“You look real sharp, Agent Sherlock,” Crammer said.
“Yeah,” Savich added, ” ‘real sharp.’ Cute even.”
“A Special Agent shouldn’t look anything but competent and trustworthy. I’ll go home and change.”
“With that bandage on your head, you’re not going to make it into the competence hall of fame. Best settle for cute. At least it’s only a big Band-Aid now.”
“I want to go home, sir.”
“Crammer, thanks for keeping watch.”
They made her ride downstairs in a wheelchair.
“You ready?”
She stared at a sexy red Porsche. “That’s yours?”
“Yes, it’s mine.”
“How do you fit into it?”
Whatever he’d expected her to say, evidently that wasn’t it, because he chuckled. “I fit,” he said only and opened the door for her.
He did fit. “This is wonderful. Douglas drives a black 1990 Porsche 911. Every time I drove that dratted car, I got a speeding ticket.”
“They do that to you if you don’t watch it. Now, Sherlock, you aren’t going home just yet.”
“I have to go home. I have plants to water-”
“Quinlan will water your plants. He’s magic with plants. He’ll probably even sing to them. Sally says she expects those African violets of his to try to get into bed with them. Don’t worry about your plants.”
“Where do you want me to go? A safe house?”
“No. You’re coming home with me.”
22
NO ONE FOLLOWED US, AND yes, I saw you looking too. Forget the baddies for the moment. What do you think of my humble abode?”
“I forgot about anybody following us the moment I stepped in here. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.” She raised her face and splayed her fingers in front of her. “It’s filled with light.”
It wasn’t a simple two-story open town house. There were soaring pale-beamed ceilings with huge skylights, all the walls painted a soft cream. The furnishings were beige, gold, and a dozen shades of brown. The oak floors were dotted with Persian carpets, the colors soft, mellow, old. A winding oak stairway covered with a running Tabriz carpet in multiple blues went up the stairs. There was a richly carved wooden oak railing running the perimeter of the landing.
“Dillon,” she said slowly, turning to look at him for the first time since she’d stepped into this magic place, “my house is to this as a stable is to Versailles. This place is incredible, I’ve never seen anything like it. You have unplumbed depths. Oh dear, I’m not feeling so good.”
She wasn’t nauseous, thank goodness, but she did collapse into one of his big, soft, buttery brown leather chairs, close her eyes, and swallow several times. He put her feet on a matching leather hassock.
“You need to eat. No, you need to rest. But first I’ll get you some water. How about some saltine crackers? My aunt Faye always fed saltines to my pregnant female relatives. What do you think?”
She cocked open an eye. She sighnd and swallowed again. “I’m not pregnant, Dillon, but you know, maybe a saltine wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
He covered her with a rich gold chenille afghan, tucking it around her feet on the leather hassock, and took off to the kitchen. She hadn’t seen the kitchen. She wondered if its ceiling went up two stories just like the rest of the house.
After she ate a saltine and drank some water, she said, “I think the FBI pays you too much money. You could open this place to the public and charge admission.”
“I’m poor, Sherlock. I inherited this house and a bit on the side from my grandmother. She was an artist-watercolors and acrylics.”
“Was she a professional? What was her name?”
“Sarah Elliott.”
She just stared at him, one eyebrow arched, chewing another saltine cracker. “You’re kidding,” she said finally. “You’re telling me that the Sarah Elliott was your grandmother?”
“Yes. She was my mother’s mom. A great old lady. She died five years ago when she was eighty-four. I remember she told me that it was time for her to go because the arthritis had gotten really bad in her hands. She couldn’t hold her paintbrushes anymore. I told her that her talent wasn’t in her hands, it was in her mind. I told her to stop bitching and to hold the paintbrushes between her teeth.” He paused a moment, smiling toward a painting of an orchid just beginning to bloom. “I thought at first that she would slug me, then she started laughing. She had this really deep, full laugh. She lived for another year, holding the paintbrushes between her dentures.” He would never forget the first time he’d seen her with that paintbrush sticking out of her mouth, smiling when she saw him, nearly dropping the brush. It had been one of the happiest moments of his life.