The Maze

manly?"

    "Sometimes, but not in tea. Keep it straight."

    She wanted to smack him. But he'd made her smile, a good-sized smile. She walked to a pristine white wallboard and ostentatiously wrote Equal on it with a blue washable Magic Marker. "There. All done. You happy?"

    "Happy enough. Thanks. You call Chico yet?"

    "Things have been happening a bit fast. I haven't had the time."

    "If you don't, I'll have to take you back to the gym and throw you around."

    "The first dozen or so falls weren't that bad."

    "I went easy on you."

    "Ollie told me you nearly tromped him into the floor."

    "At least Ollie's a guy, so he didn't whine."

    She just grinned at him. "This cup is too expensive to waste throwing at you."

    "Good. Do you have just plain old Lipton's tea bags?"

    "Yes."

    He watched her pour the hot water over the tea bags. "If it wasn't a guy who made you cry, then what did?"

    "I could throw a tea bag at you."

    "All right, I'll back off, but I don't like to see my agents upset-well, upset by something else other than me and my big mouth. Now, let's talk about our game plan in Boston. That's why I busted in on you this evening. There's a lot we need to get settled before we descend on the Boston PD."

    "You're really not going to fire me?"

    "Not yet. I want to get everything out of you, then if I'm still pissed off that you lied to me, that's when I'll boot you out."

    "I'm sorry."

    "You got what you wanted. How sorry can you be?"

    He was right about that. She was a hypocrite. She gave him a big smile. "I'm not sorry at all. I'm so relieved, so grateful, that I'll let you say anything sexist you want, at least for tonight."

    "You won't whine about getting up early tomorrow, will you? The flight's at seven-thirty A.M."

    She groaned, then toasted him with her teacup. ' "Thank you, sir... Dillon. I won't make you sorry."

    "Somehow I can't imagine that you won't."

    Savich left at ten o'clock, singing to himself as he left. It had to be a line from a country-and-western song, but of course she'd never heard it before. She grinned as she heard his deep voice drawl, "A good ole boy Redneck is what I aim to be, nothing more, nothing less will ever do for me. All rigged out in my boots and jeans, my belt buckle wide, my belly lean..."

    She closed the door, refastened the chains and clicked the dead bolt into place. That was the third or fourth time she thought she'd heard him singing country-western words. Oddly, her classical leanings weren't offended. What could be wrong with music that made you smile?

    They hadn't spoken much about the case after all. No, he'd just checked out her digs and told her she needed a CD player. It was clear what kind of music he preferred.

    She packed methodically. She prayed he would help her find the man who had killed her sister.

12

    SAVICH SAID TO LACEY, "AS I told you last night, Detective Budnack will be meeting us at the station. It's District Six in South Boston. They found Hil-lary Ramsgate in an abandoned warehouse on Congress Street. Somebody called it in anonymously, either the killer or a homeless person, probably the latter. But they've got the guy's voice on tape so when we catch him, we can make a comparison.
    "He'll have all the police reports, the autopsy, the results of any other forensic tests they've done as of today. I'd appreciate it if you'd go over all this stuff. You got all our things?"

    "Yes," she said, turning in her seat to face him fully. "Also, I doubt that Detective Budnack understood the game. He knew there was a game because of the note saying Hillary Ramsgate lost and had to pay the forfeit, but he didn't understand what it meant."

    "No, but it's his first hit with this guy. By the time we get there, he'll have spoken to the police in San Francisco and probably read most of the reports. Tell me your take on his game, Sherlock. I'm sure you've got one."

    They accepted coffee from the flight attendant, then settled back. The coffee was dreadful, but it was at least hot. She looked hard at her coffee. A lock of hair had come loose from its clamp and hung down along the side of her face, curving along her jawline. He watched her jerk it behind her ear, never looking away from that coffee of hers. What was going on here?

    She said finally, "I've pictured this in my mind over the years, refined it, changed it here and there, done many profiles on him, and now I think I've got it exactly the way he did it. He knocks the woman on the head and