Hemlock Bay

“Good,” the man said and sliced her throat. Blood gushed out. Virginia had only a brief moment to cry out, but even then it wasn’t a cry, it was only a low, blurred gurgling sound.

He turned to Marilyn, smiled, and said, “Let’s go, baby. I’ve missed my little darlin’. You ready, baby?”

Marilyn whispered, “Yes, Timmy, I’m ready.”

He took her hand in his bloody one, and with his other hand, he raised the knife to her throat. At that moment, Savich, who’d been in low conversation with Vi

All hell broke loose. It was pandemonium, people screaming, ru

It was a hostage situation, but it wasn’t a bystander who was the hostage. It was Marilyn Warluski.

Savich spotted the man, finally free of screaming civilians, and he’d recognize that face anywhere. It was Tammy Tuttle’s face-only it wasn’t quite. No, not possible. But Savich would go to his grave swearing that it was a man with the knife held to Marilyn’s throat, and he had two arms, that man, because Savich saw two hands with his own eyes. It had to be someone else, not Tammy Tuttle dressed up like a man. Someone who looked enough like Tammy to fool him. But how had that crazy-looking man gotten so close to Virginia and Marilyn so quickly, and no one had even noticed? Suddenly nothing made sense.

Agents grabbed tourists who were still standing and pushed them to the floor, clearing the way to get to the man and his hostage.

A local police officer, a very young man with a mustache, closed with them first. He shouted at the man to stop and fired a warning shot in the air.

The man calmly turned in the officer’s direction, pulled a SIG Sauer from his pocket so fast it was a blur, and shot him in the forehead. Then he turned around and it seemed he saw Savich, who was at least fifty feet from him. He yelled, “Hey, it’s me, Timmy Tuttle! Hell-ooooo, everyone!”

Savich tuned him out. He had to or he couldn’t function. He knew that the marksmen stationed inside the terminal had Tuttle in their sights. Soon now, very soon, it would be over.

He moved around the perimeter, slid behind the Caribbean Airlines counter with half a dozen agents behind him, and kept moving toward Timmy Tuttle.

Three shots rang out simultaneously. Loud, clear, sharp. It was the marksmen, and they wouldn’t have fired without a clear shot at Timmy Tuttle.

Savich raised his head. He knew he couldn’t be more than twenty feet from Timmy Tuttle. He couldn’t see him. Could they have missed?

Then there were half a dozen more shots, screaming, and deep and ugly moans wrung out of people’s throats from terror.

Savich felt something, something strong and sour, and he turned quickly. He saw Sherlock some ten feet away, just off to his left, with three other agents, rising from her kneeling position, her SIG Sauer aimed toward where Timmy Tuttle and Marilyn had been just moments before. She looked as confused as he felt. It took everything in him not to shout for her to stay back, please God, just stay back, he didn’t want her hurt. And what would hurt her? A man who really wasn’t a man, but an image in whole cloth spun from Tammy Tuttle’s crazy brain?

Savich saw a flash of cloth, smelled the scent of blood, and he simply knew it was Timmy Tuttle. He ran as fast as he could toward a conference room, the only place Timmy could have taken Marilyn. He kicked open the door.

He stopped cold, his gun steady, ready to fire. There was a big rectangular table in the center and twelve chairs, an overhead projector, a fax, and two or three telephones.

There wasn’t anyone in the room. It was empty. But even in here he smelled Virginia’s blood; he could swear that he smelled her blood, rich, coppery, sickening. He swallowed convulsively as he took in every inch of the room.

So Timmy hadn’t come in here. Another room then. Agents on his heels, he ran across the hall to see his wife, gun held in front her, pushing open a door with SECURITY stenciled on the glass.

He was across that hall and into the room in an instant. He saw Sherlock standing in the middle of the room, the three agents fa

She turned slowly to see him in the open doorway, agents at his back, staring at her, shock and panic alive in his eyes. She cocked her head to one side in silent question, then simply closed her eyes and fell over onto the floor.

“Sherlock!”

“My God, is she shot?”

“What happened?”

The other three agents converged.

Savich knew he couldn’t stop, but it was the hardest thing he’d ever done in his life. He yelled, “Make sure she’s all right! Co

He heard one of the agents shout after him, “She’s breathing, can’t see anything wrong with her. The guy wasn’t in here, Savich. We don’t know where he went.”

The window, he thought, Sherlock had been staring at that window. He picked up a chair and smashed it into the huge glass window.

When they managed to climb out the window they’d cleared of glass, they knew, logically, that Timmy Tuttle and Marilyn Warluski couldn’t have come this way since the glass hadn’t been broken. But it didn’t matter. Where else could Timmy Tuttle have gone? They covered every inch of ground, looked into all the buildings, even went onto the tarmac where one American 757 sat waiting, calling up to the pilot. But Tammy or Timmy Tuttle was gone, and Marilyn as well. As if they’d just vanished into thin air, with nothing left to prove they’d even been there except for Virginia Cosgrove’s body, bloodless now, lying on her side, covered with several blankets, local technicians working over her. And the one local officer Timmy Tuttle had shot through the head.

He’d used his right hand when he’d shot that officer.

Savich had shot Tammy Tuttle through her right arm in that barn in Maryland, near the Plum River.

At the hospital, they’d amputated her right arm.

He wondered if they were all going mad.

No, no, there was an explanation.

Somehow a man had gotten into the airport, killed Virginia Cosgrove, and grabbed Marilyn. And no one had seen him until he had Marilyn by the neck and was dragging her away.

No one much wanted to talk. Everyone who had been in the airport appeared confused and looked, strangely, hungover.

Savich and his team went back to the security room. Sherlock was still unconscious, covered with blankets, a local physician sitting on the floor beside her.

No one had much to say. Jimmy Maitland was sitting in a chair near Sherlock.

Savich picked up his wife, carried her to a chair, and sat down with her in his arms. He rocked her, never looking away from her face.

“It’s as if she’s asleep,” the physician said, standing now beside him. “Just asleep. She should wake up soon and tell us what happened.”

Jimmy Maitland said, “We’ve put out an island-wide alert for Timmy Tuttle, with description, and Marilyn Warluski, with description. The three agents with Sherlock didn’t see a single blessed thing. Nada.”

Savich nodded, touched his wife’s hair. He didn’t think he’d be surprised by anything ever again.