Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [192]
Savich frowned into his cell phone. What was this all about? “I know you like my grandmother’s paintings, Simon. She gave you your favorite when you graduated from MIT, but you don’t have to come down to Washington to see them right away.”
“Yes,” Simon said, “trust me on this, I do.” And he hung up.
Sherlock was standing on the far side of the bedroom, her own cell phone dangling from her hand. “Sweetheart,” he called out to her, “strangest thing. Simon is all hot under the collar to see Lily’s eight Sarah Elliott paintings. He’s being mysterious, won’t tell me a thing, insists he has to see the paintings as soon as they arrive in Washington.”
Sherlock didn’t say anything. Savich felt a sharp point of fear. She looked shell-shocked, no, beyond that. She looked drop-dead frightened, her pupils dilated, her skin as pale as ice. He was at her side in an instant. He gathered her against him, felt that she was as cold as ice as well, and held on to her tightly. “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong. It’s Sean, isn’t it? Something’s happened to our boy?”
She shook her head hard, but still no words.
He pulled back, saw the shock of fear still deep in her eyes, and shook her lightly. “Please tell me, Sherlock, talk to me. What’s going on? What happened?”
She swallowed, and managed finally to get the words out. “Sean’s all right. I checked in at the office. I heard Ollie yell in the background that he had to speak to us. Dillon, Ollie said that Tammy Tuttle just up and walked out of the jail wing of Patterson-Wright Hospital.”
“No,” Savich said, shaking his head in utter disbelief, “you’ve got to be kidding me.” Things like that didn’t happen. She was very dangerous, and everyone at the hospital knew it. He continued to stare down at his wife, wanting to see some flicker of doubt that wasn’t there. “That can’t be possible,” he went on slowly. The panic of it was nearly under control, but he didn’t want to believe it, to accept it. “She was in the jail ward. She was well guarded. The woman is nuts. Everyone knows what she’s done. She couldn’t walk out.”
“They were going to put her in restraints tomorrow or the next day, when they thought she was well enough to be a danger to them. Then there was a screwup in the scheduling of the guards. Evidently, she was ready for something to give her a chance. When she got her break, she snagged a nurse, knocked her out cold, and took her white pantsuit. At least she didn’t kill her. But she walked out.”
“It hasn’t been even a week since they amputated her arm. How could she have the strength to take down a nurse? They’re used to violent patients; they’re trained. She’s got only one arm.”
“Obviously no one thought she had the strength or the ability, and that’s why when there was the scheduling foul-up, no one was really concerned. And that’s why no one even discovered she was gone until a nurse went in to give her a shot and found another nurse tied up naked in the closet. They figure she got herself at least a two-hour window.”
Savich shook himself. His brain was back in gear, finally. “All right. Where would she go? Do they have any leads?”
“Ollie says there are more cops looking for her than the hunt for Marlin and Erasmus Jones. Everyone knows she’s really scary, that she’s truly dangerous. No one wants her free again.” Sherlock cleared her throat. “There’s the question of those things you saw in the barn, Dillon—the Ghouls.”
He squeezed her again and said against her temple, her curly hair tickling his