Blowout Read Free Page B

nodded for him to continue.
    “It’s the only logical explanation I can come up with. We’ve got to hurry, Sheriff. You need to get your deputies together so we can search around the house. She ran away again, and I’m very worried for her safety. She believes a man is trying to kill her, and whatever’s going on, something’s just not right.”
    “I can see that you’re worried, Agent Savich. You spoke of driving her back to her home. Where was her home?”
    Savich was ready to throw Sheriff Harms through the front window. Time was not on their side. She was out there on this dark night, it was cold, and she had been so disturbed he knew she’d do something stupid. He could see her huddling in the thick trees, shuddering with cold, crying, her hysteria building until maybe the man would find her. Or maybe she’d just die of fright without his help.
    “She lives in a big house on Clayton Road. We have to hurry, Sheriff,” Savich said, rising. “It’s about a fifteen-minute drive.”
    “Just a moment, Agent Savich. You said she was gone when you came back downstairs?”
    “Yes, I’d left her in the living room, told her not to move an inch. I was coming back down to give her some hot tea, hoping to calm her down, to get some sense out of her.”
    “She didn’t tell you who this man was who was trying to kill her?”
    Savich shook his head. Sherlock said, “If my husband says this woman is in danger, Sheriff, she’s in danger. Do you think we can get out to that house, begin a search for her?”
    “You said it’s a big house on Clayton Road?”
    Savich wanted to coldcock the old guy, but since this was a local situation, no matter he was at the center of it, he held to his patience. “Yes, on top of a small rise on the left side of Clayton Road; it’s a narrow road off Route 85. All the downstairs lights are on, so it’s like a beacon.”
    Sheriff Harms began fiddling with a tooth-chewed pencil on top of his desk. “Would you say it’s no more than a half mile off Route 85 on Clayton Road?”
    “That’s right. Maybe twelve, fifteen minutes from Blessed Creek. Look, Sheriff, time is running down. If I have to call in the Philadelphia Field Office to get some action, I will, but it will take time. I don’t think this woman has much of that left. We’ve got to get out to that house and find her.”
    Sheriff Harms slowly rose, leaned forward, his palms flat on the desktop. “You’re talking about the Barrister place, Agent Savich. Biggest house around these parts, you’re right about that. You said the woman lived there?”
    “Yes, of course, she lived there. It’s a lovely house, really big, but nice and warm, cozy. There was a fire burning in the living room fireplace. No one was there, no husband, no help, no one. I searched the place top to bottom.”
    “After the bats knocked you out of the attic, you came back downstairs? And she was gone?”
    “Yes. Maybe she heard me crashing out of the attic and it terrified her. She must have run outside to hide in the woods.”
    “What did the woman look like, Agent Savich?” Sheriff Harms spoke slowly, his faded blue eyes intent on Savich’s face.
    “She was about thirty, thin. Her hair was long, straight, dark, parted in the middle. I don’t remember her eye color, but her face was very pale. She wasn’t dressed for winter, I can tell you that, which is part of why I’m concerned.”
    Sheriff Harms said, “That was an excellent description, Agent Savich. Now, we can go out to the Barrister place and look around. We can shine big lights all through the woods, make a lot of racket—but the thing is, that’d be a waste of time.”
    “I don’t see how, Sheriff.”
    “Well, the fact is, Agent Savich, the Barrister house has been abandoned for well nigh thirty years now. There’s no one there, hasn’t been for half my lifetime.”
    Sherlock said, frowning, “Thirty years? You’re saying that no one’s lived there for that long a