“She’s eleven, Judge Hunt told me. He’s so proud of her he would pop his own buttons if the hospital gown had any. All he can talk about is being well enough to go to see her perform next Wednesday.”
“He’ll make it,” Hendricks said. “The man’s strong, he’s got an iron will. I’ve gotten to know him. You know, I keep seeing him jumping down from the judge’s bench in his black robes, flattening those yahoos who invaded his courtroom.”
“I remember that. Goodness, everybody does. It was an incredible thing he did,” Natalie said. Her wrist pager beeped. She smiled at Officer Hendricks—Gavin—rose, and thanked the cooks for feeding her an extraordinary dinner.
Natalie paused in the doorway for a moment, and looked back. She marveled at the bonhomie and goodwill they were all managing, even with that woman lurking in everyone’s mind, out there making more plans for murder. Even if the goodwill was paper-thin, it was valuable. She gave a last smile to Gavin.
Natalie took care of the emergency—Mr. Pitt in room 306B was hyperventilating at the news his grandson had happily delivered about his marrying a Las Vegas dancer—and walked back to the nursing desk. She studied the photo they had of Charlene Cartwright again. Soon this woman’s face would be more familiar to people than the governor’s. The woman had once been pretty, Natalie thought, but now she was beyond that, an odd thing to think, but it was true. She touched her fingertip to the smoker’s lines fanning out from her eyes, the deep scored lines about her mouth. There was a message in the woman’s eyes, wide pale green eyes, flat as a stagnant pond. Those eyes scared Natalie to her toes. The message was, quite simply, both the promise of death of anyone she wanted gone and the acceptance of her own death, should it be demanded of her.
She realized she’d seen eyes like Charlene Cartwright’s once before during a six-month stint in a psych ward. She hadn’t wanted to think about what was going on behind those eyes.
—
Ramsey was asleep, finally, an exhausted sleep that worried Nurse Natalie Chase a bit, but then she managed a reassuring smile at all his family hovering around his bed. “Don’t worry. His vital signs are fine. His football team lost, that’s what flattened him.”
They all smiled and eased.
When Dr. Kardak came in a moment later to have the small slice of pumpkin pie he’d been promised, he looked down at the sleeping Ramsey. “I’d say he had too much fun.” He looked over at Sherlock, lifted her hair off the butterfly strips she’d pressed over the sutures, and, thankfully, left them alone. “Still feeling well, I take it, Agent Sherlock?”
“Fit as a fiddle,” she said, then, “I always wondered why a fiddle was fit? I mean, what does health have to do with a musical instrument?” and Dr. Kardak, forking down a bite of pumpkin pie, swallowed and smiled. “Not a clue.” He looked one last time at the sleeping Ramsey, nodded to the rest of them, and left.
Sherlock was tired. She wished she could curl up next to Ramsey and take a nice long winter snooze, but she knew it wasn’t to be.
Savich said, “You look burned out, sweetheart. You ready to go home to bed?”
“Are you offering another bedtime story, Dillon?”
He lightly touched his fingers to her cheek, studied her exhausted face. “I think it’s got to be sleep without dessert for you tonight.” He turned to Eve and Harry, who were studying Charlene’s photo.
Eve said, “A woman, all the time it was a blasted woman. I mean, it was okay for Xu to be Sue for a while, but Charlene Cartwright is giving our sex a bad name. And look at us, Sherlock, you’ve got an aching head, and I’m still nursing the bruises she shot into my Kevlar in the elevator. Do you think she’s nuts?”
Savich slowly nodded. “She is now. Before she married her husband? If I had to venture a guess, I’d say no.
“You’re right to be worried about Charlene. Xu has no more reason to be here that I can see, unless he’s too weak to drive. Either way, he’ll be out of the picture for a while unless we’re lucky enough to find him.
“Charlene’s a different matter. We are her purpose, her focus. She needs this fight or she might as well float off the planet, that or kill herself. But you know, I really don’t think she’ll give it up until we bury her.” He pulled Sherlock close, closed his eyes for a moment.
He said, “All of us know that informants solve most of our cases. Since her photos are everywhere, we’ve got to hope she stays close.”