Trophies (31 page)

The house no longer felt odd to me but nor
did it feel like the home where I'd grown up. Instead, I felt as if
I saw it with fresh or perhaps more adult eyes. For the first time
I noticed how faded the yellow chintz curtains in the kitchen were
and how scarred the butcher block table. A bit of spiffing up
wouldn't hurt the old house nor any of us living in it. Aunt Edith
had loved her home just as it was. But I no longer had to please
her.

Bringing my professional world into my
private one — being here as Robbie, rather than Charles — forced me
to see the house and myself from this different perspective. By
lowering my barriers and integrating all facets of myself — the
Shakespeare addict and the soldier, the gentleman and the jester,
Puck and Bottom — I no longer had to guard any of those facets nor
hide them away from Patty or Caren or Sherlock. But I might never
have accomplished that feat if Aunt Edith had been here watching
me. In her presence, I might still have felt I had to play one of
my incomplete roles.

Perhaps there was room in my present for my
past. Whether there was also room for my family, well, I wasn't yet
prepared to wrap my tired brain around that. At the instinctual gut
level, that still felt dangerous, in the same category as being
myself before Aunt Edith. I wasn't certain Father or William would
find my choices acceptable to the family honor. William, at least,
had shown little sign of acceptance at the gallery or the hospital.
But nor was I willing to initiate another round of deception; I
didn't wish to give Patty any reason for further disappointment in
me.

But I let my mind drift no further than that.
I was tired, confused, and aching all over. For all my various
facets, it was time for a break.

Best of all, I didn't have to fight with
Patty over attending the gallery's opening party that night. She
didn't even suggest it. Instead, I overheard her calling Prissy
Carr and begging us off. Whatever inducements she used to
accomplish that were nothing I wanted to hear. I snuck away on
tiptoe and wasn't even ashamed of the fact.

After fajitas we assembled banana sundaes,
and after cleaning the kitchen we passed around Bonnie's canteen of
homemade hooch in the den. Patricia made certain it bypassed
Lindsay, but I could see that girl was awaiting her chance. I
cracked my jaw yawning.

"Where the hell has she gotten to?" Sherlock
asked thin air.

I looked at Bonnie. She looked at me. I
grabbed the cordless and punched in Theresa's cell phone from
memory.

It was answered on the third ring. "Who dares
disturb my temper tantrum?"

I recognized the crackling alto even through
the awful static and background clamor. "No need to ask who this
is. There's no mistaking those exquisite manners, that dulcet tone,
the sense to check the Caller ID—"

"Oh, stuff it, you jerk. It's your fault I'm
in this mess."

I leaned back on the long sofa. "And what
mess might that be? By the way, has your flight taken off yet?"

Sherlock, in the blue armchair, was already
shaking his head. Bonnie used the distraction to ease the canteen
out of his reach — okay, out of the reach of anyone except
Sherlock.

"Don't tell me you can't hear that racket,"
Theresa said. "I'd forgotten how noisy these transports are. They
tell me we're somewhere over Montana."

"So what's the — hang on, you're flying from
Del Rio to Boston by way of Montana?"

No wonder she was pissed; Theresa hadn't a
lick of patience, which was generally not considered a desirable
trait in an explosives expert.

"That's the mess." There was a definite note
of furious triumph in her voice, even through the racket.

"Well, it could be worse, you know. You could
be helping Wings call artillery shots. Anyway, why didn't you just
hop a commercial flight?"

"Because I brought my kit. Just in case."

I shuddered. I could picture no turn our
investigation might take that would require the use of high
explosives, or low ones, for that matter. "That was, well,
thoughtful of you, but pardon me if I hope it turns out to be a
misguided notion."

Sherlock snatched the canteen before Bonnie
got it to safety and took a long swig. After all, he was the one
who had to clean up any messes behind us. He surfaced long enough
to say, "Get her ETA."

"Our beloved leader wants to know when you
intend to arrive."

"I'll be there first thing in the morning."
Her voice was firm. "Have coffee ready. And don't worry. They'll
never know what hit them."

I disconnected as Bonnie rescued the canteen.
Sherlock let it go and settled back.

"How many women are in your unit?" Lindsay
asked, a note of calculation in her voice to match the eye she kept
on that canteen.

William was going to kill me.

Sherlock eyed her, grabbed one of the squashy
maroon pillows, and smashed it between his palms. "Two. Why? Are
you volunteering?"

I winced. The thought of pillow stuffing all
over the parlor was not one designed to comfort me, no more than
the thought of the house all over Cambridge should Theresa not work
off her sour mood prior to arrival. Perhaps I didn't feel perfectly
at home yet; that resolution seemed extreme.

Bonnie handed me the canteen. "You missed
last round."

The hooch, Sherlock's recipe and Bonnie's
cooking, burned a path like liquid hydrogen down my gullet and went
supernova in my stomach. I closed my eyes and handed back the
canteen as the shock juddered all the way to my toes. When I
surfaced, Sherlock was watching me. It was that cobra stare again,
damn it. I wished I could have another drink, but Bonnie slid the
canteen down into the cushions of the short sofa, beneath her
protective frown. I'd have to go through her to get it and her
stubborn chin meant that wouldn't be easy. Wrestling with Bonnie
was like competing with Sherlock: it wasn't to be undertaken
lightly.

"You ready, Robbie my Robber?" He didn't wait
for an answer. "Bonnie, tell us about your day."

She shrugged. "When I got there, General von
Bisnon had a courier waiting. I handed over the evidence, refused
dinner, and headed back."

"I thank you for refusing dinner."

"You should. I guarantee, it wasn't homemade
fajitas. But he didn't press."

This was good news; it meant the Kraut was
taking our illicit request seriously, and that meant we might have
our ballistics results before Detective Wingate had his.

Sherlock gave a quick account of our own day,
glossing over my rational time-out. I was grateful but didn't say
so. There were some things he didn't need to know.

"So much for spotting our tails." Bonnie was
sinking into the corner of the short sofa, one pillow behind her
back, another beneath her head, and her hand on the canteen. If she
propped her boots on the glistening coffee table, the wrestling
match would be worth it. "I mean, we'll never see those two cars
again, at least."

"That's right." Lindsay shared the short sofa
but was losing ground fast as Bonnie got comfortable. I wondered
how long it would take before Lindsay was pushed to the floor. "Now
that we know what those two look like, the drivers will get new
ones, right?"

"And that Suburban was fairly demolished by
the time you and that cannon were through with it," Patricia
said.

Sherlock shrugged. "Someone should have
warned him not to mess with my officers. Hell, tails aren't that
hard to spot, and now I know to watch out for at least two of them.
We oughta go for a drive right now, just to flush them out."

"Not now." I was too lazy, too well fed, and
too comfortable. If he wanted to go chasing his own tail he could
do it without me.

"So the question becomes," Caren said, "are
they working together or separately?"

Sherlock glanced at her. "I like the way your
mind works. As you say, that is the question. Opinions?"

"They don't seem to have a lot in common, do
they?" I stretched and dropped my arms along the back of the long
sofa. Patricia sat on one side of me, Caren on the other. It was a
good feeling.

Sherlock, in the blue armchair where Aunt
Edith had once humiliated my father, shook his head. "Not a thing
in common. Not even their target."

"What does that mean?" Patricia asked.

"It means the driver of that Impala is
looking for something Edith Hunter refused to give him. He started
searching this house but was interrupted, then he went and searched
Robbie's condo. The driver of the Suburban, on the other hand," he
turned to face me, "has it in for you personally. That's twice he's
tried to take you out."

"I'd rather he not get a third opportunity."
Caren's voice was quiet.

"Trust me, he won't." I tickled the nape of
her neck. "I'm ready for him now."

"Based on that," Sherlock said, "my guess is,
no, they're not working together. I think Mister Impala set this
chain of events in motion by shooting Edith Hunter, attempting to
get whatever it was she refused to give him. Mister Suburban, on
the other hand, seems less organized to me, more like an
opportunist. I think he's just taking advantage of the situation to
go after Robbie."

"Like a vulture," Lindsay said with
relish.

"Great," I said, "a hungry young
cannibal."

"Well, I hope they trip over each other,"
Bonnie said from her two-thirds of the short sofa. At least I
wasn't the only one who sounded sleepy. "It would be so lovely if
they took each other out. Nice neat solution, huh?"

"But remember what Prissy told me at the
gallery?" I eased my arm onto the sofa back and played in Caren's
hair. The Army shrink was right on that point: texture could be
pure satisfaction. "About the artist Sidnë arguing with Aunt Edith?
I mean it, that woman never raised her voice. I once dropped a
caramel sundae on her favorite expensive rug and she didn't yell
even then."

"What did she do?" Lindsay didn't sound
sleepy at all. Oh, to be that age again, or at least to have that
age's energy.

"She looked at me. I cleaned it up and it
never happened again."

But Sherlock was shaking his head. "No, I
really don't think it's one of the artists."

I stared at him. When Sherlock made a
statement like that, something straight out and unequivocal, it
could be taken as gospel. "Why do you think that?"

"Because both of those drivers gave
themselves away this afternoon. Both of them made the same serious
mistake. And finding them tomorrow is going to be a lot easier than
it was today."

I froze, a sudden hope teasing me. Actually,
I think the room itself froze, because no one seemed capable of
moving. If Sherlock truly had spotted some clue that could identify
our two mystery attackers, then perhaps the entire damned day would
prove worth it.

"Well," Caren finally said, "are you going to
tell us or do we have to beg it out of you?"

Negotiations with this woman would definitely
continue. I stroked her shoulder, warm sultry satin like an
orchid's petal, and she shivered beneath my touch. But she didn't
pull away, nor glance aside at me. I took that as permission to
continue and traced up her neck.

Sherlock held out a hand. Bonnie surrendered
and gave him the canteen. After his slug and the canteen's ritual
return to its rightful owner, he leaned back in the chair.

"None of you saw it? All three of you Brits,
or former Brits, and no one noticed what those two vehicles did at
the condo?"

Everyone's eyes glazed as they thought and
I'm certain mine were no different. The Impala had pulled away from
the curb and drove off down the empty side street while Sherlock
watched and I panicked. After the attack — and this memory was so
clear I believe I actually relived it sitting in the parlor — the
Suburban reversed from the parking lot and roared off down the same
street.

"They both drove on the left," I said.

Patricia gasped.

Sherlock pointed one finger at me. "Bingo.
Mister Impala departed because he got nervous, Mister Suburban
because he didn't like being shot at, meaning they both ran under
stress. And that's when people tend to revert to natural habits,
like driving on one side of the road or the other."

And easy as that, the pressure lifted again
from my shoulders. We were on the right track after all, with the
death clothes, the old Browning, and other stuff we'd found in the
garret. And speaking of shoulders, my stitched-up left one was
hurting again. I pulled that arm into my lap, and only then did I
realize I was still wearing Uncle Hubert's old ring. Suddenly
embarrassed by its gaudy opulence, I pulled it off and stuck it in
my pocket. Maybe no one noticed.

Caren shifted closer beneath my right arm,
which thankfully didn't hurt nearly as much. I wondered if she'd
deliberately chosen to sit on my right for that reason. Because she
could read me so clearly, it was hard to tell what was my
imagination and what were her actual intentions. Whatever her
intentions, though, the opportunity she'd presented me wasn't one
to be missed, and I slipped my hand beneath her hair, stroking the
back of her neck with one finger.

"Unless one of the artists is an accomplice,"
Caren said, giving no clue of my shenanigans. "After all, we've
decided that Mister Suburban is an amateur. Before he embarked upon
his life of crime, perhaps he convinced someone to work with
him."

"To bolster his courage," Lindsay said.

"I
really
like the way your mind
works. If you ever need a job—" Sherlock rubbed his eyes. He'd been
driving a lot of the day and that usually gave him a headache. "As
Robbie can tell you, I save the most important item on the agenda
for last. Doctor Caren, you have the floor."

I stilled my hand; it wasn't fair to distract
her during a briefing. Self-restraint on my part was part of
earning her trust, little as I liked it.