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Barcelona

What was going on? What had happened here? Sherlock had no intention of rushing in. She eased around the bedroom door and looked into the bedroom. Archer Navarro was lying on the floor between the bed and the window, unconscious, his wrists and ankles wrapped with duct tape. And there was Sasha, ready to climb out a window with a carry-on bag in her hand.

Sherlock said, “Going somewhere, Sasha?”

Both Ruth and Sherlock had their Glocks at the ready.

Sherlock realized Sasha Navarro was panicked. She had to calm her to keep her from doing something crazy, like murder her husband. “Sasha, listen to me. I know you’re afraid, you’re feeling things have spiraled out of control, but listen to me, we can work this out. First you have to get that knife away from Archer’s neck. You don’t want to hurt him. Come, let’s talk this over.”

Ruth said, “We can’t do that, Sasha. If we give up our weapons we’ll be drummed out of the FBI. Didn’t you know that?”

“Wh-what? That’s ridiculous! Stay back, do you hear me?”

They saw a drop of blood on the knife tip and held perfectly still.

Sasha said, her voice petulant, like a child’s, “You weren’t supposed to be here for hours.”

Sherlock said, “As I said, our plane got us here much earlier. You were trying to escape, Sasha, not kill your husband.”

“No! I wouldn’t have—I really was going to leave! You saw me, nearly out the window. There was no point in killing him.”

Ruth said, “And then what? Meet Carla Cartwright on a lovely island with all that embezzled money and spend the day on the beach?”

“I told you to shut up. You don’t know anything. I’m not going to let you ruin things now, no, not now.”

Archer Navarro groaned.

Sasha looked down at him, and Ruth grabbed for her Glock.

“Why don’t you just keep guessing?”

Ruth said, “Of course it had to be you, Sasha, to access Mr. Navarro’s passcodes, give them to Carla to empty the accounts.”

Ruth said, “But once I get her all trussed up, how can she duct-tape me?”

“I’ll tell you what to do after that. Do it now!”

“This wasn’t about you, Archer. You were only a tool. And by the by, you were really quite tolerable, for the most part.”

“No!” Sasha jumped back. She looked mad, out of control. She raised the knife over Archer’s chest. Ruth grabbed her Glock and fired, a clean shot in Sasha’s right arm. Sasha screamed and the knife went flying. Sherlock grabbed the knife and sawed through the duct tape while Ruth bent over Sasha. “Listen to me, little girl, press your hand as hard as you can against the wound. Come on, do it, or you’ll bleed to death. Don’t you dare cry, press!”

Sasha turned to Sherlock, stared at her with hate-filled eyes. “If you hadn’t come so damn early, I would have gotten away.”

“Didn’t work out for you, did it, Sasha?”