Catherine Coulter: Whiplash

"No one's here," Bowie said after racing through the apartment. "They took her somewhere."

"Agent Richards!"

Bowie ran over to Deputy Henry Mote, who was bent over near the door. "Look, sir, it's a cell phone."

Bowie quickly punched in the first speed-dial number.

Savich answered on the second ring. "Sherlock? Why didn't you call before now? What's going on up there? Are you all right?"

"Savich, it's Bowie. I'm on Sherlock's cell phone. We found the cell on the floor of Mick Haggarty's apartment. I wasn't sure whose it was so I speed-dialed the first number. Look, she's gone. We know Jane Ann Royal and Mick Haggarty have her.

"Sherlock figured it out, but they got her first. Yes, I understand. Have the helicopter drop you close to the police station in Millstone." Bowie listened a moment longer, then hung up. He turned to the deputies. "I'm going to call your chief. I was just talking to Agent Savich. I'll need you to get every single deputy on your local force out looking for Jane Ann Royal, Mick Haggarty, and Agent Lacey Sherlock. I'll have photos of them very soon, and the license plates of their cars."

Erin said, "So they took Sherlock's car, and Jane Ann has hers. Where's Mick's?"

"I don't know. Let me find out what he drives." It only took three minutes. He called Millstone's chief of police, Brenda Crocker, who looked up the license plate numbers and got things rolling. Photos were on their way.

Within ten minutes Bowie had done everything he could think of. What else? There was always something else to do.

He sat down on the arm of a big easy chair, obviously where Mick Haggarty sat while drinking beer and watching baseball games. "I've screwed up big-time," he said to Erin.

"You? In what way?" she asked absently as she checked out some framed photos on the wall. An older man and woman, probably Mick's parents. Two young kids. His brothers? Then something else-Erin pulled down what looked like a gold-framed certificate of some sort, set by itself in the middle of the wall. A place of honor.

"Don't try to jolly me out of this," Bowie was saying, disgust in his voice. "I shouldn't have left her alone. I shouldn't have gone to New Haven."

Erin said. "They aren't idiots, Bowie. Listen, I'll bet they're thinking fondly of the Canadian border about now, maybe taking her with them as a hostage. Don't you think?"

Erin didn't believe that for a minute, but it didn't matter. "We've got everyone on the planet out looking for both of them." She paused a moment, took the certificate off the wall. "Would you look at this."

Bowie rose and went to her, looked down at the framed certificate. "It's an acting award from Belson College Summer Stock Theater." Bowie looked up, clearly impatient. "Mick got a special commendation for his role as Hamlet last year." He handed it back to her. "So what?"

"I've been to some of the plays they've put on during the summer at Belson College. It's a nice outdoor theater set off to one side of campus, smack up against the woods, all by itself. It's only got people around when there's rehearsal or performances. I've been picturing the theater in my mind, how you snake your way through the woods from the parking area. There are several buildings behind the stage, for the actors to hang out, changing areas, for stage settings, whatever. I'm wondering where they'd take Sherlock, and just maybe-"

He stared at her a long moment. "Mick and Jane Ann would know all about this area, know the buildings on the Belson campus. Only one way to find out, Erin. We can call for more help on the way."

Kesselring grabbed the side of his neck as he fired toward her, once, twice, but Sherlock had fallen belly-flat the instant before he'd fired. He fired three more bullets, fast, all of them going well over her head. Had she been standing, any of the rounds could have killed her.

He dropped an unconscious Jane Ann to the floor and crouched down behind some luggage. "Where did you get that gun?" he shouted.

"Surprise, Andy."

"It's not your SIG-I'd be dead if your damned SIG weren't in my belt because you would have emptied your clip into me. So what do you have? Maybe a small ankle piece? One more bullet, right? Or was that your only one?"

Sherlock shouted back, "I guess it'll have to be one of life's mysteries, Andy, until it's too late for you." She knew it was dangerous to let him hear her, but it was her only chance.

"I hate a smart mouth on a woman. I'm going to find you and gut-shoot you, Agent, listen to you beg me to kill you. That's what I wanted to do to Royal but there wasn't time. I nearly kicked his ribs in. If it hadn't been for that damned private investigator who broke into Royal's office-"

Sherlock called out over him, "That damned investigator's name is Erin Pulaski. Fact is, it was Erin who brought all of you down, Andy. You found out who she was, fast."

"Did you think I would not realize who she was? Three federal agents hanging around her, so close to her none of you realized she fit the exact description of that witness, until it was too late. Or it should have been too late. She should have blown up in that stupid Hummer of hers, but it all went wrong. The device I planted worked perfectly, but somehow she knew there was a bomb. I couldn't believe it when I watched her jump, no hesitation at all. Just a couple more seconds and she'd be blown up. How did she know?"

"Another smart woman. We appear to litter the ground, don't we? You know what, Andy? A woman is going to bring you down." Keep talking, Andreas. Spill it all out.

Kesselring yelled, "You're about as smart as Royal, that brain-dead slug, and this rapacious cow on the floor."

"Smart enough to shoot you in the neck."

"Do you really have one more bullet in that gun of yours, Agent? Or maybe you're bluffing me. You don't have any more bullets, do you? Is that why you're trying to goad me? Make me lose it and come close enough for you to jump me? Good luck, Agent. I could break your skinny neck with one hand."

Sherlock was elbow-crawling away toward the far end of the clothes rack as she called out, "Maybe I'll put the next bullet between your stone-dead eyes, Andy."

"Don't you call me Andy!" He was angry, really angry, but not out of control enough to pull the trigger wildly. But she wanted him to keep coming, get him out in the open, to keep shooting.

Rile him, rile him . She called out, "You don't think much of women, do you, Andy? Why? Is it that after a while women see beyond your good-looking face to the cold-blooded loser?"

He growled deep in his throat, she heard it, and flattened herself, face against the dusty floor. He fired once, twice, the second bullet coming too close. She elbow-crawled two more feet back. How many bullets did he have left? Three, maybe four? Did he have another magazine? Not that it mattered, he had her SIG, and he'd used it to kill Mick. Then Sherlock finally realized what this was all about. She called out, "You must have been really pissed when Jane Ann called you in a panic, told you what she and Mick had done to me. You thought you had everything under control, thought you'd won, and now this debacle. Is that when you decided to come and mop up? Remove all three of us in a big shoot-out? Now you think you're home free?"

He said, "I would have shot Jane Ann when I killed her loser husband, but she must have guessed something wasn't right, which is why she had her boy Mick there. As insurance. I should have killed them both right there, but then the two of you showed up. It took you long enough to figure it out, Agent."

That was the truth, Sherlock thought. Mick had scrambled her brains good when he'd clouted her, and the drug Jane Ann had added to the orange juice hadn't helped. She did know one thing for sure-her only chance was to keep pushing him, to make him lose control. She paused a moment to look through the clothes. He'd stood up behind the luggage, trying to find her, fanning his gun from one end of the clothes rack to the other, his left hand still slapped against his neck. No way could she take the chance of shooting at him from this distance. If she didn't put him down with her second and last bullet, he'd walk over here and shoot her dead.