Catherine Coulter - Backfire

Evelyn Sherlock said, “Emma, would you like to have Lacey play for you?”

Emma’s eyes shone. “Oh, yes. Do you know Bach’s Italian Concerto ?”

Sherlock rolled her eyes. “I haven’t played that killer in a long time. I can feel my fingers yelling at me not to try it.”

Harry said, “Tell your fingers to man up. I’d sure like to hear you play, Sherlock.”

Sherlock took Emma’s place at the black piano bench. She played some scales, ran some chords, and realized the feel of the keys on this magnificent instrument was a deeply embedded memory that came back quickly. Still, she wasn’t about to try the first movement, far too wild and hairy without practice. She played the second movement, slow, evocative, and sorrowful. As she played, she felt the power of the music burrow into her. When she finished, Sherlock slowly lifted her hands from the keyboard, letting herself settle for a moment, another embedded memory she would thankfully never lose.

Emma jumped to her feet. “Oh, goodness, that was beautiful. I can play that movement, but not like that, not like it makes everyone want to cry.”

“The last time you played that second movement for me, I cried,” Eve said.

“You’re easy, Aunt Eve,” Emma said, and gave her a fat kid grin.

“Yeah, your music is my downfall.”

Sherlock hugged her. “You’re eleven years old, Emma. You’ll make everyone weep when you have more life under your belt.”

–

Molly arrived at nine o’clock to take the children home. Savich brought down Cal and Gage, both deeply asleep, one draped over each shoulder. He saw Molly speaking quietly to Sherlock. Molly even managed a smile. Excellent. Then it was his turn.

An SFPD black-and-white was parked across the street to follow Molly home.

Sherlock asked, “What were you talking to Molly about, Dillon?”

“Ramsey was more lucid this evening. He described the Zodiac to Molly again.” He cupped his wife’s face in his big hands. “Cheney will find it. Now, I don’t think I woke Sean up when I fetched Cal and Gage, but he’s got ears like a bat; we should check on him again.”

Russian Hill

Friday night

It had been a lovely evening, Eve thought, as she unlocked the front door of her condo on Russian Hill, only a ten-minute drive this time of night from the Sherlock home on Mulberry in Pacific Heights. She couldn’t get over Agent Sherlock playing the piano like that. She pictured Agent Savich-no, Dillon, he’d told her-his eyes never leaving his wife’s face. He said that after you shared a dinner of barbecued pork spareribs and finger licking, only first names sounded right. “But you’re a vegetarian,” she’d said to him. “You didn’t eat any of those delicious ribs.”

He said, “Licking your fingers is the operative image here.”

Eve wondered what Harry had thought of the odd evening-an FBI agent playing Bach, and no talk of who had tried to kill Ramsey. When she’d mentioned that to Dillon, he’d said only, “Don’t you think your brain does better when it gets to stir a different kind of stew for a bit?”

Good people, she thought, full of life, so much of it. Some people seemed to have more of life in them than others, and that included Sean, brought downstairs after dinner, beaming at all of them in his Transformers pajamas.

She saw Harry in her mind’s eye, frankly astonished when Emma had played Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Then he’d closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the chair cushion as he listened to Sherlock play that incredibly sad second movement.

She heard a noise, something close, something dangerous-she jerked around, her hand going to the Glock at her waist. Harry said, raising his arms, palms toward her, “Don’t shoot me. It’s only ten o’clock. I thought we should talk. Sorry to alarm you, I thought you saw me following you here.”

Her heart was pounding. She couldn’t make him out clearly, but she recognized his voice. “I can’t believe I didn’t hear you sooner. I can hear ants nesting. I never noticed you behind me, and here you were driving that hot Shelby.”

“How can you protect Judge Hunt if you don’t pay more attention to who’s on your tail?”

He got her, curse him. “Yeah, you’re right, but that’ll be the last time. Talk would be good. Come on in. I’ll put on some coffee. So it’s only ten o’clock? What does that have to do with my shooting you?”

“No shooting until after midnight, that’s the rule.”

“Haven’t heard that one. I think it’s smart to talk about the case.”

“So what do ants sound like when they’re nesting?”

She grinned at him over her shoulder as she unlocked the door to a small lobby with a black-and-white tiled floor, black mailboxes set against a stark white wall, and a half-dozen palm trees in green and blue pots stationed in the corners. She waved him in. “The elevator’s a 1920s job that creaks and groans all the way up. Scares most people, but I love it. Still, I prefer to walk up. Keeps yummy things like spareribs from making a home on my thighs.” They walked steep, wide stairs to the third and top floor.

“I’m on the end.” The corridor was wide, covered in a red carpet splashed with cabbage roses that should have made Harry bilious. Instead he found it curiously charming. She stopped in front of a blue door, unlocked it, and stepped in. She flipped on the light, waved him in.

Eve’s living room wasn’t what Harry was expecting, although he wasn’t quite sure what that would be, since he’d only met her earlier in the day. Maybe a black leather sofa and chairs and lots of gym mats on the floor? No, the living room was light, airy, filled with color. There was a view of the city through the big windows and a sliver of a view of the bay. He followed her to the kitchen, streamlined but softened with fresh flowers in a vase on the two-seater kitchen table, herbs in small pots lining the windowsill over the sink. It was painted a soft yellow.

“Nice apartment.”

“It’s mine now, bought it when the building went condo five years ago. It’s the right size for me.”

Eve smacked the heel of her hand to her head. “I’m an idiot.” After she turned on the coffeemaker, Eve pulled out her cell, and typed on the small Google screen.

“Well, okay, that’s only because you aren’t FBI. What are you doing?”

She stared at him.

“What? Oh, I’m picturing you lying flat on your back, out like a light, me standing over you rubbing my bruised knuckles.”

“That’s a pretty solid fantasy scenario. What are you doing really?”

She punched in numbers she’d looked up on her cell. “Calling the Port Authority to see if there were any cargo ships coming through the Golden Gate about midnight last night.”

He hadn’t thought of that. He guessed he was an idiot, too.

“Here we go.” She dialed, got a message, punched off her cell. “It’s late, no one there. I’ll call in the morning.”

She laid her cell phone on the counter. “Where do you live, Harry?”

“Over in Laurel Heights.”

She knew it was a lovely area near the Presidio, with streets named after trees. “You have a house?”

He nodded. “After my wife left-” He cut off like a spigot run dry, nodded at the coffeepot.

As Eve filled two large mugs, a hank of her blond hair fell along the side of her face. He watched her tuck it behind her ear. “This is decaf, so we’ll both have a shot at some sleep tonight. What do you take in your coffee?”