Catherine Coulter - Backfire

Xu still didn’t pull down the Beretta. He motioned the guy to step back, then held himself still and waited for relief.

“I see from the number of pills still in the bottle you’ve been going light on the pain meds. Not a bad idea, given who could come through that door.”

“Take another step back. I don’t want you so close to me.”

Xu watched him take two steps back.

“Why did you kill that FBI agent who was on my back?”

“Well, you see, when she knocked you down, she was out there in the open. I had a nice clear shot, and I took it.”

“You’re saying it wasn’t about me? You wanted to kill her?”

“Oh, yeah, I wanted her dead, but I figured what I was seeing was pretty interesting, so why not see where it led me? Hey, kill one bird and save the other.”

He opened his mouth, but the man raised a gloved hand. “No reason for you to ask me any more right now. Maybe if we become BFFs, I’ll tell you everything.”

The medication was numbing the pain in his arm but blurring his brain as well. Xu said, “Were you the one who tried to kill Judge Hunt?”

The guy nodded. “I thought I nailed the bastard, but he turned at that last second. Can you believe the rotten luck? But still, it was a good shot, he should have died.”

“But he didn’t. Did you try to take him out again in the hospital?”

Xu would swear the guy puffed up with pride.

“I gave that plan a lot of thought, even got me some blood from a patient in the hospital to smear on the walls of the elevator shaft to drive the Feds nuts, but-”

Xu interrupted, “It was a ridiculous plan.” He stopped talking at a fierce jab of pain, held himself perfectly still, waiting for the meds to kick in and kill the pain once and for all. This idiot who’d shot through an elevator hatch wanted to help him?

Xu said, “I want to see you. Take off those sunglasses and that ball cap now or I’ll drill you between the eyes.”

“Okey-dokey, fair enough, but ready yourself. You’re in for a big whopper surprise.”

The ball cap and the sunglasses came off. Xu stared, so stunned that for a moment he didn’t feel the pain in his arm.

“Got you, didn’t I?”

Xu could only nod.

“Fact is, I mean, who can you trust in this sad world?”

“You,” he said. “Maybe I can trust you. You’re as bad as I am.”

“No, you’re wrong about that. I’m worse.”

Judge Sherlock’s home

Pacific Heights, San Francisco

Wednesday evening

Sean was teaching Cal and Gage how to play Flying Monks, the latest computer game his grandmother had presented to him when they’d first arrived. It was always a treat for Sherlock to watch her five-year-old teaching younger children, and three-year-old Cal and Gage looked utterly absorbed, nodding and all serious about the rules Sean was laying on them. Flying Monks -another new game Sherlock would have to master.

She caught herself thinking that kids were so different now, an observation probably made by every single generation in man’s long timeline. She smiled to herself. Time always passed, and everything always changed. No kid today could imagine the world without a small device called a cell phone that would soon do everything but make them Kool-Aid. And now you could ask your phone a question and it would answer. But people, she thought, people themselves never changed.

Cal shouted, “I got you, Gage. I’ve moved up two ranks. I’m flying! I’m a Major Monk now.”

Sherlock felt bone tired, and was trying not to show it, but she didn’t mind, because she’d succeeded in fooling Sean. She’d hidden her bandage well enough-thank God for all her curly hair-and he’d accepted her being gone Tuesday night, inquiring only if Emma had wondered why he hadn’t come to see her. Sherlock had lied to him cleanly. “Of course Emma wanted to know where you were, Sean. I told her you’d promised yourself to your grandparents and you’d never break a promise.”

“You didn’t tell her I went to see Rory and the Last Duck, did you, Mama?”

“Nope.”

“She doesn’t know Grandpa and I ate two buckets of kettle corn, does she? I don’t want her to think I’m a pig.”

“Nope.”

Sean looked thoughtful, an identical expression to his father’s. “There’s so much to do, Mama. Sometimes I just don’t know.”

His grandmother had walked in then with a freshly baked plate of chocolate-chip cookies, and Sherlock forgot to ask him what he just didn’t know.

She sensed Dillon behind her and heard his deep voice. “Here, sweetheart.” He leaned down, kissed her mouth, and handed her a cup of hot tea. “Drink it down. Then I’m thinking it’s time for you to hang it up for the night.”

“But-”

“Dr. Kardak said you’d give me grief and I was going to have to be the enforcer. You’ve done well, stayed nice and quiet all afternoon and evening. Now it’s time to let your brain and your body knit themselves back together while you have pleasant dreams.” He paused for a moment. “I’m thinking I have some good ideas on how to help you make that happen.”

She took a sip of tea, looked up at him. “You’re going to read me a bedtime story?”

“I could, but I hadn’t planned to.”

“I wonder what you could possibly have in mind?”

He smiled at her. “You finish your tea and we’ll see. Molly called, said Ramsey misses you since you were a civilizing influence on all those males around him. She’ll be here with Emma soon to pick up Gage and Cal. Ah, if you like, I can remove Sean before Emma comes in.”

“I’ll watch Cal and Gage,” Evelyn Sherlock said. “I’ve got the power as long as I’ve got these chocolate-chip cookies.”

Sherlock said, “Maybe it’d be good to take Sean upstairs, otherwise he’ll be so excited about seeing Emma it’ll be difficult to get him to bed.”

Half an hour later, Sherlock was lying in bed, the pill Dillon fed her quashing the remnants of pain in her head.

Now, what else did her husband have in mind, as if she couldn’t guess? She heard him singing a country-western tune in the bathroom, a song James Quinlan, a fellow agent and musician, had written about a man who loved wild broncos, wilder women, and black gold. When he came into the bedroom a few minutes later, he was wearing only pajama bottoms, slung low on his hips.

Sherlock thought she’d swallow her tongue. “Don’t move, please.”

He obligingly stood still, arms at his sides, backlit in the bathroom doorway, smiling at her. “I missed you scrubbing me down.”

“Me, too.” It was true. As a shower mate, Dillon was a keeper.

“How’s your head?”

“What head?”

He was grinning when he came to stand over her. “Life’s been a tangle, hasn’t it? I say we take a small break from the madness. What do you think?”

It was amazing how good she felt in that moment. This was probably the best idea she’d heard in a very long time.

Eve’s condo, Russian Hill

Tuesday night

“You’ve got a burn just there.” Harry lightly touched his fingertip to a red spot on Eve’s neck.

She never looked away from him. “I could put some more burn cream on it, or maybe you could kiss it and make it well.”