The Maze

family?"

    Her laugh was on the shaky side, but it was a laugh. "I feel like Alice in Wonderland. I've just fallen down the rabbit hole. No, it's always like that, but this is the first time the hole is deeper than I am tall."

    He smiled. "That's good, Sherlock. You've got some color back. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't scare me again like that."

    "You shouldn't have stayed in the room."

    "Actually, I brought you a message from Marlin Jones. He wants to talk to you again, with his lawyer present. He got Big John Bullock, a hotshot shark from New York who does really well with insanity pleas. I recommend that you don't go. He's doubtless set this up so that his lawyer can humiliate you. He won't let you get to first base with Jones anymore."

    He would have wagered his next paycheck that she'd still insist on seeing Marlin Jones. To his surprise, she said, "You're right. The police and the D.A. can get the rest of the pertinent information from him. There's nothing more for me to say to him. Can we go home now?"

    He nodded slowly. He wondered what she was thinking.

    The taxi stopped in front of her town house at ten o'clock that night. She felt more tired than she could ever remember in her life. But it wasn't the peaceful, good sort of tired she would have expected, now that Belinda's killer had been caught.

    She hadn't said much to Savich on the flight from Boston or on the ride in the taxi from Dulles to Georgetown. He walked her to the door, saying, "Sleep late, Sherlock. I don't want to see you before noon tomorrow, you got that? You've had more happen to you in the past three days than in the past five years. Sleep, it's the best thing for you, all right?"

    She didn't have any words. How could he know that her brain was on meltdown? "Would you sing me just one more outrageous country-and-western line before you leave?"

    He grinned down at her, set her suitcase down on the front step of her town house, and sang in a soft tenor whine, "I told her I had oceanfront property in Arizona. She nodded sweetly and I told her to buy it, that I'd throw in the Golden Gate for free. She thanked me oh so sweetly so I told her that I loved her and that I'd be true for all time. Sweetly, sweetly, she kissed me so sweetly and bought every word I said."

    "Thank you, Dillon. That was amazing. That was also very coldhearted and cynical."

    "Anytime, Sherlock. Not until noon now. Hey, that's just a silly song, sung by a lonely man who's not going anywhere. All he can do is dream that he's a winner, which he's not, and he knows it deep down. See ya tomorrow, Sherlock."

    She watched him until he turned the far corner. It was as it had been before, Douglas's voice coming out from behind her, low, angry. Even as he spoke, she was leaning down to pull her Lady Colt from her ankle holster. She straightened back up slowly. She was so tired of angry voices. "I wish you wouldn't keep seeing that guy, Lacey. He's such a loser. What was that nonsense he was singing to you?"

    "You startled me, Douglas. Please don't wait for me like this again. I could have shot you."

    "You're a musician. You play the piano brilliantly. At least you used to. You wouldn't shoot anybody. What were you doing with him?"

    She almost shouted at him that she wasn't that soft, pathetic girl anymore, hadn't been for seven long years, that two days ago she'd belly-shot the psychopath who'd killed her sister. She managed to hold it back. "We just got back from Boston. He just brought me home, that's all. I'd hardly call him a loser, Douglas. Because of him and his computer, we got the guy who killed your wife. It would seem to me that you'd want to give him a medal. Now, what are you doing here?"

    "I had to see you. I had to know what you thought about my marrying Candice. She lied to me, Lacey. What am I going to do?" It was then he noticed the sling on her arm. "Oh Jesus, what happened to you? You didn't tell your father that you'd gotten hurt. Who did this? That man you were with?"

    "Come into the house and we'll talk."

    She placed a snifter of brandy into his hand five minutes later. "There, that will make you feel better."

    He drank slowly, looking around her living room. "This is nice. Finally, you've decorated the way you should."

    "Thank you. Now, what do you want to tell me about that I don't already know?"

    She sat opposite him on a pale yellow silk love seat. While she'd been in Boston, her designer had had soft recessed lights installed. It