Free Point Blank by Catherine Coulter Page A

Fuzz the bartender laugh once in a while. Not often, mind. I’ll tell his brother Cluny myself, don’t you worry about that. Oh, Dillon, I hate this, I really do.”
    As he slipped his cell phone back into his coat pocket, Savich knew it would take him a long time to get Pinky’s face out of his mind. He wondered where his wife had slipped off to. He heard the sharp crack of a rifle, heard yells, saw agents running, guns drawn. He found Sherlock, once again surrounded by agents, kneeling over a fallen agent, her palms pressing hard into her shoulder. Savich shouted her name. She looked up at him, her eyes dilated, her face white as his shirt. “Connie wasn’t standing two feet from me, Dillon.”
    She was all right. Thank God she was all right.
    But Agent Connie Ashley wasn’t. He was relieved she was conscious. When he came down on his knees beside her, she whispered, “Don’t freak out on me, Dillon, I’ll survive.” Blood oozed between Sherlock’
    s fingers despite her pressure. He gently shoved Sherlock away and pressed his wadded-up handkerchief against Connie’s shoulder and put his weight on it. “Yes,” he said, “you’ll be fine. I’ll freak out until the ambulance arrives.”
    Sherlock said, “I think the shot must have been fired from over there—the northeast, right through those trees, maybe from the second floor of one of those apartments.”
    Savich had her go over the exact position of both her and Agent Ashley at the moment the shot was fired. He nodded. He put the angle a bit higher, but said, “Close enough. That’s quite a distance. Okay, let’s see if we can’t find them.” He gave out assignments and yelled as the agents dispersed, “Everyone be careful!”
    He knelt down again beside Connie Ashley. “We’ll get him, Connie, don’t you worry about that.”
    Sirens sounded in the distance. The snow began to fall more heavily. Savich watched his wife wipe Connie’s blood off her hands on the fresh-fallen snow. Tourists were gathering closer now. He knew the media would be there in force at any moment. He hoped the ambulance would get there first.
    He watched his wife as she held Connie’s hand until they arrived.

CHAPTER 7
    MAESTRO, VIRGINIASATURDAY AFTERNOON
    RAFE CHUGGED DOWN half a glass of iced tea, swiped his hand over his mouth, and said to his father, “Madonna told me about this woman Rosalind Franklin who did a lot of the work on DNA and they gave her research away and she didn’t even get recognized or win a Nobel Prize.”
    “Hmm.”
    “She died when she was a little bit older than Mom when she left. Isn’t that something, Dad?”
    “Yeah, Rafe, it sure is. You wonder what she would have done if she’d lived longer.”
    “That’s what Madonna said. She said Rosalind Franklin was the one who actually took the first blurry picture of what the double helix molecule looks like.”
    Dix wondered why he’d never heard of Rosalind Franklin, but didn’t say anything. He set a bowl of chicken noodle soup on the table in front of his son, then set another on a tray and took it to the living room. Madonna was propped up with three cushion pillows, Brewster on her chest, his face on his front paws. His eyes fluttered closed as she stroked his head. Dix would swear her eyes were brighter than an hour before.
    He moved Brewster to the coffee table, set the tray on her lap, pulled up a chair, and sat beside the sofa. “This is Campbell’s best. I hope you like it, my boys sure do. How many miles do you run a week?
    ”
    “Not more than fifteen miles a week, you don’t want to blow your knees out and—” She slapped her spoon on the tray. “I’m a runner and my name is Madonna. Just great. Swell. Hey, maybe I’m even rich since it looks like I own a Beemer, you think?”
    “Could be. I try not to run more than fifteen miles a week either.”
    She ate some soup, set her spoon down. “Sheriff, is there anything of interest around here? You know, tourist