Tail Spin

The moon was directly overhead, and the wind was up, swirling through the leaves, ruffling her hair. She saw a light in the Danvers’ house across the street. It went out. The alarm must have awakened them, but they’d figured it was an error on her part and gone back to bed. She stood on the front steps, the flagstone cold beneath her feet, and she didn’t move.
    “Jack? Where are you?”
    “Here,” he said a foot from her elbow, and she jumped. She whirled around, thought her heart would leap out of her chest. “How’d you do that? I didn’t hear you. Are you all right? Did you see anyone?”
    “He was gone by the time I ran outside. I found an open window in the guest bedroom at the end of the hall. I guess it’s not in the alarm system because it’s not an entry. There’s an oak he could have used to climb in—a big one. He was already in the house when you screamed. He ran down the front stairs and out the front door, and that triggered the alarm.
    “In the morning, I’ll check for footprints, particularly by that oak tree. He could have ripped his clothes, maybe left some threads or material on a branch. We might get lucky. Rachael?”
    She was shivering now from reaction. “What?”
    “Come inside. You’re cold.”
    “I shouldn’t be. It’s a warm night. I was even sweating.” She started trembling. Jack took her arm and led her back into the house. “Give me your alarm code.”
    He shut the front door, punched in the code to reactivate the alarm. He turned to her. “I’m glad you got hysterical, glad you screamed your head off. You heard something. It was real.”
    She walked to a sideboard, poured a shot of brandy for herself and one for him. “Here.” They both drank.
    A moment later the phone rang in the living room.
    “Yes? Rachael Abbott here.”
    “Rachael? It’s Dillon Savich. Are you guys all right?”
    She stared at the phone. “How did you know something happened?”
    There was silence on the line, then Savich said calmly, “A feeling, a gut feeling, that’s all. Talk to me.”
    She told him what had happened, then handed the phone to Jack. The first words out of his mouth were, “What did your gut tell you, Savich?”
    “That you were running around Rachael’s house in your underwear.”

FORTY-SEVEN
    At ten o’clock Sunday morning, an FBI evidence team converged on Rachael’s house and set up shop around the big oak tree outside the guest-bedroom window, Agent Clive Howard the team leader.
    Savich, Sherlock, and Sean sat at the oak kitchen table, Sean next to his mother drinking cocoa and eating a vanilla scone slathered with peach jam, Rachael and Jack opposite him.
    “He’s like you, Dillon, a sucker for scones.” A big dollop of jam fell onto the table and Sherlock scooped it back into his scone. She said to Rachael and Jack, “They were releasing Agent Tomlin when we got to the hospital. They said he was fine, he said he was fine, he was great, he wanted to kick himself, but Tom very much wanted to go back to guard Dr. MacLean.”
    Savich said, “Poor Sherlock. Agent Tomlin’s no longer looking at her with such tenderness. Now it’s Nurse Louise who’s got his eye. He couldn’t stop talking about how fast she was.
    “I sent him back to relieve the agent guarding Timothy. You can bet from now on Tomlin won’t let any hospital staff he doesn’t know come within ten feet of of MacLean’s room.”
    Sherlock said, “Unfortunately, he didn’t get too good a look at the guy who shoved the needle in his neck, and couldn’t identify the photos we showed him.”
    Jack said, “Tomlin’s one tough mother, I hate to see something like this happen. It was too close. For both him and Timothy, it was too close. I wish you’d called me, Savich.”
    “I thought about it, but the fact is, you couldn’t have done anything, Jack, so let it go.”
    “Imagine,” Rachael said, “someone going after Dr. MacLean in the hospital. That’s insane.” She stopped cold, gave them a twisted grin. “I guess there’s a lot of insanity going around lately.”
    Sherlock nodded. “After hours of interviews at the hospital, we still don’t have a viable witness.” She carefully selected a scone and bit in. She rolled her eyes. “Goodness, this is wonderful. Hey, Sean, can you pass me the jam?”
    “The GoodLight Bakery on Elm Street,” Rachael said. “Jack found it, and didn’t hesitate to bring home about fifty thousand calories.”
    Savich gave Sean a