The house was dead, had been dead for a very long time. His heart pounded as he looked at the front door that was barely hanging onto its hinges, studied it, and accepted what he saw because there was simply no choice. He closed his eyes a moment, seeing the woman clearly in his mind’s eye, realizing how very pretty she’d been, not having noticed it at first because she’d been so frightened.
He turned and walked back to the car.
Sheriff Harms said as he turned on the engine, “Her name was Samantha Barrister. She was murdered here back in August of 1973.”
“I want to see a photo of her,” Savich said.
Sherlock took his hand, held it tight.
T WO HOURS LATER , Sherlock awoke to find Dillon standing by the bedroom window, staring out at the falling snow.
She got up and walked to him, and wrapped her arms around his back.
“Did I wake you?”
“No. You’re thinking about her, aren’t you, still trying to find logical reasons for what happened.”
“There aren’t any. It’s driving me nuts. Even though I’ve been over and over it, I guess I can’t get around the fact that I’ve experienced something, well, I guess you’d have to call it otherworldly.”
She kissed his shoulder. “Then perhaps it’s time to simply accept it.”
“But the reasonable part of my brain doesn’t want to.” He turned and pulled her into his arms, buried his face in her hair.
“There’s another thing, Sherlock, something I just remembered. I called you when I had the blowout. It wasn’t ten minutes later that she came running out of the woods. I insisted on calling for help, but I couldn’t get through on the cell phone. But then later, at the house, after she was gone, I called you and it worked just fine again.”
She held him more tightly. “It’s possible the signal was better there.” She paused a moment, touched her fingertips to his jaw. “I just remembered something else, Dillon.”
He wasn’t going to like this, he knew he wasn’t.
“You called me at about eight o’clock.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“The second time you called me, it was only about a quarter after eight.”
He sucked in his breath. “No,” he said, “no, that’s just not possible. That would mean that all of what happened—no, that’s ridiculous. I spent a lot of time with her, even more time just searching that house. No, I can’t accept that all that happened in fifteen minutes.”
“Maybe we’re both wrong about the time. That’s the most reasonable explanation.” She hugged him again, touched her fingertips to his cheek. “It’s very late. It’s snowing. Sean will be up and raring to go in less than four hours. We’ll have time to discuss this tomorrow; you can decide what to do then.
“There’s a reason she came to you, Dillon. You’ll have to act. But sleep is the best thing for you now.”
He came back to bed, held her close against him, and prepared to stew about it until morning. He knew he would have to investigate what happened to this woman, even if he never convinced himself that what had happened was real. But he didn’t lie there staring at the dark ceiling as he fully expected. He fell into a dreamless sleep in three minutes.
A T SIX - THIRTY Saturday morning, Savich’s cell phone played the opening of Chariots of Fire. His first thoughts were of Samantha Barrister and the strange events she’d put him through.
“Savich.” He listened a moment, then looked over at Sherlock, who whispered urgently, “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
Savich flipped off his cell phone, then turned on the bedside lamp. “Mr. Maitland is sending a helicopter to take us back to Washington.”
Sherlock said, “Goodness, it’s something that big? Something so big we can’t even build one snowman with Sean?”
“Yeah. You’re not going to believe this.”
CHAPTER
3
SUPREME COURT BUILDING
FIRST STREET N.E. AND EAST CAPITOL STREET
WASHINGTON, D.C.
LATE FRIDAY NIGHT
A SSOCIATE J USTICE Stewart Quinn Califano stepped out of the underground garage, bent his head against the cold wind blowing in his face, and walked around to the front of the Supreme Court Building. He paused to look up at the sixteen marble columns at the west entrance that supported the famous pediment and the words incised on the architrave above: Equal Justice Under Law. He loved the neoclassical style of this magnificent building, one that would be his home until he shucked off his mortal coil, or retired, something he couldn’t begin to imagine. Every time he entered, it was like walking into a Greek temple. Once inside, he greeted the three guards at the west entrance security checkpoint, making a point to ask about their wives, Amanda, Georgia, and Tommie, passed through the airport-like security gate, and stepped into the main corridor of the Great Hall. He paused a moment to give a little salute to the closed-circuit TV camera, not three feet above his head, and made his way through the Hall, his footsteps echoing loudly on the marble floors. He was well aware that every guard on duty tonight already knew he was here, alerted since he entered the garage. Not a single one would be surprised at his presence close on to midnight, even on a bone-cold Friday night in January. It was his habit to come here at all hours.
He paused a moment, as he always did, to admire the monolithic marble columns that rose to a coffered ceiling. The first time he’d visited the Supreme Court Building he’d been twenty-two years old, in his first year at Harvard Law School, and he’d stood there staring at the Great Hall’s incredible beauty and opulent detail, its acres of creamy Alabama marble.
The guards never dared ask him why he came long after closing hours. Truth be told, this was his refuge, a place he found utterly and completely private in the hours when most everyone was safely home. He could come here and be certain no one was listening or looking, the one place where he was safe from prying eyes, endless conversations, endless wrangling, and Eliza, he thought, smiling.
He quickened his pace, giving the Court Chamber at the end of the Great Hall only a cursory look. He walked to the right and paused in front of his chambers, his footsteps echoing loudly. He looked back at the romantic gloom and saw the shifting movements of the guards in their rubber-soled shoes. His hand was already on the doorknob, his eyes on the personalized placard that had been placed there seventeen years before, when he realized he would prefer to be in the library tonight. His inner office would feel too close, too full of recent conversations with Eliza, Fleurette, and Danny, his law clerks, and the tears of one of his secretaries, Mary, who was retiring come March.
Justice Califano turned and walked quickly to the elevators that took him to the third floor and the 500,000-volume library. He heaved a deep satisfied breath as he entered the main reading room. He loved this place, with its hand-carved oak-paneled walls, its soul-deep warmth that came not from the oak and mahogany but from all the books that surrounded him. Here there were no cameras, no electronic eyes to monitor his activities. He took off his coat, his cashmere scarf, and his leather gloves and laid them on a chair at his favorite study table. He took his time adjusting the old-fashioned lighting fixture. He paused a moment and looked toward the beautiful arches. He sat down, leaned back in his chair, and thought about Jackson v. Texas, a death penalty case the four liberal justices had voted to hear that was coming up on Tuesday. They wanted to revisit the Stanford v. Kentucky case of 1989 that allowed by a five-to-four decision the execution of juvenile offenders age sixteen and over. They were hoping to swing him and Justice Elizabeth Xavier-Foxx over to their side to gain a plurality and do away with the death penalty for all minors. It probably wasn’t the best case to push into the court, Stewart thought, since the sixteen-year-old boy had committed three particularly heinous murders. He was, according to his father during his original trial, a psychopath, exhibiting all the classic symptoms from the time he was eight years old. The father had tried to have him committed, but the boy was charming and intelligent, and the psychiatrists and social workers had failed to see through it. Then came the murders. Now he faced a death sentence in Bluff, Texas.