please tell me you guys know about bombs.”
Savich said, “Stop hyperventilating, Cully, it’ll be all right. Sherlock took a course at Quantico. She knows enough not to set the sucker off. How did Victor and Lissy get you?”
“Bernie and I were close to the empty house just down the street, the one that’s been deserted for only a few months, we were told, but the grass looks ready to take up residence it grows so fast here. We were hunkered down in trees a bit beyond the house, close enough to keep an eye on Victor’s end apartment, but not too close to spook them if they showed up.” He sighed. “Bernie had to use the john, so he went into the house, through the back. I never looked away from the apartment building. I swear to you, I never heard a thing, not even a whisper of movement. One minute I was wondering why Bernie was taking so long and the next I felt a gun stuck in my ear, and a girl giggled, told me I was the easiest fed she’d ever got. I couldn’t believe it, Savich. I have no clue how she snuck up on me. I didn’t hear a thing.”
Dillon said, “She and Victor were probably behind you, watching, for a good long time, waiting for their chance. When Bernie went into the house, you had no one covering your back.”
Cully sighed again. “I tried for her, twisted around, sent my elbow at her face, but she jumped back, waved the gun at me, and told me if I tried anything again, she’d shoot me. Then Victor comes up and tells me we’re going to his apartment, he’s hungry, and he wants to see if the bologna in his fridge is still good.
