THE MAZE by Catherine Counlter

She stood abruptly and looked down at him, hands on hips. “What do you want from me? I already told you I’d resign.”

“Then I suppose you’ll hightail it up to Boston and go on a one-woman hunt for the String Killer?”

“Yes. I have to. I’ve prepared myself. I’ve waited a very long time for him to strike again.”

“Very well. I don’t seem to have any choice.” He stood up abruptly. He was very big. Inadvertently, she took a step back.

He looked impatient. “You afraid I’ll throw you here in the park?”

No, she’d been afraid that he’d kill her. Just as that man had killed Belinda. She tried to shrug it off. “I guess I’m just a bit nervous. Sorry. What don’t you have a choice about? You have a choice about everything.”

“If you only knew,” he said, and plowed his fingers through his hair. “I had you call me every night from Boston because I was afraid you’d get yourself into trouble.”

“I’m a trained FBI agent. What trouble? Even if I couldn’t get to my gun, I sure know how to fall.”

He grinned down at her, raised his hand, then lowered it. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. You know more about this guy than any other living person. Would you say that’s accurate?”

“Yes.” Her heart began to beat in a slow cadence. “I guess you know I printed out all the police and autopsy reports from the seven murders in San Francisco?”

He nodded, looking toward an old woman who was pulling a grocery cart loaded with bags filled with old clothes, cardboard, empty cola bottles. “It’s Old Sal. I’ll introduce you, then we need to get back.”

Old Sal just looked her over with very worldly, bloodshot eyes. She could have been any age from fifty to ninety.

“Get your check, Sal?”

“Yeah, Dillon, I got it. You feed my little birdies?”

“No, Sherlock here wanted to, but I wouldn’t let her.”

The old eyes turned to her. “You Sherlock?”

“Yes, ma’am. Nice to meet you.”

“You be good to my boy here, you get me, young lady?”

“I’m not a young lady, ma’am, I’m an FBI agent.”

Savich laughed. “She’s right, Sal. I rather think I’ll be the one taking care of her.”

“You get your problems solved, dear, then you can play with my boy here. He’s a good lad.”

“I will, ma’am.”

“I don’t like this ma’am stuff.”

“It’s okay, Sal. She calls me sir, right to my face, as if I were her father or something even worse.”

“How old are you, Sherlock?”

“I’m twenty-seven.”

“That’s a good age. Dillon is thirty-four. Just turned thirty-four three and a half weeks ago. We had a little party for him here. Me and my birdies. Is Sherlock your first or last name?”

“It’s my last name, Sal. My first name’s Lacey.”

“Huh. I like Sherlock better. It gives you distinction.”

“I agree.”

“You need anything, Sal?”

“No, Dillon. I just want to sit in this lovely sun, rest my bones, and feed my birdies. I got them a pound of unsalted peanuts. I don’t want to harden their little arteries.”

Lacey was still smiling when they went back into the Hoover Building.

She wasn’t smiling ten minutes later.

11

SO HE’S GOING TO TAKE you to Boston. How’d you manage that, Sherlock?”

Hannah Paisley was leaning over her, her voice low and furious in her ear.

“You shouldn’t be going. You’re new, you don’t know anything. You don’t deserve to go. It’s because you’re sleeping with him, isn’t it?”

Lacey slowly turned in her chair, looking up. “No, Hannah. Stop this. This is all business, nothing else. Why don’t you believe me?”

“You’re lying, damn you. I’ve seen women look at him. They all want him.”

“Ollie told me that Savich doesn’t believe in becoming involved with anyone in his unit. That includes all of us, Hannah. If you want him, then I suggest you transfer out. Listen, I just want to catch this monster in Boston. Actually I did lie. I do want Savich’s brain and his expertise. Does that count? Is that brain lust?”

Finally Hannah had left.

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