Scent of Danger

"Time to change the subject," Sabrina announced.

"... snore," Dylan finished with a straight face. "I was going to say snore."

"Oh." Sabrina shot him a yeah-right look.

"Don't worry," Carson assured them. "Bernard knows his limits. He'll keep his distance at the appropriate times. That includes when you're at Tiffany's and Central Park, by the way. Believe me, he'll be the soul of discretion. And he'll be staying outside the apartment, not in it. Intimate moments are yours and yours alone."

"See? You are a romantic," Sabrina teased. Sobering, she asked something that had been nagging at her all afternoon. "Did you have a chance to talk to Stan after the meeting with Whitman and Barton?"

"Yup. He called here around three."

"Did he sound okay?"

"Actually, he sounded better than I expected. I guess that's because he and Karen will be paying their own visit to Tiffany's pretty soon. Hell, those diamond rings are flying." Carson's amusement vaporized. "Seriously, Stan said the talk with the detectives went well. Did it?"

"Very well," Dylan supplied. "Stan stuck to our story. He said he'd just come from the hospital where he'd informed you that he was going to tell the authorities the truth about him and Karen, even if they chose not to believe he was innocent of committing a crime. He was frank and to the point—very effective. He even cleared up the issue of Roland's jitters by explaining that Roland didn't realize that the relationship between Stan and Karen was an open book, especially to you. Whitman and Barton were fine with the alibis and the explanation. So that chapter's closed."

"Really." Carson eyed his friend. "It sounds a little too easy. They didn't pump Stan? Didn't try to trip him up? Nothing?"

"Nope."

"Odd, isn't it? Considering how convinced they were that he was involved. Unless, of course, things have changed and they have their sights set somewhere else— on someone else. Do they?"

This was the discussion Sabrina and Dylan were most hoping to dodge—at least until it was necessary for it to be had.

"What are you two hiding?" Carson barked.

It appeared that the necessary time had arrived.

Still, maybe it could arrive in stages.

"If we tell you, it has to remain among us—just the three of us," Sabrina began, delivering the most impersonal aspect of the facts, that part that would be least likely to hit Carson like a blow to the gut.

"Fine." Carson waited expectantly.

"It's possible that whoever threw those Molotov cocktails last night and, presumably, who also killed Russ is affiliated with YouthOp."

Carson's jaw set. "Why do you think that?"

Sabrina didn't flinch. "Because Dylan and I were there today, visiting Susan. She called your room this morning after you'd fallen asleep, and she sounded really rattled. We wanted to calm her down. So we went to YouthOp, chatted with Susan in her office. There was a persistent, lingering odor of gasoline. I smelled it the entire time we were there. Which suggests that whoever threw those Molotov cocktails was, at some point, in Susan's office."

Carson didn't so much as blink. "Go on."

"The YouthOp connection makes sense," Dylan continued, following through with Sabrina's approach. "Russ worked there. He could have found out that some son of a bitch was making extra bucks hiring out as a paid killer. You know the type. He was probably selling drugs, maybe even weapons, which means he's already responsible for God knows how many deaths. It's not a reach that he'd go one step further, knock off a few people for the right price."

"Not a reach at all. As for weapons, you're figuring he got hold of the twenty-two that shot me, right?"

"Right. And when the little shit realized Russ knew who he was, he stabbed him."

"Not of his own accord, he didn't." Carson's expression and tone were flat. "They don't call them paid killers for nothing. So who's paying him?"

"We don't know."

"Ah." Carson fell silent, his lips pursed as he thought. "Tell me, how much of this theory has Susan been told?"

"None of

it. The detectives asked us to sit on this. They want to handle things their way. We gave them our word we'd say nothing to Susan."