“Nah, it wasn’t any big deal—oh, all right, that was a little much, but I’m better every day, Dillon. Don’t worry.”

Still, he worried, and she knew he worried, and they’d both be worried for another month or so, until she was one hundred percent again.

12

AFTER SAVICH DRANK DOWN half a glass of tart lemonade, something Sherlock made very well, he said, “Mr. Maitland called. Lissy, our sixteen-year-old-girl bank robber, is no longer under guard at the hospital.”

“What?”

He nodded. “Yep, she’s in the wind, probably with the help of the missing getaway driver.” He told her what Mr. Maitland had said.

Her first comment was, “Daugherty isn’t stupid, Dillon, he’d spot fake creds in a nanosecond. And if they weren’t fake—now that worries me.”

“You’re right,” he said. He dialed up Mr. Maitland, punched on the speaker. “Sorry it took so long. Both Sherlock and I are here now.”

Maitland said immediately, “Bless Daugherty’s little pointed head, he finally remembered the last name of the agent on the FBI ID the guy flashed at him—Coggins. Turns out he’s Peter Coggins, an agent in the Richmond field office. Agents got over to his house fast, found his sister untying him and pulling duct tape off his mouth. She says she was pretty surprised to see him tied up on the kitchen floor. She’d brought him over a strawberry pie.”

“That sure sounds good,” Savich said.

“Yeah, it does. At least the guy didn’t kill him. Now, here’s how it went down, according to Coggins. He was mowing his backyard when this young guy trots up and asks for directions to Interstate Ninety-five into Washington. When Coggins turned to point, the guy bashed him over the head, stole his ID and his SIG. The Richmond SAC had just gotten our alert about Lissy Smiley escaping and called me pronto.”

Sherlock said. “Is Agent Coggins okay?”

“Yeah, the doc said he’s got himself only a minor concussion, which, naturally, doesn’t make his head feel any better. He should be back in the saddle in a couple of days.”

Savich said, “As you know, you asked us not to work this case, sir. This guy, do you have any ideas about him?”

“Oh, yeah, we know who he is—her cousin. Actually, we already knew about him. Agents were trying to locate him in connection with the case, as soon as we got positive ID on Lissy and the others. Oh yes, you guys won’t believe this. As you know, a major rule for bank robbers is never carry ID. Well, this crew did, all nice and neat in their pockets. Pretty unprofessional of them and good for us. Now, the cousin wasn’t at his address in Winnett, North Carolina, and nobody had seen him for a good six weeks. He told a neighbor he was going backpacking in Europe for a couple of months. Both Daugherty and Coggins identified him from his driver’s license photo, so we already have it plastered everywhere.”

“Does he own a car?”

“No, a motorcycle.”

Sherlock asked, “What’s the guy’s name, sir?”

“Victor Nesser. His mother was Jennifer Smiley’s half sister, Marie. She married a Jordanian, Hasam Nesser, Victor’s dad, and the two of them moved back to Jordan four years ago. Victor was nearly seventeen at the time and didn’t want to go—we don’t know why—so he went to live with his mom’s half sister, Jennifer Smiley. At the time, Lissy Smiley was twelve years old.”

“Bad choice,” Sherlock said. “So Jennifer seduced him over to the dark side?”

“Maybe, or he went willingly enough,” Maitland said. “But don’t forget, when all the bank robberies began, Victor wasn’t a seventeen-year-old kid anymore, he was an adult, twenty-one years old.”

Savich said, “I wonder what his relationship is with Lissy Smiley. That was quite a risk he took to get her away. Something’s there, something deep.”

“Don’t know, but we need to find out. Jennifer Smiley hails from Fort Pessel, Virginia, a small town down near the North Carolina border that dates back to the Civil War. We already had agents search the Smiley house for the stolen money and interview everyone of interest, but they haven’t found out anything real helpful yet about her or Victor Nesser. Lots of rumors about the family, but, bottom line, they kept themselves real private, never socialized, seldom did business locally, except grocery shopping, that’s about it. Oh, yeah, and they liked the local KFC.

“They paid their bills, never pissed anyone off, so no one thought about them much. They were just sort of there.