KnockOut - Catherine Coulter [27]
And he did. She didn’t add that the thought of a crazy teenager out to kill Dillon scared her to her toes.
“…Riley saved my bacon, shot Jennifer Smiley through the neck. I will never forget thinking of a blood fountain.”
He’d been so close to death again, she thought, too close. A fountain of blood. She got herself together. “We’ve got to find out what sort of relationship Lissy Smiley had with Victor. It could be the key to what makes them tick.”
Savich agreed, only he really didn’t care at this particular moment in time. He grabbed Sherlock and kissed her. “I’ll get to work with MAX on this tonight. Ah, how much time do you think we have before Lucy brings Sean home?”
“At least fourteen minutes,” Sherlock said, and ran up the stairs.
The only thing missing from this perfect picture, Savich thought as he followed her, was that they didn’t have a ceiling fan in their bedroom. He hoped he’d have time to install one next weekend. He thought about Autumn. He prayed she’d call him again tonight. It had been too long. He’d gotten a couple of phone calls from several small-town sheriffs, but as yet, nothing on Autumn. His Autumn. He was getting really worried about her.
14
TITUSVILLE, VIRGINIA
Sunday
The Washington Post lay neat and unopened on the living room coffee table, delivered as always on Sunday morning from the 24/7 Quick Shop by little Buddy Grubbs, Amy Grubbs’s youngest. Ethan had gotten into the habit of reading the Post when he’d lived in Washington during his three-year stint in the DEA. The idea of putting his bare feet up on his coffee table and reading it on this fine Sunday morning, a cup of coffee in his hand, seemed a world away.
Ethan sat down on the comfortable worn sofa that had cushioned many of his family’s butts over the years, carefully moved the newspaper to the side of the coffee table, and set his cup down on the glass top. He waved a hand. “It’s just as well Autumn’s playing in the bedroom with the cats. I need to talk to you, Joanna. Sit down a moment. You probably heard me on my cell phone. All my deputies are out looking for Blessed Backman, with as much neighboring law enforcement help as they can spare. Unfortunately, he doesn’t appear to have a driver’s license or a Social Security number. And that means, officially, he doesn’t exist.”
“Surely he must drive. How else did he get here?”
“Yes, it only makes sense that he drove up here. It could have been a car, truck, motorcycle, whatever.”
“I know Blessed is still out there, probably real close. He hasn’t got Autumn yet, and believe me, he wants Autumn very badly. I need to get her away from here. I’ve been thinking Colorado might be a nice home for us.”
Her heels looked dug in like a mule’s, and so he said easily, “And what do you intend to do, Joanna? In Colorado?”
“I’m not completely down-and-out like you seem to think, Sheriff. I was an office manager in a big medical facility in Boston. I have a business degree.” She sighed. “Who am I trying to kid? Actually, I was okay at it, but I hated it, being cooped up all day, every single day, living for the weekend. I did it only to help support Autumn. I do speak Russian fluently.”
“Yeah, so who wants to learn Russian in Colorado?”
She plowed right over him. “What I’m really good at and enjoy is teaching skiing and snowboarding in the winter and taking people hiking in the mountains in the summer, rock climbing, white-water rafting, camping, that sort of thing.”
“Autumn told me your husband passed away.”
“Yes, recently.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Look, Ethan, I might not have much money right now, but I do have enough to get Autumn and me set up in Colorado until I get a job. I’m thinking Leadville.”
“Leadville is quite a place,” he said. “I was there with my brother and sister once, cross-country skiing and