Twice Dead - Catherine Coulter [227]
Simon said, “You okay, Lily?”
She nodded. “We’re alive. That’s all that matters. The bastards. I can’t believe they set the entire place on fire. So many people could have been hurt, even killed.”
“Your brother realized before I did they’d probably try something. You met Agent Colin Smith. Your brother got the SAC here in Eureka to send him to watch over us.”
She sighed. She was exhausted, doubted that any part of her would move, even if she begged. “Yeah, I realized he was a guard for us. I sure wish he’d caught them before they set the fire.”
“He does, too. He’s really beating himself up. He was calling in his boss, Clark Hoyt, last time I saw him. Hoyt will probably be here soon. I’ll bet you he’s already called Savich.”
“At four o’clock in the morning?”
“Good point.”
“It’s really cold, Simon.”
He was sitting on a lawn chair that a neighbor had brought over. He pulled her onto his lap, wrapping the blankets around both of them. “Better?”
She nodded against his shoulder and whispered, “This really sucks.”
He laughed.
“You know, Simon, even Remus wouldn’t go so far as to do this sort of thing. Someone so desperate, so malevolent, they don’t care how many people they kill? That’s really scary.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “it is. I didn’t expect anything like this.”
“You got mugged in New York so soon after you left Washington. These people work really fast. I’m beginning to think it’s Olaf Jorgenson behind all this, not the Frasiers, like you said. How would the Frasiers have even known about you or where you were?”
“I agree. But you know, the guy didn’t try to kill me, at least I don’t think he did.”
“Probably a warning.”
“I guess. This wasn’t a warning. This was for real. We’re in pretty deep now, Lily. I’ll bet you Clark Hoyt isn’t going to let us out of his sight for as long as we’re in his neck of the woods.”
“At this point I’m glad. No, Simon, don’t say it. I’m not about to leave you alone now.” She fell silent, and for a little while he thought she’d finally given out. Then she said, “Simon, did I ever tell you that Jeff MacNelly was my biggest influence for Remus?”
Who was Jeff MacNelly? He shook his head slowly, fascinated.
“Yes, he was. I admired him tremendously.” When she realized he didn’t have a clue, she added, “Jeff MacNelly was a very famous and talented cartoonist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes skewering politicos. But he never once said that they were evil. He died in June of 2000. I really miss him. It upsets me that I never told him how much he meant to me, and to Remus.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Lily.” He realized then she was teetering on the edge of shock, so he pulled another blanket around her. It was too much even for her. Her life had flown out of control when she’d married Tennyson Frasier. He couldn’t imagine what she’d gone through when her daughter had been killed and she’d managed to survive months of depression. And then all this.
Lily said, “Jeff MacNelly said that ‘when it comes to humor, there’s no substitute for reality and politicians.’ I don’t like this reality part, Simon, I really don’t.”
“I don’t either.”
Washington, D.C.
Hoover Building
Savich slowly hung up the phone, stared out his window a moment, then lowered his face to his hands.
He heard Sherlock say, “What is it, Dillon? What’s happened?” Her competent hands were massaging his shoulders, her breath was warm on his temple.
He raised his head to look up at her. “I should have killed her, Sherlock, should have shot her cleanly in the head, like I did Tommy Tuttle. This is all my fault—that boy’s death in Chevy Chase, and now this.”
“She’s killed again?”
He nodded, and she hated the despair in his eyes, the pain that radiated from him. “In Road Town, Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands.”
“Tell me.”
“That was Jimmy Maitland. He said the police