Part 49 (1/2)

But all I was finding was one DeLorean after another, whether it was wooden, plastic, or metal.

Until I reached the bottom.

There, lying facedown, was a small picture frame. Even before I picked it up and turned it over, I knew whose picture I was about to see.

Nora Sinclair.

I wiped away some dust on the gla.s.s and stared. She looked every bit as stunning as I remembered. The high cheekbones and full lips. The radiant eyes and sun-kissed skin.

Yep: by far the most beautiful serial killer I'd ever slept with.

”How's it going?” Sarah yelled up. ”Anything?”

Freud would've had a field day with the way I suddenly fumbled with the frame, as if I'd been caught doing something I shouldn't have been doing.

”Not yet,” I yelled down, putting the frame back on the bottom of the chest.

Almost immediately, though, I picked it up again.

It wasn't Nora's picture I was staring at now. It was the back of the frame, where it opened.

I'm not exactly sure why I did what I did next. Was it my once reading about a guy who discovered a copy of the Declaration of Independence behind a painting he bought at a yard sale? Was it the way my grandmother used to add new photos of me to her frames while leaving the old ones behind them?

All I knew was that something made me open the back of that frame.

Chapter 77

ALL OF A SUDDEN, Sarah was calling out again, only her call wasn't aimed at me.

”Don't move!” I heard her yell.

I immediately reached for my s.h.i.+n holster and raced out of the room, flying down the stairs. Landing with a thud in the foyer, I saw him from behind, his hands up. Sinclair? Really? No, it couldn't be!

Instinctively, he turned around at the sound of me, his eyes popping wide with terror as he realized his predicament. Sarah was in front of him; I was at his back.

”Who are you?” demanded Sarah.

He turned to face her. Every nervous word tripped over his tongue. ”I'm...uh, I'm...my name is Dr. Bruce Drummond. I'm...um, a psychiatrist.”

”Why are you here?” she asked-no, demanded.

”The news,” he said. ”When I...uh...got home from work, I saw it on the news.”

Sarah and I both lowered our guns at the same time. Just like that, we'd already filled in the blanks.

”You treated Ned Sinclair?” she asked.