Whiplash

a living, breathing person is dead. Just like you could have been, dead and in a green bag, if you hadn't jumped out of your Hummer in time. Only a matter of seconds, close, too close- She realized she was shaking and forced herself to breathe slowly, in and out. She saw plainclothes agents examining the grounds surrounding the house, looking for footprints, she supposed, and Sherlock speaking to Bowie.

Bowie stared over at her. She could tell from thirty feet that he wasn't happy. Of course she'd awakened when "Jingle Bells" blasted into the silence at three-forty a.m. She'd wanted to leap out of bed and see what was going on, but instead, she held herself still and listened to him search around for his cell phone. She almost shouted to him that he'd left it beneath the sports section of the newspaper. She heard nearly a full verse before he found his cell and "Jingle Bells" abruptly cut off. She heard him talking to Sherlock in a low voice, then heard him moving around, and after a few minutes, she heard the front door close quietly. She swung her legs over the side of her bed, got to her feet, and nearly fell over. She grabbed the bedpost and stood there, hunched over. She swallowed a Vicodin, and that blessed wonder drug finally got her together. She called Sherlock, and when at last she'd felt able to drive safely, she'd carried Georgie to the car, her back cussing at her all the way, and headed for the Royal house.

Bowie stared at her, hands on hips, then trotted over. "You idiot," he said from four feet away in mid-trot. "I can't believe you even managed to get yourself out of bed at dawn and truck over here."

"I didn't truck, I Taurused," and she waved her hand at her rental car, and tried for a smile.

"Don't you try to jolly me out of being mad. Agent Lewis called to tell me you were on your way, and then he had the gall to tell me not to worry, said he and Tucker were right behind you and he'd keep an eye out for any bad guys. He told me not to worry about Georgie either, she was sound asleep."

He reached out his hands to shake her, saw she really wasn't in very good shape, and backed off. To cap it off, she was shivering beneath her black leather jacket. The early morning was cold, the sky filled with gray clouds pressing down signaling rain. He pulled off his own leather jacket and laid it around her shoulders. "No, be quiet. I'll be fine. Okay, Erin, this better be good-what the devil are you doing here? Where'd you stash Georgie?"

"Don't yell at me, you'll wake her up," and Erin nodded over her shoulder.

Naturally, he had to look into the back seat to see his daughter lying on her side, her face against her open palm, two blankets tucked securely around her, covering her to her ears. She was dead to the world. She was a good sleeper, his kid. "I've been wondering how you knew where to come."

She had the nerve to shrug. "No biggie. After you left, I called Sherlock and she told me what happened." She waved her hand toward the big house. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to disturb Georgie, but I had to come, and I knew I couldn't leave her. She never woke up, Bowie, and I worried about that, after last night when she was so upset with us for yelling at each other." She paused a brief moment, tried another smile. "I don't know how you thought of it so fast, but telling her I was an idiot and you were going to make me iron her clothes for her really calmed her fast. That was well done."

He opened his mouth to blast her again, but what came out was, "You wait, Georgie will hold you to it."

"Yeah, she just might." Erin said, looking back toward the house. "What happened here, Bowie, it's unbelievable. Jane A

"I talked with Jane A

She was talking really fast now, and Bowie let her. She was scared and shocked to her heels, and she needed to get it all out.

"I had to come, Bowie," she said again. "Sherlock only had time to tell me the basics because someone was calling her."

She shivered in his jacket and pulled it closer. He held on to his mad like a lifeline. "Then how did you know-" He kicked the tire on one of the local officer's patrol cars. "You heard my cell and you listened, didn't you?"

"It's not every night you jerk awake to Bing belting out 'Jingle Bells.' How could I not listen through the thin apartment walls? Actually, you didn't say all that much. I only heard there was trouble and that's why I called Sherlock."

He looked very close to snarling. "I don't understand why it took you so long to get here. You should have been on my heels."

"I had to take a pain med, let it kick in, and there was Georgie. I'm okay now, really. Agent Lewis and Agent Tucker are right over there, standing against their car. They stuck with me all the way here. I'm not an idiot, Bowie, I wouldn't ever put Georgie in danger. Would you stop being pissed off and tell me what happened? Look at Chief Amos, he's coming this way. He looks pretty shaken."

Chief of Police Clifford Amos looked more than shaken, he looked like he'd been run over by a Mack truck. Two murders and a Hummer blowing up in his town in a matter of days. He'd followed Bowie out of the house, noticed him talking, of all things, to Erin Pulaski, his attempted murder victim. He was tired, and he was angry. "Here now," he called out, "what are you doing here? You're a civilian, you've gotta leave. You shouldn't even be able to walk, not after that Hummer of yours blew itself up all over one of my neighborhoods. You asking to get yourself killed?"

Bowie saw Erin was ready to smart-mouth the chief of police, and that was something he surely didn't need at the crack of dawn. He knew the chief was scared, as well as angry; he was scared himself. He said, "Sorry about this, Chief. I should have told you. I asked her to come. She's acting as a consultant for us. She and Agent Sherlock interviewed Mrs. Royal. We need her here."

Chief Amos wasn't happy to hear that, but he preferred standing here stripping the hide off this damned dance teacher to being back in that stomach-twisting blood-and-gore crime scene. At least Caskie Royal wasn't lying in the middle of those sheets anymore, his brains splattered on the washing machine. He felt bile rise in his throat just thinking of it. He hadn't puked when he'd seen that German guy, Helmut Blauvelt, naked, his face bludgeoned to bits, no fingers, just bloody stumps, but it was close, and he'd sure enough been off his feed for nearly a day. Now this. Seeing Caskie Royal was different because he'd known him. He was a snooty bastard, but now he was very dead, and his pretty wife was rocking back and forth on an antique chair in the living room, whimpering and crying, and nobody knew anything, including him. Why was this bloody nightmare happening in his town? The FBI had flown in here looking all smart and sharp in a black FBI helicopter and taken over, and their guy from New Haven had moved right into his police station, and what had they done? Big zero, that's what. That big guy Savich had played with his computer and the rest of them had just talked to people-talk, talk, talk, no action-and now there was another murder in his town.