“I hope you’ve got something,” Miles said and stomped out of Katie’s office. “Where are Sam and Keely?”

“Linnie took them to the bathroom,” Sherlock said.

Katie said, “Let me go tell my deputies where I’ll be.” She walked off in her long, no-nonsense stride, half her hair falling down her back, the other half tightly held in the clip.

Miles quickly realized that Savich was in pain. He was standing very stiffly, like he was afraid to move at all, and his eyes were a bit unfocused. Miles said, “Sherlock, you got some more pain meds for the Iron Man here?”

Sherlock saw that Miles was right, even though the one he’d had not more than fifteen minutes ago should have kicked in. It scared her to her toes, she couldn’t help it. She touched her fingers to his cheek. “We can’t have this. You’re white about the mouth, partner.” She pulled out a pill bottle, dumped out another pill into her palm, filled a paper cup at the drinking fountain and gave it to him. “Don’t even speak to me until you’ve got it down your gullet.”

At that moment, Savich would have taken the whole bottle if she’d given it to him.

“This is a surprise,” Miles said, stroking his jaw as he looked at Savich. “He didn’t even try to kiss you off.”

“No, he’s not stupid,” Sherlock said as her fingers touched his forearm, willing her fear for him to subside.

Savich liked her touching him. It felt good. And because she knew him well, because she hated his pain, she continued to stroke him.

“He needs to rest, but of course he doesn’t get enough.”

“Let’s have lunch first,” Savich said, “and yes, Miles, we’ve got some stuff to tell you. Don’t fret, sweetheart, I’ll be okay. These pills work pretty fast.” He lifted her hand off his forearm, and lightly squeezed her fingers.

“Dillon, why don’t you sit down over here for just a moment?”

“Let it go, Sherlock,” and she did, as hard as it was. She wished at that moment that they were lying on the beach in Maui and had nothing more to do than suck mai tais through a straw.

At Maude’s Burgers, everyone ordered a thick hamburger except for Savich, who had grilled West Coast swordfish on sourdough bread, which was interesting but had never been close to San Francisco.

“He’s a vegetarian,” Sherlock said to Katie. “Sometimes, on special occasions like this, he has fish.”

“Why is this special, Uncle Dillon?” Keely asked, chewing each long French fry down to the grease.

“It’s special because both you and Sam are heroes. And because we’re all here together. Sam, it doesn’t look to me like you’re really enjoying your hamburger.”

Sam, who couldn’t speak until he’d swallowed the huge bite he’d taken, gave Savich a big, ketchup-smeared smile.

Ten minutes later, when Keely and Sam were eating chocolate chip ice cream, focused on each other and the chocolate chips they were carefully picking from the cones, Savich said, his voice pitched low, “Jimmy Maitland called just a while ago. The math teacher killer hit again, and he wants us back on the investigation. They need fresh eyes and he says we’re the freshest eyes he’s got. He sounds more desperate than I’ve heard him in a long while. The media attention had died down after they’d thrashed over the second killing, but now, with the third, they’ll have ‘serial killer’ plastered all over the TV and the newspapers.”

Sherlock said, “He also wants us to come back for a press conference at headquarters tonight. We have no choice at all in this.”

“There are lots of good people,” Savich said, “but when you mix three different police departments and the FBI together and try to coordinate who’s going to be top dog, it can get ugly real fast.”

Katie said, “I heard that after the second math teacher killing, the politicians started getting into the act.”

“They’ll want to ban every gun in the universe, including the one the shooter’s using,” Sherlock told her. “I can just imagine how difficult it is for the local jurisdictions to deal with this, particularly when the politicians are competing for sound bites.”

Sherlock sighed, her eyes for a moment on Savich’s plate, where most of his swordfish sandwich was left untouched. “One thing is absolutely true: Everyone is scared. Everyone wants to catch this guy, and the pressure keeps growing.”

“Maitland said that the principals in the high schools in the killing areas haven’t put up any road blocks if the math teachers want to leave town for a while,” Savich said. “It’s rather like closing the barn door after the horses have run out.”