KnockOut

hint of awareness on Sheriff Cole’s heavy face, there was only astonishment. The old lady sprang back. “Shoot them in the face, Burris! Kill them!”
    “What? I can’t shoot them, ma’am, I can’t. We need to calm down here, think this over—”
    “Do it!”
    Savich saw the sheriff turn to look at the old woman, whose face was filled with malice and rage. She looked straight at the sheriff, and he at her.
    Sherlock said, “Look at me instead of the sheriff. Mrs. Backman don’t tell him that again, or I will shoot you both dead. Then I will burn this damned house down. Do you understand me?”
    Agent Todd stepped forward, his SIG in his hand.
    “We’ve got it,” Savich said over his shoulder. “Things are under control. Now, Mrs. Backman, I guess you didn’t realize there are four of us, all FBI agents. You’re coming with us to Atlanta. Trying to kill a federal agent is, naturally enough, a federal offense. The FBI doesn’t like having its agents shot at.”
    Sheriff Cole stepped in front of her, blocking her from their view. “You can’t do that, Agent. Miz Backman is a citizen of Bricker’s Bowl, our leading citizen. Her roots are here. You can’t take her. Whoever it is that shot at you, you don’t have any proof.”
    Sherlock stepped into his face, raised her SIG up to his nose, and said very quietly, “Listen, Burris, if you don’t want to share a cell with this malevolent old witch, I suggest you drop that gun to the ground. Now.”
    He wanted to drop-kick her off the veranda, belt the damned girl agent in the chops. But he knew dead serious when he saw it, and he believed her. He pulled the gun from its holster and dropped it. It thumped on the wooden veranda, bounced once, and came to a rest six inches from his foot.
    “Now you will move yourself back six steps. I’ll count them for you. Go!”
    Sheriff Cole stepped back until Sherlock told him to stop, with his hack pressed against the front door.
    Agent Todd stepped onto the porch and picked up the sheriff’s gun, Dirty Harry’s Magnum, one he’d like to own himself. He raised an eyebrow at Savich, who said, “If the sheriff behaves himself from now on, I’m willing to let him slide. I just want Mrs. Backman.” He asked her, “Do you wish to make a call, ma’am?”
    “Yes, to my lawyer.”
    Once again, he said, “Caldicot Whistler?”
    She gave him a malignant look and shuffled away in her mules. The sheriff jumped to the side so she could open the door. She flung it open so hard it hit against the inside wall. Savich wouldn’t have guessed she had that much strength. Savich watched her walk to where a phone sat on a lovely Victorian marquetry table. He watched her pick up the phone and dial.
    None of the agents could hear what she said; none of them stepped inside the house. When she came back, Sherlock said, “Did you call your lawyer?”
    “No,” she said. “I called someone of far more help than that pitiful excuse.”
    Savich didn’t care at the moment whether she’d phoned someone or used telepathy, so long as what she’d done would get Blessed and Grace away from Titusville, away from Ethan, Joanna, and Autumn.
    “Nice touch,” he said to her, “using the phone like that.”
    She turned on him, head thrown back, and snarled at him through her teeth, “I’m going to boil you alive, you miserable shit.”
    Sherlock walked right up to her, got in her face. “Really, ma’am that isn’t at all polite. Now you’re going to get cuffed.” She unhooked the handcuffs from her belt and slapped the old lady’s hands together.
    Shepherd Backman lifted her face to the heavens and shrieked., That mad, guttural howl raised gooseflesh on their necks. Agent Ruley and Agent Todd stood still, watching the old woman, their SIGs drawn. Neither man could think of a thing to say.

49
    TITUS HITCH WILDERNESS
    TITUSVILLE, VIRGINIA
    Autumn sat straight up. “Mama? You can tell me, is Blessed here?”
    Joanna palmed her gun into Ethan’s hand and moved quickly to kneel down beside her daughter. She touched her hair. “Blessed isn’t here; everything’s okay, sweetheart. You’re safe.”
    Autumn looked from one to the other of them, her eyes too adult, too filled with an understanding she shouldn’t have. “You’re going with Ethan to go after them, aren’t you, Mama?”
    Joanna looked into her daughter’s beautiful blue eyes. Her eyes? Ethan thought so. She stroked out some of the tangles in her hair. She