She heard it again, another sound, this one like footsteps. No, she was becoming hysterical.

She listened intently, for a long time, and it was silent now, but she was still afraid. She thought she’d rather be in the dentist’s chair than lying there in the dark, listening. Her mouth was dry, and her heart was beating so loud she thought anyone could hear it, track the sound right to her.

Enough was enough. Nicola got out of bed, grabbed the poker by the small fireplace, turned on the light, and looked in every corner of her bedroom.

Nothing, no one was there.

But then she heard something again, something or someone running, fast. She ran to her living room, to the large glass doors that gave onto the balcony. The doors weren’t locked, they were cracked open.

She ran to the railing and looked down at a shadow, and it was moving.

Then she smelled the smoke. She ran back into her condo and saw smoke billowing out of the kitchen. Oh God, he had set a fire. She grabbed up her phone and dialed 911. She ran into the kitchen, saw that there was no way to put out the fire. She had time only to pull on jeans, shoes, and a shirt, grab her purse and coat, and she was out of there, banging on her neighbors’ doors as she ran. She knew he was waiting downstairs, probably hiding in the shadows between the buildings across the street, knowing that she’d get out alive since she’d been on the balcony looking down at him.

She stayed close to the building, huddling with the neighbors, watched the fire trucks arrive, watched the chaos, the evacuation of everyone in the building. No one died, thank God. Actually, only her condominium was destroyed, and the one next to it slightly burned and smoke-damaged.

But he hadn’t cared if the whole building had burned. He just wanted to make sure she was dead. She heard a firefighter say to the chief, “The fire was set. The accelerant is in the kitchen of 7B.”

She realized in that moment that Senator John Rothman had burned her condo, or had it burned, with the hope that she’d be burned with it. He wanted her dead.

Since she had nothing left, since she had only her purse, it wasn’t hard to decide what to do.

She spent the night in a temporary Red Cross shelter, watching to see if John would come looking for her. She even gave them a false name. The next morning, the volunteers gave her some clothes. She had decided during the night what she was going to do. Before she left Chicago, she used her ATM card, then cut it up.

An hour later, she was headed for San Francisco.

TWENTY-FIVE

Savich and Sherlock were back the next morning with coffee and bagels.

“Nonfat cream cheese,” Sherlock said, pulling out a plastic knife. “Dillon refuses to allow any high cholesterol in his unit.”

Savich, who’d been studying Dane’s face, said, “We’ve decided that you two are going to stay in today. Sorry about that, Nick, but Dane will doubtless try to go find the bad guys unless someone with staunch resolve keeps him here. You willing to take on the job?”

“Yes, he will do as he’s told,” Nick said as she gave Dane a bagel smeared with cream cheese.

He took one bite and turned green.

“You’re still nauseous?” Sherlock said. “Not to worry, it’ll ease off soon.”

“How do you know?” Dane asked, staring at Sherlock. “Don’t tell me you’ve been around another gunshot wound?”

“Well, the thing is,” Sherlock said, paused, looked at her husband, then quickly away. “I sort of got a knife thrown into my arm once-a very long time ago.”

“Yeah, a really long time,” Savich said. “All of two and a half years ago.”

“Well, it was before we were married and it feels like we’ve been married forever.” She gave her husband a fat smile and said to Dane, “True, it wasn’t much fun, but I was up and working again within two, three days.”

“I think she felt nauseous,” Savich said, his voice emotionless as a stick, “because the doctor gave her four shots in the butt. I remember that I cherished every yell.”

Sherlock cleared her throat. “That is neither here nor there, the whole thing’s best forgotten.”

Savich said, “Forget the four shots in your butt or the knife wound?” He was trying for a light touch, but Dane heard the fear in his voice, a fear he still hadn’t gotten over. He’d felt that fear for his brother when they’d been younger, whenever Michael had put himself in harm’s way, something both of them did playing football, white-water rafting, mountain climbing. They’d done so much together before and during college. Then came Michael’s time in the seminary and Dane’s trip to Case Western to become a lawyer, something he’d hated to his bones. At least it hadn’t taken him all that long to realize he wanted to be a cop.

Sherlock said, “Okay, no more about that incident. We’ve got a murderer who’s running scared, so scared that he tried an insane stunt yesterday. He’s insane, desperate, or both. We’ve been trying to find out what Linus Wolfinger did during that year after he graduated and before he came to work here and met Mr. Burdock, the owner of Premier Studios.”

“And not having much luck,” Savich said. “MAX is pretty upset about the whole thing. He just can’t seem to find anything, as of yet-no credit-card trail, no employment trail, no purchase of a vehicle.”

Sherlock said, “So we’ve decided to ask him, straight up. What do you think, Dane?”

“Why not the direct approach?” Dane said and shrugged. “It’ll give us a story to check, not that it’ll matter. I’m beginning to believe that none of them is telling the truth.”

“At least everyone is consistent,” Savich said.

Sherlock’s cell phone trilled the leading notes to the X-Files theme. “Hello?”

“This is Belinda Gates. We’re in really deep trouble here. Maybe.”

“What happened?”

“I was watching a cable station last night, nine o’clock. I saw The Consultant, the third episode.”

“Oh no,” Sherlock said, “we are in trouble.”

Three hours later, LAPD Detective Flynn, feeling harassed, said to the group of ten people crowded into Dane’s Holiday Inn room, “The program director, Norman Lido, of KRAM, channel eight locally, said Frank Pauley from Premier Studios sent him the episode and gave him permission to show it, told him they’d canceled the show, but maybe KRAM would like to pick it up. He liked the episode, showed it last night. This particular cable channel reaches about eight million people here in southern California.”

“Didn’t the idiot know why the show had been pulled?” Dane said. “The whole world knows.”

“Claims he didn’t know,” Flynn said, shrugged. “Of course he’s lying through his teeth. Why, I ask you, would any person with any sense of ethics want to air this show?”

The answer was money, of course, but it hung in the air, unspoken. He’d probably been paid a bundle to show the episode.

Flynn said, “When I told him it was all over the news, the jerk smirks and tells me he never watches the networks, they’re a bunch of has-beens. I told him that even minor stations like his had it plastered all over their local news. The jerk just stood there and pretended to be surprised. It was really close, but I didn’t slug him.”

“Why didn’t Belinda Gates call me last night?” Sherlock said. “Right after she saw the show?”

“We’ll ask her,” Delion said.

“She didn’t know what her husband had done?”

Delion shrugged. “Don’t know yet. But Sherlock and Savich are off to see Pauley. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. Depending on what he does say, I’m ready to haul his ass off to jail or stake him out in the middle of Pico Boulevard at rush hour.”

“At least there haven’t been any reports yet of any murders similar to the ones committed in episode three,” Flynn said.