Catherine Coulter - Backfire

Eve said, “Priests don’t wear rings, not in the Catholic Church, though bishops do.”

Sherlock nodded at her. “We sent a police artist to meet with Boozer and get a sketch of the ring. Here it is, to the best of Boozer’s memory.”

While everyone looked at the drawing, Sherlock said, “Even though it’s pretty rough, we sent the sketch back to the Hoover Building. Given all the ecclesiastical rings I looked at on the Internet, Boozer’s description of the ring isn’t far off. We should know soon if our people can find anything.” But Sherlock didn’t look hopeful.

Harry pointed to the sketch. “The ring does look faintly religious. I hope you’re right and it’s important to this guy, for whatever reason.”

“Well, well, would you look at this,” Savich said. He looked down at MAX again for a moment, then smiled at everyone. “In all the talking we’ve done about Sue, we’ve assumed Sue is an American woman because it’s an American name, short for Susan. But it occurred to me to ask if there are names in other languages that sound like Sue, since this case revolves around espionage. I ran it as a search through MAX, and it turns out there are names in Chinese that are pronounced Sue , or close to it. The closest one is a family name, written in English as X-u or S-u. Either way, since it’s a surname it can be a man or woman’s name, but no matter, I’d say Xu is a man and very probably Chinese.”

Cheney rose straight up, slammed his fist to the table. “That’s got to be right! It fits too well not to be. It all makes sense now. The Cahills had a Chinese handler named Xu who probably recruited them to get access to Mark Lindy’s classified information. Question is, why is Xu still in the country? Why is he still around more than eight months after the Cahills were arrested?”

“Maybe he’s trying to clean things up before he checks out,” Harry said.

Eve said, “To stay here over eight months, he’d have to be an American citizen, whether he’s working for the Chinese or not, or have excellent fake papers.”

Harry said, “And the reason he’s still here is because the Cahills know exactly who he is, and they could announce his identity to the world at any moment they liked.”

Savich said, “Say Xu is an agent for the Chinese. They can’t be happy with him that the simple retrieval of information of Mark Lindy’s data-meant to be done with stealth and alert no one it was even taken-turned instead into the very messy murder of a U.S. citizen, one working for the federal government. Imagine if it got out that Chinese intelligence was responsible, and the press got ahold of it-heads would roll. This Xu’s continued usefulness to his employer, maybe even his life, might depend on the Cahills keeping their secrets. He had no choice but to stay here.”

Cheney said, “So Xu had to try to get the Cahills off, or make them think he would, to prevent them from giving him up.”

Cheney said, “I wonder if the CIA already suspects Chinese involvement? If so, they probably beat us to this Xu name days ago.”

Savich said, “I’ll speak to Billy Hammond at the CIA again, give him a heads-up. They’re much better placed to follow this up quickly, if they haven’t already.”

“Will he tell you the truth?” Eve asked him.

“I suppose it’s a vague possibility. On the other hand, Hammond was a stone wall when I asked him what kind of intelligence the Cahills were after on Lindy’s computer.”

“It’s possible they don’t know,” Eve said. “I mean, who knew the Forty-niners would be having a winning season?”

They were interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Come,” Cheney called.

The door opened to Agent Andre Devereau. Behind Andre stood Molly Hunt.

“She needs to see you, Cheney, so I brought her back.” Cheney nodded, and Agent Devereau closed the door behind Molly.

Eve was on her feet. “Molly? What’s happened? Are you all right?”

Molly was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, sneakers on her feet. Her vivid red hair was wild around her head, no makeup on her face. She looked like a teenager.

She said to Eve, “A phone call came in a half-hour ago. You told me never to pick up, and to record every call, and I did. I didn’t want to stay there and wait, so I came right over. Eve, call my home number. The voice mail access code is one-five-five-nine.”

Eve picked up the landline and punched the speakerphone. She dialed Molly’s number, and they all heard it ring, heard her punch in the code. There was the date and time, then a muffled gravelly voice.

“Mrs. Hunt, the mole on the back of your left thigh is very sexy. I’m thinking you and I will get together after your murderer husband is underground. It will be you and me and Emma. She can teach me to play the piano, and I can teach her-other things. The murdering bastard won’t be with us much longer, Molly-may I call you Molly? I’ll come for you, I promise.”

Eve knew if she even breathed deeply everyone would hear it as she pressed the stop button.

Molly stood as pale as the morning fog snaking over the bay behind her, her hands clenched at her sides. But when she spoke, her voice was calm. “I can’t figure out why he called Ramsey a murderer.”

“He said it twice,” Sherlock said. “Does he believe Ramsey is a murderer because he was presiding over a death penalty trial - namely, the Cahills’?”

Eve walked to Molly, placed her hands on her shoulders. She looked her right in the eye. “Molly, how could this guy have seen you naked?”

Molly ran her tongue along her bottom lip. “The bathroom has a large window looking out at the ocean, right beside the Jacuzzi. Ramsey and I like to-” She broke off, swallowed. “There are blinds, but we never use them. There are no neighbors to look in, after all, and it’s a direct view to the ocean and the headlands beyond.”

Harry said, “Too far from the water to see a mole, even with binoculars. So he may have managed to sneak up to the back of the house and look in on you without your seeing him. It could have been any time, even before he shot Ramsey. Think, Molly. Do you remember anything-maybe a shadow you couldn’t identify, a flash of movement out of the corner of your eye?”

Molly shook her head. “It was raining last night while I was bathing. When I looked at the window, I only saw the raindrops streaming down the glass, nothing else, I’m sure.”

“He could have managed to get to the window unseen by the deputies guarding the house,” Eve said. “It’s a big property, with lots of ways in, if one climbs the cliff or sneaks through Mr. Sproole’s yard. It’s a huge risk to take, though. It’s more likely he saw you a week or more ago. When he was planning to shoot Ramsey.”

Sherlock said, “Molly, did you tell the marshals?”

Molly nodded. “They weren’t happy. They checked around the house right away, but they didn’t find anything. You know the rain was heavy.”

Molly stared at each of them in turn. “He’s going to kill Ramsey unless you find him. How many more times can he fail? He was promising me, you heard the certainty in his voice. He’s going to kill Ramsey.”

Savich hated the despair in her voice, and he snapped her back. “Molly, have you taken a bath every night since last Thursday night when Ramsey was shot?”

She started. “Well, no. I’ve been so exhausted, I’ve hopped in and out of the shower, but last night-” She gave a hoarse laugh. “Last night I needed to calm myself down, get it together for the children. I soaked for a good thirty minutes. And maybe he was outside, watching me, and I didn’t know it-I was lying there, my eyes closed, and I was so thankful Ramsey had survived the elevator attack-” She looked at them blindly. “I know he was there watching me, all the time, he was watching me. ”