Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [205]
She imagined him dressed all in black, even black camouflage paint on his face, swinging down a rope to hover above an alarmed floor.
Savich said, “One thing, Simon. When you find out who bought the paintings, I go with you.”
Sherlock blinked at her husband. “You mean that you, an FBI special agent, unit chief, want to go steal four paintings?”
“Steal back,” Savich said, giving her a kiss on her open mouth. “Bring home. Return to their rightful owner.”
Lily said, “I’ll be working with Mr. Russo to find the person who forged them and the name of the collector who bought them. And then we’ll have proof to nail Tennyson.”
“Oh no,” Savich said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight, Lily.”
“No way,” Sherlock said. “No way am I letting you out of my sight either. Sean wants his auntie to hang out with him for a while.”
Simon Russo looked at Lily Savich and slowly nodded. He knew to his bones that when this woman made up her mind, it would take more than an offering of a dozen chocolate cakes to change it. “Okay, you can work with me. But first you need to get yourself back to one-hundred-percent healthy.”
“I’ll be ready by Monday,” Lily said. She raised her hand, palm out, to her brother before he could get out his objection. “You guys have lots to worry about—this Tammy Tuttle person. She’s scary, Dillon. You’ve got to focus on catching her. This is nothing, in comparison, just some work to track these paintings, maybe talking to these artists. I know artists. I know what to say to them. It won’t be any big deal. I can tell Mr. Russo exactly how to do it.”
“Right,” said Simon.
Sherlock was pulling on a hank of curly hair, something, Savich knew, she did when she was stressed or worried. She said, “She’s right, Dillon, but that doesn’t mean I like it.” She sighed. “And it’s not only Tammy Tuttle. Oh well, I’ll spit it out. Ollie phoned just before we left the house this morning.”
“He did?” Savich turned the full force of his personality on his wife, a dark brow raised. “And you didn’t see fit to mention it to me?”
“It’s Friday morning, Gabriella was at the dentist and running late; she’s our nanny,” Sherlock added to Simon. “Besides, you’d already told Ollie and Jimmy Maitland that you wouldn’t be in until late morning. I was going to tell you on the way in.”
“I know I don’t want to hear this, but out with it, Sherlock. I can take it.”
“Besides worrying about Tammy Tuttle, there’s been a triple murder in a small town called Flowers, Texas. The governor called the FBI and demanded that we come in, and so we will. Both the ATF and the FBI are involved. There’s this cult down there that they suspect is responsible for the murder of the local sheriff and his two deputies who’d gone out to their compound to check things out. Their bodies were found in a ditch outside of town.”
“That’s nuts,” Simon said.
“Yes,” Sherlock said, “it is. Ah, Raleigh, would you mind visiting with Dyrlana for a moment? All this stuff is sort of under wraps.”
Raleigh looked profoundly disappointed, but he left them in the vault. At the doorway, he said, “What about your sister and Mr. Russo? They’re civilians, too.”
“I know, but I can control what they say,” Savich said. “I really couldn’t get away with busting your chops.”
They heard him chuckling as he called out, “Dyrlana! Where is my gumpoc tea?”
“One problem is,” Sherlock said, “that the cult has cleared out, split up into a dozen or more splinter groups and left town in every direction. Nobody knows where the leader is. They’ve pulled in a few of the cult members, but these folks shake their heads and claim they don’t know anything about it. The only good thing is that we have a witness, of sorts. It seems that one of the women is pregnant by the guru. Lureen was rather angry when she found him seducing another cult member, actually at least three or four other cult members. She slipped away and told the town mayor about it.”
Savich said, “A witness, then. Did she identify the guru as the guy who ordered the murders?”
“Not yet. She’s still thinking about