“You leave her alone, you bastard!” Joanna dove at him, but her hands were tied behind her and she could only butt her head against him.
Whistler wanted to backhand the woman, but he merely shoved her hard, sending her to the floor. He shouted down at the child, “Look, that’s your grandfather over there! Your grandfather! Your daddy’s father! Get control of yourself!”
Autumn’s eyes went blank, her pupils fixed. She became still, no expression at all on her small face.
Whistler grabbed both her arms, shook her again. “What are you doing? Damn you, what are you doing? What are you seeing?”
Joanna jumped up at him.
Ethan yelled, “Let her go!”
Whistler sent his fist into the woman’s jaw, knocking her backward. He saw the sheriff coming at him and grabbed the little girl around her chest and hauled her back against him. He raised his right hand, and Ethan saw a snub-nosed .38. “Stay back, Sheriff, or I’ll shoot you! Or her, I don’t care.”
“Caldicot, don’t harm Autumn!” Theodore yelled. “Bring her to me. Then you can take the mother and the sheriff out. Look at her eyes—her eyes are like Blessed’s, the intensity burns within her.”
She was looking off, away from all of them, seeing something he couldn’t see. “What are you doing, child? What are you doing?”
70
WINNETT, NORTH CAROLINA
Victor heard something, like the rustling of leaves beneath someone’s foot, someone who was trying to walk really quietly. Lissy? He raised his gun and turned toward the sound.
Bernie watched Victor unwind and slowly get to his feet, his gun swinging around him. Bernie hadn’t heard anything.
Was it a cop? Lissy coming back? He couldn’t do anything except wait and work at the damned duct tape on his hands.
From the trees he heard Lissy’s excited voice: “Hey, Victor. Look at what I’ve got me!”
She wasn’t alone. Bernie didn’t want to believe it. Dillon Savich, his leg wounded, his belt wrapped around it, limped in front of Lissy.
She did a little dance. “The macho man told me all the cops in this pitiful town are on the other side of the woods, waiting for us to waltz out. All of them but one. Yep, a young deputy nearly walked right into me before I nailed him. Then Special Agent Savich here comes running to save him. See what I did, Victor? I shot him in the leg.”
Victor stared at Savich, a complete stranger to him, except for his picture in the papers. Lissy was still dancing in place, she was so excited.
Victor said, “It makes sense he’d bring all the local cops in. I’m thinking they probably found our car. It’s going to be tough for us to get out of here.”
Lissy waved her gun around. “Big deal, a bunch of hick clucks, probably as brainless as the one I shot.” She giggled. “Do you know, if I raise my face to the sky and breathe in, I can actually smell cops?” She shoved her gun into Savich’s back. “This is my prize cop. Just look at his leg, he’s not going to kick me anymore. Sit down, pretty boy, next to Bernie with the two little kiddies.” Lissy started lightly rubbing her chest. When she saw Savich looking at her, she dropped her hand.
They were maybe a hundred yards inside the police line, Savich thought, in the thick trees that ringed the area, on high ground. He and Lissy had trekked slowly through the unending maze of oak trees, at least a quarter mile of woods, to this small hollow that sat on a sharp rise. Through the trees, he could see Victor’s apartment building and the front of the ramshackle house where he’d left Sherlock and Cully.
He said to Bernie, “You okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay, I just feel really stupid.”
“Shut up,” Victor said. “I don’t want you two talking, you got that? Sit down next to him and don’t try anything.” Victor pointed his gun right at Savich as he slowly eased down against an oak trunk, stretching out his wounded leg in front of him. He eased his belt loose, studied the wound. It had stopped bleeding. He pulled the belt off.
“Why’d you bring him here, Lissy? Why didn’t you just put a bullet through his head where you found him?”
“Big boy here tells me he’s got lots more juice than poor Bernie with the two little kids, says we need a hostage cops will listen to and he’s the only one who can get us out of here. What do you think?”
Victor looked from Savich to Bernie, then back to Lissy. “I don’t like it, but I gotta admit, he does have more juice. Maybe he could get us out.”
She cocked her head to one side and stroked her long, graceful fingers over her jaw. “When he does get us away, well, then, maybe you should be the one to put a bullet between his eyes, Victor I’m thinking you need the practice. Remember you didn’t have the balls to kill that highway patrol cop, even after I told you to punch her between the eyes?”
Victor’s fist shot out so fast Lissy didn’t have a chance. His fist smashed into her jaw. She reeled back, falling. Savich was halfway to his feet, his leg on fire, when Lissy screamed, “You sit back down to I’ll put a bullet in Bernie! You got that, Mr. Special Agent? He’ll be dead and it’ll be all your fault!”
She was lying on her side, her gun aimed right at Bernie.
Savich eased back down, closer to Bernie this time, maybe close enough to get the duct tape off his wrists.
There were tears streaking down Lissy’s cheeks. Victor leaned over her, his voice all soft and concerned, his fingers lightly touching her hair. “You shouldn’t have said that, Lissy; you shouldn’t have made me feel less a man. Look at what you made me do.”
She worked her jaw with her fingers, her eyes never leaving Savich’s face.
“You hurt me, Victor. You’re lucky my jaw isn’t broken.”
“Yeah, well, you’ll be okay, you won’t have to go to the hospital again. No matter what you say, no matter how bad you insult me, I don’t want you to have to go back to the hospital.”
“I’m gonna have a big bruise.”
“Not bad, I don’t think,” Victor said. He looked over at Savich. “You really brought this FBI agent back here as a hostage? Then you expect me to kill him? I could kill him, I could, if I wanted to. He doesn’t look so tough all laid out there. We’ll see, after he gets us out of here.” He gave her a hand up.
Lissy continued to work her fingers over her jaw. “You could pop him right between the eyes? I could take care of Bernie. Then we’d be free and away from this hick town. We’ll find us a car. I want to go to Montana.”
“Montana might be good. I wonder how long it takes to drive there.”
“We’ll take five days, take it easy.” Lissy looked up to see Bernie speaking low to Savich. “Shut up, or I’ll shoot your heads off! Victor, before Super Cop takes us out of here, I’ve got an idea. Hand me his cell phone. I want to look at his speed dial.”
Victor pressed the muzzle of his gun against Savich’s throat as he pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket. Victor jumped to his feet and took two steps back and handed Lissy the cell. She flicked it to his stored numbers. “Isn’t this a kick!. The very first name, it’s Sherlock.”
“What kind of name is that? I wonder who he is.”
“Probably a stupid nickname,” Lissy said. “Let me place a call, see who this Sherlock is.”
Bernie sent Savich a look, saw his face was perfectly still, expressionless.
The cell rang once, then a woman answered. “Yes?”
“Hey, is this Sherlock?”
“Yeah, I’m Sherlock. Who wants to know?”
“Smart mouth, aren’t you? This is Lissy Smiley. I got me two big federal agents right here. Special Agent
