colleague at Scotland Yard have developed software that can work not only with photographs but with drawings.” She sighed. “But again, I strongly doubt anything will come of what little I saw of his face.”
How’d she know about that? Savich said, “Still a work in progress, Chief, but it helped on an important case a year or so back. Pippa, I want to go back to Major Trumbo’s B&B with you. I don’t want you alone tonight. I don’t know how secure the B&B is, so if it’s all right with you, I’ll stay in your room.”
Pippa laughed. “Wait till I tell Sherlock I shared my honeymoon suite with her husband. Did you bring a go bag?”
Savich shook his head.
“We’ll ask Mrs. Trumbo if she has an extra toothbrush.” She turned to Wilde. “Do you happen to have an extra gun? Mine’s a Glock nine-millimeter, but a Beretta’s no problem, either. I grew up with one.”
“I’ve got an old Walther P99, semiautomatic, my grandfather’s.”
“That’ll do.”
Savich’s cell rang. He held up a hand. “Sherlock? What’s going on?”
A second later Savich yelled over his shoulder as he ran to the front door, “Chief, keep Pippa safe here with you.”
He ran out.
31
SAVICH HOUSE
MONDAY NIGHT
Gasoline? Did she smell burning gasoline? Didn’t matter. She had to move. Sherlock pulled on jeans, jerked a heavy Redskins sweatshirt over her head, shoved her feet into her sneakers and her Glock in her pants, slipped her cell phone into her jacket pocket, and raced down toward Sean’s bedroom.
The smoke alarm went off, loud enough to wake the neighborhood. With the warning Griffin had given her, she had a bit more time. Soon after Sean was born, she and Dillon had planned out what to do in case of a fire and practiced every step. But this was different; this was real. It was all up to her. Sean ran out of his bedroom to her, Astro on his heels. “Mama, what’s wrong? What’s that smell? Is it fire? Are we on fire?”
So much for Sean not understanding. No time to be calm and reassuring. “Yes. Sean, don’t move!” She ran into his bedroom, grabbed the blankets off his bed, and ran back to where he stood, exactly where she’d left him. She wrapped him up, lifted him in her arms, and headed down the hall to the stairs, Astro barking madly at her heels.
“Mama, I can run by myself.”
“Let me carry you tonight, sweetheart. Arms around my neck, real tight.” Sherlock double-stepped down the front stairs and luckily didn’t stumble.
Thick smoke was gushing out of the kitchen, filling the living room, moving fast. Soon the smoke would engulf the house in a choking gray fog. She felt the heat from the flames behind them and pulled the blankets over Sean’s head. She unlocked the front door and ran full tilt out of the house, Astro right beside her, the security alarm blasting an ear-splitting accompaniment to the smoke alarms. She turned and stood panting in the front yard, rocking Sean, Astro hugging her leg, whimpering. She jerked out her cell, punched Dillon’s number. “Dillon, our house is on fire. We’re all right. Hurry!” She heard someone shout her name. She saw Luke Mason, a firefighter, jump off his porch five houses down and race toward her, shrugging into a jacket as he ran. She quickly slipped her cell back into her pocket. He grabbed her arms, did a quick once-over, and pulled back the blankets. “You’re good, Sean, and so’s Astro. You’ll be okay. Your mama was fast. Savich isn’t here?”
“No, unfortunately.”
“Didn’t matter, you did great. My guys are on the way, another couple of minutes. Hear the sirens? Stay put, Sherlock. I want to check this out.”
She shouted after him as he ran toward the back of the house, “Someone set the fire!”
“Sherlock!” It was Thomas Perry from next door.
Then she remembered. “Thomas, take Sean!”
Before he could stop her, he had an armful of little boy. Sherlock ran back into the house, her sweatshirt pulled up over her mouth and nose. She didn’t think, didn’t pause, just raced up the stairs into Dillon’s study. She grabbed MAX and raced back down, wheezing from the smoke, thicker with every passing moment. She felt heat pumping out of the kitchen like a blast furnace. She heard the flames crackling, making terrifying sputtering noises, pictured her kitchen, and swallowed convulsively. It’s only a kitchen. Get a grip.
Sherlock couldn’t believe it when she saw Griffin carefully lifting Dillon’s grandmother’s painting down