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Contents

Roadside Crosses

Part 1: Monday

Chapter 1

Part 2: Tuesday

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Part 3: Wednesday

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Part 4: Thursday

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Part 5: Friday

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Acknowledgments

The Sleeping Doll

Monday

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Tuesday

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Wednesday

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Thursday

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Friday

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Saturday

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Author’s Note

The Cold Moon

Epigraph

Part I: 12:02 A.M. Tuesday

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Part II: 9:02 A.M. Wednesday

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Part III: 8:32 A.M. Thursday

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Part IV: 12:48 P.M. Monday

Chapter 43

Author’s Note

XO Excerpt

About Jeffery Deaver

The investigative agent who pursued a terrifyingly elusive killer—and stormed national bestseller lists—in The Sleeping Doll, Kathryn Dance returns in a new blockbuster from the “ingeniously devious” (People) Jeffery Deaver!

ROADSIDE CROSSES

Chosen as a Hot Summer Thriller on TheDailyBeast.com!

“Roadside Crosses is a gripping story peopled with memorable characters. No surprise. Jeffery Deaver is grand master of the ticking-clock thriller.”

—Kathy Reichs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of 206 Bones

“The techno-savvy Deaver is too much the master gamesman to scold anyone else for a little excessive play, and in some brilliant plot maneuvers he counters every warning about warrior bloggers and glassy-eyed gamers with well-reasoned arguments in their defense. . . . Like his best players, he has one of those puzzle-loving minds you just can’t trust.”

—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times

“Expert and devious plotting. . . . [A] surprise-filled Kathryn Dance novel.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Deaver’s got the world of social networking and blogs down cold. . . . That dose of realism adds a fresh, contemporary edge. . . . Intricate plot twists. . . . The perfect book for a quiet summer afternoon where a little relaxation—accompanied, naturally, by a jolt of suspense—is the order of the day.”

—David Montgomery, TheDailyBeast.com

This title is also available from Simon & Schuster Audio

“A clever and twisted tale. . . . The web sites mentioned throughout are actual live links and add to the fun. . . . [A series with] unlimited potential.”

—Library Journal

“Tightly constructed, suspenseful. . . . Deaver, perhaps more than any other crime writer, is able to fool even the most experienced readers with his right-angle turns. . . . An excellent entry in what promises to be a series as popular as his Lincoln Rhyme novels.”

—Booklist

Be sure to read the first Kathryn Dance novel—the pulse-pounding New York Times bestseller

THE SLEEPING DOLL

“[An] intricately plotted thriller. . . . A dazzling mental contest.”

—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times

“The chase is on, and so are the surprises.”

—Sacramento Bee

Also from Jeffery Deaver—lose yourself in his acclaimed bestseller

THE BODIES LEFT BEHIND

2009 “Best Novel of the Year” Award winner from the International Thriller Writers organization

“A tour de force. . . . The suspense never flags. . . . Deaver has no rivals in the realm of sneaky plot twists.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“The pace is terrific, the suspense inexorable. . . .”

—The Guardian (U.K.)

“Deaver is such a good puppet master that he makes us believe whatever he wants us to believe . . . without telling us a single lie. . . . It’s not until we’re well more than halfway through the book that we even begin to suspect that we might have made some dangerous mistakes . . . but by then, it’s way too late, and we are completely at Deaver’s mercy.”

—Booklist (starred review)

“Hurtles along at 100 m.p.h. . . . An edge-of-the-seat read.”

—Sunday Express (U.K.), 4 stars

“He makes the characters live and breathe. . . . Read this and no country walk will ever be the same again.”

—Daily Express (U.K.)

“Not just an adrenaline-charged manhunt but a game of deception and multiple double-cross that keeps the reader guessing right up to the final page.”

—The Times (London)

Jeffery Deaver “stokes our paranoia” (Entertainment Weekly) with a heart-pounding bestseller of identity theft—featuring investigator Lincoln Rhyme

THE BROKEN WINDOW

“Riveting. . . . This is one scary novel. Everything in it seems as plausible and easy as buying a purse on eBay.”

—The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

“Unnerving . . . An Orwellian nightmare.”

—The New York Times

“Scary, scary. . . . What Deaver reveals about data mining is terrifying.”

—San Jose Mercury News

Author’s Note

One theme of this novel is the blurring of the line between the “synthetic world”—the online life—and the real world. Accordingly, if you happen to come across a website address in the pages that follow, you might wish to type it into your browser and go where it takes you. You won’t need what’s in those websites to enjoy the novel, but you may just find a few extra clues that will help you unravel the mystery. You might also simply be interested—or disturbed—by what you find there.

[W]hat the Internet and its cult of anonymity do is to provide a blanket sort of immunity for anybody who wants to say anything about anybody else, and it would be difficult in this sense to think of a more morally deformed exploitation of the concept of free speech.

—RICHARD BERNSTEIN

IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

MONDAY

Chapter 1

OUT OF PLACE.

The California Highway Patrol trooper, young with bristly yellow hair beneath his crisp hat, squinted through the windshield of his Crown Victoria Police Interceptor as he cruised south along Highway 1 in Monterey. Dunes to the right, modest commercial sprawl to the left.

Something was out of place. What?

Heading home at 5:00 p.m. after his tour had ended, he surveyed the road. The trooper didn’t write a lot of tickets here, leaving that to the county deputies—professional courtesy—but he occasionally lit up somebody in a German or Italian car if he was in a mood, and this was the route he often took home at this time of day, so he knew the highway pretty well.

There . . . that was it. Something colorful, a quarter mile ahead, sat by the side of the road at the base of one of the hills of sand that cut off the view of Monterey Bay.

What could it be?

He hit his light bar—protocol—and pulled over onto the right shoulder. He parked with the hood of the Ford pointed leftward toward traffic, so a rearender would shove the car away from, not over, him, and climbed out. Stuck in the sand just beyond the shoulder was a cross—a roadside memorial. It was about eighteen inches high and homemade, cobbled together out of dark, broken-off branches, bound with wire like florists use. Dark red roses lay in a splashy bouquet at the base. A cardboard disk was in the center, the date of the accident written on it in blue ink. There were no names on the front or back.

Officially these memorials to traffic accident victims were discouraged, since people were occasionally injured, even killed, planting a cross or leaving flowers or stuffed animals.

Usually the memorials were tasteful and poignant. This one was spooky.

What was odd, though, was that he couldn’t remember any accidents along here. In fact this was one of the safest stretches of Highway 1 in California. The roadway becomes an obstacle course south of Carmel, like that spot of a really sad accident several weeks ago: two girls killed coming back from a graduation party. But here, the highway was three lanes and mostly straight, with occasional lazy bends through the old Fort Ord grounds, now a college, and the shopping districts.

The trooper thought about removing the cross, but the mourners might return to leave another one and endanger themselves again. Best just to leave it. Out of curiosity he’d check with his sergeant in the morning and find out what had happened. He walked back to his car, tossed his hat on the seat and rubbed his crew cut. He pulled back into traffic, his mind no longer on roadside accidents. He was thinking about what his wife would be making for supper, about taking the kids to the pool afterward.

And when was his brother coming to town? He looked at the date window on his watch. He frowned. Was that right? A glance at his cell phone confirmed that, yes, today was June 25.

That was curious. Whoever had left the roadside cross had made a mistake. He remembered that the date crudely written on the cardboard disk was June 26, Tuesday, tomorrow.

Maybe the poor mourners who’d left the memorial had been so upset they’d jotted the date down wrong.

Then the images of the eerie cross faded, though they didn’t vanish completely and, as the officer headed down the highway home, he drove a bit more carefully.

TUESDAY

Chapter 2

THE FAINT LIGHT—the light of a ghost, pale green—danced just out of her reach.

If she could only get to it.

If she could only reach the ghost she’d be safe.

The glow, floating in the dark of the car’s trunk, dangled tauntingly above her feet, which were duct-taped together, as were her hands.

A ghost . . .

Another piece of tape was pasted over her mouth and she was inhaling stale air through her nose, rationing it, as if the trunk of her Camry held only so much.

A painful bang as the car hit a pothole. She gave a brief, muted scream.

Other hints of light intruded occasionally: the dull red glow when he hit the brake, the turn signal. No other illumination from outside; the hour was close to 1:00 a.m.

The luminescent ghost rocked back and forth. It was the emergency trunk release: a glow-in-the-dark hand pull emblazoned with a comical image of a man escaping from the car.

But it remained just out of reach of her feet.

Tammy Foster had forced the crying to stop. The sobs had begun just after her attacker came up behind her in the shadowy parking lot of the club, slapped tape on her mouth, taped her hands behind her back and shoved her into the trunk. He’d bound her feet as well.

Frozen in panic, the seventeen-year-old had thought: He doesn’t want me to see him. That’s good. He doesn’t want to kill me.

He just wants to scare me.

She’d surveyed the trunk, spotting the dangling ghost. She’d tried to grip it with her feet but it slipped out from between her shoes. Tammy was in good shape, soccer and cheerleading. But, because of the awkward angle, she could keep her feet raised for only a few seconds.

The ghost eluded her.

The car pressed on. With every passing yard, she felt more and more despair. Tammy Foster began to cry again.

Don’t, don’t! Your nose’ll clog up, you’ll choke.

She forced herself to stop.

She was supposed to be home at midnight. She’d be missed by her mother—if she wasn’t drunk on the couch, pissed about some problem with her latest boyfriend.

Missed by her sister, if the girl wasn’t online or on the phone. Which of course she was.

Clank.

The same sound as earlier: the bang of metal as he loaded something into the backseat.

She thought of some scary movies she’d seen. Gross, disgusting ones. Torture, murder. Involving tools.

Don’t think about that. Tammy focused on the dangling green ghost of the trunk release.

And heard a new sound. The sea.

Finally they stopped and he shut off the engine.

The lights went out.

The car rocked as he shifted in the driver’s seat. What was he doing? Now she heard the throaty croak of seals nearby. They were at a beach, which at this time of night, around here, would be completely deserted.

One of the car doors opened and closed. And a second opened. The clank of metal from the backseat again.

Torture . . . tools.

The door slammed shut, hard.

And Tammy Foster broke. She dissolved into sobs, struggling to suck in more lousy air. “No, please, please!” she cried, though the words were filtered through the tape and came out as a sort of moan.

Tammy began running through every prayer she could remember as she waited for the click of the trunk.

The sea crashed. The seals hooted.

She was going to die.

“Mommy.”

But then . . . nothing.

The trunk didn’t pop, the car door didn’t open again, she heard no footsteps approaching. After three minutes she controlled the crying. The panic diminished.

Five minutes passed, and he hadn’t opened the trunk.

Ten.

Tammy gave a faint, mad laugh.

It was just a scare. He wasn’t going to kill her or rape her. It was a practical joke.

She was actually smiling beneath the tape, when the car rocked, ever so slightly. Her smile faded. The Camry rocked again, a gentle push-pull, though stronger than the first time. She heard a splash and felt a shudder. Tammy knew an ocean wave had struck the front end of the car.

Oh, my God, no! He’d left the car on the beach, with high tide coming in!

The car settled into the sand, as the ocean undermined the tires.

No! One of her worst fears was drowning. And being stuck in a confined space like this . . . it was unthinkable. Tammy began to kick at the trunk lid.

But there was, of course, no one to hear, except the seals.

The water was now sloshing hard against the sides of the Toyota.

The ghost . . .

Somehow she had to pull the trunk release lever. She worked off her shoes and tried again, her head pressing hard against the carpet, agonizingly lifting her feet toward the glowing pull. She got them on either side of it, pressed hard, her stomach muscles quivering.

Now!

Her legs cramping, she eased the ghost downward.

A tink.

Yes! It worked!

But then she moaned in horror. The pull had come away in her feet, without opening the trunk. She stared at the green ghost lying near her. He must’ve cut the wire! After he’d dumped her into the trunk, he’d cut it. The release pull had been dangling in the eyelet, no longer connected to the latch cable.

She was trapped.

Please, somebody, Tammy prayed again. To God, to a passerby, even to her kidnapper, who might show her some mercy.

But the only response was the indifferent gurgle of saltwater as it began seeping into the trunk.

THE PENINSULA GARDEN Hotel is tucked away near Highway 68—the venerable route that’s a twenty-mile-long diorama, “The Many Faces of Monterey County.” The road meanders west from the Nation’s Salad Bowl—Salinas—and skirts the verdant Pastures of Heaven, punchy Laguna Seca racetrack, settlements of corporate offices, then dusty Monterey and pine-and-hemlock-filled Pacific Grove. Finally the highway deposits those drivers, at least those bent on following the complex via from start to finish, at legendary Seventeen Mile Drive—home of a common species around here: People With Money.

“Not bad,” Michael O’Neil said to Kathryn Dance as they climbed out of his car.

Through narrow glasses with gray frames, the woman surveyed the Spanish and deco main lodge and half-dozen adjacent buildings. The inn was classy though a bit worn and dusty at the cuffs. “Nice. I like.”

As they stood surveying the hotel, with its distant glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, Dance, an expert at kinesics, body language, tried to read O’Neil. The chief deputy in the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office Investigations Division was hard to analyze. The solidly built man, in his forties, with salt-and-pepper hair, was easygoing, but quiet unless he knew you. Even then he was economical of gesture and expression. He didn’t give a lot away kinesically.

At the moment, though, she was reading that he wasn’t at all nervous, despite the nature of their trip here.

She, on the other hand, was.

Kathryn Dance, a trim woman in her thirties, today wore her dark blond hair as she often did, in a French braid, the feathery tail end bound with a bright blue ribbon her daughter had selected that morning and tied into a careful bow. Dance was in a long, pleated black skirt and matching jacket over a white blouse. Black ankle boots with two-inch heels—footwear she’d admired for months but been able to resist buying only until they had gone on sale.

O’Neil was in one of his three or four civilian configurations: chinos and powder blue shirt, no tie. His jacket was dark blue, in a faint plaid pattern.

The doorman, a cheerful Latino, looked them over with an expression that said, You seem like a nice couple. “Welcome. I hope you enjoy your stay.” He opened the door for them.

Dance smiled uncertainly at O’Neil and they walked through a breezy hallway to the front desk.

FROM THE MAIN building, they wound through the hotel complex, looking for the room.

“Never thought this would happen,” O’Neil said to her.

Dance gave a faint laugh. She was amused to realize that her eyes occasionally slipped to doors and windows. This was a kinesic response that meant the subject was subconsciously thinking about ways to escape—that is, was feeling stress.

“Look,” she said, pointing to yet another pool. The place seemed to have four.

“Like Disneyland for adults. I hear a lot of rock musicians stay here.”

“Really?” She frowned.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s only one story. Not much fun getting stoned and throwing TVs and furniture out the window.”

“This is Carmel,” O’Neil pointed out. “The wildest they’d get here is pitching recyclables into the trash.”

Dance thought of a comeback line but kept quiet. The bantering was making her more nervous.

She paused beside a palm tree with leaves like sharp weapons. “Where are we?”

The deputy looked at a slip of paper, oriented himself and pointed to one of the buildings in the back. “There.”

O’Neil and Dance paused outside the door. He exhaled and lifted an eyebrow. “Guess this is it.”

Dance laughed. “I feel like a teenager.”

The deputy knocked.

After a short pause the door opened, revealing a narrow man, hovering near fifty, wearing dark slacks and a white shirt and striped tie.

“Michael, Kathryn. Right on time. Come on in.”

ERNEST SEYBOLD, A career district attorney for Los Angeles County, nodded them into the room. Inside, a court reporter sat beside her three-legged dictation machine. Another young woman rose and greeted the new arrivals. She was, Seybold said, his assistant from L.A.

Earlier this month, Dance and O’Neil had run a case in Monterey—the convicted cult leader and killer Daniel Pell had escaped from prison and remained on the Peninsula, targeting more victims. One of the people involved in the case had turned out to be somebody very different from the person Dance and her fellow officers had believed. The consequences of that involved yet another murder.

Dance adamantly wanted to pursue the perp. But there was much pressure not to follow up—from some very powerful organizations. Dance wouldn’t take no for an answer, though, and while the Monterey prosecutor had declined to handle the case, she and O’Neil learned that the perp had killed earlier—in Los Angeles. District Attorney Seybold, who worked regularly with Dance’s organization, the California Bureau of Investigation, and was a friend of Dance’s, agreed to bring charges in L.A.

Several witnesses, though, were in the Monterey area, including Dance and O’Neil, and so Seybold had come here for the day to take statements. The clandestine nature of the get-together was due to the perp’s connections and reputation. In fact, for the time being they weren’t even using the killer’s real name. The case was known internally as The People v. J. Doe.

As they sat, Seybold said, “We might have a problem, I have to tell you.”

The butterflies Dance had felt earlier—that something would go wrong and the case would derail—returned.

The prosecutor continued, “The defense’s made a motion to dismiss based on immunity. I honestly can’t tell you what the odds are it’ll succeed. The hearing’s scheduled for day after tomorrow.”

Dance closed her eyes. “No.” Beside her O’Neil exhaled in anger.

All this work . . .

If he gets away, Dance thought . . . but then realized she had nothing to add to that, except: If he gets away, I lose.

She felt her jaw trembling.

But Seybold said, “I’ve got a team putting together the response. They’re good. The best in the office.”

“Whatever it takes, Ernie,” Dance said. “I want him. I want him real bad.”

“A lot of people do, Kathryn. We’ll do everything we can.”

If he gets away . . .

“But I want to proceed as if we’re going to win.” He said this confidently, which reassured Dance somewhat. They got started, Seybold asking dozens of questions about the crime—what Dance and O’Neil had witnessed and the evidence in the case.

Seybold was a seasoned prosecutor and knew what he was doing. After an hour of interviewing them both, the wiry man sat back and said he had enough for the time being. He was momentarily expecting another witness—a local state trooper—who had also agreed to testify.

They thanked the prosecutor, who agreed to call them the instant the judge ruled in the immunity hearing.

As Dance and O’Neil walked back to the lobby, he slowed, a frown on his face.

“What?” she asked.

“Let’s play hooky.”

“What do you mean?”

He nodded at the beautiful garden restaurant, overlooking a canyon with the sea beyond. “It’s early. When was the last time anybody in a white uniform brought you eggs Benedict?”

Dance considered. “What year is it again?”

He smiled. “Come on. We won’t be that late.”

A glance at her watch. “I don’t know.” Kathryn Dance hadn’t played hooky in school, much less as a senior agent with the CBI.

Then she said to herself: Why’re you hesitating? You love Michael’s company, you get to spend hardly any downtime with him.

“You bet.” Feeling like a teenager again, though now in a good way.

They were seated beside each other at a banquette near the edge of the deck, overlooking the hills. The early sun was out and it was a clear, crisp June morning.

The waiter—not fully uniformed, but with a suitably starched white shirt—brought them menus and poured coffee. Dance’s eyes strayed to the page on which the restaurant bragged of their famous mimosas. No way, she thought, and glanced up to see O’Neil looking at exactly the same item.

They laughed.

“When we get down to L.A. for the grand jury, or the trial,” he said, “champagne then.”

“Fair enough.”

It was then that O’Neil’s phone trilled. He glanced at Caller ID. Dance was immediately aware of his body language changing—shoulders slightly higher, arms closer to his body, eyes focused just past the screen.

She knew whom the call was from, even before he said a cheerful, “Hi, dear.”

Dance deduced from his conversation with his wife, Anne, a professional photographer, that a business trip had come up unexpectedly soon and she was checking with her husband about his schedule.

Finally O’Neil disconnected and they sat in silence for a moment while the atmosphere righted itself and they consulted their menus.

“Yep,” he announced, “eggs Benedict.”

She was going to have the same and glanced up for the waiter. But then her phone vibrated. She glanced at the text message, frowned, then read it again, aware that her own body orientation was changing quickly. Heart rate revving, shoulders lifted, foot tapping on the floor.

Dance sighed, and her gesture to the waiter changed from a polite beckon to one of mimicking signing the check.

Chapter 3

THE CALIFORNIA BUREAU of Investigation’s west-central regional headquarters is in a nondescript modern building identical to those of the adjacent insurance companies and software consulting firms, all tucked neatly away behind hills and decorated with the elaborate vegetation of Central Coast California.

The facility was near the Peninsula Garden, and Dance and O’Neil arrived from the hotel in less than ten minutes, minding traffic but not red lights or stop signs.

Climbing out of his car, Dance slung her purse over her shoulder, and hefted her bulging computer bag—which her daughter had dubbed “Mom’s purse annex,” after the girl had learned what annex meant—and she and O’Neil walked into the building.

Inside they headed immediately to where she knew her team would be assembled: her office, in the portion of the CBI known as the Gals’ Wing, or “GW”—owing to the fact that it was populated exclusively by Dance, fellow agent Connie Ramirez, as well as their assistant, Maryellen Kresbach, and Grace Yuan, the CBI administrator, who kept the entire building humming like a timepiece. The name of the wing derived from an unfortunate comment by an equally unfortunate, and now former, CBI agent, who coined the designation while trying to press his cleverness on a date he was touring around the headquarters.

Everyone on the GW still debated if he—or one of his dates—had ever found all the feminine hygiene products Dance and Ramirez had seeded into his office, briefcase and car.

Dance and O’Neil now greeted Maryellen. The cheerful and indispensable woman could easily run both a family and the professional lives of her charges without a bat of one of her darkly mascaraed eyelashes. She also was the best baker Dance had ever met. “Morning, Maryellen. Where are we?”

“Hi, Kathryn. Help yourself.”

Dance eyed, but didn’t give in to, the chocolate chip cookies in the jar on the woman’s desk. They had to be a biblical sin. O’Neil, on the other hand, didn’t resist. “Best breakfast I’ve had in weeks.”

Eggs Benedict . . .

Maryellen gave a pleased laugh. “Okay, I called Charles again and left another message. Honestly.” She sighed. “He wasn’t picking up. TJ and Rey are inside. Oh, Deputy O’Neil, one of your people is here from MCSO.”

“Thanks. You’re a dear.”

In Dance’s office wiry young TJ Scanlon was perched in her chair. The redheaded agent leapt up. “Hi, boss. How’d the audition go?”

He meant the deposition.

“I was a star.” Then she delivered the bad news about the immunity hearing.

The agent scowled. He too had known the perp and was nearly as adamant as Dance about winning a conviction.

TJ was good at his job, though he was the most unconventional agent in a law enforcement organization noted for its conventional approach and demeanor. Today he was wearing jeans, a polo shirt and plaid sports coat—madras, a pattern on some faded shirts in her father’s storage closet. TJ owned one tie, as far as Dance had been able to tell, and it was an outlandish Jerry Garcia model. TJ suffered from acute nostalgia for the 1960s. In his office two lava lamps bubbled merrily away.

Dance and he were only a few years apart, but there was a generational gap between them. Still, they clicked professionally, with a bit of mentor-mentee thrown in. Though TJ tended to run solo, which was against the grain in the CBI, he’d been filling in for Dance’s regular partner—still down in Mexico on a complicated extradition case.

Quiet Rey Carraneo, a newcomer to the CBI, was about as opposite to TJ Scanlon as one could be. In his late twenties, with dark, thoughtful features, he today wore a gray suit and white shirt on his lean frame. He was older in heart than in years, since he’d been a beat cop in the cowboy town of Reno, Nevada, before moving here with his wife for the sake of his ill mother. Carraneo held a coffee cup in a hand that bore a tiny scar in the Y between thumb and forefinger; it was where a gang tat had resided not too many years ago. Dance considered him to be the calmest and most focused of all the younger agents in the office and she sometimes wondered, to herself only, if his days in the gang contributed to that.

The deputy from the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office—typically crew cut and with a military bearing—introduced himself and explained what had happened. A local teenager had been kidnapped from a parking lot in downtown Monterey, off Alvarado, early that morning. Tammy Foster had been bound and tossed into her own car trunk. The attacker drove her to a beach outside of town and left her to drown in high tide.

Dance shivered at the thought of what it must’ve been like to lie cramped and cold as the water rose in the confined space.

“It was her car?” O’Neil asked, sitting in one of Dance’s chairs and rocking on the back legs—doing exactly what Dance told her son not to do (she suspected Wes had learned the practice from O’Neil). The legs creaked under his weight.

“That’s right, sir.”

“What beach?”

“Down the coast, south of the Highlands.”

“Deserted?”

“Yeah, nobody around. No wits.”

“Witnesses at the club where she got snatched?” Dance asked.

“Negative. And no security cameras in the parking lot.”

Dance and O’Neil took this in. She said, “So he needed other wheels near where he left her. Or had an accomplice.”

“Crime scene found some footprints in the sand, headed for the highway. Above the tide level. But the sand was loose. No idea of tread or size. But definitely only one person.”

O’Neil asked, “And no signs of a car pulling off the road to pick him up? Or one hidden in the bushes nearby?”

“No, sir. Our people did find some bicycle tread marks but they were on the shoulder. Could’ve been made that night, could’ve been a week old. No tread match. We don’t have a bicycle database,” he added to Dance.

Hundreds of people biked along the beach in that area daily.

“Motive?”

“No robbery, no sexual assault. Looks like he just wanted to kill her. Slowly.”

Dance exhaled a puffy breath.

“Any suspects?”

“Nope.”

Dance then looked at TJ. “And what you told me earlier, when I called? The weird part. Anything more on that?”

“Oh,” the fidgety young agent said, “you mean the roadside cross.”

THE CALIFORNIA BUREAU of Investigation has broad jurisdiction but usually is involved only in major crimes, like gang activity, terrorism threats and significant corruption or economic offenses. A single murder in an area where gangland killings occur at least once a week wouldn’t attract any special attention.

But the attack on Tammy Foster was different.

The day before the girl had been kidnapped, a Highway Patrol trooper had found a cross, like a roadside memorial, with the next day’s date written on it, stuck in the sand along Highway 1.

When the trooper heard of the attack on the girl, not far off the same highway, he wondered if the cross was an announcement of the perp’s intentions. He’d returned and collected it. The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office’s Crime Scene Unit found a tiny bit of rose petal in the trunk where Tammy had been left to die—a fleck that matched the roses from the bouquet left with the cross.

Since on the surface the attack seemed random and there was no obvious motive, Dance had to consider the possibility that the perp had more victims in mind.

O’Neil now asked, “Evidence from the cross?”

His junior officer grimaced. “Truth be told, Deputy O’Neil, the Highway Patrol trooper just tossed it and the flowers in his trunk.”

“Contaminated?”

“Afraid so. Deputy Bennington said he did the best he could to process it.” Peter Bennington—the skilled, diligent head of the Monterey County Crime Scene Lab. “But didn’t find anything. Not according to the preliminary. No prints, except the trooper’s. No trace other than sand and dirt. The cross was made out of tree branches and florist wire. The disk with the date on it was cut out of cardboard, looked like. The pen, he said, was generic. And the writing was block printing. Only helpful if we get a sample from a suspect. Now, here’s a picture of the cross. It’s pretty creepy. Kind of like Blair Witch Project, you know.”

“Good movie,” TJ said, and Dance didn’t know if he was being facetious or not.

They looked at the photo. It was creepy, the branches like twisted, black bones.

Forensics couldn’t tell them anything? Dance had a friend she’d worked with not long ago, Lincoln Rhyme, a private forensic consultant in New York City. Despite the fact he was a quadriplegic, he was one of the best crime scene specialists in the country. She wondered, if he’d been running the scene, would he have found something helpful? She suspected he would have. But perhaps the most universal rule in police work was this: You go with what you’ve got.

She noticed something in the picture. “The roses.”

O’Neil got her meaning. “The stems are cut the same length.”

“Right. So they probably came from a store, not clipped from somebody’s yard.”

TJ said, “But, boss, you can buy roses about a thousand places on the Peninsula.”

“I’m not saying it’s leading us to his doorstep,” Dance said. “I’m saying it’s a fact we might be able to use. And don’t jump to conclusions. They might’ve been stolen.” She felt grumpy, hoped it didn’t come off that way.

“Gotcha, boss.”

“Where exactly was the cross?”

“Highway One. Just south of Marina.” He touched a location on Dance’s wall map.

“Any witnesses to leaving the cross?” Dance now asked the deputy.

“No, ma’am, not according to the CHP. And there are no cameras along that stretch of highway. We’re still looking.”

“Any stores?” O’Neil asked, just as Dance took a breath to ask the identical question.

“Stores?”

O’Neil was looking at the map. “On the east side of the highway. In those strip malls. Some of them have to have security cameras. Maybe one was pointed toward the spot. At least we could get a make and model of the car—if he was in one.”

“TJ,” Dance said, “check that out.”

“You got it, boss. There’s a good Java House there. One of my favorites.”

“I’m so pleased.”

A shadow appeared in her doorway. “Ah. Didn’t know we were convening here.”

Charles Overby, the recently appointed agent in charge of this CBI branch, walked into her office. In his midfifties, tanned; the pear-shaped man was athletic enough to get out on the golf or tennis courts several times a week but not so spry to keep up a long volley without losing his breath.

“I’ve been in my office for . . . well, quite some time.”

Dance ignored TJ’s subtle glance at his wristwatch. She suspected that Overby had rolled in a few minutes ago.

“Charles,” she said. “Morning. Maybe I forgot to mention where we’d be meeting. Sorry.”

“Hello, Michael.” A nod toward TJ too, whom Overby sometimes gazed at curiously as if he’d never met the junior agent—though that might have just been disapproval of TJ’s fashion choices.

Dance had in fact informed Overby of the meeting. On the drive here from the Peninsula Garden Hotel, she’d left a message on his voice mail, giving him the troubling news of the immunity hearing in L.A. and telling him of the plan to get together here, in her office. Maryellen had told him about the meeting too. But the CBI chief hadn’t responded. Dance hadn’t bothered to call back, since Overby usually didn’t care much for the tactical side of running cases. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d declined attending this meeting altogether. He wanted the “big picture,” a recent favorite phrase. (TJ had once referred to him as Charles Overview; Dance had hurt her belly laughing.)

“Well. This girl-in-the-trunk thing . . . the reporters are calling already. I’ve been stalling. They hate that. Brief me.”

Ah, reporters. That explained the man’s interest.

Dance told him what they knew at this point, and what their plans were.

“Think he’s going to try it again? That’s what the anchors are saying.”

“That’s what they’re speculating,” Dance corrected delicately.

“Since we don’t know why he attacked her in the first place, Tammy Foster, we can’t say,” O’Neil said.

“And the cross is connected? It was left as a message?”

“The flowers match forensically, yes.”

“Ouch. I just hope it doesn’t turn into a Summer of Sam thing.”

“A . . . what’s that, Charles?” Dance asked.

“That guy in New York. Leaving notes, shooting people.”

“Oh, that was a movie.” TJ was their reference librarian of popular culture. “Spike Lee. The killer was Son of Sam.”

“I know,” Overby said quickly. “Just making a pun. Son and Summer.”

“We don’t have any evidence one way or the other. We don’t know anything yet, really.”

Overby was nodding. He never liked not having answers. For the press, for his bosses in Sacramento. That made him edgy, which in turn made everybody else edgy too. When his predecessor, Stan Fishburne, had had to retire unexpectedly on a medical and Overby had assumed the job, dismay was the general mood. Fishburne was the agents’ advocate; he’d take on anybody he needed to in supporting them. Overby had a different style. Very different.

“I got a call from the AG already.” Their ultimate boss. “Made the news in Sacramento. CNN too. I’ll have to call him back. I wish we had something specific.”

“We should know more soon.”

“What’re the odds that it was just a prank gone bad? Like hazing the pledges. Fraternity or sorority thing. We all did that in college, didn’t we?”

Dance and O’Neil hadn’t been Greek. She doubted TJ had been, and Rey Carraneo had gotten his bachelor’s in criminal justice at night while working two jobs.

“Pretty grim for a practical joke,” O’Neil said.

“Well, let’s keep it as an option. I just want to make sure that we stay away from panic. That won’t help anything. Downplay any serial-actor angle. And don’t mention the cross. We’re still reeling from that case earlier in the month, the Pell thing.” He blinked. “How did the deposition go, by the way?”

“A delay.” Had he not listened to her message at all?

“That’s good.”

“Good?” Dance was still furious about the motion to dismiss.

Overby blinked. “I mean it frees you up to run this Roadside Cross Case.”

Thinking about her old boss. Nostalgia can be such sweet pain.

“What are the next steps?” Overby asked.

“TJ’s checking out the security cameras at the stores and car dealerships near where the cross was left.” She turned to Carraneo. “And, Rey, could you canvass around the parking lot where Tammy was abducted?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What’re you working on now, Michael, at MCSO?” Overby asked.

“Running a gang killing, then the Container Case.”

“Oh, that.”

The Peninsula had been largely immune to terrorist threats. There were no major seaports here, only fishing docks, and the airport was small and had good security. But a month or so ago a shipping container had been smuggled off a cargo ship from Indonesia docked in Oakland and loaded on a truck headed south toward L.A. A report suggested that it had gotten as far as Salinas, where, possibly, the contents had been removed, hidden and then transferred to other trucks for forward routing.

Those contents might’ve been contraband—drugs, weapons . . . or, as another credible intelligence report went, human beings sneaking into the country. Indonesia had the largest Islamic population in the world and a number of dangerous extremist cells. Homeland Security was understandably concerned.

“But,” O’Neil added, “I can put that on hold for a day or two.”

“Good,” Overby said, relieved that the Roadside Cross Case would be task-forced. He was forever looking for ways to spread the risk if an investigation went bad, even if it meant sharing the glory.

Dance was simply pleased she and O’Neil would be working together.

O’Neil said, “I’ll get the final crime scene report from Peter Bennington.”

O’Neil’s background wasn’t specific to forensic science, but the solid, dogged cop relied on traditional techniques for solving crimes: research, canvassing and crime scene analysis. Occasionally head-butting. Whatever his concoction of techniques, though, the senior detective was good at his job. He had one of the highest arrest—and more important—conviction records in the history of the office.

Dance glanced at her watch. “And I’ll go interview the witness.”

Overby was silent for a moment. “Witness? I didn’t know there was one.”

Dance didn’t tell him that that very information too was in the message she’d left her boss. “Yep, there is,” she said, and slung her purse over her shoulder, heading out of the door.

Chapter 4

“OH, THAT’S SAD,” the woman said.

Her husband, behind the wheel of their Ford SUV, which he’d just paid $70 to fill, glanced at her. He was in a bad mood. Because of the gas prices and because he’d just had a tantalizing view of Pebble Beach golf course, which he couldn’t afford to play even if the wife would let him.

One thing he definitely didn’t want to hear was something sad.

Still, he’d been married for twenty years, and so he asked her, “What?” Maybe a little more pointedly than he intended.

She didn’t notice, or pay attention to, his tone. “There.”

He looked ahead, but she was just gazing out of the windshield at this stretch of deserted highway, winding through the woods. She wasn’t pointing at anything in particular. That made him even more irritated.

“Wonder what happened.”

He was about to snap, “To what?” when he saw what she was talking about.

And he felt instantly guilty.

Stuck in the sand ahead of them, about thirty yards away, was one of those memorials at the site of a car accident. It was a cross, kind of a crude thing, sitting atop some flowers. Dark red roses.

“Is sad,” he echoed, thinking of their children—two teenagers who still scared the hell out of him every time they got behind the wheel. Knowing how he’d feel if anything happened to them in an accident. He regretted his initial snippiness.

He shook his head, glancing at his wife’s troubled face. They drove past the homemade cross. She whispered. “My God. It just happened.”

“It did?”

“Yep. It’s got today’s date on it.”

He shivered and they drove on toward a nearby beach that somebody had recommended for its walking trails. He mused, “Something odd.”

“What’s that, dear?”

“The speed limit’s thirty-five along here. You wouldn’t think somebody’d wipe out so bad that they’d die.”

His wife shrugged. “Kids, probably. Drinking and driving.”

The cross sure put everything in perspective. Come on, buddy, you could be sitting back in Portland crunching numbers and wondering what kind of insanity Leo will come up with at the next team rally meeting. Here you are in the most beautiful part of the state of California, with five days of vacation left.

And you couldn’t come close to par at Pebble Beach in a million years. Quit your moaning, he told himself.

He put his hand on his wife’s knee and drove on toward the beach, not even minding that fog had suddenly turned the morning gray.

DRIVING ALONG 68, Holman Highway, Kathryn Dance called her children, whom her father, Stuart, was driving to their respective day camps. With the early-morning meeting at the hotel, Dance had arranged for Wes and Maggie—twelve and ten—to spend the night with their grandparents.

“Hey, Mom!” Maggie said. “Can we go to Rosie’s for dinner tonight?”

“We’ll have to see. I’ve got a big case.”

“We made noodles for the spaghetti for dinner last night, Grandma and me. And we used flour and eggs and water. Grandpa said we were making them from scratch. What does ‘from scratch’ mean?”

“From all the ingredients. You don’t buy them in a box.”

“Like, I know that. I mean, what does ‘scratch’ mean?”

“Don’t say ‘like.’ And I don’t know. We’ll look it up.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you soon, sweetie. Love you. Put your brother on.”

“Hey, Mom.” Wes launched into a monologue about the tennis match planned for today.

Wes was, Dance suspected, just starting the downhill coast into adolescence. Sometimes he was her little boy, sometimes a distant teenager. His father had died two years ago, and only now was the boy sliding out from under the weight of that sorrow. Maggie, though younger, was more resilient.

“Is Michael still going out on his boat this weekend?”

“I’m sure he is.”

“That rocks!” O’Neil had invited the boy to go fishing this Saturday, along with Michael’s young son, Tyler. His wife, Anne, rarely went out on the boat and, though Dance did from time to time, seasickness made her a reluctant sailor.

She then spoke briefly to her father, thanking him for baby-sitting the children, and mentioned that the new case would be taking up a fair amount of time. Stuart Dance was the perfect grandfather—the semiretired marine biologist could make his own hours and truly loved spending time with the children. Nor did he mind playing chauffeur. He did, however, have a meeting today at the Monterey Bay aquarium but assured his daughter that he’d drop the children off with their grandmother after camp. Dance would pick them up from her later.

Every day Dance thanked fate or the gods that she had loving family nearby. Her heart went out to single mothers with little support.

She slowed, turned at the light and pulled into the parking lot of Monterey Bay Hospital, studying a crowd of people behind a row of blue sawhorse barriers.

More protesters than yesterday.

And yesterday had seen more than the day before.

MBH was a famed institution, one of the best medical centers in the region, and one of the most idyllic, set in a pine forest. Dance knew the place well. She’d given birth to her children here, sat with her father as he recovered from major surgery. She’d identified her husband’s body in the hospital’s morgue.

And she herself had recently been attacked here—an incident related to the protest Dance was now watching.

As part of the Daniel Pell case, Dance had sent a young Monterey County deputy to guard the prisoner in the county courthouse in Salinas. The convict had escaped and, in the process, had attacked and severely burned the deputy, Juan Millar, who’d been brought here to intensive care. That had been such a hard time—for his confused, sorrowful family, for Michael O’Neil, and for his fellow officers at the MCSO. For Dance too.

It was while she was visiting Juan that his distraught brother, Julio, had assaulted her, enraged that she was trying to take a statement from his semiconscious sibling. Dance had been more startled than hurt by the attack and had chosen not to pursue a case against the hysterical brother.

A few days after Juan was admitted, he’d died. At first, it seemed that the death was a result of the extensive burns. But then it was discovered that somebody had taken his life—a mercy killing.

Dance was saddened by the death, but Juan’s injuries were so severe that his future would have been nothing but pain and medical procedures. Juan’s condition had also troubled Dance’s mother, Edie, a nurse at the hospital. Dance recalled standing in her kitchen, her mother nearby, gazing into the distance. Something was troubling her deeply, and she soon told Dance what: She’d been checking on Juan when the man had swum to consciousness and looked at her with imploring eyes.

He’d whispered, “Kill me.”

Presumably he’d delivered this plea to anybody who’d come to visit or tend to him.

Soon after that, someone had fulfilled his wish.

No one knew the identity of the person who had combined the drugs in the IV drip to end Juan’s life. The death was now officially a criminal investigation—being handled by the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. But it wasn’t being investigated very hard; doctors reported that it would have been highly unlikely for the deputy to live for more than a month or two. The death was clearly a humane act, even if criminal.

But the case had become a cause célèbre for pro-lifers. The protesters that Dance was now watching in the parking lot held posters emblazoned with crosses and pictures of Jesus and of Terry Schiavo, the comatose woman in Florida, whose right-to-die case the U.S. Congress itself became entwined in.

The placards being waved about in front of Monterey Bay Hospital decried the horrors of euthanasia and, apparently because everyone was already assembled and in a protesting mood, abortion. They were mostly members of Life First, based in Phoenix. They’d arrived within days of the young officer’s death.

Dance wondered if any of them caught on to the irony of protesting death outside a hospital. Probably not. They didn’t seem like folks with a sense of humor.

Dance greeted the head of security, a tall African-American, standing outside the main entrance. “Morning, Henry. They keep coming, it looks like.”

“Morning, Agent Dance.” A former cop, Henry Bascomb liked using departmental titles. He gave a smirk, nodding their way. “Like rabbits.”

“Who’s the ringleader?” In the center of the crowd was a scrawny balding man with wattles beneath his pointy chin. He was in clerical garb.

“That’s the head, the minister,” Bascomb told her. “Reverend R. Samuel Fisk. He’s pretty famous. Came all the way from Arizona.”

“R. Samuel Fisk. Very ministerial-sounding name,” she commented.

Beside the reverend stood a burly man with curly red hair and a buttoned dark suit. A bodyguard, Dance guessed.

“Life is sacred!” somebody called, aiming the comment to one of the news trucks nearby.

“Sacred!” the crowd took up.

“Killers,” Fisk shouted, his voice surprisingly resonant for such a scarecrow.

Though it wasn’t directed at her, Dance felt a chill and flashed back to the incident in the ICU, when enraged Julio Millar had grabbed her from behind as Michael O’Neil and another companion intervened.

“Killers!”

The protesters took up the chant. “Kill-ers. Kill-ers!” Dance guessed they’d be hoarse later in the day.

“Good luck,” she told the security chief, who rolled his eyes uncertainly.

Inside, Dance glanced around, half expecting to see her mother. Then she got directions from reception and hurried down a corridor to the room where she’d find the witness in the Roadside Cross Case.

When she stepped into the open doorway, the blond teenage girl inside, lying in the elaborate hospital bed, looked up.

“Hi, Tammy. I’m Kathryn Dance.” Smiling at the girl. “You mind if I come in?”

Chapter 5

ALTHOUGH TAMMY FOSTER had been left to drown in the trunk, the attacker had made a miscalculation.

Had he parked farther from shore the tide would have been high enough to engulf the entire car, dooming the poor girl to a terrible death. But, as it happened, the car had gotten bogged down in loose sand not far out, and the flowing tide had filled the Camry’s trunk with only six inches of water.

At about 4:00 a.m. an airline employee on his way to work saw the glint from the car. Rescue workers got to the girl, half conscious from exposure, bordering on hypothermia, and raced her to the hospital.

“So,” Dance now asked, “how you feeling?”

“Okay, I guess.”

She was athletic and pretty but pale. Tammy had an equine face, straight, perfectly tinted blond hair and a pert nose that Dance guessed had started life with a somewhat different slope. Her quick glance at a small cosmetic bag suggested to Dance that she rarely went out in public without makeup.

Dance’s badge appeared.

Tammy glanced at it.

“You’re looking pretty good, all things considered.”

“It was so cold,” Tammy said. “I’ve never been so cold in my life. I’m still pretty freaked.”

“I’m sure you are.”

The girl’s attention swerved to the TV screen. A soap opera was on. Dance and Maggie watched them from time to time, usually when the girl was home sick from school. You could miss months and still come back and figure out the story perfectly.

Dance sat down and looked at the balloons and flowers on a nearby table, instinctively searching for red roses or religious gifts or cards emblazoned with crosses. There were none.

“How long are you going to be in the hospital?”

“I’m getting out today, probably. Maybe tomorrow, they said.”

“How’re the doctors? Cute?”

A laugh.

“Where do you go to school?”

“Robert Louis Stevenson.”

“Senior?”

“Yeah, in the fall.”

To put the girl at ease, Dance made small talk: asking about whether she was in summer school, if she’d thought about what college she wanted to attend, her family, sports. “You have any vacation plans?”

“We do now,” she said. “After this. My mom and sister and me are going to visit my grandmother in Florida next week.” There was exasperation in her voice and Dance could tell that the last thing the girl wanted to do was go to Florida with the family.

“Tammy, you can imagine, we really want to find whoever did this to you.”

“Asshole.”

Dance lifted an agreeing eyebrow. “Tell me what happened.”

Tammy explained about being at a club and leaving just after midnight. She was in the parking lot when somebody came up from behind, taped her mouth, hands and feet, threw her in the trunk and then drove to the beach.

“He just left me there to, like, drown.” The girl’s eyes were hollow. Dance, empathetic by nature—a gift from her mother—could feel the horror herself, a hurting tickle down her spine.

“Did you know the attacker?”

The girl shook her head. “But I know what happened.”

“What’s that?”

“Gangs.”

“He was in a gang?”

“Yeah, everybody knows about it. To get into a gang, you have to kill somebody. And if you’re in a Latino gang you have to kill a white girl. Those’re the rules.”

“You think the perp was Latino?”

“Yeah, I’m sure he was. I didn’t see his face but got a look at his hand. It was darker, you know. Not black. But he definitely wasn’t a white guy.”

“How big was he?”

“Not tall. About five-six. But really, really strong. Oh, something else. I think last night I said it was just one guy. But I remembered this morning. There were two of them.”

“You saw two of them?”

“More, I could feel somebody else nearby, you know how that happens?”

“Could it have been a woman?”

“Oh, yeah, maybe. I don’t know. Like I was saying, I was pretty freaked out.”

“Did anybody touch you?”

“No, not that way. Just to put tape on me and throw me in the trunk.” Her eyes flashed with anger.

“Do you remember anything about the drive?”

“No, I was too scared. I think I heard some clanks or something, some noise from inside the car.”

“Not the trunk?”

“No. Like metal or something, I thought. He put it in the car after he got me in the trunk. I saw this movie, one of the Saw movies. And I thought maybe he was going to use whatever it was to torture me.”

The bike, Dance was thinking, recalling the tread marks at the beach. He’d brought a bicycle with him for his escape. She suggested this, but Tammy said that wasn’t it; there was no way to get a bike in the backseat. She added gravely, “And it didn’t sound like a bike.”

“Okay, Tammy.” Dance adjusted her glasses and kept looking at the girl, who glanced at the flowers and cards and stuffed animals. The girl added, “Look at everything people gave me. That bear there, isn’t he the best?”

“He’s cute, yep. . . . So you’re thinking it was some Latino kids in a gang.”

“Yeah. But . . . well, you know, like now, it’s kind of over with.”

“Over with?”

“I mean, I didn’t get killed. Just a little wet.” A laugh as she avoided Dance’s eyes. “They’re definitely freaking. It’s all over the news. I’ll bet they’re gone. I mean, maybe even left town.”

It was certainly true that gangs had initiation rites. And some involved murder. But killings were rarely outside the race or ethnicity of the gang and were most often directed at rival gang members or informants. Besides, what had happened to Tammy was too elaborate. Dance knew from running gang crimes that they were business first; time is money and the less spent on extracurricular activities the better.

Dance had already decided that Tammy didn’t think her attacker was a Latino gangbanger at all. Nor did she believe there were two of them.

In fact, Tammy knew more about the perp than she was letting on.

It was time to get to the truth.

The process of kinesic analysis in interviewing and interrogation is first to establish a baseline—a catalog of behaviors that subjects exhibit when telling the truth: Where do they put their hands, where do they look and how often, do they swallow or clear their throats often, do they lace their speech with “Uhm,” do they tap their feet, do they slouch or sit forward, do they hesitate before answering?

Once the truthful baseline is determined, the kinesic expert will note any deviations from it when the subject is asked questions to which he or she might have reason to answer falsely. When most people lie, they feel stress and anxiety and try to relieve those unpleasant sensations with gestures or speech patterns that differ from the baseline. One of Dance’s favorite quotes came from a man who predated the coining of the term “kinesics” by a hundred years: Charles Darwin, who said, “Repressed emotion almost always comes to the surface in some form of body motion.”

When the subject of the attacker’s identity had arisen, Dance observed that the girl’s body language changed from her baseline: She shifted her hips uneasily and a foot bobbed. Arms and hands are fairly easy for liars to control but we’re much less aware of the rest of our body, especially toes and feet.

Dance also noted other changes: in the pitch of the girl’s voice, fingers flipping her hair and “blocking gestures,” touching her mouth and nose. Tammy also offered unnecessary digressions, she rambled and she made overgeneralized statements (“Everybody knows about it”), typical of someone who’s lying.

Convinced that the girl was withholding information, Kathryn Dance now slipped into her analytic mode. Her approach to getting a subject to be honest consisted of four parts. First, she asked: What’s the subject’s role in the incident? Here, Tammy was a victim and a witness only, Dance concluded. She wasn’t a participant—either involved in another crime or staging her own abduction.

Second, what’s the motive to lie? The answer, it was pretty clear, was that the poor girl was terrified of reprisal. This was common, and made Dance’s job easier than if Tammy’s motive were to cover up her own criminal behavior.

The third question: What’s the subject’s general personality type? This determination would suggest what approach Dance should adopt in pursuing the interrogation—should she, for instance, be aggressive or gentle; work toward problem solving or offer emotional support; behave in a friendly manner or detached? Dance categorized her subjects according to attributes in the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, which assesses whether someone is an extravert or introvert, thinking or feeling, sensing or intuitive.

The distinction between extravert and introvert is about attitude. Does the subject act first and then assess the results (an extravert), or reflect before acting (introvert)? Information gathering is carried out either by trusting the five senses and verifying data (sensing) or relying on hunches (intuitive). Decision making occurs by either objective, logical analysis (thinking) or by making choices based on empathy (feeling).

Although Tammy was pretty, athletic and apparently a popular girl, her insecurities—and, Dance had learned, an unstable home life—had made her an introvert, and one who was intuitive and feeling. This meant Dance couldn’t use a blunt approach with the girl. Tammy would simply stonewall—and be traumatized by harsh questioning.

Finally, the fourth question an interrogator must ask is: What kind of liar’s personality does the subject have?

There are several types. Manipulators, or “High Machiavellians” (after the Italian political philosopher who, literally, wrote the book on ruthlessness), see absolutely nothing wrong with lying; they use deceit as a tool to achieve their goals in love, business, politics or crime and are very, very good at deception. Other types include social liars, who lie to entertain; adaptors, insecure people who lie to make positive impressions; and actors, who lie for control.

Dance decided Tammy was a combination of adaptor and actor. Her insecurities would make her lie to boost her fragile ego, and she would lie to get her way.

Once a kinesic analyst answers these four questions, the rest of the process is straightforward: She continues questioning the subject, noting carefully those queries that elicit stress reactions—indicators of deception. Then she keeps returning to those questions, and related ones, probing further, closing in on the lie, and noting how the subject is handling the increasing levels of stress. Is she angry, in denial, depressed or trying to bargain her way out of the situation? Each of these states requires different tools to force or trick or encourage the subject to finally tell the truth.

This is what Dance did now, sitting forward a bit to put herself in a close but not invasive “proxemic zone”—about three feet away from Tammy. This would make her uneasy, but not overly threatened. Dance kept a faint smile on her face and decided not to exchange her gray-rimmed glasses for her black frames—her “predator specs”—which she wore to intimidate High Mach subjects.

“That’s very helpful, Tammy, everything you’ve said. I really appreciate your cooperation.”

The girl smiled. But she also glanced at the door. Dance read: guilt.

“But one thing,” the agent added, “we have some reports from the crime scene. Like on CSI, you know?”

“Sure. I watch it.”

“Which one do you like?”

“The original. You know, Las Vegas.”

“That’s the best, I hear.” Dance had never seen the show. “But from the evidence it doesn’t seem like there were two people. Either in the parking lot or at the beach.”

“Oh. Well, like I said, it was just a, like, feeling.”

“And one question I had. That clanking you heard? See, we didn’t find any other car wheel tread marks either. So we’re real curious how he got away. Let’s go back to the bicycle. I know you didn’t think that was the sound in the car, the clanking, but any way it could have been, you think?”

“A bicycle?”

Repeating a question is often a sign of deception. The subject is trying to buy time to consider the implications of an answer and to make up something credible.

“No, it couldn’t. How could he get it inside?” Tammy’s denial was too fast and too adamant. She’d considered a bicycle too but didn’t want to admit the possibility, for some reason.

Dance lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, I don’t know. One of my neighbors has a Camry. It’s a pretty big car.”

The girl blinked; she was surprised, it seemed, that Dance knew the make of her car. That the agent had done her homework was making Tammy uneasy. She looked at the window. Subconsciously, she was seeking a route of escape from the unpleasant anxiety. Dance was on to something. She felt her own pulse tap harder.

“Maybe. I don’t know,” Tammy said.

“So, he could’ve had a bike. That might mean he was somebody your age, a little younger. Adults ride bikes, sure, but you see teenagers with them more. Hey, what do you think about it being somebody in school with you?”

“School? No way. Nobody I know would do something like that.”

“Anybody ever threaten you? Have any fights with anybody at Stevenson?”

“I mean, Brianna Crenshaw was pissed when I beat her for cheerleader. But she started going out with Davey Wilcox. Who I had a crush on. So it kind of evened out.” A choked laugh.

Dance smiled too.

“No, it was this gang guy. I’m sure of it.” Her eyes grew wide. “Wait, I remember now. He made a call. Probably to the gang leader. I could hear him open his phone and he said, ‘Ella esta en el coche.’ ”

She’s in the car, Dance translated to herself. She asked Tammy, “You know what that means?”

“Something like ‘I’ve got her in the car.’ ”

“You’re studying Spanish?”

“Yeah.” This was all very breathless and told in a voice with a higher pitch than normal. Her eyes locked onto Dance’s but her hand flicked her hair away and paused to scratch her lip.

The Spanish quotation was a complete lie.

“What I’m thinking,” Dance began reasonably, “is that he was just pretending to be a gangbanger. To cover up his identity. That means there was another reason to attack you.”

“Like, why?”

“That’s what I’m hoping you can help me with. You get any look at him at all?”

“Not really. He was behind me the whole time. And it was really, really dark in the parking lot. They ought to put lights in. I think I’m going to sue the club. My father’s a lawyer in San Mateo.”

The angry posturing was meant to deflect Dance’s questioning; Tammy had seen something.

“Maybe as he came up toward you, you saw a reflection in the windows.”

The girl was shaking her head no. But Dance persisted. “Just a glimpse. Think back. It’s always cold at night here. He wouldn’t-’ve been in shirtsleeves. Was he wearing a jacket? A leather one, cloth? A sweater? Maybe a sweatshirt. A hoodie?”

Tammy said no to all of them, but some no’s were different from others.

Dance then noticed the girl’s eyes zip to a bouquet of flowers on the table. Beside it the get-well card read: Yo, girl, get your a** out of there soon! Love J, P, and the Beasty Girl.

Kathryn Dance looked at herself as a journeyman law enforcer who succeeded largely because of doing her homework and not taking no for an answer. Occasionally, though, her mind did a curious jump. She’d pack in the facts and impressions and suddenly there’d be an unexpected leap—a deduction or conclusion that seemed to arise as if by magic.

A to B to X . . .

This happened now, seeing Tammy look at the flowers, eyes troubled.

The agent took a chance.

“See, Tammy, we know that whoever attacked you also left a roadside cross—as a message of some sort.”

The girl’s eyes grew wide.

Gotcha, Dance thought. She does know about the cross.

She continued her improvised script, “And messages like that are always sent by people who know the victims.”

“I . . . I heard him speaking Spanish.”

Dance knew this was a lie, but she’d learned that with subjects who had a personality type like Tammy’s, she needed to leave them an escape route, or they’d shut down completely. She said agreeably, “Oh, I’m sure you did. But I think he was trying to cover up his identity. He wanted to fool you.”

Tammy was miserable, the poor thing.

Who terrified her so much?

“First of all, Tammy, let me reassure you that we’ll protect you. Whoever did this won’t get near you again. I’m going to have a policeman stay outside your door here. And we’ll have one at your house too until we catch the person who did this.”

Relief in her eyes.

“Here’s a thought: What about a stalker? You’re very beautiful. I’ll bet you have to be pretty careful.”

A smile—very cautious, but pleased nonetheless at the compliment.

“Anybody been hassling you?”

The young patient hesitated.

We’re close. We’re really close.

But Tammy backed away. “No.”

Dance did too. “Have you had any problems with people in your family?” This was a possibility. She’d checked. Her parents were divorced—after a tough courtroom battle—and her older brother lived away from home. An uncle had a domestic abuse charge.

But Tammy’s eyes made it clear that relatives probably weren’t behind the attack.

Dance continued to fish. “You have any trouble with anybody you’ve been e-mailing? Maybe somebody you know online, through Facebook or MySpace? That happens a lot nowadays.”

“No, really. I’m not online that much.” She was flicking fingernail against fingernail, the equivalent of wringing hands.

“I’m sorry to push, Tammy. It’s just so important to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Then Dance saw something that struck her like a slap. In the girl’s eyes was a recognition response—a faint lifting of the brows and lids. It meant that Tammy was afraid that this would happen again—but, since she’d have her police guard, the implication was that the attacker was a threat to others too.

The girl swallowed. She was clearly in the denial phase of stress reaction, which meant she was hunkered down, defenses raised high.

“It was somebody I didn’t know. I swear to God.”

A deception flag: “I swear.” The deity reference too. It was as if she were shouting, I’m lying! I want to tell the truth but I’m afraid.

Dance said, “Okay, Tammy. I believe you.”

“Look, I’m really, really tired. I think maybe I don’t want to say anything else until my mom gets here.”

Dance smiled. “Of course, Tammy.” She rose and handed the girl one of her business cards. “If you could think about it a bit more and let us know anything that occurs to you.”

“I’m sorry I’m, like, not all that helpful.” Eyes down. Contrite. Dance could see that the girl had used pouting and insincere self-deprecation in the past. The technique, mixed with a bit of flirt, would work with boys and her father; women wouldn’t let her get away with it.

Still, Dance played to her. “No, no, you’ve been very helpful. Gosh, honey, look at all you’ve been through. Get some rest. And put on some sitcoms.” A nod at the TV. “They’re good for the soul.”

Walking out the door, Dance reflected: another few hours and she might have gotten the girl to tell the truth, though she wasn’t sure; Tammy was clearly terrified. Besides, however talented the interrogator, sometimes subjects simply would not tell what they knew.

Not that it mattered. Kathryn Dance believed she’d learned all the information she needed.

A to B to X . . .

Chapter 6

IN THE LOBBY of the hospital Dance used a pay phone—no mobiles allowed—and called in a deputy to guard Tammy Foster’s room. She then went to reception and had her mother paged.

Three minutes later Edie Dance surprised her daughter by approaching not from her station at Cardiac Care but from the intensive care wing.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Katie,” said the stocky woman with short gray hair and round glasses. Around her neck was an abalone and jade pendant that she’d made herself. “I heard about the attack—that girl in the car. She’s upstairs.”

“I know. I just interviewed her.”

“She’ll be okay, I think. That’s the word. How did your meeting go this morning?”

Dance grimaced. “A setback, it looks like. The defense is trying to get the case dismissed on immunity.”

“Doesn’t surprise me” was the cold response. Edie Dance was never hesitant to state her opinions. She had met the suspect, and when she learned what he’d done, she’d grown furious—an emotion evident to Dance in the woman’s calm visage and faint smile. Never raising her voice. But eyes of steel.

If looks could kill, Dance remembered thinking about her mother when she was young.

“But Ernie Seybold’s a bulldog.”

“How’s Michael?” Edie Dance had always liked O’Neil.

“Fine. We’re running this case together.” She explained about the roadside cross.

“No, Katie! Leaving a cross before somebody dies? As a message?”

Dance nodded. But she noted that her mother’s attention continued to be drawn outside. Her face was troubled.

“You’d think they’d have more important things to do. That reverend gave a speech the other day. Fire and brimstone. And the hatred in their faces. It’s vile.”

“Have you seen Juan’s parents?”

Edie Dance had spent some time comforting the burned officer’s family, his mother in particular. She had known that Juan Millar probably wouldn’t survive, but she’d done everything she could to make the shocked and bewildered couple understand that he was getting the best care possible. Edie had told her daughter that the woman’s emotional pain was as great as her son’s physical agony.

“No, they haven’t been back. Julio has. He was here this morning.”

“He was? Why?”

“Maybe collecting his brother’s personal effects. I don’t know. . . .” Her voice faded. “He was just staring at the room where Juan died.”

“Has there been an inquiry?”

“Our board of ethics was looking into it. And a few policemen have been here. Some county deputies. But when they look at the report—and see the pictures of his injuries—nobody’s actually that upset that he died. It really was merciful.”

“Did Julio say anything to you when he was here today?”

“No, he didn’t talk to anybody. You ask me, he’s a bit scary. And I couldn’t help but remember what he did to you.”

“He was temporarily insane,” Dance said.

“Well, that’s no excuse for attacking my daughter,” Edie said with a staunch smile. Then her eyes slipped out the glass doors and examined the protesters once more. A dark look. She said, “I better get back to my station.”

“If it’s okay, could Dad bring Wes and Maggie over here later? He’s got a meeting at the aquarium. I’ll pick them up.”

“Of course, honey. I’ll park ’em in the kids’ play area.”

Edie Dance headed off once more, glancing outside. Her visage was angry and troubled. It seemed to say: You’ve got no business being here, disrupting our work.

Dance left the hospital with a glance toward Reverend R. Samuel Fisk and his bodyguard or whoever the big man was. They’d joined several other protesters, clasped hands and lowered their heads in prayer.

“TAMMY’S COMPUTER,” DANCE said to Michael O’Neil.

He lifted an eyebrow.

“It’s got the answer. Well, maybe not the answer. But an answer. To who attacked her.”

They were sipping coffee as they sat outside at Whole Foods in Del Monte Center, an outdoor plaza anchored by Macy’s. She once calculated that she’d bought at least fifty pairs of shoes here—footwear, her tranquilizer. In fairness, though, that otherwise embarrassing number of purchases had taken place over a few years. Often, but not always, on sale.

“Online stalker?” O’Neil asked. The food they ate wasn’t poached eggs with delicate hollandaise sauce and parsley garnish, but a shared raisin bagel with low-fat cream cheese in a little foil envelope.

“Maybe. Or a former boyfriend who threatened her, or somebody she met on a social networking site. But I’m sure she knows his identity, if not him personally. I’m leaning toward somebody from her school. Stevenson.”

“She wouldn’t say, though?”

“Nope, claimed it was a Latino gangbanger.”

O’Neil laughed. A lot of fake insurance claims started with, “A Hispanic in a mask broke into my jewelry store.” Or “Two African-Americans wearing masks pulled guns and stole my Rolex.”

“No description, but I think he was wearing a sweatshirt, a hoodie. She gave a different negation response when I mentioned that.”

“Her computer,” O’Neil mused, hefting his heavy briefcase onto the table and opening it. He consulted a printout. “The good news: We’ve got it in evidence. A laptop. It was in the backseat of her car.”

“And the bad news is it went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean?”

“ ‘Significant seawater damage,’ ” he quoted.

Dance was discouraged. “We’ll have to send it to Sacramento or the FBI up in San Jose. It’ll take weeks to get back.”

They watched a hummingbird brave the crowds to hover for breakfast at a red hanging plant. O’Neil said, “Here’s a thought. I was talking to a friend of mine in the Bureau up there. He’d just been to a presentation on computer crime. One of the speakers was local—a professor in Santa Cruz.”

“UC?”

“Right.”

One of Dance’s alma maters.

“He said the guy was pretty sharp. And he volunteered to help if they ever needed him.”

“What’s his background?”

“All I know is he got out of Silicon Valley and started to teach.”

“At least there’re no bursting bubbles in education.”

“You want me to see if I can get his name?”

“Sure.”

O’Neil lifted a stack of business cards from his attaché case, which was as neatly organized as his boat. He found one and made a call. In three minutes he’d tracked down his friend and had a brief conversation. The attack had already attracted the FBI’s attention, Dance deduced. O’Neil jotted down a name and thanked the agent. Hanging up, he handed the slip to Dance. Dr. Jonathan Boling. Below it was a number.

“What can it hurt? . . . Who’s got the laptop itself?”

“In our evidence locker. I’ll call and tell them to release it.”

Dance unholstered her cell phone and called Boling, got his voice mail and left a message.

She continued to tell O’Neil about Tammy, mentioning that much of the girl’s emotional response was from her fear that the attacker would strike again—and maybe target others.

“Just what we were worried about,” O’Neil said, running a thick hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.

“She also was giving off signals of guilt,” Dance said.

“Because she might’ve been partly responsible for what happened?”

“That’s what I’m thinking. In any case, I really want to get inside that computer.” A glance at her watch. Unreasonably, she was irritated that this Jonathan Boling hadn’t returned her call of three minutes before.

She asked O’Neil, “Any more leads on the evidence?”

“Nope.” He told her what Peter Bennington had reported about the crime scene: that the wood in the cross was from oak trees, of which there were about a million or two on the Peninsula. The green florist wire binding the two branches was common and untraceable. The cardboard was cut from the back of a pad of cheap notebook paper sold in thousands of stores. The ink couldn’t be sourced either. The roses couldn’t be traced to a particular store or other location.

Dance told him the theory of the bicycle. O’Neil was one step ahead, though. He added that they’d reexamined the lot where the girl had been kidnapped and the beach where the car was left, and found more bicycle tread marks, none identifiable, but they were fresh, suggesting that this was the perp’s likely means of transport. But the tread marks weren’t distinctive enough to trace.

Dance’s phone rang—the Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes theme, which her children had programmed in as a practical joke. O’Neil smiled.

Dance glanced at the Caller ID screen. It read J. Boling. She lifted an eyebrow, thinking—again unreasonably—it was about time.

Chapter 7

THE NOISE OUTSIDE, a snap from behind the house, brought back an old fear.

That she was being watched.

Not like at the mall or the beach. She wasn’t afraid of leering kids or perverts. (That was irritating or flattering—depending, naturally, on the kid or the perv.) No, what terrified Kelley Morgan was some thing staring at her from outside the window of her bedroom.

Snap . . .

A second sound. Sitting at the desk in her room, Kelley felt a shivering so sudden and intense that her skin stung. Her fingers were frozen, pausing above the computer keyboard. Look, she told herself. Then: No, don’t.

Finally: Jesus, you’re seventeen. Get over it!

Kelley forced herself to turn around and risk a peek out the window. She saw gray sky above green and brown plants and rocks and sand. Nobody.

And no-thing.

Forget about it.

The girl, physique slim and brunette hair dense, would be a senior in high school next fall. She had a driver’s license. She’d surfed Maverick Beach. She was going skydiving on her eighteenth birthday with her boyfriend.

No, Kelley Morgan didn’t spook easily.

But she had one intense fear.

Windows.

The terror was from when she was a little girl, maybe nine or ten and living in this same house. Her mother read all these overpriced home design magazines and thought curtains were totally out and would mess up the clean lines of their modern house. Not a big deal, really, except that Kelley had seen some stupid TV show about the Abominable Snowman or some monster like that. It showed this CG animation of the creature as it walked up to a cabin and peered through the window, scaring the hell out of the people in bed.

Didn’t matter that it was cheesy computer graphics, or that she knew there wasn’t any such thing in real life. That was all it took, one TV show. For years afterward, Kelley would lie in bed, sweating, head covered by her blanket, afraid to look for fear of what she’d see. Afraid not to, for fear she’d have no warning of it—whatever it was—climbing through the window.

Ghosts, zombies, vampires and werewolves didn’t exist, she told herself. But all she’d need to do was read a Stephenie Meyer Twilight book and, bang, the fear would come back.

And Stephen King? Forget about it.

Now, older and not putting up with as much of her parents’ weirdness as she used to, she’d gone to Home Depot and bought curtains for her room and installed them herself. Screw her mother’s taste in décor. Kelley kept the curtains drawn at night. But they were open at the moment, it being daytime, with pale light and a cool summer breeze wafting in.

Then another snap outside. Was it closer?

That image of the effing creature from the TV show just never went away, and neither did the fear it injected into her veins. The yeti, the Abominable Snowman, at her window, staring, staring. A churning now gripped her in the belly, like the time she’d tried that liquid fast then gone back to solid foods.

Snap. . . .

She risked another peek.

The blank window yawned at her.

Enough!

She returned to her computer, reading some comments on the OurWorld social networking site about that poor girl from Stevenson High, Tammy, who’d been attacked last night—Jesus, thrown into a trunk and left to drown. Raped or at least molested, everybody was saying.

Most of the postings were sympathetic. But some were cruel and those totally pissed Kelley off. She was staring at one now.

Okay Tammy’s going to be all right and thank God. But I have to say one thing. IMHO, she brought it on herself. she has GOT to learn not to walk around like a slutcat from the eighties with the eyeliner and where does she get those dresses? she KNOWS what the guys are thinking, what did she expect????

—AnonGurl

Kelley banged out a response.

OMG, how can you say that? She was almost killed. And anybody who says a woman ASKS to be raped is a mindless l00ser. u should be ashamed!!!

—BellaKelley

She wondered if the original poster would reply, hitting back.

Leaning toward the computer, Kelley heard yet another noise outside.

“That’s it,” she said aloud. She rose, but didn’t go to the window. Instead she walked out of her room and into the kitchen, peeking outside. Didn’t see anything . . . or did she? Was there a shadow in the canyon behind the shrubs at the back of the property?

None of her family was home, her parents working, her brother at practice.

Laughing uneasily to herself: It was less scary for her to go outside and meet a hulking pervert face-to-face than to see him looking into her window. Kelley glanced at the magnetic knife rack. The blades were totally sharp. Debated. But she left the weapons where they were. Instead she held her iPhone up to her ear and walked outside. “Hi, Ginny, yeah, I heard something outside. I’m just going to go see.”

The conversation was pretend, but he—or it—wouldn’t know that.

“No, I’ll keep talking. Just in case there’s some asshole out there.” Talking loud.

The door opened onto the side yard. She headed toward the back, then, approaching the corner, she slowed. Finally she stepped tentatively into the backyard. Empty. At the end of the property, beyond a thick barrier of plants, the ground dropped away steeply into county land—a shallow canyon filled with brush and some jogging trails.

“So, how’s it going? Yeah . . . yeah? Sweet. Way sweet.”

Okay. Don’t overdo it, she thought. Your acting sucks.

Kelley eased to the row of foliage and peered through it into the canyon. She thought she saw someone moving away from the house.

Then, not too far away, she saw some kid in sweats on a bike, taking one of the trails that was a shortcut between Pacific Grove and Monterey. He turned left and vanished behind a hill.

Kelley put the phone away. She started to return to the house when she noticed something out of place in the back planting beds. A little dot of color. Red. She walked over to it and picked up the flower petal. A rose. Kelley let the crescent flutter back to the ground.

She returned to the house.

A pause, looking back. No one, no animals. Not a single Abominable Snowman or werewolf.

She stepped inside. And froze, gasping.

In front of her, ten feet away, a human silhouette was approaching, features indistinct because of the backlighting from the living room.

“Who—?”

The figure stopped. A laugh. “Jesus, Kel. You are so freaked. You look . . . gimme your phone. I want a picture.”

Her brother, Ricky, reached for her iPhone.

“Get out!” Kelley said, grimacing and twisting away from his outstretched hand. “Thought you had practice.”

“Needed my sweats. Hey, you hear about that girl in the trunk? She goes to Stevenson.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen her. Tammy Foster.”

“She hot?” The lanky sixteen-year-old, with a mop of brown hair that matched her own, headed for the refrigerator and grabbed a power drink.

“Ricky, you’re so gross.”

“Uh-huh. So? Is she?”

Oh, she hated brothers. “When you leave, lock the door.”

Ricky screwed his face into a huge frown. “Why? Who’d wanna molest you?”

“Lock it!”

“Like, okay.”

She shot him a dark look, which he missed completely.

Kelley continued to her room and sat down at the computer again. Yep, AnonGurl had posted an attack on Kelley for defending Tammy Foster.

Okay, bitch, you’re going down. I am gonna own you so bad.

Kelley Morgan began to type.

PROFESSOR JONATHAN BOLING was in his forties, Dance estimated. Not tall, a few inches over her height, with a frame that suggested either a tolerance for exercise or a disdain for junk food. Straight brownish hair similar to Dance’s, though she suspected that he didn’t sneak a box of Clairol into his shopping cart at Safeway every couple of weeks.

“Well,” he said, looking around the halls as she escorted him from the lobby to her office at the California Bureau of Investigation. “This isn’t quite what I pictured. Not like CSI.”

Did everybody in the universe watch that show?

Boling wore a digital Timex on one wrist and a braided bracelet on the other—perhaps symbolizing support for something or another. (Dance thought about her children, who would cover their wrists with so many colored bands she was never sure what the latest causes were.) In jeans and a black polo shirt, he was handsome in a subdued, National Public Radio kind of way. His brown eyes were steady, and he seemed fast with a smile.

Dance decided he could have any grad student he set his sights on.

She asked, “You ever been in a law enforcement office before?”

“Well, sure,” he said, clearing his throat and giving off odd kinesic signals. Then a smile. “But they dropped the charges. I mean, what else could they do when Jimmy Hoffa’s body never turned up?”

She couldn’t help but laugh. Oh, you poor grad students. Beware.

“I thought you consulted with police.”

“I’ve offered to, at the end of my lectures to law enforcement agencies and security companies. But nobody’s taken me up on it. Until now. You’re my maiden voyage. I’ll try not to disappoint.”

They arrived in her office and sat across from each other at her battered coffee table.

Boling said, “I’m happy to help however I can but I’m not sure exactly what I can do.” A bolt of sunlight fell across his loafers and he glanced down, noticed that one sock was black and one navy blue. He laughed without embarrassment. In another era Dance would have deduced that he was single; nowadays, with two busy working partners, fashion glitches like this were inadmissible evidence. He didn’t, however, wear a wedding ring.

“I have a hardware and software background but for serious technical advice, I’m afraid I’m over the legal age limit and I don’t speak Hindi.”

He told her that he’d gotten joint degrees in literature and engineering at Stanford, admittedly an odd combination, and after a bit of “bumming around the world” had ended up in Silicon Valley, doing systems design for some of the big computer companies.

“Exciting time,” he said. But, he added, eventually he’d been turned off by the greed. “It was like an oil rush. Everybody was asking how could they get rich by convincing people they had these needs that computers could fill. I thought maybe we should look at it the other way: find out what needs people actually had and then ask how computers could help them.” A cocked head. “As between their position and mine. I lost big-time. So I took some stock money, quit, bummed around again. I ended up in Santa Cruz, met somebody, decided to stay and tried teaching. Loved it. That was almost ten years ago. I’m still there.”

Dance told him that after a stint as a reporter she’d gone back to college—the same school where he taught. She studied communications and psychology. Their time had coincided, briefly, but they didn’t know anyone in common.

He taught several courses, including the Literature of Science Fiction, as well as a class called Computers and Society. And in the grad school Boling taught what he described as some boring technical courses. “Sort of math, sort of engineering.” He also consulted for corporations.

Dance interviewed people in many different professions. The majority radioed clear signals of stress when speaking of their jobs, which indicated either anxiety because of the demands of the work, or, more often, depression about it—as Boling had earlier when speaking about Silicon Valley. But his kinesic behavior now, when discussing his present career, was stress free.

He continued to downplay his technical skill, though, and Dance was disappointed. He seemed smart and more than willing to help—he’d driven down here on a moment’s notice—and she would have liked to use his services, but to get into Tammy Foster’s computer it sounded like they’d need more of a hands-on tech person. At least, she hoped, he could recommend someone.

Maryellen Kresbach came in with a tray of coffee and cookies. Attractive, she resembled a country-western singer, with her coiffed brown hair and red Kevlar fingernails. “The guard desk called. Somebody’s got a computer from Michael’s office.”

“Good. You can bring it up.”

Maryellen paused for a moment and Dance had an amusing idea that the woman was checking out Boling as romantic fodder. Her assistant had been waging a none-too-subtle campaign to find Dance a husband. When the woman eyed Boling’s naked left ring finger and lifted her brow at Dance, the agent flashed her an exasperated glance, which was duly noted and summarily ignored.

Boling called his thanks and, after pouring three sugars into his coffee, dug into the cookies and ate two. “Good. No, better than good.”

“She bakes them herself.”

“Really? People do that? They don’t all come out of a Keebler bag?”

Dance went for half a cookie and enjoyed a sip of coffee, though she was caffeinated enough from her earlier meeting with Michael O’Neil.

“Let me tell you what’s going on.” She explained to Boling about the attack on Tammy Foster. Then said, “And we have to get into her laptop.”

Boling nodded understandingly. “Ah, the one that went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean.”

“It’s toast . . .”

He corrected, “With the water, more likely it’s oatmeal—if we’re keeping to breakfast food metaphors.”

Just then a young MCSO deputy stepped into Dance’s office, carrying a large paper bag. Good-looking and eager, though more cute than handsome, he had bright blue eyes, and for a moment he seemed about to salute. “Agent Dance?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m David Reinhold. Crime Scene at the Sheriff’s Office.”

She nodded a greeting. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for bringing that over.”

“You bet. Anything I can do.”

He and Boling shook hands. Then the trim officer, in a perfectly pressed uniform, handed Dance the paper bag. “I didn’t put it in plastic. Wanted it to breathe. Get as much moisture out as we could.”

“Thanks,” Boling said.

“And I took the liberty of taking the battery out,” the young deputy said. He held up a sealed metal tube. “It’s a lithium-ion. I thought if water got inside there could be a fire risk.”

Boling nodded, clearly impressed. “Good thinking.”

Dance had no clue what he was talking about. Boling noticed her frown and explained that some lithium batteries, under certain circumstances, could burst into flames when exposed to water.

“You a geek?” Boling asked him.

The deputy replied, “Not really. Just stuff you pick up, you know.” He held out a receipt for Dance to sign and then pointed out the chain-of-custody card, attached to the bag itself. “If there’s anything else I can do, let me know.” He handed her a business card.

She thanked him, and the young man retreated.

Dance reached inside the bag and extracted Tammy’s laptop. It was pink.

“What a color,” Boling said, shaking his head. He turned it over and examined the back.

Dance asked him, “So, do you know somebody who could get it running and take a look at her files?”

“Sure. Me.”

“Oh, I thought you said you weren’t that much of a tech anymore.”

“That’s not tech, not by today’s standards.” He smiled again. “It’s like rotating your tires on a car. Only I need a couple of tools.”

“We don’t have a lab here. Nothing as sophisticated as you probably need.”

“Well, that depends. I see you collect shoes.” Her closet door was open and Boling must’ve glanced inside, where a dozen pairs sat, more or less ordered, on the floor—for those nights when she went out after work, without stopping at home. She gave a laugh.

Busted.

He continued, “How ’bout personal care appliances?”

“Personal care?”

“I need a hair dryer.”

She chuckled. “Sadly, all my beauty aids are at home.”

“Then we better go shopping.”

Chapter 8

JON BOLING NEEDED a bit more than a hair dryer, as it turned out. Though not much.

Their shopping spree had yielded a Conair, a set of miniature tools and a metal box called an enclosure—a three-by-five-inch rectangle from which sprouted a wire that ended in a USB plug.

These items now sat on Dance’s coffee table in her office at the CBI.

Boling surveyed Tammy Foster’s designer laptop. “I can take it apart? I’m not going to screw up any evidence, am I?”

“It’s been dusted for prints. All we found were Tammy’s. Go ahead and do what you want—she’s not a suspect. Besides, she lied to me, so she’s in no position to complain.”

“Pink,” he said again, as if this was a shocking breach of propriety.

He turned the machine over and, with a tiny Phillips-head screwdriver, had the panel off the back in a few minutes. He then extracted a small metal-and-plastic rectangle.

“The hard drive,” he explained. “By next year this’ll be considered huge. We’re going to flash memory in central processing units. No hard drives—no moving parts at all.” The subject seemed to excite him but he sensed a lecture was a digression inappropriate at the moment. Boling fell silent and examined the drive closely. He didn’t seem to wear contacts; Dance, who’d worn glasses since girlhood, had a mild attack of eye envy.

The professor then gently rattled the drive beside his ear. “Okay.” He set it on the table.

“Okay?”

He grinned, unpacked the hair dryer, plugged it in and wafted a stream of balmy heat over the drive. “Shouldn’t be long. I don’t think it’s wet but we can’t take the chance. Electricity and water equal uh-oh.”

With his free hand he sipped the coffee. He mused, “We professors’re very envious of the private sector, you know. ‘Private sector’—that’s Latin for ‘actually making money.’” He nodded at the cup. “Take Starbucks. . . . Coffee was a pretty good idea for a franchise. I keep looking for the next big one. But all I could think of were things like House O’ Pickles and Jerky World. Beverages’re the best, but all the good ones’re taken.”

“Maybe a milk bar,” Dance suggested. “You could call it Elsie’s.”

His eyes brightened. “Or how ’bout ‘Just An-Udder Place.’ ”

“That was really bad,” she said as they shared a brief laugh.

When he finished drying the hard drive he slipped it into the enclosure. He then plugged the USB connection into his own laptop, which was a somber gray, apparently the shade computers should be.

“I’m curious what you’re doing.” She was watching his sure fingers pound the keys. Many of the letters were worn off. He didn’t need to see them to type.

“The water would’ve shorted out the computer itself, but the hard drive should be okay inside. I’m going to turn it into a readable drive.” After a few minutes he looked up and smiled. “Nope, it’s good as new.”

Dance scooted her chair closer to his.

She glanced at the screen and saw that Windows Explorer was reading Tammy’s hard drive as “Local Disk (G).”

“It’ll have everything on it—her emails, the websites she’s browsed, her favorite places, records of her instant messages. Even deleted data. It’s not encrypted or password-protected—which, by the way, tells me that her parents are very uninvolved in her life. Kids whose folks keep a close eye on them learn to use all kinds of tricks for privacy. Which I, by the way, am pretty good at cracking.” He unplugged the disk from his computer and handed it and the cable to her. “It’s all yours. Just plug it in and read to your heart’s content.” He shrugged. “My first assignment for the police . . . short but sweet.”

With a good friend, Kathryn Dance owned and operated a website devoted to homemade and traditional music. The site was pretty sophisticated technically but Dance knew little of the hardware and software; her friend’s husband handled that side of the business. She now said to Boling, “You know, if you’re not too busy, any chance you could stay around for a little? Help me search it?”

Boling hesitated.

“Well, if you have plans . . .”

“How much time are we talking? I’ve got to be in Napa on Friday night. Family reunion sort of thing.”

Dance said, “Oh, nothing that long. A few hours. A day at the most.”

Eyes brightening again. “I’d love to. Puzzles are an important food group to me. . . . Now, what would I be looking for?”

“Any clues as to the identity of Tammy’s attacker.”

“Oh, Da Vinci Code.”

“Let’s hope it’s not as tricky and that whatever we find won’t get us excommunicated. . . . I’m interested in any communications that seem threatening. Disputes, fights, comments about stalkers. Would instant messages be there?”

“Fragments. We can probably reconstruct a lot of them.” Boling plugged the drive back into his computer and leaned forward.

“Then social networking sites,” Dance said. “Anything to do with roadside memorials or crosses.”

“Memorials?”

She explained, “We think he left a roadside cross to announce the attack.”

“That’s pretty sick.” The professor’s fingers snapped over the keys. As he typed, he asked, “Why do you think her computer’s the answer?”

Dance explained about the interview with Tammy Foster.

“You picked up all that just from her body language?”

“That’s right.”

She told him about the three ways humans communicate: First, through verbal content—what we say. “That’s the meaning of the words themselves. But content is not only the least reliable and most easily faked, it’s actually only a small portion of the way we send messages to each other. The second and third are much more important: verbal quality—how we say the words. That would be things like pitch of voice, how fast we talk, whether we pause and use ‘uhm’ frequently. And then, third, kinesics—our body’s behavior. Gestures, glances, breathing, posture, mannerisms. The last two are what interviewers are most interested in, since they’re much more revealing than speech content.”

He was smiling. Dance lifted an eyebrow.

Boling explained, “You sound as excited about your work as—”

“You and your flash memory.”

A nod. “Yep. They’re amazing little guys . . . even the pink ones.”

Boling continued to type and scroll through page after page of the guts of Tammy’s computer, speaking softly. “Typical rambling of a teenage girl. Boys, clothes, makeup, parties, a little bit about school, movies and music . . . no threats.”

He scrolled quickly through various screens. “So far, negative on the emails, at least the ones for the past two weeks. I can go back and check the earlier ones if I need to. Now, Tammy’s in all the big social networking sites—Facebook, MySpace, OurWorld, Second Life.” Though Boling was offline, he could pull up and view recent pages Tammy had read. “Wait, wait. . . . Okay.” He was sitting forward, tense.

“What is it?”

“She was almost drowned?”

“That’s right.”

“A few weeks ago she and some of her friends started a discussion in OurWorld about what scared them the most. One of Tammy’s big fears was drowning.”

Dance’s mouth tightened. “Maybe he picked the means of death specifically for her.”

In a surprisingly vehement tone, Boling said, “We give away too much information about ourselves online. Way too much. You know the term ‘escribitionist’?”

“Nope.”

“A term for blogging about yourself.” A grimacing smile. “Tells it pretty well, doesn’t it? And then there’s ‘dooce.’”

“That’s new too.”

“A verb. As in ‘I’ve been dooced.’ It means getting fired because of what you posted on your blog—whether facts about yourself or your boss or job. A woman in Utah coined it. She posted some things about her employer and got laid off. ‘Dooce’ comes from a misspelling of ‘dude,’ by the way. Oh, and then there’s pre-doocing.”

“Which is?”

“You apply for a job and the interviewer asks you, ‘You ever write anything about your former boss in a blog?’ Of course, they already know the answer. They’re waiting to see if you’re honest. And if you have posted anything bad? You were knocked out of contention before you brushed your teeth the morning of the interview.”

Too much information. Way too much. . . .

Boling continued to type, lightning fast. Finally he said, “Ah, think I’ve got something.”

“What?”

“Tammy posted a comment on a blog a few days ago. Her screen name is TamF1399.” Boling spun the computer around for Dance to look at.

Reply to Chilton, posted by TamF1399.

[The driver] is effing weird, i mean dangerous. 1 time after cheerleader practice he was hanging out outside our locker room, like he was trying to look inside and get pictures on his phone. I go up to him and I’m like, what’re you doing here, and he looks at me like he was going to kill me. He’s a total fr33k. i know a girl who goes to [deleted] with us and she told me [the driver] grabbed her boobs, only she’s afraid to say anything because she thinks he’ll come get her or start shooting people, like in Virginia Tech.

Boling added, “What’s interesting is that she posted that in a part of the blog called ‘Roadside Crosses.’ ”

Dance’s heart rate pumped up a bit. She asked, “Who’s ‘the driver’?”

“Don’t know. The name’s deleted in all the posts.”

“A blog, hmm?”

“Right.” Boling gave a brief laugh and said, “Mushrooms.”

“What?”

“Blogs are the mushrooms of the Internet. They’re sprouting up everywhere. A few years ago everybody in Silicon Valley was wondering what would be the next big thing in the dot-com world. Well, it turned out to be not a revolutionary new type of hardware or software, but online content: games, social networking sites . . . and blogs. You can’t write about computers now without studying them. The one Tammy posted to was The Chilton Report.”

Dance shrugged. “Never heard of it.”

“I have. It’s local but it’s well known in blogging circles. It’s like a California-based Matt Drudge, only more fringe. Jim Chilton’s a bit of a character.” He continued to read. “Let’s go online and check it out.”

Dance got her own laptop from her desk. “What’s the URL?” she asked.

Boling gave it to her.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com

The professor tugged his chair closer and together they read the homepage.

THE CHILTON REPORT™

THE MORAL VOICE OF AMERICA. A COLLECTION OF MUSINGS ABOUT WHERE THIS COUNTRY’S GOING WRONG . . . AND WHERE IT’S GOING RIGHT.

Dance chuckled. “ ‘Where it’s going right.’ Clever. He’s Moral Majority, conservative, I take it.”

Boling shook his head. “From what I know he’s more cut-and-paste.”

She lifted an eyebrow.

“I mean that he picks and chooses his causes. He’s more right than left but he’ll take on anybody who falls short of his standards of morality or judgment or intelligence. That’s one of the points of blogs, of course: to stir things up. Controversy sells.”

Below was a greeting to the readers.

Dear Reader . . .

Whether you’ve ended up here because you’re a subscriber or a fan or simply because you happened to be browsing the Web and stumbled across The Report, welcome.

Whatever your positions on political and social issues, I hope you’ll find something in my reflections here that, at the very least, makes you question, makes you doubt, makes you want to know more.

For that is what journalism is all about.

—James Chilton

Below that was: “Mission Statement.”

Our Mission Statement

We can’t make judgments in a vacuum. Will business, will government, will corrupt politicians and criminal and debauched individuals be honest about what they’re up to? Of course not. It’s our job in The Report to shine the light of truth into the shadows of deceit and greed—to give you the facts you need to make informed decisions about the pressing issues of the day.

Dance also found a brief biography of Chilton, then a section about personal news. She glanced over the listings.

On the Home Front

GO TEAM!

I’m happy to say that after this weekend’s game the Older Boy’s team is 4–0! Go, Jayhawks! Now, parents: listen to me. Your youngsters should give up baseball and football for soccer, which is the safest and healthiest team sport there is. (See The Chilton Report of April 12 for my comments about sports injuries among children.) And by the way, make sure you call it “soccer,” not “football,” the way the foreigners do. When in America, do as Americans!)

A PATRIOT

Yesterday the Younger Boy knocked the socks off the audience in his day camp recital by singing “America the Beautiful.” All by himself! Makes a dad swell up with pride.

SUGGESTIONS, ANYONE?

We’re coming up on our nineteenth anniversary, Pat and I. And I need ideas for presents! (Out of self-interest I’ve decided against getting her a high-speed fiber optic upgrade for the computer!) You ladies out there, send me your ideas. And, no, Tiffany’s is not out of the question.

WE’RE GOING GLOBAL!

Am pleased to report that The Report has been getting raves from around the world. It’s been selected as one of the lead blogs in a new RSS feed (we’ll call it “Really Simple Syndication”) that will link thousands of other blogs, websites and bulletin boards throughout the world. Kudos to you, my readers, for making The Report as popular as it is.

WELCOME HOME

Heard some news that made me smile. Those of you who’ve followed The Report may remember glowing comments over the years about this humble reporter’s dear friend Donald Hawken—we were pioneers in this crazy computer world so many years ago I don’t like to think about it. Donald escaped the Peninsula for greener pastures in San Diego. But I’m delighted to say that he’s come to his senses and is returning, along with his bride, Lily, and his two wonderful children. Welcome home, Donald!

HEROES

Hats off to the brave firefighters of Monterey County. . . . Pat and I happened to be downtown on Alvarado last Tuesday when calls for help rang out and smoke sprouted from a construction site. Flames blocked the exit . . . with two construction workers trapped on the upper floors. Within minutes two dozen firemen and -women were on the scene and a fire truck had stretched its ladder to the roof. The men were plucked from harm’s way, and the flames were extinguished. No injuries, minimal damage.

In most of our lives bravery involves little more than arguing politics or, at the most physical, snorkeling at fancy resorts or mountain biking.

How rarely are we called on to exhibit true courage—the way the men and women of Monterey County Fire and Rescue do every single day, without a moment’s hesitation or complaint.

Bravo to you all!

Accompanying this posting was a dramatic photo of a fire truck in downtown Monterey.

“Typical of blogs,” Boling said. “Personal information, gossip. People like to read that.”

Dance also clicked on a link called “Monterey.”

She was taken to a page that extolled “Our Home: The Beautiful and Historic Monterey Peninsula,” featuring artistic photos of the shoreline and boats near Cannery Row and Fisherman’s Wharf. There were a number of links to local sights.

Another link led them to maps of the area, including one that depicted her town: Pacific Grove.

Boling said, “This is all gingerbread. Let’s look at the content of the blog . . . that’s where we’ll find the clues.” He frowned. “Do you call them ‘clues’? Or ‘evidence’?”

“You can call ’em broccoli if it helps us find the perp.”

“Let’s see what the veggies reveal.” He gave her another URL.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/june26.html

This was the crux of the blog: Chilton’s mini-essays.

Boling explained, “Chilton’s the ‘OP,’ the original poster. Which, if you’re interested, is derived from ‘OG,’ Original Gangsta, for the leaders of gangs, like Bloods and Crips. Anyway, he uploads his commentary and then leaves it there for people to respond to. They agree or disagree. Sometimes they go off on tangents.”

The original comment by Chilton, Dance noticed, remained at the top, and below were the replies. Mostly people replied directly to the blogger’s comment, but sometimes they responded to other posters.

“Each separate article and all the related posts are called a ‘thread,’ ” Boling explained. “Sometimes the threads can go on for months or years.”

Dance began skimming. Under the clever heading “HypoCHRISTcy,” Chilton attacked the very man Dance had just seen at the hospital, the Reverend Fisk, and the Life First movement. Fisk, it seemed, had once said that murdering abortion doctors was justified. Chilton wrote that he was adamantly against abortion, but condemned Fisk for the statement. Two of Fisk’s defenders, CrimsoninChrist and LukeB1734, viciously attacked Chilton. The former said the blogger himself should be crucified. With the reference to the color in his name, Dance wondered if CrimsoninChrist was the minister’s large, redheaded bodyguard she’d seen earlier at the hospital protest.

The “Power to the People” thread was an exposé about a California state representative—Brandon Klevinger, who was head of the Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee. Chilton had found out that Klevinger had gone on a golfing junket with a developer who was proposing a new nuclear plant near Mendocino, when it would have been cheaper and more efficient to build it closer to Sacramento.

In “Desalinate . . . and Devastate” the blogger took on a plan to build a desalination plant near the Carmel River. The comment included a personal attack on the man behind the project, Arnold Brubaker, painted by Chilton as an interloper from Scottsdale, Arizona, a man with a sketchy past and possible underworld connections.

Two of the postings represented the citizens’ two positions on the desalination issue.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Lyndon Strickland.

I have to say you’ve opened my eyes on this issue. Had no idea that somebody’s ramrodding this through. I reviewed the filed proposal at the County Planning Office and must say that, though I am an attorney familiar with environmental issues, it was one of the most obfuscatory documents I’ve ever tried to wade through. I think we need considerably more transparency in order to have meaningful debate on this matter.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Howard Skelton.

Do you know that America will run out of freshwater by 2023? And 97 percent of the earth’s water is salt water. Only an idiot would not take advantage of that. We need desalination for our survival, if we’re to continue to maintain our position as the most productive and efficient country in the world.

In the “Yellow Brick Road” thread Chilton talked about a project by the state Department of Transportation—Caltrans. A new highway was being built from Highway 1 through Salinas and on to Hollister, through farm country. Chilton was questioning the lightning speed with which the project had been approved, as well as the meandering route, which would benefit some farmers far more than others. He hinted at payoffs.

Chilton’s social conservative side shone through in “Just Say No,” a thread condemning a proposal for increased sex education in middle schools. (Chilton called for abstinence.) A similar message could be found in “Caught in the Act . . . NOT,” about a married state court judge caught leaving a motel with a young clerk, half his age. Chilton was incensed at the recent development that the judge had received a wrist slap from the judicial ethics committee. He felt the man should have been removed from the bench and disbarred.

Kathryn Dance then came to the crucial thread, beneath a sad picture of crosses, flowers and a stuffed animal.

Roadside Crosses

Posted by Chilton.

I recently drove past the spot on Highway 1 where two roadside crosses, and some bright bouquets, sit. They marked the site of that terrible accident on June 9, where two girls died following a graduation party. Lives ended . . . and lives of loved ones and friends changed forever.

I realized that I hadn’t heard much about any police investigation into the crash. I made some calls and found there’d been no arrests. No citations were even issued.

That struck me as odd. Now, no ticket means a determination that the driver—a high school student, so no names—was not to blame. So then what was the cause of the accident? As I drove along the road I noticed it was windswept and sandy and had no lights or guardrails near the spot where the car veered off the road. A caution sign was weathered and would have been hard to see in the dark (the accident occurred around midnight). There was no drainage; I could see pools of standing water on the shoulder and on the highway itself.

Why didn’t the police do a thorough accident reconstruction (they have people on staff who do that, I’ve learned)? Why didn’t Caltrans immediately send a team to examine the surface of the road, the grading, the markings? I could find no record of any such examination.

Maybe the road is as safe as can be expected.

But is it fair to us—whose children regularly drive that stretch of highway—for the authorities to dismiss the tragedy so quickly? It seems to me that their attention has faded quicker than the flowers sitting sorrowfully beneath those roadside crosses.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Ronald Kestler.

If you look at the budget situation in Monterey County and in the state in general, you will find that one area taking the brunt of our economic woes is adequate warning measures along high-risk highways. My son was killed in an accident along Highway 1 because the Curve sign had become covered with mud. It would have been an easy thing for state workers to find and clean it, but did they do this? No. Their neglect was inexcusable. Thank you, Mr. Chilton, for calling attention to this problem.

Reply to Chilton, posted by A Concerned Citizen.

Highway workers make obscene amounts of money and sit on their fat [deleted] all day long. you’ve seen them, everybody has, standing by the road not doing anything when they could be fixing dangerous highways and making sure we’re safe. another example of our tax dollars NOT at work.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Robert Garfield, California Department of Transportation.

I wish to assure you and your readers that the safety of our citizens is Caltrans’s number one priority. We make every effort to maintain the highways of our state in good repair. The portion of road where the accident you’re referring to occurred is, like all highways under state control, regularly inspected. No violations or unsafe conditions were found. We urge all drivers to remember that highway safety in California is everyone’s responsibility.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Tim Concord.

Your comment is EPIC WIN, Chilton! The police will get away with murder if we let them! I was pulled over on Sixty-eight because I’m African-American. The police made me sit on the ground for half an hour before they let me go and they wouldn’t tell me what I’d done wrong, except for a light that was out. The government should be protecting lives not dissing innocent citizens. Thank you.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Ariel.

On Friday me and my friend went to see the place where it happened and we were crying when we saw the crosses and flowers there. We were sitting there and we looked all over the highway and there were no police there, I mean, none! Just after it happened! Where were the police? And maybe it was there were no warning signs or the road was slippery, but it looked pretty safe to me, even tho it was sandy, that’s true.

Reply to Chilton, posted by SimStud.

I drive that stretch of highway all the time and it’s not the most dangerous place in the world, so what I’m wondering is, did the police really look at who was behind the wheel, I know [the driver] from school and I don’t think he’s the best driver in the world.

Reply to SimStud, posted by Footballrulz.

Dude, not the BEST driver in the world???? H8 to break it to you but [the driver] is a total fr33k and a luser, he CANT drive. I don’t even think he has a license. Why didn’t the cops find THAT out? Too busy going for dounuts and coffee. LOL.

Reply to Chilton, posted by MitchT.

Chilton, You’re always trashing the government which is total win but in this case forget the road. It’s fine. That guy from Caltrans said so. I’ve drove down there a hundred times and if you missed that curve because your drunk or stoned. If the police [deleted] up its because they didn’t look at [the driver] close enough. He’s a n00b and scary too. SimStud OWNS this thread.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Amydancer44.

This is weird cause my parents read The Report but I don’t usually so it’s weird that I’m here. But I heard around school what you’d posted about the accident and so I logged on. I read everything and I think you’re one hundred percent right, and what that other poster said too. Everybody is innocent until proven guilty but I don’t understand why the police just dropped the investigation.

Somebody who knows [the driver] was telling me that he was up all night before the party, I mean 24 hours, playing computer games. IMHO, he fell asleep driving. And another thing—those gamers think they’re hot [deleted] behind the wheel b/c they play those driving games in the arcades but it’s not the same thing.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Arthur Standish.

Federal funds for road maintenance have decreased consistently over the years, while the budget for U.S. military operations and foreign aid has quadrupled. Perhaps we should be more concerned about the lives of our citizens than those of people in other countries.

Reply to Chilton, posted by TamF1399.

[The driver] is effing weird, i mean dangerous. 1 time after cheerleader practice he was hanging out outside our locker room, like he was trying to look inside and get pictures on his phone. I go up to him and I’m like, what’re you doing here and he looks at me like he was going to kill me. He’s a total fr33k. i know a girl who goes to [deleted] with us and she told me [the driver] grabbed her boobs, only she’s afraid to say anything because she thinks he’ll come get her or start shooting people, like in Virginia Tech.

Reply to Chilton, posted by BoardtoDeath.

i heard somebody who knows a dude was at the party that night and he saw [the driver] before he got in the car and he was walking around all [deleted] up. And that’s why they crashed. It was the POLICE lost the breathaliser results and it was embarrassing, so they had to let him go. And that’s WORD.

Reply to Chilton, posted by SarafromCarmel.

I don’t think it’s fair what everybody in this thread is saying. We don’t know the facts. The crash was a terrible tragedy and the police didn’t press charges, so we have to go with that. Think what [the driver]’s going through. He was in my chemistry class and he never bothered anybody. He was pretty smart and helped our Table Team a lot. I’ll bet he feels real bad about those girls. He’s got to live with that for the rest of his life. I feel sorry for him.

Reply to SarafromCarmel, posted by Anonymous.

Sara U R a lame [deleted]. if he was driving the car then he DID something that made those girls die. How can you say he didn’t? Jesus its people like you who let hitler gas the jews and bush go into Iraq. why dont you call [the driver] up and have him take you for a nice ride? i’ll come put a cross at your [deleted]ing grave, you [deleted].

Reply to Chilton, posted by Legend666.

[The driver]’s brother is retarded and it might look bad for the police to arrest [the driver], cause of all this political correct stuff which makes me sick. Also they should check out the girls purses, I mean the girls in the crash, because I heard he ripped them off before the ambulances got there. His families so poor that they can’t even afford a washer and drier. I’ve seen him and his mom and his [deleted]-up little brother at the laundromat on Billings all the time. Who goes to laundromats? Lusers that’s who.

Reply to Chilton, posted by SexyGurl362.

My best friend is a junior at [deleted] with [the driver] and she was talking to somebody who was at the party where the girls who died were. [The driver] was sitting in a corner with his sweats hood up staring at everybody and talking to himself and somebody found him in the kitchen just looking at the knives. Everybody was like, what the hells he doing here? Why did he come?

Reply to Chilton, posted by Jake42.

U totally OWN it, Chilton!! Yeah [the driver] [deleted]ed up. Look at the luser, his life is epic FAIL!!! He’s always faking he’s sick in PE class to get out of working out. He only goes to the gym to hang around in the locker room and stare at everybody’s [deleted]. He is totally gay, somebody told me that.

Reply to Chilton, posted by CurlyJen.

Me and my friends were talking and last week somebody saw [the driver] on Lighthouse doing donuts in a car he stole from his grandmother without permission. He was trying to get [deleted] to show her thong. (like she’d care, LOL!!!). And when she ignored him he started wacking off right in front of her, right there on Lighthouse at the same time he was driving. he definitely was doing the same thing that night he crashed.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Anonymous.

I go to [deleted], I’m a sophomore, and I know him and everybody knows about him. IMHO, I mean, he’s all right. He games a lot, but so what? I play soccer a lot, that doesn’t make me a killer.

Reply to Anonymous, posted by BillVan.

[Deleted] you, [deleted]. if you know so much whats your sauce oh genius? You don’t even have the balls to post under your real name. Afraid he’d come and [deleted] you up the [deleted]?

Reply to Chilton, posted by BellaKelley.

u r so right!!! Me and my friend were at that party on the 9th where it happened and [the driver] was coming on to [deleted] and they were like, just go away. But he didn’t, he followed them out the door when they were leaving. But we have ourselves to blame too for not doing anything, all of us who were there. We all knew [the driver] is a luser and perv and we should have called the police or somebody when they left. I had this bad feeling like in Ghost Whisperer. And look what happened.

Reply to Chilton, posted by Anonymous.

Somebody goes into Columbine or Virginia Tech with a gun and they’re criminals but when [the driver] kills somebody with a car nobody does anything about it. Something is very messed up here.

Reply to Chilton, posted by WizardOne.

I think we need a time out. Some poster dissed [the driver] because he didn’t like sports and he played games. What’s the BFD? There are millions of people who don’t play sports but like games. I don’t know [the driver] real good but we’re in the same class at [deleted]. He isn’t a bad dude at all. Everybody’s dissing him but does anybody here actually KNOW him? Whatever happened, he didn’t hurt anybody on purpose and we all know people who do, everyday. IMHO, he feels bad about what happened. The police didn’t arrest him because, duh, he didn’t do anything illegal.

Reply to WizardOne, posted by Halfpipe22.

Another gamer-lamer. Look at the name. L00ZR!!! FOAD wizard!

Reply to Chilton, posted by Archenemy.

[The driver] is a total phr33k. In his locker at school, he has pictures of the d00ds from Columbine and Virginia Tech, and those dead bodies from the concentration camps. He walks around in some ch33p ass hoodie trying to look kewl but hes a luser on roids, thats all he’ll ever be.

[The driver] if your reading this, d00d, and not hanging with the elves and fairies, remember: we OWN U. Why don’t you U just do us all a favor and blow you’re [deleted]ing brains out. Your death = EPIC WIN!

Chapter 9

KATHRYN DANCE SAT back, shaking her head. “A lot of hormones there,” she said to Jon Boling.

She was troubled by the viciousness of the blog posts—and most of them written by young people.

Boling scrolled back to the original post. “Look what happened. Chilton makes a simple observation about a fatal accident. All he does is question whether the road was safely maintained. But look at how the responding posts arc. They go from discussing what Chilton brought up—highway safety—then move on to government finances and then to the kid who was driving, even though he apparently didn’t do anything wrong. The posters get more and more agitated as they attack him and finally the blog turns into a barroom brawl among the posters themselves.”

“Like the game of Telephone. By the time the message moves along, it’s distorted. ‘I heard . . .’ ‘Somebody knows somebody who . . .’ ‘A friend of mine told me . . .’ ” She scanned the pages again. “One thing I noticed, Chilton doesn’t fight back. Look at the post about Reverend Fisk and the right-to-life group.”

Reply to Chilton, posted by CrimsoninChrist.

You are a sinner who cannot comprehend the goodness within the heart of Rev. R. Samuel Fisk. He has devoted his life to Christ and all of His works, while you do nothing but pander to the masses for your own pleasure and profit. Your misreading of the great Reverend’s views is pathetic and libelous. You should be nailed up on a cross yourself.

Boling told her, “No, the serious bloggers don’t argue back. Chilton will give a reasoned response, but flame wars—attacks among posters—get out of control and become personal. The postings become about the attack, not the substance of the topic. That’s one of the problems with blogs. In person, people would never feud like this. The anonymity of the blogs means the fights go on for days or weeks.”

Dance looked through the text. “So the boy is a student.” She recalled her deduction from the interview with Tammy Foster. “Chilton deleted his name and the name of the school but it’s got to be Robert Louis Stevenson. Where Tammy goes.”

Boling tapped the screen. “And there’s her post. She was one of the first to say something about the boy. And everyone else jumped on board after that.”

Maybe the post was the source of the guilt Dance had picked up on during the interview. If this boy was behind the attack, then Tammy, as Dance and O’Neil had speculated, would feel partly responsible for the assault on her; she’d brought it on herself. And perhaps guilty too if he went on to hurt someone else. This explained why Tammy wouldn’t like the suggestion that her abductor had a bike in the car: that would lead Dance to consider a younger suspect—a student whose identity the girl didn’t want to reveal because she still considered him a threat.

“It’s all so vicious,” Dance said, nodding at the screen.

“Did you hear about the Litter Boy?”

“Who?”

“Happened in Kyoto a few years ago. Japan. A teenage boy tossed a fast food wrapper and soda cup on the ground in a park. Somebody shot a picture of the kid doing it on their cell phone and uploaded it to his friends. Next thing, it started appearing on blogs and social networking sites all over the country. Cybervigilantes tracked him down. They got his name and address and posted the info online. It spread to thousands of blogs. The whole thing became a witch hunt. People began showing up at his house—throwing trash in the yard. He nearly killed himself—that kind of dishonor is significant in Japan.” Boling’s tonal quality and body language revealed anger. “Critics say, oh, it’s just words or pictures. But they can be weapons too. They can cause just as much damage as fists. And, frankly, I think the scars last longer.”

Dance said, “I don’t get some of the vocabulary in the posts.”

He laughed. “Oh, in blogs and bulletin boards and social networking sites, it’s in to misspell, abbreviate and make up words. ‘Sauce’ for ‘source.’ ‘Moar’ for ‘more.’ ‘IMHO’ is ‘in my humble opinion.’”

“Do I dare ask? ‘FOAD.’ ”

“Oh,” he said, “a polite valediction to your note. It means ‘Fuck off and die.’ All caps, of course, is the same as shouting.”

“And what is ‘p-h-r-3-3-k’?”

“That’s leetspeak for ‘freak.’ ”

“Leetspeak?”

“It’s a sort of language that’s been created by teens over the past few years. You only see it with keyboarded text. Numbers and symbols take the place of letters. And spellings are altered. Leetspeak comes from ‘elite,’ as in the best and the chicest. It can be incomprehensible to us old folks. But anybody who’s mastered it can write and read it as fast as we do English.”

“Why do kids use it?”

“Because it’s creative and unconventional . . . and cool. Which, by the way, you should spell ‘K-E-W-L.’ ”

“The spelling and grammar are awful.”

“True, but it doesn’t mean the posters are necessarily stupid or uneducated. It’s just the convention nowadays. And speed is important. As long as the reader can understand what you’re saying, you can be as careless as you want.”

Dance said, “I wonder who the boy is. I guess I could call CHP about the accident Chilton refers to.”

“Oh, I’ll find it. The online world is huge but it’s also small. I’ve got Tammy’s social networking site here. She spends most of her time in one called OurWorld. It’s bigger than Facebook and MySpace. It’s got a hundred thirty million members.”

“A hundred thirty million?”

“Yep. Bigger than most countries.” Boling was squinting as he typed. “Okay, I’m in her account, just do a little cross-referencing. . . . There. Got him.”

“That fast?”

“Yep. His name’s Travis Brigham. You’re right. He’s a junior at Robert Louis Stevenson High in Monterey. Going to be a senior this fall. Lives in Pacific Grove.”

Where Dance and her children lived.

“I’m looking over some of the postings in OurWorld about the accident. Looks like he was driving a car back from a party and lost control. Two girls were killed, another one ended up in the hospital. He wasn’t badly injured. No charges were filed—there was some question about the condition of the road. It’d been raining.”

“That! Sure. I remember it.” Parents always recall fatal car crashes involving youngsters. And, of course, she felt a sting of memory from several years ago: the highway patrol officer calling her at home, asking if she was FBI Agent Bill Swenson’s wife. Why was he asking? she’d wondered.

I’m sorry to tell you, Agent Dance . . . I’m afraid there’s been an accident.

She now pushed the thought away and said, “Innocent but he’s still getting vilified.”

“But innocence is boring,” Boling said wryly. “It’s no fun to post about that.” He indicated the blog. “What you’ve got here are Vengeful Angels.”

“What’s that?”

“A category of cyberbullies. Vengeful Angels are vigilantes. They’re attacking Travis because they think he got away with something—since he wasn’t arrested after the accident. They don’t believe, or trust, the police. Another category is the Power Hungry—they’re closest to typical school yard bullies. They need to control others by pushing them around. Then there are the Mean Girls. They bully because, well, they’re little shits. Girls, mostly, who’re bored and post cruel things for the fun of it. It borders on sadism.” A tinge of anger again in Boling’s voice. “Bullying . . . it’s a real problem. And it’s getting worse. The latest statistics are that thirty-five percent of kids have been bullied or threatened online, most of them multiple times.” He fell silent and his eyes narrowed.

“What, Jon?”

“Interesting that there’s one thing we don’t- see.”

“What’s that?”

“Travis fighting back in the blog, flaming the people who attacked him.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know about it.”

Boling gave a thin laugh. “Oh, believe me, he would’ve known about the attacks five minutes after the first post in the Chilton thread.”

“Why’s it significant he’s not posting?”

“One of the most persistent categories of cyberbullying is called Revenge of the Nerds, or the Victims of Retaliators. Those are people who’ve been bullied and are fighting back. The social stigma of being outed or bullied or humiliated at that age is overwhelming. I guarantee he’s furious and he’s hurt and he wants to get even. Those feelings have to come out somehow. You get the implication?”

Dance understood. “It suggests that he is the one who attacked Tammy.”

“If he’s not going after them online, it’s all the more likely he’d be inclined to get them in real life.” A troubled glance at the screen. “Ariel, BellaKelley, SexyGurl362, Legend666, Archenemy—they all posted attacks on him. Which means they’re all at risk—if he’s the one.”

“Would it be hard for him to get their names and addresses?”

“Some, sure, short of hacking into routers and servers. The ‘Anonymous’ postings, of course. But a lot of them would be as easy to find as my getting his name. All he’d need would be a few high school yearbooks or class directories, access to OurWorld, Facebook or MySpace. Oh, and everybody’s favorite—Google.”

Dance noted a shadow had fallen over them and Jonathan Boling was looking past her.

Michael O’Neil stepped into the office. Dance was relieved to see him. They shared smiles. The professor stood. Dance introduced them. The two men shook hands.

Boling said, “So, I have you to thank for my first outing as a cop.”

“If ‘thank’ is the right word,” O’Neil said with a wry smile.

They all sat at the coffee table, and Dance told the deputy what they’d found . . . and what they suspected: that Tammy might have been attacked because she’d posted a comment on a blog about a high school student who’d been responsible for a car crash.

“Was that the accident on One a couple of weeks ago? About five miles south of Carmel?”

“Right.”

Boling said, “The boy’s name is Travis Brigham and he’s a student at Robert Louis Stevenson, where the victims went.”

“So he’s a person of interest, at least. And it’s possible—what we were afraid of?” O’Neil asked Dance. “He wants to keep going?”

“Very likely. Cyberbullying pushes people over the edge. I’ve seen it happen dozens of times.”

O’Neil put his feet on the coffee table and rocked back in the chair. Two years ago she’d bet him ten dollars that someday he’d fall over backward. So far she had yet to collect. He asked Dance, “Anything more on witnesses?”

Dance explained that TJ hadn’t reported back yet about the security camera near the highway where the first cross had been left, nor had Rey responded about witnesses near the club where Tammy had been abducted.

O’Neil said that there hadn’t been any breakthroughs with the physical evidence. “Only one thing—Crime Scene found a gray fiber, cotton, on the cross.” He added that the lab in Salinas couldn’t match it to a specific database, other than to report that it was probably from clothing, not from carpet or furniture.

“That’s all, nothing else? No prints, tread marks?”

O’Neil shrugged. “The perp’s either very smart or very lucky.”

Dance walked to her desk and went into the state databases of warrants and records. She squinted over the screen and read, “Travis Alan Brigham, age seventeen. Driver’s license puts him at four oh eight Henderson Road.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose as she read. “Interesting. He’s got a record.” Then she shook her head. “No, sorry. My mistake. It’s not him. It’s Samuel Brigham, at the same address. He’s fifteen. Juvie record. Arrested twice on peeping, once on misdemeanor assault. Both dismissed, subject to psych treatment. Looks like he’s a brother. But Travis? No, he’s clean.”

She called Travis’s DMV picture up on the screen. A dark-haired boy with eyes closely set together, beneath thick brows, stared at the camera. He wasn’t smiling.

“I’d like to find out more about the accident,” O’Neil said.

Dance placed a call to the local office of the Highway Patrol, the official name for California’s state police. After a few minutes of being transferred around she ended up with a Sergeant Brodsky, put the call on speaker and asked about the accident.

Brodsky slipped immediately into the tone you hear when police take the stand at trial. Emotionally flat, precise. “It was just before midnight on Saturday, June nine. Four juveniles, three female, one male, were heading north on Highway One about three miles south of Carmel Highlands, near Garrapata State Beach Reserve. The male was driving. The vehicle was a late-model Nissan Altima. It appears that the car was traveling at about forty-five. He missed a curve, skidded and went over a cliff. The girls in the back weren’t wearing their seat belts. They died instantly. The girl in the passenger seat had a concussion. She was in the hospital for a few days. The driver was admitted, examined and released.”

“What’d Travis say happened?” Dance asked.

“Just lost control. It’d rained earlier. There was water on the highway. He changed lanes and went into a skid. It was one of the girls’ cars and the tires weren’t the best. He wasn’t speeding, and he tested negative for alcohol and controlled substances. The girl who survived corroborated his story.” A defensive echo sounded in his voice. “There was a reason we didn’t charge him, you know. Whatever anybody said about the investigation.”

So he’d read the blog too, Dance deduced.

“You going to reopen the investigation?” Brodsky asked warily.

“No, this is about that attack Monday night. The girl in the trunk.”

“Oh, that. The boy did it, you think?”

“Possibly.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Not one bit.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Sometimes you get a feeling. Travis was dangerous. Had eyes just like the kids at Columbine.”

How could he possibly know the visage of the killers in that horrific 1999 murder spree?

Then Brodsky added, “He was a fan of theirs, you know, the shooters. Had pictures up in his locker.”

Did he know that independently, or from the blog? Dance recalled that someone had mentioned it in the “Roadside Crosses” thread.

“Did you think he was a threat?” O’Neil asked Brodsky. “When you interviewed him?”

“Yes, sir. Kept my cuffs handy the whole time. He’s a big kid. And wore this hooded sweatshirt. Just stared at me. Freaky.”

At this reference to the garment, Dance recalled what Tammy had given away about the attacker wearing a hoodie.

She thanked the officer and they hung up. After a moment she looked over at Boling. “Jon, any insights you can give us about Travis? From the postings?”

Boling reflected for a moment. “I do have a thought. If he’s a gamer, like they’re saying, that fact could be significant.”

O’Neil asked, “You mean by playing those games he’s programmed to be violent? We saw something on Discovery Channel about that the other night.”

But Jon Boling shook his head. “That’s a popular theme in the media. But if he’s gone through relatively normal childhood developmental stages, then I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Yes, some children can become numb to the consequences of violence if they’re continually exposed in certain ways—generally visual—too early. But at the worst that just desensitizes you; it doesn’t make you dangerous. The tendency to violence in young people almost always comes from rage, not watching movies or TV.

“No, I’m speaking of something else when I say that gaming probably affects Travis fundamentally. It’s a change we’re seeing throughout society now among young people. He could be losing the distinction between the synthetic world and the real world.”

“Synthetic world?”

“It’s a term I got from Edward Castronova’s book on the subject. The synthetic world is the life of online games and alternative reality websites, like Second Life. They’re fantasy worlds you enter through your computer—or PDA or some other digital device. People in our generation usually draw a clear distinction between the synthetic world and the real one. The real world is where you have dinner with your family or play softball or go out on a date after you log out of the synthetic world and turn off the computer. But younger people—and nowadays I mean people in their twenties and even early thirties—don’t see that distinction. More and more, the synth worlds are becoming real to them. In fact, there was a study recently that showed nearly a fifth of the players in one online game felt that the real world was only a place to eat and sleep, that the synthetic world was their true residence.”

This surprised Dance.

Boling smiled at her apparently naive expression. “Oh, an average gamer can easily spend thirty hours a week in the synth world, and it’s not unusual for people to spend twice that. There are hundreds of millions of people who have some involvement in the synth world, and tens of millions who spend much of their day there. And we’re not talking Pac-Man or Pong. The level of realism in the synthetic world is astonishing. You—through an avatar, a character that represents you—inhabit a world that’s as complex as what we’re living in right now. Child psychologists have studied how people create avatars; players actually use parenting skills subconsciously to form their characters. Economists have studied games too. You have to learn skills to support yourself or you’ll starve to death. In most of the games you earn money, payable in game currency. But that currency actually trades against the dollar or pound or euro on eBay—in their gaming category. You can buy and sell virtual items—like magic wands, weapons, or clothing or houses or even avatars themselves—in real-world money. In Japan, not too long ago, some gamers sued hackers who stole virtual items from their synth world homes. They won the case.”

Boling leaned forward, and Dance again noticed the sparkle in his eyes, the enthusiasm in his voice. “One of the best examples of the synth and real worlds coinciding is in a famous online game, World of Warcraft. The designers created a disease as a debuffer—that’s a condition that reduces the health or power of characters. It was called Corrupted Blood. It would weaken powerful characters and kill the ones who weren’t so strong. But something odd happened. Nobody’s quite sure how, but the disease got out of control and spread on its own. It became a virtual black plague. The designers never intended that to happen. It could be stopped only when the infected characters died out or adapted to it. The Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta heard about it and had a team study the spread of the virus. They used it as a model for real-world epidemiology.”

Boling sat back. “I could go on and on about the synth world. It’s a fascinating subject, but my point is that whether or not Travis is desensitized to violence, the real question is which world does he inhabit most, the synth or the real? If it’s synth, then he runs his life according to a whole different set of rules. And we don’t know what those are. Revenge against cyberbullies—or anyone who humiliates him—could be perfectly accepted. It could be encouraged. Maybe even required.

“The comparison is to a paranoid schizophrenic who kills someone because he genuinely believes that the victim is a threat to the world. He isn’t doing anything wrong. In fact, to him, killing you is heroic. Travis? Who knows what he’s thinking? Just remember it’s possible that attacking a cyberbully like Tammy Foster meant no more to him than swatting a fly.”

Dance considered this and said to O’Neil, “Do we go talk to him or not?”

Deciding when to initially interview a suspect was always tricky. Travis would probably not yet think he was a suspect. Speaking to him now would catch him off guard and might make him blurt out statements that could be used against him; he might even confess. On the other hand, he could destroy evidence or flee.

Debating.

What finally decided it for her was a simple memory. The look in Tammy Foster’s eyes—the fear of reprisal. And the fear that the perp would attack someone else.

She knew they had to move fast.

“Yep. Let’s go see him.”

Chapter 10

THE BRIGHAM FAMILY lived in a scabby bungalow whose yard was strewn with car parts and old appliances, half dismantled. Green garbage bags, out of which flowed trash and rotting leaves, sat amid broken toys and tools. A scruffy cat stared cautiously out from a nest of vines beneath an overgrown hedgerow. It was too lazy or full to care about a pudgy gray rat that skittered past. O’Neil parked in the gravel drive, forty feet or so away from the house, and he and Dance climbed out of his unmarked MCSO car.

They studied the area.

It was like a scene from the rural South, vegetation thick, no other houses in sight, dereliction. The debilitated state of the house and the pungent aroma suggesting a nearby, and inefficient, sewer or a swamp explained how the family could afford such secluded property in this high-priced part of the state.

As they started toward the house she found her hand dangling near her pistol butt, her jacket unbuttoned.

She was spooked, alert.

Still, it was a shock when the boy attacked them.

They had just passed a patch of anemic, reedy grass beside the lopsided detached garage when she turned to O’Neil and found the deputy stiffen as he looked past her. His arm rose and gripped her jacket, pulling her forward to the ground.

“Michael!” she cried.

The rock sailed over her head, missing her by inches, and crashed through a garage window. Another followed a moment later. O’Neil had to duck fast to avoid getting hit. He crashed into a narrow tree.

“You all right?” he asked quickly.

A nod. “You see where it was from?”

“No.”

They were scanning the thicket of woods bordering the property.

“There!” she called, pointing at the boy, in sweats and a stocking cap, who was staring at them. He turned and fled.

Dance debated only a moment. Neither of them had radios; this hadn’t been planned as a tactical mission. And to return to O’Neil’s car to call in a pursuit to Dispatch would have taken too long. They had a chance to catch Travis now and instinctively they went after him, sprinting forward.

CBI agents learn basic hand-to-hand combat skills—though most, Dance included, had never been in a fistfight. They also are required to have physical fitness checkups every so often. Dance was in fair shape, though not thanks to the CBI’s regimen but to her treks into the wilderness to track down music for her website. Despite the impractical outfit—black skirt suit and blouse—she now eased ahead of Michael O’Neil as they pushed fast into the woods in pursuit of the boy.

Who was moving just a little faster.

O’Neil had his cell phone out and was breathlessly calling in a request for backup.

They were both gasping hard and Dance wondered how Dispatch could understand him.

The boy vanished for a moment and the officers slowed. Then Dance cried, “Look,” spotting him emerge from bushes about fifty feet away. “Weapon?” she gasped. He held something dark in his hand.

“Can’t tell.”

Could have been a gun, though maybe a pipe or a knife.

Either way . . .

He vanished into a dense part of the woods, beyond which Dance could just see a glimmer of a green pond. Probably the source of the stench.

O’Neil glanced at her.

She sighed and nodded. Simultaneously they drew their Glocks.

They pushed forward again.

Dance and O’Neil had worked a number of cases together and fell instinctively into a symbiotic mode on an investigation. But they were at their best when solving intellectual puzzles, not playing soldier.

She had to remind herself: finger off the trigger, never cross in front of your partner’s weapon and lift your muzzle if he crosses in front of you, fire only if threatened, check your backdrop, shoot in bursts of three, count your rounds.

Dance hated this.

Yet it was a chance to stop the Roadside Cross attacker. Picturing Tammy Foster’s terrified eyes, Dance rushed through the woods.

The boy vanished again, and she and O’Neil pulled up, where two paths diverged. Travis had probably taken one—the vegetation was very thick here, impassable in parts. O’Neil silently pointed left, then right, raising an eyebrow.

Flip a coin, she thought, angry and unsettled that she’d have to separate from O’Neil. She nodded toward the left.

They began easing carefully down their respective routes.

Dance was moving through the thickets, thinking how unsuited she was to this role. Her world was one of words and expressions and nuances of gesture. Not tactical work, like this.

She knew how people got hurt, how they died, stepping out of the zones they were in harmony with. A sense of foreboding filled her.

Stop, she told herself. Find Michael, go back to the car and wait for backup.

Too late.

Just then Dance heard a rustling at her feet, and glanced down to see that the boy, hiding in the bushes next to her, had flung a large branch in her way. It caught her foot as she tried to jump over it and she went down hard. Struggling to keep from falling, Dance rolled onto her side.

Which had the effect of saving her wrist.

And another consequence: the boxy, black Glock flew from her hand and vanished into the bushes.

Only seconds later, Dance heard the rustle of bushes once more as the boy, apparently waiting to make certain she was alone, charged out of the bushes.

CARELESS, MICHAEL O’NEIL thought angrily.

He was running in the direction of Dance’s cry, but realized now he had no idea where she was.

They should have stayed together. Careless to split up. Yes, it made sense—to cover as much ground as they could—but while he’d been in several firefights and a couple of street pursuits, Kathryn Dance had not.

If anything happened to her . . .

In the distance sirens sounded, growing louder. The backup was getting closer. O’Neil slowed to a walk, listening carefully. Maybe the rustle of bushes nearby. Maybe not.

Careless too because Travis would know this area perfectly. It was, literally, his backyard. He’d know where to hide, what paths to escape down.

The gun, weighing nothing in his large hand, swung ahead of O’Neil, as he looked for the attacker.

Frantic.

Pushing ahead another twenty feet. Finally he had to risk some noise. “Kathryn?” he called in a whisper.

Nothing.

Louder: “Kathryn?”

The wind rustled brush and trees.

Then: “Michael, here!” A choked sound. From nearby. He raced toward her words. Then he found her ahead of him on a path, on her hands and knees. Her head down. He heard gasping. Was she wounded? Had Travis struck her with a pipe? Stabbed her?

O’Neil had to suppress his overwhelming urge to tend to her, see how badly hurt she was. He knew procedures. He ran closer, stood over her, his eyes scanning, swiveling around, looking for a target.

At last, some distance away, he saw Travis’s back vanish.

“He’s gone,” Dance said, pulling her weapon from a thicket of bushes and rising to her feet. “Headed that way.”

“You hurt?”

“Sore, that’s all.”

She did seem to be unharmed, but she was dusting at her suit in a way that was troubling to him. She was uncharacteristically shaken, disoriented. He could hardly blame her. But Kathryn Dance had always been a bulwark he could count on, a standard he measured his own behavior against. Her gestures reminded him that they were out of their element here, that this case wasn’t a typical gangbanger hit or a weapons smuggling ring cruising up and down the 101.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Tripped me, then took off. Michael, it wasn’t Travis.”

“What?”

“I got a fast look at him. He was blond.” Dance grimaced at a tear in her skirt, then gave up on the clothing. She started scanning the ground. “He dropped something. . . . Okay, there.” She picked it up. A can of spray paint.

“What’s this all about?” he wondered aloud.

She tucked the gun away in her hip holster and turned back toward the house. “Let’s go find out.”

THEY ARRIVED BACK at the Brigham house simultaneously with the backup—two Pacific Grove town police cars. A longtime resident, Dance knew the officers and waved hello.

They joined her and O’Neil.

“You all right, Kathryn?” one cop asked, noting her disheveled hair and dusty skirt.

“Fine.” She filled them in on the attack and pursuit. One officer used his shoulder-mounted Motorola to report the incident.

Dance and O’Neil had no sooner gotten to the house when a woman’s voice called out from behind the screen, “Did you get him?” The door opened and the speaker stepped out on the porch. In her forties, Dance guessed, she had a round figure and her face was moonish. She wore painfully taut jeans and a billowy gray blouse with a triangle of stain on the belly. Kathryn Dance noted that the woman’s cream pumps were hopelessly limp and scuffed from bearing her weight. From inattention too.

Dance and O’Neil identified themselves. The woman was Sonia Brigham and she was Travis’s mother.

“Did you get him?” she persisted.

“Do you know who he was, why he attacked us?”

“He wasn’t attacking you,” Sonia said. “He probably didn’t even see you. He was going for the windows. They’ve already got three of ’em.”

One of the Pacific Grove officers explained, “The Brighams’ve been the target of vandalism lately.”

“You said ‘he,’ ” Dance said. “Do you know who he was?”

“Not that particular one. There’s a bunch of them.”

“Bunch?” O’Neil asked.

“They’re coming by all the time. Throwing rocks, bricks, painting stuff on the house and garage. That’s what we’ve been living with.” A contemptuous wave of the hand, presumably toward where the vandal had disappeared. “After everybody started saying those bad things about Travis. The other day, somebody threw a brick through the living room window, nearly hit my younger son. And look.” She pointed to green spray paint graffiti on the side of a large lopsided shed in the side yard, about fifty feet away.

KILL3R!!

Leetspeak, Dance noted.

Dance handed the spray paint to one of the Pacific Grove officers, who said they’d follow up on it. She described the boy—who looked like one of five hundred high school students in the area. They took a brief statement from both Dance and O’Neil, as well as Travis’s mother, then climbed back into their cars and left.

“They’re after my boy. And he didn’t do anything! It’s like the goddamn Ku Klux Klan! That brick nearly hit Sammy. He’s a little troubled. He went crazy. Had an episode.”

Vengeful Angels, Dance reflected. Though the bullying was no longer cyber; it had moved from the synth world into the real.

A round-faced teenager appeared on the porch. His wary smile made him look slow, but his eyes seemed fully comprehending as he took them in. “What is it, what is it?” His voice was urgent.

“It’s okay, Sammy. Go back inside. You go to your room.”

“Who’re they?”

“You go on back to your room. You stay inside. Don’t go to the pond.”

“I want to go to the pond.”

“Not now. Somebody was out there.”

He ambled off into the house.

Michael O’Neil said, “Mrs. Brigham, there was a crime last night, an attempted murder. The victim was someone who’d posted a comment against Travis on a blog.”

“Oh, that Chilton crap!” Sonia spat out between yellow teeth that had aged even faster than the woman’s face. “That’s what started it all. Somebody should throw a brick through his window. Now everybody’s ganging up on our boy. And he didn’t do anything. Why does everybody think he did? They said he stole my mother’s car and was driving it on Lighthouse, you know, exposing himself. Well, my mother sold her car four years ago. That’s how much they know.” Then Sonia had a thought and the seesaw returned to the side of wariness. “Oh, wait, that girl in the trunk, going to be drowned?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I’ll tell you right now, my boy wouldn’t a done anything like that. I swear to God! You’re not going to arrest him, are you?” She looked panicked.

Dance wondered: too panicked? Did she in fact suspect her son?

“We’d just like to talk to him.”

The woman was suddenly uneasy. “My husband isn’t home.”

“You alone is fine. Both parents aren’t necessary.” But Dance could see that the problem was that she didn’t want the responsibility.

“Well, Trav isn’t here either.”

“Will he be back soon?”

“He works part-time, at Bagel Express, for pocket money. His shift’s in a little while. He’ll have to come back here to pick up his uniform.”

“Where is he now?”

A shrug. “Sometimes he goes to this video game place.” She fell silent, probably thinking she shouldn’t be saying anything. “My husband will be back soon.”

Dance noted again the tone with which Sonia delivered those words. My husband.

“Was Travis out last night? Around midnight?”

“No.” Offered fast.

“Are you sure?” Dance asked with a crisp tone. Sonia had just exhibited aversion—looking away—and blocking, touching her nose, a gesture Dance had not observed earlier.

Sonia swallowed. “Probably he was here. I’m not exactly sure. I went to bed early. Travis stays up till all hours. He might’ve gone out. But I didn’t hear anything.”

“And your husband?” She’d noted the singular pronoun regarding her bedtime. “Was he here around that time?”

“He plays poker some. I think he was at a game.”

O’Neil was saying, “We really need to—”

His words braked to a halt as a tall, lanky teenager, shoulders and stance wide, appeared from the side yard. His black jeans were faded, patches of gray showing, and an olive-drab combat jacket covered a black sweatshirt. It didn’t have a hood, Dance noted. He stopped suddenly, blinking in surprise at the visitors. A glance at the unmarked CBI car, which any viewer of a cop show on TV in the last ten years would instantly recognize for what it was.

Dance noted in the boy’s posture and expression the typical reaction of someone spotting law enforcers, whether they were guilty or innocent: caution . . . and thinking quickly.

“Travis, honey, come over here.”

He remained where he was, and Dance sensed O’Neil tensing.

But a second foot pursuit wasn’t needed. Expressionless, the boy slouched forward to join them.

“These’re police officers,” his mother said. “They want to talk to you.”

“I guess. What about?” His voice was casual, agreeable. He stood with his long arms dangling at his sides. His hands were dirty and there was grit under his nails. His hair seemed washed, though; she supposed he did this regularly to combat the sprinkling of acne on his face.

She and O’Neil said hello to the boy and offered their IDs. He studied them for a long moment.

Buying time? Dance wondered.

“Somebody else was here,” Sonia said to her son. She nodded at the graffiti. “Broke a couple more windows.”

Travis took this news from his mother without emotion. He asked, “Sammy?”

“He didn’t see.”

O’Neil asked, “You mind if we go inside?”

He shrugged and they walked into the house, which smelled of mold and cigarette smoke. The place was ordered but grimy. The mismatched furniture seemed secondhand, slipcovers worn and pine legs sloughing off varnish. Dim pictures covered the walls, mostly decorative. Dance could see part of a National Geographic magazine logo just below the frame of a picture of Venice. A few were of the family. The two boys, and one or two of Sonia when she was younger.

Sammy appeared, as before, big, moving quickly, grinning again.

“Travis!” He charged toward his sibling. “Did you bring me M’s?”

“Here you go.” Travis dug into his pocket and handed the boy a packet of M&M’s.

“Yea!” Sammy opened the package carefully, looked inside. Then gazed at his brother. “The pond was nice today.”

“Was it?”

“Yeah.” Sammy returned to his room, clutching the candy in his hand.

Travis said, “He doesn’t look good. Did he take his pills?”

His mother looked away. “They . . .”

“Dad wouldn’t get the prescription refilled because the price went up. Right?”

“He doesn’t think they do that much good.”

“They do a lot of good, Mom. You know how he gets when he doesn’t take them.”

Dance glanced into Sammy’s room and saw that the boy’s desk was covered with complicated electronic components, parts of computers and tools—along with toys for children much younger. He was reading a Japanese graphic novel as he slouched in a chair. The boy glanced up and stared at Dance intently, studying her. He gave a faint smile and nodded toward the book. Dance smiled back at the cryptic gesture. He returned to reading. His lips moved.

She noticed on a hall table a laundry basket filled with clothes. She tapped O’Neil’s arm and glanced at a gray sweatshirt sitting on the top. It was a hoodie.

O’Neil nodded.

“How are you feeling?” Dance asked Travis. “After the accident?”

“Okay, I guess.”

“It must’ve been terrible.”

“Yeah.”

“But you weren’t hurt bad?”

“Not really. The airbag, you know. And I wasn’t going that fast. . . . Trish and Van.” A grimace. “If they’d had their seat belts on they would’ve been fine.”

Sonia repeated, “His father should be home anytime now.”

O’Neil continued evenly, “Just have a few questions.” Then he stepped back to the corner of the living room, leaving the questioning to Dance.

She asked, “What grade are you in?”

“Just finished junior year.”

“Robert Louis Stevenson, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What’re you studying?”

“I don’t know, stuff. I like computer science and math. Spanish. Just, you know, what everybody’s taking.”

“How’s Stevenson?”

“It’s okay. Better than Monterey Public or Junipero.” He was answering agreeably, looking directly into her eyes.

At Junipero Serra School, uniforms were required. Dance supposed that more than stern Jesuits and long homework assignments, the dress code was the most hated aspect of the place.

“How’re the gangs?”

“He’s not in a gang,” his mother said. Almost as if she wished he were.

They all ignored her.

“Not bad,” Travis responded. “They leave us alone. Not like Salinas.”

The point of these questions wasn’t social. Dance was asking them to determine the boy’s baseline behavior. After a few minutes of these harmless inquiries, Dance had a good feel for the boy’s nondeceptive mode. Now she was ready to ask about the assault.

“Travis, you know Tammy Foster, don’t you?”

“The girl in the trunk. It was on the news. She goes to Stevenson. She and me don’t talk or anything. Maybe we had a class together freshman year.” He then looked Dance straight in the eye. His hand occasionally strayed across his face but she wasn’t sure whether it was a blocking gesture, signifying deception, or because he was ashamed of the acne. “She posted some stuff about me in The Chilton Report. It wasn’t true.”

“What did she say?” Dance asked, though she recalled the post, about his trying to take pictures of the girls’ locker room after cheerleading practice.

The boy hesitated, as if wondering if she was trying to trap him. “She said I was taking pictures. You know, of the girls.” His face grew dark. “But I was just on the phone, you know, talking.”

“Really,” his mother interjected. “Bob’ll be home any minute now. I might rather wait.”

But Dance felt a certain urgency to keep going. She knew without doubt that if Sonia wanted to wait for her husband, the man would put a fast end to the interview.

Travis asked, “Is she going to be okay? Tammy?”

“Looks like it.”

He glanced at the scarred coffee table, where an empty but smudged ashtray rested. Dance didn’t think she’d seen an ashtray in a living room for years. “You think I did it? Tried to hurt her?” How easily his dark eyes, set deep beneath those brows, held hers.

“No. We’re just talking to everybody who might have information about the situation.”

“Situation?” he asked.

“Where were you last night? Between eleven and one?”

Another sweep of the hair. “I went to the Game Shed about ten-thirty.”

“What’s that?”

“This place where you can play video games. Like an arcade. I kind of hang there some. You know where it is? It’s by Kinko’s. It used to be that old movie theater but that got torn down and they put it in. It’s not the best, the connections aren’t so good, but it’s the only one that’s open late.”

Dance noted the rambling. She asked, “You were alone?”

“There were, like, other kids there. But I was playing alone.”

“I thought you were here,” Sonia said.

A shrug. “I was here. I went out. I couldn’t sleep.”

“At the Game Shed were you online?” Dance asked.

“Like, no. I was playing pinball, not RPG.”

“Not what?”

“Role-playing games. For shooter and pinball and driving games you don’t go online.”

He said this patiently, though he seemed surprised she didn’t know the distinction.

“So you weren’t logged on?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“How long were you there?” His mother had taken on the interrogation.

“I don’t know, an hour, two.”

“What do those games cost? Fifty cents, a dollar every few minutes?”

So that was Sonia’s agenda. Money.

“If you play good, it lets you keep on going. Cost me three dollars for the whole night. I used money I made. And I got some food too and a couple of Red Bulls.”

“Travis, can you think of anybody who saw you there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll have to think about it.” Eyes studying the floor.

“Good. And what time did you come home?”

“One-thirty. Maybe two. I don’t know.”

She asked more questions about Monday night and then about school and his classmates. She wasn’t able to decide whether or not he was telling the truth since he wasn’t deviating much from his baseline. She thought again about what Jon Boling had told her about the synth world. If Travis was mentally there, not in the real world, baseline analysis might be useless. Maybe a whole different set of rules applied to people like Travis Brigham.

Then the mother’s eyes flickered toward the doorway. The boy’s too.

Dance and O’Neil turned to see a large man enter, tall and broad. He was wearing workmen’s overalls streaked in dirt, Central Coast Landscaping embroidered on his chest. He looked at everybody in the room, slowly. Dark eyes still and unfriendly beneath a fringe of thick, brown hair.

“Bob, these are police—”

“They’re not here with the report for the insurance, are they?”

“No. They—”

“You have a warrant?”

“They’re here to—”

“I’m talking to her.” A nod at Dance.

“I’m Agent Dance with the California Bureau of Investigation.” She offered an ID he didn’t look at. “And this is Senior Deputy O’Neil, Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. We’re asking your son a few questions about a crime.”

“There was no crime. It was an accident. Those girls died in an accident. That’s all that happened.”

“We’re here about something else. Someone who’d posted a message about Travis was attacked.”

“Oh, that blog bullshit.” He growled. “That Chilton is a danger to society. He’s like a fucking poisonous snake.” He turned to his wife. “Joey, down at the dock, nearly got hisself popped in the mouth, the stuff he was saying about me. Egging on the other boys. Just ’cause I’m his father. They don’t read the newspaper, they don’t read Newsweek. But they read that Chilton crap. Somebody should . . .” His voice faded. He turned toward his son. “I told you not to say anything to anybody without we have a lawyer. Did I tell you that? You say the wrong fucking thing to the wrong person, and we get sued. And they take the house away and half my paycheck for the rest of my life.” He lowered his voice. “And your brother goes into a home.”

“Mr. Brigham, we’re not here about the accident,” O’Neil reminded him. “We’re investigating the assault last night.”

“Doesn’t matter, does it? Things get written down and go into the record.”

He seemed more concerned about responsibility for the accident than that his son might get arrested for attempted murder.

Ignoring them completely, he said to his wife, “Why’d you let ’em in? This ain’t Nazi Germany, not yet. You can tell ’em to shove it.”

“I thought—”

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t think at all.” To O’Neil: “Now, I’ll ask you to leave. And if you come back it better be with a warrant.”

“Dad!” Sammy cried, racing from his bedroom, startling Dance. “It’s working! I wanta show you!” He was holding up a circuit board, from which wires sprouted.

Brigham’s gruffness vanished instantly. He hugged the younger son and said kindly, “We’ll look at it later, after supper.”

Dance was watching Travis’s eyes, which grew still at the display of affection toward his younger brother.

“Okay.” Sammy hesitated, then went out the back door and clomped down the porch and headed toward the shed.

“Stay close,” Sonia called.

Dance noted that she hadn’t told her husband about the vandalism that had just occurred. She’d be afraid of delivering bad news. She did, however, say of Sammy, “Maybe he should be on his pills.” Eyes everywhere but at her husband.

“They’re a rip-off, what they cost. Weren’t you listening to me? And what’s the point, if he stays home all day?”

“But he doesn’t stay home all day. That’s—”

“Because Travis don’t watch him like he should.”

The boy listened passively, apparently unmoved by the criticism.

O’Neil said to Bob Brigham, “A serious crime was committed. We need to talk to everyone who might be involved. And your son is involved. Can you confirm he was at the Game Shed last night?”

“I was out. But that’s none of your business. And listen up, my boy didn’t have nothing to do with any attacks. You staying’s trespassing, isn’t it?” He lifted a bushy eyebrow as he lit a cigarette, waved the match out and dropped it accurately into the ashtray. “And you,” he snapped to Travis. “You’re going to be late for work.”

The boy went into his bedroom.

Dance was frustrated. He was their prime suspect, but she simply couldn’t tell what was going on in Travis’s mind.

The boy returned, carrying a brown-and-beige-striped uniform jacket on a hanger. He rolled it up and stuffed it into his backpack.

“No,” Brigham barked. “Your mother ironed it. Put it on. Don’t crumple it up like that.”

“I don’t want to wear it now.”

“Show some respect to your mother, after all her work.”

“It’s a bagel shop. Who cares?”

“That’s not the point. Put it on. Do what I’m telling you.”

The boy stiffened. Dance gave an audible gasp seeing Travis’s face. Eyes widening, shoulders rising. His lips drew back like those of a snarling animal. Travis raged to his father, “It’s a stupid fucking uniform. I wear it on the street and they laugh at me!”

The father leaned forward. “You do not ever talk to me that way, and never in front of other people!”

“I get laughed at enough. I’m not going to wear it! You don’t have any fucking idea!” Dance saw the boy’s frantic eyes flicker around the room and settle on the ashtray, a possible weapon. O’Neil noticed this too and tensed, in case a fight was about to break out.

Travis had become somebody else entirely, possessed with anger.

The tendency to violence in young people almost always comes from rage, not watching movies or TV. . . .

“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Travis growled, wheeled around and pushed through the screen door, letting it snap back loudly. He hurried into the side yard, grabbed his bike, which was leaning against a broken fence, and walked it down a path through the woods bordering the backyard.

“You two, thanks for fucking up our day. Now get out.”

With neutral-toned good-byes, Dance and O’Neil headed for the door, Sonia offering a timid glance of apology. Travis’s father strode into the kitchen. Dance heard the refrigerator door open; a bottle fizzed open.

Outside, she asked, “How’d you do?”

“Not bad, I think,” O’Neil offered and held up a tiny tuft of gray. He’d tugged it off the sweatshirt in the laundry basket when he’d stepped away to let Dance take over the questioning.

They sat in the front seat of O’Neil’s cruiser. The doors slammed simultaneously. “I’ll drop the fiber off with Peter Bennington.”

It wouldn’t be admissible—they had no warrant—but it would at least tell them that Travis was the likely suspect.

“If it matches, put him under surveillance?” she asked.

A nod. “I’ll stop by the bagel shop. If his bike’s outside, I can get a soil sample from the treads. I think a magistrate’d go with a warrant if the dirt matches the beach scene.” He looked Dance’s way. “Gut feeling? You think he did it?”

Dance debated. “All I can say is that I only got clear deception signals twice.”

“When?”

“First when he said he was at the Game Shed last night.”

“And the second time?”

“When he said he didn’t do anything wrong.”

Chapter 11

DANCE RETURNED TO her office at the CBI. She smiled at Jon Boling. He reciprocated, but then his face grew grim. He nodded at his computer. “More postings about Travis on The Chilton Report. Attacking him. And then other posts, attacking the attackers. It’s an all-out flame war. And I know you wanted to keep the connection between the Roadside Cross Case and the attack secret, but somebody caught on.”

“How on earth?” Dance asked angrily.

Boling shrugged. He nodded to a recent posting.

Reply to Chilton, posted by BrittanyM.

Is anybody watching the news???? Somebody left a cross and then went out and attacked that girl. What’s that all about? OMG, I’ll bet it’s [the driver]!

Subsequent postings suggested Tammy was attacked by Travis because she’d posted a critical comment in The Chilton Report. And he had become the “Roadside Cross Killer,” even though Tammy had survived.

“Great. We try to keep it secret and we get outed by a teenage girl named Brittany.”

“Did you see him?” Boling asked.

“Yes.”

“You think he’s the one?”

“I wish I could say. I’m leaning toward it.” She explained her theory that it was hard to read Travis because he was living more in the synth world than the real, and he was masking his kinesic responses. “I will say there’s a huge amount of anger there. How ’bout we take a walk, Jon? There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

A few minutes later they arrived at Charles Over by’s office. On the phone, as he often was, her boss gestured Dance and Boling in, with a glance of curiosity at the professor.

The agent-in-charge hung up. “They made the connection, the press did. He’s now the ‘Roadside Cross Killer.’ ”

BrittanyM . . .

Dance said, “Charles, this is Professor Jonathan Boling. He’s been helping us.”

A hearty handshake. “Have you now? What area?”

“Computers.”

“That’s your profession? Consultant?” Overby let this hang like a balsa-wood glider over the trio for a moment. Dance spotted her cue and was about to say that Boling was volunteering his time when the professor said, “I teach mostly, but, yes, I do some consulting, Agent Overby. It’s really how I make most of my money. You know, academia pays next to nothing. But as a consultant I can charge up to three hundred an hour.”

“Ah.” Overby looked stricken. “Per hour. Really?”

Boling held a straight face for exactly the right length of time before adding, “But I get a real kick out of volunteering for free to help organizations like yours. So I’m tearing up my bill in your case.”

Dance nearly had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Boling, she decided, could have been a good psychologist; he’d deduced Overby’s prissy frugality in ten seconds flat, defused it—and slipped in a joke. For her benefit, Dance noted—since she was the only member of the audience.

“It’s getting hysterical, Kathryn. We’ve had a dozen reports of killers wandering around in backyards. A couple of people’ve already taken some shots at intruders, thinking it’s him. Oh, and there’ve been a couple more reports of crosses.”

Dance was alarmed. “More?”

Overby held up a hand. “They were all real memorials, apparently. Accidents that had happened in the past few weeks. None with prospective dates on them. But the press is all over it. Even Sacramento’s heard.” He nodded at the phone, presumably indicating a call from their boss—the director of the CBI. Possibly even his boss, the attorney general.

“So where are we?”

Dance brought him up to date on Travis, the incidents at his parents’ house, her take on the boy. “Definitely a person of interest.”

“But you didn’t bring him in?” Overby asked.

“No probable cause. Michael’s checking out some physical evidence right now to link him to the scene.”

“And no other suspects?”

“No.”

“How the hell is a kid doing this, a kid riding around on a bicycle?”

Dance pointed out that local gangs, centered primarily in and around Salinas, had terrorized people for years, and many of them had members much younger than Travis.

Boling added, “And one thing we’ve found out about him. He’s very active in computer games. Young people who are good at them learn very sophisticated combat and evasion techniques. One of the things military recruiters always ask is how much the applicants game; everything else being equal they’d take a gamer over another kid any day.”

Overby asked, “Motive?”

Dance then explained to her boss that if Travis was the killer, his motive was probably revenge based on cyberbullying.

“Cyberbullying,” Overby said, gravely. “I was just reading up on that.”

“You were?” Dance asked.

“Yep. There was a good article in USA Today last weekend.”

“It’s become a popular topic,” Boling said. Did Dance detect slight dismay about the sources that informed the head of a regional office of the CBI?

“That’s enough to turn him to violence?” Overby asked.

Boling continued, nodding, “He’s being pushed over the edge. The postings and the rumors have spread. And it’s become physical bullying too. Somebody’s put up a YouTube video about him. They got him in a happy slap vid.”

“A what?”

“It’s a cyberbullying technique. Somebody came up to Travis at Burger King and pushed him. He stumbled—it was embarrassing—and one of the other kids was waiting to record it on a cell phone. Then they uploaded it. It’s been viewed two hundred thousand times so far.”

It was then that a slightly built, unsmiling man stepped out of the conference room across the hall and into the doorway of Overby’s office. He noted the visitors and ignored them.

“Charles,” he said in a baritone.

“Oh . . . Kathryn, this is Robert Harper,” Overby said. “From the AG’s office in San Francisco. Special Agent Dance.”

The man walked into the room and shook her hand firmly, but kept a distance, as if she’d think he was coming on to her.

“And Jon . . .” Overby tried to recall.

“Boling.”

Harper gave the professor a distracted glance. Said nothing to him.

The man from San Francisco had an unrevealing face and perfectly trimmed black hair. He wore a conservative navy blue suit and white shirt, a red-and-blue striped tie. On his lapel was an American flag pin. His cuffs were perfectly starched, though she noticed a few stray gray threads at the ends. A professional state’s attorney, long after his colleagues had gone into private practice and were making buckets of money. She put him in his early fifties.

“What brings you to Monterey?” she asked.

“Caseload evaluations.” Offering nothing more.

Robert Harper seemed to be one of those people who, if he had nothing to say, was comfortable with silence. Dance believed too she recognized in his face an intensity, a sense of devotion to his mission, akin to what she’d seen in the Reverend Fisk’s face at the hospital protest. Though how much of a mission caseload analysis would entail was a mystery to her.

He turned his attention to her briefly. She was used to being looked over, but usually by suspects; Harper’s perusal was unsettling. It was as if she held the key to an important mystery for him.

Then he said to Overby, “I’m going to be outside for a few minutes, Charles. If you could keep the door to the conference room locked, I’d appreciate it.”

“Sure. Anything else you need, just let me know.”

A chilly nod. Then Harper was gone, fishing a phone from his pocket.

“What’s the story with him?” Dance asked.

“Special prosecutor from Sacramento. Had a call from upstairs—”

The attorney general.

“—to cooperate. He wants to know about our caseload. Maybe something big’s going down and he needs to see how busy we are. He spent some time at the sheriff’s office too. Wish he’d go back and bug them. Fellow’s a cold fish. Don’t know what to say to him. Tried some jokes. They fell flat.”

But Dance was thinking about the Tammy Foster case; Robert Harper was gone from her mind.

She and Boling returned to her office and she’d just sat down at her desk when O’Neil called. She was pleased. She guessed he’d have the results of the analysis of the bike tread dirt and the gray fiber from the sweatshirt.

“Kathryn, we have a problem.” His voice was troubled.

“Go on.”

“Well, first, Peter says the gray fiber they found in the cross? It matches what we found at Travis’s.”

“So he is the one. What’d the magistrate say about the warrant?”

“Didn’t get that far. Travis’s on the run.”

“What?”

“He didn’t show up for work. Or, he did show up—there were fresh bike tread marks behind the place. He snuck into the back room, stole some bagels and some cash from the purse of one of the workers . . . and a butcher’s knife. Then he disappeared. I called his parents, but they haven’t heard from him and claim they don’t have any idea where he might go.”

“Where are you?”

“In my office. I’m going to put out a detain alert on him. Us, Salinas, San Benito, surrounding counties.”

Dance rocked back, furious with herself. Why hadn’t she planned better and had somebody follow the boy when he left his house? She’d managed to establish his guilt—and simultaneously let him slip through her fingers.

And, hell, now she’d have to tell Overby what had happened.

But you didn’t bring him in?

“There’s something else. When I was at the bagel place, I looked up the alley. There’s that deli near Safeway.”

“Sure, I know it.”

“They have a flower stand on the side of the building.”

“Roses!” she said.

“Exactly. I talked to the owner.” O’Neil’s voice went flat. “Yesterday, somebody snuck up to the place and stole all the bouquets of red roses.”

She understood now why he was sounding so grave. “All? . . . How many did he take?”

A slight pause. “A dozen. It looks like he’s just getting started.”

Chapter 12

DANCE’S PHONE RANG. A glance at Caller ID.

“TJ. Was just about to call you.”

“Didn’t have any luck with security cameras but there’s a sale on Blue Mountain Jamaican coffee at Java House. Three pounds for the price of two. Still sets you back close to fifty bucks. But that coffee is the best.”

She made no response to his banter. He noticed it. “What’s up, boss?”

“Change of plans, TJ.” She told him about Travis Brigham, the forensics match and the dozen stolen bouquets.

“He’s on the run, boss? He’s planning more?”

“Yep. I want you to get to Bagel Express, talk to his friends, anybody who knows him, find out where he might go. People he might be staying with. Favorite places.”

“Sure, I’ll get right on it.”

Dance then called Rey Carraneo, who was having no luck in his search for witnesses near the parking lot where Tammy Foster had been abducted. She briefed him as well and told him to head over to the Game Shed to find any leads to where the boy might’ve gone.

After hanging up, Dance sat back. A frustrating sense of helplessness came over her. She needed witnesses, people to interview. This was a skill she was born to, one she enjoyed and was good at. But now the case slogged along in the world of evidence and speculation.

She glanced at the printouts of The Chilton Report.

“I think we better start contacting the potential victims and warning them. Are people attacking him in the social sites too, MySpace, Facebook, OurWorld?” she asked Boling

“It’s not as big a story in those; they’re international sites. The Chilton Report is local, so that’s where ninety percent of the attacks on Travis are. I’ll tell you one thing that would help: getting the Internet addresses of the posters. If we could get those, we can contact their service providers and find their physical addresses. It would save a lot of time.”

“How?”

“Have to be from Chilton himself or his webmaster.”

“Jon, can you tell me anything about him that’ll help me persuade him to cooperate, if he balks?”

“I know about his blog,” Boling responded, “but not much about him personally. Other than the bio in The Report itself. But I’d be happy to do some detective work.” His eyes had taken on the sparkle she’d seen earlier. He turned back to his computer.

Puzzles . . .

While the professor was lost in his homework assignment Dance took a call from O’Neil. A Crime Scene team had searched the alley behind Bagel Express and found traces of sand and dirt where the tread marks showed Travis had left his bike; they matched the sandy soil where Tammy’s car had been left on the beach. He added that an MCSO team had canvassed the area but nobody had seen him.

O’Neil told her too that he’d gotten a half dozen other officers from Highway Patrol to join in the manhunt. They were coming in from Watsonville.

They disconnected and Dance slumped back in her chair.

After a few minutes, Boling said that he’d gotten some background on Chilton from the blog itself and from other research. He called up the homepage again, which had the bio Chilton himself had written.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com

Scrolling down, Dance began to skim the blog while Boling offered, “James David Chilton, forty-three years old. Married to Patrizia Brisbane, two boys, ten and twelve. Lives in Carmel. But he also has property in Hollister, vacation house, it looks like, and some income property around San Jose. They inherited it when the wife’s father died a few years ago. Now, the most interesting thing I found out about Chilton is that he’s always had a quirky habit. He’d write letters.”

“Letters?”

“Letters to the editor, letters to his congressmen, op ed pieces. He started with snail mail—before the Internet really took off—then emails. He’s written thousands of them. Rants, criticism, praise, compliments, political commentary. You name it. He was quoted as saying one of his favorite books was Herzog, the Saul Bellow novel about a man obsessed with writing letters. Basically Chilton’s message was about upholding moral values, exposing corruption, extolling politicians who do good, trashing the ones who don’t—exactly what his blog does now. I found a lot of them online. Then, it seems, he found out about the blogosphere. He started The Chilton Report about five years ago. Now before I go on, it might be helpful to know a little history of blogs.”

“Sure.”

“The term comes from ‘weblog,’ which was coined by a computer guru in nineteen ninety-seven, Jorn Barger. He wrote an online diary about his travels and what he’d been looking at on the Web. Now, people’d been recording their thoughts online for years but what made blogs distinctive was the concept of links. That’s the key to a blog. You’re reading something and you come to that underlined or boldface reference in the text and click on it and that takes you someplace else.

“Linking is called ‘hypertext.’ The H-T-T-P in a website address? It stands for ‘hypertext transfer protocol.’ That’s the software that lets you create links. In my opinion it was one of the most significant aspects of the Internet. Maybe the most significant.

“Well, once hypertext became common, blogs started to take off. People who could write code in HTML—hypertext markup language, the computer language of links—could create their own blogs pretty easily. But more and more people wanted in and not everybody was tech savvy. So companies came up with programs that anybody, well, almost anybody, could use to create linked blogs with—Pitas, Blogger and Groksoup were the early ones. Dozens of others followed. And now all you have to do is have an account with Google or Yahoo and, poof, you can make a blog. Combine that with the bargain price of data storage nowadays—and getting cheaper every minute—and you’ve got the blogosphere.”

Boling’s narrative was animated and ordered. He’d be a great professor, she reflected.

“Now, before Nine-eleven,” Boling explained, “blogs were mostly computer-oriented. They were written by tech people for tech people. After September Eleventh, though, a new type of blog appeared. They were called war blogs, after the attacks and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Those bloggers weren’t interested in technology. They were interested in politics, economics, society, the world. I describe the distinction this way: While pre-Nine-eleven blogs were inner-directed—toward the Internet itself—the war blogs are outer-directed. Those bloggers look at themselves as journalists, part of what’s known as the New Media. They want press credentials, just like CNN and Washington Post reporters, and they want to be taken seriously.

“Jim Chilton is the quintessential war blogger. He doesn’t care about the Internet per se or the tech world, except to the extent it lets him get his message out. He writes about the real world. Now the two sides—the original bloggers and the war bloggers—constantly battle for the number-one spot in the blogosphere.”

“It’s a contest?” she asked, amused.

“To them it is.”

“They can’t coexist?”

“Sure, but it’s an ego-driven world and they’ll do anything they can to be top of the heap. And that means two things. One, having as many subscribers as possible. And two, more important—having as many other blogs as possible include links to yours.”

“Incestuous.”

“Very. Now, you asked what could I tell you to get Chilton’s cooperation. Well, you have to remember that The Chilton Report is the real thing. It’s important and influential. You notice that one of the early posts in the ‘Roadside Crosses’ thread was from an executive at Caltrans? He wanted to defend their inspection of the highway. That tells me that government officials and CEOs read the blog regularly. And get pretty damn upset if Chilton says anything bad about them.

“The Report leans toward local issues but local in this case is California, which isn’t really local at all. Everybody in the world keeps an eye on us. They either love or hate the state, but they all read about it. Also, Chilton himself’s emerged as a serious journalist. He works his sources, he writes well. He’s reasonable and he picks real issues—he’s not sensationalist. I searched for Britney Spears and Paris Hilton in his blog, going back four years, and neither name came up.”

Dance had to be impressed with that.

“He’s not a part-timer, either. Three years ago he began to work on the report full-time. And he campaigns it hard.”

“What does that mean, ‘campaign’?”

Boling scrolled down to the “On the Home Front” thread on the homepage.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com

WE’RE GOING GLOBAL!

Am pleased to report that The Report has been getting raves from around the world. It’s been selected as one of the lead blogs in a new RSS feed (we’ll call it “Really Simple Syndication”) that will link thousands of other blogs, websites and bulletin boards throughout the world. Kudos to you, my readers, for making The Report as popular as it is.

“RSS is another next big thing. It actually stands for RDF Site Syndication—‘RDF’ is Resource Description Framework, if you’re interested, and there’s no reason for you to be. RSS is a way of customizing and consolidating updated material from blogs and websites and podcasts. Look at your browser. At the top is a little orange square with a dot in the corner and two curved lines.”

“I’ve seen it.”

“That’s your RSS feeds. Chilton is trying hard to get picked up by other bloggers and websites. That’s important to him. And it’s important to you too. Because it tells us something about him.”

“He’s got an ego I can stroke?”

“Yep. That’s one thing to remember. I’m also thinking of something else you can try with him, something more nefarious.”

“I like nefarious.”

“You’ll want to somehow hint that his helping you will be good publicity for the blog. It’ll get the name of The Report around in the mainstream media. Also, you could hint that you or somebody at CBI could be a source for information in the future.” Boling nodded at the screen, where the blog glowed. “I mean, first and foremost, he’s an investigative reporter. He appreciates sources.”

“Okay. Good idea. I’ll try it.”

A smile. “Of course, the other thing he might do is consider your request an invasion of journalistic ethics. In which case he’ll slam the door in your face.”

Dance looked at the screen. “These blogs—they’re a whole different world.”

“Oh, that they are. And we’re just beginning to comprehend the power they have—how they’re changing the way we get information and form opinions. There are probably sixty million of them now.”

“That many?”

“Yep. And they do great things—they prefilter information so you don’t have to Google your way through millions of sites, they’re a community of like-minded people, they can be funny, creative. And, like The Chilton Report, they police society and keep us honest. But there’s a dark side too.”

“Propagating rumors,” Dance said.

“That’s one thing, yes. And another problem is what I said earlier about Tammy: They encourage people to be careless. People feel protected online and in the synth world. Life seems anonymous, posting under a nym or nic—a screen name—so you give away all sorts of information about yourself. But remember: Every single fact about you—or lie—that you post, or somebody posts about you, is there forever. It will never, ever go away.”

Boling continued, “But I feel the biggest problem is that people tend not to question the accuracy of the reporting. Blogs give an impression of authenticity—the information’s more democratic and honest because it comes from the people, not from big media. But my point—and it’s earned me plenty of black eyes in academia and in the blogosphere—is that that’s bullshit. The New York Times is a for-profit corporation but is a thousand times more objective than most blogs. There’s very little accountability online. Holocaust denials, Nine-eleven conspiracies, racism, they all thrive, thanks to blogs. They take on an authenticity some weirdo at a cocktail party doesn’t have when he spouts off that Israel and the CIA were behind the Trade Towers attack.”

Dance returned to her desk and lifted her phone. “I think I’ll put all your research to use, Jon. Let’s see what happens.”

JAMES CHILTON’S HOUSE was in an upscale area of Carmel, the yard close to an acre, and filled with trimmed but hodgepodge gardens, which suggested that husband, wife or both spent plenty of weekend hours extracting weeds and inserting plants, rather than paying pros to do it.

Dance gazed at the outside décor enviously. Gardening, though much appreciated, wasn’t one of her skills. Maggie said that if plants didn’t have roots they’d run when her mother stepped into the garden.

The house was an expansive ranch, about forty years old, and squatted at the back of the property. Dance estimated six bedrooms. Their cars were a Lexus sedan and a Nissan Quest, sitting in a large garage filled with plenty of sports equipment, which unlike similar articles in Dance’s garage, actually appeared well used.

She had to laugh at the bumper stickers on Chilton’s vehicles. They echoed headlines from his blog: one against the desalination plant and one against the sex education proposal. Left and right, Democrat and Republican.

He’s more cut-and-paste . . .

There was another car here too, in the drive; a visitor, probably, since the Taurus bore the subtle decal of a rental car company. Dance parked and walked to the front door, rang the bell.

Footsteps grew louder, and she was greeted by a brunette woman in her early forties, slender, wearing designer jeans and a white blouse, the collar turned up. A thick David Yurman knotted necklace, in silver, was at her throat.

The shoes, Dance couldn’t help but identify, came from Italy and were knockouts.

The agent identified herself, proffering her ID. “I called earlier. To see Mr. Chilton.”

The woman’s face eased into the hint of a frown that typically forms when one meets law enforcers. Her name was Patrizia—she pronounced it Pa-treet-sia.

“Jim’s just finishing up a meeting. I’ll go tell him you’re here.”

“Thank you.”

“Come on in.”

She led Dance to a homey den, the walls covered with pictures of family, then disappeared into the house for a moment. Patrizia returned. “He’ll be just a moment.”

“Thank you. These are your boys?” Dance was pointing at a picture of Patrizia, a lanky balding man she took to be Chilton and two dark-haired boys, who reminded her of Wes. They were all smiling at the camera. The woman proudly said, “Jim and Chet.”

Chilton’s wife continued through the photos. From the pictures of the woman in her youth—at Carmel Beach, Point Lobos, the Mission—Dance guessed she was a native. Patrizia explained that, yes, she was; in fact, she’d grown up in this very house. “My father had been living here alone for years. When he passed, about three years ago, Jim and I moved in.”

Dance liked the idea of a family home, passed down from generation to generation. She reflected that Michael O’Neil’s parents still lived in the oceanview house where he and his siblings had grown up. With his father suffering from senility, his mother was thinking of selling the place and moving into a retirement community. But O’Neil was determined to keep the property in the family.

As Patrizia was pointing out photos that displayed the family’s exhausting athletic accomplishments—golf, soccer, tennis, triathlons—Dance heard voices in the front hall.

She turned to see two men. Chilton—she recognized him from the pictures—wore a baseball cap, green polo shirt and chinos. Blondish hair eased in tufts from under the hat. He was tall and apparently in good shape, with only a bit of belly swelling above his belt. He was speaking to another man, sandy-haired, wearing jeans, a white shirt and a brown sports coat. Dance started toward them but Chilton quickly ushered the man out of the door. Her kinesic reading was that he didn’t want the visitor, whoever he was, to know that a law enforcement agent had come to see him.

Patrizia repeated, “He’ll just be a minute.”

But Dance sidestepped her and continued into the hall, sensing the wife stiffen, protective of her husband. Still, an interviewer has to take immediate charge of the situation; subjects can’t set the rules. But by the time Dance got to the front door Chilton was back and the rental car heading off, gravel crunching under tires.

His green eyes—similar to her shade—turned their attention her way. They shook hands and she read in the blogger’s face, tanned and freckled, curiosity and a certain defiance, more than wariness.

Another flash of the ID. “Could we talk somewhere for a few minutes, Mr. Chilton?”

“My office, sure.”

He led her up the hall. The room they entered was modest and a mess, filled with towers of magazines and clippings and computer printouts. Underscoring what she’d learned from Jon Boling, the office revealed that indeed the reporter’s game was changing: small rooms in houses and apartments just like this were replacing city-desk rooms of newspapers. Dance was amused to see a cup of tea beside his computer—the scent of chamomile filled the room. No cigarettes, coffee or whisky for today’s hard-edged journalists, apparently.

They sat and he lifted his eyebrow. “So he’s been complaining, has he? But I’m curious. Why the police, why not a civil suit?”

“How’s that?” Dance was confused.

Chilton rocked back in his chair, removed his cap, rubbed his balding head and slipped the hat back on. He was irritated. “Oh, he bitches about libel. But it’s not defamation if it’s true. Besides, even if what I wrote was false, which it isn’t, libel’s not a crime in this country. Would be in Stalinist Russia, but it’s not here yet. So why’re you involved?” His eyes were keen and probing, his mannerisms intense; Dance could imagine how it might soon get tiring to spend much time in his presence.

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Aren’t you here because of Arnie Brubaker?”

“No. Who’s that?”

“He’s the man who wants to destroy our shoreline by putting in that desalination plant.”

She recalled the blog postings in The Chilton Report critical of the plant. And the bumper sticker.

“No, this has nothing to do with that.”

Chilton’s forehead crinkled. “He’d love to stop me. I thought maybe he’d trumped up some criminal complaint. But sorry. I was making assumptions.” The defensiveness in his face relaxed. “It’s just, well, Brubaker’s really a . . . pain.”

Dance wondered what the intended descriptive of the developer was going to have been.

“Excuse me.” Patrizia appeared in the doorway and brought her husband a fresh cup of tea. She asked Dance if she’d like anything. She was smiling now but still eyed the agent suspiciously.

“Thanks, no.”

Chilton nodded at the tea and charmingly winked his thanks to his wife. She left and closed the door behind her.

“So, what can I do for you?”

“Your blog about the roadside crosses.”

“Oh, the car accident?” He regarded Dance closely. Some of the defensiveness was back; she could read the stress in his posture. “I’ve been following the news. That girl was attacked, the press is saying, because she posted something on the blog. The posters are starting to say the same thing. You want the boy’s name.”

“No. We have it.”

“Is he the one who tried to drown her?”

“It seems so.”

Chilton said quickly, “I didn’t attack him. My point was, did the police drop the ball on the investigation and did Caltrans adequately maintain the road? I said up front that he wasn’t to blame. And I censored his name.”

“It didn’t take long for a mob to form and find out who he is.”

Chilton’s mouth twisted. He’d taken the comment as criticism of him or the blog, which it wasn’t. But he conceded. “That does happen. Well, what can I do for you?”

“We have reason to believe that Travis Brigham may be considering attacking other people who posted comments against him.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, but we have to consider it’s a possibility.”

Chilton grimaced. “I mean, can’t you arrest him?”

“We’re looking for him now. We aren’t sure where he is.”

“I see.” Chilton said this slowly and Dance could see from his lifted shoulders and the tension in his neck he was wondering what exactly she wanted. The agent considered Jon Boling’s advice and said, “Now, your blog is known all over the world. It’s very respected. That’s one of the reasons so many people are posting on it.”

The flash of pleasure in his eyes was faint but obvious to Dance; it told her that even obvious flattery went down very well with James Chilton.

“But the problem is that all the posters attacking Travis are potential targets. And the number’s increasing every hour.”

“The Report has one of the highest hit ratings in the country. It’s the most-read blog in California.”

“I’m not surprised. I really enjoy it.” Keeping an eye on her own mannerisms, so as not to telegraph the deception.

“Thank you.” A full smile joined the eye crinkle.

“But see what we’re facing: Every time somebody posts to the ‘Roadside Crosses’ thread they become a possible target. Some of those people are completely anonymous, some are out of the area. But some are nearby and we’re afraid Travis will find out their identities. And then he’ll go after them too.”

“Oh,” Chilton said, his smile vanishing. His quick mind made the leap. “And you’re here for their Internet addresses.”

“For their protection.”

“I can’t give those out.”

“But these people are at risk.”

“This country operates on the principle of separation of media and state.” As if this flippant recitation skewered her argument.

“That girl was thrown into a trunk and left to drown. Travis could be planning another attack right now.”

Chilton held up a finger, shushing her like a schoolteacher. “It’s a slippery slope. Agent Dance, who do you work for? Your ultimate boss?”

“The attorney general.”

“Okay, well, say I give you the addresses of posters on the ‘Roadside Crosses’ thread. Then next month you come back and ask for the address of a whistleblower who was fired by the attorney general for, oh, let’s pick harassment. Or maybe you want the address of somebody who posted a comment critical of the governor. Or the president. Or—how ’bout this—someone who says something favorable about al-Qaeda? You say to me: ‘You gave me the information last time. Why not again?’”

“There won’t be an again.”

“You say that but . . .” As if government employees lied with every breath. “Does this boy know you’re after him?”

“Yes.”

“Then he’s run off somewhere, wouldn’t you think? He’s not going to show himself by attacking somebody else. Not if the police are looking for him.” His voice was stern.

Hers was reasonable as she continued slowly, “Still. You know, Mr. Chilton, sometimes life is about compromises.”

She let this comment linger.

He cocked an eyebrow, waiting.

“If you gave us the addresses—just of the locals who wrote the most vicious posts about Travis—we’d really appreciate it. Maybe . . . well, maybe we could do something to help you, if you ever needed a hand.”

“Like what?”

Thinking again about Boling’s suggestions, she said, “We’d be happy to issue a statement about your cooperation. Good publicity.”

Chilton considered this. But then frowned. “No. If I were to help you it’d probably be best not to mention it.”

She was pleased; he was negotiating. “Okay, I can understand that. But maybe there’s something else we could do.”

“Really? What?”

Thinking about another suggestion the professor had made, she said, “Maybe, well, if you need any contacts in the California law enforcement agencies. . . . Sources. High-up ones.”

He leaned forward, eyes flaring. “So you are trying to bribe me. I thought so. Just had to draw you out a little. Got you, Agent Dance.”

She sat back as if she’d been slapped.

Chilton continued, “Appealing to my public spirit is one thing. This . . .” He waved his hand at her. “. . . is distasteful. And corrupt, if you ask me. It’s the kind of maneuvering I expose in my blog every day.”

Of course, the other thing he might do is consider your request an invasion of journalistic ethics. In which case he’ll slam the door in your face.

“Tammy Foster was almost killed. There could be others.”

“I’m very sorry for that. But The Report is too important to jeopardize. And if people think they can’t post anonymously it’ll change the integrity of the entire blog.”

“I’d like you to reconsider.”

The blogger’s strident facade faded. “That man I was meeting with when you got here?”

She nodded.

“Gregory Ashton.” He said this with some intensity, the way people will when speaking about someone significant to them, but who have no meaning to you. Chilton noted the blank expression. He continued, “He’s starting a new network of blogs and websites, one of the biggest in the world. I’ll be at the flagship level. He’s spending millions to promote it.”

This was the issue that Boling had explained to her. Ashton must have been the one behind the RSS feed Chilton was referring to in the “We’re Going Global” posting.

“That expands the scope of The Report exponentially. I can take on problems around the world. AIDS in Africa, human rights violations in Indonesia, atrocities in Kashmir, environmental disasters in Brazil. But if word were to get out that I gave away the Internet address of my posters, that could put the sanctity of The Report at risk.”

Dance was frustrated, though part of her, as a former journalist, grudgingly understood. Chilton wasn’t resisting out of greed or ego, but from a genuine passion for his readers.

Though that hardly helped her out.

“People could die,” she persisted.

“This question has come up before, Agent Dance. The responsibility of bloggers.” He stiffened slightly. “A few years ago I did an exclusive post about a well-known writer who I found out had plagiarized some passages from another novelist. He claimed it was an accident, and begged me not to run the story. But I ran it anyway. He started drinking again and his life fell apart. Was that my goal? God, no. But either the rules exist or they don’t. Why should he get away with cheating when you and I don’t?

“I did a blog about a deacon from San Francisco who was head of an antigay movement—and, it turned out, a closet homosexual. I had to expose the hypocrisy.” He looked right into Dance’s eyes. “And the man killed himself. Because of what I wrote. Killed himself. I live with that every day. But did I do the right thing? Yes. If Travis attacks somebody else, then I’ll feel terrible about that too. But we’re dealing with bigger issues here, Agent Dance.”

“I was a reporter too,” she said.

“You were?”

“Crime reporter. I’m against censorship completely. We’re not talking about the same thing. I’m not telling you to change your postings. I just want to know the names of people who’ve posted so we can protect them.”

“Can’t do it.” The flint was back in his voice. He looked at his watch. She knew the interview was over. He rose.

Still, one last shot. “No one will ever know. We’ll say we found out through other means.”

Escorting her to the door, Chilton gave a genuine laugh. “Secrets in the blogosphere, Agent Dance? Do you know how fast word spreads in today’s world? . . . At the speed of light.”

Chapter 13

AS SHE DROVE along the highway, Kathryn Dance called Jon Boling.

“How did it go?” he asked brightly.

“What was that phrase that was in the blog about Travis? One of the kids posted it. ‘Epic’ something . . .”

“Oh.” Less cheer now. “Epic fail.”

“Yeah, that describes it pretty well. I tried for the good-publicity approach but he went for door number two: the fascists trammeling free press. With a touch of ‘the world needs me.’ ”

“Ouch. Sorry about that. Bad call.”

“It was worth a shot. But I think you’d better start trying to get as many names as you can on your own.”

“I already have. Just in case Chilton gave you the boot. I should have some names soon. Oh, did he say he’d get even in a blog posting about you for suggesting it?”

She chuckled. “Came close. The headline would’ve been ‘CBI agent in attempted bribe.’ ”

“I doubt he will—you’re small potatoes. Nothing personal. But with hundreds of thousands of people reading what he writes, he sure does have the power to make you worry.” Then Boling’s voice grew somber. “I should tell you the postings are getting worse. Some of the posters are saying they’ve seen Travis doing devil worship, sacrificing animals. And there are stories about him groping other students, girls and boys. All sounds bogus to me, though. It’s like they’re trying to one-up each other. The stories are getting more outlandish.”

Rumors . . .

“The one thing that’s a recurring reference, which makes me think there’s some truth in it, is the online role-playing games. They’re talking about the kid being obsessed with fighting and death. Especially with swords and knives and slashing his victims.”

“He’s slipped into the synthetic world.”

“Seems that way.”

After they disconnected, Dance turned up the volume on her iPod Touch—she was listening to Badi Assad, the beautiful Brazilian guitarist and singer. It was illegal to listen through the ear buds while driving, but running the music through the speakers in a cop car didn’t produce the most faithful sound quality.

And she needed a serious dose of soul-comforting music.

Dance felt the urgency to pursue the case, but she was a mother too and she’d always balanced her two worlds. She’d now pick up her children from her mother’s care at the hospital, spend a little time with them and drop them off at her parents’ house, where Stuart Dance would resume baby-sitting, after he returned from his meeting at the aquarium. And she would head back to the CBI to continue the hunt for Travis Brigham.

She continued the drive in the big, unmarked CVPI—her Police Interceptor Ford. It handled like a combination race car and tank. Not that Dance had ever pushed the vehicle to its limits. She wasn’t a natural driver and, though she’d taken the required high-speed-pursuit course in Sacramento, couldn’t picture herself actually chasing another driver along the winding roads of central California. With this thought, an image from the blog came to mind—the photo of the roadside crosses at the site of the terrible accident on Highway 1 on June 9, the tragedy that had set all of this subsequent horror in motion.

She now pulled up in the hospital lot and noticed several California Highway Patrol cars, and two unmarkeds, parked in front of the hospital. She couldn’t remember a report about any police action involving injuries. Climbing from the car, she observed a change in the protesters. For one thing, there were more of them. Three dozen or so. And they’d been joined by two more news crews.

Also, she noticed, they were boisterous, waving their placards and crosses like sports fans. Smiling, chanting. Dance noticed that the Reverend Fisk was being approached by several men, shaking his hands in sequence. His red-haired minder was carefully scanning the parking lot.

And then Dance froze, gasping.

Walking out the front door of the hospital were Wes and Maggie—faces grim—accompanied by an African-American woman in a navy blue suit. She was directing them to one of the unmarked sedans.

Robert Harper, the special prosecutor she’d met outside Charles Overby’s office, emerged.

And behind him walked Dance’s mother. Edie Dance was flanked by two large uniformed CHP troopers, and she was in handcuffs.

DANCE JOGGED FORWARD.

“Mom!” twelve-year-old Wes shouted and ran across the parking lot, pulling his sister after him.

“Wait, you can’t do that!” shouted the woman who’d been accompanying them. She started forward, fast.

Dance knelt, embracing her son and daughter.

The woman’s stern voice resounded across the parking lot. “We’re taking the children—”

“You’re not taking anybody,” Dance growled, then turned again to her children: “Are you all right?”

“They arrested Grandma!” Maggie said, tears welling. Her chestnut braid hung limply over her shoulder, where it had jumped in the run.

“I’ll talk to them in a minute.” Dance rose. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No.” Lean Wes, nearly as tall as his mother, said in a shaky voice, “They just, that woman and the police, they just came and got us and said they’re taking us someplace, I don’t know where.”

“I don’t want to leave you, Mommy!” Maggie clung to her tightly.

Dance reassured her daughter, “Nobody’s taking you anywhere. Okay, go get in the car.”

The woman in the blue suit approached and said in a low tone, “Ma’am, I’m afraid—” And found herself talking to Dance’s CBI identification card and shield, thrust close to her face. “The children are going with me,” Dance said.

The woman read the ID, unimpressed. “It’s procedure. You understand. It’s for their own good. We’ll get it all sorted out and if everything checks out—”

“The children are going with me.”

“I’m a social worker with Monterey County Child Services.” Her own ID appeared.

Dance was thinking that there were probably negotiations that should be going on at the moment but still she pulled her handcuffs out of her back holster in a smooth motion and swung them open like a large crab claw. “Listen to me. I’m their mother. You know my identity. You know theirs. Now back off, or I’m arresting you under California Penal Code section two-oh-seven.”

Observing this, the TV reporters seemed to stiffen as one, like a lizard sensing the approach of an oblivious beetle. Cameras swung their way.

The woman turned toward Robert Harper, who seemed to debate. He glanced at the reporters and apparently decided that, in this situation, bad publicity was worse than no publicity. He nodded.

Dance smiled to her children, hitching the cuffs away, and walked them to her car. “It’s going to be okay. Don’t worry. This is just a big mix-up.” She closed the door, locking it with the remote. She stormed past the social worker, who was glaring back with sleek, defiant eyes, and approached her mother, who was being eased into the back of a squad car.

“Honey!” Edie Dance exclaimed.

“Mom, what’s—”

“You can’t talk to the prisoner,” Harper said.

She whirled and faced Harper, who was exactly her height. “Don’t play games with me. What’s this all about?”

He regarded her calmly. “She’s being taken to the county lockup for processing and a bail hearing. She’s been arrested and informed of her rights. I have no obligation to say anything to you.”

The cameras continued to pick up every second of the drama.

Edie Dance called, “They said I killed Juan Millar!”

“Please be quiet, Mrs. Dance.”

The agent raged at Harper, “That ‘caseload evaluation’? It was just bullshit, right?”

Harper easily ignored her.

Dance’s cell phone rang and she stepped aside to answer it. “Dad.”

“Katie, I just got home and found the police here. State police. They’re searching everything. Mrs. Kensington next door said they took away a couple of boxes of things.”

“Dad, Mom’s been arrested. . . .”

“What?”

“That mercy killing. Juan Millar.”

“Oh, Katie.”

“I’m taking the kids to Martine’s, then meet me at the courthouse in Salinas. She’s going to be booked and there’ll be a bond hearing.”

“Sure. I . . . I don’t know what to do, honey.” His voice broke.

It cut her deeply to hear her own father—normally unflappable and in control—sounding so helpless.

“We’ll get it worked out,” she said, trying to sound confident but feeling just as uncertain and confused as he would be. “I’ll call later, Dad.” They disconnected.

“Mom,” she called through the car window, looking down at her mother’s grim face. “It’ll be all right. I’ll see you at the courthouse.”

The prosecutor said sternly, “Agent Dance, I don’t want to remind you again. No talking to the prisoner.”

She ignored Harper. “And don’t say a word to anyone,” she warned her mother.

“I hope we’re not going to have a security problem here,” the prosecutor said stiffly.

Dance glared back, silently defying him to make good on his threat, whatever it might be. Then she glanced at the CHP troopers nearby, one of whom she’d worked with. His eyes avoided hers. Everybody was in Harper’s pocket on this one.

She turned and strode back toward her car, but diverted to the woman social worker.

Dance stood close. “Those children have cell phones. I’m number two on speed dial, right after nine-one-one. And I guarantee they told you I’m a law enforcement officer. Why the fuck didn’t you call me?”

The woman blinked and reared back. “You can’t talk to me that way.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you call?”

“I was following procedures.”

“Procedures are the welfare of the child comes first. You contact the parent or guardian in circumstances like this.”

“Well, I was doing what I was told.”

“How long’ve you had this job?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Well, I’ll tell you, miss. There’re two answers: either not long enough, or way too long.”

“You can’t—”

But Dance was gone by then and climbing back into her car, grinding the starter; she’d never shut the engine off when she’d arrived.

“Mom,” Maggie asked, weeping with heartbreaking whimpers. “What’s going to happen to Grandma?”

Dance wasn’t going to put on a false facade for the children; she’d learned as a parent that in the end it was better to confront pain and fear, rather than to deny or defer them. But she had to struggle to keep panic from her voice. “Your grandmother’s going to see a judge and I hope she’ll be home soon. Then we’re going to find out what’s happened. We just don’t know yet.”

She’d take the children to the home of her best friend, Martine Christensen, with whom she operated her music website.

“I don’t like that man,” Wes said.

“Who?”

“Mr. Harper.”

“I don’t like him either,” Dance said.

“I want to go to the courthouse with you,” Maggie said.

“No, Mags. I don’t know how long I’m going to be there.”

Dance glanced back and gave a reassuring smile to the children.

Seeing their wan, forlorn faces, she grew all the angrier at Robert Harper.

Dance plugged in her phone’s hands-free mike, thought for a moment and called the best defense lawyer she could think of. George Sheedy had once spent four hours trying to discredit Dance on the witness stand. He’d come close to winning a verdict of not guilty for a Salinas gang leader who clearly was. But the good guys had won and the punk got life. After the trial, Sheedy had come up to Dance and shaken her hand, complimenting her on the solid job she’d done testifying. She’d told him too that she’d been impressed by his skill.

As her call was being transferred to Sheedy, she noticed that the cameramen continued to record the excitement, every one of them focused on the car in which her mother sat, handcuffed. They looked like insurgents firing rocket launchers at shell-shocked troops.

CALM NOW, AFTER the intruder in the backyard turned out not to be the Abominable Snowman, Kelley Morgan was concentrating on her hair.

The teenager was never far from her curlers.

Her hair was the most frustrating thing in the world. A little humidity and it went all frizzy. Pissed her off sooo much.

She had to meet Juanita and Trey and Toni on Alvarado in forty minutes, and they were such great friends that if she was more than ten minutes late they’d ditch her. She lost track of time writing a post on Bri’s Town Hall board on OurWorld, about Tammy Foster.

Then Kelley’d looked up, into the mirror, and realized that the damp air had turned the strands into this total creature. So she logged off and attacked the brunette tangles.

Somebody had once posted on a local blog—anonymously, of course:

Kelley Morgan . . . whats with her hair?????? its like shes a mushroom. I dont like girls with shaved heads but she should go for THAT look. LOL. yikes why dosnt she get a clue.

Kelley had sobbed, paralyzed at the terrible words, which cut her like a razor.

That post was the reason she’d defended Tammy on OurWorld and flamed AnonGurl (who she did end up owning, big-time).

Even now, thinking of the cruel post about her hair, she shivered with shame. And anger. Never mind that Jamie said he loved everything about her. The posting had devastated her and made her hypersensitive about the subject. And had cost her countless hours. Since that April 4 post, she hadn’t once gone outside without battling the do into shape.

Okay, get to work, girl.

She rose from her desk and went to her dressing table and plugged in the heated rollers. They gave her split ends but at least the heat tamed the worst of the renegade tresses.

She flicked the dressing table light on and sat down, stripped off her blouse and tossed it onto the floor, then pulled two tank tops over her bra, liking the look of the three straps: red, pink and black. Tested the curlers. A few more minutes. Almost right. She started to brush. It was soooo unfair. Pretty face, nice boobs, great ass. And this effing hair.

She happened to glance at her computer and saw an instant message from a friend.

Check out TCR, I mean NOW!!!!!!!!

Kelley laughed. Trish was so exclamation point.

Usually she didn’t read The Chilton Report—it was more politics than she cared about—but she’d put it on her RSS feed after Chilton had begun posting about the accident on June 9 under the “Roadside Crosses” thread. Kelley had been at the party that night and, just before Caitlin and the other girls left, had seen Travis Brigham arguing with Caitlin.

She swung to the keyboard and typed, Don’t Xplode. Y?

Trish responded, Chilton took out names but people are saying Travis attacked Tammy!!

Kelley typed, Is this win or r u guessing?

The response: WIN, WIN!!!! Travis is pissed b/c she flamed him in the blog, READ IT!!!! THE DRIVER = TRAVIS and THE VICTIM = TAMMY.

Sick to her stomach, Kelley began pounding the keys, calling up The Chilton Report and plowing through the “Roadside Crosses” thread. Toward the end, she read:

Reply to Chilton, posted by BrittanyM.

Is anybody watching the news???? Somebody left a cross and then went out and attacked that girl. What’s that all about? OMG, I’ll bet it’s [the driver]!

Reply to Chilton, posted by CT093.

Where the [deleted] are the police? I heard that that girl in the trunk was raped and had crosses carved on her, then he LEFT her in the trunk to drown. Just because she dissed him—[the driver], I mean I just looked at the news and he hasn’t been arrested yet. WHY NOT?????

Reply to Chilton, posted by Anonymous.

Me and my friends were near the beach where [the victim] was found and they heard the police talking about this cross. They were like he left it as a warning for people to shut up. [The victim] was attacked and raped because she dissed [the driver] HERE, i mean what she wrote in the blog!!! Listen if you flamed him here and you’re not using proxies or posting anon, you’re totally [deleted], he’s going to get you!!

Reply to Chilton, posted by Anonymous.

I know a d00d where [the driver] goes to game and he was saying that [the driver] was saying he was going to get everybody who was posting stuff about him, he planned to cut their throats like terrorists do on arab TV, hey, cops, [the driver] is the Roadside Cross killer!!! And that’s WORD!!!

No . . . God, no! Kelley thought back to what she’d posted about Travis. What’d she said? Would the boy be mad at her? She frantically scrolled up and found her post.

Reply to Chilton, posted by BellaKelley.

u r so right!!! Me and my friend were at that party on the 9th where it happened and [the driver] was coming on to [deleted] and they were like, just go away. But he didn’t, he followed them out the door when they were leaving. But we have ourselves to blame too for not doing anything, all of us who were there. We all knew [the driver] is a luser and perv and we should have called the police or somebody when they left. I had this bad feeling like in Ghost Whisperer. And look what happened.

Why? Why did I say that?

I was all, Leave Tammy alone. Don’t flame people online. And then I went and said something about Travis.

Shit. Now he’s going to get me too! Is that what I’d heard outside earlier? Maybe he really was outside and, when my brother showed up, that scared him off.

Kelley thought of the bicyclist she’d seen. Hell, Travis rode a bike all the time; a lot of kids at school made fun of him because he couldn’t afford a car.

Dismayed, angry, scared . . .

Kelley was staring at the posts on the screen of the computer, when she heard a noise behind her.

A snap, like earlier.

Another.

She turned.

A wrenching scream poured from Kelley Morgan’s lips.

A face—the most frightening face she’d ever seen—was staring at her from the window. Kelley’s rational thinking stopped cold. She dropped to her knees, feeling the warm liquid gush between her legs as she lost control of her bladder. A pain spurted in her chest, spread to her jaw, her nose, eyes. She nearly stopped breathing.

The face, motionless, staring with its huge black eyes, scarred skin, slits for the nose, the mouth sewn shut and bloody.

The pure horror from her childhood fears flooded through her.

“No, no, no!” Sobbing like a baby, Kelley was scrabbling away as fast as she could and as far as she could. She slammed into the wall and sprawled, stunned, on the carpet.

Eyes staring, black eyes.

Staring right at her.

“No . . .”

Jeans drenched with pee, stomach churning, Kelley crawled desperately toward the door.

The eyes, the mouth with the bloody stitching in it. The yeti, the Abominable Snowman. Somewhere in that portion of her mind that still worked she knew it was only a mask, tied to the crape myrtle tree outside the window.

But that didn’t lessen the fear it ignited within her—the rawest of her childhood fears.

And she knew too what it meant.

Travis Brigham was here. He’d come to kill her, just like he’d tried to kill Tammy Foster.

Kelley finally managed to climb to her feet and stumbled to her door. Run. Get the fuck out.

In the hall she turned toward the front door.

Shit! It was open! Her brother hadn’t locked it at all.

Travis was here, in the house!

Should she just sprint through the living room?

As she stood frozen in fear, he got her from behind, his arm snaking around her throat.

She struggled—until he jammed a gun against her temple.

Sobbing. “Please, no, Travis.”

“Perv?” he whispered. “Luser?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it!”

As he dragged her backward, toward the basement door, she felt his arm flex harder until her pleas and the choking grew softer and softer and the glare from the spotless living room window turned gray and then went black.

KATHRYN DANCE WAS no stranger to the American justice system. She had been in magistrates’ offices and courtrooms as a crime journalist, a jury consultant, a law enforcement officer.

But she’d never been the relative of the accused.

After leaving the hospital, she’d dropped the children off at Martine’s and called her sister, Betsey, who lived with her husband down in Santa Barbara.

“Bet, there’s a problem with Mom.”

“What? Tell me what happened.” There’d been a rare edge in the voice of the otherwise flighty woman, younger than Dance by several years. Betsey had curly angelic hair and flitted from career to career like a butterfly testing out flowers.

Dance had run through the details she knew.

“I’ll call her now,” Betsey had announced.

“She’s in detention. They’ve got her phone. There’ll be a bail hearing soon. We’ll know more then.”

“I’m coming up.”

“It might be better later.”

“Sure, of course. Oh, Katie, how serious is this?”

Dance had hesitated. She recalled Harper’s still, determined eyes, missionary’s eyes. Finally she’d said, “It could be bad.”

After they’d disconnected, Dance had continued here, to the magistrate’s office at the courthouse, where she now sat with her father. The lean, white-haired man was even paler than usual (he’d learned the hard way of the dangers a marine biologist faces in the ocean sun and was now a sunscreen and hat addict). His arm was around her shoulders.

Edie had spent an hour in the holding cell—the intake area in which many of Dance’s collars had been booked. Dance knew the procedures well: All personal effects were confiscated. You went through the warrant check and the inputting of information, and you sat in a cell, surrounded by other arrestees. And then you waited and waited.

Finally you were brought here, into the magistrate’s chilly impersonal room for a bail hearing. Dance and her father were surrounded by dozens of family members of arrestees. Most of the accused here, some in street clothes, some in red Monterey County jumpsuits, were young Latino men. Dance recognized plenty of gang tats. Some were sullen whites, scruffier than the Latinos, with worse teeth and hair. In the back sat the public defenders. The bail bondsmen, too, waiting to pick up their 10 percent from the carcasses.

Dance lifted her eyes to her mother as she was brought in. It broke her heart to see the woman in handcuffs. She wasn’t in a jumpsuit. But her hair, normally perfectly done, was in a shambles. Her homemade necklace had been taken from her upon processing. Her wedding and engagement rings too. Her eyes were red.

Lawyers milled about, some not much spiffier than their clients; only Edie Dance’s attorney was in a suit that had been shaped by a tailor after purchase. George Sheedy had been practicing criminal law on the Central Coast for two decades. He had abundant gray hair, a trapezoidal figure with broad shoulders and a bass voice that would have done a stunning version of “Old Man River.”

After the brief phone conversation with Sheedy from the car, Dance had immediately called Michael O’Neil, who’d been shocked at the news. She then called the Monterey County prosecutor, Alonzo “Sandy” Sandoval.

“I just heard about it, Kathryn,” Sandoval muttered angrily. “I’m being straight with you: We’ve had MCSO looking into the Millar death, sure, but I had no idea that’s what Harper was in town for. And a public arrest.” He was bitter. “That was inexcusable. If the AG insisted on a prosecution, I would’ve had her surrender with you bringing her in.”

Dance believed him. She and Sandy had worked together for years and had put a lot of bad people in jail, thanks in part to mutual trust.

“But I’m sorry, Kathryn. Monterey has nothing to do with the case. It’s in Harper’s and Sacramento’s hands now.”

She’d thanked him and hung up. But at least she had been able to get her mother’s bail hearing handled quickly. Under California law the time of the hearing is at the magistrate’s discretion. In some places, like Riverside and Los Angeles, prisoners are often in a cell for twelve hours before they appear in front of the magistrate. Since the case was murder it was possible the magistrate might not set bail at all, leaving that to the discretion of the judge at the arraignment, which in California would have to occur within a few days.

The door to the outer hallway kept opening and Dance noticed that many of the recent arrivals were wearing media identification cards around their necks. No cameras were allowed, but there were plenty of pads of paper.

A circus . . .

The clerk called out, “Edith Barbara Dance,” and, somber and red-eyed and still cuffed, her mother rose. Sheedy joined her. A jailor was beside them. This session was devoted exclusively to the bail; pleas were entered later, at the arraignment. Harper asked that Edie be held without bail, which didn’t surprise Dance. Her father stiffened at the prosecutor’s harsh words, which made Edie out to be a dangerous Jack Kevorkian, who, if released on bail, would target other patients for death and then flee to Canada.

Stuart gasped, hearing his wife spoken about in this way.

“It’s okay, Dad,” his daughter whispered. “That’s just the way they talk.” Though the words broke her heart too.

George Sheedy argued articulately for an OR release—on Edie’s own recognizance, pointing to her lack of a criminal record and to her roots in the community.

The magistrate, a quick-eyed Latino who had met Kathryn Dance, exuded considerable stress, which she could easily read in his posture and facial expressions. He wouldn’t want this case at all; he’d have loyalty to Dance, who was a reasonable law officer, cooperative. But he would also be aware that Harper was a big name from the big city. And the magistrate would be very aware of the media too.

The arguments continued.

Dance the law enforcer found herself looking back to earlier that month, reliving the circumstances of the officer’s death. Trying to match facts with facts. Whom had she seen in the hospital around the time Juan Millar died? What exactly were the means of death? Where had her mother been?

She now glanced up and found Edie staring at her. Dance gave a pale smile. Edie’s face was expressionless. The woman turned back to Sheedy.

In the end the magistrate compromised. He set the bail at a half million dollars, which wasn’t atypical for a murder, but also wasn’t overly burdensome. Edie and Stuart weren’t wealthy but they owned their house outright; since it was in Carmel, not far from the beach, it had to be worth two million. They could put it up as security.

Harper took the news stoically—his face unsmiling, his posture upright but relaxed. Dance’s reading was that he was completely stress free, despite the setback. He reminded her of the killer in Los Angeles, J. Doe. One of the reasons she’d had such a hard time spotting that perp’s deception was that a highly driven, focused person reveals, and feels, little distress when lying in the name of his cause. This certainly defined Robert Harper.

Edie was hustled back to the cell and Stuart rose and went to see the clerk to arrange for the bail.

As Harper buttoned his jacket and walked toward the door, his face a mask, Dance intercepted him. “Why are you doing this?”

He regarded her coolly, said nothing.

She continued, “You could’ve let Monterey County handle the case. Why’d you come down from San Francisco? What’s your agenda?” She was speaking loudly enough for the reporters nearby to hear.

Harper said evenly, “I can’t discuss this with you.”

“Why my mother?”

“I have nothing to say.” And he pushed through the door and onto the steps of the courthouse, where he paused to address the press—to whom he apparently had plenty to say.

Dance returned to a hard bench to await her father and mother.

Ten minutes later, George Sheedy and Stuart Dance joined her.

She asked her father, “It went okay?”

“Yes,” he answered in a hollow voice.

“How soon will she be out?”

Stuart looked at Sheedy, who said, “Ten minutes, maybe less.”

“Thank you.” He shook the lawyer’s hand. Dance nodded her gratitude to Sheedy, who told them he was returning to the office and would get started on the defense immediately.

After he’d gone, Dance asked her father, “What did they take from the house, Dad?”

“I don’t know. The neighbor said they seemed most interested in the garage. Let’s get out of here. I hate this place.”

They walked out into the hallway. Several reporters saw Dance and approached. “Agent Dance,” one woman asked, “is it troubling to know your mother’s been arrested for murder?”

Well, there’s some cutting-edge interviewing. She wanted to fire back with something sarcastic, but she remembered the number-one rule in media relations: Assume everything you say in a reporter’s presence will appear on the six o’clock news or on tomorrow’s front page. She smiled. “There’s no doubt in my mind that this is a terrible misunderstanding. My mother has been a nurse for years. She’s devoted herself to saving lives, not taking them.”

“Did you know that she signed a petition supporting Jack Kevorkian and assisted suicide?”

No, Dance didn’t know that. And, she wondered, how had the press come by the information so fast? Her reply: “You’ll have to ask her about that. But petitioning to change the law isn’t the same as breaking it.”

It was then that her phone sounded. It was O’Neil. She stepped away to take the call. “Michael, she’s getting out on bail,” she told him.

There was a moment’s pause. “Good. Thank God.”

Dance realized he was calling about something else, and something that was serious. “What is it, Michael?”

“They’ve found another cross.”

“A real memorial, or with a future date?”

“Today. And it’s identical to the first one. Branches and florist wire.”

Her eyes closed in despair. Not again.

Then O’Neil said, “But, listen. We’ve got a witness. A guy who saw Travis leave it. He might’ve seen where he went or saw something about him that’ll tell us where he’s hiding. Can you interview him?”

Another pause. Then: “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

O’Neil gave her the address. They disconnected.

Dance turned to her father. “Dad, I can’t stay. I’m so sorry.”

He turned his handsome, distraught face toward his daughter. “What?”

“They found another cross. The boy’s going after somebody else, it looks like. Today. But there’s a witness. I have to interview them.”

“Of course you do.” Yet he sounded uncertain. He was going through a nightmare at the moment—nearly as bad as her mother’s—and he’d want his daughter, with her expertise and her connections, nearby.

But she couldn’t get images of Tammy Foster out of her mind, lying in the trunk, the water rising higher.

Images of Travis Brigham’s eyes too, cold and dark beneath their abundant brows, as he gazed at his father, as if his character in a game, armed with knife or sword, was debating stepping out of the synth world and into the real, to slaughter the man.

She had to go. And now. “I’m sorry.” She hugged her father.

“Your mother will understand.”

Dance ran to her car and started the engine. As she was pulling out of the parking lot she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw her mother emerge from the door to the lockup. Edie stared at her daughter’s departure. The woman’s eyes were still, her face revealing no emotion.

Dance’s foot slipped to the brake. But then she pressed down once more on the accelerator and hit the grille flashers.

Your mother will understand. . . .

No, she won’t, Dance thought. She absolutely won’t.

Chapter 14

AFTER ALL THESE years in the area Kathryn Dance had never quite grown used to the Peninsula fog. It was like a shape-shifter—a character out of the fantasy books that Wes liked. Sometimes it was wisps that hugged the ground and swept past you like ghosts. Other times it was smoke squatting in depressions of land and highway, obscuring everything.

Most often it was a thick cotton bedspread floating several hundred feet in the air, mimicking cloud and ominously darkening everything below it.

This was the breed of fog today.

The gloom thickened as Dance, listening to Raquy and the Cavemen, a North African group known for their percussion, drove along a quiet road running through state land between Carmel and Pacific Grove. The landscape was mostly woods, untended, filled with pine, scrub oak, eucalyptus and maple, joined by tangles of brush. She drove through the police line, ignoring the reporters and camera crews. Were they here for the crime, or because of her mother? Dance wondered cynically.

She parked, greeted the deputies nearby and joined Michael O’Neil. They began walking toward the cordoned-off shoulder, where the second cross had been found.

“How’s your mother doing?” O’Neil asked.

“Not good.”

Dance was so glad he was here. Emotion swelled like a balloon within her, and she couldn’t speak for a moment, as the image of her mother in handcuffs, and the run-in with the social worker about her children, surfaced.

The senior deputy couldn’t help but give a faint smile. “Saw you on TV.”

“TV?”

“Who was the woman, the one who looked like Oprah? You were about to arrest her.”

Dance sighed. “They got that on camera?”

“You looked”—he searched for a word—“imposing.”

“She was taking the kids to Social Services.”

O’Neil looked shocked. “It was Harper. Tactics. He nearly got his flunky collared, though. Oh, I would’ve pushed the button on that one.” She added, “I’ve got Sheedy on the case.”

“George? Good. Tough. You need tough.”

“Oh, and then Overby let Harper into CBI. To go through my files.”

“No!”

“I think he was looking to see if I suppressed evidence or tinkered with the files about the Juan Millar case. Overby said he went through your office’s files too.”

“MCSO?” he asked. Dance could read his anger like a red highway flare. “Did Overby know Harper was making a case against Edie?”

“I don’t know. At the least he should’ve thought: What the hell is this guy from San Francisco prowling around in our files for? ‘Caseload evaluations.’ Ridiculous.” Her own fury swelled again and, with effort, she finally managed to bank it.

They approached the spot where the cross was planted, on the shoulder of the road. The memorial was like the earlier one: broken-off branches bound with wire, and a cardboard disk with today’s date on it.

At the base was another bouquet of red roses.

She couldn’t help but think: Whose murder would this one represent?

And ten more waiting.

This cross had been left on a deserted stretch of barely paved road about a mile from the water. Not highly traveled, this route was a little-known shortcut to Highway 68. Ironically, this was one of the roads that would lead to that new highway that Chilton had written about in his blog.

Standing on a side road near the cross was the witness, a businessman in his forties, to look at him, into real estate or insurance, Dance guessed. He was round, his belly carrying his blue dress shirt well over a tired belt. His hair had receded and she saw sun freckles on his round forehead and balding crown. He stood beside a Honda Accord that had seen better days.

They approached and O’Neil said to her, “This is Ken Pfister.”

She shook his hand. The deputy said he was going to supervise the crime scene search and headed across the street.

“Tell me what you saw, Mr. Pfister.”

“Travis. Travis Brigham.”

“Did you know it was him?”

A nod. “I saw his picture online when I was at lunch about a half hour ago. That’s how I recognized him.”

“Could you tell me exactly what you saw?” she asked. “And when?”

“Okay, it was around eleven this morning. I had a meeting in Carmel. I run an Allstate agency.” He said this proudly.

Got that one right, she thought.

“I left about ten-forty and was driving back to Monterey. Took this shortcut. It’ll be nice when that new highway’s open, won’t it?”

She smiled noncommittally, not a smile really.

“And I pulled off onto that side road”—he gestured—“to make some phone calls.” He gave a broad smile. “Never drive and talk. That’s my rule.”

Dance’s lifted eyebrow prodded him to continue.

“I looked out my windshield and I saw him walking along the shoulder. From that direction. He didn’t see me. He was kind of shuffling his feet. It seemed like he was talking to himself.”

“What was he wearing?”

“One of those hooded sweatshirts like the kids have.”

Ah, the hoodie.

“What color was it?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Jacket, slacks?”

“Sorry. I wasn’t paying much attention. I didn’t know who he was at that point—I hadn’t heard about the Roadside Cross stuff. All I knew was that he was weird and scary. He was carrying that cross, and he had a dead animal.”

“An animal?”

A nod. “Yeah, a squirrel or groundhog or something. It had its throat cut.” He gestured with his finger at his own neck.

Dance hated any atrocities committed against animals. Still, she kept her voice even as she asked, “Had he just killed it?”

“I don’t think so. There wasn’t much blood.”

“Okay, then what happened?”

“Then he looks up and down the road and when he doesn’t see anybody he opens his backpack and—”

“Oh, he had a backpack?”

“That’s right.”

“What color was it?”

“Uhm, black, I’m pretty sure. And he takes a shovel out, a little one. The sort that you’d use on a camping trip. And he opens it up and digs a hole and then puts the cross in the ground. Then . . . this is really weird. He goes through this ritual. He walks around the cross three times, and it looks like he’s chanting.”

“Chanting?”

“That’s right. Muttering things. I can’t hear what.”

“And then?”

“He picks up the squirrel and walks around the cross again five times—I was counting. Three and five . . . Maybe it was a message, a clue, if somebody could figure it out.”

After The Da Vinci Code, Dance had observed, a lot of witnesses tended to decrypt their observations rather than just say what they’d seen.

“Anyway, he opened his backpack again and pulled out this stone and a knife. He used the stone to sharpen the blade. Then he held the knife over the squirrel. I thought he was going to cut it up, but he didn’t-. I saw his lips moving again, then he wrapped the body up in some kind of weird yellow paper, like parchment, and put it in the backpack. Then it looked like he said one last thing and went up the road the way he came. Loping, you know. Like an animal.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I left and went on to a few more meetings. I went back to the office. That’s when I went online and saw the news about the boy. I saw his picture. I freaked out. I called nine-one-one right away.”

Dance gestured Michael O’Neil over.

“Michael, this is interesting. Mr. Pfister’s been real helpful.”

O’Neil nodded his thanks.

“Now could you tell Deputy O’Neil here what you saw?”

“Sure.” Pfister explained again about pulling over to make calls. “The boy had a dead animal of some sort. A squirrel, I think. He walked around in a circle three times without the body. Then he plants the cross and walks around it five times. He was talking to himself. It was weird. Like a different language.”

“And then?”

“He wrapped the squirrel up in this parchment paper and held the knife over it. He said something else in that weird language again. Then he left.”

“Interesting,” O’Neil said. “You’re right, Kathryn.”

It was then that Dance pulled off her pale-pink-framed glasses and polished them. And subtly swapped them for a pair with severe black frames.

O’Neil caught on immediately that she was putting on her predator specs and stepped back. Dance moved closer to Pfister, well into his personal proxemic zone. Immediately, she could see, he felt a sense of threat.

Good.

“Now, Ken, I know you’re lying. And I need you to tell me the truth.”

“Lying?” He blinked in shock.

“That’s right.”

Pfister’d been pretty good at his deception, but certain comments and behaviors had tipped her off. Her suspicions arose initially because of content-based analysis: considering what he said rather than how he said it. Some of his explanations sounded too incredible to be true. Claiming he didn’t know who the boy was and that he’d never heard about the Roadside Cross attack—when he seemed to go online regularly to get news. Claiming Travis was wearing a hoodie, which several of the posters to The Chilton Report had said, but not remembering the color—people tend to remember the hues of clothing far better than the garments themselves.

Pfister had also paused frequently—liars often do this as they try to craft credible deceptive lines. And he’d used at least one “illustrator” gesture—the finger at the throat; people use these subconsciously to reinforce spurious statements.

So, suspicious, Dance had then used a shorthand technique to test for deception: In determining if somebody’s lying, an interviewer will ask to hear his story several times. One who’s telling the truth may edit the narrative some and remember things forgotten the first time through, but the chronology of events will always be the same. A liar, though, often forgets the sequence of occurrences within his fictional narrative. This happened with Pfister in retelling the story to O’Neil; he’d mixed up when the boy had planted the cross.

Also, while honest witnesses may recall new facts during the second telling, they’ll rarely contradict the first version. Initially Pfister had said that Travis was whispering and that he couldn’t hear the words. The second version included the detail that he couldn’t understand the words, which were “weird,” implying that he had heard them.

Dance concluded without a doubt that Pfister was fabricating.

In other circumstances Dance would have handled the interrogation more subtly, tricked the witness into revealing the truth. But this was a man whose liar’s personality—she assessed him as a social deceiver—and slippery personal attitude would mean a long bout of tough interviewing to get to the truth. She didn’t have time. The second cross, containing today’s date, meant that Travis might be planning the next attack right now.

“So, Ken, you’re real close to going to jail.”

“What? No!”

Dance didn’t mind a bit of double teaming. She glanced at O’Neil, who said, “You sure are. And we need the truth.”

“Oh, please. Look . . .” But he offered nothing for their examination. “I didn’t lie! Really. Everything I told you is true.”

This was different from assuring her that he’d actually seen what he said he had. Why did the guilty always think they were so clever? She asked, “Did you witness what you told me?”

Under her laser gaze, Pfister looked away. His shoulders slumped. “No. But it’s all true. I know it!”

“How can you?” she asked.

“Because I read that somebody saw him doing what I told you. On this blog. The Chilton Report.”

Her eyes slipped to O’Neil’s. His expression matched hers. She asked, “Why did you lie?”

He lifted his hands. “I wanted to make people aware of the danger. I thought people should be more careful with this psycho out there. They should take more precautions, especially with their children. We have to be careful with our children, you know.”

Dance noted the hand gesture, heard the slight hitch in his throat. She knew his liar’s mannerisms by now. “Ken? We have no time for this.”

O’Neil unleashed his handcuffs.

“No, no. I . . .” The head dropped in complete surrender. “I made some bad business deals. My loans got called and I can’t pay them. So I . . .” He sighed.

“So you lied to be a hero? Get some publicity?” O’Neil’s face registered disgust as he glanced at the news crews, cordoned off, fifty yards away.

Pfister began to protest. Then his hand drooped. “Yes. I’m sorry.”

O’Neil jotted something in his notebook. “I’ll have to speak to the prosecutor about this.”

“Oh, please . . . I’m sorry.”

“So you didn’t see him at all, but you knew somebody had just left the cross and you knew who it was.”

“Okay, I had an idea. I mean, yes, I knew.”

“Why did you wait hours before telling us?” she snapped.

“I . . . I was afraid. Maybe he was still waiting around here.”

O’Neil asked in a low, ominous voice, “It didn’t occur to you that telling all that crap about ritual sacrifices might’ve sent us in the wrong direction?”

“I thought you knew all those things anyway. The stories were in that blog. They have to be true, don’t they?”

Dance said patiently, “Okay, Ken. Let’s start over.”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Were you really in that meeting?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He was so deeply into the last stage of emotional response in interrogation—acceptance and confession—that she nearly laughed. He was now the epitome of cooperation.

“And what happened then?”

“Okay, I was driving along and I pulled off on the side road here.” He pointed emphatically at his feet. “When I made the turn there wasn’t any cross. I made a couple of phone calls, then turned around and drove back to the intersection. I waited for traffic and looked up the road. There it was.” He pointed again. This time at the cross. “I didn’t see him at all. The hoodie and everything? I got that from the blog. All I can say is that I didn’t pass anybody on the shoulder, so he must’ve come out of the woods. And, yeah, I knew what it meant. The cross. And it scared the shit out of me. The killer had just been there, right in front of me!” A sour laugh. “I locked the doors so fast. . . . I’ve never done anything brave in my life. Not like my father. He was a fireman, volunteer.”

This happened often with Kathryn Dance. The most important aspect of interrogation and interviewing is to be a good listener, nonjudgmental and aware. Because she honed this skill daily, witnesses—and suspects too—tended to look at her as a therapist. Poor Ken Pfister was confessing.

But he’d have to lie down on somebody else’s couch. It wasn’t her job to explore his demons.

O’Neil was looking into the trees. Based on what Pfister had originally told them the officers were searching the shoulder. “We better check out the woods.” An ominous glance at Pfister. “At least that might be helpful.” He called several deputies after him and they headed across the road to search in the forest.

“The traffic you waited for?” she asked Pfister. “Could the driver have seen anything?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, if Travis was still there. They’d have a better view than me.”

“You get a license number, make?”

“No, it was dark, a van or truck. But I remember it was official.”

“Official?”

“Yeah, it said ‘state’ on the back.”

“Which organization?”

“I didn’t see. Honest.”

That could be helpful. They’d contact all the California agencies that might’ve had vehicles in the area. “Good.”

He seemed ecstatic at the faint praise.

“All right. You’re free to go now, Ken. But remember there’s still an open complaint against you.”

“Yes, sure, absolutely. Look, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean anything bad.” He scurried off.

As she crossed the road to join O’Neil and the team searching the woods, she watched the pathetic businessman climb into his dinged car.

The stories were in that blog. They have to be true, don’t they?

SHE WANTED TO die.

Kelley Morgan was silently asking that her prayers be answered. The fumes were choking her. Her vision was going. Her lungs stung, eyes and nose were inflamed.

The pain . . .

But more horrifying than that was the thought of what was happening to her, the terrible changes to her skin and face from the chemicals.

Her thoughts were fuzzy. She had no memory of Travis dragging her down the stairs. She’d come back to consciousness here, in her father’s darkened wine cellar in the basement, chained to a pipe. Her mouth taped, her neck aching from where he’d half strangled her.

And choking fiercely from whatever he’d poured onto the floor, the chemical now burning her eyes, her nose, her throat.

Choking, choking . . .

Kelley tried to scream. It was pointless, with the tape covering her face. Besides, there was nobody to hear. Her family was out, wouldn’t be back till much later.

The pain . . .

Raging, she’d tried to kick the copper pipe away from the wall. But the metal wouldn’t give.

Kill me!

Kelley understood what Travis Brigham was doing. He could’ve strangled her to death—just kept going another few minutes. Or shot her. But that wasn’t good enough for him. No, the luser and perv was getting even by destroying her looks.

The fumes would eat away her eyelashes and brows, destroy her smooth skin, probably even make her hair fall out. He didn’t want her to die; no, he wanted to turn her into a monster.

The geeky kid, face all broken out, the luser, the perv . . . He wanted to turn her into what he was.

Kill me, Travis. Why didn’t you just kill me?

She thought of the mask. That’s why he’d left it. It was a message about what she’d look like when the chemicals were done.

Her head drooped, her arms. She slumped against the wall.

I want to die.

She began to inhale deeply, through her stinging nose. Everything began to fade. The pain was going, her thoughts, the choking, the stinging in her eyes, the tears.

Drifting away. Light going dark.

Deeper, breathe deeper.

Breathe the poison in.

And, yeah, it was working!

Thank you.

The pain was growing less, the worry less.

Warm relief replaced vanishing consciousness, and her last thought before the darkness grew complete was that at last she was going to be safe from her fears forever.

AS SHE STOOD beside the roadside cross, staring down at the flowers, Dance was startled by her trilling phone—no cartoon music now; she’d put the ringer back on default. A glance at Caller ID.

“TJ.”

“Boss. Another cross? I just heard.”

“Yeah, today’s date too.”

“Oh, man. Today?”

“Yep. What’d you find?”

“I’m at Bagel Express. Weird, but nobody here really knows anything about Travis. They said he showed up for work, but kept to himself. Didn’t socialize, didn’t say much, just left. He talked to one kid here about online games some. But that’s it. And nobody’s got any idea where he might go. Oh, and his boss said that he was going to fire Travis anyway. Ever since the blog postings he’s been getting threats himself. Business is down. Customers’re afraid to come in.”

“All right, get back to the office. I need you to call all the state agencies who might’ve had vehicles in the area this morning. No make or tag. Probably dark, but search for anything.” She told him what Pfister had seen. “Check with Parks, Caltrans, Fisheries, Environment, everybody you can think of. And find out if Travis has a cell phone and who the provider is. See if they can trace it. I meant to do that earlier.”

They disconnected. Dance called her mother. No answer. She tried her father and the man picked up on the second ring.

“Katie.”

“She’s okay?”

“Yes. We’re at the house, but we’re packing up.”

“What?”

Stuart said, “The protesters from the hospital? They found out where we live. They’re picketing outside.”

“No!” Dance was furious.

He said grimly, “Interesting to watch your neighbors leave for work and find a dozen people with signs calling you a murderer. One of the posters was quite clever. It said, ‘Dance of Death.’ You have to give them credit.”

“Oh, Dad.”

“And somebody taped a poster of Jesus on the front door. He was being crucified. I think they’re blaming Edie for that too.”

“I can get you a room anonymously at the inn we use for witnesses.”

“George Sheedy’s already gotten us a room under a fake name,” Stuart said. “I don’t know how you feel about it, honey, but I think your mom’d love to see the kids. She’s worried about how scared they got when the police came into the hospital.”

“That’s a great idea. I’ll pick them up from Martine’s and bring them to you. When’re you checking in?”

“Twenty minutes.” He gave her the address.

“Can I talk to her?”

“She’s on the phone, honey, with Betsey. You can see her when you drop the kids off. Sheedy’s coming over about the case.”

They disconnected. O’Neil returned from the woods. She asked, “You find anything?”

“Some footprints that aren’t helpful, a little bit of trace—a gray fiber, like the one we found earlier, and a shred of brown paper. An oat flake or grain of some kind. Could be from a bagel, I was thinking. Peter’s waiting for it now. He’ll get us the analysis as soon as he can.”

“That’s great for the case against him. But what we need now is something to tell us where he’s hiding.”

And the other question: Who’s he about to attack next?

As Dance lifted her phone to call Jon Boling, the ring tone sounded. She gave a faint smile at the coincidence. His name showed in Caller ID.

“Jon,” she answered.

As she listened to his words, her smile quickly faded.

Chapter 15

KATHRYN DANCE CLIMBED out of her Crown Vic in front of Kelley Morgan’s house.

The Monterey County Crime Scene people were here, along with a dozen other state and town law enforcement officers.

Reporters too, plenty of them, most asking about the whereabouts of Travis Brigham. Why exactly hadn’t the CBI or the MCSO or the Monterey city police or anybody arrested him yet? How hard could it be to find a seventeen-year-old who paraded around dressed like the Columbine and Virginia Tech killers? Who carried knives and machetes, sacrificed animals in bizarre rituals and left roadside crosses on public highways.

He’s very active in computer games. Young people who are good at them learn very sophisticated combat and evasion techniques. . . .

Dance ignored them all and pushed on, under the police cordon. She arrived at one of the ambulances, the one nearest the house. A young, intense medic with slicked-back dark hair climbed out of the back door. He closed it and then pounded on the side.

The boxy vehicle, containing Kelley, her mother and brother, raced off to the emergency room.

Dance joined Michael O’Neil and the tech. “How is she?”

“Still unconscious. We’ve got her on a portable ventilator.” A shrug. “She’s unresponsive. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

It was a near miracle that they’d saved Kelley at all.

And Jonathan Boling was to thank. At the news that a second cross had been located, the professor had gone into a frenzy of work to identify the posters critical of Travis in The Chilton Report, by correlating posting nics—nicknames—and information from social networking sites and other sources. He’d even compared grammar, word choice and spelling styles in the Report posts to those in networking sites and comments in high school yearbooks to identify anonymous posters. He’d enlisted his students too. They’d finally managed to find a dozen names of people in the area who’d posted the blog replies most critical of Travis.

His call a half hour ago was to give Dance their names. She’d immediately ordered TJ, Rey Carraneo and big Al Stemple to start calling and warning them they might be at risk. One of the posters, BellaKelley, the screen name for Kelley Morgan, was unaccounted for. Her mother said she was supposed to be meeting with friends, but hadn’t shown up.

Stemple had led a tactical team to her house.

Dance glanced at him now, sitting on the front steps. The huge, shaved-headed man, hovering around forty, was the closest thing that the CBI had to a cowboy. He knew his weaponry, he loved tactical situations and he was pathologically quiet, except when it came to talking about fishing and hunting (accordingly he and Dance had had very few social conversations). Stemple’s bulky frame was leaning against the banister of the front porch, as he breathed into an oxygen mask attached to a green tank.

The tech nodded Stemple’s way. “He’s okay. Did his good deed for the year. Travis had her chained to a water pipe. Al ripped the pipe out with his bare hands. Problem was, it took him ten minutes. He sucked in a lot of fumes.”

“You okay, Al?” Dance called.

Stemple said something through the mask. Mostly he looked bored. Dance also read irritation in his eyes—probably that he hadn’t gotten to shoot the perp.

The tech then said to O’Neil and Dance, “There’s something you oughta know. Kelley was conscious for a minute or two when we got her out. She told me that Travis has a gun.”

“Gun? He’s armed?” Dance and O’Neil shared a troubled gaze.

“That’s what she said. I lost her after that. Didn’t say anything else.”

Oh, no. An unstable adolescent with a firearm. Nothing was worse, in Dance’s opinion.

O’Neil called in the information about the weapon to MCSO, who in turn would relay it to all the officers involved in the search for Travis.

“What was the gas?” Dance asked the tech as they walked to another ambulance.

“We aren’t sure. It was definitely toxic.”

The Crime Scene Unit was searching carefully for evidence while a team canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses. Everyone on the block was concerned, everyone was sympathetic. But they were also terrified; no accounts were forthcoming.

But perhaps there simply were no witnesses. Bike tread marks in the canyon behind the house suggested how the boy might have snuck up unnoticed to attack Kelley Morgan.

One Crime Scene officer arrived, carrying what turned out to be an eerie mask in a clear evidence bag.

“What the hell’s that?” O’Neil asked.

“It was tied to a tree outside her bedroom window, pointing in.”

It was hand-made from papier-mâché, painted white and gray. Bony spikes, like horns, extended from the skull. The eyes were huge and black. The narrow lips were sewn shut, bloody.

“To freak her out, the poor thing. Imagine looking out your window and seeing that.” Dance actually shivered.

As O’Neil took a call, Dance phoned Boling. “Jon.”

“How is she?” the professor asked eagerly.

“In a coma. We don’t know how she’ll be. But at least we saved her life . . . you saved her life. Thank you.”

“It was Rey too. And my students.”

“Still, I mean it. We can’t thank you enough.”

“Any leads to Travis?”

“Some.” She declined to tell him about the eerie mask. Her phone buzzed, call waiting. “I’ve got to go. Keep looking for names, Jon.”

“I’m on the case,” he said.

Smiling, she rang off the line with Boling and answered, “TJ.”

“How’s the girl doing?”

“We don’t know. Not good. What’d you find?”

“No luck, boss. About eighteen vans, trucks, SUVs or cars registered to the state were in the area this morning. But the ones I’ve been able to track down, they weren’t near where the cross was left. And Travis’s phone? The cell provider says he’s taken out the battery. Or destroyed it. They can’t trace it.”

“Thanks. I’ve got a couple more jobs. There’s a mask the perp left here.”

“Mask? Ski mask?”

“No. It’s ritual, looks like. I’m going to have Crime Scene upload a picture of it before they take it to Salinas. See if you can source it. And get the word out to everybody: He’s armed.”

“Oh, man, boss. Keeps gettin’ better and better.”

“I want to know if there’ve been any reports of stolen weapons in the county. And find out if the father or any relatives have registered firearms. Check the database. Maybe we can ID the weapon.”

“Sure . . . Oh, wanta say: Heard about your mother.” The young man’s voice had grown even more sober. “Anything I can do?”

“Thanks, TJ. Just find out about the mask and the gun.”

After they hung up she examined the mask, thinking: Could the rumors have been true? Was Travis into some type of ritualistic practice? Here she’d been skeptical of the posters on the blog, but maybe she’d been making a mistake by not paying attention to them.

TJ called back within minutes. There’d been no stolen guns reported in the past two weeks. He’d also looked through the state’s firearms database. California liberally allows the purchase of pistols, but all sales must be through a licensed dealer and recorded. Robert Brigham, Travis’s father, owned a Colt revolver, .38 caliber.

After she disconnected, Dance noticed O’Neil, his face still, looking into the distance.

She walked up to him. “Michael, what is it?”

“Got to get back to the office. Something urgent on another case.”

“The Homeland Security thing?” she asked, referring to the Indonesian container case.

He nodded. “I’ve got to get in right away. I’ll call you as soon as I know more.” His face was grave.

“Okay. Good luck.”

He grimaced, then turned quickly and walked to his car.

Dance felt concern—and emptiness—watching him go. What was so urgent? And why, she thought bitterly, had it struck now, just when she needed him with her?

She called Rey Carraneo. “Thanks for the work with Jon Boling. What did you find at the Game Shed?”

“Well, he wasn’t there last night. He lied about that, like you were saying. But as for friends . . . he doesn’t really hang out with people there. He’d just go, play games and then leave.”

“Anybody covering for him?”

“That’s not my impression.”

Dance then told the young agent to meet her at Kelley Morgan’s house.

“Sure.”

“Oh, and Rey, one thing?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I need you to pick up something from the supply room at HQ.”

“Sure. What?”

“Body armor. For both of us.”

APPROACHING THE BRIGHAM house, Carraneo beside her, Kathryn Dance wiped her palm on her dark slacks. Touched the grip of her Glock.

I don’t want to use it, she thought. Not on a boy.

It wasn’t likely that Travis was here; MCSO had been running surveillance on the place since the boy had vanished from the bagel shop. Still, he could have snuck back in. And, Dance was reflecting, if it came to a firefight, she’d shoot if she had to. The rationale was simple. She’d kill another human being for the sake of her own children. She wouldn’t let them grow up without any parent at all.

The body armor chafed but gave her some confidence. She forced herself to stop patting the Velcro tabs.

With two county deputies behind them, they stepped onto the spongy front porch, keeping as far from the windows as possible. The family car was in the driveway. The landscape service truck too, a pickup with hollies and rose bushes in the bed.

In a whisper, she briefed Carraneo and the other officers about the younger brother, Sammy. “He’s big and he’ll seem unstable, but he probably isn’t dangerous. Use nonlethal if it comes down to it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Carraneo was wary but calm.

She sent the deputies to the back of the property, and the CBI agents flanked the front door. “Let’s do it.” She banged on the rotting wood. “Bureau of Investigation. We have a warrant. Open the door, please.”

Another pounding. “Bureau of Investigation. Open up!”

Hands near their weapons.

An interminable moment later, as she was about to knock again, the door opened and Sonia Brigham stood there staring with eyes wide. She’d been crying.

“Mrs. Brigham, is Travis here?”

“I . . .”

“Please. Is Travis home? It’s important that you tell us.”

“No. Really.”

“We have a warrant to collect his belongings.” Handing her the blue-backed document, Dance entered, Carraneo behind her. The living room was empty. She noticed both boys’ doors were open. She saw no sign of Sammy and glanced into his room, noting elaborate charts, filled with hand-drawn pictures. She wondered if he was trying to write his own comic or Japanese manga.

“Is your other son here? Sammy?”

“He’s out playing. Down by the pond. Please, do you know anything about Travis? Has anybody seen him?”

A creak from the kitchen. Her hand dropped to her gun.

Bob Brigham appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was holding a can of beer. “Back again,” he muttered. “With . . .” His voice faded as he snatched the warrant away from his wife and made a pretense of reading it.

He looked at Rey Carraneo as if he were a busboy.

Dance asked, “Have you heard from Travis?” Eyes swiveling around the house.

“Nope. But you can’t be blaming us for what he’s up to.”

Sonia snapped, “He didn’t do anything!”

Dance said, “I’m afraid that the girl today who was attacked identified him.”

Sonia began to protest but fell silent and futilely fought tears.

Dance and Carraneo searched the house carefully. It didn’t take long. No sign the boy had been here recently.

“We know you own a pistol, Mr. Brigham. Could you check to see if it’s missing?”

His eyes narrowed as if he were considering the implications of this. “It’s in my glove compartment. In a lockbox.”

Which California law required in a household where children under eighteen lived.

“Loaded?”

“Uh-huh.” He looked defensive. “We do a lot of landscaping in Salinas. The gangs, you know.”

“Could you see if it’s still there?”

“He’s not going to take my gun. He wouldn’t dare. He’d get a whipping like he wouldn’t believe.”

“Could you check, please?”

The man gave her a look of disbelief. Then he stepped outside. Dance motioned Carraneo to follow him.

Dance looked at the wall and noticed a few pictures of the family. She was struck by a much happier-looking, and much younger, Sonia Brigham, standing behind the counter at a booth at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. She was thin and pretty. Maybe she’d run the concession before she’d gotten married. Maybe that’s where she and Brigham had met.

The woman asked, “Is the girl all right? The one who got attacked?”

“We don’t know.”

Tears dotted her eyes. “He’s got problems. He gets mad some. But . . . this has to be a terrible mistake. I know it!”

Denial was the most intractable of emotional responses to hardship. Tough as a walnut shell.

Travis’s father, accompanied by the young agent, returned to the living room. Bob Brigham’s ruddy face was troubled. “It’s gone.”

Dance sighed. “And you wouldn’t have it anyplace else?”

He shook his head, avoided Sonia’s face.

Timidly she said, “What good comes of a gun?”

He ignored her.

Dance asked, “When Travis was younger, were there places he’d go?”

“No,” the father said. “He was always disappearing. But who knows where he went?”

“How about his friends?”

Brigham snapped, “Doesn’t have any. He’s always online. With that computer of his . . .”

“All the time,” echoed his wife softly. “All the time.”

“Call us if he contacts you. Don’t try to get him to surrender, don’t take the gun away. Just call us. It’s for his own good.”

“Sure,” she said. “We will.”

“He’ll do what I say. Exactly what I say.”

“Bob . . .”

“Shhhh.”

“We’re going through his room now,” Dance said.

“Is that all right?” Sonia was nodding at the warrant.

“They can take whatever the fuck they want. Anything that’ll help find him before he gets us into more trouble.” Brigham lit a cigarette and dropped the match into the ashtray, a smoking arc. Sonia’s face sank as she realized she’d become her son’s sole advocate.

Dance pulled her radio off her hip, called the deputies outside. One of them radioed back that he’d found something. The young officer arrived. He held up a lockbox in a latex-gloved hand. It had been smashed open. “Was in some bushes behind the house. And this too.” An empty box of Remington .38 Special rounds.

“That’s it,” the father muttered. “Mine.”

The house was eerily quiet.

The agents walked into Travis’s room. Pulling on her gloves, Dance said to Carraneo, “I want to see if we can find anything about friends, addresses, places he might like to hang out.”

They searched through the effluence of a teenager’s room—clothes, comics, DVDs, manga, anime, games, computer parts, notebooks, sketchpads. She noticed there was little music and nothing at all about sports.

Dance blinked as she looked through a notebook. The boy had done a drawing of a mask identical to the one outside Kelley Morgan’s window.

Even the small sketch chilled her.

Hidden away in a drawer were tubes of Clearasil and books about remedies for acne, diet and medication and even dermabrasion to remove scarring. Though Travis’s problem was less serious than with many teens, it was probably what he saw as a major reason he was an outcast.

Dance continued to search. Under the bed she found a strongbox. It was locked but she had seen a key in the top desk drawer. It worked in the box. Expecting drugs or porn, she was surprised at the contents: stacks of cash.

Carraneo was looking over her shoulder. “Hmm.”

About four thousand dollars. The bills were crisp and ordered, as if he’d gotten them from a bank or an ATM, not from buyers in drug deals. Dance added the box to the evidence they’d take back. Not only did she not want to fund Travis’s escape, if he came back for it, but she didn’t doubt that his father would pilfer the money in an instant, if he found the stash.

“There’s this,” Carraneo said. He was holding up printouts of pictures, mostly candids, of pretty girls about high school age, taken around Robert Louis Stevenson High School. None obscene or taken up the girls’ skirts, though, or of locker rooms or bathrooms.

Stepping outside the room, Dance asked Sonia, “Do you know who they are?”

Neither parent did.

She turned back to the pictures. She realized that she’d seen one of the girls before—in a news story about the June 9 crash. Caitlin Gardner, the girl who’d survived. The photo was more formal than the others—the pretty girl looking off to the side, smiling blandly. Dance turned the thin, glossy rectangle of paper over and noted a portion of a picture of a sports team on the other side. Travis had cut the picture out of a yearbook.

Had he asked Caitlin for a picture and been refused? Or had he been too shy even to ask?

The agents searched for a half hour but found no clues as to where Travis might be, no phone numbers, email addresses or friends’ names. He kept no address book or calendar.

Dance wanted to see what was on his laptop. She opened the lid. It was in hibernate mode and booted up immediately. She wasn’t surprised when it asked for a password. Dance asked the boy’s father, “Do you have any idea what the code is?”

“Like he’d tell us.” He gestured at the computer. “Now, that’s the problem right there, you know. That’s what went wrong, playing all those games. All the violence. They shoot people and cut them up, do all kinds of shit.”

Sonia seemed to reach a breaking point. “Well, you played soldier when you were growing up, I know you did. All boys play games like that. It doesn’t mean they turn into killers!”

“That was a different time,” he muttered. “It was better, healthier. We only played killing Indians and Viet Cong. Not normal people.”

Carrying the laptop, notebooks, strongbox and hundreds of pages of printouts and notes and pictures, Dance and Carraneo walked to the door.

“Did you ever think about one thing?” Sonia asked.

Dance paused, turned.

“That even if he did it, went after those girls, that maybe it wasn’t his fault. All those terrible things that they said about him just pushed him over the edge. They attacked him, with those words, those hateful words. And my Travis never said a single word against any one of them.” She controlled her tears. “He’s the victim here.”

Chapter 16

ON THE HIGHWAY to Salinas, not far from beautiful Laguna Seca racecourse, Kathryn Dance braked her unmarked Ford to a halt in front of a construction worker holding a portable stop sign. Two large bulldozers slowly traversed the highway in front of her, shooting ruddy dust into the air.

She was on the phone with Deputy David Reinhold, the young officer who’d delivered Tammy Foster’s computer to her and Boling. Rey Carraneo had sped to the MCSO Crime Scene Unit in Salinas and dropped Travis’s Dell off for processing into evidence.

“I’ve logged it in,” Reinhold told her. “And run it for prints and other trace. Oh, and it probably wasn’t necessary, Agent Dance, but I ran a nitrate swab for explosives too.”

Computers were occasionally booby-trapped—not as IED weapons, but to destroy compromising data contained in the files.

“Good, Deputy.”

The officer certainly had initiative. She recalled his quick blue eyes and his smart decision to pull out the battery of Tammy’s computer.

“Some of the prints are Travis’s,” the young deputy said. “But there are others too. I ran them. A half dozen were from Samuel Brigham.”

“The boy’s brother.”

“Right. And a few others. No match in AIFIS. But I can tell you they’re larger, probably male.”

Dance wondered if the boy’s father had tried to get inside.

Reinhold said, “I’m happy to try to crack into the system, if you want. I’ve taken some courses.”

“Appreciate it, but I’m having Jonathan Boling—you met him in my office—handle that.”

“Sure, Agent Dance. Whatever you’d like. Where are you?”

“I’m out now, but you can have it delivered to the CBI. Have Agent Scanlon take custody. He’ll sign the card and receipt.”

“I’ll do it right now, Kathryn.”

They disconnected and she looked around impatiently, waiting for the construction flagman to allow her through. She was surprised to see the area dug up so completely—dozens of trucks and road-grading equipment were tearing apart the ground. She’d driven here just last week and the work hadn’t yet begun.

This was the big highway project that Chilton had written about in the blog, the shortcut to Highway 101, in the thread titled “Yellow Brick Road,” suggesting gold—and wondering if somebody was profiting illegally on the project.

She noted that the equipment belonged to Clint Avery Construction, one of the largest companies on the Peninsula. The workers here were large men, working hard, sweaty. They were mostly white, which was unusual. Much of the labor on the Peninsula was performed by Latino workers.

One of them looked at her solemnly—recognizing her car for an unmarked law enforcement vehicle—but he made no special effort to speed her through.

Finally, at his leisure, he waved the traffic on, his eyes looking over Dance closely, it seemed to her.

She left the extensive roadwork behind and cruised down the highway and onto side streets until she came to Central Coast College, where summer session was under way. A student pointed out Caitlin Gardner sitting at a picnic bench with several other girls, who hovered around her protectively. Caitlin was pretty and blond and sported a ponytail. Tasteful studs and hoops decorated both ears. She resembled any one of the hundreds of coeds here.

After leaving the Brighams, Dance had called the Gardner house and learned from Caitlin’s mother that the girl was taking some college courses here for credit at Robert Louis Stevenson High, where she’d start her senior year in a few months.

Caitlin’s eyes, Dance noticed, were focused away and then her gaze shifted to Dance. Not knowing who she was—probably thinking she was another reporter—she began to gather her books. Two of the other girls followed their friend’s troubled eyes and rose in a phalanx to give cover so Caitlin could escape.

But they then noticed Dance’s body armor and weapon. And grew cautious, pausing.

“Caitlin,” Dance called.

The girl stopped.

Dance approached and showed her ID, introduced herself. “I’d like to talk to you.”

“She’s pretty tired,” a friend said.

“And upset.”

Dance smiled. To Caitlin she said, “I’m sure you are. But it’s important that I talk to you. If you don’t mind.”

“She shouldn’t even be in school,” another girl said. “But she’s taking classes out of respect to Trish and Vanessa.”

“That’s good of you.” Dance wondered how attending summer school honored the dead.

The curious icons of adolescents . . .

The first friend said firmly, “Caitlin’s, like, really, really—”

Dance turned to the frizzy-haired brunette, her personality brittle, lost the smile and said bluntly, “I’m speaking to Caitlin.”

The girl fell silent.

Caitlin mumbled, “I guess.”

“Come on over here,” Dance said pleasantly. Caitlin followed her across the lawn and they sat at another picnic table. She clutched her book bag to her chest and was looking around the campus nervously. Her foot bobbed and she tugged at an earlobe.

She appeared terrified, even more so than Tammy.

Dance tried to put her at ease. “So, summer school.”

“Yeah. My friends and me. Better than working, or sitting home.”

The last word has been delivered in a tone that suggested a fair amount of parental hassle.

“What’re you studying?”

“Chemistry and biology.”

“That’s a good way to ruin your summer.”

She laughed. “It’s not so bad. I’m kinda good at science.”

“Headed for med school?”

“I’m hoping.”

“Where?”

“Oh, I don’t know yet. Probably Berkeley undergrad. Then I’ll see.”

“I spent time up there. Great town.”

“Yeah? What’d you study?”

Dance smiled and said, “Music.”

In fact she hadn’t taken a single class on that campus of the University of California. She’d been a busker—a musician playing guitar and singing for money on the streets of Berkeley—very little money, in her case.

“So, how you doing with all of this?”

Caitlin’s eyes went flat. She muttered, “Not so great. I mean, it’s so terrible. The accident, that was one thing. But then, what happened to Tammy and Kelley . . . that was awful. How is she?”

“Kelley? We don’t know yet. Still in a coma.”

One of the friends had overheard and called, “Travis bought this poison gas online. Like from neo-Nazis.”

True? Or rumor?

Dance said, “Caitlin, he’s disappeared. He’s hiding somewhere and we have to find him before he causes more harm. How well did you know him?”

“Not too good. We had a class or two together. I’d see him in the halls sometimes. That’s all.”

Suddenly she started in panic and her eyes jumped to a nearby stand of bushes. A boy was pushing his way through them. He looked around, retrieved a football and then returned into the foliage for the field on the other side.

“Travis had a crush on you, right?” Dance pressed on.

“No!” she said. And Dance deduced that the girl did in fact think this; she could tell from the rise in the pitch of her voice, one of the few indicators of deception that can be read without the benefit of doing a prior baseline.

“Not just a little?”

“Maybe he did. But a lot of boys . . . You know what it’s like.” Her eyes did a sweep of Dance—meaning: boys might’ve had a crush on you too. Even if it was a long, long time ago.

“Did you two talk?”

“Sometimes about assignments. That’s all.”

“Did he ever mention anyplace he liked to hang out at?”

“Not really. Nothing, like, specific. He said there were some neat places he liked to go. Near the water, mostly. The shore reminded him of some places in this game he played.”

This was something, that he liked the ocean. He could be hiding out in one of the shorefront parks. Maybe Point Lobos. In this land of temperate climate he could easily survive with a waterproof sleeping bag.

“Does he have any friends he might be staying with?”

“Really, I don’t know him real well. But he didn’t have any friends I ever saw, not like my girlfriends and me. He was, like, online all the time. He was smart and everything. But he wasn’t into school. Even at lunch or study period, he’d just sit outside with his computer and if he could hack into a signal he’d go online.”

“Are you scared of him, Caitlin?”

“Well, yeah.” As if it was obvious.

“But you haven’t said anything bad about him on The Chilton Report or social networking sites, have you?”

“No.”

What was the girl so upset about? Dance couldn’t read her emotions, which were extreme. More than just fear. “Why haven’t you posted anything about him?”

“Like, I don’t go there. It’s bullshit.”

“Because you feel sorry for him.”

“Yeah.” Caitlin frantically played with one of the four studs in her left ear. “Because . . .”

“What?”

The girl was very upset now. Tension bursting. Tears dotted her eyes. She whispered, “Because it’s my fault what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“The accident. It’s my fault.”

“Go on, Caitlin.”

“See, there was this guy at the party? A guy I kind of like. Mike D’Angelo.”

“At the party?”

“Right. And he was totally ignoring me. Hanging out with this other girl, Brianna, rubbing her back, you know. Right in front of me. I wanted to make him jealous, so I walked up to Travis and was hanging out with him. I gave him my car keys right in front of Mike and asked him to take me home. I was, like, oh, let’s drop Trish and Vanessa off and then you and me can hang out.”

“And you thought it would make Mike feel bad?”

She nodded tearfully. “It was so stupid! But he was acting like such a shit, flirting with Brianna.” Her shoulders were arched in tension. “I shouldn’t ’ve. But I was so hurt. If I hadn’t done that, nothing would’ve happened.”

This explained why Travis had been driving that night.

All to make another boy jealous.

The girl’s explanation also suggested a whole new scenario. Maybe on the drive back Travis had realized that he was being used by Caitlin, or maybe he was angry at her for having a crush on Mike. Had he intentionally crashed the car? Murder/suicide—an impulsive gesture, not unheard of when it came to young love.

“So he’s got to be mad at me.”

“What I’m going to do is put an officer outside your house.”

“Really?”

“Sure. It’s still early at summer school, right? You don’t have any tests coming up, do you?”

“No. We just started.”

“Well, why don’t you head home now?”

“You think?”

“Yeah. And stay there until we find him.” Dance took down the girl’s address. “If you can think of anything more—about where he might be—please let me know.”

“Sure.” The girl took Dance’s card. Together they walked back to her crew.

FLOATING THROUGH HER ears was the haunting quena flute of Jorge Cumbo, with the South American group Urubamba. The music calmed her, and it was with some regret that Dance pulled into the Monterey Bay Hospital parking lot, parked and paused the music.

Of the protesters, only about half remained. The Reverend Fisk and his redheaded bodyguard were absent.

Probably trying to track down her mother.

Dance walked inside.

Several nurses and doctors came up to express their sympathy—two nurses wept openly when they saw their coworker’s daughter.

She walked downstairs to the office of the head of security. The room was empty. She glanced up the hall toward the intensive care unit. She headed in that direction and pushed through the door.

Dance blinked as she turned to the room where Juan Millar had died. It was cordoned off with yellow police tape. Signs read Do Not Enter. Crime Scene. It was Harper’s doing, she reflected angrily. This was idiocy. There were only five intensive care rooms down here—three were occupied—and the prosecutor had sealed one of them? What if two more patients were admitted? And what’s more, she thought, the crime had taken place nearly a month ago, the room occupied by presumably a dozen patients since then, not to mention cleaned by fastidious crews. There couldn’t possibly be more evidence to collect.

Grandstanding and public relations.

She started away.

And nearly ran right into Juan Millar’s brother, Julio, the man who had attacked her earlier in the month.

The dark, compact man, in a dark suit, pulled up short, eyes fixed on her. He was carrying a folder of papers, which sagged in his hand, as he stared at Dance, only four or five feet away.

Dance tensed and stepped back slightly, to give her time to get to her pepper spray or cuffs. If he came at her again she was prepared to defend herself, though she could imagine what the media would do with the story of the daughter of a suspected mercy killer Macing the brother of the euthanized victim.

But Julio simply stared at her with a curious look—not of anger or hate, but almost amusement at the coincidence of running into her. He whispered, “Your mother . . . how could she?”

The words sounded rehearsed, as if he’d been waiting for the chance to recite them.

Dance began to speak, but Julio clearly expected no response. He walked slowly out of the door that led to the back exit.

And that was it.

No harsh words, no threats, no violence.

How could she?

Her heart pounding furiously from the bewildering confrontation, she recalled that her mother had said Julio had been here earlier. Dance wondered why he was back now.

With a last glance at the police tape, Dance left the ICU and walked to the office of the head of security.

“Oh, Agent Dance,” Henry Bascomb said, blinking.

She smiled a greeting. “They’ve got the room taped off?”

“You were back there?” he asked.

Dance immediately noted the stress in the man’s posture and voice. He was thinking quickly and he was uneasy. What was that about? Dance wondered.

“Sealed off?” she repeated.

“Yeah, that’s right, ma’am.”

Ma’am? Dance nearly laughed at the formal word. She, O’Neil, Bascomb and some of his former deputy buddies had shared beer and quesadillas down on Fisherman’s Wharf a few months ago. She decided to get to the nut of it: “I’ve only got a minute or two, Henry. It’s about my mother’s case.”

“How’s she doing?”

Dance was thinking: I don’t know any better than you do, Henry. She said, “Not great.”

“Give her my best.”

“I’ll do that. Now, I’d like to see the employee and front desk logs of who was at the hospital when Juan died.”

“Sure.” Only he didn’t mean sure at all. He meant what he said next: “But the thing is, I can’t.”

“Why’s that, Henry?”

“I’ve been told I can’t let you see anything. No paperwork. We’re not even supposed to be talking to you.”

“Whose orders?”

“The board,” Bascomb said tentatively.

“And?” Dance continued, prodding.

“Well, it was Mr. Harper, that prosecutor. He talked to the board. And the chief of staff.”

“But that’s discoverable information. The defense attorney has a right to it.”

“Oh, I know that. But he said that’s how you’ll have to get it.”

“I don’t want to take it. Just look through it, Henry.”

There was absolutely nothing illegal about her looking through the material, and it wouldn’t ultimately affect the case because what was contained in the logs and sign-in sheets would come out eventually.

Bascomb’s face revealed how torn he was. “I understand. But I can’t. Not unless there’s a subpoena.”

Harper had spoken to the security chief for one purpose only: to bully Dance and her family.

“I’m sorry,” he said sheepishly.

“No, that’s okay, Henry. Did he give you a reason?”

“No.” He said this too quickly, and Dance could easily see eye aversion that differed from what she knew of the man’s baseline behavior.

“What did he say, Henry?”

A pause.

She leaned toward him.

The guard looked down. “He said . . . he said he didn’t trust you. And he didn’t like you.”

Dance stoked her smile as best she could. “Well, that’s the good news, I suppose. He’s the last person in the world I’d want a thumbs-up from.”

THE TIME WAS now 5:00 p.m.

From the hospital lot, Dance called the office and learned there’d been no significant developments in the hunt for Travis Brigham. The Highway Patrol and sheriff’s office were running a manhunt, focusing on the traditional locales and sources for information about runaways and juvenile fugitives: his school and classmates and the shopping malls. That his transportation was limited to a bike was helpful, in theory, but hadn’t led to any sightings.

Rey Carraneo had learned little from Travis’s rambling notes and drawings, but was still sifting through them for leads to the boy’s whereabouts. TJ was trying to track down the source of the mask, and calling the potential victims from the blog. Since Dance had learned from Caitlin that Travis liked the shore, she gave him the added task of contacting the parks department and alerting them that the boy might be hiding out somewhere in the thousands of square acres of state land in the area.

“Okay, boss,” he said wearily, revealing not fatigue but the same hopelessness that she felt.

She then spoke to Jon Boling.

“I got the boy’s computer. That deputy dropped it off, Reinhold. He sure knows his stuff when it comes to computers.”

“He shows initiative. He’ll go places. You having any luck?”

“No. Travis is smart. He’s not relying on your basic password protection alone. He’s got some proprietary encryption programs that have locked his drive. We may not be able to crack it, but I’ve called an associate at school. If anybody can get inside, they can.”

Hmm, Dance thought, how gender-neutral: “associate” and “they.” Dance translated the words as “young, gorgeous female grad student, probably blond and voluptuous.”

Boling added in techspeak that a brute force attack was under way via an uplink to a supercomputer at UC–Santa Cruz. “The system might crack the code within the next hour—”

“Really?” she asked brightly.

“Or, I was going to say, within the next two or three hundred years. It depends.”

Dance thanked him and told him to head home for the evening. He sounded disappointed and, after explaining that he had no plans for that night, said he’d continue to search for the names of posters who might be at risk.

She then collected the children from Martine’s and they all drove to the inn where her parents were hiding out.

As she drove, she was recalling the incidents surrounding young Juan Millar’s death, but in truth she hadn’t focused on them much at the time. The manhunt had demanded all her attention: Daniel Pell—the cult leader, killer and vicious manipulator—and his partner, a woman equally dangerous, had remained on the Peninsula after his escape, to stalk and murder new victims. Dance and O’Neil had worked nonstop pursuing them, and Juan Millar’s death had not occupied her thoughts, other than to engender a piercing remorse for the part, though small, she’d played in it.

If she’d guessed that her mother might have become entwined in the case, she would have been much more attentive.

Ten minutes later Dance parked the car in the gravel lot of the inn. Maggie offered, “Wow,” bouncing on the seat as she examined the place.

“Yeah, neat.” Though Wes was more subdued.

The quaint cottage—part of the luxurious Carmel Inn—was one of a dozen stand-alone cabins separate from the main building.

“There’s a pool!” Maggie cried. “I want to go swimming.”

“Sorry, I forgot your suits.” Dance nearly suggested Edie and Stuart could take them shopping for swimwear, but then recalled that her mother shouldn’t be out in public—not with Reverend Fisk and his birds of prey on the loose. “I’ll bring them by tomorrow. And, hey, Wes, there’s a tennis court. You can practice with Grandpa.”

“Okay.”

They climbed out, Dance collecting their suitcases, which she’d packed earlier. The children would be staying here tonight with their grandparents.

They walked along the path bordered with vines and low, green chick-and-hen succulents.

“Which one’s theirs?” Maggie asked, bouncing along the trail.

Dance pointed it out and the girl launched herself forward fast. She hit the buzzer and a moment later, just as Dance and Wes arrived, the door opened and Edie smiled at her grandchildren and let them inside.

“Grandma,” Maggie called. “This is cool!”

“It’s very nice. Come on in.”

Edie gave a smile to Dance, who tried to read it. But the expression was as informative as a blank page.

Stuart hugged the children.

Wes asked, “You okay, Grandma?”

“I’m absolutely fine. How’re Martine and Steve?”

“Okay,” the boy said.

“The twins and I built a mountain out of pillows,” Maggie said. “With caves.”

“You’ll have to tell me all about it.”

Dance saw they had a visitor. Distinguished defense attorney George Sheedy rose and stepped forward, shaking Dance’s hand and saying hello in his basso profundo voice. A briefcase was open on the coffee table in the sitting area of the suite, and yellow pads and printouts sat in cluttered stacks. The lawyer said hello to the children. He was courteous, but from his posture and expression Dance could tell immediately that the conversation she’d interrupted was a hard one. Wes regarded Sheedy suspiciously.

After Edie dispensed treats to the children, they headed outside to a playground.

“Stay with your sister,” Dance commanded.

“Okay. Come on,” the boy said to Maggie and, juggling juice boxes and cookies, they left. Dance glanced out the window and noted that she could see the playground from here. The pool was behind a locked gate. With children, you could never be too vigilant.

Edie and Stuart returned to the couch. Three cups of coffee rested, largely untouched, on a low driftwood table. Her mother would have instinctively prepared them the moment Sheedy arrived.

The lawyer asked about the case and the hunt for Travis Brigham.

Dance gave sketchy answers—which, in fact, were the best she could offer.

“And that girl, Kelley Morgan?”

“Still unconscious, it seems.”

Stuart shook his head.

The subject of the Roadside Cross attacks was tucked away and Sheedy glanced at Edie and Stuart, eyebrow raised. Dance’s father said, “You can tell her. Go ahead. Everything.”

Sheedy explained, “We’re tipping to what Harper’s game plan seems to be. He’s very conservative, he’s very religious and he’s on record as opposing the Death with Dignity Act.”

The proposal cropped up every so often in California; it was a statute, like Oregon’s, that would allow physicians to assist people who wished to end their lives. Like abortion, it was a controversial topic and the pros and cons were highly polarized. Presently in California if somebody helped a person commit suicide, that assistance was considered a felony.

“So he wants to make an example of Edie. The case isn’t about assisted suicide—your mother tells me that Juan was too badly injured to administer the drugs to himself. But Harper wants to send a message that the state will seek tough penalties against anybody who helps with a suicide. His meaning: Don’t support the law because DAs will be looking real closely at each case. One step out of line and doctors or anybody helping someone die will get prosecuted. Hard.”

The distinguished voice continued grimly, speaking to Dance, “That means he’s not interested in plea bargains. He wants to go to trial and run a big, splashy, public relations–driven contest. Now, in this instance, because somebody killed Juan, that makes it murder.”

“First degree,” Dance said. She knew the penal code the way some people knew the Joy of Cooking.

Sheedy nodded. “Because it’s premeditated and Millar was a law enforcement officer.”

“But not special circumstances,” Dance said, looking at her mother’s pale face. Special circumstances would allow for the death penalty. But for that punishment to apply, Millar would have had to’ve been on duty at the time he was killed.

But Sheedy said, scoffing, “Believe it or not, he’s considering that.”

“How? How can he possibly be?” Dance asked heatedly.

“Because Millar was never officially signed out of his tour.”

“He’s playing a technicality like that?” Dance snapped in disgust.

“Is Harper mad?” Stuart muttered.

“No, he’s driven and he’s self-righteous. Which is scarier than being mad. He’ll get better publicity with a capital case. And that’s what he wants. Don’t worry, there is no way you’d be convicted of special circumstance murder,” he said, turning toward Edie. “But I think he’s going to start there.”

Still, Murder One was harrowing enough. That could mean twenty-five years in prison for Edie.

The lawyer continued, “Now, for our defense, justification doesn’t apply, or mistake or self-defense. Ending the man’s pain and suffering would be relevant at sentencing. But if the jury believed you intended to end his life, however merciful your motive, they would have to find you guilty of first-degree murder.”

“The defense, then,” Dance said, “is on the facts.”

“Exactly. First, we attack the autopsy and the cause of death. The coroner’s conclusion was that Millar died because the morphine drip was open too far and that an antihistamine had been added to the solution. That led to respiratory, and then cardiac, failure. We’ll get experts to say that this was wrong. He died of natural causes as a result of the fire. The drugs were irrelevant.

“Second, we assert that Edie didn’t do it at all. Somebody else administered the drugs either intentionally to kill him, or by mistake. We want to try to find people who might’ve been around—somebody who might’ve seen the killer. Or somebody who might be the killer. What about it, Edie? Was anybody near ICU around the time Juan died?”

The woman replied, “There were some nurses down on that wing. But that was all. His family was gone. And there were no visitors.”

“Well, I’ll keep looking into it.” Sheedy’s face was growing grave. “Now, we come to the big problem. The medication that was added to the IV was diphenhydramine.”

“The antihistamine,” Edie said.

“In the police raid on your house, they recovered a bottle of a brand-name version of diphenhydramine. The bottle was empty.”

“What?” Stuart gasped.

“It was found in the garage, hidden under some rags.”

“Impossible.”

“And a syringe with a small bit of dried morphine on it. The same brand of morphine that was in Juan Millar’s IV drip.”

Edie muttered, “I didn’t put it there. Of course I didn’t.”

“We know that, Mom.”

The lawyer added, “Apparently no fingerprints or significant trace.”

Dance said, “The perp planted it.”

“Which is what we’ll try to prove. Either he or she intended to kill Millar, or did it by mistake. In either case, they hid the bottle and syringe in your garage to shift the blame.”

Edie was frowning. She looked at her daughter. “Remember earlier in the month, just after Juan died, I told you I heard a noise outside. It was coming from the garage. I’ll bet somebody was there.”

“That’s right,” Dance agreed, though she couldn’t actually recall it—the manhunt for Daniel Pell had occupied all her thoughts then.

“Of course . . .” Dance fell silent.

“What?”

“Well, one thing we’ll have to work around. I’d stationed a deputy outside their house—for security. Harper will want to know why he didn’t see anything.”

“Or,” Edie said, “we should find out if he did see the intruder.”

“Right,” Dance said quickly. She gave Sheedy the name of the deputy.

“I’ll check that out too.” He added, “The only other thing we have is a report that the patient told you, ‘Kill me.’ And you told several people that. There are witnesses.”

“Right,” Edie said, sounding defensive, her eyes slipping to Dance.

The agent suddenly had a terrible thought: Would she be called to testify against her mother? She felt physically ill at this idea. She said, “But she wouldn’t tell anybody that if she were really intent on killing somebody.”

“True. But remember, Harper is going for splash. Not for logic. A quote like that . . . well, let’s hope Harper doesn’t find out about it.” He rose. “When I hear from the experts and get details of the autopsy report, I’ll let you know. Are there any questions?”

Edie’s face revealed that, yes, she had about a thousand. But she merely shook her head.

“It’s not hopeless, Edie. The evidence in the garage is troublesome but we’ll do the best we can with that.” Sheedy gathered up his papers, organized them and put them into his briefcase. He shook everyone’s hand and gave reassuring smiles to them all. Stuart saw him to the door, the floor creaking under his solid weight.

Dance too rose. She said to her mother, “Are you sure the kids won’t be too much? I can take them back to Martine’s.”

“No, no. I’ve been looking forward to seeing them.” She pulled on a sweater. “In fact, I think I’ll go outside and visit.”

Dance briefly embraced her, feeling stiffness in her mother’s shoulders. For an awkward moment the women held each other’s eyes. Then Edie stepped outside.

Dance hugged her father too. “Why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow?” she asked him.

“We’ll see.”

“Really. It’d be good. For Mom. For you, everybody.”

“I’ll talk to her about it.”

Dance headed back to the office where she spent the next few hours coordinating stakeouts of the possible victims’ houses and of the Brighams’ residence, deploying the manpower as best she could. And running the frustratingly hopeless search for the boy, who was proving to be as invisible as the electrons making up the vicious messages that had sent him on his deadly quest.

COMFORT.

Pulling up to her house in Pacific Grove at 11:00 p.m., Dance felt a tiny shiver of relief. After this long, long day she was so glad to be home.

The classic Victorian was dark green with gray banisters, shutters and trim—it was in the northwestern part of Pacific Grove; if the time of year, the wind and your attitude about leaning over a shaky railing coincided, you could see the ocean.

Walking into the small entryway, she flicked the light on and locked the door behind her. The dogs charged up to greet her. Dylan, a black-and-tan German shepherd, and Patsy, a dainty flat-coat retriever. They were named respectively for the greatest folk-rock songwriter and for the greatest country-western vocalist in the past hundred years.

Dance reviewed emails but there were no new developments in the case. In the kitchen, spacious but equipped with appliances from a different decade, she poured a glass of wine and foraged for some leftovers, settling on half a turkey sandwich that hadn’t been resident in the fridge for too long.

She fed the dogs and then let them out into the back. But as she was about to return to her computer she jumped at the raucous fuss they made, barking and charging down the stairs. They did this sometimes when a squirrel or cat had had the poor judgment to come for a visit. But that was rare at this time of night. Dance set the wineglass down and, tapping the butt of her Glock, walked out onto the deck.

She gasped.

A cross lay on the ground about forty feet away from the house.

No!

Drawing the gun, she grabbed a flashlight, called the dogs to her and swept the beam into the backyard. It was a narrow space, but extended for fifty feet behind the house and was filled with monkey flowers, scrub oak and maple trees, asters, lupine, potato vines, clover and renegade grass. The only flora that did well here thrived on sandy soil and shade.

She saw no one, though there were places where an intruder could remain hidden from the deck.

Dance hurried down the stairs into the dimness and looked around at the dozen of unsettling shadows cast by branches rocking in the wind.

Pausing, then moving slowly, her eyes on the paths and the dogs, which tracked around the yard, edgy, wary.

Their tense gait and Dylan’s raised hackles were unsettling.

She approached the corner of the yard slowly. Looking for movement, listening for footsteps. When she heard and saw no signs of an intruder, she shined the flashlight onto the ground.

It seemed to be a cross, but up close Dance couldn’t tell if it had been left intentionally or been created by falling branches. It wasn’t bound with wire and there were no flowers. But the back gate was a few feet away, which, though locked, could easily have been vaulted by a seventeen-year-old boy.

Travis Brigham, she recalled, knew her name. And could easily find where she lived.

She walked in a slow circle around the cross. Were those footsteps beside it in the trampled grass? She couldn’t tell.

The uncertainty was almost more troubling than if the cross had been left as a threat.

Dance returned to the house, stuffing her weapon in the holster.

She locked up and stepped into the living room, filled with furniture as mismatched as that in Travis Brigham’s house, but nicer and homier, no leather or chrome. Mostly overstuffed, upholstered in rusts and earth colors. All purchased during shopping trips with her late husband. Dropping onto the sofa, Dance noticed a missed call. She flipped eagerly to the log. It was from Jon Boling, not her mother.

Boling was reporting that the “associate” had had no luck as yet with cracking the pass code. The supercomputer would be running all night, and he’d let Dance know the progress in the morning. Or, if she wanted, she could call back. He’d be up late.

Dance debated about calling—felt an urge to—but then decided to keep the line free in case her mother called. She then phoned the MCSO, got the senior deputy on duty and requested a Crime Scene run to collect the cross. She told him where it was located. He said he’d get somebody there in the morning.

She then showered; despite the steamy water, she kept shivering, as an unfortunately persistent image lodged in her thoughts: the mask from Kelley Morgan’s house, the black eyes, the sewn-shut mouth.

When she climbed into bed, her Glock was three feet away, on the bedside table, unholstered and loaded with a full clip and one “in the bedroom”—the chamber.

She closed her eyes but, as exhausted as she was, she couldn’t sleep.

And it wasn’t the pursuit of Travis Brigham that was keeping her awake, nor the scare earlier. Not even the image of that damn mask.

No, the source of her keen restlessness was a simple comment that kept looping over and over in her mind.

Her mother’s response to Sheedy’s question about witnesses in the ICU the night that Juan Millar was killed.

There were some nurses down on that wing. But that was all. His family was gone. And there were no visitors.

Dance couldn’t recall for certain, but she was almost positive that when she’d mentioned the deputy’s death to her mother just after it happened, Edie had acted surprised by the news; she’d told her daughter that she’d been so busy on her own wing that she hadn’t gone down to the ICU that night.

If Edie hadn’t been in intensive care that night, as she’d claimed, then how could she be so certain it was deserted?

WEDNESDAY

Chapter 17

AT 8:00 IN the morning, Kathryn Dance walked into her office and smiled to see Jon Boling, in too-large latex gloves, tapping on the keyboard of Travis’s computer.

“I know what I’m doing. I watch NCIS.” He grinned. “I like it better than CSI.”

“Hey, boss, we need a TV show about us,” TJ said from a table he’d dragged into the corner, his workstation for his search for the origins of the eerie mask from the Kelley Morgan scene.

“I like that.” Boling picked up on the joke. “A show about kinesics, sure. You could call it The Body Reader. Can I be a special guest star?”

Though she was hardly in a humorous mood, Dance laughed.

TJ said, “I get to be the handsome young sidekick who’s always flirting with the gorgeous girl agents. Can we hire some gorgeous girl agents, boss? Not that you aren’t. But you know what I mean.”

“How’re we doing?”

Boling explained that the supercomputer linked to Travis’s hadn’t had any luck cracking the boy’s pass code.

One hour, or three hundred years.

“Nothing to do but keep waiting.” He pulled off the gloves and returned to tracking down the identities of posters who might be at risk.

“And, Rey?” Dance glanced at quiet Rey Carraneo, who still was going through the many pages of notes and sketches they’d found in Travis’s bedroom.

“Lot of gobbledygook, ma’am,” Carraneo said, the Anglo word very stiff in a Latino mouth. “Languages I don’t recognize, numbers, doodles, spaceships, trees with faces in them, aliens. And pictures of bodies cut open, hearts and organs. Kid’s pretty messed up.”

“Any places at all he’s mentioned?”

“Sure,” the agent said. “They just don’t seem to be on earth.”

“Here are some more names.” Boling handed her a sheet of paper with another six names and addresses of posters.

Dance looked up the phone numbers in the state database and called to warn them that Travis presented a threat.

It was then that her computer pinged with an incoming email. She read it, surprised to see the sender. Michael O’Neil. He must’ve been real busy; he rarely sent her messages, preferring to talk to her in person.

K—

Hate to say, but the container situation is heating up big time. TSA and Homeland Sec. are getting worried.

I’ll still help you out on the Travis Brigham case—ride herd on forensics and drop in when I can—but this one’ll take up most of my time. Sorry.

—M

The case involving the shipping container from Indonesia. Apparently he couldn’t put it on hold any longer. Dance was fiercely disappointed. Why now? She sighed in frustration. A twinge of loneliness too. She realized that between the Los Angeles homicide case against J. Doe and the roadside crosses situation, she and O’Neil had seen each other almost daily for the past week. That was more, on average, than she’d seen her husband.

She really wanted his expertise in the pursuit of Travis Brigham. And she wasn’t ashamed to admit that she simply wanted his company too. Funny how just talking, sharing thoughts and speculations was such an elixir. But his case was clearly important and that was enough for her. She typed a fast reply.

Good luck, miss you.

Backspaced, deleting the final two words and the punctuation. She rewrote: Good luck. Stay in touch.

Then he was gone from her mind.

Dance had a small TV in the office. It was on now and she happened to glance at it. She blinked in shock. On the screen at the moment was a wooden cross.

Did it have to do with the case? Had they found another one?

Then the camera panned on and settled on the Reverend R. Samuel Fisk. It was a report on the euthanasia protest—which now, she realized with a sinking heart, had shifted to focus on her mother. The cross was in the hand of a protester.

She turned up the volume. A reporter was asking Fisk if he’d actually called for the murder of abortion doctors, as The Chilton Report had said. With eyes that struck her as icy and calculating, the man of the cloth gazed back at the camera and said that his words had been twisted by the liberal media.

She recalled the Fisk quotation in The Report. She couldn’t think of a clearer call to murder. She’d be curious to see if Chilton posted a follow-up.

She muted the set. She and the CBI had their own problems with the media. Through leaks, scanners and that magical way the press learns details about cases, the story about the crosses as prelude to murder, and that a teenage student was the suspect, had gone public. Calls about the “Mask Killer,” the “Social Network Killer,” the “Roadside Cross Killer” were now flooding the CBI lines (despite the fact that Travis hadn’t managed actually to kill the two intended victims—and that no social networking sites were directly involved).

The calls kept coming in. Even the media-hungry head of the CBI was, as TJ cleverly and carelessly put it, “Overbywhelmed.”

Kathryn Dance spun around in her chair and gazed out the window at a gnarled trunk that had started as two trees and had grown, through pressure and accommodation, into one, stronger than either alone. An impressive knot was visible just outside the window and she often rested her eyes on it, a form of meditation.

Now she had no time for reflection. She called Peter Bennington, at MCSO forensics, about the scenes at the second cross and Kelley Morgan’s house.

The roses left with the second cross were bound with the same type of rubber bands used by the deli near where Travis used to work but they revealed no trace that was helpful. The fiber that Michael O’Neil had gotten from the gray hooded sweatshirt in the Brighams’ laundry basket was indeed almost identical to the fiber found near the second cross, and the tiny scrap of brown paper from the woods Ken Pfister had pointed out was most likely from an M&M package—candy that she knew Travis bought. The grain trace from the scene was associated with that used in oat-bran bagels at Bagel Express. At Kelley Morgan’s house, the boy had shed no trace or physical evidence except a bit of red rose petal that matched the bouquet with cross number two.

The mask was homemade, but the paste and paper and ink used in its construction were generic and unsourceable.

The gas that had been used in the attempt to murder Kelley Morgan was chlorine—the same that had been used in World War I to such devastating effect. Dance told Bennington, “There’s a report he got it from a neo-Nazi site.” She explained about what she’d learned from Caitlin’s friend.

The crime lab boss chuckled. “Doubt it. It was probably from somebody’s kitchen.”

“What?”

“He used household cleaners.” The deputy explained that a few simple substances could make the gas; they were available in any grocery or convenience store. “But we didn’t find any containers or anything that would let us determine the source.”

Nothing at the scene or nearby had given them clues as to where the boy might be hiding out.

“And David stopped by your house a little bit ago.”

Dance hesitated, not sure whom he was speaking of. “David?”

“Reinhold. He works in the CS Unit.”

Oh, the young, eager deputy.

“He collected the branches left in your backyard. But we still can’t tell if they were left intentionally or it was a coincidence. No other trace, he said.”

“He got up early. I left the house at seven.”

Bennington laughed. “Just two months ago he was writing speeding tickets with the Highway Patrol and now I think he’s got his eye on my job.”

Dance thanked the Crime Scene head and disconnected.

Stung with frustration, Dance found herself looking at the photo of the mask. It was just plain awful—cruel and unsettling. She picked up her phone and called the hospital. Identified herself. She asked about Kelley Morgan’s condition. It was unchanged, a nurse told her. Still in a coma. She’d probably live, but none of the staff was willing to speculate about whether she’d return to consciousness—or, if so, whether she’d regain a normal life.

Sighing, Kathryn Dance hung up.

And got angry.

She swept the phone up again, found a number in her notebook and, with a heavy finger, punched the keypad hard.

TJ, nearby, watched the stabbing. He tapped Jon Boling on the arm and whispered, “Uh-oh.”

James Chilton answered on the third ring.

“This is Kathryn Dance, the Bureau of Investigation.”

A brief pause. Chilton would be recalling meeting her . . . and wondering why she was contacting him again. “Agent Dance. Yes. I heard there was another incident.”

“That’s right. Why I’m calling, Mr. Chilton. The only way we were able to save the victim—a high school girl—was by tracing her screen name. It took a long time, and a lot of people, to find out who she was and where she lived. We got to her house about a half hour before she died. We saved her but she’s in a coma and might not recover.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“And it looks like the attacks are going to continue.” She explained about the stolen bouquets.

“Twelve of them?” His voice registered dismay.

“He’s not going to stop until he’s killed everybody who’s attacked him in your blog. I’m going to ask you again, will you please give us the Internet addresses of the people who’ve posted?”

“No.”

Goddammit. Dance shivered in rage.

“Because if I did, it would be a breach of trust. I can’t betray my readers.”

That again. She muttered, “Listen to me—”

“Please, Agent Dance, just hear me out. But what I will do . . . write this down. My hosting platform is Central California Internet Services. They’re in San Jose.” He gave her the address and phone number, as well as a personal contact. “I’ll call them right now and tell them I won’t object to their giving you the addresses of everybody who’s posted. If they want a warrant, that’s their business, but I won’t fight it.”

She paused. She wasn’t sure of the technical implications but she thought he’d just agreed to what she’d asked for, while saving some journalistic face.

“Well . . . thank you.”

They hung up and Dance called to Boling, “I think we can get the IP addresses.”

“What?”

“Chilton’s had a change of heart.”

“Sweet,” he said, smiling, and seemed like a boy who’d just been told his father’d gotten tickets to a play-off game.

Dance gave it a few minutes and called the hosting company. She was skeptical both that Chilton had called and the service itself would give up the information without a court battle. But to her surprise the representative she spoke with said, “Oh, Mr. Chilton just called. I’ve got the IP addresses of the posters. I’ve okayed forwarding them to a dot-gov location.”

She smiled broadly, and gave the hosting employee her email address.

“They’re on their way. I’ll go back to the blog every few hours or so and get the addresses of the new posters.”

“You’re a lifesaver . . . literally.”

The man said grimly, “This is about that boy who’s getting even with people, right? The Satanist? Is it true they found biological weapons in his locker?”

Brother, Dance thought. The rumors were spreading faster than the Mission Hills fire a few years ago.

“We’re not sure what’s happening at this point.” Always noncommittal.

They disconnected. And a few minutes later her computer dinged with incoming mail.

“Got it,” Dance said to Boling. He rose and walked behind her, put his hand on her chair back, leaning forward. She smelled subtle aftershave. Pleasant.

“Okay. Good. Of course, you know those are the raw computer addresses. We’ve got to contact all the providers and find out names and physical addresses. I’ll get right on it.”

She printed out the list—it contained about thirty individuals’ names—and handed it to him. He disappeared back into his corner of the lair and hunkered down in front of his computer.

“May have something, boss.” TJ had been posting pictures of the mask on the Web and in blogs and asking if anybody knew its source. He ran his hand through his curly red hair. “Pat me on the back.”

“What’s the story?”

“The mask is of some character in a computer game.” A glance at the mask. “Qetzal.”

“What?”

“That’s his name. Or its name. A demon who kills people with these beams from its eyes. And it can only moan because somebody laced up the lips.”

Dance asked, “So it’s getting even with people who have the ability to communicate.”

“Didn’t really run a Dr. Phil on him, boss,” TJ said.

“Fair enough.” She smiled.

“The game,” TJ continued, “is DimensionQuest.”

“It’s a Morpeg,” Boling announced, without looking up from his own computer.

“What’s that?”

“DimensionQuest is an M-M-O-R-P-G—massively multiplayer online role-playing game. I call them ‘Morpegs.’ And DQ is one of the most popular.”

“Helpful to us?”

“I don’t know yet. We’ll see when we get into Travis’s computer.”

Dance liked the professor’s confidence. “When,” not “if.” She sat back, pulled out her cell phone and called her mother. Still no answer.

Finally she tried her father.

“Hey, Katie.”

“Dad. How’s Mom? She never called me.”

“Oh.” A hesitation. “She’s upset, of course. I think she’s just not in the mood to talk to anybody.”

Dance wondered how long her mother’s conversation had been with Dance’s sister, Betsey, last night.

“Has Sheedy said anything else?”

“No. He’s doing some research, he said.”

“Dad, Mom didn’t say anything, did she? When she was arrested?”

“To the police?”

“Or to Harper, the prosecutor?”

“No.”

“Good.”

She felt an urge to ask him to put her mother on the phone. But she didn’t want the rejection if she said no. Dance said brightly, “You are coming over for dinner tonight? Right?”

He assured her they would, though his tone really meant that they’d try.

“I love you, Dad. Tell Mom too.”

“Bye, Katie.”

They hung up. Dance stared at the phone for a few minutes. Then she strode up the hall and into her boss’s office, entering without knocking.

Overby was just hanging up. He nodded at the phone. “Kathryn, any leads in the Morgan girl’s attack? Something about biochemicals? News Nine called.”

She closed the door. Overby eyed her uneasily.

“No biological weapons, Charles. It was just rumors.”

Dance ran through the leads: the mask, the state vehicle, Caitlin Gardner’s report that Travis liked the seashore, the household chemicals. “And Chilton’s cooperating. He gave the Internet addresses of the posters.”

“That’s good.” Overby’s phone rang. He glanced at it but let his assistant pick up.

“Charles, did you know my mother was going to be arrested?”

He blinked. “I . . . no, of course not.”

“What’d Harper tell you?”

“That he was checking the caseloads.” Starch in his words. Defensive. “What I said yesterday.”

She couldn’t tell if he was lying. And she understood why: Dance was breaking the oldest rule in kinesic interrogation. She was being emotional. When that happened, all her skills fell by the wayside. She had no idea if her boss had betrayed her or not.

“He was looking through our files to see if I’d altered anything about the Millar situation.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

The tension in the room hummed.

Then it vanished, as Overby gave a reassuring smile. “Ah, you’re worrying too much, Kathryn. There’ll be an investigation, and the case will all go away. You don’t have a thing to worry about.”

Did he know something? Eagerly, she asked, “Why do you say that, Charles?”

He looked surprised. “Because she’s innocent, of course. Your mother’d never hurt anyone. You know that.”

DANCE RETURNED TO the Gals’ Wing, to the office of her fellow agent Connie Ramirez. The short, voluptuous Latina, with black, black hair always sprayed meticulously in place, was the most decorated agent in the regional office and one of the most recognized in the entire CBI. The forty-year-old agent had been offered executive positions with CBI headquarters in Sacramento—the FBI had sought her out too—but her family had come out of the local lettuce and artichoke fields and nothing was going to displace her from blood. The agent’s desk was the antithesis of Dance’s—organized and tidy. Framed citations hung on the walls but the biggest photos were of her children, three strapping boys, and Ramirez and her husband.

“Hey, Con.”

“How’s your mom doing?”

“You can imagine.”

“This’s such nonsense,” she said with a faint trace of a melodious accent.

“Actually, why I’m here. Need a favor. A big one.”

“Whatever I can do, you know that.”

“I’ve got Sheedy on board.”

“Ah, the cop-buster.”

“But I don’t want to wait for discovery to get some of the details. I asked Henry for the hospital’s visitor shuts the day Juan died but he’s stonewalling.”

“What? Henry? You’re his friend.”

“Harper’s got him scared.”

Ramirez nodded knowingly. “You want me to try?”

“If you can.”

“You bet, I’ll get over there as soon as I finish interviewing this witness.” She tapped a folder for a big drug case she was running.

“You’re the best.”

The Latina agent grew solemn. “I know how I’d feel if it was my mother. I’d go down there and rip Harper’s throat out.”

Dance gave a wan smile at the petite woman’s declaration. As she headed for her office, her phone trilled. She glanced at “Sheriff’s Office” on Caller ID, hoping it was O’Neil.

It wasn’t.

“Agent Dance.” The deputy identified himself. “Have to tell you. CHP called in. I’ve got some bad news.”

Chapter 18

JAMES CHILTON WAS taking a break from ridding the world of corruption and depravity.

He was helping a friend move.

After the call from the MCSO, Kathryn Dance had rung up Chilton at his home and been directed by Patrizia to this modest, beige California ranch house on the outskirts of Monterey. Dance parked near a large U-Haul truck, plucked the iPod ear buds out and climbed from her car.

In jeans and a T-shirt, sweating, Chilton was wrangling a large armchair up the stairs and into the house. A man with corporate-trimmed hair and wearing shorts and a sweat-limp polo shirt was carting a stack of boxes behind the blogger. A Realtor’s sign in the front yard diagonally reported, SOLD.

Chilton came out the front door and walked two steps to the gravel path, bordered by small boulders and potted plants. He joined Dance, wiped his forehead and, being so sweaty and streaked with dust and dirt, nodded in lieu of shaking her hand. “Pat called. You wanted to see me, Agent Dance? Is this about the Internet addresses?”

“No. We’ve got them. Thanks. This is something else.”

The other man joined them, fixing Dance with a pleasant, curious gaze.

Chilton introduced them. The man was Donald Hawken.

Familiar. Then Dance recalled: The name appeared in Chilton’s blog—in “On the Home Front,” the personal section, she believed. Not one of the controversial posts. Hawken was returning to Monterey from San Diego.

“Moving day, it looks like,” she said.

Chilton explained, “Agent Dance is investigating that case involving the posts on The Report.”

Hawken, tanned and toned, frowned sympathetically. “And I understand there was another girl attacked. We were listening to the news.”

Dance remained circumspect as always about giving away information, even to concerned citizens.

The blogger explained that the Chiltons and Hawken and his first wife had been close friends a few years ago. The women had hosted dinner parties, the men had golfed regularly—at the anemic Pacific Grove course and, on flush days, at Pebble Beach. About three years ago the Hawkens had moved to San Diego, but he had recently remarried, was selling his company and coming back here.

“Could I talk to you for a minute?” Dance asked Chilton.

As Hawken returned to the U-Haul, the blogger and Dance walked to her Crown Vic. He cocked his head and waited, breathing hard from lugging the furniture into the house.

“I just got a call from the sheriff’s office. The Highway Patrol found another cross. With today’s date on it.”

His face fell. “Oh, no. And the boy?”

“No idea of his whereabouts. He’s disappeared. And it looks like he’s armed.”

“I heard on the news,” Chilton said, grimacing. “How’d he get a gun?”

“Stole it from his father.”

Chilton’s face tightened angrily. “Those Second Amendment people . . . I took them on last year. I’ve never had so many death threats in my life.”

Dance got to the crux of her mission. “Mr. Chilton, I want you to suspend your blog.”

“What?”

“Until we catch him.”

Chilton laughed. “That’s absurd.”

“Have you read the postings?”

“It’s my blog. Of course I read them.”

“The posters are getting even more vicious. Don’t give Travis any more fodder.”

“Absolutely not. I’m not going to be cowed into silence.”

“But Travis is getting the names of victims from the blog. He’s reading up on them, finding their deepest fears, their vulnerabilities. He’s tracking down where they live.”

“People shouldn’t be writing about themselves on public Internet pages. I did a whole blog about that too.”

“Be that as it may, they are posting.” Dance tried to control her frustration. “Please, work with us.”

“I have been working with you. That’s as far as I’m willing to go.”

“What can it hurt to take it down for a few days?”

“And if you don’t find him by then?”

“Put it up again.”

“Or you come to me and say a few more, then a few more.”

“At least stop taking posts on that thread. He won’t get any more names he can target as victims. It’ll make our job easier.”

“Repression never leads to anything good,” he muttered, staring right into her eyes. The missionary was back.

Kathryn Dance gave up on the Jon Boling strategy to coddle Chilton’s ego. She snapped angrily, “You’re making these bullshit grand pronouncements. ‘Freedom.’ ‘Truth.’ ‘Repression.’ This boy is trying to kill people. Jesus Christ, look at it for what it is. Take the damn politics out of it.”

Chilton calmly replied, “My job is to keep an open forum for public opinion. That’s the First Amendment. . . . I know, you’re going to remind me that you were a reporter too and you cooperated if the police wanted some help. But, see, that’s the difference. You were beholden to big money, to the advertisers, to whoever’s pocket your bosses were in. I’m not beholden to anybody.”

“I’m not asking you to stop reporting on the crimes. Write away to your heart’s content. Just don’t accept any more posts. Nobody’s adding facts, anyway. These people are just venting. And half of what they say is just plain wrong. It’s rumors, speculation. Rants.”

“And their thoughts aren’t valid?” he asked, but not angrily; in fact he seemed to be enjoying the debate. “Their opinions don’t count? Only the articulate and the educated—and the moderate—are allowed to comment? Well, welcome to the new world of journalism, Agent Dance. The free exchange of ideas. See, it’s not about your big newspapers anymore, your Bill O’Reillys, your Keith Olbermanns. It’s about the people. No, I’m not suspending the blog and I’m not locking any threads.” He glanced at Hawken, who was wrestling another armchair out of the back of the U-Haul. Chilton said to her, “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

And he strode to the truck, looking, she decided, just like some martyr on his way to the firing squad, having just delivered a rant about a cause he, though nobody else, fervently believed in.

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE on the Peninsula—anybody over age six and with any access to the media, that is—Lyndon Strickland was very aware of the Roadside Cross Case.

And, like a lot of people who read The Chilton Report, he was angry.

The forty-one-year-old lawyer climbed out of his car and locked the door. He was going for his daily lunchtime run along a path near Seventeen Mile Drive, the beautiful road that leads from Pacific Grove to Carmel, winding past movie stars’ and business executives’ vacation houses and Pebble Beach golf course.

He heard the sounds of construction for that new highway heading east to Salinas and the farmland. It was progressing fast. Strickland represented several small homeowners whose property had been taken by eminent domain to make way for the road. He’d been up against the state and against massive Avery Construction itself—and their armada of big legal guns. Not unexpectedly he’d lost the trial, just last week. But the judge had stayed the destruction of his clients’ houses pending appeal. The lead defense counsel, from San Francisco, had been livid.

Lyndon Strickland, on the other hand, had been ecstatic.

The fog was coming up, the weather chill, and he had the jogging path to himself as he started to run.

Angry.

Strickland had read what people were saying in James Chilton’s blog. Travis Brigham was a crazy boy who idolized the shooters at Columbine and Virginia Tech, who stalked girls in the night, who’d half asphyxiated his own brother, Sammy, and left him retarded, who’d intentionally driven a car off the cliff a few weeks ago in some weird suicide/murder ritual, killing two girls.

How the hell had everybody missed the danger signs the boy must’ve displayed? His parents, his teachers . . . friends.

The image of the mask he’d seen online that morning still gave him the creeps. A chill coursed through his body, only partly from the damp air.

The Mask Killer . . .

And now the kid was out there, hiding in the hills of Monterey County, picking off one by one the people who’d posted negative things about him.

Strickland read The Chilton Report frequently. It was on his RSS feed, near the top. He disagreed with Chilton on some issues, but the blogger was always reasonable and always made solid, intellectual arguments in support of his positions. For instance, although Chilton was adamantly opposed to abortion, he’d posted a comment against that wacko Reverend Fisk, who’d called for the murder of abortion doctors. Strickland, who’d often represented Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice organizations, had been impressed with Chilton’s balanced stance.

The blogger was also opposed to the desalination plant, as was Strickland, who was meeting with a potential new client—an environmental group interested in hiring him to sue to stop the plant from going forward. He’d just posted a reply supporting the blogger.

Strickland now headed up the small hill that was the hardest part of his jog. The route was downhill from there. Sweating, heart pounding . . . and feeling the exhilaration of the exercise.

As he crested the hill, something caught his eye. A splash of red off the jogging path and a flurry of motion near to the ground. What was it? he wondered. He circled back, paused his stopwatch and walked slowly through the rocks to where he saw a sprinkling of crimson, out of place in the sandy soil, dotted with brown and green plants.

His heart continued to slam in his chest, though now out of fear, not exertion. He thought immediately about Travis Brigham. But the boy was targeting only those who’d attacked him online. Strickland had said nothing about him at all.

Relax.

Still, as he detoured along the trail toward the commotion and spots of red, Strickland pulled his cell phone from his pocket, ready to push 911 if there was any threat.

He squinted, looking down as he approached the clearing. What was he looking at?

“Shit,” he muttered, freezing.

On the ground were hunks of flesh sitting amid a scattering of rose petals. Three huge, ugly birds—vultures, he guessed—were ripping the tissue apart, frantic, hungry. A bloody bone sat nearby too. Several crows were hopping close cautiously, grabbing a bit, then retreating.

Strickland squinted, leaning forward, as he noted something else, in the center of the frenzy.

No! . . . A cross had been scraped into the sandy soil.

He understood that Travis Brigham was around here somewhere. Heart trilling, the lawyer scanned the bushes and trees and dunes. He could be hiding anywhere. And suddenly it didn’t make any difference that Lyndon Strickland had never posted anything about the boy.

As an image of that terrifying mask the boy had left as an emblem of his attack lodged in his mind, Strickland turned and started to flee back to the path.

He got a mere ten feet before he heard someone push out of the bushes and begin running fast his way.

Chapter 19

JON BOLING SAT in Dance’s office, on her sagging couch. The sleeves of his dark blue striped shirt were rolled up and he had two phones going at once, as he stared at printouts of Chilton’s blog. He was working to find the physical addresses from the Internet data that the hosting service had provided.

Crooking a Samsung between ear and shoulder, he jotted information and called out, “Got another one. SexyGurl is Kimberly Rankin, one-two-eight Forest, Pacific Grove.”

Dance took the details down and phoned to warn the girl—and her parents—of the danger and to insist bluntly that she stop posting to The Report and to tell her friends to stop too.

How’s that, Chilton?

Boling was studying the computer screen in front of him. Dance looked over and saw that he was frowning.

“What is it?” she asked.

“The first posts responding in the ‘Roadside Crosses’ thread were mostly local, classmates and people around the Peninsula. Now people from all over the country—hell, from all over the world—are chiming in. They’re really going after him—and the Highway Patrol or the police too—for not following up on the accident. And they’re dissing the CBI too.”

“Us?”

“Yep. Somebody reported that a CBI agent went to interview Travis at home but didn’t detain him.”

“How do they even know Michael and I were there?”

He gestured at the computer. “The nature of the beast. Information spreads. People in Warsaw, Buenos Aires, New Zealand.”

Dance returned to the crime scene report of the most recent roadside cross on a quiet road in a lightly inhabited part of north Monterey. No witnesses. And little had been found at the scene, aside from the same sort of trace discovered at the earlier scenes, linking Travis to the crime. But there was one discovery that might prove helpful. Soil samples revealed some sand that wasn’t generally found in the immediate vicinity of the cross. It couldn’t, however, be sourced to a particular location.

And all the while she reviewed these details, she couldn’t help but think, who is the next victim?

Is Travis getting close?

And what terrible technique is he going to use this time to frighten and to kill? He seemed to favor lingering deaths, as if in compensation for prolonged suffering he’d been through at the hands of the cyberbullies.

Boling said, “I’ve got another name.” He called it out to Dance, who jotted it down.

“Thanks,” she said, smiling.

“You owe me a Junior G-Man badge.”

As Boling cocked his head and bent toward his notes once more, he said something else softly. Perhaps it was her imagination but it almost sounded as if he’d started to say, “Or maybe dinner,” but swallowed the words before they fully escaped.

Imagination, she decided. And turned back to her phone.

Boling sat back. “That’s all of them for now. The other posters aren’t in the area or they have untraceable addresses. But if we can’t find them, Travis can’t either.”

He stretched and leaned back.

“Not your typical day in the world of academia, is it?” Dance asked.

“Not exactly.” He cast a wry look her way. “Is this a typical day in the world of law enforcement?”

“Uhm, no, it’s not.”

“I guess that’s the good news.”

Her phone buzzed. She noted the internal CBI extension.

“TJ.”

“Boss . . .” As had happened on more than one occasion recently, the young agent’s typically irreverent attitude was absent. “Have you heard?”

DANCE’S HEART GAVE a bit of a flip when she saw Michael O’Neil at the crime scene.

“Hey,” she said. “Thought I’d lost you.”

He gave a faint startle reaction to that. Then said, “Juggling both cases. But a crime scene”—he nodded toward a fluttering ribbon of police tape—“has priority.”

“Thanks.”

Jon Boling joined them. Dance had asked the professor to accompany her. She’d supposed there were several ways in which he could be helpful. Mostly she wanted him here to bounce ideas off of, since Michael O’Neil, she’d believed, wouldn’t be present.

“What happened?” she asked the senior deputy.

“Left a little diorama to scare him,” a glance up the trail, “and then chased him down here. And shot him.” It seemed to Dance that O’Neil was going to give more details but pulled back, probably because of Boling’s presence.

“Where?”

The deputy pointed. The body wasn’t visible from here.

“I’ll show you the initial scene.” He led them along the jogging path. About two hundred yards up a shallow hill, they found a short trail that led to a clearing. They ducked under yellow tape and saw rose petals on the ground and a cross carved in the sandy dirt. There were bits of flesh scattered around and bloodstains too. A bone. Claw marks in the dirt, from vultures and crows, it seemed.

O’Neil said, “It’s animal, the Crime Scene people say. Probably beef, store-bought. My guess is the vic was jogging up the trail back there, saw the fuss and then took a look. He got spooked and ran. Travis got him halfway down the hill.”

“What’s his name?”

“Lyndon Strickland. He’s a lawyer. Lives nearby.”

Dance squinted. “Wait. Strickland? I think he posted something on the blog.”

Boling opened his backpack and pulled out a dozen sheets of paper, copies of the blog pages. “Yep. But not in ‘Roadside Crosses.’ He posted a reply about the desalination plant. He’s supporting Chilton.”

He handed her the printout:

Reply to Chilton, posted by Lyndon Strickland.

I have to say you’ve opened my eyes on this issue. Had no idea that somebody’s ramrodding this through. I reviewed the filed proposal at the County Planning Office and must say that, though I am an attorney familiar with environmental issues, it was one of the most obfuscatory documents I’ve ever tried to wade through. I think we need considerably more transparency in order to have meaningful debate on this matter.

Dance asked, “How did Travis know he’d be here? It’s so deserted.”

Boling said, “These are jogging trails. I’ll bet Strickland posted to a bulletin board or blog that he likes running here.”

We give away too much information about ourselves online. Way too much.

O’Neil asked, “Why would the boy kill him?”

Boling seemed to be considering something.

“What, Jon?” Dance asked.

“It’s just a thought but remember that Travis is into those computer games?”

Dance explained to O’Neil about the massively multiplayer online role-playing games that Travis played.

The professor continued, “One aspect of the game is growth. Your character develops and grows, your conquests expand. You have to do that, otherwise you won’t succeed. Following that classic pattern, I think Travis might be expanding his pool of targets. First, it was people who directly attacked him. Now he’s included somebody who supports Chilton, even if he has nothing to do with the ‘Roadside Crosses’ thread.”

Boling cocked his head, looking at the bits of meat and the claw marks in the sandy ground. “That’s an exponential increase in the number of possible victims. It’ll mean dozens more are at risk now. I’ll start checking out the Internet addresses of anyone who’s posted anything even faintly supportive of Chilton.”

More discouraging news.

“We’re going to examine the body now, Jon,” Dance said. “You should head back to the car.”

“Sure.” Boling looked relieved that he didn’t have to participate in this part of the job.

Dance and O’Neil hiked through the dunes to where the body had been found. “How’s the terrorist thing going? The Container Case?”

The senior deputy gave a wan laugh. “Moving along. You get Homeland Security involved, FBI, Customs, it’s a quagmire. What’s that line, you rise to the level of your own unhappiness? Sometimes I’d like to be back in a Police Interceptor handing out tickets.”

“It’s ‘level of incompetence.’ And, no, you’d hate being back in Patrol.”

“True.” He paused. “How’s your mother holding up?”

That question again. Dance was about to put on a sunny face, but then remembered to whom she was speaking. She lowered her voice. “Michael, she hasn’t called me. When they found Pfister and the second cross, I just left the courthouse. I didn’t even say anything to her. She’s hurt. I know she is.”

“You found her a lawyer—one of the best on the Peninsula. And he got her released, right?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve done everything you can. Don’t worry about it. She’s probably distancing herself from you. For the sake of this case.”

“Maybe.”

Eyeing her, he laughed again. “But you don’t believe that. You’re convinced she’s mad at you. That she thinks you’ve let her down.”

Dance was remembering times in her childhood when, at some affront, real or imagined, the staunch woman would turn cold and distant. It was only in partial humor that Dance’s father occasionally referred to his wife as “the staff sergeant.”

“Mothers and daughters,” O’Neil mused out loud, as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

When they reached the body, Dance nodded at the men from the coroner’s office, who were setting a green body bag beside the corpse. The photographer had just finished up. Strickland lay on his belly, in jogging attire, now bloody. He’d been shot from behind. Once in the back, once in the head.

“And then there’s this.” One of the medics tugged the sweatshirt up, revealing an image carved into the man’s back: a crude approximation of a face, which might’ve been the mask. Qetzal, the demon from DimensionQuest. This is probably what O’Neil was reluctant to mention in front of Boling.

Dance shook her head. “Postmortem?”

“Right.”

“Any witnesses?”

“None,” an MCSO deputy said. “There’s that highway construction site about a half mile from here. They heard the shots and called it in. But nobody saw anything.”

One of the Crime Scene officers called, “Didn’t find any significant physical evidence, sir.”

O’Neil nodded and together he and Dance returned to their cars.

Dance noticed Boling was standing beside his Audi, hands clasped in front of him and his shoulders seemed raised slightly. Sure signs of tension. Murder scenes will do that to you.

She said, “Thanks for coming out here, Jon. This was above and beyond the call of duty. But it was helpful to get your thoughts.”

“Sure.” He sounded as if he was trying to be stoic. She wondered if he’d ever been to a crime scene.

Her phone rang. She noticed Charles Overby’s name and number on Caller ID. She’d called earlier and told him about this killing. Now she’d have to tell him that the victim hadn’t been guilty of cyberbullying, but was a true innocent bystander. This would throw the area into even more panic.

“Charles.”

“Kathryn, you’re at the latest scene?”

“Right. It looks like—”

“Did you catch the boy?”

“No. But—”

“Well, you can give me the details later. Something’s come up. Get here as soon as you can.”

Chapter 20

“SO THIS IS the Kathryn Dance.” A big ruddy hand encircled hers, holding it until the bucket of propriety had been filled and then releasing.

Odd, she noted. He hadn’t put as much emphasis on the article as you’d expect. Not the Kathryn Dance. More like: So this is the agent.

Or, this is the chair.

But she ignored the curious descriptive since kinesic analysis wasn’t a priority at the moment; the man wasn’t a suspect, but was, as it turned out, connected to the CBI’s boss of bosses. Resembling a college linebacker gone into politics or business, fiftyish Hamilton Royce worked in the attorney general’s office in Sacramento. He returned to his chair—they were in Charles Overby’s office—and Dance too sat. Royce explained that he was an ombudsman.

Dance glanced at Overby. Itchily squinting toward Royce out of deference or curiosity or probably both, he didn’t offer anything else to flesh out the visitor’s job description—or mission.

Dance was still angry about her boss’s carelessness, if not malfeasance, in suborning Robert Harper’s covert operation in the CBI file room.

Because she’s innocent, of course. Your mother’d never hurt anyone. You know that. . . .

Dance kept her attention on Royce.

“We hear good things about you in Sacramento. I understand your expertise is body language.” The broad-shouldered man, with dark swept-back hair, was wearing a slick suit, its color a blue just the regal side of navy and therefore suggestive of a uniform.

“I’m just an investigator. I tend to use kinesics more than a lot of people.”

“Ah, there she goes, Charles, selling herself short. You said she’d do that.”

Dance offered a cautious smile and wondered what exactly Overby had said and how cautious he’d been in offering or withholding praise of an employee. Evidence for job and raise reviews, of course. Her boss’s face remained neutral. How hard life can be when you’re unsure.

Royce continued jovially, “So you could look me over and tell me what I’m thinking. Just because of how I cross my arms, where I look, whether I blush or not. Tip to my secrets.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” she said pleasantly.

“Ah.”

In fact she’d already come up with a tentative personality typing. He was a thinking, sensing extravert. And probably had a Machiavellian liar’s personality. Accordingly Dance was wary.

“Well, we do hear good things about you. That case earlier in the month, that crazy man on the Peninsula here? That was a tough one. You nailed the fellow, though.”

“We caught some lucky breaks.”

“No, no,” Overby interrupted quickly, “no breaks, no lucky. She outthought him.”

And Dance realized by saying “luck,” she’d suggested a criticism of herself, the CBI’s Monterey office and Overby.

“And what do you do exactly, Hamilton?” She wasn’t going for a status-defining “Mr.,” not in a situation like this.

“Oh, jack of all trades. A troubleshooter. If there are problems involving state agencies, the governor’s office, the assembly, even the courts, I look into it, write a report.” A smile. “A lot of reports. I hope they get read. You never know.”

This didn’t seem to answer her question. She looked at her watch, a gesture that Royce noticed but that Overby did not. As she’d intended.

“Hamilton is here about the Chilton case,” Overby said, then looked at the man from Sacramento to make sure that was all right. Back to Dance: “Brief us,” he said like a ship captain.

“Sure, Charles,” Dance replied wryly, noting both his tone and the fact Overby had said “the Chilton case.” She’d been thinking of the attacks as the Roadside Cross Case. Or the Travis Brigham Case. Now she had an inkling as to why Royce was here.

She explained about the murder of Lyndon Strickland—the mechanics of the killing and how he figured in the Chilton blog.

Royce frowned. “So he’s expanding his possible targets?”

“We think so, yes.”

“Evidence?”

“Sure, there’s some. But nothing specific that leads to where Travis is hiding out. We’ve got a joint CHP and sheriff’s office task force running a manhunt.” She shook her head. “They’re not making much progress. He doesn’t drive—he’s on a bike—and he’s staying underground.” She looked at Royce. “Our consultant thinks he’s using evasion techniques he learned in online games to stay out of sight.”

“Who?”

“Jon Boling, a professor from UC–Santa Cruz. He’s very helpful.”

“And he’s volunteering his time, no charge to us,” Overby slipped in smoothly, as if the words were oiled.

“About this blog,” Royce said slowly. “How does that figure in, exactly?”

Dance explained, “Some postings have set the boy off. He was cyberbullied.”

“So, he snapped.”

“We’re doing everything we can to find him,” Overby said. “He can’t be far. It’s a small peninsula.”

Royce hadn’t given much away. But Dance could see from his focused eyes he was not only sizing up the Travis Brigham situation but was neatly folding it into his purpose here.

Which he finally got down to.

“Kathryn, there’s a concern in Sacramento about this case, I have to tell you. Everybody’s nervous. It’s got teenagers, computers, social networking. Now, a weapon’s involved. You can’t help but think Virginia Tech and Columbine. Apparently those boys from Colorado were his idols.”

“Rumor. I don’t know if that’s true or not. It was posted on the blog by someone who might or might not have known him.”

And from the flutter of eyebrow and twitch of lip, she realized she might have just played into his hand. With people like Hamilton Royce, you never could be sure if all was straightforward, or if you were fencing.

“This blog . . . I was talking to the AG about it. We’re worried that as long as people are posting, it’s like gasoline on the flames. You know what I mean? Like an avalanche. Well, mixing my metaphors, but you get the idea. What we were thinking: Wouldn’t it be better for the blog to shut down?”

“I’ve actually asked Chilton to do that.”

“Oh, you have?” Overby asked the question.

“And what did he say?”

“Emphatically no. Freedom of the press.”

Royce scoffed. “It’s just a blog. It’s not the Chronicle or Wall Street Journal.”

“He doesn’t feel that way.” Dance then asked, “Has anybody from the AG’s office contacted him?”

“No. If the request came from Sacramento, we’re worried that he’d post something about us bringing the subject up. And that’d spread to the newspapers and TV. Repression. Censorship. And those labels might rub off on the governor and some congressmen. No, we can’t do that.”

“Well, he refused,” Dance repeated.

“I was just wondering,” Royce began slowly, his gaze keenly strafing Dance, “if there was anything you’ve found about him, something to help persuade him?”

“Stick or carrot?” she asked quickly.

Royce couldn’t help but laugh. Savvy people apparently impressed him.

“He doesn’t seem like the carrot sort, from what you’ve told me.”

Meaning a bribe wouldn’t work. Which Dance knew was true, having tried one. But neither did Chilton seem susceptible to threats. In fact, he seemed like the sort who’d relish them. And post something in his blog about any that were made.

Besides, though she didn’t like Chilton and thought he was arrogant and self-righteous, using something she’d learned in an investigation to intimidate the man into silence didn’t sit well. In any case, Dance could honestly answer, “I haven’t found a thing. James Chilton himself is a small part of the case. He didn’t even post anything about the boy—and he deleted Travis’s name. The point of the ‘Roadside Crosses’ thread was to criticize the police and highway department. It was the readers who started to attack the boy.”

“So there’s nothing incriminating, nothing we can use.”

Use. Odd choice of verb.

“No.”

“Ah, too bad.” Royce did seem disappointed. Overby noticed too and looked disappointed himself.

Overby said, “Keep on it, Kathryn.”

Her voice was a crawl. “We’re working full-out to find the perp, Charles.”

“Of course. Sure. But in the whole scope of the case . . .” His sentence dwindled.

“What?” she asked sharply. The anger about Robert Harper was resurfacing.

Watch it, she warned herself.

Overby smiled in a way that bore only a loose resemblance to a smile. “In the whole scope of the case it would be helpful to everybody if Chilton could be persuaded to stop the blog. Helpful to us and to Sacramento. Not to mention saving the lives of people who’ve posted comments.”

“Exactly,” Royce said. “We’re worried about more victims.”

Of course the AG and Royce would worry about that. But they’d also worry about the bad press against the state for not doing everything to stop the killer.

To end the meeting and get back to work, Dance simply agreed. “If I see anything you can use, Charles, I’ll let you know.”

Royce’s eyes flickered. Overby missed the irony completely and smiled. “Good.”

It was then that her phone vibrated with a text message. She read the screen, and gave a faint gasp and looked up at Overby.

Royce asked, “What is it?”

Dance said, “James Chilton was just attacked. I have to go.”

Chapter 21

DANCE HURRIED INTO Emergency Admitting at Monterey Bay Hospital.

She found TJ looking troubled in the middle of the lobby. “Boss,” he said, exhaling hard, relieved to see her.

“How is he?”

“He’ll be okay.”

“Did you get Travis?”

“It wasn’t the boy who did it,” TJ said.

At that moment the double doors to the emergency room swung open and James Chilton, a bandage on his cheek, strode out. “He attacked me!” Chilton was pointing at a ruddy-faced, solidly built man in a suit. He sat beside the window. A large county deputy stood over him. Without a greeting, Chilton pointed to him and snapped to Dance, “Arrest him.”

Meanwhile the man leapt to his feet. “Him. I want him in jail!”

The deputy muttered, “Mr. Brubaker, please sit down.” He spoke forcefully enough so that the man hesitated, delivered a glare to Chilton then dropped back into the fiberglass seat.

The officer then joined Dance and told her what had happened. A half hour before, Arnold Brubaker had been on the grounds of his proposed desalination plant with a survey crew. He’d found Chilton taking pictures of animal habitats there. He tried to grab the blogger’s camera and shoved Chilton to the ground. The surveyors called the police.

The injury, Dance assessed, didn’t seem serious.

Still, Chilton seemed possessed. “That man is raping the Peninsula. He’s destroying our natural resources. Our flora and fauna. Not to mention destroying an Ohlone burial ground.”

The Ohlone Indians were the first inhabitants of this part of California.

“We aren’t building anywhere near the tribal land!” Brubaker yelled. “That was a rumor. And completely untrue!”

“But the traffic in and out of the area is going to—”

“And we’re spending millions to relocate animal populations and—”

“Both of you,” Dance snapped. “Quiet.”

Chilton, however, had his momentum going. “He broke my camera too. Just like the Nazis.”

Brubaker replied with a cold smile, “James, I believe you broke the law first by trespassing on private property. Didn’t the Nazis do that too?”

“I have a right to report on the destruction of our resources.”

“And I—”

“Okay,” Dance snapped. “No more!”

They fell silent as she got the details of the various offenses from the deputy. Finally she approached Chilton. “You trespassed on private property. That’s a crime.”

“I—”

“Shhh. And you, Mr. Brubaker, assaulted Mr. Chilton, which is illegal unless you’re in imminent danger of physical harm from a trespasser. Your remedy was to call the police.”

Brubaker fumed, but he nodded. He seemed upset that all he’d done was bang Chilton’s cheek. The bandage was quite small.

“The situation is that you’re guilty of minor offenses. And if you want to complain I’ll make arrests. But it’ll be both of you. One for criminal trespass and one for assault and battery. Well?”

Red-faced, Brubaker began to whine, “But he—”

“Your answers?” Dance asked with an ominous calm that made him shut up immediately.

Chilton nodded, with a grimace. “All right.”

Finally, with frustration evident in his face, Brubaker muttered to Dance, “Okay. Fine. But it’s not fair! Seven days a week for the past year, working to help eliminate drought. That’s been my life. And he sits in that office of his and tears me down, without even looking at the facts. People see what he says in that blog and think it’s true. And how can I compete with that? Write a blog of my own? Who has time?” Brubaker delivered a dramatic sigh and headed out the main door.

After he’d gone, Chilton said to Dance, “He’s not building the plant out of the goodness of his heart. There’s money to be made and that’s his only concern. And I have researched the story.”

His voice fell silent as she turned to him and he noticed her somber expression. “James, you might not have heard the news. Lyndon Strickland was just murdered by Travis Brigham.”

Chilton remained still for a moment. “Lyndon Strickland, the lawyer? Are you sure?”

“I’m afraid so.”

The blogger’s eyes were sweeping the floor of the emergency room, green-and-white tile, mopped clean but scuffed by years of anxious heels and soles. “But Lyndon posted in the desalination thread, not ‘Roadside Crosses.’ No, Travis wouldn’t have any complaint with him. It’s somebody else. Lyndon’d made a lot of people upset. He was a plaintiff’s lawyer and was always taking on controversial causes.”

“The evidence doesn’t leave any doubt. It was Travis.”

“But why?”

“We think because his post supported you. Doesn’t matter that it was a different blog thread. We think Travis is expanding his pool of targets.”

Chilton greeted this with grim silence, then asked, “Just because he posted something agreeing with me?”

She nodded. “And that leads me to something else I’ve been worried about. That Travis might be after you.”

“But what argument does he have with me? I haven’t said a word about him.”

She continued, “He’s targeted somebody who’s supporting you. And the extension of that is that he’s angry with you too.”

“You really think so?”

“I think we can’t afford to dismiss it.”

“But my family’s—”

“I’ve ordered a car stationed outside your house. A deputy from the sheriff’s office.”

“Thank you . . . thank you. I’ll tell Pat and the boys to be on the lookout for anything odd.”

“You’re all right?” She nodded at the bandage.

“It’s nothing.”

“You need a ride home?”

“Pat’s coming to pick me up.”

Dance started outside. “Oh, and for God’s sake, leave Brubaker alone.”

Chilton’s eyes narrowed. “But do you know the effects that plant is going to have . . .” He fell silent and held up two hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. I’ll stay off his property.”

“Thank you.”

Dance walked outside and turned her phone back on. It rang thirty seconds later. Michael O’Neil. She was comforted to see his number pop up.

“Hey.”

“I just heard a report. Chilton. He was attacked?”

“He’s fine.” She explained what had happened.

“Trespassing. Serves him right. I called the office. They’re getting the crime scene report back from the Strickland shooting. I pushed ’em to get it done fast. But nothing really helpful jumps out.”

“Thanks.” Dance then lowered her voice—amusing herself because she did so—and told O’Neil about the curious encounter with Hamilton Royce.

“Great. Too many cooks screwing up the broth.”

“I’d like to put them in the broth,” Dance muttered. “And turn up the heat.”

“And this Royce wants to shut down the blog?”

“Yep. Worried about the public relations is my take.”

O’Neil offered, “I almost feel sorry for Chilton.”‘

“Spend ten minutes with him; you’ll feel different.”

The deputy chuckled.

“I was going to call you anyway, Michael. I’ve asked Mom and Dad over tonight for dinner. She needs the support. Love it if you could come.” She added, “You and Anne and the kids.”

A pause. “I’ll try. I’m really swamped on this Container Case. And Anne went up to San Francisco. A gallery’s going to be hanging a show of her recent photos.”

“Really? That’s impressive.” Dance recalled the one-sided conversation yesterday about Anne O’Neil’s impending trip at their attempted breakfast after meeting with Ernie Seybold. Dance had several opinions about the woman, the most unblemished of which had to do with her talent as a photographer.

They disconnected and Dance continued toward her car, unraveling the iPod ear buds. She needed a hit of music. She was scrolling through tunes, trying to decide on Latino or Celtic, when her phone buzzed. Caller ID announced Jonathan Boling.

“Hi,” she said.

“It’s all over the CBI here, Chilton was attacked. What happened? Is he all right?”

She gave him the details. He was relieved nobody had been hurt seriously, but she could tell from his voice quality that he had some news for her. She fell silent and he asked, “Kathryn, you near the office?”

“I wasn’t planning on heading back. I’ve got to pick up the kids and work from home for a while.” She didn’t tell him that she wanted to avoid Hamilton Royce and Overby. “Why?”

“Couple things. I’ve got names of posters who’ve supported Chilton. The good news, I suppose, is that there aren’t a lot. But that’s typical. In blogs more people are contrarians than supporters.”

“Email me the list, and I’ll start calling them from home. What else?”

“We’ll have Travis’s computer cracked in the next hour or so.”

“Really? Oh, that’s great.” Tiffany or Bambi was a pretty good hacker, apparently.

“I’m going to mirror his disk on a separate drive. I thought you’d want to see it.”

“You bet.” Dance had a thought. “You have plans tonight?”

“No, I’ve put my cat burglary plans on hold while I’m helping you guys.”

“Bring the computer over to my house. I’m having my mother and father and a few friends over for dinner.”

“Well, sure.”

She gave him the address and a time.

They disconnected.

As Dance stood beside her car in the hospital parking lot she noticed several aides and nurses leaving for the day. They were staring at her.

Dance knew several of them and smiled. One or two nodded in greeting but the response was tepid, if not chilly. Of course, she realized, they’d be thinking: I’m looking at the daughter of a woman who might have committed murder.

Chapter 22

“I’LL CARRY THE groceries,” Maggie announced as Dance’s Pathfinder squealed to a stop in front of their house.

The girl had been feeling independent lately. She grabbed the largest bag. There were four of them; after picking up the children at Martine’s, they’d stopped at Safeway for a shopping frenzy. If everyone she’d invited showed up, the dinner party would include nearly a dozen people, among them youngsters with serious appetites.

Listing under the weight of two bags gripped in one hand—an older-brother thing—Wes asked his mother, “When’s Grandma coming over?”

“In a little while, I hope. . . . There’s a chance she might not come.”

“No, she said she’s coming.”

Dance gave a confused smile. “You talked to her?”

“Yeah, she called me at camp.”

“Me too,” Maggie offered.

So she’d called to reassure the children she was all right. But Dance’s face flushed. Why hadn’t she called her?

“Well, it’s great she’ll be able to make it.”

They carried the bags inside.

Dance went into her bedroom, accompanied by Patsy.

She glanced at the gun lockbox. Travis was expanding his targets, and he knew she was one of the officers pursuing him. And she couldn’t forget the possible threat—the cross—in her backyard last night. Dance decided to keep the weapon with her. Ever-fastidious about weapons in a household with children, though, she locked the black gun away for a few minutes to take a shower. She stripped off her clothes energetically and stepped into the stream of hot water—trying unsuccessfully to flush away the residue of the day.

She dressed in jeans and an oversize blouse, not tucked in, to obscure the weapon, which sat against the small of her back. Uncomfortable, yet a comfort. Then she hurried into the kitchen.

She fed the dogs and put out a small brushfire between the children, who were sniping over their predinner tasks. Dance stayed patient—she knew they were upset about the incident at the hospital yesterday. Maggie’s job was to unpack the groceries, while Wes straightened up for guests. Dance continued to be amazed at how cluttered a house could become, even though only three people lived there.

She thought now, as she often did, about the time when the population was four. And glanced at her wedding picture. Bill Swenson, prematurely gray, lean and with an easy smile, looked out at the camera with his arm around her.

Then she went into the den, booted up her computer and emailed Overby about the assault on Chilton and the confrontation with Brubaker.

She wasn’t in the mood to talk to him.

Then Dance retrieved Jon Boling’s email with the names of people who’d posted comments favorable to Chilton over the past months. Seventeen.

Could be worse, she supposed.

She spent the next hour finding the numbers of those within a hundred miles and calling to warn them they might be in danger. She weathered their criticism, some of it searing, about the CBI and the police not being able to stop Travis Brigham.

Dance logged on to that day’s Chilton Report.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/june27.html

She scrolled through all the threads, noting that new posts had appeared in nearly all of them. The latest contributors to the Reverend Fisk and the desalination threads were taking their respective causes seriously—and with intensifying anger. But none of their posts compared to the vicious comments in the “Roadside Crosses” thread, most of them unleashing undiluted fury at each other, as much as at Travis.

Some of them were curiously worded, some seemed to be probing for information, some seemed to be outright threats. She got the feeling that there were clues as to where Travis was hiding—possibly even tidbits of facts that might suggest whom he was going to attack next. Was Travis actually one of the posters, hiding behind a fake identity or the common pseudonym, “Anonymous”? She read the exchanges carefully and decided that perhaps there were clues, but the answer eluded her. Kathryn Dance, comfortable with analyzing the spoken word, could come to no solid conclusions as she read the frustratingly silent shouts and mutters.

Finally she logged off.

An email from Michael O’Neil arrived. He gave her the discouraging news that the immunity hearing in the J. Doe case had been pushed back to Friday. The prosecutor, Ernie Seybold, felt that the judge’s willingness to go along with the defense’s request for the extension was a bad sign. She grimaced at the news and was disappointed that he hadn’t called to give her the news over the phone. Neither had he mentioned anything about whether he and the children would come over tonight.

Dance began to organize the meal. She didn’t have much skill in the kitchen, as she was the first to admit. But she knew which stores had the most talented prepared-food departments; the meal would be fine.

Listening to the soft braying of a video game from Wes’s room, Maggie’s keyboard scales, Dance found herself staring into the backyard, recalling the image of her mother’s face yesterday afternoon, as her daughter deserted her to see about the second roadside cross.

Your mother will understand.

No, she won’t. . . .

Hovering over the containers of brisket, green beans, Caesar salad, salmon and twice-baked potatoes, Dance remembered that time three weeks ago—her mother standing in this very kitchen and reporting about Juan Millar in the ICU. With Edie’s face feeling his pain, she’d told her daughter what he’d whispered to her.

Kill me . . .

The doorbell now drew her from that disquieting thought.

She deduced who had arrived—most friends and family just climbed the back deck stairs and entered the kitchen without ringing or knocking. She opened the front door to see Jon Boling standing on the porch. He wore that now-familiar, comfortable smile and was juggling a small shopping bag and a large laptop case. He’d changed into black jeans and a dark striped collared shirt.

“Hi.”

He nodded and followed her into the kitchen.

The dogs bounded up. Boling crouched and hugged them as they double-teamed him.

“Okay, guys, outside!” Dance commanded. She flung Milk Bones out the back door and the dogs charged down the steps and into the backyard.

Boling stood, wiped his face from the licks and laughed. He reached into the shopping bag. “I decided to bring sugar for a hostess gift.”

“Sugar?”

“Two versions: fermented.” He extracted a bottle of Caymus Conundrum white wine.

“Nice.”

“And baked.” A bag of cookies emerged. “I remembered the way you looked at them in the office when your assistant was trying to fatten me up.”

“Caught that did you?” Dance laughed. “You’d be a good kinesic interviewer. We have to be observant.”

His eyes were excited, she could see. “Got something to show you. Can we sit down somewhere?”

She directed him into the living room, where Boling unpacked yet another laptop, a big one, a brand she didn’t recognize. “Irv did it,” he announced.

“Irv?”

“Irving Wepler, the associate I was telling you about. One of my grad students.”

So, not Bambi or Tiff.

“Everything on Travis’s laptop is in here now.”

He began typing. In an instant the screen came to life. Dance didn’t know computers could respond so quickly.

From the other room, Maggie hit a sour note on the keyboard.

“Sorry.” Dance winced.

“C sharp,” Boling said without looking up from the screen.

Dance was surprised. “You a musician?”

“No, no. But I have perfect pitch. Just a fluke. And I don’t know what to do with it. No musical talent whatsoever. Not like you.”

“Me?” She hadn’t told him her avocation.

A shrug. “Thought it might not be a bad idea to check you out. I didn’t expect you to have more Google hits as a songcatcher than a cop. . . . Oh, can I say cop?”

“So far it’s not a politically incorrect term.” Dance went on to explain that she was a failed folksinger but had found musical redemption in the project that she and Martine Christensen operated—a website called American Tunes, the name echoing Paul Simon’s evocative anthem to the country from the 1970s. The site was a lifesaver for Dance, who often had to dwell in some very dark places because of her work. There was nothing like music to pull her safely out of the minds of the criminals she pursued.

Although the common term was “songcatcher,” Dance told him, the job description was technically “folklorist.” Alan Lomax was the most famous—he’d roam the hinterland of America, collecting traditional music for the Library of Congress in the midtwentieth century. Dance too traveled around the country, when she could, to collect music, though not Lomax’s mountain, blues and bluegrass. Today’s homegrown American songs were African, Afro-pop, Cajun, Latino, Caribbean, Nova Scotian, East Indian and Asian.

American Tunes helped the musicians copyright their original material, offered the music for sale via download and distributed to them the money listeners paid.

Boling seemed interested. He too, it seemed, trekked into the wilderness once or twice a month. He’d been a serious rock climber at one time, he explained, but had given that up.

“Gravity,” he said, “is nonnegotiable.”

Then he nodded toward the bedroom that was the source of the music. “Son or daughter?”

“Daughter. The only strings my son’s familiar with come on a tennis racket.”

“She’s good.”

“Thank you,” Dance said with some pride; she had worked hard to encourage Maggie. She practiced with the girl and, more time-consuming, chauffeured her to and from piano lessons and recitals.

Boling typed and a colorful page popped up on the laptop’s screen. But then his body language changed suddenly. She noticed he was looking over her shoulder, toward the doorway.

Dance should have guessed. She’d heard the keyboard fall silent thirty seconds before.

Then Boling was smiling. “Hi, I’m Jon. I work with your mom.”

Wearing a backward baseball cap, Maggie was standing in the doorway. “Hello.”

“Hats in the house,” Dance reminded.

Off it came. Maggie walked right up to Boling. “I’m Maggie.” Nothing shy about my girl, Dance reflected, as the ten-year-old pumped his hand.

“Good grip,” the professor told her. “And good touch on the keyboard.”

The girl beamed. “You play anything?”

“CDs and downloads. That’s it.”

Dance looked up and wasn’t surprised to see twelve-year-old Wes appear too, looking their way. He was hanging back, in the doorway. And he wasn’t smiling.

Her stomach did a flip. After his father’s death, Wes could be counted on to take a dislike to the men that his mom saw socially—sensing them, her therapist said, as a threat to their family and to his father’s memory. The only man he really liked was Michael O’Neil—in part because, the doctor theorized, the deputy was married and thus no risk.

The boy’s attitude was hard for Dance, who’d been a widow for two years, and at times felt a terrible longing for a romantic companion. She wanted to date, she wanted to meet somebody and knew it would be good for the children. But whenever she went out, Wes became sullen and moody. She’d spent hours reassuring him that he and his sister came first. She planned out tactics to ease the boy comfortably into meeting her dates. And sometimes simply laid down the law and told him she wouldn’t tolerate any attitude. Nothing had worked very well; and it didn’t help that his hostility toward her most recent potential partner had turned out to be far more insightful than her own judgment. She resolved after that to listen to what her children had to say and watch how they reacted.

She motioned him over. He joined them. “This is Mr. Boling.”

“Hi, Wes.”

“Hi.” They shook hands, Wes a bit shy, as always.

Dance was about to add quickly that she knew Boling through work, to reassure Wes and defuse any potential awkwardness. But before she could say anything, Wes’s eyes flashed as he gazed at the computer screen. “Sweet. DQ!”

She regarded the splashy graphics of the DimensionQuest computer game homepage, which Boling had apparently extracted from Travis’s computer.

“Are you guys playing?” The boy seemed astonished.

“No, no. I just wanted to show your mother something. You know Morpegs, Wes?”

“Like, definitely.”

“Wes,” Dance murmured.

“I mean, sure. She doesn’t like me to say ‘like.’ ”

Smiling, Boling asked, “You play DQ? I don’t know it so well.”

“Naw, it’s kind of wizardy, you know. I’m more into Trinity.”

“Oh, man,” Boling said with some boyish, and genuine, reverence in his voice. “The graphics kick butt.” He turned to Dance and said, “It’s S-F.”

But that wasn’t much of an explanation. “What?”

“Mom, science fiction.”

“Sci-fi.”

“No, no, you can’t say that. It’s S-F.” Eyes rolling broadly ceilingward.

“I stand corrected.”

Wes’s face scrunched up. “But with Trinity, you definitely need two gig of RAM and at least two on your video card. Otherwise it’s, like . . .” He winced. “Otherwise it’s so slow. I mean, you’ve got your beams ready to shoot . . . and the screen hangs. It’s the worst.”

“RAM on the desktop I hacked together at work?” Boling asked coyly.

“Three?” Wes asked.

“Five. And four on the video card.”

Wes mimicked a brief faint. “Nooooo! That is sooo sweet. How much storage?”

“Two T.”

“No way! Two tera bytes?”

Dance laughed, feeling huge relief that there wasn’t any tension between them. But she said, “Wes, I’ve never seen you play Trinity. We don’t have it loaded on our computer here, do we?” She was very restrictive about what the children played on their computers and the websites they visited. But she couldn’t oversee them 100 percent of the time.

“No, you don’t let me,” he said without any added meaning or resentment. “I play at Martine’s.”

“With the twins?” Dance was shocked. The children of Martine Christensen and Steven Cahill were younger than Wes and Maggie.

Wes laughed. “Mom!” Exasperated. “No, with Steve. He’s got all the patches and codes.”

That made sense; Steve, who described himself as a green geek, ran the technical side of American Tunes.

“Is it violent?” Dance asked Boling, not Wes.

The professor and the boy shared a conspiratorial look.

“Well?” she persisted.

“Not really,” Wes said.

“What does that mean exactly?” asked the law enforcement agent.

“Okay, you can sort of blow up spaceships and planets,” Boling said.

Wes added, “But not like violent-violent, you know.”

“Right,” the professor assured her. “Nothing like Resident Evil or Manhunt.”

“Or Gears of War,” Wes added. “I mean, there you can chainsaw people.”

“What?” Dance was appalled. “Have you ever played it?”

“No!” he protested, right on the edge of credibility. “Billy Sojack at school has it. He told us about it.”

“Make sure you don’t.”

“All right. I won’t. Anyway,” the boy added, with another glance at Boling, “you don’t have to use a chain saw.”

“I never want you to play that game. Or the others that Mr. Boling mentioned.” She said this in her best mother voice.

“Okay. Geez, Mom.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah.” The look at Boling said, She just gets this way sometimes.

The two males then launched into a discussion of other games and technical issues whose meaning Dance couldn’t even guess at. But she was happy to see this. Boling, of course, was no romantic interest, but it was such a relief that she didn’t have to worry about conflicts, especially tonight—the evening would be stressful enough. Boling didn’t talk down to the boy, nor did he try to impress him. They seemed like peers of different ages, having fun talking.

Feeling neglected, Maggie barged in with, “Mr. Boling, do you have kids?”

“Mags,” Dance interjected, “don’t ask personal questions when you’ve just met somebody.”

“That’s all right. No, I don’t, Maggie.”

She nodded, taking in the information. The issue, Dance understood, wasn’t about possible playmates. She was really inquiring about his marital status. The girl was ready to marry off her mother faster than Maryellen Kresbach from the office (provided Maggie was “best woman”—no retro “maid of honor” for Dance’s independent daughter).

It was then that voices sounded from the kitchen. Edie and Stuart had arrived. They walked inside and joined Dance and the children.

“Grams!” Maggie called and charged toward her. “How are you?”

Edie’s face blossomed into a genuine smile—or nearly so, Dance assessed. Wes, his face glowing with relief too, ran to her as well. Though stingy with hugs for Mom lately, the boy wrapped his arms around his grandmother and squeezed tight. Of the two children, he’d taken the arrest incident at the hospital closer to heart.

“Katie,” Stuart said, “chasing down crazed felons and you still had time to cook.”

“Well, somebody had time to cook,” she replied with a smile and a glance at the Safeway shopping bags, hiding near the trash can.

Ecstatic to see her mother, Dance embraced her. “How are you?”

“Fine, dear.”

Dear . . . Not a good sign. But she was here, at least. That’s what counted.

Edie turned back to the children and was enthusiastically telling them about a TV show she’d just seen on extreme home makeovers. Dance’s mother was brilliant at dispensing comfort and rather than talk directly about what happened at the hospital—which would only trouble them more—she reassured the kids by saying nothing about the incident and chatting away about inconsequential things.

Dance introduced her parents to Jon Boling.

“I’m a hired gun,” he said. “Kathryn made the mistake of asking my advice, and she’s stuck with me now.”

They talked about where in Santa Cruz he lived, how long he’d been in the area and the colleges he’d taught at. Boling was interested to learn that Stuart still worked part-time at the famous Monterey Bay aquarium; the professor went often and had just taken his niece and nephew there.

“I did some teaching too,” Stuart Dance offered, when he learned Boling’s career. “I was pretty comfortable in academia; I’d done a lot of research into sharks.”

Boling laughed hard.

Wine was dispensed—Boling’s Conundrum white blend first.

But then Boling must’ve sensed a wind shift and he excused himself to head back to the computer. “I don’t get to eat unless I finish my homework. I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Why don’t you go out back,” Dance told him, pointing to the deck. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

After he’d collected the computer and wandered outside, Edie said, “Nice young man.”

“Very helpful. Thanks to him we saved one of the victims.” Dance stepped to the refrigerator to put the wine away. As she did, emotion took the reins and she blurted softly to her mother, “I’m sorry I had to leave the courtroom so fast, Mom. They found another roadside cross. There was a witness I had to interview.”

Her mother’s voice revealed no trace of sarcasm when she said, “That’s all right, Katie. I’m sure it was important. And that poor man today. Lyndon Strickland, the lawyer. He was well known.”

“Yes, he was.” Dance noted the shift of subject.

“Sued the state, I think. Consumer advocate.”

“Mom, what’ve you heard from Sheedy?”

Edie Dance blinked. “Not tonight, Katie. We won’t talk about it tonight.”

“Sure.” Dance felt like a chastised child. “Whatever you want.”

“Will Michael be here?”

“He’s going to try. Anne’s in San Francisco, so he’s juggling kids. And working on another big case.”

“Oh. Well, hope he can make it. And how is Anne?” Edie asked coolly. She believed that O’Neil’s wife’s mothering skills left a lot to be desired. And any failures there were a class-A misdemeanor to Edie Dance, bordering on felony.

“Fine, I imagine. Haven’t seen her for a while.”

Dance wondered again if in fact Michael would show up.

“You talked to Betsey?” she asked her mother.

“Yes, she’s coming up this weekend.”

“She can stay with me.”

“If it’s not inconvenient,” Edie offered.

“Why would it be inconvenient?”

Her mother replied, “You might be busy. With this case of yours. That’s your priority. Now, Katie, you go visit with your friend. Maggie and I’ll get things started. Mags, come on and help me in the kitchen.”

“Yea, Grandma!”

“And Stu brought a DVD he thinks Wes would like. Sports bloopers. You boys go put that on.”

Her husband took the cue and wandered to the flat-screen TV, calling Wes over.

Dance stood helplessly for a moment, hands at her sides, watching her mother retreat as she chatted happily with her granddaughter. Then Dance stepped outside.

She found Boling at an unsteady table on the deck, near the back door, under an amber light. He was looking around. “This is pretty nice.”

“I call it the Deck,” she laughed. “Capital D.”

It was here that Kathryn Dance spent much of her time—by herself and with the children, dogs and those connected to her through blood or through friendship.

The gray, pressure-treated structure, twenty by thirty feet, and eight feet above the backyard, extended along the back of the house. It was filled with unsteady lawn chairs, loungers and tables. Illumination came from tiny Christmas lights, wall lamps, some amber globes. A sink, tables and a large refrigerator sat on the uneven planks. Anemic plants in chipped pots, bird feeders and weathered metal and ceramic hangings from the garden departments of chain stores made up the eclectic decorations.

Dance would often come home to find colleagues from the CBI or MCSO or Highway Patrol sitting on the Deck, enjoying beverages from the battered fridge. It didn’t matter if she was home or not, provided the rules were observed: Never disrupt the kids’ studying or the family’s sleep, keep the crudeness down and stay out of the house itself, unless invited.

Dance loved the Deck, which was a site for breakfasts, dinner parties and more formal occasions. She’d been married here.

And she’d hosted the memorial service for her husband on the gray, warped timbers.

Dance now sat on the wicker love seat beside Boling, who was hunched forward over the large laptop. He looked around and said, “I’ve got a deck too. But if we were talking constellations, yours’d be Deck Major. Mine’d be Deck Minor.”

She laughed.

Boling nodded at the computer. “There was very little I found about the local area or Travis’s friends. Much less than you’d normally see in a teen’s computer. The real world doesn’t figure much in Travis’s life. He spends most of his time in the synth, on websites and blogs and bulletin boards and, of course, playing his Morpegs.”

Dance was disappointed. All the effort to hack into the computer and it wasn’t going to be as helpful as she’d hoped.

“And as for his time in the synth world, most of that is in DimensionQuest.” He nodded at the screen. “I did some research. It’s the biggest online role-playing game in the world. There are about twelve million subscribers to that one.”

“Bigger than the population of New York City.”

Boling described it as a combination of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Second Life—the social interaction site where you create imaginary lives for yourself. “As near as I can tell he was on DQ between four and ten hours a day.”

“A day?”

“Oh, that’s typical for a Morpeg player.” He chuckled. “Some are even worse. There’s a DimensionQuest twelve-step program in the real world to help people get over their addiction to the game.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yes.” He sat forward. “Now, there’s nothing in his computer about places he’d go or his friends, but I’ve found something that might be helpful.”

“What’s that?”

“Him.”

“Who?”

“Well, Travis himself.”

Chapter 23

DANCE BLINKED, WAITING for a punch line.

But Jon Boling was serious.

“You found him? Where?”

“In Aetheria, the fictional land in DimensionQuest.”

“He’s online?”

“Not now, but he has been. Recently.”

“Can you find out where he is in real life from that?”

“There’s no way of knowing. We can’t trace him. I called the gaming company—they’re in England—and talked to some executives. DimensionQuest’s servers are in India and at any given moment there are a million people online.”

“And since we have his computer, that means he’s using a friend’s,” Dance said.

“Or he’s at a public terminal or he’s borrowed or stolen a computer and is logging on through a Wi-Fi spot.”

“But whenever he’s online we know he’s standing still and we have a chance to find him.”

“In theory, yes,” Boling agreed.

“Why is he still playing? He must know we’re looking for him.”

“Like I was saying, he’s addicted.”

A nod at the computer: “Are you sure it’s Travis?”

“Has to be. I got into his folders in the game and found a list of avatars he’s created to represent himself. Then I had a few of my students go online and look for those names. He’s been logging on and off today. The character’s name is Stryker—with a y. He’s in the category of Thunderer, which makes him a warrior. A killer, basically. One of my students—a girl who’s played DimensionQuest for a few years—found him about an hour ago. He was roaming around the countryside just killing people. She watched him slaughter a whole family. Men, women and children. And then he corpse camped.”

“What’s that?”

“In these games, when you kill another character they lose power, points and whatever they’re carrying with them. But they’re not permanently dead. Avatars come to life again after a few minutes. But they’re in a weakened state until they can start to regain power. Corpse camping is when you kill a victim and just wait nearby for them to come back to life. Then you kill them again, when they have no defenses. It’s very bad form, and most players don’t do it. It’s like killing a wounded soldier on the battlefield. But Travis apparently does it regularly.”

Dance stared at the homepage of DimensionQuest, an elaborate graphic of foggy glens, towering mountains, fantastical cities, turbulent oceans. And mythical creatures, warriors, heroes, wizards. Villains too, including Qetzal, the spiky demon with the sewn-shut mouth, wide eyes chillingly staring at her.

A bit of that nightmare world had coalesced here on earth, smack within her jurisdiction.

Boling tapped his cell phone, on his belt. “Irv’s monitoring the game. He wrote a bot—an automated computer program—that’ll tell him when Stryker’s online. He’ll call or IM me the instant Travis logs on.”

Dance glanced into the kitchen and saw her mother staring out the window. Her palms were clenched.

“Now, what I was thinking,” Boling continued, “tracing is out, but if we can find him online and watch him, maybe we can learn something about him. Where he is, who he knows.”

“How?”

“Watching his instant messages. That’s how players communicate in DQ. But there’s nothing we can do until he logs on again.”

He sat back. They sipped wine in silence.

Which was suddenly broken as Wes called, “Mom!” from the doorway.

Dance jumped and found herself easing away from Boling as she turned toward her son.

“When do we eat?”

“As soon as Martine and Steve get here.”

The boy retreated to the TV. And Dance and Boling walked inside, carting wine and the computer. The professor replaced the unit in his bag and then snagged a bowl of pretzels from the island in the kitchen.

He headed into the living room and offered the bowl to Wes and Stu. “Emergency rations to keep our strength up.”

“Yea!” the boy cried, grabbing a handful. Then said, “Grand pa, go back to that fumble so Mr. Boling can see it.”

DANCE HELPED HER mother and daughter finish setting out the food, buffet style, on the island in the kitchen.

She and Edie talked about the weather, about the dogs, about the children, about Stuart. Which led to the aquarium, which led to a water referendum, which led to a half dozen other trivial subjects, all of which had one thing in common: They were as far away from the subject of the arrest of Edie Dance as could be.

She watched Wes, Jon Boling and her father sitting together in the living room, with the sports show on the screen. They all laughed hard when a receiver crashed into a Gatorade tank and drenched a cameraman, and were digging into the pretzels and dip as if dinner were an empty promise. Dance had to smile at the homey, comforting scene.

Then she glanced down at her cell phone, disappointed that Michael O’Neil hadn’t called.

As she was setting the table on the Deck, the other guests arrived: Martine Christensen and her husband, Steven Cahill, climbed the stairs, their nine-year-old twin boys in tow. Delighting Wes and Maggie, they also brought with them a long-haired tawny puppy, a briard named Raye.

The couple greeted Edie Dance warmly, avoiding any mention of the cases; either the Roadside Cross attacks or the one involving Edie.

“Hey, girlfriend,” long-haired Martine said to Dance, winking, and passed her a dangerous-looking homemade chocolate cake.

Dance and Martine had been best friends ever since the woman had decided to single-handedly wrest Dance from the addictive lethargy of widowhood and force her back into life.

As if moving from the synth world back to the real, Dance now reflected.

She hugged Steven, who promptly vanished into the den to join the menfolk, his Birkenstocks flapping in time to his long ponytail.

The adults had wine while the children held an impromptu dog show in the backyard. Raye had apparently been doing his homework and was, literally, running circles around Patsy and Dylan, doing tricks and leaping over benches. Martine said he was a star in his obedience and agility classes.

Maggie appeared and said she wanted to take their dogs to school too.

“We’ll see,” Dance told her.

Soon candles were lit, sweaters distributed and everybody was sitting around the table, food steaming in the false autumn of a Monterey evening. Conversation was whirling as fast as the wine flowed. Wes was whispering jokes to the twins, who giggled not because of the punch lines but because an older boy was spending time whispering jokes to them.

Edie was laughing at something Martine said.

And for the first time in two days, Kathryn Dance felt the gloom fade.

Travis Brigham, Hamilton Royce, James Chilton . . . and the Dark Knight—Robert Harper—slipped from the forefront of her thoughts and she began to think that life might eventually right itself.

Jon Boling turned out to be quite social and fit right in, though he hadn’t known a single soul there before today. He and Steven, the computer programmer, had much to talk about, though Wes kept injecting himself into the conversation.

Everyone studiously avoided talking about Edie’s problem, which meant that current affairs and politics took center stage. Dance was amused to note that the first subjects to come up were ones Chilton had written about: the desalination plant and the new highway to Salinas.

Steve, Martine and Edie were adamantly opposed to the plant.

“I suppose,” Dance said. “But we’ve all lived here for a long time.” A glance at her parents. “Aren’t you tired of the droughts?”

Martine said she doubted the water produced by the desalination plant would benefit them. “It’ll be sold to rich cities in Arizona and Nevada. Somebody’ll make billions and we won’t see a drop.”

After that they debated the highway. The group was divided on this, as well. Dance said, “It’d come in handy for the CBI and sheriff’s office if we’re running cases in the fields north of Salinas. But that cost-overrun issue is a problem.”

“What overrun?” Stuart asked.

Dance was surprised to see everyone looking at her blankly. She explained what she’d learned by reading The Chilton Report: that the blogger had uncovered some possible malfeasance.

“I hadn’t heard about that,” Martine said. “I was so busy reading about the roadside crosses that I didn’t pay much attention. . . . But I’m sure going to look into it now, I’ll tell you.” She was the most political of Dance’s friends. “I’ll check out the blog.”

After dinner Dance asked Maggie to bring out her keyboard for a brief concert.

The group retired to the living room, more wine was passed around. Boling lounged back in a deep armchair, joined by Raye the briard. Martine laughed—Raye was a bit bigger than a lapdog—but the professor insisted the puppy stay.

Maggie plugged in and, with the gravity of a recital pianist, sat down and played four songs from her Suzuki Book Three, simple arrangements of pieces by Mozart, Beethoven and Clementi. She hardly missed a note.

Everyone applauded and then went for cake, coffee and more wine.

Finally around 9:30, Steve and Martine said they wanted to get the twins to bed, and they headed out the door with the children. Maggie was already making plans to enter Dylan and Patsy in Raye’s dog classes.

Edie gave a distant smile. “We should go too. It’s been a long day.”

“Mom, stay for a while. Have another glass of wine.”

“No, no, I’m exhausted, Katie. Come on, Stu. I want to go home.”

Dance received a distracted embrace from her mother, and her comfort from earlier diminished. “Call me later.” Disappointed at their quick retreat, she watched the taillights disappear up the road. Then she told the children to say good night to Boling. The professor smiled and shook their hands, and Dance sent them off to wash up.

Wes appeared a few minutes later with a DVD. Ghost in the Shell, a Japanese anime science fiction tale involving computers.

“Here, Mr. Boling. This is pretty sweet. You can borrow it if you want.”

Dance was astonished that her son was behaving so well with a man. Probably he recognized Boling as a business associate of his mother’s, not a love interest; still, he’d been known to grow defensive even around her coworkers.

“Well, thanks, Wes. I’ve written about anime. But I’ve never seen this one.”

“Really?”

“Nope. I’ll bring it back in good shape.”

“Whenever. ’Night.”

The boy hurried back to his room, leaving the two of them together.

But only for a moment. A second later Maggie appeared with a gift of her own. “This is my recital.” She handed him a CD in a jewel box.

“The one you were talking about at dinner?” Boling asked. “Where Mr. Stone burped during the Mozart?”

“Yeah!”

“Can I borrow it?”

“You can have it. I have about a million of them. Mom made them.”

“Well, thanks, Maggie. I’ll burn it on my iPod.”

The girl actually blushed. Unusual for her. She charged off.

“You don’t have to,” Dance whispered.

“Oh, no. I will. She’s a great girl.”

He slipped the disk into his computer bag and looked over the anime that Wes had lent him.

Dance lowered her voice again, “How many times have you seen it?”

He chuckled. “Ghost in the Shell? Twenty, thirty times . . . along with the two sequels. Damn, you can even spot the white lies.”

“Appreciate your doing that. It means a lot to him.”

“I could tell he was excited.”

“I’m surprised you don’t have children. You seem to understand them.”

“No, that never worked out. But if you want children, it definitely helps to have a woman in your life. I’m one of those men you have to be careful of. Don’t you say that, all you girls?”

“Careful of? Why’s that?”

“Never date a man over forty who’s never been married.”

“I think nowadays whatever works, works.”

“I just never met anybody I wanted to settle down with.”

Dance noted the flicker of an eyebrow and a faint fluctuation of pitch. She let those observations float away.

Boling began, “You’re . . . ?” His eyes dipped to her left hand, where a gray pearl ring encircled the heart finger.

“I’m a widow,” Dance said.

“Oh, gosh. I’m sorry.”

“Car crash,” she said, feeling only a hint of the familiar sorrow.

“Terrible.”

And Kathryn Dance said nothing more about her husband and the accident for no reason other than she preferred not to talk about them any longer. “So, you’re a real bachelor, hmm?”

“I guess I am. Now there’s a word you haven’t heard for . . . about a century.”

She went to the kitchen to retrieve more wine, instinctively grabbing a red—since that was Michael O’Neil’s favorite—then remembered that Boling liked white. She filled their glasses halfway up.

They chatted about life on the Peninsula—his mountain-biking trips and hikes. His professional life was far too sedentary for him so Boling would often jump into his old pickup truck and head out to the mountains or a state park.

“I’ll do some biking this weekend. It’ll be some sanity in an island of madness.” He then told her more about the family get-together he’d mentioned earlier.

“Napa?”

“Right.” His brow wrinkled in a cute and charming way. “My family is . . . how do I put this?”

“A family.”

“Hit the nail on the head,” he said, laughing. “Two parents healthy. Two siblings I get along with a majority of the time, though I like their children better. Assorted uncles and aunts. It’ll be fine. Lot of wine, lot of food. Sunsets—but not a lot of those, thank goodness. Two, tops. That’s sort of the way weekends work.”

Again, a silence fell between them. Comfortable. Dance felt no rush to fill it.

But the peace was broken just then as Boling’s cell phone hiccuped. He looked at the screen. Immediately his body language had shifted to high alert.

“Travis is online. Let’s go.”

Chapter 24

UNDER BOLING’S KEYSTROKES, the DimensionQuest homepage loaded almost instantly.

The screen dissolved and a welcome box appeared. Below it was apparently the rating of the game by an organization referred to as ERSB.

Teen

Blood

Suggestive Themes

Alcohol

Violence

Then, with his self-assured typing, Jon Boling took them to Aetheria.

It was an odd experience. Avatars—some fantastical creatures, some human—wandered around a clearing in a forest of massive trees. Their names were in balloons above the characters. Most of them were fighting, but some just walked, ran or rode horses or other creatures. Some flew on their own. Dance was surprised to see that everyone moved nimbly and that the facial expressions were true to life. The graphics were astonishing, nearly movie quality.

Which made the combat and its vicious, excessive bloodletting all the more harrowing.

Dance found herself sitting forward, knee bobbing—a classic indication of stress. She gasped when one warrior beheaded another right in front of them.

“There are real people guiding them?”

“One or two are NPC—those’re ‘nonplayer characters’ that the game itself creates. But nearly all of the others are avatars of people who could be anywhere. Cape Town, Mexico, New York, Russia. The majority of the players are men, but there’re a lot of women too. And the average age isn’t as young as you’d think. Teenage to late twenties mostly but plenty of older players. They could be boys or girls or middle-aged men, black, white, disabled, athletes, lawyers, dishwashers. . . . In the synth world, you can be whoever you want to be.”

In front of them another warrior easily killed his opponent. Blood spurted in a geyser. Boling grunted. “They’re not all equal, though. Survival depends on who practices the most and who has the most power—power you earn by fighting and killing. It’s a vicious cycle, literally.”

Dance tapped the screen and pointed to the back of a woman avatar in the foreground. “That’s you?”

“One of my student’s avatars. I’m logging in through her account.”

The name above her was “Greenleaf.”

“There he is!” Boling said, his shoulder brushing hers as he leaned forward. He was pointing at Travis’s avatar, Stryker, who was about a hundred feet away from Greenleaf.

Stryker was a tough, muscular man. Dance couldn’t help but notice that while many other characters had beards or ruddy, leathery skin, Travis’s avatar was unblemished and his skin as smooth as a baby’s. She thought of the boy’s concerns about acne.

You can be whoever you want to be . . .

Stryker—a “Thunderer,” she recalled—was clearly the dominant warrior here. People would look his way and turn and leave. Several people engaged him—once two at the same time. He easily killed them both. One time he stunned a huge avatar, a troll or similar beast, with a ray. Then, as it lay shaking on the ground, Travis directed his avatar to plunge a knife into its chest.

Dance gasped.

Stryker bent down and seemed to reach inside the body.

“What’s he doing?”

“Looting the corpse.” Boling noted Dance’s furrowed brow and added, “Everyone does it. You have to. The bodies might have something valuable. And if you’ve defeated them, you’ve earned the right.”

If these were the values that Travis had learned in the synth world, it was a wonder he hadn’t snapped sooner.

She couldn’t help but wonder: And where was the boy now in the real world? At a Starbucks Wi-Fi location, with the hood over his head and sunglasses on, so he wouldn’t be recognized? Ten miles from here? One mile?

He wasn’t at the Game Shed. She knew that. After learning that he spent time there, Dance had ordered surveillance on the place.

As she watched Travis’s avatar engage and easily kill dozens of creatures—women and men and animals—she found herself instinctively drawing on her skills as a kinesics expert.

She knew, of course, that computer software was controlling the boy’s movement and posture. Yet she was already seeing that his avatar moved with more grace and fluidity than most. In combat he didn’t flail away randomly, as some of the characters did. He took his time, he withdrew a bit and then struck when his opponents were disoriented. Several fast blows or stabs later—and the character was dead. He stayed alert, always looking around him.

This was a clue, perhaps, to the boy’s strategy of life. Planning the attacks out carefully, learning all he could about his victims, attacking fast.

Analyzing the body language of a computer avatar, she reflected. What an odd case this was.

“I want to talk to him.”

“To Travis? I mean, to Stryker?”

“Right. Get closer.”

Boling hesitated. “I don’t know the navigation commands very well. But I think I can walk all right.”

“Go ahead.”

Using the keypad, Boling maneuvered Greenleaf closer to where Stryker was hunched over the body of the creature he’d just killed, looting it.

As soon as she was within attack distance Stryker sensed Dance’s avatar’s approach and leapt up, his sword in one hand, an elaborate shield in the other. Stryker’s eyes gazed out of the screen.

Eyes dark as the demon Qetzal’s.

“How do I send a message?”

Boling clicked on a button at the bottom of the screen and a box opened. “Just like any instant message now. Type your message and hit ‘Return.’ Remember, use abbreviations and leetspeak if you can. The easiest thing to do is just substitute the number three for e and four for a.”

Dance took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking as she stared at the animated face of the killer.

“Stryker, U R g00d.” The words appeared in a balloon over Greenleaf’s head as the avatar approached.

“who r u?” Stryker stood back, gripping a sword.

“I’m just some lus3r.”

Boling told her, “Not bad, but forget grammar and punctuation. No caps, no periods. Question marks are okay.”

Dance continued, “saw u fight u r el33t.” Her breath was coming fast; tension rose within her.

“Excellent,” Boling whispered.

“what is your realm?”

“What’s he mean?” Dance asked, feeling a sprinkle of panic.

“I think he’s asking for your country or the guild you’re in. There’d be hundreds of them. I don’t know any in this game. Tell him you’re a newbie.” He spelled it. “That’s somebody new to a game, but who wants to learn.”

“just newbie, play for fun, thought u could t33ch”

There was a pause.

“u mean u r sum n00b”

“What’s that?” Dance asked.

“Newbie’s just a beginner. A n00b is a loser, somebody who’s egotistical and incompetent. It’s an insult. Travis has been called a n00b a lot online. LOL him but say you’re not. You really want to learn from him.”

“lol, but no d00d, i w4nt to learn”

“R U hot?”

Dance asked Boling, “Is he coming on to me?”

“I don’t know. It’s an odd question under the circumstances.”

“sorta people tell me”

“u board funny”

“Shit, he’s catching on that there’s a delay in your keyboarding. He’s suspicious. Change the subject back to him.”

“like really w4nt to learn, what can u t33ch me?”

A pause. Then: “1 thing”

Dance typed, “whats that?”

Another hesitation.

Then words appeared in the balloon above Travis’s avatar. “2 die”

And though Dance felt an instinct to slam an arrow key or slide the touchpad to lift an arm and protect herself, there was no time.

Travis’s avatar moved in fast. He swung his sword again and again, striking her. In the upper left-hand corner of the screen a box popped up showing two figures, solid white: the heading “Stryker” was above the one on the left, and “Greenleaf” on the right.

“No!” she whispered, as Travis slashed away.

The white filling the Greenleaf outline began to empty. Boling said, “That’s your life force bleeding out. Fight back. You have a sword. There!” He tapped the screen. “Put the cursor on it and left click with the mouse.”

Filled with unreasonable but feverish panic, she began clicking.

Stryker easily deflected her avatar’s wild blows.

As Greenleaf’s power slipped away on the gauge, the avatar dropped to her knees. Soon the sword fell to the ground. She was on her back, arms and legs splayed. Helpless.

Dance felt as vulnerable as she ever had in real life.

“You don’t have much power left,” Boling said. “There’s nothing you can do.” The gauge was nearly drained.

Stryker stopped hacking at Greenleaf’s body. He moved closer and looked into the computer monitor.

“who r u?” came the words popping up in the instant message.

“i am greenleaf. Y did U kill me?”

“WHO R U?”

Boling said, “All caps. He’s shouting. He’s mad.”

“pleez?” Dance’s hands were shaking and her chest was constricted. It was as if these weren’t bits of electronic data but real people; she’d plunged wholly into the synth world.

Travis then directed Stryker to step forward and drive his sword into Greenleaf’s abdomen. Blood spurted, and the gauge in the upper left-hand corner was replaced with a message: “YOU ARE DEAD.”

“Oh,” Dance cried. Her sweaty hands quivered and her breath stuttered in and out, over her dry lips. Travis’s avatar stared at the screen chillingly, then turned and began to run into the forest. Without a pause, he swiped his sword across the neck of an avatar whose back was turned and lopped off the creature’s head.

He then vanished.

“He didn’t wait to loot the corpse. He’s escaping. He wants to get away fast. He thinks something’s up.” Boling moved closer to Dance—now it was their legs that brushed. “I want to see something.” He began to type. Another box appeared. It said, “Stryker is not online.”

Dance felt a painful chill rattling through her, ice along her spine.

Sitting back, her shoulder against Jon Boling’s, she was thinking: If Travis had logged off, maybe he’d left the location where he’d been online.

And where was he going?

Into hiding?

Or was he intent on continuing his hunt in the real world?

LYING IN BED, the hour closing in on midnight.

Two sounds confused: the wind stroking the trees outside her bedroom window and surf on rocks a mile away at Asilomar and along the road to Lovers Point.

Beside her, she felt warmth against her leg, and exhaled breath, soft in sleep, tickled her neck.

She was unable to join in the bliss of unconsciousness, however. Kathryn Dance was as awake as if it were noon.

In her mind a series of thoughts spun past. One would rise to the top for a time, then roll on, like on Wheel of Fortune. The subject the clicker settled on most frequently was Travis Brigham of course. In her years of being a crime reporter and a jury consultant and a law enforcement agent, Dance had come to believe that the tendency toward evil could be found in the genes—like Daniel Pell, the cult leader and killer she’d pursued recently—or could be acquired: J. Doe in Los Angeles, for instance, whose murderous inclinations had come later in life.

Dance wondered where Travis fell on the spectrum.

He was a troubled, dangerous young man, but he was also someone else, a teenager yearning to be normal—to have clear skin, to have a popular girl like him. Was it inevitable from birth that he’d slip into this life of rage? Or had he begun like any other boy yet been so battered by circumstance—his abusive father, troubled brother, gawky physique, solitary nature, bad complexion—that his anger couldn’t burn away as it did in most of us, like midmorning fog?

For a long, thick moment, pity and loathing were balanced within her.

Then she saw Travis’s avatar staring her down and lifting his sword.

like really w4nt to learn, what can u t33ch me?

2 die . . .

Next to her the warm body shifted slightly, and she wondered if she was giving off minuscule tensions that disturbed sleep. She was trying to remain motionless, but that, as a kinesics expert, she knew was impossible. Asleep or waking, if our brain functioned, our bodies moved.

The wheel spun on.

Her mother, and the euthanasia case, now paused at the top. Though she’d asked Edie to call when they got back to the inn, she hadn’t. This hurt, but didn’t surprise, Dance.

Then the wheel spun again and the J. Doe case in Los Angeles paused at the apogee. What would come of the immunity hearing? Would it be delayed again? And the ultimate outcome? Ernie Seybold was good. But was he good enough?

Dance honestly didn’t know.

This musing in turn led to thoughts of Michael O’Neil. She understood there were reasons that he hadn’t been able to be here tonight. But his not calling? That was unusual.

The Other Case . . .

Dance laughed at the jealousy.

She occasionally tried to picture herself and O’Neil together, had he not been married to svelte and exotic Anne. On the one hand, it was too easy. They’d spent days together on cases, and the hours moved by seamlessly. The conversation flowed, the humor. Yet they also disagreed, sometimes to the point of anger. But she believed their passionate disagreements only added to what they had together.

Whatever that was.

Her thoughts wheeled on, unstoppable.

Click, click, click . . .

At least until they stopped at Professor Jonathan Boling.

And beside her the soft breathing became a soft rattle.

“Okay, that’s it,” Dance said, rolling onto her other side. “Patsy!”

The flat-coat retriever stopped snoring as she awoke and lifted her head off the pillow.

“On the floor,” Dance commanded.

The dog stood, assessed that no food or ball playing figured in the deal and leapt off the bed to join her companion, Dylan, on the shabby rug they used as a futon, leaving Dance once more alone in bed.

Jon Boling, she reflected. Then decided perhaps it was better not to spend much time on him.

Not just yet.

In any case, at that moment, her musings vanished as the mobile phone by the bed, sitting next to her weapon, trilled.

Instantly, she flipped the light on, shoved her glasses on her nose and laughed, seeing the Caller ID.

“Jon,” she said.

“Kathryn,” Boling said. “I’m sorry to call so late.”

“It’s okay. I wasn’t asleep. What’s up? Stryker?”

“No. But there’s something you have to see. The blog—The Chilton Report. You better go online now.”

IN HER SWEATS, the dogs nearby, Dance was sitting in the living room, all the lights off, though moonlight and a shaft of streetlight painted iridescent swatches of blue-white on the pine floor. Her Glock pressed against her spine, the heavy gun tugging down the limp elastic waistband of her sweats.

The computer finished its interminable loading of the software.

“Okay.”

He said, “Look over the latest posting of the blog.” He gave her the URL.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/june 27update.html

She blinked in surprise. “What . . . ?”

Bolling told her, “Travis hacked The Report.”

“How?”

The professor gave a cold laugh. “He’s a teenager, that’s how.”

Dance shivered as she read. Travis had posted a message over the beginning of the June 27 blog. To the left was a crude drawing of the creature Qetzal from DimensionQuest. Around the eerie face, its lips sewn shut and bloody, were cryptic numbers and words. Beside it was a text posting in large, bold letters. It was even more troubling than the picture. Half English, half leetspeak.

I will OWN u all!

i = win, u = fail!!

u r d3ad

3v3ry 1 of u

—post3d by TravisDQ

She didn’t need a translator for this one.

Below this was another picture. The awkward color rendering showed a teenage girl or woman lying on her back, mouth open in a scream, as a hand plunged a sword into her chest. Blood spurted skyward.

“That picture . . . it’s disgusting, Jon.”

After a pause: “Kathryn,” he said in a soft voice. “Do you notice anything about it?”

As she studied the awkward drawing, Dance gave a gasp. The victim had brownish hair, pulled back in a ponytail, and was wearing a white blouse and black skirt. On her belt was a darkened area on the hip, which could have been a weapon holster. The outfit was similar to what Dance had been wearing when she’d met Travis yesterday.

“It’s me?” she whispered to Boling.

The professor said nothing.

Was the picture old, maybe a fantasy about the death of a girl or woman who’d slighted Travis somehow in the past?

Or had he drawn it today, despite the fact he was on the run from the police?

Dance had a chilling image of the boy, hovering over the paper with pencil and crayon, creating this crude depiction of a synth world death he hoped to make real.

THE WIND IS a persistent aspect of the Monterey Peninsula. Usually bracing, sometimes weak or tentative but never absent. Day and night, it churns the blue-gray ocean, which false to its name is never calm.

One of the windiest places for miles around is China Cove, at the south end of Point Lobos State Park. The chill, steady breath from the ocean numbs the skin of hikers, and picnics are a dicey proposition if paper plates and cups figure as the dishware. Sea-birds here labor even to stay in place if they aim into the breeze.

Now, nearly midnight, the wind is fickle, surging and vanishing, and at its strongest, it kicks up towering gray spumes of seawater.

It rustles the scrub oak.

It bends the pine.

It flattens the grasses.

But one thing that’s immune to the wind tonight is a small artifact on the seaside shoulder of Highway 1.

It’s a cross, about two feet high and made of black branches. In the middle is a torn cardboard disk with tomorrow’s date penned in blue. Sitting at the base, weighted down by stones, is a bouquet of red roses. At times petals fly off and skitter across the highway. But the cross itself doesn’t flutter or bend. Clearly it was driven deep into the sandy dirt by the roadside with powerful blows, its creator adamant that it remain upright and visible for all to see.

THURSDAY

Chapter 25

KATHRYN DANCE, TJ SCANLON and Jon Boling were in her office. The time was 9:00 a.m. and they’d been there for close to two hours.

Chilton had removed Travis’s threat and the two pictures from the thread.

But Boling had downloaded them and made copies.

u r d3ad.

3v3ry 1 of u.

And the pictures, too.

Jon Boling said, “It might be possible to trace the posting.” A grimace. “But only if Chilton cooperates.”

“Is there anything in the picture of Qetzal—those numbers and codes and words? Anything that might help?”

Boling said that they were mostly about the game and had probably been made a long time ago. In any case, even the puzzlemaster could find no clues in the weird notations.

The others in the room scrupulously avoided commenting that the second picture, of the stabbing, bore a resemblance to Dance herself.

She was about to phone the blogger, when she got a call. Barking a laugh as she looked at Caller ID, she picked up. “Yes, Mr. Chilton?”

Boling looked at her with an ironic gaze.

“I don’t know if you saw . . . ?”

“We did. Your blog got hacked.”

“The server had good security. The boy’s got to be smart.” A pause. Then the blogger continued, “I wanted to let you know, we tried to trace the hack. He’s using a proxy site somewhere in Scandinavia. I’ve called some friends over there, and they’re pretty certain they know what the company is. I have the name and their address. Phone number too. It’s outside of Stockholm.”

“Will they cooperate?”

Chilton said, “Proxy services rarely do unless there’s a warrant. That’s why people use them, of course.”

An international warrant would be a nightmare procedurally and Dance had never known one to be served earlier than two or three weeks after it was issued. Sometimes the foreign authorities ignored them altogether. But it was something. “Give me the information. I’ll try.”

Chilton did.

“I appreciate your doing this.”

“And there’s something else.”

“What’s that?”

“Are you in the blog now?”

“I can be.”

“Read what I just posted a few minutes ago.”

She logged on.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/june28.html

First was an apology to the readers, surprising Dance with its humility. Then came:

An Open Letter to Travis Brigham

This is a personal plea, Travis. Now that your name is public, I hope you won’t mind my using it.

My job is to report the news, to ask questions, not to get involved in the stories I report on. But I have to get involved now.

Please, Travis, there’s been enough trouble. Don’t make it worse for yourself. It’s not too late to put an end to this terrible situation. Think of your family, think of your future. Please . . . call the police, give yourself up. There are people who want to help you.

Dance said, “That’s brilliant, James. Travis might even contact you about surrendering.”

“And I’ve frozen the thread. Nobody else can post to it.” He was silent for a moment. “That picture . . . it was terrible.”

Welcome to the real world, Chilton.

She thanked him and they hung up. She scrolled to the end of the “Roadside Crosses” thread and read the most recent—and apparently last—posts. Although some seemed to have been posted from overseas, she once again couldn’t help wondering if they contained clues that might help her find Travis or anticipate his next moves. But she could draw no conclusions from the cryptic postings.

Dance logged off and told TJ and Boling about what Chilton had written.

Boling wasn’t sure it would have much effect—the boy, in his assessment, was past reasoning with. “But we’ll hope.”

Dance doled out assignments; TJ retreated to his chair at the coffee table to contact the Scandinavian proxy, and Boling to his corner to check out the names of possible victims from a new batch of Internet addresses—including those who’d posted to threads other than “Roadside Crosses.” He’d identified thirteen more.

Charles Overby, in a politician’s blue suit and white shirt, stepped into Dance’s office. His greeting: “Kathryn . . . say, Kathryn, what’s this about the kid posting threats?”

“Right, Charles. We’re trying to find out where he hacked in from.”

“Six reporters have already called me. And a couple of them got my home phone number. I’ve put them off but I can’t wait anymore. I’m holding a press conference in twenty minutes. What can I tell them?”

“That the investigation is continuing. We’re getting some manpower help from San Benito for the search. There’ve been sightings but nothing’s panned out.”

“Hamilton called me too. He’s pretty upset.”

Sacramento’s Hamilton Royce, of the too-blue suit, the quick eyes and the ruddy complexion.

Agent in Charge Overby had had a rather eventful morning, it seemed.

“Anything more?”

“Chilton’s stopped the posts on the thread and asked Travis to surrender.”

“Anything tech, I mean?”

“Well, he’s helping us trace the boy’s uploads.”

“Good. So we’re doing something.”

He meant: something the viewers of prime-time TV would appreciate. As opposed to the sweaty, unstylish police work they’d been engaged in the last forty-eight hours. Dance caught Boling’s eye, which said he too was taken aback by the comment. They looked away from each other immediately before a shared look of shock bloomed.

Overby glanced at his watch. “All right. My turn in the barrel.” He wandered off to the press conference.

“Does he know what that expression means?” Boling asked her.

“About the barrel? I don’t know, myself.”

TJ gave a chortling laugh but said nothing. He smiled at Boling, who said, “It’s a joke I won’t repeat. It involves horny sailors out to sea for a long time.”

“Thanks for not sharing.” Dance dropped into her desk chair, sipped the coffee that had materialized and, what the hell, went for half of the doughnut that also had appeared as a gift from the gods.

“Has Travis—well, Stryker—been back online?” she called to Jon Boling.

“Nope. Haven’t heard from Irv. But he’ll be sure to let us know. I don’t think he’s ever slept. He’s got Red Bull in his veins.”

Dance picked up the phone and called Peter Bennington at MCSO forensics for the latest information on the evidence. The gist was that while there was by now plenty of evidence to get a murder conviction against Travis, there were no leads as to where he might be hiding out, except those traces of soil they’d found earlier—a location different from that where the cross had been left. David Reinhold, that eager young deputy from the sheriff’s office, had taken it on himself to collect samples from around Travis’s house; the dirt didn’t match.

Sandy soil . . . So helpful, Dance reflected cynically, in an area that boasted more than fifteen miles of the most beautiful beaches and dunes in the state.

DESPITE HIS ABILITY to report that the CBI was “doing something techie,” Charles Overby got T-boned at the press conference.

The TV in Dance’s office was on and they were able to watch the crash live.

Dance’s briefing to Overby had been accurate, except for one small detail, albeit one she hadn’t known.

“Agent Overby,” a reporter asked, “what are you doing to protect the community in light of the new cross?”

Deer in the headlights.

“Uh-oh,” TJ whispered.

Shocked, Dance looked from him to Boling. Then back to the screen.

The reporter continued that she’d heard a report a half hour earlier on a radio scanner. Carmel police had found another cross with today’s date, June 28, near China Cove on Highway 1.

Overby sputtered in response, “I was briefed just before coming here by the agent in charge of the case, and she apparently wasn’t aware of it.”

There were two senior women agents in the Monterey office of the CBI. It would be easy to find out who the “she” in question was.

Oh, you son of a bitch, Charles.

She heard another reporter ask, “Agent Overby, what do you say to the fact that the town, the whole Peninsula’s in a panic? There’ve been reports of homeowners shooting at innocent people who happen to walk into their yards.”

A pause. “Well, that’s not good.”

Oh, brother . . .

Dance shut the TV off. She called the MCSO and learned that, yes, another cross, with today’s date, had been found near China Cove. A bouquet of red roses too. Crime Scene was collecting the evidence and searching the area.

“There were no witnesses, Agent Dance,” the deputy added.

After she hung up, Dance turned to TJ. “What do the Swedes tell us?”

TJ had phoned the proxy service company and left two urgent messages. They had not returned his call yet, despite it being a business day in Stockholm and only past lunchtime.

Five minutes later Overby stormed into the office. “Another cross? Another cross? What the hell happened?”

“I just found out about it myself, Charles.”

“How the hell did they hear?”

“The press? Scanners, contacts. The way they always find out what we’re doing.”

Overby rubbed his tanned forehead. Skin flakes drifted. “Well, where are we with it?”

“Michael’s people are running the scene. If there’s evidence they’ll let us know.”

“If there’s evidence.”

“He’s a teenager, Charles, not a pro. He’s going to leave some clues that’ll lead us to where he’s hiding. Sooner or later.”

“But if he left a cross that means he’s also going to try to kill somebody today.”

“We’re contacting as many people as we can find who might be at risk.”

“And the computer tracing? What’s going on there?”

TJ said, “The company’s not calling us back. We’ve got Legal putting together a foreign warrant request.”

The head of the office grimaced. “That’s just great. Where’s the proxy?”

“Sweden.”

“They’re better than the Bulgarians,” Overby said, “but it’ll be a month before they even get around to responding. Send the request, to cover our asses, but don’t waste time on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Overby stormed off, fishing his mobile out of his pocket.

Dance snagged her own phone and called Rey Carraneo and Albert Stemple into her office. When they arrived she announced, “I’m tired of being on the defensive here. I want to pick the top five or six potential victims—the ones who’ve posted the most vicious attacks on Travis, and the posters who’re the most supportive of Chilton. We’re going to get them out of the area and then set up surveillance at their houses or apartments. He’s got a new victim in mind and when he shows up, I want him to get one big goddamn surprise. Let’s get on it.”

Chapter 26

“HOW’S HE HOLDING up?” Lily Hawken asked her husband, Donald.

“James? He’s not saying much but it’s got to be tough on him. Patrizia too, I’m sure.”

They were in the den of their new house in Monterey.

Unpacking, unpacking, unpacking . . .

The petite blonde stood in the middle of the room, feet apart slightly, looking down at two plastic bags of drapes. “What do you think?”

Hawken was a bit overwhelmed at the moment and couldn’t care less about window treatments, but his wife of nine months and three days had taken on much of the burden of the move from San Diego and so he set down the tools he was using to assemble the coffee table and looked from the red to the rust and back again.

“The ones on the left.” Remaining ready to retreat at a moment’s notice if that was the wrong answer.

But it was apparently correct. “That’s where I was leaning,” she said. “And the police have a guard at his house? They think the boy is going to attack him?”

Hawken resumed assembling the table. Ikea. Damn, they have some pretty clever designers. “He doesn’t think so. But you know Jim. Even if he did, he’s not the sort to head for the hills.”

Then he reflected that Lily didn’t really know James Chilton at all; she hadn’t even met him yet. It was only through what he’d told her that she had an understanding of his friend.

Just as he knew about many aspects of her life from conversation and hint and deduction. Such was life under these circumstances—second marriages for both of them; he, coming out of mourning, Lily, recovering from a tough divorce. They’d met through friends and had started dating. Wary at first, they’d realized almost simultaneously how starved for intimacy and affection they were. Hawken, a man who hadn’t believed that he would ever get married again, proposed after six months—on the gritty rooftop beach bar of the W hotel in downtown San Diego, because he couldn’t wait to plot out a more suitable setting.

Lily, though, had described the event as the most romantic thing she could think of. The large diamond ring on a white ribbon slipped over the neck of her Anchor Steam bottle helped.

And here they were starting a new life back in Monterey.

Donald Hawken assessed his situation and decided that he was happy. Boyishly happy. Friends had told him that a second marriage after losing a spouse was different. As a widower he would have changed fundamentally. He wouldn’t be capable of that adolescent feeling permeating every cell of his being. There’d be companionship, there’d be moments of passion. But the relationship would essentially be a friendship.

Wrong.

It was adolescent and more.

He’d had an intense, consuming marriage to Sarah, who was sultry and beautiful and a woman one could be intensely in love with, as Hawken had been.

But his love for Lily was just as strong.

And, okay, he’d finally gotten to the point where he could admit that the sex was better with Lily—in the sense that it was far more comfortable. In bed Sarah had been, well, formidable, to put it mildly. (Hawken now nearly smiled at some memories.)

He wondered how Lily would feel about Jim and Pat Chilton. Hawken had told her how they’d been such close friends, the couples getting together frequently. Attending their kids’ school and sports events, parties, barbecues . . . He’d noticed Lily’s smile shift slightly when he’d told her about this past. But he’d reassured her that, in a way, Jim Chilton was a stranger to him too. Hawken had been so depressed after Sarah’s death that he’d lost contact with nearly all his friends.

But now he was returning to life. He and Lily would finish getting the house ready and then collect the children, who were staying with their grandparents in Encinitas. And his life would settle back into the pleasant routine on the Peninsula he remembered from years before. He’d reconnect with his best friend, Jim Chilton, rejoin the country club, see all his friends again.

Yes, this was the right move. But a cloud had appeared. Small, temporary, he was sure, but a blemish nonetheless.

By coming to the place that had been his and Sarah’s home, it was as if he’d resurrected a part of her. The memories popped like fireworks:

Here in Monterey, Sarah being the thoughtful hostess, the passionate art collector, the shrewd businesswoman.

Here, Sarah being the sultry, energetic and consuming lover.

Here, Sarah intrepidly donning a wetsuit and swimming in the harsh ocean, climbing out, chilled and exhilarated—unlike her last swim, near La Jolla, not climbing out of the water at all, but wafting into the shore, limp, eyes open and unseeing, her skin matching the water temperature degree for degree.

At this thought, Hawken’s heart now added an extra beat or two.

Then he took several deep breaths and slipped the memories away. “Want a hand?” He glanced at Lily and the drapes.

His wife paused, then set down her work. She approached, took his hand and put it on the V of skin below her throat. She kissed him hard.

They smiled at each other, and his wife returned to the windows.

Hawken finished the glass-and-chrome table and dragged it in front of the couch.

“Honey?” The tape measure was drooping in Lily’s hand and she was looking out the back window.

“What?”

“I think somebody’s out there.”

“Where, in the backyard?”

“I don’t know if it’s our property. It’s on the other side of the hedge.”

“Then it’s definitely somebody else’s yard.”

Your dollar doesn’t buy you much dirt here on the Central Coast of California.

“He’s just standing there, looking at the house.”

“Probably wondering if a rock-and-roll band or druggies are moving in.”

She climbed down a step. “Just standing there,” she repeated. “I don’t know, honey, it’s a little spooky.”

Hawken walked to the window and looked out. From this perspective he couldn’t see much, but it was clear that a figure was peering through the bushes. He wore a gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up.

“Maybe the neighbor’s kid. They’re always curious about people moving in. Wondering if we have kids their age. I was.”

Lily wasn’t saying anything. He could sense her discomfort, as she stood with her narrow hips cocked, frowning eyes framed by blond hair flecked with moving-carton-cardboard dust.

Time for the chivalry part.

Hawken walked into the kitchen and pulled open the back door. The visitor was gone.

He stepped out farther, then heard his wife call, “Honey!”

Alarmed, Hawken turned and sped back inside.

Lily, still on the ladder, was pointing out another window. The visitor had moved into the side yard—definitely on their property now, though still obscured by plantings.

“Damnit. Who the hell is he?”

He glanced at the phone but decided not to call 911. What if it was the neighbor or the neighbor’s son? That would pretty much ruin any chance for a friendship forever.

When he looked back the figure was gone.

Lily climbed off the ladder. “Where is he? He just vanished. Fast.”

“No idea.”

They gazed out the windows, scanning.

No sign of him.

This was far spookier, not being able to see him.

“I think we should—”

Hawken’s voice stopped with a gasp as Lily cried, “A gun—he’s got a gun, Don!” She was staring out a front window.

Her husband grabbed his phone, calling to his wife, “The door! Lock it.”

Lily lunged.

But she was too late.

The door was already swinging wide.

Lily screamed and Don Hawken pulled her to the floor beneath him, in a noble but, he understood, useless gesture to save the life of his bride.

Chapter 27

OURS OF OPERA . . .

Sitting in Kathryn Dance’s office, alone now, Jonathan Boling was cruising through Travis Brigham’s computer, in a frantic pursuit of the meaning of the code.

ours of opera . . .

He was sitting forward, typing fast, thinking that if Dance had been here, the kinesics expert within her could have drawn some fast conclusions from his posture and the focus of his eyes: He was a dog scenting prey.

Jon Boling was on to something.

Dance and the others were out at the moment, setting up surveillance. Boling had remained in her office to prowl through the boy’s computer. He’d found a clue and was now trying to locate more data that would let him crack the code.

ours of opera . . .

What did it mean?

A curious aspect of computers is that these crazy plastic and metal boxes contain ghosts. A computer hard drive is like a network of secret passages and corridors, leading farther and farther into the architecture of computer memory. It’s possible—with considerable difficulty—to exorcise these hallways and rid them of the ghosts of data past, but usually most bits of information we’ve created or acquired remain forever, invisible and fragmented.

Boling was now wandering these hallways, using a program one of his students had hacked together, reading the scraps of data lodged in obscure places, like the wisps of souls inhabiting a haunted house.

Thinking of ghosts put him in mind of the DVD Kathryn Dance’s son had lent him last night. Ghost in the Shell. He reflected on the nice time he’d had at her house, how much he’d enjoyed meeting her friends and family. The children especially. Maggie was adorable and funny and would, he knew without a doubt, become a woman every bit as formidable as her mother. Wes was more laid-back. He was easy to talk to and brilliant. Boling often speculated about what his own children would have been like if he’d settled down with Cassie.

He thought of her now, hoped she was enjoying her life in China.

Recalled the weeks prior to her leaving.

And withdrew his generous wishes about contentment in Asia.

Then Boling put thoughts of Cassandra aside, and concentrated on his ghost hunt in the computer. He was getting close to something important in that shred of binary code that translated into the English letters ours of opera.

Boling’s puzzle-loving mind, which could often be counted on to come up with curious leaps of logic and insight, automatically concluded that those words were fragments of “hours of operation.” Travis had looked at that phrase online just before he’d vanished. The implication of this was that perhaps, just perhaps, these words referred to a location the boy was interested in.

But computers don’t store related data in the same place. The code for “ours of opera” might be found in a spooky closet in the basement, while the name of whatever they referred to could be in a hallway in the attic. Part of the physical address in one place, the rest in another. The brain of a computer is constantly making decisions about breaking up the data and storing bits and pieces in places that make sense to it but are incomprehensible to a layperson.

And so Boling was following the trail, strolling through the dark corridors filled with spooks.

He didn’t think he’d been this engaged in a project for months, maybe years. Jonathan Boling enjoyed university work. He was curious by nature and he liked the challenge of research and writing, the stimulating conversations with fellow faculty members and with his students, getting young people excited about learning. Seeing the eyes of a student intensify suddenly when random facts coalesced into understanding was pure pleasure to him.

But at the moment, those satisfactions and victories seemed minor. Now, he was on a mission to save lives. And nothing else mattered to him but unlocking the code.

ours of opera . . .

He looked at another storeroom in the haunted house. Nothing but jumbled bits and bytes. Another false lead.

More typing.

Nothing.

Boling stretched and a joint popped loudly. Come on, Travis, why were you interested in this place? What appealed to you about it?

And do you still go there? Does a friend work there? Do you buy something from its shelves, display cases, aisles?

Ten more minutes.

Give up?

No way.

Then he strolled into a new part of the haunted house. He blinked and gave a laugh. Like joining pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the answer to the code “ours of opera” materialized.

As he gazed at the name of the place, its relationship to Travis Brigham was ridiculously obvious. The professor was angry at himself for not deducing it even without the digital clue. Looking up the address, he pulled his phone off his belt and called Kathryn Dance. It rang four times and went to voice mail.

He was about to leave a message, but then he looked at his notes. The place wasn’t far from where he was right now. No more than fifteen minutes.

He flipped the phone shut with a soft snap and stood, pulled on his jacket.

With an involuntary glance at the picture of Dance and her children, dogs front and center, he stepped out of her office and headed for the front door of the CBI.

Aware that what he was about to do was possibly a very bad idea, Jon Boling left the synth world to continue his quest in the real.

“IT’S CLEAR,” REY Carraneo told Kathryn Dance as he returned to the living room where she stood over Donald and Lily Hawken. Dance’s pistol was in her hand as she was looking vigilantly out the windows and into the rooms of the small house.

The couple, shaken and unsmiling, sat on a new couch, the factory plastic wrap still covering it.

Dance replaced her Glock. She hadn’t expected the boy to be inside—he’d been hiding in the side yard and had appeared to flee when the police arrived—but Travis’s expertise at the game of DimensionQuest, his skill at combat, made her wonder if the teenager had somehow seemed to escape but had actually slipped inside.

The door opened and massive Albert Stemple stuck his head in. “Nup. He’s gone.” The man was wheezing—both from the pursuit and from the residual effects of the gas at Kelley Morgan’s house. “Got the deputy lookin’ up and down the streets. And we got a half dozen more cars on the way. Somebody saw somebody in a hooded sweatshirt on a bicycle heading through the alleys, making for downtown. I called it in. But . . .” He shrugged. Then the bulky agent vanished and his boots clomped down the steps as he went to join in the manhunt.

Dance, Carraneo, Stemple and the MCSO deputy had arrived ten minutes ago. As they’d been meeting with likely targets, an idea had occurred to Dance. She thought about Jon Boling’s theory: that, expanding his targets, Travis might include people merely mentioned favorably in the blog, even if they hadn’t posted.

Dance had gone to the site once again and read through the blog’s homepage.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com

One name that stood out was Donald Hawken, an old friend of James Chilton’s, who was mentioned in the “On the Home Front” section. Hawken might be the victim for whom Travis had left the cross on the windswept stretch of Highway 1.

So they’d driven to the man’s house, their purpose to get Hawken and his wife out of danger and set up surveillance at the house.

But upon arriving, Dance had seen a figure in a hood, possibly holding a gun, lurking in the bushes to the side of the ranch. She’d sent Albert Stemple and the MCSO deputy after the intruder, and Rey Carraneo, with Dance behind him, barged into the house, guns drawn, to protect Hawken and his wife.

They were still badly shaken; they’d assumed Carraneo was the killer when the plainclothes agent had burst through the door, his weapon high.

Dance’s Motorola crackled and she answered. It was Stemple again. “I’m in the backyard. Got a cross carved into this patch of dirt and rose petals scattered around it.”

“Roger that, Al.”

Lily closed her eyes, lowered her head to her husband’s shoulder.

Four or five minutes, Dance was thinking. If we’d gotten here just that much later, the couple would be dead.

“Why us?” Hawken asked. “We didn’t do anything to him. We didn’t post. We don’t even know him.”

Dance explained about the boy’s expanding his targets.

“You mean, anybody even mentioned in the blog’s at risk?”

“Seems that way.”

Dozens of police had descended on the area within minutes, but the calls coming in made clear that Travis was nowhere to be found.

How the hell does a kid on a bicycle get away? Dance thought, frustrated. He just vanishes. Where? Somebody’s basement? An abandoned construction site?

Outside, the first of the press cars were beginning to arrive, the vans with the dishes atop, the cameramen prodding their equipment to life.

About to stoke the panic in town that much hotter.

More police showed up too, including several bicycle patrol officers.

Dance now asked Hawken, “You still have your house in the San Diego area?”

Lily replied, “It’s on the market. Hasn’t sold yet.”

“I’d like you to go back there.”

“Well,” he said, “there’s no furniture. It’s in storage.”

“You have people you can stay with?”

“My parents. Donald’s children are staying with them now.”

“Then go back there until we find Travis.”

“I guess we could,” Lily said.

“You go,” Hawken said to her. “I’m not leaving Jim.”

“There’s nothing you can do to help him,” Dance said.

“There sure is. I can give him moral support. This is a terrible time. He needs friends.”

Dance continued, “I’m sure he appreciates your loyalty, but look at what just happened. That boy knows where you live and he obviously wants to hurt you.”

“You might catch him in a half hour.”

“We might not. I really have to insist, Mr. Hawken.”

The man showed a bit of businessman’s steel. “I won’t leave him.” Then the edge left his voice as he added, “I have to explain something.” The smallest of glances at his wife. A pause, then: “My first wife, Sarah, died a couple of years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

The dismissive shrug that Dance knew oh so well.

“Jim dropped everything; he was at my door within the hour. He stayed by me and the children for a week. Helped us and Sarah’s family with everything. Food, the funeral arrangements. He even took turns with the housework and laundry. I was paralyzed. I just couldn’t do anything. I think he might’ve saved my life back then. He certainly saved my sanity.”

Again Dance couldn’t suppress the memories of the months after her own spouse’s death—when Martine Christensen, much like Chilton, had been there for her. Dance would never have hurt herself, not with the children, but there were plenty of times when, yes, she thought she might go mad.

She understood Donald Hawken’s loyalty.

“I’m not leaving,” the man repeated firmly. “There’s no point in asking.” Then he hugged his wife. “But you go back. I want you to leave.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Lily said, “No, I’m staying with you.”

Dance noted the look. Adoration, contentment, resolve . . . Her own heart flipped as she thought, He lost his first spouse, recovered and found love again.

It can happen, Dance thought. See?

Then she closed the door on her own life.

“All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “But you’re leaving here right now. Find a hotel and stay there, stay out of sight. And we’re going to put a guard on you.”

“That’s fine.”

It was then that a car screeched to a stop in front of the house, a voice shouting in alarm. She and Carraneo stepped out onto the porch.

“S’okay,” Albert Stemple said, his voice a lazy drawl, minus the Southern accent. “Only Chilton.”

The blogger had apparently heard the news and hurried over. He raced up the steps. “What happened?” Dance was surprised to hear panic in his voice. She’d detected anger, pettiness, arrogance earlier, but never this sound. “Are they all right?”

“Fine,” she said. “Travis was here, but Donald’s fine. His wife too.”

“What happened?” The collar of the blogger’s jacket was askew.

Hawken and Lily stepped outside. “Jim!”

Chilton ran forward and embraced his friend. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes. The police got here in time.”

“Did you catch him?” Chilton asked.

“No,” Dance said, expecting Chilton to launch into criticism for their not capturing the boy. But he took her hand firmly and gripped it. “Thank you, thank you. You saved them. Thank you.”

She nodded awkwardly and released his hand. Then Chilton turned to Lily with a smile of curiosity.

Dance deduced that they’d never met before, not in person. Hawken introduced them now and Chilton gave Lily a warm embrace. “I’m so sorry about this. I never, not in a million years, thought it would affect you.”

“Who would have?” Hawken asked.

With a rueful smile, Chilton said to his friend, “With an introduction to the Monterey Peninsula like this, she’s not going to want to stay. She’s going to move back tomorrow.”

Lily finally cracked a fragile smile. “I would. Except we’ve already bought the drapes.” A nod at the house.

Chilton laughed. “She’s funny, Don. Why doesn’t she stay and you go back to San Diego?”

“Afraid you’re stuck with both of us.”

Chilton then grew serious. “You have to leave until this is over.”

Dance said, “I’ve been trying to talk them into that.”

“We’re not leaving.”

“Don—” Chilton began.

But Hawken laughed, nodding at Dance. “I have police permission. She agreed. We’re going to hide out in a hotel. Like Bonnie and Clyde.”

“But—”

“No buts, buddy. We’re here. You can’t get rid of us now.”

Chilton opened his mouth to object, but then noted Lily’s wry grin. She said, “You don’t want to be telling this girl what to do, Jim.”

The blogger gave another laugh and said, “Fair enough. Thank you. Get to a hotel. Stay there. In a day or two this’ll all be over with. Things’ll get back to normal.”

Hawken said, “I haven’t seen Pat and the boys since I left. Over three years.”

Dance eyed the blogger. Something else about him was different. Her impression was that she was seeing for the first time his human side, as if this near-tragedy had pulled him yet further from the synth world into the real.

The crusader was, at least temporarily, absent.

She left them to their reminiscences and walked around back. A voice from the bushes startled her. “Hello.”

She looked behind her to see the young deputy who’d been helping them out, David Reinhold.

“Deputy.”

He grinned. “Call me David. I heard he was here. You almost nailed him.”

“Close. Not close enough.”

He was carrying several battered metal suitcases, stenciled with MCSO—CSU on the side. “Sorry I couldn’t tell anything for certain about those branches in your backyard—that cross.”

“I couldn’t tell either. Probably it was just a fluke. If I trimmed the trees like I should, it never would’ve happened.”

His bright eyes glanced her way. “You have a nice house.”

“Thanks. Despite the messy backyard.”

“No. It’s real comfortable-looking.”

She asked the deputy, “And how ’bout you, David? You live in Monterey?”

“I did. Had a roommate, but he left, so I had to move to Marina.”

“Well, appreciate your efforts. I’ll put in a good word with Michael O’Neil.”

“Really, Kathryn? That’d be great.” He glowed.

Reinhold turned away and began cordoning off the backyard. Dance stared at what was in the center of the yellow tape trapezoid: the cross etched into the dirt and the sprinkling of petals.

From there, her eyes rose and took in the sweeping decline from the heights of Monterey down to the bay, where a sliver of water could be seen.

It was a panoramic view, beautiful.

But today it seemed as disturbing as the terrible mask of Qetzal, the demon in DimensionQuest.

You’re out there somewhere, Travis.

Where, where?

Chapter 28

PLAYING COP.

Tracking down Travis the way Jack Bauer chased terrorists.

Jon Boling had a lead: the possible location from which Travis had sent the blog posting of the mask drawing and the horrific stabbing of the woman who looked a bit like Kathryn Dance. The place where the boy would be playing his precious DimensionQuest.

The “hours of operation” he’d found in the ghostly corridors of Travis’s computer referred to Lighthouse Arcade, a video and computer gaming center in New Monterey.

The boy would be taking a risk going out in public, of course, considering the manhunt. But if he picked his routes carefully, wore sunglasses and a cap and something other than the hoodie the TV reports were depicting him in, well, he could probably move around with some freedom.

Besides, when it came to online gaming and Morpegs, an addict had no choice but to risk detection.

Boling piloted his Audi off the highway and onto Del Monte then Lighthouse and headed into the neighborhood where the arcade was located.

He was enjoying a certain exhilaration. Here he was, a forty-one-year-old professor, who lived largely by his brain. He’d never thought of himself as suffering from an absence of bravery. He’d done some rock climbing, scuba diving, downhill skiing. Then too, the world of ideas carried risk of harm—to careers and reputations and contentment. He’d battled it out with fellow professors. He also had been a victim of vicious online attacks, much like those against Travis, though with better spelling, grammar and punctuation. Most recently he’d been attacked for taking a stand against file sharing of copyrighted material.

He hadn’t expected the viciousness of the attacks. He was trounced . . . called a “fucking capitalist,” a “bitch whore of big business.” Boling particularly liked “professor of mass destruction.”

Some colleagues actually stopped talking to him.

But the harm he’d experienced, of course, was nothing compared with what Kathryn Dance and her fellow officers risked day after day.

And which he himself was now risking, he reflected.

Playing cop . . .

Boling realized that he’d been helpful to Kathryn and the others. He was pleased about that and pleased at their recognition of his contribution. But being so close to the action, hearing the phone calls, watching Kathryn’s face as she took down information about the crimes, seeing her hand absently stroke the black gun on her hip . . . he felt a longing to participate.

And anything else, Jon? he wryly asked himself.

Well, okay, maybe he was trying to impress her.

Absurd, but he’d felt a bit of jealousy seeing her and Michael O’Neil connect.

You’re acting like a goddamn teenager.

Still, something about her lit the fuse. Boling had never been able to explain it—who could, really?—when that connection occurred. And it happened fast or never. Dance was single, he was too. He’d gotten over Cassie (okay, pretty much over); was Kathryn getting close to dating again? He believed he’d gotten a few signals from her. But what did he know? He had none of her skill—body language.

More to the point, he was a man, a species genetically fitted with persistent oblivion.

Boling now parked his gray A4 near Lighthouse Arcade, on a side street in that netherworld north of Pacific Grove. He remembered when this strip of small businesses and smaller apartments, dubbed New Monterey, had been a mini–Haight Ashbury, tucked between a brawling army town and a religious retreat. (Pacific Grove’s Lovers Point was named for lovers of Jesus, not one another.) Now the area was as bland as a strip mall in Omaha or Seattle.

The Lighthouse Arcade was dim and shabby and smelled, well, gamy—a pun he couldn’t wait to share with her.

He surveyed the surreal place. The players—most of them boys—sat at terminals, staring at the screens, teasing joysticks and pounding on keyboards. The playing stations had high, curving walls covered with black sound-dampening material, and the chairs were comfortable, high-backed leather models.

Everything a young man would need for a digital experience was here. In addition to the computers and keyboards there were noise-cancelling headsets, microphones, touch pads, input devices like car steering wheels and airplane yokes, three-D glasses, and banks of sockets for power, USB, Firewire, audiovisual and more obscure connections. Some had Wii devices.

Boling had written about the latest trend in gaming: total immersion pods, which had originated in Japan, where kids would sit for hours and hours in a dark, private space, completely sealed off from the real world, to play computer games. This was a logical development in a country known for hikikomori, or “withdrawal,” an increasingly common lifestyle in which young people, boys and men mostly, became recluses, never leaving their rooms for months or years at a time, living exclusively through their computers.

The noise was disorienting: a cacophony of digitally generated sounds—explosions, gunshots, animal cries, eerie shrieks and laughs—and an ocean of indistinguishable human voices speaking into microphones to fellow gamers somewhere in the world. Responses rattled from speakers. Occasionally cries and expletives would issue hoarsely from the throats of desperate players as they died or realized a tactical mistake.

The Lighthouse Arcade, typical of thousands around the globe, represented the last outpost of the real world before you plunged into the synth.

Boling felt a vibration on his hip. He looked down at his mobile. The message from Irv, his grad student, read: Stryker logged on five minutes ago in DQ!!

As if he’d been slapped, Boling looked around. Was Travis here? Because of the enclosures, it was impossible to see more than one or two stations at a time.

At the counter a long-haired clerk sat oblivious to the noise; he was reading a science fiction novel. Boling approached. “I’m looking for a kid, a teenager.”

The clerk lifted an ironic eyebrow.

I’m looking for a tree in a forest.

“Yeah?”

“He’s playing DimensionQuest. Did you sign somebody in about five minutes ago?”

“There’s no sign-in. You use with tokens. You can buy ’em here or from a machine.” The clerk was looking Boling over carefully. “You his father?”

“No. Just want to find him.”

“I can look over the servers. Find out if anybody’s logged onto DQ now.”

“You could?”

“Yeah.”

“Great.”

But the kid wasn’t making any moves to check the servers; he was just staring at Boling through a frame of unclean hair.

Ah. Got it. We’re negotiating. Sweet. Very private-eye-ish, Boling thought. A moment later two twenties vanished into the pocket of the kid’s unwashed jeans.

“His avatar’s name is Stryker, if that helps,” Boling told him.

A grunt. “Be back in a minute.” He vanished onto the floor. Boling saw him emerge on the far side of the room and walk toward the back office.

Five minutes later he returned.

“Somebody named Stryker, yeah, he’s playing DQ. Just logged on. Station forty-three. It’s over there.”

“Thanks.”

“Uh.” The clerk went back to his S-F novel.

Boling, thinking frantically: What should he do? Have the clerk evacuate the arcade? No, then Travis would catch on. He should just call 911. But he better see if the boy was alone. Would he have his gun with him?

He had a fantasy of walking past casually, ripping the gun from the boy’s belt and covering him till the police arrived.

No. Don’t do that. Under any circumstances.

Palms sweating, Boling slowly walked toward station 43. He took a fast look around the corner. The computer had the Aetherian landscape on the screen, but the chair was empty.

Nobody was in the aisles, though. Station 44 was empty but at 42 a girl with short green hair was playing a martial arts game.

Boling walked up to her. “Excuse me.”

The girl was delivering crippling blows to an opponent. Finally the creature fell over dead and her avatar climbed on top of the body and pulled its head off. “Like, yeah?” She didn’t glance up.

“The boy who was just here, playing DQ. Where is he?”

“Like, I don’t know. Jimmy walked past and said something and he left. A minute ago.”

“Who’s Jimmy?”

“You know, the clerk.”

Goddamn! I just paid forty dollars to that shit to tip off Travis. Some cop I am.

Boling glared at the clerk, who remained conspicuously lost in his novel.

The professor slammed through the exit door and sprinted outside. His eyes, accustomed to the darkness, stung. He paused in the alleyway, squinting left and right. Then caught a glimpse of a young man, walking quickly away, head down.

Don’t do anything stupid, he told himself. He pulled his BlackBerry from its holster.

Ahead of him, the boy broke into a run.

After exactly one second of debate, Jon Boling did too.

Chapter 29

HAMILTON ROYCE, THE ombudsman from the attorney general’s office in Sacramento, disconnected the phone. It drooped in his hand as he reflected on the conversation he’d just had—a conversation conducted in the language known as Political and Corporate Euphemism.

He lingered in the halls of the CBI, considering options.

Finally he returned to Charles Overby’s office.

The agent-in-charge was sitting back in his chair watching a press report about the case streaming on his computer. How the police had come close to catching the killer at the house of a friend of the blogger’s but had missed him and he’d escaped possibly to terrorize more people on the Monterey Peninsula.

Royce reflected that simply reporting that the police had saved the friend didn’t have quite the stay-tuned-or-else veneer of the approach the network had chosen to take.

Overby typed and a different station came up. The special report anchor apparently preferred Travis to be the “Video Game Killer,” rather than defining him by masks or roadside crosses. He went on to describe how the boy tormented his victims before he killed them.

Never mind that only one person had died or that the bastard got shot in the back of the head, fleeing. Which would tend to minimize the torment.

Finally he said, “Well, Charles, they’re getting more concerned. The AG.” He lifted his phone like he was showing a shield during a bust.

“We’re all pretty concerned,” Overby echoed. “The whole Peninsula’s concerned. It’s really our priority now. Like I was saying.” His face was cloudy. “But is Sacramento having a problem with how we’re handling the case?”

“Not per se.” Royce let this nonresponse buzz around Overby’s head like a strident hornet.

“We’re doing everything we can.”

“I like that agent of yours. Dance.”

“Oh, she’s top-notch. Nothing gets by her.”

A leisurely nod, a thoughtful nod. “The AG feels bad about those victims. I feel bad about them.” Royce poured sympathy into his voice, and tried to recall the last time he really felt bad. Probably when he missed his daughter’s emergency appendectomy because he was in bed with his mistress.

“A tragedy.”

“I know I’m sounding like a broken record. But I really do feel that that blog is the problem.”

“It is,” Overby agreed. “It’s the eye of the hurricane.”

Which is calm and frames a beautiful blue sky, Royce corrected silently.

The CBI chief offered, “Well, Kathryn did get Chilton to post a plea for the boy to come in. And he gave us some details about the server—a proxy in Scandinavia.”

“I understand. It’s just . . . as long as that blog’s up, it’s a reminder that the job isn’t getting done.” Meaning: By you. “I keep coming back to that question about something helpful to us, something about Chilton.”

“Kathryn said she’d keep an eye peeled.”

“She’s busy. I wonder if there’s something in what she’s already found. I don’t really want to deflect Agent Dance from the case. I wonder if I should take a gander.”

“You?”

“You wouldn’t mind, would you, Charles? If I just took a peek at the files. I could bring perspective. My impression, actually, is that Kathryn’s maybe too kind.”

“Too kind?”

“You were sharp, Charles, to hire her.” The agent in charge accepted this compliment, though, Royce knew, Kathryn Dance had predated Overby’s presence in the CBI here by four years. He continued, “Clever. You saw she was an antidote to the cynicism of old roosters like you and me. But the price of that is a certain . . . naivete.”

“You think she’s got something on Chilton and doesn’t know it?”

“Could be.”

Overby was looking tense. “Well, I’ll apologize for her. Put it down to distraction, why don’t we? Her mother’s case. Not focusing up to par. She’s doing the best she can.”

Hamilton Royce was known for his ruthlessness. But he would never have sold out a loyal member of his team with a comment like that. He reflected that it was almost impressive to see the top three darker qualities of human nature displayed so boldly: cowardice, pettiness and betrayal. “Is she in?”

“Let me find out.” Overby made a call and spoke to someone who Royce deduced was Dance’s assistant. He hung up.

“She’s still at the crime scene at the Hawken house.”

“So, then, I’ll just have a look-see.” But then Royce seemed to have a thought. “Of course, probably better if I weren’t disturbed.”

“Here’s an idea. I’ll call her assistant back, ask her to do something. Run an errand. There are always reports needing to get copied. Or, I know: get her input about workload and hours. It would make sense for me to take her pulse. I’m that kind of boss. She’d never suspect anything’s out of the ordinary.”

Royce left Overby’s office, walked down corridors whose routes he’d memorized, and paused near Dance’s. He waited in the hallway until he saw that the assistant—an efficient-looking woman named Maryellen—took a call. Then, with a perplexed frown, she stood and headed up the corridor, leaving Hamilton Royce free to plunder.

WHEN HE GOT to the end of the alley, Jon Boling paused and looked to the right, down a side street, in the direction that Travis had disappeared. From here the ground descended toward Monterey Bay and was filled with small single-family bungalows, beige and tan apartment buildings and abundant groundcover. Though Lighthouse Avenue, behind him, was ripe with traffic the side road was empty. Thick fog had come up and the scenery was gray.

Well, now that the kid had gotten away, he thought, Kathryn Dance wasn’t likely to be very impressed with his detection work.

He called 911 and reported that he’d seen Travis Brigham and gave his location. The dispatcher reported that a police car would be at the arcade in five minutes.

Okay, that was enough of the adolescent behavior, he told himself. His skill was academia, teaching, intellectual analysis.

The world of ideas, not action.

He turned around to head back to the arcade to meet the police car. But then a thought occurred to him: that this quest of his maybe wasn’t so out of character, after all. Maybe it was less a case of silly masculine preening than an acknowledgment of a legitimate aspect of his nature: answering questions, unraveling mysteries, solving puzzles. Exactly what Jonathan Boling had always done: understanding society, the human heart and mind.

One more block. What could it hurt? The police were on their way. Maybe he’d find somebody on the street who’d noticed the boy get into a car or climb through a window of a nearby house.

The professor turned back and started down the gray, gritty alley toward the water. He wondered when he’d see Kathryn again. Soon, he hoped.

It was in fact the image of her green eyes that was prominently in his mind when the boy leapt out from behind the Dumpster three feet away and got Boling in a neck lock. Smelling unwashed clothing and adolescent sweat, he choked as the silver blade of the knife began its leisurely transit to his throat.

Chapter 30

SPEAKING ON HER phone, Kathryn Dance sped up to the front of James Chilton’s house in Carmel. Parking, she said, “Thanks again,” to the caller and hung up. She parked and walked up to the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office car, in which a deputy sat on guard detail.

She approached him. “Hey, Miguel.”

“Agent Dance, how you doing? Everything’s quiet here.”

“Good. Mr. Chilton’s back, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Do me a favor?”

“You bet.”

“Get out of the car and just stand here, maybe lean against the door, so people can get a good look at you.”

“Something going down?”

“I’m not sure. Just stay there for a bit. Whatever happens, don’t move.”

He seemed uncertain but climbed out of the car.

Dance now walked up to the front door and pushed the buzzer. The musician within her detected the slightly flat tone of the final chime.

Chilton opened the door and blinked to see Dance. “Is everything okay?”

Then, after a glance over her shoulder, Dance pulled her handcuffs out of their holster.

Chilton glanced down. “What—?” he gasped.

“Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

“What is this?”

“Now! Just do it.”

“This is—”

She took him by the shoulder and turned him around. He started to speak, but she simply said, “Shh.” And ratcheted on the cuffs. “You’re under arrest for criminal trespass on private property.”

“What? Whose?”

“Arnold Brubaker’s land—the site of the desalination plant.”

“Wait, you mean yesterday?”

“Right.”

“You let me go!”

“You weren’t arrested then. Now, you are.” She recited the Miranda warning.

A dark sedan sped up the street, turned and ground along the gravel drive up to the house. Dance recognized it as a unit of the Highway Patrol. The two officers in the front—bulky men—glanced at Dance curiously and climbed out. They looked over at the county sheriff’s office car and Deputy Miguel Herrera, who touched his radio on his hip as if wanting to call somebody to see what this was all about.

Together the new arrivals walked toward Dance and her prisoner. They noted the handcuffs.

In a perplexed voice, Dance said, “Who’re you?”

“Well,” the older of the troopers said, “CHP. Who are you, ma’am?”

She fished for her wallet in her purse and showed her ID to the troopers. “I’m Kathryn Dance, CBI. What do you want here?”

“We’re here to take James Chilton into custody.”

“My prisoner?”

“Yours?”

“That’s right. We just arrested him.” She shot a glance to Herrera.

“Wait a minute here,” Chilton barked.

“Quiet,” Dance ordered.

The senior trooper said, “We have an arrest warrant for James Chilton. And a warrant to take possession of his computers, files, business records. Anything related to The Chilton Report.”

They displayed the paperwork.

“That’s ridiculous,” Chilton said. “What the fuck is going on here?”

Dance repeated bluntly, “Quiet.” Then to the troopers: “What’s the charge?”

“Criminal trespass.”

“At Arnold Brubaker’s property?”

“That’s right.”

She laughed. “That’s what I just arrested him for.”

Both of the troopers stared at her then at Chilton, buying time, and then, independently, they nodded. Apparently there was, in their experience, no precedent for anything like this.

“Well,” one of the officers contributed, “we have a warrant.”

“I understand. But he’s already been arrested and the CBI already has jurisdiction over his files and computers. We’re collecting them in a few minutes.”

“This is fucking bullshit,” Chilton blurted.

“Sir, I’d watch your language,” the younger, and bigger, of the troopers snapped.

The silence roared.

Then Kathryn Dance squinted a smile into her face. “Wait. Who’s the one requested the warrant? Was it Hamilton Royce?”

“That’s right. The AG’s office in Sacramento.”

“Oh, sure.” Dance was relaxing. “I’m sorry, this’s a misunderstanding. I was the senior officer on the trespass on call but we had an affidavit issue and I had to delay taking him into custody. I mentioned it to Hamilton. He probably thought I was so busy on the Roadside Cross Case—”

“That Mask Killer. That thing. You’re running that?”

“Sure am.”

“Freaky.”

“It is, yep,” Dance agreed. Then continued, “Hamilton probably figured I was so busy on that one that he’d take over on the trespass.” A disparaging nod of the head. “But frankly, Mr. Chilton pissed me off so much I wanted to finish up the collar myself.”

She gave a conspiratorial smile that the troopers joined in briefly. Then she continued, “This’s my fault. I should’ve told him. Let me make a call.” She pulled her phone off her belt and dialed. Then cocked her head. “This’s Agent Dance,” she said and explained about her arrest of James Chilton. Silence for a moment. “I’ve already collared him. . . . We’ve got the paperwork back at HQ. . . . Sure.” She nodded. “Good,” Dance said in a conclusory tone, and disconnected on the woman’s voice explaining that the temperature was fifty-six degrees and rain was forecast on the Monterey Peninsula tomorrow.

“It’s all set, we’ll process him.” A smile. “Unless you really want to cool your heels at the Salinas lockup for four hours.”

“Nup, that’s okay, Agent Dance. You need any help getting him in the car?” The big trooper was looking over James Chilton as if the blogger weighed a hundred pounds more and was capable of breaking through the cuff chain with a flex of his muscles.

“No, that’s okay. We’ll handle it.”

With a nod, the men walked off, climbed in their car and left.

“Listen to me,” Chilton growled, his face red. “This is bullshit and you know it.”

“Just relax, okay?” Dance turned him around and undid the cuffs.

“What’s this all about?” He was rubbing his wrists. “I thought you were arresting me.”

“I did. I’ve decided to let you go, though.”

“Are you fucking with me?”

“No, I’m saving you.” Dance slipped the cuffs back into her holster. Smiling, she waved to a very perplexed Herrera. He nodded back.

“You were being set up, James.”

Not long before, Dance had gotten a call from her assistant. Maryellen had grown suspicious when Charles Overby called once to see if Dance was in the office and then again to ask her to come to his office to discuss her job satisfaction, something he’d never done.

En route to Overby’s office, the woman had stalled and remained in the Gals’ Wing, hiding in a side corridor. Hamilton Royce slipped into her boss’s office. After five minutes or so he’d then stepped outside and made a cell phone call. Maryellen had gotten close enough to overhear part of it—Royce was calling a magistrate in Sacramento, who was apparently a friend, and asking for an arrest warrant against Chilton. Something to do with trespass.

Maryellen didn’t understand the implications of what had happened, but she called Dance immediately with the news, then continued to Overby’s office.

Dance gave Chilton an abbreviated version of the story, omitting Royce’s name.

“Who was behind it?” he fumed.

She knew the blogger would, in a posting, go after whoever was behind his arrest and she couldn’t afford the kind of publicity nightmare that would create. “I’m not divulging that. All I’ll say is that some people want your blog suspended until we catch Travis.”

“Why?”

She said sternly, “For the same reasons I wanted it shut down. To keep people from posting and giving Travis more targets.” A faint smile. “And because it looks bad for the state if we’re not doing everything we can to protect the public—which means shutting you down.”

“And stopping the blog is good for the public? I expose corruption and problems; I don’t encourage them.” Then he climbed off the soapbox. “And you arrested me so they couldn’t serve the warrant?”

“Yep.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“One of two things. The troopers’ll go back home and report to their supervisor that they can’t serve the warrant because you’re already under arrest. And it’ll go away.”

“What’s the second thing?”

A collision between excrement and fan, Dance reflected. She said nothing, merely shrugged.

But Chilton got it. “You put yourself on the line for me? Why?”

“I owe you. You’ve been cooperating with us. And if you want to know another reason: I don’t agree with all of your politics but I do agree you have the right to say what you want. If you’re wrong, you can get sued and the courts’ll decide. But I’m not going to be part of some vigilante movement to shut you up because people don’t like your approach.”

“Thank you,” he said and the gratitude was obvious in his eyes.

They shook hands. Chilton said, “Better get back online.”

Dance returned to the street and thanked Miguel Herrera, the perplexed deputy, and returned to her car. She called TJ and left a message to run a full backgrounder on Hamilton Royce. She wanted to know what kind of enemy she’d just made.

Part of which question was apparently about to be answered; her phone buzzed and Caller ID showed Overby’s number.

Oh, well, she’d guessed all along it would be door number two.

Shit and fan . . .

“Charles.”

“Kathryn, I think we have a bit of a problem. Hamilton Royce is here with me on speaker.”

She was tempted to hold the phone away from her ear.

“Agent Dance, what’s this about Chilton getting arrested by you? And the CHP not being able to serve their warrant?”

“I didn’t have any options.”

“No options? What do you mean?”

Struggling to keep her voice calm, she said, “I’ve decided I don’t want to shut the blog down. We know Travis reads it. Chilton’s asked him to come in. The boy may see that and try to contact the blog. Maybe negotiate a surrender.”

“Well, Kathryn.” Overby sounded desperate. “On the whole, Sacramento’s thinking it’s still better to close down the thing. Don’t you agree?”

“Not really, Charles. Now, Hamilton, you went through my files, didn’t you?”

A land mine of a pause. “I didn’t review anything that wasn’t public knowledge.”

“Doesn’t matter. It was a breach of professional responsibility. It might even be a crime.”

“Kathryn, really,” Overby protested.

“Agent Dance.” Royce was sounding calm now, ignoring Overby as efficiently as she was. She recalled a common observation during her interrogations: A man in control is a dangerous man. “People are dying, and Chilton doesn’t care. And, yes, it’s making us all look bad, from you to Charles to the CBI to Sacramento. All of us. And I don’t mind admitting it.”

Dance had no interest in the substance of his argument. “Hamilton, you try something like this again, with or without a warrant, and the matter’ll end up with the attorney general and the governor. And the press.”

Overby was saying, “Hamilton, what she means is—”

“I think he’s pretty clear on what I mean, Charles.”

Her phone then beeped with a text message from Michael O’Neil.

“I’ve got to take this.” She disconnected the call, cutting off both her boss and Royce.

She lifted her phone and read the stark words on the screen.

K—

Travis spotted in New Monterey. Police lost him. But have report of another victim. He’s dead. In Carmel, near end of Cypress Hills Road, west. I’m en route. Meet you there?

—M

She texted, Yes. And ran for the car.

FLICKING ON THE flashing lights, which she tended to forget the car even had—investigators like her rarely had to play Hot Pursuit—Dance sped into the afternoon gloom.

Another victim . . .

This attack would have happened not long after they’d foiled the attempt on Donald Hawken and his wife. She’d been right. The boy, probably frustrated that he hadn’t been successful, had gone on immediately to find another victim.

She found the turnoff, braked hard and eased the long car down the winding country road. The vegetation was lush but the overcast leached the color from the plants and gave Dance the impression that she was in some otherworldly place.

Like Aetheria, the land in DimensionQuest.

She pictured the image of Stryker in front of her, holding his sword comfortably.

like really w4nt to learn, what can u t33ch me?

2 die . . .

Pictured too the boy’s crude drawing of the blade piercing her chest.

Then a flash caught her eyes: white lights and colored ones.

She drove up and parked beside the other cars—Monterey County Sheriff’s Office—and a Crime Scene van. Dance climbed out, headed into the chaos. “Hey.” She nodded to Michael O’Neil, greatly relieved to see him, even if this was only a temporary respite from the Other Case.

“You check out the scene?” she asked.

“Just got here myself,” he explained.

They walked toward where the body lay, covered with a dark green tarp. Yellow police tape starkly marked the spot.

“Somebody spotted him?” she asked an MCSO deputy.

“That’s right, Agent Dance. Nine-one-one call in New Monterey. But by the time our people got there he was gone. So was the good citizen.”

“Who’s the vic?” O’Neil asked.

He replied, “I don’t know yet. It was pretty bad, apparently. Travis used the knife this time. Not the gun. And looks like he took his time.”

The deputy pointed into a grass-filled area about fifty feet away from the road.

She and O’Neil walked over the sandy ground. In a minute or two they arrived at the taped-off area, where a half dozen uniformed and plainclothes officers were standing, and a Crime Scene officer crouched beside the corpse covered by a green tarp.

They nodded a greeting to an MCSO deputy, a round Latino man Dance had worked with for years.

“What’s the word on the vic’s ID?” she asked.

“A deputy’s got his wallet.” The deputy indicated the body. “They’re checking it out now. All we know so far is male, forties.”

Dance looked around. “Wasn’t killed here, I assume?” There were no residences or other buildings nearby. Nor would the victim have been hiking or jogging here—there were no trails.

“Right.” The officer continued, “There wasn’t much blood. Looks like the perp drove the body here and dumped it. Found some tire tracks in the sand. We’re guessing Travis boosted the guy’s own car, threw him in the trunk. Like that first girl. Tammy. Only this time, he didn’t wait for the tide. Stabbed him to death. As soon as we’ve got the deceased’s ID, we can put out a call on the wheels.”

“You’re sure Travis did it?” Dance asked.

The deputy offered, “You’ll see.”

“And he was tortured?”

“Looks that way.”

They paused at the Crime Scene tape about ten feet from the corpse. The CS officer, in a jumpsuit like a spaceman, was taking measurements. He glanced up and saw the two officers. He nodded a greeting and through his protective goggles lifted an eyebrow. “You want to see?” he called.

“Yes,” Dance replied, wondering if he asked thinking a woman might not be comfortable seeing the carnage. Yes, in this day and age, it still happened.

Though, in fact, she was steeling herself for the sight. The nature of her work involved the living, mostly. She’d never grown fully immune to the images of death.

He began to lift the cover when a voice called from behind her, “Agent Dance?”

She glanced back to see another officer in uniform walking up to her. He was holding something in his hand.

“Yes?”

“Do you know a Jonathan Boling?”

“Jon? Yes.” She was staring at a business card in his hand. And recalled that somebody had taken the victim’s wallet to verify ID.

A horrifying thought: Was the victim Jon?

Her mind did one of its leaps—A to B to X. Had the professor learned something from Travis’s computer or in his search for victims and, with Dance away, decided to investigate by himself?

Please, no!

She glanced briefly at O’Neil, horror in her eyes, and lunged for the body.

“Hey!” the CS tech shouted. “You’ll contaminate the scene!”

She ignored him and flung back the tarp.

And gasped.

With mixed relief and horror, she stared down.

It wasn’t Boling.

The lean bearded man in slacks and a white shirt had been repeatedly stabbed. One glazed eye was half open. A cross was carved into his forehead. Rose petals, red ones, were scattered over his body.

“But where did that come from?” she asked the other deputy, nodding at Boling’s business card, her voice shaking.

“I was trying to tell you—he’s at the roadblock, over there. Just drove up. He wants to see you. It’s urgent.”

“I’ll talk to him in a minute.” Dance inhaled deeply, shaken.

Another deputy came up with the dead man’s wallet in a plastic bag. “Got the ID. His name’s Mark Watson. He’s a retired engineer. Went out to the store a few hours ago. Never got home.”

“Who is he?” O’Neil asked. “Why was he picked?”

Dance dug into her jacket pocket and retrieved the list of everyone mentioned in the blog who might be a potential target.

“He posted in the blog—a reply to the ‘Power to the People’ thread. About the nuclear plant. It doesn’t agree or disagree with Chilton about the location of the plant. It’s neutral.”

“So anybody connected to the blog at all could be at risk now.”

“I’d think so.”

O’Neil looked her over. He touched her arm. “You okay?”

“Just . . . kind of a scare.”

She found herself thumbing Jon Boling’s card. She told O’Neil she was going to see what he wanted and began down the path, her heart only now returning to a normal beat from the fright.

At the roadside she found the professor standing beside his car, the door open. She frowned. In the passenger seat was a teenager with spiky hair. He was wearing an Aerosmith T-shirt under a dark brown jacket.

Boling waved to her. She was struck by the look of urgency on his face, unusual for him.

And by the intensity of the relief she felt that he was all right.

Which gave way to curiosity when she saw what was stuck in the waistband of his slacks; she couldn’t tell for certain but it seemed to be the hilt of a large knife.

Chapter 31

DANCE, BOLING AND the teenager were in her office at the CBI. Jason Kepler was a seventeen-year-old student in Carmel South High, and he, not Travis, was Stryker.

Travis had created the avatar years ago, but he’d sold it online to Jason, along with “like, a shitload of Reputation, Life Points and Resources.”

Whatever those were.

Dance recalled that Boling had told her that players could sell their avatars and other accoutrements of the game.

The professor explained about his finding a reference in Travis’s data to the Lighthouse Arcade’s hours of operation.

Dance was grateful for the man’s brilliant detective work. (Though she was absolutely going to dress him down later for not calling 911 immediately upon learning that the boy was at the arcade and for going after him alone.) On her desk behind them, in an evidence envelope, was the kitchen knife that Jason had used to threaten Boling. It was a deadly weapon and he was technically guilty of assault and battery. Still, since Boling hadn’t actually been injured and the boy had voluntarily handed over the blade to the professor, she was probably going to be satisfied with giving the kid a stern warning.

Boling now explained what had happened: he himself had been the victim of a sting, orchestrated by the young teen who sat before them now. “Tell her what you told me.”

“What it is, I was worried about Travis,” Jason told them wide-eyed. “You don’t know what it’s like seeing somebody who’s in your family getting attacked like he was, in the blog.”

“Your family?”

“Yeah. In the game, in DQ, we’re brothers. I mean, we’ve never met or anything, but I know him real good.”

“Never met?”

“Well, sure, but not in the real world, only in Aetheria. I wanted to help him. But I had to find him first. I tried calling and IM’ing and I couldn’t get through. All I could think of was hanging out at the arcade. Maybe I could talk him into turning himself in.”

“With a knife?” Dance asked.

His shoulders lifted, then sagged. “I figured it couldn’t hurt.”

The boy was skinny and unhealthily pale. Here it was summer vacation and, ironically, he probably got outside now far less often than in the fall and winter, when he’d have to go to school.

Boling took over the narrative. “Jason was in the Lighthouse Arcade when I got there. The manager was a friend of his and when I asked about Stryker he pretended to go check out something but instead he told Jason about me.”

“Hey, I’m sorry, man. I wasn’t going to stab you or anything. I just wanted to find out who you were and if you had any idea where Travis was. I didn’t know you were with this Bureau of Investigation thing.”

Boling gave a sheepish smile at the impersonation-of-an-officer part. He added that he knew she’d want to talk to Jason but he thought it best to take him directly to her, rather than wait for the city police to show up.

“We just jumped in the car and called TJ. He told us where you were.”

It was a good decision, and only marginally illegal.

Dance now said, “Jason, we don’t want Travis to get hurt either. And we don’t want him to hurt anybody else. What can you tell us about where he might go?”

“He could be anywhere. He’s really smart, you know. He knows how to live outside in the woods. He’s an expert.” The boy noted their confusion and said, “See, DQ’s a game, but it’s also real. I mean, you’re in the Southern Mountains, it gets like fifty below zero, and you have to learn how to stay warm and if you don’t you’ll freeze to death. And you have to get food and water and everything. You learn what plants’re safe and what animals you can eat. And how to cook and store food. I mean, they have real recipes. You have to cook them right in the game or they don’t work.” He laughed. “There’ve been newbies who’ve tried to play and they’re like, ‘All we want to do is fight trolls and demons,’ and they end up starving to death because they couldn’t take care of themselves.”

“You play with other people, don’t you? Could any of them know where Travis might be?”

“Like, I asked everybody in the family and nobody knows where he is.”

“How many are in your family?”

“About twelve of us. But him and me are the only ones in California.”

Dance was fascinated. “And you all live together? In Aetheria?”

“Yeah. I know them better than I know my real brothers.” He gave a grim laugh. “And in Aetheria, they don’t beat me up and steal money from me.”

Dance was curious. “You have parents?”

“In the real world?” He shrugged, a gesture Dance interpreted as meaning “Sort of.”

She said, “No, in the game.”

“Some families do. We don’t.” He gave a wistful look. “We’re happier that way.”

She was smiling. “You know, you and I’ve met, Jason.”

The boy looked down. “Yeah, I know. Mr. Boling told me. I kinda killed you. Sorry. I thought you were just some newb who was dissing us because of Trav. I mean our family—well, our whole guild order—has been totally dissed because of him and all the posts on that blog. It’s happening a lot. A raiding party from the north traveled all the way from Crystal Island to wipe us out. We made this allegiance and stopped them. But Morina was killed. She was our sister. She’s come back but she lost all her Resources.”

The skinny boy shrugged. “I get pushed around a lot, you know. At school. That’s why I picked an avatar that’s a Thunderer, a warrior. Kind of makes me feel better. Nobody fucks with me there.”

“Jason, one thing that might be helpful: if you could give us the strategies Travis would use to attack people. How he’d stalk them. Weapons. Anything that might help us figure out how to outthink him.”

But the boy seemed to be troubled. “You really don’t know very much about Travis, do you?”

Dance was about to say they knew all too much. But interviewers know when to let the subject take over. With a glance at Boling, she said, “No, I guess we don’t.”

“I want to show you something,” Jason said, standing up.

“Where?”

“In Aetheria.”

KATHRYN DANCE ONCE again assumed the identity of the avatar Greenleaf, who was fully resurrected.

As Jason typed, the character appeared on the screen in a forest clearing. As before, the scenery was beautiful, the graphics astonishingly clear. Dozens of people were wandering around, some armed, some carrying bags or packs, some leading animals.

“This is Otovius, where Travis and me hang out a lot. It’s a nice place. . . . You mind?”

He bent forward toward the keys.

“No,” Dance told him. “Go ahead.”

He typed, then received a message: “Kiaruya is not logged on.”

“Bummer.”

“Who’s that?” Boling asked.

“My wife.”

“Your what?” Dance asked the seventeen-year-old.

He blushed. “We got married a couple months ago.”

She laughed in astonishment.

“Last year I met this girl in the game. She’s totally cool. She’s been all the way through the Southern Mountains. By herself! She didn’t die once. And me and her hit it off. We went on some quests. I proposed. Well, sort of she did. But I wanted to too. And we got married.”

“Who is she really?”

“Some girl in Korea. But she got a bad grade in a couple of her classes—”

“In the real world?” Boling asked.

“Yeah. So her parents took away her account.”

“You’re divorced?”

“Naw, just on hold for a while. Till she gets her math scores up to a B again.” Jason added, “Funny. Most people who get married in DQ stay married. In the real world a lot of our parents’re divorced. I hope she gets back online soon. I miss her.” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “Anyway, let’s go to the house.”

Under Jason’s direction, Dance’s avatar maneuvered around the landscape, past dozens of people and creatures.

Jason led them to a cliff. “We could walk there, but that’d, you know, take a while. You can’t pay for a Pegasus ride because you haven’t earned any gold yet. But I can give you transport points.” He began to type. “It’s like my dad’s frequent flier thing.”

He keyboarded some more codes and then had the avatar climb on the winged horse and off they flew. The flight was breathtaking. They soared over the landscape, around thick clouds. Two suns burned in the azure sky and occasionally other flying creatures would cruise past, as did dirigibles and bizarre flying machines. Below, Dance saw cities and villages. And, in a few places, fires.

“Those’re battles,” Jason said. “Look pretty epic.” He sounded as if he regretted missing the chance to lop off some heads.

A minute later they arrived at a seashore—the ocean was bright green—and slowly eased in for a landing on a rolling hillside overlooking the turbulent water.

Dance remembered Caitlin saying that Travis liked the shoreline because it reminded him of some place in a game he played.

Jason showed her how to dismount the horse. And, under her own controls, she navigated Greenleaf toward where Jason pointed, a cottage.

“That’s the house. We all built it together.”

Like a barn raising in the 1800s, Dance reflected.

“But Travis earned all the money and the supplies. He paid for it. We hired trolls to do the heavy work,” he added without a bit of irony.

When her avatar was at the door, Jason gave her a verbal password. She spoke it into the computer’s microphone and the door opened. They walked inside.

Dance was shocked. It was a beautiful, spacious house, filled with bizarre but cozy furniture, out of a Dr. Seuss book. There were walkways and stairs that led to various rooms, windows of odd shapes, a huge, burning fireplace, a fountain and a large pool.

A couple of pets—some goofy hybrid of a goat and salamander—walked around croaking.

“It’s nice, Jason. Very nice.”

“Yeah, well, we make cool homes in Aetheria ’cause where we live, I mean, in the real world, our places aren’t so nice, you know. Okay, like, here’s what I wanted to show you. Go there.” He directed her past a small pond populated with shimmery green fish. Her avatar stopped at a large metal door. It was barred with several locks. Jason gave her another pass code and the door slowly opened—accompanied by creaking sound effects. She sent Greenleaf through the doorway, down a flight of stairs and into what looked like a drugstore combined with an emergency room.

Jason looked at Dance and noticed she was frowning.

He said, “Understand?”

“Not exactly.”

“That’s what I meant about knowing Travis. He’s not about weapons and battle strategy or any of that. He’s about this. It’s his healing room.”

“Healing room?” Dance asked.

The boy explained, “Travis hated fighting. He created Stryker as a warrior when he first started playing, but he didn’t like that. That’s why he sold him to me. He’s a healer, not a fighter. And I mean a healer at the forty-ninth level. You know how good that makes him? He’s the best. He’s awesome.”

“A healer?”

“That’s his avatar’s name. Medicus—it’s some foreign language for ‘doctor.’”

“Latin,” Boling said.

“Ancient Rome?” Jason asked.

“Right.”

“Sweet. Anyway, Travis’s other professions are herb growing and potion making. This is where people come to be treated. It’s like a doctor’s office.”

“Doctor?” Dance mused. She rose from her desk, found the stack of papers they’d taken from Travis’s room and flipped through them. Rey Carraneo had been right—the pictures were of cut-up bodies. But they weren’t the victims of crimes; they were of patients during surgery. They were very well done, technically accurate.

Jason continued, “Characters from all over Aetheria would come to see him. Even the game designers know about him. They asked him for advice in creating NPCs. He’s a total legend. He’s made thousands of dollars by making these healing potions, buffers, life regenerators and power spells.”

“In real money?”

“Oh, yeah. He sells them on eBay. Like how I bought Stryker.”

Dance recalled the strongbox they’d found under the boy’s bed. So this was how he’d made the cash.

Jason tapped the screen. “Oh, and there?” He was indicating a glass case in which rested a crystal ball on the end of a gold stick. “That’s the scepter of healing. It took him, like, fifty quests to earn it. Nobody ever got one before, in the whole history of DQ.” Jason winced. “He almost lost it once. . . .” An awestruck expression washed over his face. “That was one messed-up night.”

The boy sounded as if the event were a tragedy in real life.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Medicus and me and some of us in the family were on this quest in the Southern Mountains, which’re like three miles high and really dangerous places. We were looking for this magical tree. The Tree of Seeing, it’s called. And, this was sweet, we found the home of Ianna, the Elvish queen, who everybody’s heard of but never seen. She’s way famous.”

“She’s an NPC, right?” Boling asked.

“Yeah.”

He reminded Dance, “A nonplayer character. One that’s created by the game itself.”

Jason seemed offended at the characterization. “But the algorithm is awesome! She’s beyond any bot you’ve ever seen.”

The professor nodded an apologetic concession.

“So we’re there and just hanging and talking and she’s telling us about the Tree of Seeing and how we can find it, and all of a sudden we’re attacked by this raiding party from the Northern Forces. And everybody’s fighting, and this asshole shoots the queen with a special arrow. She’s going to die. Trav tries to save her but his healing isn’t working. So he decides to Shift. We’re like, no, man, don’t do it! But he did anyway.”

The boy was speaking with such reverence that Dance found herself leaning forward, her leg bobbing with tension. Boling too was staring at him.

“What’s that, Jason? Go on.”

“Okay, what it is, sometimes, if somebody’s dying, you can submit your life to the Entities in the High Realm. It’s called Shifting. And the Entities start taking your life force and giving it to the person who’s dying. Maybe the person will come back before your life force is gone. But it might take all your life force and you’ll die, and they’ll die too. Only when you die because you’ve Shifted, you lose everything. I mean everything you’ve done and earned, all your points, all your Resources, all your Reputation, for as long as you’ve been playing the game. They all, like, just go away. If Travis’d died, he would’ve lost the scepter, his house, his gold, his flying horses. . . . He would have to start over like a newbie.”

“He did that?”

Jason nodded. “It was, like, way close. He was almost out of life force, but the queen revived. She kissed him. That was, like, epic! And then the elves and us got together and kicked some Northern Force ass. Man, that night rocked. It was epic win. Everybody who plays the game still talks about it.”

Dance was nodding. “Okay, Jason, thanks. You can log off.”

“Like, you don’t want to play anymore? You were kind of getting a feel for how to move.”

“Maybe later.”

The boy tapped the keys and the game closed.

Dance glanced at her watch. “Jon, could you take Jason back home? There’s somebody I need to talk to.”

A to B to X . . .

Chapter 32

“I’D LIKE TO see Caitlin, please.”

“You’re . . . ?” asked Virginia Gardner, the mother of the girl who’d survived the June 9 car crash.

Dance identified herself. “I spoke to your daughter the other day at summer school.”

“Oh, you’re the policewoman. You arranged for the guard for Cait at the hospital the other day, and out in front of our house.”

“That’s right.”

“Have you found Travis?”

“No, I—”

“Is he nearby?” the woman asked breathlessly, looking around.

“No, he’s not. I’d just like to ask your daughter a few more questions.”

The woman invited Dance into the entryway of the huge contemporary house in Carmel. Dance recalled that Caitlin was headed for some nice undergrad and medical schools. Whatever Dad or Mom did, it seemed they could afford the tuition.

Dance surveyed the massive living room. There were stark abstracts on the walls—two huge, spiky black-and-yellow paintings and one with bloody red splotches. She found them troubling to look at. She thought how different this was from the cozy feel of Travis’s and Jason’s house in the DimensionQuest game.

Yeah, well, we make cool homes in Aetheria ’cause where we live, I mean, in the real world, our places aren’t so nice, you know. . . .

The girl’s mother disappeared and a moment later returned with Caitlin, in jeans and a lime green shell under a tight-fitting white sweater.

“Hi,” the teenager said uneasily.

“Hello, Caitlin. How you feeling?”

“Okay.”

“Hoping you’ll have a minute or two. I have a few follow-up questions.”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Can we sit down somewhere?”

“We can go in the sunroom,” Mrs. Gardner said.

They passed an office and Dance saw a University of California diploma on the wall. Medical school. Caitlin’s father.

The mother and daughter on the couch, Dance in a straight-backed chair. She scooted it closer and said, “I wanted to give you an update. There was another killing today. Have you heard?”

“Oh, no,” Caitlin’s mother whispered.

The girl said nothing. She closed her eyes. Her face, framed by limp blond hair, seemed to grow paler.

“Really,” the mother whispered angrily, “I’ll never see how you could go out with somebody like that.”

“Mom,” Caitlin whined, “what do you mean, ‘go out’? Christ, I never went out with Travis. I never would. Somebody like him?”

“I just mean he’s obviously dangerous.”

“Caitlin,” Dance interrupted. “We’re really desperate to find him. We’re just not having any luck. I’m learning more about him from friends, but—”

Her mother again: “Those Columbine kids.”

“Please, Mrs. Gardner.”

An affronted look, but she fell silent.

“I told you everything I could think of the other day.”

“Just a few more questions. I won’t be long.” She scooted the chair closer yet and pulled out a notebook. She opened it and flipped through the pages carefully, pausing once or twice.

Caitlin was immobile as she stared at the notebook.

Dance smiled, looking into the girl’s eyes. “Now, Caitlin, think back to the night of the party.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Something interesting’s come up. I interviewed Travis before he ran off. I took some notes.” A nod at the notebook resting on her lap.

“You did? You talked to him?”

“That’s right. I didn’t pay much attention until I’d spoken to you and some other people. But now I’m hoping to piece together some clues as to where he’s hiding.”

“How hard could it be to find—” Caitlin’s mother began, as if she couldn’t stop herself. But she fell silent under Dance’s stern glance.

The agent continued, “Now, you and Travis talked some, right? That night.”

“Not really.”

Dance was frowning slightly and flipping through her notes.

The girl added, “Well, except when it was time to leave. I meant during the party he was hanging by himself mostly.”

Dance said, “On the ride home you did, though.” Tapping the notebook.

“Yeah, talked some. I don’t remember too much. It was all a blur, with the crash and all.”

“I’m sure it was. But I’m going to read you a couple of statements and I’d like you to fill in the details. Tell me if anything jogs your memory about what Travis said on the drive home, before the accident.”

“I guess.”

Dance consulted her notebook. “Okay, here’s the first one: ‘The house was pretty sweet but the driveway freaked me out.’ ” She looked up. “I was thinking maybe that meant Travis had a fear of heights.”

“Yeah, that’s what he was talking about. The driveway was on this hillside, and we were talking about it. Travis said he’d always had this fear of falling. He looked at the driveway and he said why didn’t they have a guardrail on it.”

“Good. That’s helpful.” Another smile. Caitlin reciprocated. Dance returned to the notes. “And this one? ‘I think boats rule. I’ve always wanted one.’ ”

“Oh, that? Yeah. We were talking about Fisherman’s Wharf. Travis really thought it’d be cool to sail to Santa Cruz.” She looked away. “I think he wanted to ask me to go with him, but he was too shy.”

Dance smiled. “So he might be hiding out on a boat somewhere.”

“Yeah, that could be it. I think he said something about how neat it would be to stow away on a boat.”

“Good. . . . Here’s another one. ‘She has more friends than me. I only have one or two I could hang out with.’ ”

“Yeah, I remember him saying that. I felt sorry for him, that he didn’t have many friends. He talked about it for a while.”

“Did he mention names? Anybody he might be staying with? Think. It’s important.”

The teenager squinted and her hand rubbed her knee. Then sighed. “Nope.”

“That’s okay, Caitlin.”

“I’m sorry.” A faint pout.

Dance kept the smile on her face. She was steeling herself for what was coming next. It would be difficult—for the girl, for her mother, for Dance herself. But there was no choice.

She leaned forward. “Caitlin, you’re not being honest with me.”

The girl blinked. “What?”

Virginia Gardner muttered, “You can’t say that to my daughter.”

“Travis didn’t tell me any of those things,” Dance said, her voice neutral. “I made them up.”

“You lied!” the mother snapped.

No, she hadn’t, not technically. She’d crafted her words carefully and never said they were actual statements from Travis Brigham.

The girl had gone pale.

The mother grumbled, “What is this, some kind of trap?”

Yes, that was exactly what it was. Dance had a theory and she needed to prove it true or false. Lives were at stake.

Dance ignored the mother and said to Caitlin, “But you were playing along as if Travis had said all of those things to you in the car.”

“I . . . I was just trying to be helpful. I felt bad I didn’t know more.”

“No, Caitlin. You thought you might very well have talked with him about them in the car. But you couldn’t remember because you were intoxicated.”

“No!”

“I’m going to ask you to leave now,” the girl’s mother blurted.

“I’m not through,” Dance growled, shutting up Virginia Gardner.

The agent assessed: with her science background—and her survival skills in this household—Caitlin had a thinking and sensing personality type, according to the Myers-Briggs index. She struck Dance as probably more introverted than extraverted. And, though her liar’s personality would fluctuate, she was at the moment an adaptor.

Lying for self-preservation.

If Dance had had more time she might have drawn the truth out slowly and in more depth. But with the Myers-Briggs typing and Caitlin’s personality of adaptor, Dance assessed she could push and not have to coddle, the way she had with Tammy Foster.

“You were drinking at the party.”

“I—”

“Caitlin, people saw you.”

“I had a few drinks, sure.”

“Before coming here I talked to several students who were there. They said that you, Vanessa and Trish drank almost a fifth of tequila after you saw Mike with Brianna.”

“Well . . . okay, so what?”

“You’re seventeen,” her mother raged, “that’s what!”

Dance said evenly, “I’ve called an accident reconstruction service, Caitlin. They’re going to look over your car at the police impound lot. They measure things like seat and rearview mirror adjustment. They can tell the height of the driver.”

The girl was completely still, though her jaw trembled.

“Caitlin, it’s time to tell the truth. A lot depends on it. Other people’s lives are at stake.”

“What truth?” her mother whispered.

Dance kept her eyes on the girl. “Caitlin was driving the car that night. Not Travis.”

“No!” Virginia Gardner wailed.

“Weren’t you, Caitlin?”

The teenager said nothing for a minute. Then her head dropped, her chest collapsed. Dance read pain and defeat through her body. Her kinesic message was: Yes.

Her voice breaking, Caitlin said, “Mike left with that little slut hanging on him and her hand down the back of his jeans! I knew they went back to his place to fuck. I was going to drive there . . . I was going to . . .”

“All right,” her mother ordered, “that’s enough.”

“Be quiet!” the girl yelled to her mother and started to sob. She turned to Dance. “Yes, I was driving!” The guilt had finally detonated within her.

Dance continued, “After the accident Travis pulled you into the passenger seat and he got in the driver’s. He pretended he was driving. He did that to save you.”

She thought back to the initial interview with Travis.

I didn’t do anything wrong!

The boy’s assertion had registered as deceptive to Dance. But she believed that he meant he was lying about the attack on Tammy; in fact what he’d done wrong was to lie about who was driving the car that night.

The idea had occurred to Dance when she was looking over the house of Travis—Medicus—and his family in Aetheria. The fact that the boy spent virtually every moment he could in the DimensionQuest game as a doctor and healer, not a killer like Stryker, made her begin to doubt the boy’s tendency toward violence. And when she’d learned that his avatar had been willing to sacrifice his life for the Elvish queen, she realized that it was possible Travis had done the same in the real world—taking the blame for the car crash so that the girl he admired from afar wouldn’t go to jail.

Caitlin, tears flowing from her closed eyes, pressed back into the couch, her body a knot of tension. “I just lost it. We got drunk and I wanted to go find Mike and tell him what a shit he was. Trish and Vanessa were more wasted than me so I was going to drive, but Travis followed me outside and kept trying to stop me. He tried to take the keys. But I wouldn’t let him. I was so mad. Trish and Vanessa were in the backseat and Travis just jumped in the passenger seat and he was like, ‘Pull over, Caitlin, come on, you can’t drive.’ But I was acting like an asshole.

“I just kept going, ignoring him. And then, I don’t know what happened, we went off the road.” Her voice faded and her expression was one of the most sorrowful and forlorn Kathryn Dance had ever seen, as she whispered, “And I killed my friends.”

Caitlin’s mother, her face white and bewildered, eased forward tentatively. She put her arm around her daughter’s shoulders. The girl stiffened momentarily and then surrendered, sobbing and pressing her head against her mother’s chest.

After a few minutes, the woman, crying herself, looked at Dance. “What’s going to happen?”

“You and your husband should find a lawyer for Caitlin. Then call the police right away. She should surrender voluntarily. The sooner the better.”

Caitlin wiped her face. “It’s hurt so bad, lying. I was going to say something. I really, really was. But then people started to attack Travis—all those things they said—and I knew if I told the truth they’d attack me.” She lowered her head. “I couldn’t do it. All those things people’d say about me . . . they’d be up on their site forever.”

More worried about her image than the deaths of her friends.

But Dance wasn’t here to expiate the teenager’s guilt. All she’d needed was confirmation of her theory that Travis had taken the fall for Caitlin. She rose and left the mother and daughter, offering the briefest of farewells.

Outside, jogging toward her car, she hit speed-dial button three—Michael O’Neil.

He answered on the second ring. Thank God the Other Case wasn’t keeping him completely incommunicado.

“Hey.” He sounded tired.

“Michael.”

“What’s wrong?” He’d grown alert; apparently her tone told stories too.

“I know you’re swamped, but any chance I could come by? I need to brainstorm. I’ve found something.”

“Sure. What?”

“Travis Brigham isn’t the Roadside Cross Killer.”

DANCE AND O’NEIL were in his office in the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office in Salinas.

The windows looked out on the courthouse, in front of which were two dozen of the Life First protesters, along with the wattle-necked Reverend Fisk. Apparently bored with protesting in front of Stuart and Edie Dance’s empty house, they’d moved to where they stood a chance of getting some publicity. Fisk was talking to the associate she’d seen earlier: the brawny redheaded bodyguard.

Dance turned away from the window and joined O’Neil at his unsteady conference table. The place was filled with ordered stacks of files. She wondered which were related to the Indonesian container case. O’Neil rocked back on two legs of a wooden chair. “So, let’s hear it.”

She explained quickly about how the investigation had led to Jason and then into the DimensionQuest game and ultimately to Caitlin Gardner and the confession that Travis had taken the fall for her.

“Infatuation?” he asked.

But Dance said, “Sure, that’s part of it. But there’s something else going on. She wants to go to medical school. That’s important to Travis.”

“Medical school?”

“Medicine, healing. In that game he plays, DimensionQuest, Travis is a famous healer. I’m thinking one of the reasons he protected her was because of that. His avatar is Medicus. A doctor. He feels a connection to her.”

“That’s a little farfetched, don’t you think? After all, it’s just a game.”

“No, Michael, it’s more than a game. The real world and the synth world are getting closer and closer, and people like Travis are living in both. If he’s a respected healer in DimensionQuest he’s not going to be a vindictive killer in the real world.”

“So he takes the fall for Caitlin’s crash, and whatever people say about him in the blog, the last thing in the world he wants is to draw attention to himself by attacking anybody.”

“Exactly.”

“But Kelley . . . before she passed out she told the medic that it was Travis who attacked her.”

Dance shook her head. “I’m not sure she actually saw him. She assumed it was him, maybe because she knew she’d posted about him and the mask at her window was from the DimensionQuest game. And the rumors were he was behind the attacks. But I think the real killer was wearing a mask or got her from behind.”

“How do you deal with the physical evidence? Planted?”

“Right. It’d be easy to read up online about Travis, to follow him, learn about his job at the bagel place, his bicycle, the fact that he plays DQ all the time. The killer could have made one of those masks, stolen the gun from Bob Brigham’s truck, planted the trace evidence at the bagel shop and stolen the knife when the employees weren’t looking. Oh, and something else: the M&M’s? The flecks of wrapper at the crime scene?”

“Right.”

“Had to be planted. Travis wouldn’t eat chocolate. He bought packets for his brother. He was worried about his acne. He had books in his room about what foods to avoid. The real killer didn’t know that. He must’ve seen Travis buy M&M’s at some point and assumed they were a favorite candy, so he left some trace of the wrapper at the scene.”

“And the sweatshirt fibers?”

“There was a posting in The Report about the Brigham family being so poor that they couldn’t afford a washer and dryer. And it mentioned which laundromat they went to. I’m sure the real perp read that and staked the place out.”

O’Neil nodded. “And stole a hooded sweatshirt when the mother was out or wasn’t looking.”

“Yep. And there were some pictures posted in the blog under Travis’s name.” O’Neil hadn’t seen the drawings and she described them briefly, omitting the fact that the last one bore a resemblance to her. Dance continued, “They were crude, what an adult would think of a teenager’s drawing. But I saw some pictures that Travis had done—of surgery. He’s a great artist. Somebody else drew them.”

“It would explain why nobody’s been able to find the real killer, despite the manhunt. He pulls on a hoodie for the attack, then throws it and the bicycle in his trunk and drives off down the street like anybody else. Hell, he could be fifty years old. Or he could be a she, now that I think about it.”

“Exactly.”

The deputy fell silent for a moment. His thoughts had apparently arrived at the exact spot where Dance’s awaited. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” the deputy asked. “Travis?”

Dance sighed at this harsh corollary of her theory. “It’s possible. But I’m hoping not. I like to think he’s just being held somewhere.”

“The poor kid was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Rocking back and forth. “So, to find where the real perp is, we’ve got to figure out who’s the intended victim. It’s not somebody who posted an attack on Travis; they were just set up to mislead us.”

“My theory?” Dance offered.

O’Neil looked at her with a coy smile. “Whoever the perp is, he’s really after Chilton?”

“Yep. The perp was setting the stage, first going after people who’d criticized Travis, then those friendly with Chilton and finally the blogger himself.”

“Somebody who doesn’t want to be investigated.”

Dance replied, “Or who wants revenge for something he’d posted in the past.”

“Okay, all we need to find out is who wants to kill James Chilton,” Michael O’Neil said.

Dance gave a sour laugh. “The easier question is: Who doesn’t?”

Chapter 33

“JAMES?”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. The blogger said, “Agent Dance.” His voice sounded weary. “More bad news?”

“I’ve found some evidence that suggests Travis isn’t leaving the crosses.”

“What?”

“I’m not positive, but the way things are looking, the boy could be a scapegoat and somebody’s making it look like he’s the killer.”

Chilton whispered, “And he was innocent all along?”

“I’m afraid so.” Dance explained what she’d learned—about who was really behind the wheel of the car on June 9—and about the likelihood of the evidence being planted.

“And I think you’re the ultimate target,” she added.

“Me?”

“You’ve posted some pretty inflammatory stories throughout your career. And you’re writing now about controversial topics. I think some people’d be happy to see you stop. You’ve been threatened before, I assume.”

“Plenty of times.”

“Go back through your blog, find the names of everybody who’s threatened you, who might want to get even for something you’ve said, or who’s concerned that you’re investigating something now they might not want published. Pick the most credible suspects. And go back a few years.”

“Sure. I’ll come up with a list. But you think I’m really at risk?”

“I do, yes.”

He fell silent. “I’m worried about Pat and the boys. Do you think we should leave the area? Maybe go to our vacation house? It’s in Hollister. Or get a hotel room?”

“Probably the hotel’s safer. You’d be on record as owning the other house. I can arrange for you to check into one of the motels we use for witnesses. It’ll be under a pseudonym.”

“Thanks. Give us a few hours. Pat’ll get things packed up, and we’ll leave right after a meeting I have scheduled.”

“Good.”

She was about to hang up when Chilton said, “Wait. Agent Dance, one thing?”

“What?”

“I’ve got an idea—of who might be number one on the list.”

“I’m ready to write.”

“You won’t need a pen and paper,” Chilton replied.

DANCE AND REY Carraneo slowly approached the luxurious house of Arnold Brubaker, the man behind the desalination plant that would, according to James Chilton, destroy the Monterey Peninsula.

It was Brubaker whom Chilton fingered as the number-one choice of suspect. Either the desalination tsar himself, or a person hired by him. And Dance thought this was likely. She was online on the car’s computer, reading the “Desalinate . . . and Devastate” thread on the June 28 posting.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/june28.html

From Chilton’s reporting and the posts, Dance deduced that the blogger had found out about the man’s Las Vegas connections, which suggested organized crime, and the man’s private real estate dealings, which hinted at secrets he might not want exposed.

“Ready?” Dance asked Carraneo as she logged off.

The young agent nodded, and they climbed from the car.

She knocked on the door.

Finally the red-faced entrepreneur—flushed from the sun, not booze, Dance deduced—answered the knock. He was surprised to see visitors. He blinked and said nothing for a moment. “From the hospital. You’re . . . ?”

“Agent Dance. This is Agent Carraneo.”

His eyes zipped behind her.

Looking for backup? she wondered.

And if so, for her backup? Or Brubaker’s own?

She felt a trickle of fear. People who kill for money were the most ruthless, in her estimation.

“We’re following up on that incident with Mr. Chilton. You mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“What? That prick filed charges after all? I thought we—”

“No, no charges. Can we come in?”

The man remained suspicious. His eyes avoiding Dance’s, he nodded them inside and blurted, “He’s crazy, you know. I mean, I think he’s certifiable.”

Dance gave a noncommittal smile.

With another glance outside, Brubaker closed the door. He locked it.

They walked through the house, impersonal, many rooms empty of furniture. Dance believed she heard a creak from nearby. Then another from a different room.

Was the house settling, or did Brubaker have assistants here?

Assistants, or muscle?

They walked into an office filled with papers, blueprints, pictures, photographs, legal documents. A carefully constructed scale model of the desalination plant took up one of the tables.

Brubaker lifted several huge bound reports off chairs and gestured them to sit. He did too, behind a large desk.

Dance noticed certificates on the wall. There were also pictures of Brubaker with powerful-looking men in suits—politicians or other businesspeople. Interrogators love office walls; they reveal much about people. From these particular pictures she deduced that Brubaker was smart (degrees and professional course completions) and savvy politically (honors and keys from cities and counties). And tough; his company apparently had built desalination plants in Mexico and Colombia. Photos showed him surrounded by sunglassed, vigilant men—security guards. The men were the same in all of the pictures, which meant they were Brubaker’s personal minders, not provided by the local government. One held a machine gun.

Were they the source of the creaks nearby—which she’d heard again, closer, it seemed?

Dance asked about the desalination project, and he launched into a lengthy sales pitch about the latest technology the plant would use. She caught words like “filtration,” “membranes,” “freshwater holding tanks.” Brubaker gave them a short lecture on the reduced costs of new systems that was making desalination economically feasible.

She took in little information, but instead feigned interest and soaked up his baseline behavior.

Her first impression was that Brubaker didn’t seem troubled at their presence, though High Machs were rarely moved by any human connections—whether romantic, social or professional. They even approached confrontation with equanimity. It was one aspect that made them so efficient. And potentially dangerous.

Dance would have liked more time to gather baseline information, but she felt a sense of urgency so she stopped his spiel and asked, “Mr. Brubaker, where were you at one p.m. yesterday and eleven a.m. today?”

The times of Lyndon Strickland’s and Mark Watson’s deaths.

“Well, why?” A smile. But Dance had no idea what was behind it.

“We’re looking into certain threats against Mr. Chilton.”

True, though not, of course, the whole story.

“Oh, he libels me, and now I’m accused?”

“We’re not accusing you, Mr. Brubaker. But could you answer my question, please?”

“I don’t have to. I can ask you to leave right now.”

This was true. “You can refuse to cooperate. But we’re hoping you won’t.”

“You can hope all you want,” he snapped. The smile now grew triumphant. “I see what’s going on here. Could it be that you got it all wrong, Agent Dance? That maybe it isn’t some psychotic teenager who’s been gutting people like in some bad horror film. But somebody who’s been using the kid, setting him up to take the fall for killing James Chilton?”

That was pretty good, Dance thought. But did it mean that he was threatening them? If he was the “somebody” he referred to, then, yes, he was.

Carraneo stole a brief glance at her.

“Which means you’ve pretty much had the wool pulled over your eyes.”

There were too many important rules in interviewing and interrogation for any of them to be number one, but high at the top was: Never let the personal insults affect you.

Dance said reasonably, “There’s been a series of very serious crimes, Mr. Brubaker. We’re looking into all possibilities. You have a grudge against James Chilton, and you’ve assaulted him once already.”

“And, really,” he said in a dismissive tone, “do you think it’d be the smartest thing in the world to get into a public brawl with a man I’m secretly trying to kill?”

Either very stupid or very smart, Dance responded silently. She then asked, “Where were you at the times I mentioned? You can tell us, or you can refuse and we’ll keep investigating.”

“You’re as much of a prick as Chilton is. Actually, Agent Dance, you’re worse. You hide behind your shield.”

Carraneo stirred but said nothing.

She too was silent. Either he was going to tell them or he was going to throw them out.

Wrong, Dance realized. There was a third option, one that had been percolating since she’d been listening to the eerie creaks in the seemingly deserted house.

Brubaker was going for a weapon.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he whispered, and, eyes wide in anger, yanked open the top desk drawer. His hand shot inside.

Dance flashed on her children’s faces, then her husband’s and then Michael O’Neil’s.

Please, she thought, praying for speed. . . .

“Rey, behind us! Cover!”

And when Brubaker looked up he was staring into the muzzle of her Glock pistol, while Carraneo was facing the opposite way, aiming at the door to the office.

Both agents were crouching.

“Jesus, take it easy!” he cried.

“Clear so far,” Carraneo said.

“Check it out,” she ordered.

The young man eased to the door and, standing to the side, pushed it open with his foot. “Clear.”

He spun around to cover Brubaker.

“Lift your hands slowly,” Dance said, her Glock steady enough. “If you have a weapon in your hand, drop it immediately. Don’t lift it or lower it. Just drop it. If you don’t—now—we will shoot. Understand?”

Arnold Brubaker gasped. “I don’t have a gun.”

She didn’t hear a weapon hit the expensive floor, but he was lifting his hands very slowly.

Unlike Dance’s, they weren’t shaking at all.

In the developer’s ruddy fingers was a business card, which he flicked toward her contemptuously. The agents holstered their weapons. They sat.

Dance looked at the card, reflecting that a situation that couldn’t get any more awkward just had. On the card was the gold-embossed seal of the Department of Justice—the eagle and the fine print. She knew FBI agents’ cards very well. She still had a large box of them at home: her husband’s.

“At the time you mentioned, yesterday, I was meeting with Amy Grabe.” Special agent in charge of the San Francisco office of the Bureau. “We were meeting here and at the site. From about eleven a.m. to three p.m.”

Oh.

Brubaker said, “Desalination and water-based infrastructure projects are terrorist targets. I’ve been working with Homeland Security and the FBI to make sure that if the project gets under way, there’ll be adequate security.” He looked at her calmly and with contempt. The tip of his tongue touched a lip. “I’m hoping it will be federal officers involved. I’m losing confidence in the local constabulary.”

Kathryn Dance wasn’t about to apologize. She’d check with SAC Amy Grabe, whom she knew and, despite differences of opinion, respected. And even though an alibi wouldn’t absolve him from hiring a thug to commit the actual crimes, it was hard for Dance to believe that a man working closely with the FBI and DHS would risk murder. Besides, everything about Brubaker’s demeanor suggested he was telling the truth.

“All right, Mr. Brubaker. We’ll check out what you’re telling us.”

“I hope you do.”

“I appreciate your time.”

“You can find your own way out,” he snapped.

Carraneo cast a sheepish glance her way. Dance rolled her eyes.

When they were at the door, Brubaker said, “Wait. Hold on.” The agents turned. “Well, was I right?”

“Right?”

“That you think somebody killed the boy and set him up to be the fall guy in some plot to kill Chilton?”

A pause. Then she thought: Why not? She answered, “We think it’s possible, yes.”

“Here.” Brubaker jotted something on a slip of paper and offered it. “He’s somebody you ought to be looking at. He’d love for the blog—and the blogger—to disappear.”

Dance glanced at the note.

Wondering why she hadn’t thought of the suspect herself.

Chapter 34

PARKED ON A dusty street near the small town of Marina, five miles north of Monterey, Dance was alone in her Crown Vic, on the phone with TJ.

“Brubaker?” she asked.

“No criminal record,” he told her. And his work—and the alibi—with the FBI was confirmed.

He still might’ve hired somebody for the job, but this information did ease him out of the hot seat.

Attention was now on the man whose name Brubaker had given her. The name on the slip of paper was Clint Avery and she was presently gazing at him from about one hundred yards away, through a chain-link fence—topped with razor wire—that surrounded his massive construction company.

The name Avery had never come up as someone involved in the case. For very good reason: The builder had never posted on the blog and Chilton had never written about him in The Report.

Not by name, that is. The “Yellow Brick Road” thread didn’t mention Avery specifically. But questioned the government’s decision to build the highway and the bidding process, by implication also criticizing the contractor—which Dance should have known was Avery Construction, since she’d been flagged down by a company team at the site of the highway work when she’d been on her way to Caitlin Gardner’s summer school two days ago. She hadn’t put the two pieces together.

TJ Scanlon now told her, “Seems that Clint Avery was connected with a company investigated for using substandard materials about five years ago. Investigation got dropped real fast. Maybe Chilton’s reporting might get the case reopened.”

A good motive to kill the blogger, Dance agreed. “Thanks, TJ. That’s good. . . . And Chilton’s got you the list of other suspects?”

“Yep.”

“Any others stand out?”

“Not yet, boss. But I’m glad I don’t have as many enemies as he does.”

She gave a brief laugh and they disconnected.

From the distance, Dance continued to study Clint Avery. She’d seen pictures of him a dozen times—on the news and in the papers. He was hard to miss. Though he would certainly have been a millionaire many times over, he was dressed the same as any other worker: a blue shirt sprouting pens in the breast pocket, tan work slacks, boots. The sleeves were rolled up and she spotted a tattoo on his leathery forearm. In his hand was a yellow hard hat. A big walkie-talkie sat on his hip. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see a six-shooter; his broad, mustachioed face looked like a gunslinger’s.

She started the engine and drove through the gates. Avery noticed her car. He squinted slightly and seemed to recognize hers immediately as a government car. He concluded his discussion with a leather-jacketed man, who walked away. Quickly.

She parked. Avery Construction was a no-nonsense company, devoted to one purpose: building things. Huge stores of construction materials, bulldozers, Cats, backhoes, trucks and jeeps. There was a concrete plant on the premises and what appeared to be metal-and wood-working shops, large diesel tanks for feeding the vehicles, Quonset huts and storage sheds. The main office was made up of a number of large, functional buildings, all low. No graphic designer or landscaper had been involved in the creation of Avery Construction.

Dance identified herself. The head of the company was cordial and shook hands, his eyes crinkling lines into the tanned face as he glanced at her ID.

“Mr. Avery, we’re hoping you can help us. You’re familiar with the crimes that have been occurring around the Peninsula?”

“The Mask Killer, that boy, sure. I heard someone else was killed today. Terrible. How can I help you?”

“The killer’s leaving roadside memorials as a warning that he’s going to commit more crimes.”

He nodded. “I’ve seen that on the news.”

“Well, we’ve noticed something curious. Several of the crosses have been left near sites of your construction projects.”

“They have?” Now a frown, his brow creasing significantly. Was it out of proportion to the news? Dance couldn’t tell. Avery started to turn his head, then stopped. Had he instinctively been looking toward his leather-jacketed associate?

“How can I help?”

“We want to talk to some of your employees to see if they’ve noticed anything out of the ordinary.”

“Such as?”

“Passersby behaving suspiciously, unusual objects, maybe footprints or bicycle tire tread marks in areas that were roped off for construction. Here’s a list of locations.” She’d written down several earlier in the car.

Concern on his face, he looked over the list then slipped the sheet into his shirt pocket and crossed his arms. This in itself meant little kinesically, since she hadn’t had time to get a baseline reading. But arm and leg crossing are defensive gestures and can signify discomfort. “You want me to give you a list of employees who’ve worked around there? Since the killings began, I assume.”

“Exactly. It would be a big help.”

“I assume you’d like this sooner rather than later.”

“As soon as possible.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

She thanked him and walked back to the car, then drove out of the parking lot and up the road. Dance pulled up beside a dark blue Honda Accord nearby. She was pointed the opposite way, so her open window was two feet from Rey Carraneo’s. He sat in the driver’s seat of the Honda in shirtsleeves, without a tie. She’d seen him dressed this casually only twice before: at a Bureau picnic and one very bizarre barbecue at Charles Overby’s house.

“He’s got the bait,” Dance said. “I have no idea if he’ll bite.”

“How did he react?”

“Hard to call. I didn’t have time to take a baseline. But my sense was that he was struggling to seem calm and cooperative. He was more nervous than he let on. I’m also not so sure about one of his helpers.” She described the man in the leather jacket. “Either one of them leaves, stay close.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

PATRIZIA CHILTON OPENED the door and nodded to Greg Ashton, the man her husband called an Über Blogger—in that cute but slightly obnoxious way of Jim’s.

“Hi, Pat,” Ashton said. They shook hands. The slim man, in expensive tan slacks and a nice sports coat, nodded toward the squad car sitting in the road. “That deputy? He wouldn’t give anything away. But he’s here because of those killings, right?”

“They’re just taking precautions.”

“I’ve been following the story. You must be pretty upset.”

She gave a stoic smile. “That’s putting it mildly. It’s been a nightmare.” She liked being able to admit to how she felt. She couldn’t always do that with Jim. She believed she had to be supportive. In fact, she was sometimes furious at his role as a relentless investigative journalist. It was important, she understood, but sometimes she just plain hated the blog.

And now . . . endangering the family and forcing them to move to a hotel? This morning she’d had to ask her brother, a big man who’d been a bouncer in college, to escort the boys to their day camp, stay there and bring them back.

She bolted the door behind them. “Can I get you anything?” Patrizia asked Ashton.

“No, no, I’m fine, thanks.”

Patrizia walked him to the door of her husband’s office, her eyes taking in the backyard through a large window in the hallway.

A tap of concern in her chest.

Had she seen something in the bushes behind the house? Was it a person?

She paused.

“Something wrong?” Ashton asked.

Her heart was pounding hard. “I . . . Nothing. Probably just a deer. I have to say this whole case has got my nerves shaken.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“It’s gone,” she said. But was it? She couldn’t tell. Yet she didn’t want to alarm their guest. Besides, all the windows and doors were locked.

They arrived at her husband’s office and stepped inside. “Honey,” she said. “It’s Greg.”

“Ah, right on time.”

The men shook hands.

Patrizia said, “Greg said he doesn’t care for anything. How ’bout you, honey?”

“No, I’m fine. Any more tea and I’ll be in the bathroom for the whole meeting.”

“Well, I’ll leave you two boys to do your work and get back to packing.” Her heart sank again at the thought of moving into a hotel. She hated being driven from her home. At least the boys would consider it an adventure.

“Actually,” Ashton said, “hold on a minute, Pat. I’m going to do a video of Jim’s operation to post on my site. I want to include you too.” He set his briefcase on the table and opened it up.

“Me?” Patrizia gasped. “Oh, no. I haven’t done my hair. And my makeup.”

Ashton said, “First of all, you look fantastic. But most important, blogging isn’t about hair and makeup. It’s about authenticity. I’ve shot dozens of these and I’ve never let anybody so much as put on lipstick.”

“Well, I guess.” Patrizia was distracted, thinking about the motion she’d seen behind the house. She should tell the deputy out front about it.

Ashton laughed. “It’s only a webcam anyway, medium resolution.” He held up the small video camera.

“You’re not going to ask me questions, are you?” She was growing panicky at the thought. Jim’s blog alone had hundreds of thousands of viewers. Greg Ashton’s probably had many more. “I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“It’ll be sound bites. Just talk about what it’s like to be married to a blogger.”

Her husband laughed. “I’ll bet she has plenty to say.”

“We can do as many takes as you want.” Ashton set a tripod up in the corner of the room and mounted the camera.

Jim straightened his desktop, organizing the dozens of stacks of journals and papers. Ashton laughed and shook a finger. “We want it authentic, Jim.”

Another laugh. “Okay. Fair enough.” Jim replaced the papers and magazines.

Patrizia looked at herself in a small decorative mirror up on the wall, and ran her fingers through her hair. No, she decided defiantly. She was going to get fixed up, no matter what he said. She turned to tell Ashton this.

She had only a moment to blink, and no time to protect herself, when Ashton’s fist swung directly into her cheek and collided hard with bone, breaking skin and knocking her to the floor.

Eyes wide in horror and bewilderment, Jim leapt toward him.

And froze as Ashton thrust a gun into his face.

“No!” Patrizia cried, scrabbling to her feet. “Don’t hurt him!”

Ashton tossed Patrizia a roll of duct tape and ordered her to bind her husband’s hands behind him.

She hesitated.

“Do it!”

Hands shaking, tears streaming, confused, she did as she’d been told.

“Honey,” she whispered as she wrapped his hand behind the chair. “I’m scared.”

“Do what he says,” her husband told her. Then he glared at Ashton. “What the hell is this?”

Ashton ignored him and dragged Patrizia by the hair to the corner. She squealed, tears falling. “No . . . no. It hurts. No!”

Ashton taped her hands as well.

“Who are you?” Jim whispered.

But Patrizia Chilton could answer that one herself. Greg Ashton was the Roadside Cross Killer.

Ashton noticed Jim looking outside. He muttered, “The deputy? He’s dead. There’s nobody to help you.”

Ashton pointed the video camera at Jim’s pale, horrified face, tears welling in his eyes. “You want more hits on your precious Report, Chilton? Well, you’re going to get ’em. I’ll bet it’ll be a record. I don’t think we’ve ever seen a blogger killed on webcam before.”

Chapter 35

KATHRYN DANCE WAS back at CBI headquarters. She was disappointed to learn that Jonathan Boling had returned to Santa Cruz. But since he’d come up with the platinum find—Stryker, well, Jason—there wasn’t much else for him to do at the moment.

Rey Carraneo called in with some interesting news. He explained that Clint Avery had left his company ten minutes ago. The agent had followed him along the winding roads in the Pastures of Heaven, the name that literary legend John Steinbeck had given to the lush, agriculturally fertile area. There he’d stopped twice, on the shoulder. Both times he’d met with someone. First, two somber men—dressed like cowboys—in a fancy pickup truck. The second time, a white-haired man in a nice suit, behind the wheel of a Cadillac. The meetings seemed suspicious; Avery was clearly nervous. Carraneo had gotten the plates and was running profiles.

Avery was now headed toward Carmel, Carraneo right behind him.

Dance was discouraged. She’d hoped that her meeting with Avery would flush the construction boss—force him to speed to a safe house, where he’d stashed evidence—and perhaps Travis himself.

But apparently not.

Still, the men Avery’d met with might’ve been hired guns who were behind the killings. The DMV report would give her some clues, if not answers.

TJ stuck his head in her doorway. “Hey, boss, you still interested in Hamilton Royce?”

The man who was probably at that very moment considering how to bring her career down in flames. “Give me a one-minute précis.”

“A what?” TJ asked.

“Synopsis. Summary. Digest.”

“‘Précis’ is a word? Learn something new every day. . . . Okay. Royce’s a former lawyer. Left practice mysteriously and quickly. He’s a tough guy. Works mostly with six or seven different departments in the state. Ombudsman’s his official title. Unofficially he’s a fixer. You see that movie Michael Clayton?”

“With George Clooney, sure. Twice.”

“Twice?”

“George Clooney.”

“Ah. Well, that’s what Royce does. Lately he’s been doing a lot of work for senior people in the lieutenant governor’s office, the state energy commission, the EPA, and the Finance Committee of the Assembly. If there’s a problem, he’s there.”

“What sort of problem?”

“Committee disagreements, scandals, public relations, pilfering, contract disputes. I’m still waiting to hear back on more details.”

“Let me know if there’s anything I can use.” Picking one of the man’s favorite verbs.

“Use? To do what?”

“We had a falling-out, Royce and me.”

“So you want to blackmail him?”

“That’s a strong word. Let’s just say I’d like to keep my job.”

“I want you to keep your job too, boss. You let me get away with murder. Hey, what’s with Avery?”

“Rey’s tailing him.”

“Love that word. Almost as good as ‘shadow.’ ”

“What’s the progress on Chilton’s list of suspects?”

TJ explained that tracking them down was going slowly. People had moved or were unlisted, they were out, names had changed.

“Give me half,” she said. “I’ll get going on it too.”

The young agent handed her a sheet of paper. “I’ll give you the small list,” he said, “because you’re my favorite boss.”

Dance looked over the names, considering how best to proceed. She heard in her mind Jon Boling’s words. We give away too much information about ourselves online. Way too much.

Kathryn Dance decided she’d get to the official databases in a while—National Criminal Information Center, Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, California Open Warrants and consolidated DMV.

For now, she’d stick to Google.

GREG SCHAEFFER STUDIED James Chilton, who sat bloodied and frightened before him.

Schaeffer had been using the pseudonym Greg Ashton to get close to Chilton without arousing suspicions.

Because the name “Schaeffer” might raise alarms in the blogger.

But then again it might not have; it wouldn’t surprise Schaeffer one bit if Chilton regularly forgot about the victims who suffered because of his blog.

This thought infuriated Schaeffer all the more and when Chilton started to sputter, “Why—?” he slugged him once more.

The blogger’s head snapped back against the upper part of his desk chair and he grunted. Which was all fine, but the son of a bitch wasn’t looking terrified enough to satisfy Schaeffer.

“Ashton! Why’re you doing this?”

Schaeffer leaned forward, gripped Chilton by the collar. He whispered, “You’re going to read a statement. If you don’t sound sincere, if you don’t sound remorseful, your wife will die. Your children too. I know they’ll be home from camp soon. I’ve been following them. I know the schedule.” He turned to Chilton’s wife. “And I know your brother’s with them. He’s a big guy, but he’s not bulletproof.”

“Oh, God, no!” Patrizia gasped, dissolving into tears. “Please!”

And now, at last, there was real fear in Chilton’s face. “No, don’t hurt my family! Please, please . . . I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t hurt them.”

“Read the statement and sound like you mean it,” Schaeffer warned, “then I’ll leave them alone. I’ll tell you, Chilton, I’ve got nothing but sympathy for them. They deserve a better life than being with a piece of shit like you.”

“I’ll read it,” the blogger said. “But who are you? Why are you doing this? You owe me an answer.”

Schaeffer was seized by a wave of fury. “Owe you?” he growled. “Owe you? You arrogant asshole!” He slammed his fist into Chilton’s cheek once more, leaving the man stunned. “I owe you nothing.” He leaned forward and snapped, “Who am I, who am I? Do you know anybody whose lives you destroy? No, of course not. Because you sit in that fucking chair, a million miles away from real life, and you say whatever you want to say. You type some shit on your keyboard, send it out into the world and then you’re on to something else. Does the concept of consequences mean anything to you? Accountability?”

“I try to be accurate. If I got something wrong—”

Schaeffer burned. “You are so fucking blind. You don’t understand you can be factually right and still be wrong. Do you have to tell every secret in the world? Do you have to destroy lives for no reason—except your ratings?”

“Please!”

“Does the name Anthony Schaeffer mean anything to you?”

Chilton’s eyes closed momentarily. “Oh.” When he opened them again they were filled with understanding, and perhaps remorse. But that didn’t move Schaeffer one bit.

At least Chilton remembered the man he’d destroyed.

Patrizia asked, “Who’s that? Who does he mean, Jim?”

“Tell her, Chilton.”

The blogger sighed. “He was a gay man who killed himself after I outed him a few years ago. And he was . . . ?”

“My brother.” His voice cracked.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry,” Schaeffer scoffed.

“I apologized for what happened. I never wanted him to die! You must know that. I felt terrible.”

Schaeffer turned to Patrizia, “Your husband, the voice of the moral and just universe, didn’t like it that a deacon in a church could also be gay.”

Chilton snapped back, “That wasn’t the reason. He headed a big anti–gay marriage campaign in California. I was attacking his hypocrisy, not his sexual orientation. And his immorality. He was married, he had children . . . but when he was on business trips he’d call up gay prostitutes. He was cheating on his wife, sometimes with three men a night!”

The blogger’s defiance was back and Schaeffer wanted to hit him once more, so he did, hard and fast.

“Tony was struggling to find God’s path. He slipped a few times. And you made it sound like he was a monster! You never even gave him a chance to explain. God was helping him find the way.”

“Well, God wasn’t doing a very good job. Not if—”

The fist struck again.

“Jim, don’t argue with him. Please!”

Chilton lowered his head. Finally he looked desperate and filled with sorrow and fear.

Schaeffer enjoyed the delicious sense of the man’s despair. “Read the statement.”

“All right. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll read it. But my family . . . please.” The agony in Chilton’s face was like fine wine to Schaeffer.

“You have my word on it.” He said this sincerely, though he was reflecting that Patrizia would outlive her husband by no more than two seconds—a humane act, in the end. She wouldn’t want to go on without him. Besides, she was a witness.

As for the children, no, he wouldn’t kill them. For one thing they weren’t due home for nearly an hour and he’d be long gone by then. Also, he wanted the sympathy of the world. Killing the blogger and his wife was one thing. The children were something else.

Beneath the camera Schaeffer taped a piece of the paper containing the statement he’d written that morning. It was a moving piece—and had been drafted in a way to make sure that nobody would associate the crime with him.

Chilton cleared his throat and looked down. He began to read. “This is a statement—” His voice broke.

Beautiful! Schaeffer kept the camera running.

Chilton started over. “This is a statement to those who’ve been reading my blog, The Chilton Report, over the years. There is nothing more precious in the world than a man’s reputation and I have devoted my life to needlessly and randomly destroying the reputations of many fine, upstanding citizens.”

He was doing a good job.

“It’s easy to buy a cheap computer and a website and some blog software and in five minutes you’ve got a venue for your personal opinions—a venue that will be seen by millions of people around the world. This leads to an intoxicating sense of power. But it’s a power that isn’t earned. It’s a power that’s stolen.

“I’ve written many things about people that were merely rumors. Those rumors spread and they became accepted as the truth, even though they were total lies. Because of my blog the life of a young man, Travis Brigham, has been destroyed. He has nothing more to live for. And neither do I. He has sought justice against the people who attacked him, people who were my friends. And now he’s rendering justice against me. I’m ultimately responsible for destroying his life.”

Glorious tears were streaking down his face. Schaeffer was in purest heaven.

“I now accept responsibility for destroying Travis’s reputation and those of the others I’ve carelessly written about. The sentence that Travis now serves on me will stand as a warning to others: The truth is sacred. Rumors are not the truth. . . . Now, good-bye.”

He inhaled deeply and looked at his wife.

Schaeffer was satisfied. The man had done a good job. He paused the webcam and checked the screen. Only Chilton was in the image. The wife wasn’t. He didn’t want an image of her death, just the blogger’s. He pulled back a bit so the man’s entire torso was visible. He’d shoot him once, in the heart, and let him die on camera, then upload the post to a number of social networking sites and to other blogs. Schaeffer estimated it would take two minutes for the video to appear on YouTube and would be viewed by several million people before the company took it down. By then, though, the pirate software that allowed the downloading of streaming videos would have captured it and the footage would spread throughout the world like cancer cells.

“They’ll find you,” Chilton muttered. “The police.”

“But they won’t be looking for me. They’ll be looking for Travis Brigham. And, frankly, I don’t think anybody’s going to be looking very hard. You’ve got a lot of enemies, Chilton.”

He cocked the gun.

“No!” Patrizia Chilton wailed desperately, frantic. Schaeffer resisted a tempting impulse to shoot her first.

He kept the gun steady on his target and noted a resigned and, it seemed, ironic smile crossing James Chilton’s face.

Schaeffer hit the “Record” button on the camera again and began to pull the trigger.

When he heard, “Freeze!”

The voice was coming from the open office doorway. “Drop the weapon. Now!”

Jolted, Schaeffer glanced back, at a slim young Latino man in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up. Pointing a weapon his way. A badge on his hip.

No! How had they found him?

Schaeffer kept the gun steadily on the blogger’s chest and snapped to the cop, “You drop it!”

“Lower the weapon,” was the officer’s measured reply. “This is your only warning.”

Schaeffer growled, “If you shoot me, I’ll—”

He saw a yellow flash, sensed a tap to his head and then the universe went black.

Chapter 36

THE DEAD ROLLED, the living walked.

The body of Greg Ashton—it was really Greg Schaeffer, Dance had learned—was wheeled down the stairs and over the lawn on the rickety gurney to the coroner’s bus, while James and Patrizia Chilton walked slowly to an ambulance.

Another casualty, everyone was horrified to learn, was the MCSO deputy who’d been guarding the Chiltons, Miguel Herrera.

Schaeffer, as Ashton, had stopped at Herrera’s car. The guard had called Patrizia and been told that the man was expected. Then Schaeffer had apparently shoved the gun against Herrera’s jacket and fired twice, the proximity to the body muting the sound.

The deputy’s supervisor from the MCSO was present, along with a dozen other deputies, shaken, furious at the murder.

As for the walking wounded, the Chiltons didn’t seem too badly hurt.

Dance was, however, keeping an eye on Rey Carraneo—who’d been the first on the scene, spotted the dead deputy, and raced into the house after calling for backup. He’d seen Schaeffer about to shoot Chilton. Carraneo gave the killer a by-the-book warning, but when the man had tried to negotiate, the agent had simply fired two very efficient rounds into his head. Discussions with gun-toting suspects only occur in movies and TV shows—and bad ones, at that. Police never lower or set down their weapons. And they never hesitate to take out a target if one presents itself.

Rules number one, two and three are: shoot.

And he had. Superficially the young agent seemed fine, his body language unchanged from the professional, upright posture he wore like a rented tux. But his eyes told a different story, revealing the words looping through his mind at the moment: I just killed a man. I just killed a man.

She’d make sure he took some time off with pay.

A car pulled up and Michael O’Neil climbed out. He spotted Dance and joined her. The quiet deputy wasn’t smiling.

“I’m sorry, Michael.” She gripped his arm. O’Neil had known Miguel Herrera for several years.

“Just shot him down?”

“That’s right.”

His eyes closed briefly. “Jesus.”

“Wife?”

“No. Divorced. But he’s got a grown son. He’s already been notified.” O’Neil, otherwise so calm, with a facade that revealed so little, looked with chilling hatred at the green bag containing Greg Schaeffer’s body

Another voice intruded, weak, unsteady. “Thank you.”

They turned to face the man who’d spoken: James Chilton. Wearing dark slacks, a white T-shirt and a navy blue V-neck sweater, the blogger seemed like a chaplain humbled by battlefront carnage. His wife was at his side.

“Are you all right?” Dance asked them.

“I’m fine, yes. Thank you. Just beat up a bit. Cuts and bruises.”

Patrizia Chilton said she too wasn’t seriously injured.

O’Neil nodded to them and asked Chilton, “Who was he?”

Dance answered, “Anthony Schaeffer’s brother.”

Chilton gave a blink of surprise. “You figured it out?”

She explained to O’Neil about Ashton’s real name. “That’s the interesting thing about the Internet—those role-playing games and sites. Like Second Life. You can create whole new identities for yourself. Schaeffer’s been spending the past few months seeding the name ‘Greg Ashton’ around online as this blogging and RSS maven. He did that to seduce his way into Chilton’s life.”

“I outed his brother Anthony in a blog several years ago,” Chilton explained. “He was the one I told Agent Dance about when I first met her—one of the things I regretted about the blog—that he killed himself.”

O’Neil asked Dance, “How did you find out about him?”

“TJ and I were checking out the suspects. It wasn’t likely that Arnold Brubaker was the killer. I was still suspicious of Clint Avery—the guy behind the highway project—but we didn’t have anything specific yet. So I was working on the list of people who’d sent James threats.”

The small list . . .

Chilton said, “Anthony Schaeffer’s wife was on the list. Sure. She’d threatened me a few years ago.”

Dance continued, “I went online to find out as many details about her as I could. I found her wedding pictures. The best man at their wedding was Greg, Anthony’s brother. I recognized him from when I came to your house the other day. I checked him out. He traveled here on an open ticket about two weeks ago.” As soon as she’d learned this she’d called Miguel Herrera but couldn’t get through, so she sent Rey Carraneo here. The agent, following Clint Avery, was not far from Chilton’s house.

O’Neil asked, “Did Schaeffer say anything about Travis?”

Dance showed him the plastic envelope containing the handwritten note, with the references to Travis, making it seem that the boy was the one about to shoot Chilton.

“He’s dead, you think?”

O’Neil’s and Dance’s eyes met. She said, “I’m not going on that assumption. Ultimately, sure, Schaeffer’d have to kill the boy. But he might not have done it yet. He might want to make it look like Travis killed himself after he’d finished with Chilton. Make the case tidier. That means he could still be alive.”

The senior deputy took a phone call. He stepped away, eyes straying to the MCSO car where Herrera had been so ruthlessly killed. He disconnected after a moment. “Got to head off. Have to interview a witness.”

“You? Interviewing?” she chided. Michael O’Neil’s technique at interviewing involved gazing unsmilingly at the subject and asking him over and over again to tell O’Neil what he knew. It could be effective, but it wasn’t efficient. And O’Neil didn’t really enjoy it.

He consulted his watch. “Any chance you could do me a favor?”

“Name it.”

“Anne’s flight from San Francisco was delayed. I can’t miss this interview. Can you pick up the kids at day care?”

“Sure. I’m going to get Wes and Maggie after camp anyway.”

“Meet me at Fisherman’s Wharf at five?”

“Sure.”

O’Neil headed off, with yet another dark glance at Herrera’s car.

Chilton gripped his wife’s hand. Dance recognized postures that bespoke a graze with mortality. She thought back to the arrogant, self-righteous crusader Chilton had been when she first met him. Very different now. She recalled that something about him seemed to have softened earlier—when he’d learned that his friend Don Hawken and his wife had nearly been killed. Now, there’d been another shift, away from the stony visage of a missionary.

The man gave a bitter smile. “Oh, did he sucker me in. . . . He played right to my fucking ego.”

“Jim—”

“No, honey. He did. You know, this’s all my fault. Schaeffer picked Travis. He read through the blog, found somebody who’d be a good candidate to be a fall guy and set up a seventeen-year-old boy as my killer. If I hadn’t started the ‘Roadside Crosses’ thread and mentioned the accident, Schaeffer wouldn’t have any incentive to go after him.”

He was right. But Kathryn Dance tended to avoid the what-if game. The playing field was far too soupy. “He would’ve picked somebody else,” she pointed out. “He was determined to get revenge against you.”

But Chilton didn’t seem to hear. “I should just shut the fucking blog down altogether.”

Dance saw resolve in his eyes, frustration, anger. Fear, too, she believed. Speaking to both of them, he said firmly, “I’m going to.”

“To what?” his wife asked.

“Shut it down. The Report’s finished. I’m not destroying anybody else’s life.”

“Jim,” Patrizia said softly. She brushed some dirt off her sleeve. “When our son had pneumonia, you sat beside his bed for two days and didn’t get a bit of sleep. When Don’s wife died, you walked right out of that meeting at Microsoft headquarters to be there for him—you gave up a hundred-thousand-dollar contract. When my dad was dying, you were with him more than the hospice people. You do good things, Jim. That’s what you’re about. And your blog does good things too.”

“I—”

“Shhh. Let me finish. Donald Hawken needed you and you were there. Our children needed you and you were there. Well, the world needs you too, honey. You can’t turn your back on that.”

“Patty, people died.”

“Just promise me you won’t make any decisions too fast. This has been a terrible couple of days. Nobody’s thinking clearly.”

A lengthy pause. “I’ll see. I’ll see.” Then he hugged his wife. “But one thing I do know is that I can go on hiatus for a few days. And we’re going to get away from here.” Chilton said to his wife, “Let’s go up to Hollister tomorrow. We’ll spend a long weekend with Donald and Lily. You still haven’t met her. We’ll bring the boys, cook out . . . do some hiking.”

Patrizia’s face blossomed into a smile. She rested her head against his shoulders. “I’d like that.”

He’d turned his attention to Dance. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about.”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“A lot of people would’ve thrown me to the wolves. And I probably deserved to be thrown. But you didn’t. You didn’t like me, you didn’t approve, but you stood up for me. That’s intellectual honesty. You don’t see that much. Thank you.”

Dance gave a faint, embarrassed laugh, acknowledging the compliment—even as she thought of the times when she had wanted to throw him to the wolves.

The Chiltons returned to the house to finish packing and arrange for a motel that night—Patrizia didn’t want to stay in the house until the office had been scrubbed clean of every trace of Schaeffer’s blood. Dance could hardly blame her.

The agent now joined the MCSO Crime Scene chief, an easygoing middle-aged officer she’d worked with for several years. She explained that there was a possibility that Travis might still be alive, stashed in a hideout somewhere. Which meant he’d have a dwindling supply of food and water. She had to locate him. And soon.

“You find a room key on the body?”

“Yep. Cyprus Grove Inn.”

“I want the room, and Schaeffer’s clothes and his car gone over with a microscope. Look for anything that might give us a clue where he might’ve put the boy.”

“You bet, Kathryn.”

She returned to her car, phoning TJ. “You got him, boss. I heard.”

“Yep. But now I want to find the boy. If he’s alive, we may only have a day or two until he starves to death or dies of thirst. All-out on this one. MCSO’s running the scenes at Chilton’s house and at the Cyprus Grove—where Schaeffer was staying. Call Peter Bennington and ride herd on the reports. Call Michael if you need to. Oh, and find me witnesses in nearby rooms at the Cyprus Grove.”

“Sure, boss.”

“And contact CHP, county and city police. I want to find the last roadside cross—the one Schaeffer left to announce Chilton’s death. Peter should go over it with every bit of equipment they’ve got.” Another thought occurred to her. “Did you ever hear back about that state vehicle?”

“Oh, that Pfister saw, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Nobody’s called. I don’t think we’re prioritized.”

“Try again. And make it a priority.”

“You coming in, boss? Overbearing wants to see you.”

“TJ.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ll be in later. I’ve got to follow up on one thing.”

“You need help?”

She said she didn’t, though the truth was she sure as hell didn’t want to do this one solo.

Chapter 37

SITTING IN HER car, parked in the driveway, Dance gazed at the Brighams’ small house: the sad lean of the gutters and curl of the shingles, the dismembered toys and tools in the front and side yards. The garage so filled with discards that you couldn’t get more than half a car hood under its roof.

Dance was sitting in the driver’s seat of her Crown Vic, the door shut. Listening to a CD she and Martine had been sent from a group in Los Angeles. The musicians were Costa Rican. She found the music both cheerful and mysterious, and wanted to know more about them. She’d hoped that when she and Michael were in L.A. on the J. Doe murder case she’d have a chance to meet with them and do some more recordings.

But she couldn’t think about that now.

She heard the rumble of rubber on gravel and looked into the rearview mirror to see Sonia Brigham’s car pause as it turned past the hedge of boxwood.

The woman was alone in the front seat. Sammy sat in the back.

The car didn’t move for a long moment and Dance could see the woman staring desperately at the police cruiser. Finally Sonia teased her battered car forward again and drove past Dance to the front of the house, braked and shut the engine off.

With a fast look Dance’s way, the woman climbed out and strode to the back of the car and lifted out the laundry baskets, and a large bottle of Tide.

His families so poor that they can’t even afford a washer and drier. . . . Who goes to laundromats? Lusers that’s who. . . .

The blog post that told Schaeffer where to find a sweatshirt to steal to help him frame Travis.

Dance climbed out of her own vehicle.

Sammy looked at her with a probing expression. The curiosity of their first meeting was gone; now he was uneasy. His eyes were eerily adult.

“You know something about Travis?” he asked, and didn’t sound as odd as he had earlier.

But before Dance could say anything, his mother shooed him off to play in the backyard.

He hesitated, still staring at Dance, then wandered off, uncomfortable, fishing in his pockets.

“Don’t go far, Sammy.”

Dance took the bottle of detergent from under Sonja’s pale arm and followed her toward the house. Sonia’s jaw was firm, eyes straight forward.

“Mrs.—”

“I have to put this away,” Sonia Brigham said in a clipped tone.

Dance opened the unlocked door for her. She followed Sonia inside. The woman moved straight into the kitchen and separated the baskets. “If you let them sit . . . the wrinkles, you know what it’s like.” She smoothed a T-shirt.

Woman to woman.

“I washed it thinking I could give it to him.”

“Mrs. Brigham, there are some things you should know. Travis wasn’t driving the car on June 9. He took the blame.”

“What?” She stopped fussing with her laundry.

“He had a crush on the girl who was driving. She’d been drinking. He tried to get her to pull over and let him drive. She crashed before that happened.”

“Oh, heavens!” Sonia lifted the shirt to her face, as if it could ward off the impending tears.

“And he wasn’t the killer, leaving the crosses. Someone set it up to make it seem like he’d left them and caused those deaths. A man with a grudge against James Chilton. We stopped him.”

“And Travis?” Sonia asked desperately, fingers white as they gripped the shirt.

“We don’t know where he is. We’re looking everywhere, but we haven’t found any leads yet.” Dance explained briefly about Greg Schaeffer and his plan for revenge.

Sonia wiped her round cheeks. There was prettiness still in her face, though obscured. The remnants of the prettiness evident in the picture of her in the state fair stall taken years earlier. Sonia whispered, “I knew Travis wouldn’t hurt those people. I told you that.”

Yes, you did, Dance thought. And your body language told me that you were telling the truth. I didn’t listen to you. I listened to logic when I should have listened to intuition. Long ago Dance had done a Myers-Briggs analysis of herself. She got into trouble when she strayed too far from her nature.

She replaced the shirt, smoothed the cotton again. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“We have no evidence he is. Absolutely none.”

“But you think so.”

“It’d be logical for Schaeffer to keep him alive. I’m doing everything we can to save him. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.” She displayed a picture of Greg Schaeffer, a copy from his DMV picture. “Have you ever seen him? Maybe following you? Talking to neighbors?”

Sonia pulled on battered glasses and looked at the face for a long time. “No. I can’t say I have. So he’s him. The one done it, took my boy?”

“Yes.”

“I told you no good would come of that blog.”

Her eyes slipped toward the side yard, where Sammy was disappearing into the ramshackle shed. She sighed. “If Travis is gone, telling Sammy . . . oh, that’ll destroy him. I’ll be losing two sons at once. Now, I’ve got to put the laundry away. Please go now.”

DANCE AND O’NEIL stood next to each other on the pier, leaning against the railing. The fog was gone, but the wind was steady. Around Monterey Bay you always had one or the other.

“Travis’s mother,” O’Neil said, speaking loudly. “That was tough, I’ll bet.”

“Hardest part of it all,” she said, her hair flying. Then asked him, “How was the interview?” Thinking of the Indonesian investigation.

The Other Case.

“Good.”

She was glad O’Neil was running the case, regretted her jealousy. Terrorism kept all law enforcers up nights. “If you need anything from me let me know.”

His eyes on the bay, he said, “I think we’ll wrap it in the next twenty-four hours.”

Below them were their children, the four of them, on the sand at water’s edge. Maggie and Wes led the expedition; being grandchildren of a marine biologist, they had some authority.

Pelicans flew solemnly nearby, gulls were everywhere, and not far offshore, a brown curl of sea otter floated easily on its back, inverted elegance. It happily smashed open mollusks against a rock balanced on its chest. Dinner. O’Neil’s daughter, Amanda, and Maggie stared at it gleefully, as if trying to figure out how to get it home as a pet.

Dance touched O’Neil’s arm and pointed at ten-year-old Tyler, who was crouching beside a long whip of kelp and poking it cautiously, ready to flee if the alien creature came to life. Wes stood protectively near in case it did.

O’Neil smiled but she sensed from his stance and the tension in his arm that something was bothering him.

Only a moment later he explained, calling over the blast of wind, “I heard from Los Angeles. The defense is trying to move the immunity hearing back again. Two weeks.”

“Oh, no,” Dance muttered. “Two weeks? The grand jury’s scheduled for then.”

“Seybold’s going all-out to fight it. He didn’t sound optimistic.”

“Hell.” Dance grimaced. “War of attrition? Keep stalling and hope it all goes away?”

“Probably.”

“We won’t,” she said firmly. “You and me, we won’t go away. But will Seybold and the others?”

O’Neil considered this. “If it takes much more time, maybe. It’s an important case. But they have a lot of important cases.”

Dance sighed. She shivered.

“You cold?”

Her forearm was docked against his.

She shook her head. The involuntary ripple had come from thinking of Travis. As she’d been looking over the water, she’d wondered if she was also gazing at his grave.

A gull hovered directly in front of them. The angle of attack of his wings adjusted perfectly for the velocity of the wind. He was immobile, twenty feet above the beach.

Dance said, “All along, you know, even when we thought he was the killer, I felt sorry for Travis. His home life, the fact he’s a misfit. Getting cyberbullied like that. And Jon was telling me the blog was just the tip of the iceberg. People were attacking him in instant messages, emails, on other bulletin boards. It’s just so sad it’s turned out this way. He was innocent. Completely innocent.”

O’Neil said nothing for a moment. Then: “He seems sharp. Boling, I mean.”

“He is. Getting the names of the victims. And tracking down Travis’s avatar.”

O’Neil laughed. “Sorry, but I keep picturing you going to Overby about a warrant for a character in a computer game.”

“Oh, he’d do the paperwork in a minute if he thought there was a press conference and a good photo op involved. I could’ve beaned Jon, though, for going to that arcade alone.”

“Playing hero?”

“Yep. Save us from amateurs.”

“He married, have a family?”

“Jon? No.” She laughed. “He’s a bachelor.”

Now there’s a word you haven’t heard for . . . about a century.

They fell silent, watching the children, who were totally lost in their seaside exploration. Maggie was holding her hand out and pointing to something, probably explaining to O’Neil’s children the name of a shell she’d found.

Wes, Dance noted, was by himself, standing on a damp flat, the water easing up close to his feet in foamy lines.

And as she often did, Dance wondered if her children would be better off if she had a husband, and they had a home with a father. Well, of course they would.

Depending on the man, of course.

There was always that.

A woman’s voice behind them. “Excuse me. Are those your children?”

They turned to see a tourist, to judge by the bag she held from a nearby souvenir shop.

“That’s right,” Dance said.

“I just wanted to say that it’s so nice to see a happily married couple with such lovely children. How long have you been married?”

A millisecond pause. Dance answered, “Oh, for some time.”

“Well, bless you. Stay happy.” The woman joined an elderly man leaving a gift shop. She took his arm and they headed toward a large tour bus, parked nearby.

Dance and O’Neil laughed. Then she noticed a silver Lexus pull up in a nearby parking lot. As the door opened, she was aware that O’Neil had eased away from her slightly, so that their arms no longer touched.

The deputy smiled and waved to his wife as she climbed from the Lexus.

Tall, blond Anne O’Neil, wearing a leather jacket, peasant blouse, long skirt and belt of dangly metal, smiled as she approached. “Hello, honey,” she said to O’Neil and hugged him, kissed his cheek. Her eyes lit on Dance. “Kathryn.”

“Hi, Anne. Welcome home.”

“The flight was awful. I got tied up at the gallery and didn’t make it in time to check my bag. I was right on the borderline.”

“I was in an interview,” O’Neil told her. “Kathryn picked up Tyler and Ammie.”

“Oh, thanks. Mike said you’ve closed the case. That one about the roadside crosses.”

“A few hours ago. Lot of paperwork, but, yeah, it’s done.” Not wanting to talk about it any longer, Dance said, “How’s the photo exhibition going?”

“Getting ready,” said Anne O’Neil, whose hair brought to mind the word “lioness.” “Curating’s more work than taking the pictures.”

“Which gallery?”

“Oh, just Gerry Mitchell’s. South of Market.” The tone was dismissive, but Dance guessed the gallery was well known. Whatever else, Anne never flaunted ego.

“Congratulations.”

“We’ll see what happens at the opening. Then there are the reviews afterward.” Her sleek face grew solemn. In a low voice: “I’m sorry about your mother, Kathryn. It’s all crazy. How’s she holding up?”

“Pretty upset.”

“It’s like a circus. The newspaper stories. It made the news up there.”

A hundred and thirty miles away? Well, Dance shouldn’t ’ve been surprised. Not with the prosecutor Robert Harper playing the media game.

“We’ve got a good attorney.”

“If there’s anything I can do . . .” The ends of Anne’s metal belt tinkled like a wind chime in the breeze.

O’Neil called down to the beach, “Hey, guys, your mother’s here. Come on!”

“Can’t we stay, Dad?” Tyler pleaded.

“Nope. Time to get home. Come on.”

Reluctantly the children trudged toward the adults. Maggie was dispensing shells. Dance was sure she’d be giving the good ones to the O’Neil children and her brother.

Wes and Maggie piled into Dance’s Pathfinder for the short ride to the inn where her parents were staying. Once again, they’d spend the night with Edie and Stuart. The perp was dead, so the threat to her personally was gone, but Dance was adamant about finding Travis alive. She’d possibly be working late into the night.

They were halfway to the inn when Dance noticed that Wes had grown quiet.

“Hey, young man, what’s up?”

“Just wondering.”

Dance knew how to reel in details from reluctant children. The trick was patience. “About what?”

She was sure it had to do with his grandmother.

But it didn’t.

“Is Mr. Boling coming over again?”

“Jon? Why?”

“Just, The Matrix’s on TNT tomorrow. Maybe he hasn’t seen it.”

“I’ll bet he has.” Dance was always amused by the way children assumed that they’re the first to experience something and that prior generations lived in sorrowful ignorance and deprivation. Mostly, though, she was surprised that the boy had even asked the question. “You like Mr. Boling?” she ventured.

“No . . . I mean, he’s okay.”

Maggie contradicted, “You said you liked him! You said he was neat. As neat as Michael.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did!”

“Maggie, you are so wrong!”

“All right,” Dance commanded. But her tone was amused. In fact, there was something about the sibling bickering that she found comforting, a bit of normalcy in this turbulent time.

They arrived at the inn, and Dance was relieved to see that the protesters still had not found the location where her parents were hiding out. She walked Wes and Maggie to the front door. Her father greeted her. She hugged him hard and looked inside. Her mother was on the phone, focusing on what was apparently a serious conversation.

Dance wondered if she was talking to her sister, Betsey.

“Any word from Sheedy, Dad?”

“Nothing more, no. The arraignment’s tomorrow afternoon.” He brushed absently at his thick hair. “I heard you got the fellow, that killer. And the boy was innocent?”

“We’re looking for him right now.” Her voice lowered so the children couldn’t hear. “Frankly, the odds are he’s dead, but I’m hoping for the best.” She hugged the man. “I’ve got to get back to the search now.”

“Good luck, honey.”

As she turned to leave she waved once more to her mother. Edie reciprocated with a distant smile and nod, then, still on the phone, gestured her grandchildren to her and gave them big hugs.

TEN MINUTES LATER Dance walked into her office, where a message awaited her.

A curt note from Charles Overby:

Could you send me the report on disposition of the Chilton blog case. All the details, sufficient for a meaningful announcement to the press. Will need within the hour. Thank you.

And you’re welcome for a case solved, a perp dead and no more victims.

Overby was pissy, she supposed, because she’d refused to kowtow to Hamilton Royce, the fixer.

Who was about as far from George Clooney as one could be.

Meaningful announcement . . .

Dance composed a lengthy memo, giving the details of Greg Schaeffer’s plan, how they’d learned of his identity and his death. She included information about the murder of Miguel Herrera, the deputy with the MCSO guarding the Chilton house, and the update on the all-out search for Travis.

She sent the memo off via email, hitting the mouse harder than usual.

TJ stuck his head in the door of her office. “You hear, boss?”

“About what in particular?”

“Kelley Morgan’s regained consciousness. She’ll live.”

“Oh, that’s so good to hear.”

“Be a week or so in therapy, the deputy over there said. That stuff screwed up her lungs pretty bad, but she’ll be okay, eventually. Looks like there won’t be any brain damage.”

“And what’d she say about ID’ing Travis?”

“He got her from behind, half strangled her. He whispered something about why’d she posted things about him? And then she passed out, woke up in the basement. Assumed it was Travis.”

“So Schaeffer didn’t want her to die. He set it up to make her think it was Travis but never let her see him.”

“Makes sense, boss.”

“And Crime Scene—at Schaeffer’s and Chilton’s? Any leads to where the boy might be?”

“Nothing yet. And no witnesses around the Cyprus Grove.”

She sighed. “Keep at it.”

The time was now after 6:00 p.m. She realized she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She rose and made for the lunchroom. She needed coffee and wanted something indulgent: homemade cookies or doughnuts. Maryellen’s well in the Gals’ Wing had run dry. At the least she could enter a negotiation with the temperamental vending machine: a rumpled dollar in exchange for a packet of toasted peanut butter crackers or Oreos.

As she stepped into the cafeteria she blinked. Ah, luck.

On a paper plate full of crumbs sat two oatmeal raisin cookies.

More of a miracle, the coffee was relatively fresh.

She poured a cup, added 2 percent milk and snagged a cookie. Exhausted, she plunked herself down at a table. She stretched and fished her iPod out of her pocket, mounting the ear buds and scrolling through the screen to find solace in more of Badi Assad’s arresting Brazilian guitar.

She hit “Play,” took a bite of cookie and was reaching for the coffee when a shadow hovered.

Hamilton Royce was looking down at her. His temporary ID was pinned to his shirt. The big man’s arms hung at his sides.

Just what I need. If thoughts could sigh, hers would have been clearly audible.

“Agent Dance. Can I join you?”

She gestured to an empty chair, trying not to look too invitational. But she did pull out the ear buds.

He sat, the chair squeaking, plastic and metal in tension under his frame, and leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped in front of him. This position generally signifies directness. She noted his suit again. The blue didn’t work. Not dark enough. Or, alternatively, she thought unkindly, he should be wearing a sailor’s hat with a shiny brim.

“I heard. The case is over, correct?”

“We’ve got the perp. We’re still searching for the boy.”

“For Travis?” Royce asked, surprised.

“That’s right.”

“But he’s dead, don’t you think?”

“No.”

“Oh.” A pause. “That’s the one thing I regret,” Royce said. “That’s the worst of it all. That innocent boy.”

Dance noted that this reaction, at least, was honest.

She said nothing more.

Royce offered, “I’ll be headed back to Sacramento in a day or two. Look, I know we had some problems earlier. . . . Well, disagreements. I wanted to apologize.”

Decent of him, though she remained skeptical. She said, “We saw things differently. I didn’t take any offense. Not personally.”

But, professionally, she thought, I was totally pissed you tried to flank me.

“There was a lot of pressure from Sacramento. I mean, a lot. I got carried away in the heat of the moment.” He looked away, partly embarrassed. And partly deceptive too; he didn’t feel that bad, Dance noticed. But she gave him credit for trying to make nice. He continued, “Not often that you’re in a situation like this, is it? Where you have to protect somebody as unpopular as Chilton.” He didn’t seem to expect an answer. He gave a hollow laugh. “You know something? In a funny way I’ve come to admire him.”

“Chilton?”

A nod. “I don’t agree with much of what he says. But he’s got moral character. And not a lot of people do nowadays. Even in the face of a murder threat, he stayed the course. And he’ll probably keep right on going. Don’t you think?”

“I assume so.” She said nothing about the possible termination of The Chilton Report.

That wasn’t her business, or Royce’s.

“You know what I’d like to do? Apologize to him too.”

“Would you?”

“I tried his house. Nobody was answering. Do you know where he is?”

“He and his family’re going to their vacation home in Hollister tomorrow. Tonight, they’re staying at a hotel. I don’t know where. Their house is a crime scene.”

“Well, I suppose I could email him at his blog.”

She was wondering if this would ever happen.

Then, silence. Time for my exit, Dance thought. She snagged the last cookie, wrapped it in a napkin and headed for the lunchroom door. “Have a safe drive, Mr. Royce.”

“Again, I’m truly sorry, Agent Dance. I look forward to working with you in the future.”

Her kinesic skills easily fired off a message that his comment had contained two lies.

Chapter 38

JONATHAN BOLING, LOOKING pleased, was walking up to Dance in the lobby of the CBI. She handed him a temporary pass.

“Thanks for coming in.”

“I was beginning to miss the place. I thought I’d been fired.”

She smiled. When she’d called him in Santa Cruz she’d interrupted a paper-grading session for one of his summer school courses (she’d wondered if she would catch him prepping for a date) and Boling had been delighted to abandon the job and drive back to Monterey.

In her office, she handed him his last assignment: Greg Schaeffer’s laptop. “I’m really desperate to find Travis, or his body. Can you go through it, look for any references to local locations, driving directions, maps . . . anything like that?”

“Sure.” He indicated the Toshiba. “Passworded?”

“Not this time.”

“Good.”

He opened the lid and began to type. “I’ll search for everything with a file access or creation date in the past two weeks. Does that sound good?”

“Sure.”

Dance tried not to smile once more, watching him lean forward enthusiastically. His fingers played over the keys like a concert pianist’s. After a few moments he sat back. “Well, it doesn’t look like he used it for much of his mission here, other than to research for blogs and RSS feeds, and emails to friends and business associates—and none of them have anything to do with his plot to kill Chilton. But those are just the undeleted records. He’s been deleting files and websites regularly for the past week. Those, I’d guess, might be more what you’re interested in.”

“Yep. Can you reconstruct them?”

“I’ll go online and download one of Irv’s bots. That’ll roam the free space on his C: drive and put back together anything he’s deleted recently. Some of it will be only partial and some will be distorted. But most of the files should be ninety percent readable.”

“That’d be great, Jon.”

Five minutes later Irv’s bot was silently roaming through Schaeffer’s computer, looking for fragments of deleted files, reassembling them and storing them in a new folder that Boling had created.

“How long?” she asked.

“A couple of hours, I’d guess.” Boling looked at his watch and suggested they get a bite of dinner. They climbed into his Audi and headed to a restaurant not far from CBI headquarters, on a rise overlooking the airport and, beyond that, the city of Monterey and the bay. They got a table on the deck, warmed with overhead propane heaters, and sipped a Viognier white wine. The sun was now melting into the Pacific, spreading out and growing violently orange. They watched it in silence as tourists nearby snapped pictures that would have to be Photoshopped to even approximate the grandeur of the real event.

They talked about her children, about their own childhoods. Where they were from originally. Boling commented that he believed only twenty percent of the Central Coast population comprised native Californians.

Silence flowed between them again. Dance sensed his shoulders rising and was expecting what came next.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” She meant it, no reservations.

“When did your husband die?”

“About two years ago.”

Two years, two months, three weeks. She could give him the days and hours too.

“I’ve never lost anybody. Not like that.” Though there was a wistfulness in his voice, and his eyelids flickered like venetian blinds troubled by the wind. “What happened, you mind if I ask?”

“Not at all. Bill was an FBI agent, assigned to the local resident agency. But it wasn’t work-related. An accident on Highway One. A truck. The driver fell asleep.” A wisp of a laugh. “You know, I never thought about it until just now. But his fellow agents and friends put flowers by the roadside for about a year after it happened.”

“A cross?”

“No, just flowers.” She shook her head. “God, I hated that. The reminder. I’d drive miles out of my way to avoid the place.”

“Must’ve been terrible.”

Dance tried not to practice her skills as a kinesics expert when she was out socially. Sometimes she’d read the kids, sometimes she’d read a date. But she remembered when she’d caught Wes in some minor lie and he grumbled, “It’s like you’re Superman, Mom. You’ve got X-ray word vision.” Now she was aware that, although Boling’s face kept its sympathetic smile, his body language had subtly changed. The grip on his wineglass stem tightened. On his free hand, fingers rubbed compulsively. Behaviors she knew he wasn’t even aware of.

Dance just needed to prime the pump. “Come on, Jon. Your turn to spill. What’s your story? You’ve been pretty vague on the bachelor topic.”

“Oh, nothing like your situation.”

He was minimizing something that hurt, she could see that. She wasn’t even a therapist, let alone his. But they’d spent some time under fire and she wanted to know what was troubling him. She touched his arm briefly. “Come on. Remember, I interrogate people for a living. I’ll get it out of you sooner or later.”

“I never go out with somebody who wants to water board me on the first date. Well, depending.”

Jon Boling, Dance had come to realize, was a man who used clever quips as armor.

He continued, “This is the worst soap opera you’ll ever hear. . . . The girl I met after leaving Silicon Valley? She ran a bookstore in Santa Cruz. Bay Beach Books?”

“I think I’ve been there.”

“We hit it off real well, Cassie and I. Did a lot of outdoor things together. Had some great times traveling. She even survived some visits to my family—well, actually it’s only me who has trouble surviving those.” He thought for a minute. “I think the thing is that we laughed a lot. That’s a clue. What kind of movies do you like best? We watched comedies mostly. Okay, she was separated, not divorced. Legal separation. Cassie was completely honest about it. I knew it all up front. She was getting the paperwork together.”

“Children?”

“She had two, yes. Boy and girl like you. Great kids. Split the time between her and her ex.”

You mean, her not-quite-ex, Dance corrected silently, and, of course, knew the arc of the story.

He sipped some more of the cold, crisp wine. A breeze had come up and as the sun melted, the temperature fell. “Her ex was abusive. Not physically; he never hurt her or the kids, but he’d insult her, put her down.” He gave an astonished laugh. “This wasn’t right, that wasn’t right. She was smart, kind, thoughtful. But he just kept dumping on her. I was thinking about this last night.” His voice faded at that comment, having just given away a bit of data he wished he hadn’t. “He was an emotional serial killer.”

“That’s a good way to put it.”

“And naturally she went back to him.” His face was still for a moment as he relived a specific incident, she supposed. Our hearts rarely respond to the abstract; it’s the tiny slivers of sharp memory that sting so. Then the facade returned in the form of a tight-lipped smile. “He got transferred to China, and they went with him, Cassie and the kids. She said she was sorry, she’d always love me, but she had to go back to him. . . . Never quite got the obligatory part in relationships. Like, you have to breathe, you have to eat . . . but staying with a jerk? I don’t get the necessary. But here I am going on about . . . oh, shall we say an ‘epic’ bad call on my part, and you had a real tragedy.”

Dance shrugged. “In my line of work, whether it’s murder or manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide, a death’s still a death. Just like love; when it goes away, for whatever reason, it hurts all the same.”

“I guess. But all I’ll say is it’s a real bad idea to fall in love with somebody who’s married.”

Amen, thought Kathryn Dance again, and nearly laughed out loud. She tipped a touch more wine into her glass.

“How ’bout that,” he said.

“What?”

“We’ve managed to bring up two extremely personal and depressing topics in a very short period of time. Good thing we’re not on a date,” he added with a grin.

Dance opened the menu. “Let’s get some food. They have—”

“—the best calamari burgers in town here,” Boling said.

She laughed. She’d been about to say exactly the same.

THE COMPUTER SEARCH was a bust.

She and the professor returned from their squid and salads to her office, both eager to see what Irv’s bot had found. Boling sat down, scrolled through the file and announced with a sigh, “Zip.”

“Nothing?”

“He just deleted those emails and files and research to save space. Nothing secretive, and nothing local at all.”

The frustration was keen, but there was nothing more to do. “Thanks, Jon. At least I got a nice dinner out of it.”

“Sorry.” He looked truly disappointed that he couldn’t be of more help. “I guess I better finish up grading those papers. And pack.”

“That’s right, your family reunion’s this weekend.”

He nodded. A tight smile and he said, “Woooo-hoooo,” with forced enthusiasm.

Dance laughed.

He hovered near her. “I’ll call you when I get back. I want to know how things work out. And good luck with Travis. I hope he’s okay.”

“Thanks, Jon. For everything.” She took his hand and gripped it firmly. “And I especially appreciate your not getting stabbed to death.”

A smile. He squeezed her hand and turned away.

As she watched him walk down the corridor a woman’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Hey, K.”

Dance turned to see Connie Ramirez, walking down the hallway toward her.

“Con.”

The other senior agent looked around and nodded toward Dance’s office. Then stepped inside, closing the door. “Found a few things I thought you might be interested in. From the hospital.”

“Oh, thanks, Con. How’d you do it?”

Ramirez considered this. “I was deceptively honest.”

“I like that.”

“I flashed my shield and gave them some details of another case I’m running. That medical fraud case.”

The CBI investigated financial crimes too. And the case Ramirez was referring to was a major insurance scam—the perps used identification numbers of doctors who were deceased to file bogus claims in their names.

It was the sort of thing, Dance reflected, that Chilton himself might write about in his blog. And it was a brilliant choice for Connie; staffers at the hospital were among the victims, and would have an interest in helping investigators.

“I asked them to show me the log-in sheets. The whole month’s worth, so Henry didn’t get suspicious. They were more than happy to comply. And here’s what I found: The day Juan Millar died there was one visiting physician—the hospital has a continuing-ed lecture series and he was probably there for that. There were also six job applicants—two for maintenance spots, one for the cafeteria and three nurses. I’ve got copies of their résumés. None of them look suspicious to me.

“Now, what’s interesting is this: There were sixty-four visitors at the hospital that day. I correlated the names and the people they were there to see, and every one of them checks out. Except one.”

“Who?”

“It’s hard to read the name, either the printed version or the signature. But I think it’s Jose Lopez.”

“Who was he seeing?”

“He only wrote ‘patient.’ ”

“That was a safe bet, in a hospital,” Dance said wryly. “Why is it suspicious?”

“Well, I figured that if somebody was there to kill Juan Millar, he or she would have to have been there before—either as visitors or to check out security and so on. So I looked at everybody who’d signed in to see him earlier.”

“Brilliant. And you checked their handwriting.”

“Exactly. I’m no document examiner but I found a visitor who’d been to see him a number of times, and I’d almost guarantee the handwriting’s the same as this Jose Lopez’s.”

Dance was sitting forward. “Who?”

“Julio Millar.”

“His brother!”

“I’m ninety percent sure. I made copies of everything.” Ramirez handed Dance sheets of paper.

“Oh, Connie, this is brilliant.”

“Good luck. If you need anything else, just ask.”

Dance sat alone in her office, considering this new information. Could Julio actually have killed his brother?

At first, it seemed impossible, given the loyalty and love that Julio displayed for his young sibling. Yet there was no doubt that the killing had been an act of mercy, and Dance could imagine a conversation between the two brothers—Julio leaning forward as Juan whispered a plea to put him out of his misery.

Kill me. . . .

Besides, why else would Julio have faked a name on the sign-in sheet?

Why had Harper and the state investigators missed this connection? She was furious, and had a suspicion that they knew about it, but were downplaying the possibility because it would be better publicity against the death-with-dignity act for Robert Harper to go after the mother of a state law enforcement agent. Thoughts of prosecutorial malfeasance buzzed around her head.

Dance called George Sheedy and left a message about what Connie Ramirez had found. She then called her mother to tell her directly about it. There was no answer.

Damnit. Was she screening calls?

She disconnected then sat back, thinking about Travis. If he was alive, how much longer would he have? A few days, without water. And what a terrible death it would be.

Another shadow in her doorway. TJ Scanlon appeared, “Hey, boss.”

She sensed something was urgent.

“Crime scene results?”

“Not yet, but I’m riding ’em hard. Rawhide, remember? This’s something else. Heard from MCSO. They got a call—anonymous—about the Crosses Case.”

Dance sat up slightly. “What was it?”

“The caller said he’d spotted, quote, ‘something near Harrison Road and Pine Grove Way.’ Just south of Carmel.”

“Nothing more than that?”

“Nope. Just ‘something.’ I checked the intersection. It’s near that abandoned construction site. And the call was from a pay phone.”

Dance debated for a moment. Her eyes dipped to a sheet of paper, a copy of the postings on The Chilton Report. She rose and pulled on her jacket.

“You going to go over there to check it out?” TJ asked uncertainly.

“Yep. Really want to find him, if there’s any way.”

“Kind of a weird area, boss. Want backup?”

She smiled. “I don’t think I’m going to be in much danger.”

Not with the perp presently residing in the Monterey County morgue.

THE CEILING OF the basement was painted black. It contained eighteen rafters, also black. The walls were a dingy white, cheap paint, and were made up of 892 cinder blocks. Against the wall were two cabinets, one gray metal, one uneven white wood. Inside were large stocks of canned goods, boxes of pasta, soda and wine, tools, nails, personal items like toothpaste and deodorant.

Four metal poles rose to the dim ceiling, supporting the first floor. Three were close to each other, one farther away. They were painted dark brown but they were also rusty and it was hard to tell where the paint ended and the oxidation began.

The floor was concrete and the cracks made shapes that became familiar if you stared at them long enough: a sitting panda, the state of Texas, a truck.

An old furnace, dusty and battered, sat in the corner. It ran on natural gas and switched on only rarely. Even then, though, it didn’t heat this area much at all.

The size of the basement was thirty-seven feet by twenty-eight, which could be calculated easily from the cinder blocks, which were exactly twelve inches wide by nine high, though you had to add an eighth of an inch to each one for the mortar that glued them together.

A number of creatures lived down here too. Spiders, mostly. You could count seven families, if that was what spiders lived in, and they seemed to stake out territories so as not to offend—or get eaten by—the others. Beetles and centipedes too. Occasional mosquitoes and flies.

Something larger had shown an interest in the stacks of food and beverages in the far corner of the basement, a mouse or a rat. But it’d grown timid and left, never to return.

Or been poisoned and died.

One window, high in the wall, admitted opaque light but no view; it was painted over, off-white. The hour was now probably 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.—since the window was nearly dark.

The thick silence was suddenly shattered as footsteps pounded across the first floor, above. A pause. Then the front door opened, and slammed shut.

At last.

Finally, now that his kidnapper had left, Travis Brigham could relax. The way the schedule of the past few days had turned out, once his captor left at night he wouldn’t be back till morning. Travis now curled up in the bed, pulling the gamy blanket around him. This was the high point of his day: sleep.

At least in sleep, Travis had learned, he could find some respite from despair.

Chapter 39

THE FOG WAS thick and briskly streamed overhead as Dance turned off the highway and began to meander down winding Harrison Road. This area was south of Carmel proper—on the way to Point Lobos and Big Sur beyond—and was deserted, mostly hilly woods; a little farmland remained.

Coincidentally it was close to the ancient Ohlone Indian land near which Arnold Brubaker hoped to build his desalination plant.

Smelling pine and eucalyptus, Dance slowly followed her headlights—low beams because of the fog—along the road. Occasional driveways led into darkness broken by dots of light. She passed several cars, also driving slowly, coming from the opposite direction, and she wondered if it had been a driver who’d called in the anonymous report that had sent her here, or one of the residents.

Something . . .

That was certainly a possibility but Harrison Road was also a shortcut from Highway 1 to Carmel Valley Road. The call could have come from anybody.

She soon arrived at Pine Grove Way and pulled over.

The construction site that the anonymous caller had mentioned was a half-completed hotel complex—now never to be finished, since the main building had burned under suspicious circumstances. Insurance fraud was initially suspected but the perps turned out to be environmentalists who didn’t want the land scarred by the development. (Ironically, the green terrorists miscalculated; the fire spread and destroyed hundreds of acres of pristine woods.)

Most of the wilderness had grown back, but for various reasons the hotel project never got under way again and the complex remained as it now was: several acres of derelict buildings and foundations dug deep in the loamy ground. The area was surrounded by leaning chain-link fences marked with Danger and No Trespassing signs, but a couple of times a year or so teens would have to be rescued after falling into a pit or getting trapped in the ruins while smoking pot or drinking or, in one case, having sex in the least comfortable and unromantic location imaginable.

It was also spooky as hell.

Dance grabbed her flashlight from the glove compartment and climbed out of her Crown Vic.

The damp breeze wafted over her, and she shivered with a jolt of fear.

Relax.

She gave a wry laugh, clicked on the flashlight and started forward, sweeping the Magna-Lite beam over the ground tangled with brush.

A car swept past on the highway, tires sticky on the damp asphalt. It eased around a corner and the sound stopped instantly as if the vehicle had beamed into a different dimension.

As she looked around her, Dance was supposing that the “something” the anonymous caller had reported was the last roadside cross, the one intended to announce James Chilton’s death.

There was, however, none to be seen in the immediate vicinity.

What else could the person have meant?

Could they have seen or heard Travis himself?

This would be a perfect place to stash him.

She paused and listened for any calls for help.

Nothing but the breeze through the oaks and pines.

Oaks . . . Dance pictured one of the improvised roadside crosses. Pictured the one in her backyard too.

Should she call in and order a search? Not just yet. Keep looking.

She wished she had the anonymous caller here. Even the most reluctant witness could be the source of all the information she needed; look at Tammy Foster, whose lack of cooperation hadn’t slowed down the investigation at all.

Tammy’s computer. It’s got the answer. Well, maybe not the answer. But an answer. . . .

But she didn’t have the caller; she had her flashlight and a spooky, deserted construction site.

Looking for “something.”

Dance now slipped through one of the several gates in the chain link, the metal bent by years of trespassers, and eased through the grounds, moving slowly. The main building had collapsed completely under the flames. And the others—service sheds, garages and complexes of hotel rooms—were boarded up. There were a half dozen open foundation pits. They were marked with orange warning signs, but the fog was thick and reflected back much light into Dance’s eyes; she moved carefully for fear of tumbling down into one.

Easing through the compound, one step at a time, pausing, looking for footprints.

What the hell had the caller seen?

Then, Dance heard a noise in the distance, but not that distant. A loud snap. Another.

She froze.

Deer, she guessed. They were plentiful in the area. But other animals lived here too. Last year a mountain lion had killed a tourist jogging not far from here. The animal had sliced the poor woman apart then vanished. Dance unbuttoned her jacket and tapped the butt of her Glock for reassurance.

Another snap then a creak.

Like a hinge of an old door opening.

Dance shivered in fear, reflecting that just because the Roadside Cross Killer was no longer a threat, that didn’t mean meth cookers or gangbangers weren’t hanging around here.

But heading back never entered her mind. Travis could be here. Keep going.

Another forty feet or so into the compound, Dance was looking for the structures that might house a kidnap victim, looking for buildings with padlocks, looking for footprints.

She thought she heard another sound—almost a moan. Dance came close to calling out the boy’s name. But instinct told her not to.

And then she stopped fast.

A human figure was silhouetted in the fog no more than ten yards away. Crouching, she thought.

She gasped, clicked the light out and drew her gun.

Another look. Whoever—whatever—it might have been was gone.

But the image wasn’t imagination. She was certain she’d seen somebody, male, she believed from the kinesics.

Now, footsteps were sounding clearly. Branches snapping, leaves rustling. He was flanking her, to her right. Moving, then pausing.

Dance fondled the cell phone in her pocket. But if she made a call, her voice would give away her position. And she had to assume that whoever was here in the dark on a damp, foggy night wasn’t present for innocent purposes.

Retrace your steps, she told herself. Back to the car. Now. Thinking of the shotgun in her trunk, a weapon she’d fired once. In training.

Dance turned around and moved quickly, every step making a loud crinkle through the leaves. Every step shouting, Here I am, here I am.

She stopped. The intruder didn’t. His steps telegraphed his transit over the leaves and underbrush as he continued on, somewhere in the dark fog to her right.

Then they stopped.

Had he stopped too? Or was he on leafless ground, moving in for an attack?

Just get back to the car, get under cover, rack the 12-gauge and call in backup.

It was fifty, sixty feet back to the chain-link fence. In the dim ambient light—moon diffused by fog—she surveyed the ground. Some places seemed less leaf-strewn than others, but there was no way to proceed quietly. She told herself she couldn’t wait any longer.

But still the stalker was silent.

Was he hiding?

Had he left?

Or was he coming up close under cover of the dense foliage?

Near panicking, Dance whirled but saw nothing other than the ghosts of buildings, trees, some large tanks, half buried and rusting.

Dance crouched, wincing from the pain in her joints—from the chase, and the tumble, the other day at Travis’s house. Then she moved toward the fence as quickly as she could. Resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to break into a run over ground strewn with construction-site booby traps.

Twenty-five feet to the chain link.

A snap nearby.

She stopped fast, dropped to her knees and lifted her weapon, searching for a target. She was holding her flashlight in her left hand and nearly clicked it on. But instinct once again told her not to. In the fog the beam would half blind her and give the intruder a perfect target.

Not far away a raccoon slipped from a hiding place and moved stiffly away, its kinesic message irritation at the disturbance.

Dance rose, turned back toward the fence and moved quickly over the leaves, looking behind her often. Nobody was in pursuit that she could see. Finally she pushed through the gate and began jogging toward her car, cell phone in her left hand, open, as she scrolled through previously dialed listings.

It was then that a voice from very close behind her echoed through the night. “Don’t move,” the man said. “I have a gun.”

Heart slamming, Dance froze. He’d flanked her completely, gotten through another gate or silently scaled the fence.

She debated: If he was armed and wanted to kill her she’d be dead by now. And, with the mist and dimness, maybe he hadn’t seen her weapon in her hand.

“I want you down on the ground. Now.”

Dance began to turn.

“No! On the ground!”

But she kept turning until she was facing the intruder and his outstretched arm.

Shit. He was armed, the gun aimed directly at her.

But then she looked at the man’s face and blinked. He wore a Monterey County Sheriff’s Office uniform. She recognized him. It was the young, blue-eyed deputy who’d helped her out several times earlier. David Reinhold.

“Kathryn?”

“What are you doing here?”

Reinhold shook his head, a faint smile on his face. He didn’t answer, just looked around. He lowered his weapon, but didn’t slip it back into the holster. “Was it you? In there?” he finally asked, glancing back to the construction site.

She nodded.

Reinhold continued to look around, tense, his kinesics giving off signals that he was still ready for combat.

Then a tinny voice said from her side, “Boss, that you? You calling?”

Reinhold blinked at the sound.

Dance lifted her mobile and said, “TJ, you there?” When she’d heard the intruder come up behind her she’d hit “Dial.”

“Yeah, boss. What’s up?”

“I’m at that construction site off Harrison. I’m here with Deputy Reinhold from the sheriff’s office.”

“Did you find anything?” the young agent asked.

Dance felt her legs going weak, her heart pounding, now that the initial fright was over. “Not yet. I’ll call you back.”

“Got it, boss.”

They disconnected.

Reinhold finally holstered his weapon. He inhaled slowly and puffed air out of his smooth cheeks. “That just about scared the you-know-what out of me.”

Dance asked him, “What are you doing here?”

He explained that the MCSO had gotten a call an hour ago about “something” having to do with the case near the intersection of Pine Grove and Harrison.

The call that had spurred Dance to come here.

Since Reinhold had worked on the case, he explained, he’d volunteered to check it out. He’d been searching the construction site when he’d seen the beam of a flashlight and come closer to investigate. He hadn’t recognized Dance in the fog and was worried that she might be a meth cooker or drug dealer.

“Did you find anything that suggests Travis is here?”

“Travis?” he asked slowly. “No. Why, Kathryn?”

“Just seems that this’d be a pretty good place to hide a kidnap victim.”

“Well, I searched pretty carefully,” the young deputy told her. “Didn’t see a thing.”

“Still,” she said. “I want to be sure.”

And called TJ back to arrange for a search party.

IN THE END they did learn what the anonymous caller had seen.

The discovery was made not by Dance or Reinhold, but by Rey Carraneo, who’d come here along with a half dozen other officers from the CHP, the MCSO and the CBI.

The “something” was a roadside cross. It had been planted on Pine Grove, not Harrison Road, about a hundred feet from the intersection.

But the memorial had nothing to do with Greg Schaeffer or Travis Brigham or the blog entries.

Dance sighed angrily.

This cross was fancier than the others, carefully made, and the flowers below it were daisies and tulips, not roses.

Another difference was that this one had a name on it. Two, in fact.

Juan Millar, R.I.P.

Murdered by Edith Dance

Left by somebody from Life First—the anonymous caller, of course.

Angrily, she plucked it from the ground and flung it into the compound.

With nothing to search, and no evidence to examine, no witnesses to interview, Kathryn Dance trudged back to her car and returned home, wondering just how fitful her sleep would be.

If indeed she could sleep at all.

FRIDAY

Chapter 40

AT 8:20 A.M., Dance steered the Ford Crown Vic into the parking lot of the Monterey County Courthouse.

She was eagerly anticipating the crime scene reports on Schaeffer and any other information TJ and the MCSO had found about where the killer was keeping Travis. But in fact her thoughts were largely elsewhere: she was wondering about the curious call she’d received early that morning—from Robert Harper, asking if she would stop by his office.

Apparently at his desk by 7:00, the special prosecutor had sounded uncharacteristically pleasant and Dance decided it was possible that he’d heard from Sheedy about the Julio Millar situation. Her thoughts actually extended to a dismissal of her mother’s case, and lodging charges against Juan’s brother. She had a feeling that Harper wanted to discuss some type of a face-saving arrangement. Maybe he’d drop the charges against Edie completely, and immediately, if Dance agreed not to go public with any criticism of his prosecution of the case.

She parked in the back of the courthouse, looking over the construction work around the parking lot; it had been here that the woman partner of the cult leader Daniel Pell had engineered the man’s escape by starting the fire that had caused Juan Millar’s terrible burns.

She nodded hello to several people she knew from the court and from the sheriff’s office. Speaking to a guard, she learned where Robert Harper’s office was. The second floor, near the law library.

A few minutes later she arrived—and was surprised to find the quarters quite austere. There was no secretary’s anteroom; the special prosecutor’s door opened directly onto the corridor across from a men’s room. Harper was alone, sitting at a large desk, the room bare of decoration. There were two computers, rows of law books and dozens of neat stacks of papers on both a gray metal desk and a round table near the single window. The blinds were down, though he would have a striking view of lettuce fields and the mountains east.

Harper was in a pressed white shirt and narrow red tie. His slacks were dark and his suit jacket hung neatly on a hanger on a coatrack in the corner of the office.

“Agent Dance. Thanks for coming in.” He subtly inverted the sheet of paper he’d been reading, and closed the lid of his attaché case. Inside, she’d caught a glimpse of an old law book.

Or maybe a Bible.

He rose briefly and shook her hand, again keeping his distance.

As she sat, his closely set eyes examined the table beside her to see if there was anything that she ought not to observe. He seemed satisfied that all secrets were safe. He took in, very briefly, her navy blue suit—tailored jacket and pleated skirt—and white blouse. She’d worn her interrogation clothes today. Her glasses were the black ones.

Predator specs.

She’d be happy to reach an accommodation if it got her mother off, but she wasn’t going to be intimidated.

“You’ve spoken to Julio Millar?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Juan’s brother.”

“Oh. Well, I have, a while ago. Why are you asking?”

Dance felt her heart begin pounding faster. She noted a stress reaction—her leg moved slightly. Harper, on the other hand, was motionless. “I think Juan begged his brother to kill him. Julio faked a name on the hospital sign-in sheet, and did what his brother wanted. I thought that’s what you wanted to talk to me about.”

“Oh,” Harper said, nodding. “George Sheedy called about that. Just a bit ago. I guess he didn’t get a chance to call you and tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

With a hand tipped in perfectly filed nails, Harper lifted a folder from the corner of his desk and opened it up. “On the night his brother died, Julio Millar was in the hospital. But I confirmed that he was meeting with two members of the MBH security staff in connection with a suit against the California Bureau of Investigation for negligence in sending his brother to guard a patient that you knew, or should have known, was too dangerous for a man of Juan’s experience to handle. He was also considering suing you personally on a discrimination charge for singling out a minority officer for a dangerous assignment. And for exacerbating his brother’s condition by interrogating him. At the exact time of Juan’s death, Julio was in the presence of those guards. He put a fake name in the check-in log because he was afraid you’d find out about the suit and try to intimidate him and his family.”

Dance’s heart clenched to hear these words, delivered so evenly. Her breathing was rapid. Harper was as calm as if he were reading from a book of poetry.

“Julio Millar has been cleared, Agent Dance.” The smallest of frowns. “He was one of my first suspects. Do you think I wouldn’t have considered him?”

She fell silent and sat back. In an instant, all hope had been destroyed.

Then, to Harper, the matter was concluded. “No, why I asked you here . . .” He found another document. “Will you stipulate that this is an email you wrote? The addresses match, but there are no names on it. I can trace it back to you but it’ll take some time. As a courtesy, could you tell me if it’s yours?”

She glanced at the sheet. It was a photocopy of an email she’d written to her husband when he was away on a business trip at an FBI seminar in Los Angeles several years ago.

How’s everything going down there? You get to Chinatown, like you were thinking?

Wes got a perfect on the English test. He wore the gold star on his forehead until it fell off and had to buy some more. Mags decided to donate all her Hello Kitty stuff to charity—yes, all of it (yea!!!!)

Sad news from Mom. Willy, their cat, finally had to be put down. Kidney failure. Mom wouldn’t hear of the vet doing it. She did it herself, an injection. She seemed happier afterward. She hates suffering, would rather lose an animal than see it suffer. She told me how hard it was to see Uncle Joe at the end, with the cancer. Nobody should have to go through that, she said. A shame there was no assisted suicide law.

Well, on a happier note: Got the website back online and Martine and I uploaded a dozen songs from that Native American group down in Ynez. Go online if you can. They’re great!

Oh and went shopping at Victoria’s Secret. Think you’ll like what I got. I’ll do some modeling!! Come home soon!

Her face burned—in shock and rage. “Where did you get this?” she snapped.

“A computer at your mother’s house. Under a warrant.”

Dance recalled. “It was my old computer. I gave it to her.”

“It was in her possession. Within the scope of the warrant.”

“You can’t introduce that.” She waved at the email printout.

“Why not?” He frowned.

“It’s irrelevant.” Her mind jumped around. “And it’s a privileged communication between husband and wife.”

“Of course it’s relevant. It goes to your mother’s state of mind in committing mercy killing. And as for the privilege: Since neither you nor your husband are subjects of the prosecution, any communications should be fully admissible. In any case, the judge will decide.” He seemed surprised she hadn’t realized this. “Is it yours?”

“You’ll have to depose me before I respond to anything you ask.”

“All right.” He seemed only faintly disappointed at her failure to cooperate. “Now, I should tell you that I consider it a conflict of interest for you to be involved in this investigation, and using Special Agent Consuela Ramirez to do legwork for you doesn’t vitiate that conflict.”

How had he found that out?

“This case emphatically does not fall within the jurisdiction of the CBI and if you continue to pursue it, I’ll lodge an ethics complaint against you with the attorney general’s office.”

“She’s my mother.”

“I’m sure you’re emotional about the situation. But it’s an active investigation and soon to be an active prosecution. Any interference from you is unacceptable.”

Shaking with rage, Dance rose and started for the door.

Harper seemed to have an afterthought. “One thing, Agent Dance. Before I move to admit that email of yours into evidence, I want you to know that I’ll redact the information about buying that lingerie, or whatever it was, at Victoria’s Secret. That I do consider irrelevant.”

Then the prosecutor slid toward him the document he’d been reviewing when she arrived, turned it over and began reading once again.

IN HER OFFICE Kathryn Dance was staring at the entwined tree trunks outside her window, still angry with Harper. She was thinking again about what would happen if she was forced to testify against her mother. If she didn’t, she’d be held in contempt. A crime. It could mean jail and the end of her career as a law enforcer.

She was drawn from this thought by TJ’s appearance

He looked exhausted. He explained he’d spent much of the night working with Crime Scene to examine Greg Schaeffer’s room at the Cyprus Grove Inn, his car and Chilton’s house. He had the MCSO report.

“Excellent, TJ.” She regarded his bleary, red eyes. “You get any sleep?”

“What’s that again, boss? ‘Sleep’?”

“Ha.”

He handed her the crime scene report. “And I finally got more four-one-one on our friend.”

“Which one?”

“Hamilton Royce.”

Didn’t matter now, she supposed, with the case closed, and apologies—such as they were—delivered. But she was curious. “Go on.”

“His latest assignment was for the Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee. Until he got here he’d been billing the nukers sixty hours a week. And by the way, he’s expensive. I think I need a raise, boss. Am I a six-figure kind of agent?”

Dance smiled. She was glad that his humor seemed to be returning. “You’re worth seven figures in my book, TJ.”

“I love you too, boss.”

The implication of the information then struck her. She riffled through copies of The Chilton Report.

“That son of a bitch.”

“What’s that?”

“Royce was trying to get the blog shut down—for his client’s sake. Look.” She tapped the printout.

Power to the People

Posted by Chilton.

Rep. Brandon Klevinger . . . Ever heard of his name? Probably not.

And the state representative looking after some fine folks in Northern California would rather keep a low profile.

No such luck.

Representative Klevinger is the head of the state’s Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee, which means the bomb—oops, excuse me, the buck—stops with him on the issue of those little gadgets called reactors.

And you want to know something interesting about them?

No—go away, Greenies. Go whine elsewhere! I have no problem with nuclear energy; we need it to achieve energy independence (from certain interests overseas whom I’ve written about at great length). But what I do object to is this: Nuclear power loses its advantage if the price for the plants and the energy expended in the construction outweigh the advantages.

I’ve learned that Rep. Klevinger just happens to have been on a couple of posh golfing trips to Hawaii and Mexico with his newfound “friend,” Stephen Ralston. Well, guess what, boys and girls? Ralston happens to have put in bids for a proposed nuclear facility north of Mendocino.

Mendocino . . . Lovely place. And very pricey to build in. Not to mention that it seems the cost of delivering the power to where it’s needed will be huge. (Another developer has proposed a far cheaper and more efficient location about fifty miles south of Sacramento.) But a source has snuck me the Nuclear Committee’s preliminary report and it reveals that Ralston’s probably going to get the go-ahead to build in Mendocino.

Has Klevinger done anything illegal or wrong?

I’m not saying yes or no. I just ask the question.

“He was lying all along,” TJ said.

“Sure was.”

Still, she couldn’t concentrate on Royce’s duplicity just now. There was, after all, no need to blackmail him at this point, considering he was headed home in a day or two.

“Good work.”

“Just dotting my j’s.”

As he left she hunched over the MCSO report. She was a little surprised that David Reinhold, the eager kid—the one she’d played cat-and-mouse with last night—hadn’t brought it in person.

From: Dep. Peter Bennington, MCSO Crime Scene Unit.

To: Kathryn Dance, Special Agent, California Bureau of Investigation—Western Division.

Re: June 28 homicide at house of James Chilton, 2939 Pacific Heights Court, Carmel, California.

Kathryn, here’s the inventory.

Greg Schaeffer’s body

One Cross brand wallet, containing Calif. driver’s license, credit cards, AAA membership card, all in name of Gregory Samuel Schaeffer

$329.52 cash

Two keys to Ford Taurus, California registration ZHG128

One motel key to Room 146, Cyprus Grove Inn

One key to BMW 530, California registration DHY783, registered to Gregory S. Schaeffer, 20943 Hopkins Drive, Glendale, CA

One claim ticket for car at LAX long-term parking, dated June 10

Miscellaneous restaurant and store receipts

One cell phone. Only calls to local phone numbers: James Chilton, restaurants

Trace on shoes, consistent with sandy dirt found at prior scenes of roadside crosses

Fingernail trace inconclusive

Room 146, Cypress Grove Inn, registered in name of Greg Schaeffer

Miscellaneous clothing and toiletries

One 1-liter bottle, Diet Coke

Two bottles Robert Mondavi Central Coast Chardonnay wine

Leftover Chinese food, three orders

Miscellaneous groceries

One Toshiba laptop computer and power pack (transferred to California Bureau of Investigation; see chain-of-custody record)

One Hewlett-Packard DeskJet printer

One box of 25-count Winchester .38 Special ammunition, containing 13 rounds

Miscellaneous office supplies

Printouts of The Chilton Report from March of this year to present

Approximately 500 pages of documents relating to the Internet, blogs, RSS feeds

Items in Gregory Schaeffer’s possession found at James Chilton’s house

One Sony digital camcorder

One SteadyShot camera tripod

Three USB cables

One roll, Home Depot brand duct tape

One Smith & Wesson revolver, loaded with 6 rounds of .38 Special ammunition

One Baggie containing 6 extra rounds of ammunition

Hertz Ford Taurus, California registration ZHG128, parked 1/2 block away from James Chilton’s house

One bottle orange-flavored Vitamin Water, half full

One rental agreement, Hertz, naming Gregory Schaeffer as lessee

One McDonald’s Big Mac wrapper

One map of Monterey County, provided by Hertz, no marked locations (infrared analysis negative)

Five empty coffee cups, 7-Eleven. Only Schaeffer’s fingerprints

Dance read the list twice. She couldn’t be upset at the job Crime Scene had done. It was perfectly acceptable. Yet it offered no clues whatsoever as to where Travis Brigham was being held. Or where his body was buried.

Her eyes slipped out the window, and settled on the thick, barky knot, the point where two independent trees became one, then continued their separate journey toward the sky.

Oh, Travis, Kathryn Dance thought.

Unable to resist the thought that she’d let him down.

Unable, finally, to resist the tears.

Chapter 41

TRAVIS BRIGHAM WOKE up, peed in the bucket beside the bed and washed his hands with bottled water. He adjusted the chain connecting the shackle around his ankle to a heavy bolt in the wall.

Thought once again of that stupid movie, Saw, where two men had been chained to a wall, just like this, and could escape only by sawing their legs off.

He drank some Vitamin Water, ate some granola bars and returned to his mental investigation. Trying to piece together what had happened to him, why he’d ended up here.

And who was the man who’d done this terrible thing?

He recalled the other day, those police or agents at the house. His father being a dick, his mother being all weepy-eyed and weak. Travis had grabbed his uniform and his bike and headed for his sucky job. He’d wheeled the bike a short way into the woods behind his house and then just lost it. He’d dropped his bike and sat down beside the huge oak tree and started crying his head off.

Hopeless! Everybody hated him.

Then, wiping his nose as he sat beneath the oak, a favorite spot—it reminded him of a place in Aetheria—he’d heard footsteps behind him, moving fast.

Before he could turn toward the sound, his vision went all yellow and every muscle in his body contracted at once, from neck to toe. His breath went away and he passed out. And then he woke up here in the basement, with a headache that wouldn’t stop. Somebody’d hit him with a Taser, he knew. He’d seen how they work on YouTube.

The Big Fear turned out to be a false alarm. Feeling carefully—down his pants, behind—he realized nobody’d done anything to him—not that way. Though it made him all the more uneasy. Rape would’ve made some sense. But this . . . just being kidnapped, held here like in some kind of Stephen King story? What the hell was going on?

Travis now sat up on the cheap folding bed that shook every time he moved. He looked around his prison once more, the filthy basement. The place stank of mold and oil. He surveyed the food and drink left for him: mostly chips and packaged crackers and Oscar Mayer snack boxes—ham or turkey. Red Bull and Vitamin Water and Coke to drink.

A nightmare. Everything about his life this month was an unbearable nightmare.

Starting with the graduation party at that house in the hills off Highway 1. He’d only gone because some of the girls said Caitlin was hoping he’d be there. No, she really, really is! So he’d hitched all the way down the highway, past Garrapata State Park.

Then he walked inside, and to his horror he’d seen only the kewl people, none of the slackers or gamers. The Miley Cyrus crowd.

And worse, Caitlin looked at him like she didn’t even recognize him. The girls who’d told him to come were giggling, along with their jock boyfriends. And everybody else was staring at him, wondering what the hell a geek like Travis Brigham was doing there.

It was all a setup, just to make fun of him.

Pure fucking hell.

But he wouldn’t turn around and run. No way. He’d hung around, looked over the million CDs the family had, flipped through some channels, ate kick-ass food. Finally, sad and embarrassed, he’d decided, it was time to head back, wondering if he’d get a ride that time of night, near midnight. He’d seen Caitlin, wasted on tequila, pissed about Mike D’Angelo and Bri leaving together. She was fumbling for her keys and muttering about following the two of them and . . . well, she didn’t know what.

Travis had thought: Be a hero. Take the keys, get her home safe. She won’t care you’re not a jock. She won’t care if your face is all red and bumpy.

She’ll know who you are on the inside . . . she’ll love you.

But Caitlin had jumped into the driver’s seat, her friends in the back. Being all, “Girlfriend, girlfriend . . .” Travis hadn’t let it go. He’d climbed right into the car beside her and tried to talk her out of driving.

Hero . . .

But Caitlin had sped off, plummeting down the driveway and onto Highway 1, ignoring his pleas to let him drive.

“Like, please, Caitlin, pull over!”

But she hadn’t even heard him.

“Caitlin, come on! Please!”

And then . . .

The car flying off the road. The sound of metal on stone, the screams—Sounds louder than anything Travis had ever heard.

And still I had to be the goddamn hero.

“Caitlin, listen to me. Can you hear me? Tell them I was driving the car. I haven’t had anything to drink. I’ll tell them I lost control. It won’t be a big deal. If they think you were driving, you’ll go to jail.”

“Trish, Van? . . . Why aren’t they saying anything?”

“Do you hear me, Cait? Get into the passenger seat. Now! The cops’ll be here any minute. I was driving! You hear me?”

“Oh, shit, shit, shit.”

“Caitlin!”

“Yes, yes. You were driving. . . . Oh, Travis. Thank you!”

As she threw her arms around him, he felt a sensation like none other he’d ever experienced.

She loves me, we’ll be together!

But it didn’t last.

Afterward, they’d talked some, they’d gone for coffee at Starbucks, lunch at Subway. But soon the times together grew awkward. Caitlin would fall silent and start looking away from him.

Eventually she stopped returning his calls.

Caitlin became even more distant than she’d been before his good deed.

And then look what happened. Everybody on the Peninsula—no, everybody in the world—started hating him.

H8 to break it to you but [the driver] is a total fr33k and a luser . . .

But even then Travis couldn’t give up hope. The night Tammy Foster got attacked, Monday, he’d been thinking about Caitlin and couldn’t sleep, so he went to her house. To see if she was all right, though mostly thinking, in his fantasy, maybe she’d be hanging out in the backyard or on her front porch. She’d see him and say, “Oh, Travis, I’m sorry I’ve been so distant. I’m just getting over Trish and Van. But I do love you!”

But the house had been dark. He’d bicycled back home at 2:00 a.m.

The next day the police had shown up and asked him where he’d been that night. He’d instinctively lied and said he was at the Game Shed. Which of course they’d found out he hadn’t been. And now they’d definitely think he was the one behind the attack on Tammy.

Everybody hating me . . .

Travis now recalled waking up here after he’d been Tasered. The big man standing over him. Who was he? One of the fathers of the girls killed in the accident?

Travis had asked. But the man had only pointed out the bucket to use for a toilet, the food and water. And had warned, “My associates and I are going to be checking on you, Travis. You stay quiet at all times. If you don’t . . .” He showed the boy a soldering iron. “Okay?”

Crying, Travis had blurted, “Who are you? What did I do?”

The man plugged the soldering iron into the wall socket.

“No! I’m sorry. I’ll be quiet! I promise!”

The man unplugged the iron. And then clomped up the stairs. The basement door had closed. More footsteps and the front door had slammed. A car started. And Travis was left alone.

He remembered the following days as a blur, filled with increasing hallucinations or dreams. To stave off boredom—and madness—he played DimensionQuest in his mind.

Now, Travis gasped, hearing the front door opening upstairs. Thumps of footsteps.

His captor was back.

Travis hugged himself and tried not to cry. Be quiet. You know the rules. Thinking of the Taser. Thinking of the soldering iron.

He stared at the ceiling—his ceiling, his kidnapper’s floor—as the man roamed through the house. Five minutes later, the steps moved in a certain pattern. Travis tensed; he knew what that sound meant. He was coming down here. And, yeah, a few seconds later the lock on the basement door snapped. Footsteps on the squeaky stairs, descending.

Travis now shrank back on the bed as he saw his captor come closer. The man normally would have with him an empty bucket and would take the full one upstairs. But today he carried only a paper bag.

This terrified Travis. What was inside?

The soldering iron?

Something worse?

Standing over him, he studied Travis closely. “How do you feel?”

Like shit, you asshole, what do you think?

But he said, “Okay.”

“You’re weak?”

“I guess.”

“But you’ve been eating.”

A nod. Don’t ask him why he’s doing this. You want to, but don’t. It’s like the biggest mosquito bite in the world. You have to scratch it; but don’t. He’s got the soldering iron.

“You can walk?”

“I guess.”

“Good. Because I’m giving you a chance to leave.”

“Leave? Yes, please! I want to go home.” Tears popped into Travis’s eyes.

“But you have to earn your freedom.”

“Earn it? I’ll do anything. . . . What?”

“Don’t answer too quickly,” the man said ominously. “You might choose not to.”

“No, I’ll—”

“Shh. You can choose not to do what I’m going to ask. But if you don’t, you’ll stay here until you starve to death. And there’ll be other consequences. Your parents and brother will die too. There’s somebody outside their house right now.”

“Is my brother okay?” Travis asked in a frantic whisper.

“He’s fine. For now.”

“Don’t hurt them! You can’t hurt them!”

“I can hurt them and I will. Oh, believe me, Travis. I will.”

“What do you want me to do?”

The man looked him over carefully. “I want you to kill somebody.”

A joke?

But the kidnapper wasn’t smiling.

“What do you mean?” Travis whispered.

“Kill somebody, just like in that game you play. DimensionQuest.”

“Why?”

“That doesn’t matter, not to you. All you need to know is if you don’t do what I’m asking, you’ll starve to death here, and my associate will kill your family. Simple as that. Now’s your chance. Yes or no?”

“But I don’t know how to kill anybody.”

The man reached into the paper bag and took out a pistol wrapped in a Baggie. He dropped it on the bed.

“Wait! That’s my father’s! Where did you get it?”

“From his truck.”

“You said my family’s fine.”

“They are, Travis. I didn’t hurt him. I stole it a couple of days ago, when they were asleep. Can you shoot it?”

He nodded. In fact, he’d never fired a real gun. But he’d played shooting games in arcades. And he watched TV. Anybody who watched The Wire or The Sopranos knew enough about guns to use one. He muttered, “But if I do what you want, you’ll just kill me. And then my family.”

“No, I won’t. It’s better for me if you’re alive. You kill who I tell you to, drop the gun and run. Go wherever you want. Then I’ll call my friend and tell him to leave your family alone.”

There was a lot about this that didn’t make sense. But Travis’s mind was numb. He was afraid to say yes, he was afraid to say no.

Travis thought of his brother. Then his mother. An image of his father smiling even came to mind. Smiling when he looked at Sammy, never at Travis. But it was a smile nonetheless and seemed to make Sammy happy. That was the important thing.

Travis, did you bring me M’s?

Sammy . . .

Travis Brigham blinked tears from his eyes and whispered, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

Chapter 42

EVEN WITHOUT THE benefit of excessive lunch time Chardonnay, Donald Hawken was feeling maudlin.

But he didn’t care.

He rose from the couch where he’d been sitting with Lily and embraced James Chilton, who was entering the living room of his vacation house in Hollister, carrying several more bottles of white wine.

Chilton gripped him back, only mildly embarrassed. Lily chided her husband, “Donald.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Hawken laughed. “But I can’t help it. The nightmare’s over. God, what you’ve been through.”

“What we’ve all been through,” Chilton said.

The story of the psycho was all over the news. How the Mask Killer wasn’t the boy but was really some crazy man who’d been trying to avenge a posting that Chilton had put on his report several years ago.

“And he was actually going to shoot you on camera?”

Chilton lifted an eyebrow.

“Jesus our Lord,” said Lily, looking pale—and surprising Hawken, since she was a professed agnostic. But Lily, like her husband, was a bit tipsy too.

“I’m sorry about that boy,” Hawken said. “He was an innocent victim. Maybe the saddest victim of all.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Lily wondered.

“I doubt it,” Chilton said grimly. “Schaeffer would have to kill him. Leave no traces. I’m heartsick about it.”

Hawken was pleased he’d rejected the request—well, from that Agent Dance it had almost been an order—to go back to San Diego. No way. He thought back to those dismal days when Sarah had died and James Chilton had sped to his side.

This is what friends did.

Breaking the pall that had descended, Lily said, “I’ve got an idea. Let’s plan a picnic for tomorrow. Pat and I can cook.”

“Love it,” Chilton said. “We know this beautiful park nearby.”

But Hawken wasn’t through being maudlin. He lifted his glass of Sonoma-Cutrer. “Here’s to friends.”

“To friends.”

They sipped. Lily, her pretty face crowned with curly golden hair, asked, “When’re they coming up? Pat and the kids?”

Chilton glanced at his watch. “She left about fifteen minutes ago. She’ll pick the boys up from camp. Then head up here. Shouldn’t be too long.”

Hawken was amused. The Chiltons lived close to one of the most beautiful waterfronts in the world. And yet for their vacation house they’d chosen a rustic old place in the hills forty-five minutes inland, hills that were decidedly dusty and brown. Yet the place was quiet and peaceful.

Y ningunos turistas. A relief after summertime Carmel, filled to the gills with out-of-towners.

“Okay,” Hawken announced. “I can’t wait any longer.”

“Can’t wait?” Chilton asked, a perplexed smile on his face.

“What I told you I was bringing.”

“Oh, the painting? Really, Don. You don’t need to do that.”

“It’s not ‘need.’ It’s something I want to do.”

Hawken went into the guest bedroom where he and Lily were staying and returned with a small canvas, an impressionistic painting of a blue swan on a darker blue background. His late wife, Sarah, had bought it in San Diego or La Jolla. One day, while Jim Chilton was in Southern California to help after her death, Hawken had found the man staring at the painting admiringly.

Hawken had decided at that moment that someday he’d give the artwork to his friend, in gratitude for all he’d done during those terrible times.

Now, the three of them gazed at the bird taking off from the water.

“It’s beautiful,” Chilton said. He propped the painting up on the mantel. “Thank you.”

Hawken, now a half glass of wine more maudlin yet, was lifting his glass to make a toast when a door squeaked in the kitchen.

“Oh,” he said, smiling. “Is that Pat?”

But Chilton was frowning. “She couldn’t be here that fast.”

“But I heard something. Didn’t you?”

The blogger nodded. “I did, yes.”

Then, looking toward the doorway, Lily said, “There’s somebody there. I’m sure.” She was frowning. “I hear footsteps.”

“Maybe—” Chilton began.

But his words were cut off as Lily screamed. Hawken spun around, dropping his wineglass, which shattered loudly.

A boy in his late teens, hair askew, face dotted with acne, stood in the doorway. He seemed stoned. He was blinking and looking around, disoriented. In his hand was a pistol. Shit, Hawken thought, they hadn’t locked the back door when they’d arrived. This kid had wandered inside to rob them.

Gangs. Had to be gangs.

“What do you want?” Hawken whispered. “Money? We’ll give you money!”

The boy continued to squint. His eyes settled on Jim Chilton and narrowed.

Then Donald Hawken gasped. “It’s the boy from the blog! Travis Brigham!” Skinnier and paler than in the pictures on TV. But there was no doubt. He wasn’t dead. What was this all about? But one thing he understood: The boy was here to shoot his friend Jim Chilton.

Lily grabbed her husband’s arm.

“No! Don’t hurt him, Travis,” Hawken cried and felt an urge to step in front of Chilton, to protect him. Only his wife’s grip kept him from doing so.

The boy took a step closer to Chilton. He blinked, then looked away—toward Hawken and Lily. He asked in a weak voice, “They’re the ones you want me to kill?”

What did he mean?

And James Chilton whispered, “That’s right, Travis. Go ahead and do what you agreed. Shoot.”

SQUINTING AGAINST THE raw light that stung his eyes like salt, Travis Brigham stared at the couple—the people his captor had told him, in the basement a half hour ago, he had to kill: Donald and Lily. His kidnapper had explained that they’d be arriving soon and would be upstairs—in this house, the very one whose basement he’d spent the past three or four days in.

Travis couldn’t understand why his kidnapper wanted them dead. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was keeping his family alive.

Travis, did you bring me M’s?

He lifted the gun, aimed at them.

As the couple blurted words he hardly heard, he tried to hold the weapon steady. This took all his effort. After days of being chained to a bed, he was weak as a bird. Even the climb up the stairs had been a chore. The gun was weaving.

“No, please no!” someone cried, the man or the woman. He couldn’t tell. He was confused, disoriented by the glaring light. It stung his eyes. Travis aimed at the man and woman, but still, he kept wondering: Who are they, Donald and Lily? In the basement the man had said, “Look at them like characters in that game you play. DimensionQuest. Donald and Lily’re only avatars, nothing more than that.”

But these people sobbing in front of him weren’t avatars. They were real.

And they seemed to be his captor’s friends—at least in their minds. “What’s going on? Please, don’t hurt us.” From Lily. “James, please!”

But the man—James, it seemed—just kept his eyes, cool eyes, on Travis. “Go ahead. Shoot!”

“James, no! What are you saying?”

Travis steadied the gun, pointing it at Donald. He pulled back the hammer.

Lily screamed.

And then something in Travis’s mind clicked.

James?

The boy from the blog.

Roadside Crosses.

Travis blinked. “James Chilton?” Was this the blogger?

“Travis,” the captor said firmly, stepping behind him, pulling another gun from his back pocket. He touched it to Travis’s head. “Go ahead and do it. I told you not to say anything, don’t ask questions. Just shoot!”

Travis asked Donald, “He’s James Chilton?”

“Yes,” the man whispered.

What, Travis wondered, was going on here?

Chilton shoved the gun harder into Travis’s skull. It hurt. “Do it. Do it, or you’ll die. And your family will die.”

The boy lowered the gun. He shook his head. “You don’t have any friends at my house. You were lying to me. You’re doing this alone.”

“If you don’t do it, I’ll kill you and then go to their house and kill them. I swear I will.”

Hawken cried, “Jim! Is this . . . for God’s sake, what is this?”

Lily cried uncontrollably.

Travis Brigham understood now. Shoot them or not, he was dead. His family would be all right; Chilton had no interest in them. But he was dead. A faint laugh eased from his throat and he felt tears sting eyes already stinging from the sunlight.

He thought of Caitlin, her beautiful eyes and smile.

Thought of his mother.

Thought of Sammy.

And of all the terrible things that people had said about him in the blog.

Yet he’d done nothing wrong. His life was about nothing more than trying to get through school as best he could, to play a game that made him happy, to spend some time with his brother and look after the boy, to meet a girl who wouldn’t mind that he was a geek with troubled skin. Travis had never in his life hurt anybody intentionally, never dissed anyone, never posted a bad word about them.

And the whole world had attacked him.

Who’d care if he killed himself?

Nobody.

So Travis did the only thing he could. He lifted the gun to his own chin.

Look at the luser, his life is epic FAIL!!!

Travis’s finger slipped around the trigger of the gun. He began to squeeze.

The explosion was fiercely loud. Windows shook, acrid smoke filled the room, and a delicate porcelain cat tumbled from the mantelpiece and shattered on the hearth into dozens of pieces.

Chapter 43

KATHRYN DANCE’S CAR turned onto the long dirt driveway that led to James Chilton’s vacation house in Hollister.

She was reflecting on how wrong she’d been.

Greg Schaeffer wasn’t the Roadside Cross Killer.

Everyone else had been misled too but Dance took no solace from that. She’d been content to assume that Schaeffer was the guilty party and that he’d killed Travis Brigham. With the man dead, there’d be no more attacks.

Wrong . . .

Her phone rang. She wondered who was calling, but decided it was best not to look at Caller ID as she wove up the serpentine drive, with drop-offs on either side.

Another fifty yards.

She saw the home ahead of her, a rambling old farmhouse that would have looked in place in Kansas if not for the substantial hills surrounding it. The yard was scruffy, filled with untended patches of grass, gray broken branches, overgrown gardens. She would have thought that James Chilton would have a nicer vacation home, considering the inheritance from his father-in-law and his beautiful house in Carmel.

Even in the sun, the place exuded a sense of eeriness.

But that was, of course, because Dance knew what had happened inside.

How could I have read everything so wrong?

The road straightened and she continued on. She fished the phone off the seat and looked at the screen. Jonathan Boling had called. But the message flag wasn’t up. She debated hitting “Last Received Call.” But instead picked Michael O’Neil’s speed-dial button. After four rings it went to voice mail.

Maybe he was on the Other Case.

Or maybe he was talking to his wife, Anne.

Dance tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

As she pulled close to the house, Dance counted a half dozen police cars. Two ambulances as well.

The San Benito County sheriff, whom she’d worked with regularly, saw her and motioned her forward. Several officers stepped aside, and she drove over the uneven grass to where the sheriff was standing.

She saw where Travis Brigham lay on a gurney, his face covered.

Dance slammed the gearshift into park and climbed out, then walked quickly toward the boy. She noted his bare feet, the welts on his ankle, his pale skin.

“Travis,” she whispered.

The boy jerked, as if she’d awakened him from a deep sleep.

He lifted the damp cloth and ice pack off his bruised face. He blinked and focused his eyes on her. “Oh, uh, Officer . . . I, like, can’t remember your name.”

“Dance.”

“Sorry.” He sounded genuinely contrite at the social slip.

“Not a problem at all.” Kathryn Dance hugged the boy hard.

THE BOY WOULD be fine, the medic explained.

His worst injury from the ordeal—in fact, the only serious one—was from hitting his forehead on the mantel in the living room of Chilton’s house when the San Benito County SWAT team stormed the place.

They had been conducting furtive surveillance—as they awaited Dance’s arrival—when the commander had seen through the window that the boy had entered the living room with a gun. James Chilton too had pulled a weapon. For some reason, it then appeared that Travis was going to take his own life.

The commander had ordered his officers in. They’d launched flash-bang grenades into the room, which detonated with stunning explosions, knocking Chilton to the floor and the boy into the mantelpiece. The officers raced inside and relieved them of their weapons. They’d cuffed Chilton and dragged him outside, then escorted Donald Hawken and his wife to safety and gotten Travis to the paramedics.

“Where’s Chilton?” Dance asked.

“He’s over there,” the sheriff said, nodding to one of the county deputy’s cars, in which the blogger sat, handcuffed, his head down.

She’d get to him later.

Dance glanced at Chilton’s Nissan Quest. The doors and tailgate were open and Crime Scene had removed the contents: most notable were the last roadside cross and bouquet of red roses—now tinged with brown. Chilton would have been planning to leave them nearby, after he’d killed the Hawkens. Travis’s bike also rested near the tailgate, and in a clear evidence bag was the gray hoodie that Chilton had stolen and worn to impersonate the boy and that he’d picked fibers off to leave at the scenes.

Dance asked the paramedic, “And the Hawkens? How’re they?”

“Shaken up, as you can imagine, a bit bruised, hitting the deck when we moved in. But they’ll be fine. They’re on the porch.”

“You doing okay?” Dance asked Travis.

“I guess,” he answered.

She realized what a foolish question it was. Of course he wasn’t okay. He’d been kidnapped by James Chilton and been ordered to murder Donald Hawken and his wife.

Apparently rather than going through with that task he’d chosen to die.

“Your parents will be here soon,” she told him.

“Yeah?” The boy seemed cautious at this news.

“They were real worried about you.”

He nodded, but she read skepticism in his face.

“Your mother was crying, she was so happy when I told her.”

That was true. Dance had no idea what the father’s reaction had been.

A deputy brought the boy a soft drink.

“Thank you.” He drank the Coke thirstily. For his days in captivity, he wasn’t doing too badly. A medic had looked over the raw chafing on his leg; it wouldn’t need treatment other than a bandage and antibiotic cream. The injury was from the shackles, she realized, and a wave of fury coursed through her. She glared at Chilton, who was being transferred from the San Benito to a Monterey County car, but the blogger’s eyes remained downcast.

“What’s your sport?” the Coke-toting cop asked the boy, trying to make conversation and put Travis at ease.

“Like, I game, mostly.”

“That’s what I mean,” the young crew-cut officer said, taking the skewed response to be a result of the boy’s temporary hearing loss from the flash-bangs. More loudly he asked, “What’s your fave? Soccer, football, basketball?”

The boy blinked at the young man in the blue outfit. “Yeah, I play all those some.”

“Way to go.”

The trooper didn’t realize that the sports equipment involved only a Wii or game controller and that the playing field was eighteen inches diagonally.

“But start out slow. Bet your muscles’ve atrophied. Find a trainer.”

“Okay.”

A rattling old Nissan, the red finish baked matte, pulled up, rocking along the dirt driveway. It parked and the Brighams climbed out. Sonia, tearful, lumbered over the grass and hugged her son hard.

“Mom.”

His father too approached. He stopped beside them, unsmiling, looking the boy up and down. “You’re thin, pale, you know what I mean? You hurt in’ anywhere?”

“He’ll be okay,” the paramedic said.

“How’s Sammy?” Travis asked.

“He’s at Gram’s,” Sonia said. “He’s in a state, but all right.”

“You found him, you saved him.” The father, still unsmiling, was speaking to Dance.

“We all did, yes.”

“He kept you down there, in that basement?” he said to his son.

The boy nodded, not looking at either of them. “Wasn’t so bad. Got cold a lot.”

His mother said, “Caitlin told everybody what happened.”

“She did?”

As if he were unable to control himself the father muttered, “You shouldn’t a took the blame for—”

“Shhh,” the mother hissed sharply. His brow furrowed but the man fell silent.

“What’s going to happen to her?” Travis asked. “Caitlin?”

His mother said, “That’s not our concern. We don’t need to worry about that now.” She looked at Dance. “Can we go home? Is it all right if we just go home?”

“We’ll get a statement later. No need right now.”

“Thank you,” Travis said to Dance.

His father said the same and shook her hand.

“Oh, Travis. Here.” Dance handed him a piece of paper.

“What’s that?”

“It’s somebody who wants you to call him.”

“Who?”

“Jason Kepler.”

“Who’s that? . . . Oh, Stryker?” Travis blinked. “You know him?”

“He went looking for you, when you were missing. He helped us find you.”

“He did?”

“He sure did. He said you’d never met him.”

“Like, not in person, no.”

“You only live five miles from each other.”

“Yeah?” He gave a surprised smile.

“He wants to get together with you sometime.”

He nodded with a curious expression on his face, as if the idea of meeting a synth world friend in the real was very strange indeed.

“Come on home, baby,” his mother said. “I’ll make a special dinner. Your brother can’t wait to see you.”

Sonia and Bob Brigham and their son walked back to the car. The father’s arm rose and slipped around his son’s shoulders. Briefly. Then it fell away. Kathryn Dance noted the tentative contact. She believed not in divine salvation but in the proposition that we poor mortals are fully capable of saving ourselves, if conditions and inclinations are right, and the evidence of this potential is found in the smallest of gestures, like the uncertain resting of a large hand on a bony shoulder.

Gestures, more honest than words.

“Travis?” she called.

He turned.

“Maybe I’ll see you sometime . . . in Aetheria.”

He held his arm over his chest, palm outward, which she supposed was a salute among the inhabitants of his guild. Kathryn Dance resisted the temptation to reciprocate.

Chapter 44

DANCE WALKED ACROSS the yard to Donald and Lily Hawken, her Aldo shoes gathering dust and plant flecks. Crisp grasshoppers fled from her transit.

The couple sat on the front porch steps of Chilton’s vacation house. Hawken’s face was harrowing to see. The betrayal had clearly affected him to his core.

“Jim did this?” he whispered.

“I’m afraid so.”

Another thought shook him. “My God, what if the children had been here? Would he have . . . ?” He couldn’t complete the sentence.

His wife stared at the dusty yard, wiping sweat off her brow. Hollister’s a long way from the ocean, and summer air, trapped by the knobby hills, heated up fiercely by midday.

Dance said, “Actually, it was his second attempt to kill you.”

“Second?” Lily whispered. “You mean at the house? When we were unpacking the other day?”

“That’s right. That was Chilton too, wearing one of Travis’s hoodies.”

“But . . . is he insane?” Hawken asked, mystified. “Why would he want to kill us?”

Dance had learned that in her line of work nothing is gained by soft-pedaling. “I can’t say for absolute certain, but I think James Chilton murdered your first wife.”

A heartbreaking gasp. Eyes wide with disbelief. “What?”

Lily now lifted her head and turned to Dance. “But she died in an accident. Swimming near La Jolla.”

“I’m getting some details from San Diego and the Coast Guard to be sure. But it’s pretty likely that I’m right.”

“He couldn’t have. Sarah and Jim were very . . .” Hawken’s words dissolved.

“Close?” Dance asked.

He was shaking his head. “No. It’s not possible.” But then he blurted angrily, “Are you saying they were having an affair?”

A pause, then she said, “I think so, yes. I’ll be getting some evidence in the next few days. Travel records. Phone calls.”

Lily put her arm around her husband’s shoulders. “Honey,” she whispered.

Hawken said, “I remember that they’d always enjoy each other’s company when we’d go out. And, with me, Sarah was a challenge. I was always traveling. Maybe two, three days a week. Not a lot. But she sometimes said I was neglecting her. Kind of joking—I didn’t take it all that seriously. But maybe she meant it, and Jim stepped in to fill the gap. Sarah was always pretty demanding.”

The tone of delivery suggested to Dance that the sentence could have ended with “in bed.”

She added, “I’m guessing that Sarah wanted Chilton to leave Patrizia and marry her.”

A bitter laugh. “And he said no?”

Dance shrugged. “That’s what occurred to me.”

Hawken considered this. He added in hollow tones, “It wasn’t a good thing to say no to Sarah.”

“I thought about the timing. You moved to San Diego about three years ago. It was around then that Patrizia’s father died, and she inherited a lot of money. Which meant that Chilton could keep writing his blog—he started working on it full-time then. I think he was beginning to get a sense he was on a mission to save the world and Patrizia’s money could let him do that. So he broke it off with your wife.”

Hawken asked, “And Sarah threatened to expose him if he didn’t leave Pat?”

“I think she was going to broadcast that James Chilton, the moral voice of the country, had been having an affair with his best friend’s wife.”

Dance believed that Chilton lied to Sarah, agreeing to get the divorce, and met her in San Diego. She could imagine his suggestion of a romantic picnic, at a deserted cove near La Jolla. A swim at the beautiful seashore preserve there. Then an accident—a blow to the head. Or maybe he just held her underwater.

“But why was he going to kill us?” Lily asked, with a troubled look back at the house.

Dance said to Donald Hawken, “You’d been out of touch for a while?”

“After Sarah died, I was so depressed I gave up on everything, stopped seeing all my old friends. Most of my time went to the children. I was a recluse . . . until I met Lily. Then I started to resurface.”

“And you decided to move back.”

“Right. Sell the company and come back.” Hawken was understanding. “Sure, sure, Lily and I would get together with Jim and Patrizia, some of our old friends around here. At some point we’d have to reminisce. Jim used to come to Southern California a bit before Sarah died. He would’ve lied to Pat about it; it’d only be a matter of time before he’d get caught.” Hawken’s head swiveled to the house, his eyes wide. “The Blue Swan . . . Yes!”

Dance lifted an eyebrow.

“I told Jim I wanted to give him one of my late wife’s favorite paintings. I remembered him staring at it when he stayed with me after Sarah died.” A scoffing laugh. “I’ll bet it was Jim’s. He probably bought it years ago and one day when Sarah was over at his place she told him she wanted it. Maybe he told Patrizia he sold it to somebody. If she saw the painting now she’d wonder how Sarah had gotten it.”

This would explain Chilton’s desperation—why he’d take the risk of murdering. The righteous blogger lecturing the world on morality about to be exposed for having an affair—with a woman who’d died. Questions would be raised, an investigation started. And the most important thing in his life—his blog—would have been destroyed. He had to eliminate that threat.

The Report is too important to jeopardize. . . .

Lily asked, “But that man at the house, Schaeffer? The statement that James was going to read—it mentioned Travis.”

“I’m sure Schaeffer’s plans didn’t originally involve Travis. He’d wanted to kill Chilton for some time—probably since his brother’s death. But when he heard about the Roadside Crosses attacks, he rewrote the statement to include Travis’s name—so no one would suspect Schaeffer himself.”

Hawken asked, “How did you figure out Jim was the one, not Schaeffer?”

Mostly, she explained, because of what wasn’t in the crime scene reports TJ had just delivered to her.

“What wasn’t there?” Hawken asked.

“First,” she explained, “there wasn’t any cross to announce the murder of Chilton. The killer had left crosses in public places before the other attacks. But nobody could find the last cross. Second, the perp had used Travis’s bicycle, or his own, to leave tread marks to implicate the boy. But Schaeffer didn’t have a bike anywhere. And then the gun he threatened Chilton with? It wasn’t the Colt stolen from Travis’s father. It was a Smith and Wesson. Finally, there were no flowers or florist’s wire in his car or hotel room.

“So, I considered the possibility that Greg Schaeffer wasn’t the Roadside Cross Killer. He just lucked into the case and decided to use it. But, if he wasn’t leaving the crosses, who could it be?”

Dance had gone back through the list of suspects. She’d thought of the minister, Reverend Fisk, and his bodyguard, possibly CrimsoninChrist. They were certainly fanatics and had threatened Chilton directly in their postings on the blog. But TJ had gone to see Fisk, the minder and several other key members of the group. They all had alibis for the times of the attacks.

She’d also considered Hamilton Royce—the troubleshooter from Sacramento, being paid to shut down the blog because of what Chilton was posting about the Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee. It was a good theory, but the more she’d thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Royce was too obvious a suspect, since he’d already tried to get the blog closed down—and very publicly—by using the state police.

Clint Avery, the construction boss, was a possibility too. But she’d learned that Avery’s mysterious meetings after Dance had left his company were with a lawyer specializing in equal employment law and two men who ran a day-labor service. In an area where most employers worried about hiring too many undocumented aliens, Avery was worried about getting sued for hiring too few minorities. He was uneasy with Dance, it seemed, because he was afraid she was really there investigating a civil rights complaint that he was discriminating against Latinos.

Dance had also fleetingly considered Travis’s father as the perp, actually wondering if there was some psychological connection between the branches and roses and Bob Brigham’s job as a landscaper. She’d even considered that the perp might be Sammy—troubled, but maybe a savant, cunning, and possibly filled with resentment against his older brother.

But even though the family had its problems, those were pretty much the same problems all families had. And both father and son were accounted for during some of the attacks.

With a shrug Dance said to the Hawkens, “Finally I ran out of suspects. And came to James Chilton himself.”

“Why?” he asked.

A to B to X . . .

“I was thinking about something a consultant of ours told me about blogs—about how dangerous they were. And I asked myself: What if Chilton wanted to kill someone? What a great weapon The Report was. Start a rumor, then let the cybermob take over. Nobody would be surprised when the bullied victim snapped. There’s your perpetrator.”

Hawken pointed out, “But Jim didn’t say anything about Travis in the blog.”

“And that’s what was so brilliant; it made Chilton seem completely innocent. But he didn’t need to mention Travis. He knew how the Internet works. The merest hint he’d done something wrong and the Vengeful Angels would take over.

“If Chilton was the perp, I wondered then who was the intended victim. There was nothing about the two girls, Tammy or Kelley, to suggest he wanted to kill them. Or Lyndon Strickland or Mark Watson. You were the other potential victims, of course. I thought back to everything I’d learned about the case. I remembered something odd. You told me that Chilton had hurried to your house in San Diego to be with you and the children the day your wife died. He was there within the hour.”

“Right. He’d been in L.A. at a meeting. He got the next commuter flight down.”

Dance said, “But he’d told his wife he was in Seattle when he heard that Sarah had died.”

“Seattle?” Hawken appeared confused.

“In a meeting at Microsoft headquarters. But, no, he was actually in San Diego. He’d been there all along. He never left town after drowning Sarah. He was waiting to hear from you and to get to your house. He needed to.”

“Needed to? Why?”

“You said he stayed with you, even helped you with the cleaning?”

“That’s right.”

“I think he wanted to go through the house and destroy anything among Sarah’s possessions that suggested they were having an affair.”

“Jesus,” Hawken muttered.

She explained a few of the other connections between Chilton and the crimes: He was a triathlon competitor, which meant he biked. Dance recalled seeing all the sports equipment in Chilton’s garage, among them several bicycles.

“Then, the soil.” She explained about finding the mismatched dirt near one of the roadside crosses. “Crime Scene found identical trace on Greg Schaeffer’s shoes. But the ultimate source was the gardens in Chilton’s front yard. That’s where Schaeffer picked it up.”

Dance reflected that she’d actually gazed right at the source of the dirt when she’d first been to the blogger’s house, as she examined the landscaping.

“And then there was his van, the Nissan Quest.” She told them about the witness Ken Pfister seeing the state vehicle near one of the crosses. Then she gave a wry smile. “But it was actually Chilton himself who was driving—after planting the second cross.”

She pointed to the blogger’s van, parked nearby. It bore the bumper sticker she remembered from the first day she’d been to his house: If you DESALINATE, you DEVASTATE.

It was the last syllable on that sticker that Ken Pfister had seen as the van drove past: STATE.

“I went to the magistrate with what I’d found and got a warrant. I sent officers to search Chilton’s house in Carmel. He’d discarded most of the evidence, but they found a few red rose petals and a bit of cardboard similar to what was used on the crosses. I remembered that he said he was coming here with you. So I called San Benito County and told them to send a tactical team here. The only thing I didn’t guess was that Chilton was going to force Travis himself to shoot you.”

She interrupted the man’s effusive thanks—he seemed about to cry—with a glance at her watch. “I have to leave now. You go home, get some rest.”

Lily hugged Dance. Hawken shook her hand in both of his. “I don’t know what to say.”

Disengaging, she walked to the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office squad car, where James Chilton sat. His thinning hair was plastered to the side of his head. He watched her approach with a hurt gaze on his face. Almost a pout.

She opened the back door, leaned down.

He hissed, “I don’t need shackles on my feet. Look at this. It’s degrading.”

Dance noted the chains. Noted them with satisfaction.

He continued, “They put them on, some deputies did, and they were smiling! Because they claimed I kept the boy shackled. This’s all bullshit. This is all a mistake. I’ve been framed.”

Dance nearly laughed. Apart from all the other evidence, there were three eyewitnesses—Hawken, his wife and Travis—to his crimes.

She recited his Miranda rights.

“Somebody did that already.”

“Just making sure you really understand them. Do you?”

“My rights? Yes. Listen, back there, yes, I had a gun. But people had been out to kill me. Of course I’m going to protect myself. Somebody’s setting me up. Like you said, somebody I’d posted about in my blog. I saw Travis come into the living room and I pulled out my gun—I started carrying one when you said I was in danger.”

Ignoring the rambling, she said, “We’re going to take you to Monterey County and book you, James. You can call your wife or your attorney then.”

“Do you hear what I’m saying? I’ve been framed. Whatever that boy’s claiming, he’s unstable. I was playing along with him, with his delusions. I was going to shoot him if he’d tried to hurt Don and Lily. Of course I was.”

She leaned forward, controlling her emotions as best she could. Which wasn’t easy. “Why’d you target Tammy and Kelley, James? Two teenage girls who never did anything to you.”

“I’m innocent,” he muttered.

She continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Why them? Because you didn’t like adolescent attitude? You didn’t like them tainting your precious blog with their obscenities? You didn’t like bad grammar?”

He said nothing, but Dance believed there was a flicker of acknowledgment in his eyes. She pushed ahead. “And why Lyndon Strickland? And Mark Watson? You killed them just because they posted under their real names and they were easy to find, right?”

Chilton was looking away now, as if he knew he was telegraphing the truth with his eyes.

“James, those pictures you uploaded to the blog, pretending to be Travis? You drew them yourself, didn’t you? I remembered from your bio in The Report that you were a graphic designer and art director in college.”

He said nothing.

The anger flared hotter. “Did you enjoy drawing the one of me getting stabbed?”

Again, silence.

She stood. “I’ll be by at some point to interview you. You can have your attorney present if you like.”

Then he turned to her, his face imploring. “One thing, Agent Dance? Please?”

She lifted an eyebrow.

“There’s something I need. It’s important.”

“What’s that, James?”

“A computer.”

“What?”

“I need access to a computer. Soon. Today.”

“You get phone calls from the lockup. No computer.”

“But The Report . . . I’ve got to upload my stories.”

Now she couldn’t contain the laugh. He was not at all concerned about his wife or children, only about the precious blog. “No, James, that’s not going to happen.”

“But I have to. I have to!”

Hearing those words and seeing his frantic gaze, Kathryn Dance finally understood James Chilton. The readers were nothing to him. He’d easily murdered two of them and was fully prepared to kill more.

The truth was nothing to him. He’d lied over and over again.

No, the answer was simple: Like the players in DimensionQuest, like so many people lost in the synth world, James Chilton was an addict. Addicted to his messianic mission. Addicted to the seductive power of spreading the word—his word—to the minds and hearts of people throughout the world. The more who read his musings, his rants, his praise, the more exquisite the high.

She leaned down, close to his face. “James. I will do everything possible to make sure that whatever prison you go to, you will never be able to get online ever again. Never in your life.”

His face turned livid and he began screaming, “You can’t do that! You can’t take my blog away. My readers need me. The country needs me! You can’t!”

Dance closed the door and nodded to the deputy behind the wheel.

Chapter 45

THE FLASHING LIGHTS— on personal business—were against regulations, but Dance didn’t care. The emergency accessories were a wise idea, given that she was speeding at twice the limit down Highway 68 back to Salinas from Hollister. Edie Dance was being arraigned in twenty minutes, and she was going to be there, front and center.

She was wondering when her mother’s trial would happen. Who would testify? What exactly would the evidence show?

Again she thought, dismayed: Will I be called to the stand?

And what would happen if Edie was convicted? Dance knew California prisons. The population was largely illiterate, violent, their minds ruined by drugs or alcohol or simply damaged from birth. Her mother’s heart would wither in a place like that. The punishment would be the death penalty, after all—capital punishment for the soul.

And she was furious with herself for writing that email to Bill, the one commenting on her mother’s decision to put down one of her ailing pets. Years ago, an offhand comment. Out of proportion to the devastating effect it could have on her mother’s fate.

Which put her in mind of The Chilton Report. All of those postings about Travis Brigham. All wrong, completely wrong . . . yet they would be in existence, on servers and in the hearts of individual computers, forever. People might see them five or ten or twenty years from now. Or a hundred. And never know the truth.

Dance was shaken out of her troubling meditation by the buzz of her phone.

It was a text message from her father.

I’m at the hospital with your mother. Get here as soon as you can.

Dance gasped. What was this about? The arraignment was supposed to be starting in fifteen minutes. If Edie Dance was in the hospital it was only for one reason. She was ill or injured.

Dance immediately punched her father’s mobile number, but it went right to voice mail. Of course, he’d shut it off in the hospital.

Had she been attacked?

Or had she tried to kill herself?

Dance shoved the accelerator down and drove faster. Her mind tumbling, out of control now. Thinking that if her mother had tried to kill herself, it was because she knew Robert Harper had a solid case against her, and that it would be futile to fight it.

So her mother had committed murder. Dance recalled the damning comment, revealing Edie’s knowledge of the ICU corridors at the time Juan Millar died.

There were some nurses down on that wing. But that was all. His family was gone. And there were no visitors. . . .

She sped past Salinas, Laguna Seca and the airport. Twenty minutes later she was pulling into the circular drive of the hospital. The car skidded to a violent stop, breaching the handicapped space. Dance leapt out and sprinted to the main entrance door and wedged through before the automatic panels had fully opened.

At the admissions station, an alarmed receptionist looked up and said, “Kathryn, are you—?”

“Where’s my mother?” the agent gasped.

“She’s downstairs and—”

Dance was already pushing through the doorway and downward. Downstairs meant only one thing: the intensive care unit. Ironically the very place where Juan Millar had died. If Edie was there, at least she was alive.

On the bottom floor she shoved through the door, hurrying toward ICU, when she happened to glance into the cafeteria.

Breathing hard, Dance pulled up fast, a stitch in her side. She looked through the open doorway and saw four people sitting at a table, coffee in front of them. They were the director of the hospital, the security chief Henry Bascomb, Dance’s father and . . . Edie Dance. They were engaged in a discussion and were looking over documents on the table before them.

Stuart glanced up and smiled, gesturing with an index figure, meaning, Dance guessed, they’d only be a moment or two. Her mother glanced her way and then, expression neutral, returned her attention to the hospital director.

“Hi,” a man’s voice said from behind her.

She turned, blinking in surprise to see Michael O’Neil.

“Michael, what’s going on?” Dance asked breathlessly.

With furrowed brows, he asked, “Didn’t you get the message?”

“Just the text from Dad that they were here.”

“I didn’t want to bother you in the middle of an operation. I spoke to Overby and gave him the details. He was supposed to call when you were finished.”

Oh. Well, this was one glitch she couldn’t lay at the feet of her thoughtless boss; she’d been in such a hurry to get to the arraignment, she’d never told him they’d wrapped the Chilton take-down.

“I heard Hollister went okay.”

“Yeah, everybody’s fine. Chilton’s in custody. Travis’s got a banged head. That’s it.” But the Roadside Cross Case was far from her mind. She stared into the cafeteria. “What’s going on, Michael?”

“The charges against your mother’ve been dropped,” he said.

“What?”

O’Neil hesitated, looking almost sheepish, and then said, “I didn’t tell you, Kathryn. I couldn’t.”

“Tell me what?”

“The case I’ve been working on?”

The Other Case . . .

“It had nothing to do with the container situation. That’s still on hold. I took on your mother’s case as an independent investigation. I told the sheriff I was going to do it. Pretty much insisted. He agreed. Stopping Harper now was our only chance. If he’d gotten a conviction . . . well, you know the odds of getting a verdict overturned on appeal.”

“You never said anything.”

“That was the plan. I could run it but I couldn’t mention anything to you. I had to be able to testify that you knew nothing about what I was doing. Conflict of interest, otherwise. Even your parents didn’t know. I talked to them about the case, but only informally. They never suspected.”

“Michael.” Dance again felt rare tears sting. She gripped his arm and their eyes met, brown on green.

He said, frowning, “I knew she wasn’t guilty. Edie taking somebody’s life? Crazy.” He grinned. “You notice I’ve been talking to you in text messages a lot lately, emails?”

“Right.”

“Because I couldn’t lie to you in person. I knew you’d spot it in a minute.”

She laughed, recalling how vague he’d been about the Container Case.

“But who killed Juan?”

“Daniel Pell.”

“Pell?” she whispered in astonishment.

O’Neil explained, though, that it wasn’t Pell himself who’d killed Juan Millar, but one of the women connected with him—the partner that Dance had been thinking of yesterday as she’d driven her children to see their grandparents.

“She knew the threat you presented, Kathryn. She wanted desperately to stop you.”

“Why did you think of her?”

“Process of elimination,” O’Neil explained. “I knew your mother couldn’t ’ve done it. I knew Julio Millar hadn’t—he was accounted for the whole time. His parents weren’t there, and there were no other fellow officers present. So I asked who’d have a motive to blame your mother for the death? Pell came to mind. You were running the manhunt to find him and getting closer. Your mother’s arrest would distract you, if not force you off the case altogether. He couldn’t do it himself, so he used his partner.”

He explained that the woman had slipped into the hospital by pretending to be applying for a job as a nurse.

“The job applications,” Dance said, nodding, recalling what Connie’s investigation had found. “There wasn’t any connection between them and Millar, though, so we didn’t pay any attention.”

“Witnesses said that she was wearing a nurse’s uniform. As if she’d just gotten off a shift at another hospital and had come over to MBH to apply for a job.” The deputy continued, “I had her computer examined and found that she’d searched for drug interactions on Google.”

“The evidence in the garage?”

“She planted it. I had Pete Bennington take the garage apart. A CS team found some hairs—that Harper’s people had missed, by the way. They were hers. DNA match. I’m sure she’ll take a plea.”

“I feel so bad, Michael. I almost believed she’d . . .” Dance couldn’t even bring herself to say the words. “I mean, Mom looked so upset when she told me that Juan asked her to kill him. And then she claimed she wasn’t on the ICU floor when Juan was killed, but she let slip that she knew the place was deserted except for some nurses.”

“Oh, she’d talked to one of the ICU doctors and he commented to your mother that all the visitors had left. Edie was never on the wing at all.”

A miscommunication and an assumption. Not much excuse for that in her line of work, she thought wryly. “And Harper? He’s going forward with the case?”

“Nope. He’s packing up and going home to Sacramento. He’s handed off to Sandy.”

“What?” Dance was shocked.

O’Neil laughed, noting her expression. “Yep. Not much interested in justice. Only interested in a high-profile conviction, the mother of a government agent.”

“Oh, Michael.” She squeezed his arm again. And he put his hand on hers, then was looking away. She was struck by his countenance. What was she seeing? A vulnerability, a hollowness?

O’Neil started to say something and then didn’t.

Maybe to apologize for lying to her and withholding the truth about his investigation. He looked at his watch. “Got a few things to take care of.”

“Hey, you okay?”

“Just tired.”

Alarm bells sounded within Dance. Men are never “just tired.” What they mean is, no, they’re not okay at all but they don’t want to talk.

He said, “Oh, almost forgot. I heard from Ernie, the L.A. case? The judge refused to push off the immunity hearing. It’s starting in about a half hour.”

Dance displayed crossed fingers. “Let’s hope.” She then hugged him, hard.

O’Neil fished his car keys out of his pocket and headed up the stairs, apparently in too much of a hurry to wait for the elevator.

Dance glanced into the cafeteria. She noted that her mother was no longer at the table. Her shoulders slumped. Damnit. She’s gone.

But then she heard a woman’s voice behind her. “Katie.”

Edie Dance had come out the side door and presumably waited to join her daughter until O’Neil left.

“Michael told me, Mom.”

“After the charges were dismissed, I came by here to see the people who supported me, to thank them.”

The people who supported me . . .

There was silence for a moment. The PA system gave an incomprehensible announcement. Somewhere a baby cried. The sounds faded.

And from Edie’s expression and words, Kathryn Dance knew the complete weave of what had happened between mother and daughter in the past few days. The difficulty had nothing to do with her leaving the courthouse early the other day. The issue was more fundamental. She blurted, “I didn’t think you’d done it, Mom. Really.”

Edie Dance smiled. “Ah, and coming from you, from a kinesics expert, Katie? Tell me what to look for to see if you’re telling a fib.”

“Mom—”

“Katie, you thought it was possible I’d killed that young man.”

Dance sighed, wondered how big the vacuum in her soul was at the moment. The denial died in her mouth and she said in a shaky voice, “Maybe, Mom. Okay, maybe. I didn’t think less of you. I still loved you. But, okay, I thought you might have.”

“Your face, in the courtroom at the bail hearing. Just looking at your face, I knew you were considering it. I knew you were.”

“I’m so sorry,” Dance whispered.

Then Edie Dance did something completely uncharacteristic. She took her daughter by the shoulders, firmly, more firmly than Dance believed she’d ever been held by the woman, even as a child. “Don’t you dare say that.” Her words were harsh.

Dance blinked and began to speak.

“Shhhhh, Katie. Listen. I was up all night after the bail hearing. Thinking about what I’d seen in your eyes, what you suspected about me, let me finish. I was up all night, hurt, furious. But then, finally I understood something. And I felt so proud.”

A warm smile softened the round contours of the woman’s face. “So proud.”

Dance was confused.

Her mother continued, “You know, Katie, a parent never knows if they get it right. I’m sure you’ve wrestled with that.”

“Oh, only about ten times a day.”

“You always hope, you pray, that you give your children the resources they need, the attitude, the courage. That’s what it’s all about, after all. Not fighting their battles, but getting them prepared to fight on their own. Teaching them to make judgments, to think for themselves.”

The tears were streaming down Dance’s cheeks.

“And when I saw you questioning what I might’ve done, looking at what had happened, I knew that I’d got it one hundred percent right. I raised you not to be blind. You know, prejudice blinds people, hate blinds people. But loyalty and love blind people too. You looked past everything, for the truth.” Her mother laughed. “Of course, you got it wrong. But I can’t fault you for that.”

The women embraced and Edie Dance said, “Now, you’re still on duty. Go on back to the office. I’m still mad at you. But I’ll get over it in a day or two. We’ll go shopping and then have dinner at Casanova. Oh, and Katie, you’re picking up the check.”

Chapter 46

KATHRYN DANCE RETURNED to her office at CBI and wrote up the final disposition on the case.

She sipped the coffee that Maryellen Kresbach had brought her and looked over the pink phone message slips that the assistant had stacked beside a plate containing a very thick cookie.

She considered the messages at length and returned none of the calls but ate 100 percent of the cookie.

Her phone beeped. A text from Michael O’Neil:

K—judge has ruled in L.A. Will release decision in next few hours. Keep your fingers crossed. Lot going on today, but will talk to you soon.—M.

Please, please, please . . .

A final sip of coffee and Dance printed out the report for Overby and took it down to his office. “Here’s the disposition, Charles.”

“Ah. Good.” The man added, “That was a surprise, the direction the case took.” He read the report fast. She noticed a gym bag, tennis racket and small suitcase behind his desk. It was late afternoon on a summer Friday, and he was probably leaving directly from the office for his weekend place.

She detected a certain chilliness in his posture, attributable undoubtedly to her flying off the handle with Hamilton Royce.

And so she was looking forward to what was coming next. Sitting opposite her boss, she said, “There’s one final thing, Charles. It’s about Royce.”

“What’s that?” He looked up, began smoothing her memo, as if wiping off dust.

She explained what TJ had uncovered about Royce’s mission—to stop the blog not to save victims, but to derail Chilton’s exposé about the state representative’s being wined and dined by the nuclear plant developer. “He used us, Charles.”

“Ah.” Overby continued to fiddle with some papers.

“He bills his time to the Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee—which is headed by the representative Chilton was writing about in the ‘Power to the People’ thread of the blog.”

“I see. Royce, hmm.”

“I want to send a memo to the AG. It’s probably not a crime, what Royce did, but it’s definitely unethical—using me, using us. It’ll cost him his job.”

More fiddling. Overby was considering this.

“Are you okay with my doing that?” She asked this because it was clear he wasn’t.

“I’m not sure.”

She laughed. “Why not? He went through my desk. Maryellen saw him. He used state police for his own agenda.”

Overby’s eyes dipped to the papers on his desk. They were as ordered as could be. “Well, it’ll take up our time and resources. And it could be . . . awkward for us.”

“Awkward?”

“Bring us into that interagency crap. I hate that.”

This was hardly an argument. Life in state government is all about interagency crap.

At the end of a chewy silence, Overby seemed to come up with a thought. His eyebrow lifted a bit. “Besides, I think you might not have time to pursue it.”

“I’ll fit it in, Charles.”

“Well, the thing is, there’s this. . . .” He found a file on his credenza and extracted a stapled document several pages long.

“What’s that?”

“Matter of fact”—the second eyebrow joined in—“it’s from the AG’s office.” He pushed the papers forward across the desk. “It seems there was a complaint made against you.”

“Me?”

“Apparently you made racist remarks to a county employee.”

“Charles, that’s crazy.”

“Ah, well, it went all the way to Sacramento.”

“Who complained?”

“Sharanda Evans. County Social Services.”

“I’ve never met her. It’s a mistake.”

“She was at Monterey Bay Hospital when your mother was arrested. She was looking after your children.”

Oh, the woman who’d collected Wes and Maggie from the hospital play area.

“Charles, she wasn’t ‘looking after’ them. She was taking them into custody. She didn’t even try to call me.”

“She claims you uttered racist comments.”

“Jesus Christ, Charles, I said she was incompetent. That’s all.”

“She didn’t interpret it that way. Now, since you generally have a good reputation and no history of problems in the past, the AG’s not inclined to open a formal complaint. Still, it’s got to be looked into.”

He seemed torn about this dilemma.

But not that torn.

“He wanted some input from people on the ground about how to proceed.”

From Overby himself, he meant. And she understood too exactly what was going on here: Dance had embarrassed Overby in front of Royce. Maybe the ombudsman had gotten the impression that the man couldn’t control his employees. A CBI-instigated complaint against Royce would call Overby’s leadership into question.

“Of course you’re not racist. But the woman’s pretty hot under the collar about it, this Ms. Evans.” He stared at the inverted letter in front of Dance the way one would gaze at autopsy photos.

How long’ve you had this job? . . . Either not long enough, or way too long.

Kathryn Dance realized that her boss was negotiating: If she didn’t go any further with the complaint about Royce’s impropriety, Overby would tell the AG that the social worker’s claim had been fully investigated and that there was no merit to it.

If Dance did pursue the Royce matter, she might lose her job.

This sat between them for a moment. Dance was surprised that Overby was showing no kinesic evidence that he was feeling stress. She, on the other hand, observed her foot bobbing like a piston.

I think I have the big picture, Dance thought cynically. She came close to saying it, but didn’t.

Well, she had a decision to make.

Debating.

He tapped the complaint report with his fingers. “A shame when things like this happen. We have our core work, then other stuff intrudes.”

After the Roadside Cross Case, after the roller-coaster with the J. Doe case in Los Angeles, after the harrowing days worrying about her mother, Dance decided she didn’t have the heart for a fight, not over this.

“If you think a complaint against Royce would be too distracting, Charles, I’ll respect that, of course.”

“It’s best probably. Let’s get back to work—that’s what we need to do. And this we’ll just put away too.” He took the complaint and slipped it into the file.

How blatant can we be, Charles?

He smiled. “No more distractions.”

“Back to work,” Dance echoed.

“Okay, I see it’s late. Have a good weekend. And thanks for wrapping the case, Kathryn.”

“Good night, Charles.” Dance rose and left the office. She wondered if he felt as unclean as she did.

She doubted it very, very much.

Dance returned to the Gals’ Wing and was just at her office door when a voice behind her called, “Kathryn?”

She turned to see somebody she didn’t recognize at first. Then it struck her—it was David Reinhold, the young deputy from the sheriff’s office. He wasn’t in uniform, but was wearing jeans, a polo shirt and jacket. He smiled and glanced down. “Off duty.” He approached her and stopped a few feet away. “Hey, I heard about the Roadside Cross Case.”

“Kind of a surprise,” she said.

His hands were jammed in his pockets. He seemed nervous. “I’ll say. That boy’ll be okay, though?”

“He’ll be fine.”

“And Chilton? Did he confess?”

“I bet he doesn’t need to. We’ve got him on witnesses and PE. Cold.” She nodded toward her office, lifting an eyebrow, inviting him inside.

“I have some things to take care of. . . . I stopped by earlier and you were out.”

A curious thing to say. And she noted that he seemed even more nervous now. His body language was giving off high amperage of stress.

“I just wanted to say, I’ve really enjoyed working with you.”

“Appreciate your help.”

“You’re a very special person,” Reinhold stammered.

Uh-oh. Where was this going?

Reinhold was avoiding her eyes. He cleared his throat. “I know you don’t really know me very well.”

He’s at least a decade younger than I am, she thought. He’s a kid. Dance was struggling to keep from smiling or looking too maternal. She wondered where he was going to invite her on a date.

“Anyway, what I’m trying to say is . . .”

But he said nothing, just pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to her.

“What I’m trying to say is that I hope you’ll consider my application to join the CBI.” Reinhold added, “Most older people in police work aren’t very good mentors. I know you’d be different. I’d appreciate the chance to learn from you.”

Struggling not to laugh, Dance said, “Well, David, thanks. I don’t think we’re hiring right at the moment. But I promise you, when we do, I’ll make sure to get this to the top of the list.”

“Really?” He beamed.

“You bet. You have a good night now, David. And thanks again for your help.”

“Thanks, Kathryn. You’re the best.”

For an older person . . .

Smiling, she walked into her office and dropped heavily into her chair. She sat, staring at the entwined tree trunks outside her window. Her cell phone chimed. Not much in the mood to talk to anybody, she looked down at the Caller ID window.

After three rings of debate she hit “Answer.”

Chapter 47

A BUTTERFLY EASED along the fence and vanished into the neighbor’s yard. It wasn’t the time of year for monarchs, the migratory lepidoptera that gave Pacific Grove its subtitle of “Butterfly Town, U.S.A.,” and Kathryn Dance wondered what kind it was.

She was sitting on the Deck, which was slick from the late-afternoon fog. It was quiet now, she was alone. The children and the dogs were at her parents’. She wore faded jeans, a green sweatshirt, stylish Wish shoes, from the Brown company’s Fergie line—a treat she’d allowed herself after the conclusion of the case. She sipped white wine.

Her laptop was open in front of her. Dance had logged on as a temporary administrator to The Chilton Report after she’d found the access pass codes in one of James Chilton’s files. She consulted the book she’d been reading from, finished typing the text and uploaded it.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/final.html

Dance read the results. Gave a faint smile.

Then logged off.

She heard heavy footsteps on the stairs leading up from the side of the house and turned to see Michael O’Neil.

“Hey.” He smiled.

She had been expecting a phone call about the magistrate’s ruling in Los Angeles as to whether the J. Doe case would proceed; he’d seemed so preoccupied at the hospital, she hadn’t expected him to show up here in person. No matter, Michael O’Neil was always welcome. She tried to read his expression. She was usually good at this—she knew him so well—but he still had on a poker face.

“Wine?”

“Sure.”

She retrieved a second glass from the kitchen and poured him his favorite red.

“I can’t stay long.”

“Okay.” Dance could barely control herself. “Well?”

The smile escaped. “We won. Got the word twenty minutes ago. The judge blew the defense out of the water.”

“For real?” Dance asked, slipping into adolescent-speak.

“Yep.”

She rose and hugged him hard. His arms slid around her back and pressed her to his solid chest.

They stepped apart and clinked glasses.

“Ernie presents to the grand jury in two weeks. There’s no doubt they’ll return a bill. They want us down there on Tuesday, nine a.m., to plan out the testimony. You up for a trip?”

“Oh, you bet I am.”

O’Neil moved to the railing. He was gazing out into the backyard, staring at a wind chime that Dance had been meaning to pick up from the spot, where she’d dumped it on a windy—and sleepless—night some time ago. He fell silent.

Something was coming, Dance could tell.

She grew alarmed. What was the story? Illness?

Was he moving?

He continued, “I was wondering . . .”

She waited. Her breath was fast. The wine in her glass rocked like the turbulent Pacific.

“The meeting’s on Tuesday and I was wondering if you wanted to stay down in L.A. a few extra days. We could see the sights. Get those eggs Benedict we were hoping for. Or maybe we could go out for sushi in West Hollywood and watch people trying to be cool. I could even buy a black shirt.” He was rambling.

Which Michael O’Neil never did. Ever.

Dance blinked. Her heart thudded as fast as the wings of the hummingbird hovering over the crimson feeder nearby. “I . . .”

He laughed and his shoulders slumped. She couldn’t imagine what her expression looked like. “Okay. There’s something else I guess I ought to say.”

“Sure.”

“Anne’s leaving.”

“What?” She gasped.

Michael O’Neil’s face was an amalgam of emotion: hope, uncertainty, pain. Perhaps the most obvious was bewilderment.

“She’s moving to San Francisco.”

A hundred questions filled her mind. She asked the first, “The children?”

“They’ll be with me.”

This news wasn’t surprising. There was no better father than Michael O’Neil. And Dance had always had her doubts about Anne’s skills at mothering, and about her desire to handle the job.

Of course, she realized. The split-up was the source of O’Neil’s troubled look at the hospital. She remembered his eyes, how hollow they seemed.

He continued, speaking with the clipped tone of somebody who’d been doing a lot of rapid-fire—and not wholly realistic—planning. Men were guilty of this more often than women. He was telling her about the children’s visiting their mother, about the reactions of his family and Anne’s, about lawyers, about what Anne would be doing in San Francisco. Dance nodded, concentrating on his words, encouraging, mostly just letting him talk.

She picked up immediately on the references to “this gallery owner” and a “friend of Anne’s in San Francisco” and “he.” The deduction she made didn’t truly surprise her, though she was furious with the woman for hurting O’Neil.

And hurt he was, devastated, though he didn’t know it yet.

And me? Dance thought. How do I feel about this?

Then she promptly tucked that consideration away, refusing to examine it right now.

O’Neil stood like a schoolboy who’d asked a girl to the eighth-grade dance. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d jammed his hands into his pockets and stared down at his shoe tips. “So I was just wondering, about next week. A few extra days?”

Where do we go from here? Dance thought. If she could hover over herself, looking down as a kinesic analyst, what was her body language saying? She was, on the one hand, deeply moved by the news. On the other, she was as cautious as a war-zone soldier approaching a roadside package.

The appeal of a trip with Michael O’Neil was almost overwhelming.

Yet the answer, of course, could not be yes. For one thing, O’Neil needed to be there for his children, completely there, one hundred percent there. They might not—should not—have been told about their parents’ problems at this point. Yet they would know something. Children’s intuition is a primary force of nature.

But there was another reason for Dance and O’Neil not to share personal time in Los Angeles.

And, coincidentally, it appeared just now.

“Hello?” called a man’s voice from the side yard.

Dance held Michael O’Neil’s eye, gave a tight smile and called, “Up here. In the back.”

More footsteps on the stairs and Jonathan Boling joined them. He gave a smile to O’Neil and the two men shook hands. Like Dance, he was in jeans. His knit shirt was black, under a Lands’ End windbreaker. He wore hiking boots.

“I’m a little early.”

“Not a problem.”

O’Neil was smart, and more, he was savvy. Dance could see that he understood instantly. His first reaction was dismay that he’d put her in a difficult position.

His eyes offered a sincere apology.

And hers insisted that none was necessary.

O’Neil was amused too and gave Dance a smile not unlike the one they’d shared when last year they’d heard on the car radio the Sondheim song “Send in the Clowns,” about potential lovers who just can’t seem to get together.

Timing, they both knew, was everything.

Dance said evenly, “Jonathan and I are going to Napa for the weekend.”

“Just a little get-together at my parents’ place. I always like to bring along somebody to run interference.” Boling was downplaying the getaway. The professor was smart too—he’d seen Dance and O’Neil together—and understood that he’d walked into the middle of something now.

“It’s beautiful up there,” O’Neil said.

Dance remembered that he and Anne had spent their honeymoon at an inn near the Cakebread Vineyard up in wine country.

Could we just shoot these ironies dead, please? Dance thought. And she realized that her face was burning with a girlish blush.

O’Neil asked, “Wes is at your mom and dad’s?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll call him. I want to cast off at eight tomorrow.”

She loved him for keeping the fishing date with the boy, even though Dance would be out of town and O’Neil had plenty to cope with. “Thanks. He’s really looking forward to it.”

“I’m getting a copy of the decision from L.A. I’ll email it to you.”

She said, “I want to talk, Michael. Call me.”

“Sure.”

O’Neil would understand that she meant talking about him and Anne and the impending separation, not the J. Doe case.

And Dance understood that he wouldn’t call, not while she was away with Boling. He was that kind of person.

Dance felt a fast urge—a hungry urge—to hug the deputy again, put her arms around him, and she was about to. But for a man who remained unskilled at kinesic analysis, O’Neil instantly picked up on her intention. He turned and walked to the stairs. “Got to collect the kids. Pizza night. Bye, Jon. And, hey, thanks for all your help. We couldn’t’ve done it without you.”

“You owe me a tin badge,” Boling said with a grin and asked Dance if he could carry anything out to the car. She pointed out the shopping bag full of soda, water, snacks and CDs for the drive north.

Dance found herself clutching her wineglass to her chest as she watched O’Neil start down the deck stairs. She wondered if he’d turn back.

He did, briefly. They shared yet another smile, and then he was gone.

Acknowledgments

With thanks to Katherine Buse, whose excellent research gave me the lowdown on blogs and life in the synth world and who taught me how to survive (at least for a while) in massively multiplayer online role-playing games. Thanks too for the savvy editorial skills of Jane Davis, Jenna Dolan, Donna Marton, Hazel Orme and Phil Metcalf. My appreciation to James Chilton’s webmaster, my sister, Julie Reece Deaver, and thanks, as always, to Madelyn and to the puppies—all of them.

THE DRIVER EASED the M70 bus through traffic toward the stop on 57th Street near where Tenth Avenue blended into Amsterdam. He was in a pretty good mood. The new bus was a kneeling model, which lowered to the sidewalk to make stepping aboard easier, and featured a handicap ramp, great steering and, most important, a rump-friendly driver’s seat.

Lord knew he needed that, spending eight hours a day in it.

Today was beautiful, clear and cool. April. One of his favorite months. It was about 11:30 a.m. and the bus was crowded as people were heading east for lunch dates or errands on their hour off. Traffic was moving slowly as he nosed the huge vehicle closer to the stop, where four or five people waited beside a lamppost covered with flyers.

He was approaching the bus stop and he happened to look past the people waiting to get on board, his eyes taking in the old, brown building behind the stop. An early-twentieth-century building, it had several gridded windows but was always dark inside; he’d never seen anybody going in or out. A spooky place, like a prison. On the front was a flaking sign in white paint on a blue background.

ALGONQUIN CONSOLIDATED POWER COMPANY

SUBSTATION MH-10

PRIVATE PROPERTY

DANGER. HIGH VOLTAGE. TRESPASS PROHIBITED.

He rarely paid attention to the place but today something had caught his eye, something, he believed, out of the ordinary. Dangling from the window, about ten feet off the ground, was a wire, about a half inch in diameter. It was covered with dark insulation up to the end. There, the plastic or rubber was stripped away, revealing silverish metal strands; it was bolted to a fitting of some kind, a flat piece of brass. Damn big hunk of wire, the driver thought.

And just hanging out the window. Was that safe?

He now braked the bus to a complete stop and hit the door release. The kneeling mechanism engaged and the big vehicle dipped. The metal lower step was now just inches from the sidewalk. The driver turned his broad, ruddy face toward the door, which eased open with a satisfying hydraulic hiss. The folks began to climb on board. “Morning,” the driver said cheerfully.

A woman in her eighties, clutching an old shabby Henri Bendel shopping bag, nodded back and, using a cane, staggered to the rear, ignoring the empty seats in the front reserved for the elderly and disabled.

How could you not just love New Yorkers?

Then sudden motion in the rearview mirror. Flashing yellow lights. A truck was speeding up behind him. Algonquin Consolidated. Three workers stepped outside and stood in a close group, talking among themselves. They held boxes of tools and thick gloves and jackets. They didn’t seem happy as they walked slowly toward the substation, staring at it, heads close together as they debated something. One of those heads was shaking ominously.

Then the driver turned to the last passenger about to board, a young Latino, clutching his Metrocard and pausing outside the bus. He too was gazing at the substation. Frowning. The driver noticed his head was raised, as if he was sniffing the air.

An acrid scent. Yes, something was burning. The smell reminded him of the time that an electric motor in the wife’s washing machine had shorted out and the insulation burned. Nauseating. A wisp of smoke was coming from the doorway of the substation.

So that’s what the Algonquin people were doing here.

That’d be a mess. The driver wondered if it would mean a power outage and the stoplights would go out. That’d be it for him. The crosstown trip, normally twenty minutes, would be hours. Well, in any event, he’d better clear the area for the fire department. He gestured the passenger on board. “Hey, mister, I gotta go. Come on. Get on—”

As the passenger, still frowning at the smell, turned around and stepped onto the bus, the driver heard what sounded like pops coming from inside the substation. Sharp, almost like gunshots. Then a flash of light, light like a dozen suns, filled the entire sidewalk between the bus and the cable dangling from the window.

The Latino passenger disappeared into a cloud of flame.

The driver’s vision collapsed to gray afterimages. The sound was like a ripping crackle and shotgun blast at the same time, stunning his ears. Though belted into his seat, his upper body was slammed against the side window.

Through numb ears, he heard the echoes of his passengers’ screams.

Through half-blinded eyes, he saw fire.

As the driver began to pass out, he wondered if he himself might be the source of the raging flames.

“I HAVE TO tell you. He got out of the airport. He was spotted an hour ago in downtown Mexico City.”

“No,” Lincoln Rhyme said in a sigh, closing his eyes briefly. “No . . .”

Amelia Sachs, sitting beside Rhyme’s candy-apple-red Storm Arrow wheelchair, leaned forward and spoke into the black box of the speakerphone. “What happened?” She tugged at her long red hair and twined the strands into a severe ponytail.

“By the time we got the flight information from London, the plane had landed.” The woman’s voice blossomed crisply from the speakerphone. “Seems he hid on a supply truck, snuck out through a service entrance. I’ll show you the security tape we got from the Mexican police. I’ve got a link. Hold on a minute.” Her voice faded as she spoke to her associate, giving him instructions about the video.

The time was just past noon and Rhyme and Sachs were in the ground-floor parlor turned forensic laboratory of his town house on Central Park West, what had been a gothic Victorian structure in which had possibly resided—Rhyme liked to think—some very unquaint Victorians. Tough businessmen, dodgy politicians, high-class crooks. Maybe an incorruptible police commissioner who liked to bang heads. Rhyme had written a classic book on old-time crime in New York and had used his sources to try to track the genealogy of his building. But he could find no pedigree.

The woman they were speaking with was in a more modern structure, Rhyme had to assume, 3,000 miles away: the Monterey office of the California Bureau of Investigation. CBI agent Kathryn Dance had worked with Rhyme and Sachs several years ago, on a case involving the very man they were now closing in on. Richard Logan was, they believed, his real name. Though Lincoln Rhyme thought of him mostly by his nickname: the Watchmaker.

He was a professional criminal, one who planned his crimes with the precision he devoted to his hobby and passion—constructing timepieces. Rhyme and the killer had clashed several times; Rhyme had foiled one of his plans but failed to stop another. Still, Lincoln Rhyme considered the overall score a loss for himself since the Watchmaker wasn’t in custody.

Rhyme leaned his head back in his wheelchair, picturing Logan. He’d seen the man in person, up close. Body lean, hair a dark boyish mop, eyes gently amused at being questioned by the police, never revealing the mass murder he was planning. His serenity seemed to be innate, and it was what Rhyme found to be perhaps the most disturbing quality of the man. Emotion breeds mistake and carelessness, and no one could ever accuse Richard Logan of being emotional.

He could be hired for larceny or illegal arms or any other scheme that needed elaborate planning and ruthless execution, but was generally hired for murder—killing witnesses or whistle-blowers or political or corporate figures. Recent intelligence revealed he’d taken a murder assignment in Mexico somewhere. Rhyme had called Dance, who had many contacts south of the border—and who had herself nearly been killed by the Watchmaker’s associate a few years earlier. Given that connection, Dance was representing the Americans in the operation to arrest and extradite him, working with a senior investigator with the Ministerial Federal Police, a young, hardworking officer named Arturo Diaz.

Early that morning they’d learned Logan would be landing in Mexico City. Dance had called Diaz, who scrambled to put extra officers in place to intercept him. But, from Dance’s latest communication, they hadn’t been in time.

“You ready for the video?” Dance asked.

“Go ahead.” Rhyme shifted one of his few working fingers—the index finger of his right hand—and moved the electric wheelchair closer to the screen. He was a C4 quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down.

On one of the several flat-screen monitors in the lab came a grainy image of an airport. Trash and discarded cartons, cans and drums littered the ground on both sides of the fence in the foreground. A private cargo jet taxied into view and just as it stopped, a rear hatch opened and a man dropped out.

“That’s him,” Dance said softly.

“I can’t see clearly,” Rhyme said.

“It’s definitely Logan,” Dance reassured. “They got a partial print—you’ll see in a minute.”

The man stretched and then oriented himself. He slung a bag over his shoulder and, crouching, ran toward and hid behind a work shed. A few minutes later a worker came by, carrying a package the size of two shoeboxes. Logan greeted him, swapped the box for a letter-size envelope. The worker looked around and walked away quickly. A maintenance truck pulled up. Logan climbed into the back and hid under some tarps. The truck disappeared from view.”

“The plane?” he asked.

“Continued on to South America on a corporate charter. The pilot and copilot claim they don’t know anything about a stowaway. Of course they’re lying. But we don’t have jurisdiction to question them.”

“And the worker?” Sachs asked.

“Federal police picked him up. He was just a minimum wage airport employee. He claims somebody he didn’t know told him he’d be paid a couple of hundred U.S. to deliver the box. The money was in the envelope. That’s what they lifted the print from.”

“What was in the package?” Rhyme asked.

“He says he doesn’t know but he’s lying—I saw the interview video. Our DEA people’re interrogating him. I wanted to try to tease some information out of him myself but it’ll take too long for me to get the okay.”

Rhyme and Sachs shared a look. The “teasing” reference was a bit of modesty on Dance’s part. She was a kinesics—body language—expert and one of the top interrogators in the country. But the testy relationship between the sovereign states in question was such that a California cop would have plenty of paperwork to negotiate before she could slip into Mexico for a formal interrogation, whereas the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency already had a sanctioned presence there.

Rhyme asked, “Where was Logan spotted in the capital?”

“A business district. He was trailed to a hotel, but he wasn’t staying there. It was for a meeting, Diaz’s men think. But by the time they’d set up surveillance he was gone. But all the law enforcement agencies and hotels have his picture now.” Dance added that Diaz’s boss, a very senior police official, would be taking over the investigation. “It’s encouraging that they’re taking it all pretty seriously.”

Yes, encouraging, Rhyme thought. But frustrating too. To be on the verge of finding the prey and yet have so little control over the case. . . . He found himself breathing more quickly. He was considering the last time he and the Watchmaker had been up against each other; Logan had outthought everybody. And easily killed the man he’d been hired to murder. Rhyme had had all the facts at hand to figure out what Logan was up to. Yet he’d misread the strategy completely.

“By the way,” he heard Sachs ask Kathryn Dance, “how was that romantic weekend away?” This had to do, it seemed, with Dance’s new love interest. The single mother of two had been a widow for several years.

“We had a great time,” the agent reported.

“Where did you go?”

Rhyme wondered why on earth Sachs was asking about Dance’s social life? She ignored his impatient glance.

“Santa Barbara. Stopped at Hearst Castle on the way. . . . Listen, I’m still waiting for you two to come out here. The children really want to meet you. Wes wrote a paper about forensics for school and mentioned you, Lincoln. His teacher used to live in New York and had read all about you.”

“Yes, that’d be nice,” Rhyme said, thinking exclusively about Mexico City.

Sachs smiled at the impatience in his voice and told Dance they had to go.

After disconnecting, she wiped some sweat from Rhyme’s forehead—he hadn’t been aware of the moisture—and they sat silent for a moment, looking out the window at the blur of a peregrine falcon sweeping into view. It veered up to its nest on Rhyme’s second floor. Though not uncommon in major cities—plenty of fat, tasty pigeons for meals—these birds of prey usually nested higher. But for some reason several generations of the birds had called Rhyme’s town house home. He liked their presence. They were smart, fascinating to watch and were the perfect visitors, not demanding anything from him.

A male voice intruded. “Well, did you get him?”

“Who?” Rhyme snapped. “And how artful a verb is ‘get’?”

Thom Reston, Lincoln Rhyme’s caregiver, said, “The Watchmaker.”

“No,” grumbled Rhyme.

“But you’re close, aren’t you?” asked the trim man, wearing dark slacks, a businessman’s starched yellow shirt and a floral tie.

“Oh, close,” Rhyme muttered. “Close. That’s very helpful. Next time you’re being attacked by a mountain lion, Thom, how would you feel if the park ranger shot really close to it? As opposed to, oh, say, actually hitting it?”

“Aren’t mountain lions endangered?” Thom asked, not even bothering with an ironic inflection. He was impervious to Rhyme’s edge. He’d worked for the forensic detective for years, longer than many married couples had been together. And the aide was as seasoned as the toughest spouse.

“Ha. Very funny. Endangered.”

Sachs walked around behind Rhyme’s wheelchair and gripped his shoulders, massaged. Sachs was tall and in better shape than most NYPD detectives her age and, though arthritis often plagued her knees and lower extremities, her arms and hands were strong and largely pain-free.

They wore their work clothes: Rhyme was in black sweat pants and a knit shirt of dark green. Sachs had shed her navy blue jacket but was wearing matching slacks and a white cotton blouse, one button open at the collar, pearls present. Her Glock was high on her hip in a fast-draw polymer holster, and two magazines sat side by side in holsters of their own, along with a Taser.

Rhyme could feel the pulsing of her fingers; he had perfect sensation above his upper chest—the level where he’d sustained a nearly fatal spinal cord fracture some years ago, the fourth cervical vertebra. Although at one point he’d considered risky surgery to improve his condition, he’d opted for a different rehabilitative approach. Through an exhausting regimen of exercise and therapy he’d managed to regain some use of his fingers and hand. He could also use his left ring finger, which had for some reason remained intact after the subway beam broke his neck.

He now enjoyed her fingers digging into his flesh. It was as if the small percentage of remaining sensation in his body was enhanced. He glanced down at the useless legs. He closed his eyes.

Thom now looked him over carefully. “You all right, Lincoln?”

“All right? Aside from the fact that the perp I’ve been searching for for years slipped out of our grasp and is now hiding out in the second largest metropolitan area in this hemisphere, I’m just peachy.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. You’re not looking too good.”

“You’re right. Actually I need some medicine.”

“Medicine?”

“Whisky. I’d feel better with some whisky.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Well, why don’t we try an experiment. Science. Cartesian. Rational. Who can argue with that? I know how I feel now. Then I’ll have some whisky and I’ll tell you how I feel after. I’ll report back to you.”

“No. It’s too early,” Thom said matter-of-factly.

“It’s afternoon.”

“By a few minutes.”

“Goddamn it.” Rhyme sounded gruff, but in fact he was losing himself in Sachs’s massage. A few strings of red hair had escaped from her ponytail and hung tickling against his cheek. He didn’t move away. Since he’d apparently lost the single-malt battle, he was ignoring Thom, but the aide brought his attention around quickly by saying, “When you were on the phone, Lon called.”

“He did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You said you didn’t want to be disturbed while you were talking with Kathryn.”

“Well, tell me now.”

“He’ll call back. Something about a case. A problem.”

“Really?” The Watchmaker receded somewhat at this news. Rhyme understood that there was another source of his bad mood: boredom. He’d just finished analyzing the evidence for a complicated organized crime case and was facing several weeks with nothing to do. So he was buoyed by the thought of another job. Like Sachs’s craving speed, Rhyme needed problems, challenges, input. One of the difficulties with a severe disability that few people focus on is the absence of anything new. The same settings, the same people, the same activities . . . and the same platitudes, the same empty reassurances, the same reports from unemotional doctors.

What had saved his life after his injury—literally, since he’d been considering assisted suicide—was his tentative steps back into his prior passion: using science to solve crimes.

You could never be bored when you confronted mystery.

Thom persisted, “Are you sure you’re up for it? You’re looking a little pale.”

“Haven’t been to the beach lately, you know.”

“All right. Just checking.”

Then Rhyme’s phone blared and Detective Lieutenant Lon Sellitto’s number showed up on caller ID.

Rhyme used a working finger on his right hand to answer.

“Lon.”

“Linc, listen, here’s the thing.” He was harried and, to judge from the surround-sound acoustics piping through the speaker, apparently driving somewhere quickly. “We may have a terrorist situation going on.”

“Situation? That’s not very specific.”

“Okay, how’s this? Somebody fucked with the power company, shot a five-thousand-degree spark at a Metro bus and shut down the electric grid for six square blocks south of Lincoln Center. That specific enough for you?”

For the G Man

After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same.

After changes we are more or less the same.

—Paul Simon, “The Boxer”

SEPTEMBER 13, 1999

‘SON OF MANSON’ FOUND GUILTY IN CROYTON FAMILY MURDERS

SALINAS, CALIFORNIA—Daniel Raymond Pell, 35, was convicted today on four counts of first-degree murder and one count of manslaughter by a Monterey County jury after only five hours of deliberatioans.

“Justice has been done,” lead prosecutor James J. Reynolds told reporters after the verdict was announced. “This is an extremely dangerous man, who committed horrendous crimes.”

Pell became known as the “Son of Manson” because of the parallels between his life and that of convicted murderer Charles Manson, who in 1969 was responsible for the ritualistic slayings of the actress Sharon Tate and several other individuals in Southern California. Police found many books and articles about Manson in Pell’s house following his arrest.

The murder convictions were for the May 7 deaths of William Croyton, his wife and two of their three children in Carmel, Calif., 120 miles south of San Francisco. The manslaughter charge arose from the death of James Newberg, 24, who lived with Pell and accompanied him to the Croyton house the night of the murders. The prosecutor asserted that Newberg initially intended to assist in the murders but was then killed by Pell after he changed his mind.

Croyton, 56, was a wealthy electrical engineer and computer innovator. His Cupertino, Calif., company, in the heart of Silicon Valley, produces state-of-the-art programs that are found in much of the world’s most popular personal computer software.

Because of Pell’s interest in Manson, there was speculation that the killings had ideological overtones, as did the murders for which Manson was convicted, but robbery was the most likely reason for the break-in, Reynolds said. Pell has dozens of prior convictions for shoplifting, burglary and robbery, dating back to his teens.

One child survived the attack, a daughter, Theresa, 9. Pell overlooked the girl, who was in her bed asleep and hidden by her toys. Because of this, she became known as the “Sleeping Doll.”

Like Charles Manson, the criminal he admired, Pell exuded a dark charisma and attracted a group of devoted and fanatical followers, whom he called his “Family”—a term borrowed from the Manson clan—and over whom he exercised absolute control. At the time of the Croyton murders this group included Newberg and three women, all living together in a shabby house in Seaside, north of Monterey, Calif. They are Rebecca Sheffield, 26, Linda Whitfield, 20, and Samantha McCoy, 19. Whitfield is the daughter of Lyman Whitfield, president and CEO of Santa Clara Bank and Trust, headquartered in Cupertino, the fourth largest banking chain in the state.

The women were not charged in the deaths of the Croytons or Newberg but were convicted of multiple counts of larceny, trespass, fraud and receiving stolen property. Whitfield was also convicted of hampering an investigation, perjury and destroying evidence. As part of a plea bargain, Sheffield and McCoy were sentenced to three years in prison, Whitfield to four and a half.

Pell’s behavior at trial also echoed Charles Manson’s. He would sit motionless at the defense table and stare at jurors and witnesses in apparent attempts to intimidate them. There were reports that he believed he had psychic powers. The defendant was removed once from the courtroom after a witness broke down under his gaze.

The jury begins sentencing deliberations tomorrow. Pell could get the death penalty.

MONDAY

Chapter 1

The interrogation began like any other.

Kathryn Dance entered the interview room and found the forty-three-year-old man sitting at a metal table, shackled, looking up at her closely. Subjects always did this, of course, though never with such astonishing eyes. Their color was a blue unlike sky or ocean or famous gems.

“Good morning,” she said, sitting down across from him.

“And to you,” replied Daniel Pell, the man who eight years ago had knifed to death four members of a family for reasons he’d never shared. His voice was soft.

A slight smile on his bearded face, the small, sinewy man sat back, relaxed. His head, covered with long, gray-black hair, was cocked to the side. While most jailhouse interrogations were accompanied by a jingling soundtrack of handcuff chains as subjects tried to prove their innocence with broad, predictable gestures, Daniel Pell sat perfectly still.

To Dance, a specialist in interrogation and kinesics—body language—Pell’s demeanor and posture suggested caution, but also confidence and, curiously, amusement. He wore an orange jumpsuit, stenciled with “Capitola Correctional Facility” on the chest and “Inmate” unnecessarily decorating the back.

At the moment, though, Pell and Dance were not in Capitola but, rather, a secure interview room at the county courthouse in Salinas, forty miles away.

Pell continued his examination. First, he took in Dance’s own eyes—a green complementary to his blue and framed by square, black-rimmed glasses. He then regarded her French-braided, dark blond hair, the black jacket and beneath it the thick, unrevealing white blouse. He noted too the empty holster on her hip. He was meticulous and in no hurry. (Interviewers and interviewees share mutual curiosity. She told the students in her interrogation seminars, “They’re studying you as hard as you’re studying them—usually even harder, since they have more to lose.”)

Dance fished in her blue Coach purse for her ID card, not reacting as she saw a tiny toy bat, from last year’s Halloween, that either twelve-year-old Wes, his younger sister, Maggie, or possibly both conspirators had slipped into the bag that morning as a practical joke. She thought: How’s this for a contrasting life? An hour ago she was having breakfast with her children in the kitchen of their homey Victorian house in idyllic Pacific Grove, two exuberant dogs at their feet begging for bacon, and now here she sat, across a very different table from a convicted murderer.

She found the ID and displayed it. He stared for a long moment, easing forward. “Dance. Interesting name. Wonder where it comes from. And the California Bureau . . . what is that?”

“Bureau of Investigation. Like an FBI for the state. Now, Mr. Pell, you understand that this conversation is being recorded?”

He glanced at the mirror, behind which a video camera was humming away. “You folks think we really believe that’s there so we can fix up our hair?”

Mirrors weren’t placed in interrogation rooms to hide cameras and witnesses—there are far better high-tech ways to do so—but because people are less inclined to lie when they can see themselves.

Dance gave a faint smile. “And you understand that you can withdraw from this interview anytime you want and that you have a right to an attorney?”

“I know more criminal procedure than the entire graduating class of Hastings Law rolled up together. Which is a pretty funny image, when you think about it.”

More articulate than Dance expected. More clever too.

The previous week, Daniel Raymond Pell, serving a life sentence for the 1999 murders of William Croyton, his wife and two of their children, had approached a fellow prisoner due to be released from Capitola and tried to bribe him to run an errand after he was free. Pell told him about some evidence he’d disposed of in a Salinas well years ago and explained that he was worried the items would implicate him in the unsolved murder of a wealthy farm owner. He’d read recently that Salinas was revamping its water system. This had jogged his memory and he’d grown concerned that the evidence would be discovered. He wanted the prisoner to find and dispose of it.

Pell picked the wrong man to enlist, though. The short-timer spilled to the warden, who called the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. Investigators wondered if Pell was talking about the unsolved murder of farm owner Robert Herron, beaten to death a decade ago. The murder weapon, probably a claw hammer, was never found. The Sheriff’s Office sent a team to search all the wells in that part of town. Sure enough, they found a tattered T-shirt, a claw hammer and an empty wallet with the initials R.H. stamped on it. Two fingerprints on the hammer were Daniel Pell’s.

The Monterey County prosecutor decided to present the case to the grand jury in Salinas, and asked CBI Agent Kathryn Dance to interview him, in hopes of a confession.

Dance now began the interrogation, asking, “How long did you live in the Monterey area?”

He seemed surprised that she didn’t immediately begin to browbeat. “A few years.”

“Where?”

“Seaside.” A town of about thirty thousand, north of Monterey on Highway 1, populated mostly by young working families and retirees. “You got more for your hard-earned money there,” he explained. “More than in your fancy Carmel.” His eyes alighted on her face.

His grammar and syntax were good, she noted, ignoring his fishing expedition for information about her residence.

Dance continued to ask about his life in Seaside and in prison, observing him the whole while: how he behaved when she asked the questions and how he behaved when he answered. She wasn’t doing this to get information—she’d done her homework and knew the answers to everything she asked—but was instead establishing his behavioral baseline.

In spotting lies, interrogators consider three factors: nonverbal behavior (body language, or kinesics), verbal quality (pitch of voice or pauses before answering) and verbal content (what the suspect says). The first two are far more reliable indications of deception, since it’s much easier to control what we say than how we say it and our body’s natural reaction when we do.

The baseline is a catalog of those behaviors exhibited when the subject is telling the truth. This is the standard the interrogator will compare later with the subject’s behavior when he might have a reason to lie. Any differences between the two suggest deception.

Finally Dance had a good profile of the truthful Daniel Pell and moved to the crux of her mission in this modern, sterile courthouse on a foggy morning in June. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about Robert Herron.”

Eyes sweeping her, now refining their examination: the abalone shell necklace, which her mother had made, at her throat. Then Dance’s short, pink-polished nails. The gray pearl ring on the wedding-band finger got two glances.

“How did you meet Herron?”

“You’re assuming I did. But, no, never met him in my life. I swear.”

The last sentence was a deception flag, though his body language wasn’t giving off signals that suggested he was lying.

“But you told the prisoner in Capitola that you wanted him to go to the well and find the hammer and wallet.”

“No, that’s what he told the warden.” Pell offered another amused smile. “Why don’t you talk to him about it? You’ve got sharp eyes, Officer Dance. I’ve seen them looking me over, deciding if I’m being straight with you. I’ll bet you could tell in a flash that that boy was lying.”

She gave no reaction, but reflected that it was very rare for a suspect to realize he was being analyzed kinesically.

“But then how did he know about the evidence in the well?”

“Oh, I’ve got that figured out. Somebody stole a hammer of mine, killed Herron with it and planted it to blame me. They wore gloves. Those rubber ones everybody wears on CSI.”

Still relaxed. The body language wasn’t any different from his baseline. He was showing only emblems—common gestures that tended to substitute for words, like shrugs and finger pointing. There were no adaptors, which signal tension, or affect displays—signs that he was experiencing emotion.

“But if he wanted to do that,” Dance pointed out, “wouldn’t the killer just call the police then and tell them where the hammer was? Why wait more than ten years?”

“Being smart, I’d guess. Better to bide his time. Then spring the trap.”

“But why would the real killer call the prisoner in Capitola? Why not just call the police directly?”

A hesitation. Then a laugh. His blue eyes shone with excitement, which seemed genuine. “Because they’re involved too. The police. Sure . . . The cops realize the Herron case hasn’t been solved and they want to blame somebody. Why not me? They’ve already got me in jail. I’ll bet the cops planted the hammer themselves.”

“Let’s work with this a little. There’re two different things you’re saying. First, somebody stole your hammer before Herron was killed, murdered him with it and now, all this time later, dimes you out. But your second version is that the police got your hammer after Herron was killed by someone else altogether and planted it in the well to blame you. Those’re contradictory. It’s either one or the other. Which do you think?”

“Hm.” Pell thought for a few seconds. “Okay, I’ll go with number two. The police. It’s a setup. I’m sure that’s what happened.”

She looked him in the eyes, green on blue. Nodding agreeably. “Let’s consider that. First, where would the police have gotten the hammer?”

He thought. “When they arrested me for that Carmel thing.”

“The Croyton murders in ninety-nine?”

“Right. All the evidence they took from my house in Seaside.”

Dance’s brows furrowed. “I doubt that. Evidence is accounted for too closely. No, I’d go for a more credible scenario: that the hammer was stolen recently. Where else could somebody find a hammer of yours? Do you have any property in the state?”

“No.”

“Any relatives or friends who could’ve had some tools of yours?”

“Not really.”

Which wasn’t an answer to a yes-or-no question; it was even slipperier than “I don’t recall.” Dance noticed too that Pell had put his hands, tipped with long, clean nails, on the table at the word “relatives.” This was a deviation from baseline behavior. It didn’t mean lying, but he was feeling stress. The questions were upsetting him.

“Daniel, do you have any relations living in California?”

He hesitated, must have assessed that she was the sort to check out every comment—which she was—and said, “The only one left’s my aunt. Down in Bakersfield.”

“Is her name Pell?”

Another pause. “Yep . . . That’s good thinking, Officer Dance. I’ll bet the deputies who dropped the ball on the Herron case stole that hammer from her house and planted it. They’re the ones behind this whole thing. Why don’t you talk to them?”

“All right. Now let’s think about the wallet. Where could that’ve come from? . . . Here’s a thought. What if it’s not Robert Herron’s wallet at all? What if this rogue cop we’re talking about just bought a wallet, had R.H. stamped in the leather, then hid that and the hammer in the well? It could’ve been last month. Or even last week. What do you think about that, Daniel?”

Pell lowered his head—she couldn’t see his eyes—and said nothing.

It was unfolding just as she’d planned.

Dance had forced him to pick the more credible of two explanations for his innocence—and proceeded to prove it wasn’t credible at all. No sane jury would believe that the police had fabricated evidence and stolen tools from a house hundreds of miles away from the crime scene. Pell was now realizing the mistake he’d made. The trap was about to close on him.

Checkmate . . .

Her heart thumped a bit and she was thinking that the next words out of his mouth might be about a plea bargain.

She was wrong.

His eyes snapped open and bored into hers with pure malevolence. He lunged forward as far as he could. Only the chains hooked to the metal chair, grounded with bolts to the tile floor, stopped him from sinking his teeth into her.

She jerked back, gasping.

“You goddamn bitch! Oh, I get it now. Sure, you’re part of it too! Yeah, yeah, blame Daniel. It’s always my fault! I’m the easy target. And you come in here sounding like a friend, asking me a few questions. Jesus, you’re just like the rest of them!”

Her heart was pounding furiously now, and she was afraid. But she noted quickly that the restraints were secure and he couldn’t reach her. She turned to the mirror, behind which the officer manning the video camera was surely rising to his feet right now to help her. But she shook her head his way. It was important to see where this was going.

Then suddenly Pell’s fury was replaced with a cold calm. He sat back, caught his breath and looked her over again. “You’re in your thirties, Officer Dance. You’re somewhat pretty. You seem straight to me, so I guarantee there’s a man in your life. Or has been.” A third glance at the pearl ring.

“If you don’t like my theory, Daniel, let’s come up with another one. About what really happened to Robert Herron.”

As if she hadn’t even spoken. “And you’ve got children, right? Sure, you do. I can see that. Tell me all about them. Tell me about the little ones. Close in age, and not too old, I’ll bet.”

This unnerved her and she thought instantly of Maggie and Wes. But she struggled not to react. He doesn’t know I have children, of course. He can’t. But he acts as if he’s certain. Was there something about my behavior he noted? Something that suggested to him that I’m a mother?

They’re studying you as hard as you’re studying them. . . .

“Listen to me, Daniel,” she said smoothly, “an outburst isn’t going to help anything.”

“I’ve got friends on the outside, you know. They owe me. They’d love to come visit you. Or hang with your husband and children. Yeah, it’s a tough life being a cop. The little ones spend a lot of time alone, don’t they? They’d probably love some friends to play with.”

Dance returned his gaze, never flinching. She asked, “Could you tell me about your relationship with that prisoner in Capitola?”

“Yes, I could. But I won’t.” His emotionless words mocked her, suggesting that, for a professional interrogator, she’d phrased her question carelessly. In a soft voice he added, “I think it’s time to go back to my cell.”

Chapter 2

Alonzo “Sandy” Sandoval, the Monterey County prosecutor, was a handsome, round man with a thick head of black hair and an ample mustache. He sat in his office, two flights above the lockup, behind a desk littered with files. “Hi, Kathryn. So, our boy . . . Did he beat his breast and cry, ‘Mea culpa’?”

“Not exactly.” Dance sat down, peered into the coffee cup she’d left on the desk forty-five minutes ago. Nondairy creamer scummed the surface. “I rate it as, oh, one of the least successful interrogations of all time.”

“You look shook, boss,” said a short, wiry young man, with freckles and curly red hair, wearing jeans, a T-shirt and a plaid sports coat. TJ’s outfit was unconventional for an investigative agent with the CBI—the most conservative law-enforcement agency in the Great Bear State—but so was pretty much everything else about him. Around thirty and single, TJ Scanlon lived in the hills of Carmel Valley, his house a ramshackle place that could have been a diorama in a counterculture museum depicting California life in the 1960s. TJ tended to work solo much of the time, surveillance and undercover, rather than pairing up with another CBI agent, which was the bureau’s standard procedure. But Dance’s regular partner was in Mexico on an extradition and TJ had jumped at the chance to help out and see the Son of Manson.

“Not shook. Just curious.” She explained how the interview had been going fine when, suddenly, Pell turned on her. Under TJ’s skeptical gaze, she conceded, “Okay, I’m a little shook. I’ve been threatened before. But his were the worst kinds of threats.”

“Worst?” asked Juan Millar, a tall, dark-complexioned young detective with the Investigations Division of the MCSO—the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, which was headquartered not far from the courthouse.

“Calm threats,” Dance said.

TJ filled in, “Cheerful threats. You know you’re in trouble when they stop screaming and start whispering.”

The little ones spend a lot of time alone. . . .

“What happened?” Sandoval asked, seemingly more concerned about the state of his case than threats against Dance.

“When he denied knowing Herron, there was no stress reaction at all. It was only when I had him talking about police conspiracy that he started to exhibit aversion and negation. Some extremity movement too, deviating from his baseline.”

Kathryn Dance was often called a human lie detector, but that wasn’t accurate; in reality she, like all successful kinesic analysts and interrogators, was a stress detector. This was the key to deception; once she spotted stress, she’d probe the topic that gave rise to it and dig until the subject broke.

Kinesics experts identify several different types of stress individuals experience. The stress that arises primarily when someone isn’t telling the whole truth is called “deception stress.” But people also experience general stress, which occurs when they are merely uneasy or nervous, and has nothing to do with lying. It’s what someone feels when, say, he’s late for work, has to give a speech in public or is afraid of physical harm. Dance had found that different kinesic behaviors signal the two kinds of stress.

She explained this and added, “My sense was that he’d lost control of the interview and couldn’t get it back. So he went ballistic.”

“Even though what you were saying supported his defense?” Lanky Juan Millar absently scratched his left hand. In the fleshy Y between the index finger and thumb was a scar, the remnant of a removed gang tat.

“Exactly.”

Then Dance’s mind made one of its curious jumps. A to B to X. She couldn’t explain how they happened. But she always paid attention. “Where was Robert Herron murdered?” She walked to a map of Monterey County on Sandoval’s wall.

“Here.” The prosecutor touched an area in the yellow trapezoid.

“And the well where they found the hammer and wallet?”

“About here, make it.”

It was a quarter mile from the crime scene, in a residential area.

Dance was staring at the map.

She felt TJ’s eyes on her. “What’s wrong, boss?”

“You have a picture of the well?” she asked.

Sandoval dug in the file. “Juan’s forensic people shot a lot of pics.”

“Crime scene boys love their toys,” Millar said, the rhyme sounding odd from the mouth of such a Boy Scout. He gave a shy smile. “I heard that somewhere.”

The prosecutor produced a stack of color photographs, riffled through them until he found the ones he sought.

Gazing at them, Dance asked TJ, “We ran a case there six, eight months ago, remember?”

“The arson, sure. In that new housing development.”

Tapping the map, the spot where the well was located, Dance continued, “The development is still under construction. And that”—she nodded at a photograph—“is a hard-rock well.”

Everybody in the area knew that water was at such a premium in this part of California that hard-rock wells, with their low output and unreliable supply, were never used for agricultural irrigation, only for private homes.

“Shit.” Sandoval closed his eyes briefly. “Ten years ago, when Herron was killed, that was all farmland. The well wouldn’t’ve been there then.”

“It wasn’t there one year ago,” Dance muttered. “That’s why Pell was so stressed. I was getting close to the truth—somebody did get the hammer from his aunt’s in Bakersfield and had a fake wallet made up, then planted them there recently. Only it wasn’t to frame him.”

“Oh, no,” TJ whispered.

“What?” Millar asked, looking from one agent to the other.

“Pell set the whole thing up himself,” she said.

“Why?” Sandoval asked.

“Because he couldn’t escape from Capitola.” That facility, like Pelican Bay in the north of the state, was a high-tech superprison. “But he could from here.”

Kathryn Dance lunged for the phone.

Chapter 3

In a special holding cell—segregated from the other prisoners—Daniel Pell studied his cage and the corridor beyond, leading to the courthouse.

To all appearances he was calm but his heart was in turmoil. The woman cop interviewing him had spooked him badly, with her calm green eyes behind those black-framed glasses, her unwavering voice. He hadn’t expected somebody to get inside his mind so deeply or so fast. It was like she could read his thoughts.

Kathryn Dance . .

Pell turned back to Baxter, the guard, outside the cage. He was a decent hack, not like Pell’s escort from Capitola, who was a burly man, black and hard as ebony, now sitting silently at the far door, watching everything.

“What I was saying,” Pell now continued his conversation with Baxter. “Jesus helped me. I was up to three packs a day. And He took time outta His busy schedule to help me. I quit pretty much cold.”

“Could use some of that help,” the hack confided.

“I’ll tell you,” Pell confided, “smoking was harder to say good-bye to than the booze.”

“Tried the patch, thing you put on your arm. Wasn’t so good. Maybe I’ll pray for help tomorrow. The wife and I pray every morning.”

Pell wasn’t surprised. He’d seen his lapel pin. It was in the shape of a fish. “Good for you.”

“I lost my car keys last week and we prayed for an hour. Jesus told me where they were. Now, Daniel, here’s a thought: You’ll be down here on trial days. You want, we could pray together.”

“ ’Preciate that.”

Baxter’s phone rang.

An instant later an alarm brayed, painful to the ears. “The hell’s going on?”

The Capitola escort leapt to his feet.

Just as a huge ball of fire filled the parking lot. The window in the back of the cell was barred but open, and a wad of flame shot through it. Black, greasy smoke streamed into the room. Pell dropped to the floor. He curled up into a ball. “My dear Lord.”

Baxter was frozen, staring at the boiling flames, engulfing the entire lot behind the courthouse. He grabbed the phone but the line must’ve been dead. He lifted his walkie-talkie and reported the fire. Daniel Pell lowered his head and began to mutter the Lord’s Prayer.

“Yo, Pell!”

The con opened his eyes.

The massive Capitola escort stood nearby, holding a Taser. He tossed leg shackles to Pell. “Put ’em on. We’re going down that corridor, out the front door and into the van. You’re—” More flames streamed into the cell. The three men cringed. Another car’s gas tank had exploded. “You’re going to stay right beside me. You understand?”

“Yeah, sure. Let’s go! Please!” He ratcheted on the shackles good and tight.

Sweating, his voice cracking, Baxter said, “Whatta you think it is? Terrorists?”

The Capitola escort ignored the panicked hack, eyes on Pell. “If you don’t do ’xactly what I say you’ll get fifty thousand volts up your ass.” He pointed the Taser toward the prisoner. “And if it ain’t convenient to carry you I will leave you to burn to death. Understand?”

“Yessir. Let’s go. Please. I don’t want you or Mr. Baxter getting hurt ’causa me. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Open it,” the escort barked to Baxter, who hit a button. With a buzz, the door eased outward. The three men started down the corridor, through another security door and then along a dim corridor, filling with smoke. The alarm was braying.

But, wait, Pell thought. It was a second alarm—the first had sounded before the explosions outside. Had someone figured out what he was going to do?

Kathryn Dance . . .

Just as they passed a fire door Pell glanced back. Thick smoke was filling the corridor around them. He cried to Baxter, “No, it’s too late. The whole building’s going to go! Let’s get out of here.”

“He’s right.” Baxter reached toward the alarm bar of the exit.

The Capitola escort, perfectly calm, said firmly, “No. Out the front door to the prison van.”

“You’re crazy!” Pell snapped. “For the love of God. We’ll die.” He shoved the fire door open.

The men were hit with a blast of fierce heat, smoke and sparks. Outside a wall of fire consumed cars and shrubbery and trash cans. Pell dropped to his knees, covering his face. He screamed, “My eyes . . . It hurts!”

“Pell, goddamn it—” The escort stepped forward, lifting the Taser.

“Put that down. He’s not going anywhere,” Baxter said angrily. “He’s hurt.”

“I can’t see,” Pell moaned. “Somebody help me!”

Baxter turned toward him, bent down.

“Don’t!” the escort shouted.

Then the county hack staggered backward, a bewildered expression on his face, as Pell repeatedly shoved a filleting knife into his belly and chest. Bleeding in cascades, Baxter fell to his knees, trying for the pepper spray. Pell grabbed his shoulders and spun him around as the huge escort fired the Taser. It discharged but the probes went wide.

Pell shoved Baxter aside and leapt at the escort, the useless Taser falling to the floor.

The big man froze, staring at the knife. Pell’s blue eyes studied his sweaty black face.

“Don’t do it, Daniel.”

Pell moved in.

The escort’s massive fists balled up.

No point in talking. Those who were in control didn’t need to humiliate or threaten or quip. Pell charged forward, dodging the man’s blows, and struck him hard a dozen times, the knife edge facing out and extending downward from the bottom of his clenched right hand. Punching was the most effective way to use a knife against a strong opponent willing to fight back.

His face contorting, the escort fell to his side, kicking. He gripped his chest and throat. A moment later he stopped moving. Pell grabbed the keys and undid the restraints.

Baxter was crawling away, still trying to get his Mace out of his holster with blood-slicked fingers. His eyes grew wide as Pell approached. “Please. Don’t do anything to me. I was just doing my job. We’re both good Christians! I treated you kind. I—”

Pell grabbed him by the hair. He was tempted to say, You wasted God’s time praying for your car keys?

But you never humiliated or threatened or quipped. Pell bent down and efficiently cut his throat.

When Baxter was dead, Pell stepped to the door again. He covered his eyes and grabbed the metallic fireproof bag, where he’d gotten the knife, just outside the door.

He was reaching inside again when he felt the gun muzzle at his neck.

“Don’t move.”

Pell froze.

“Drop the knife.”

A moment’s debate. The gun was steady; Pell sensed that whoever held it was ready to pull the trigger. His hissed a sigh. The knife clattered to the floor. He glanced at the man, a young Latino plainclothes officer, eyes on Pell, holding a radio.

“This’s Juan Millar. Kathryn, you there?”

“Go ahead,” the woman’s voice clattered.

Kathryn . . .

“I’m eleven-nine-nine, immediate assistance, at the fire door, ground floor, just outside the lockup. I’ve got two guards down. Hurt bad. Nine-four-five, requesting ambulance. Repeat, I’m eleven-nine—”

At that moment the gas tank of the car nearest the door exploded; a flare of orange flame shot through the doorway.

The officer ducked.

Pell didn’t. His beard flared, flames licked his cheek, but he stood his ground.

Hold fast . . .

Chapter 4

Kathryn Dance was calling on a Motorola, “Juan, where’s Pell? . . . Juan, respond. What’s going on down there?”

No answer.

An eleven-nine-nine was a Highway Patrol code—though one that all California law enforcers knew. It meant an officer needed immediate assistance.

And yet no response after his transmission.

The courthouse security chief, a grizzled, crew-cut retired cop, stuck his head into the office. “Who’s running the search? Who’s in charge?”

Sandoval glanced at Dance. “You’re senior.”

Dance had never encountered a situation like this—a firebomb and an escape by a killer like Daniel Pell—but, then, she didn’t know of anybody on the Peninsula who had. She could coordinate efforts until somebody from MCSO or the Highway Patrol took over. It was vital to move fast and decisively.

“Okay,” she said. And instructed the security chief to get other guards downstairs immediately and to the doors where people were exiting.

Screams outside. People running in the corridor. Radio messages flying back and forth.

“Look,” TJ said, nodding toward the window, where black smoke obscured the view completely. “Oh, man.”

Despite the fire, which might be raging inside now, Kathryn Dance decided to remain in Alonzo Sandoval’s office. She wouldn’t waste time by relocating or evacuating. If the building was engulfed they could jump out of the windows to the roofs of cars parked in the front lot, ten feet below. She tried Juan Millar again—there was no answer on his phone or radio—then said to the security chief, “We need a room-by-room search of the building.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He trotted off.

“And in case he gets out, I want roadblocks,” Dance said to TJ. She pulled off her jacket, tossed it over a chair. Sweat stains were blossoming under the arms. “Here, here, here . . .” Her short nails tapped loudly on the laminated map of Salinas.

Gazing at the places she was indicating, TJ made calls to the Highway Patrol—California’s state police—and the MCSO.

Sandoval, the prosecutor—grim and dazed—stared at the smoky parking lot too. Flashing lights reflected in the window. He said nothing. More reports came in. No sign of Pell in the building or outside.

None of Juan Millar either.

The courthouse security chief returned a few minutes later, his face smudged. He was coughing hard. “Fire’s under control. Limited pretty much to outside.” He added shakily, “But, Sandy . . . I’ve gotta tell you, Jim Baxter’s dead. So’s the Capitola guard. Stabbed. Pell got a knife somehow, looks like.”

“No,” Sandoval whispered. “Oh, no.”

“And Millar?” Dance asked.

“We can’t find him. Might be a hostage. We found a radio. Assume it’s his. But we can’t figure out where Pell went. Somebody opened the back fire door but there were flames everywhere until just a few minutes ago. He couldn’t’ve gotten out that way. The only other choice is through the building and he’d be spotted in a minute in his prison overalls.”

“Unless he’s dressed in Millar’s suit,” Dance said.

TJ looked at her uneasily; they both knew the implications of that scenario.

“Get word to everybody that he might be in a dark suit, white shirt.” Millar was much taller than Pell. She added, “The pants cuffs’d be rolled up.”

The chief hit transmit on his radio and sent out the message.

Looking up from his phone, TJ called, “Monterey’s getting cars in place.” He gestured toward the map. “CHP’s scrambled a half dozen cruisers and cycles. They should have the main highways sealed in fifteen minutes.”

It worked to their advantage that Salinas wasn’t a huge town—only about 150,000—and was an agricultural center (its nickname was the “Nation’s Salad Bowl”). Lettuce, berry, Brussels sprout, spinach and artichoke fields covered most of the surrounding area, which meant that there were limited highways and roads by which he could escape. And on foot, Pell would be very visible in the fields of low crops.

Dance ordered TJ to have Pell’s mug shots sent to the officers manning the roadblocks.

What else should she be doing?

She gripped her braid, which ended in the red elastic tie that energetic Maggie had twisted around her hair that morning. It was a mother-daughter tradition; every morning the child picked the color of the rubber band or scrunchie for the day. Now, the agent recalled her daughter’s sparkling brown eyes behind the wire-rimmed glasses as she told her mother about music camp that day and what kind of snacks they should have for Dance’s father’s birthday party tomorrow. (She realized that it was probably at that moment that Wes had planted the stuffed bat in her purse.)

She recalled too looking forward to interrogating a legendary criminal.

The Son of Manson . . .

The security chief’s radio crackled. A voice called urgently, “We’ve got an injury. Real bad. That Monterey County detective. Looks like Pell pushed him right into the fire. The EMS crew called for medevac. There’s a chopper on its way.”

No, no . . . She and TJ shared a glance. His otherwise irrepressibly mischievous face registered dismay. Dance knew that Millar would be in terrible pain but she needed to know if he had any clues as to where Pell had gone. She nodded at the radio. The chief handed it to her. “This’s Agent Dance. Is Detective Millar conscious?”

“No, ma’am. It’s . . . it’s pretty bad.” A pause.

“Is he wearing clothes?”

“Is he . . . Say again?”

“Did Pell take Millar’s clothes?”

“Oh, that’s negative. Over.”

“What about his weapon?”

“No weapon.”

Shit.

“Tell everybody that Pell’s armed.”

“Roger that.”

Dance had another thought. “I want an officer at the medevac chopper from the minute it lands. Pell might be planning to hitch a ride.”

“Roger.”

She handed the radio back, pulled out her phone, hit speed dial four.

“Cardiac Care,” Edie Dance’s low, placid voice said.

“Mom, me.”

“What’s the matter, Katie? The kids?” Dance pictured the stocky woman, with short gray hair and large, gray-framed round glasses, concern on her ageless face. She’d be leaning forward—her automatic response to tension.

“No, we’re fine. But one of Michael’s detectives is burned. Bad. There was an arson at the courthouse, part of an escape. You’ll hear about it on the news. We lost two guards.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Edie murmured.

“The detective—Juan Millar’s his name. You’ve met him a couple of times.”

“I don’t remember. He’s on his way here?”

“Will be soon. Medevac.”

“That bad?”

“You have a burn unit?”

“A small one, part of ICU. For long term we’d get him to Alta Bates, U.C.-Davis or Santa Clara as soon as we could. Maybe down to Grossman.”

“Could you check in on him from time to time? Let me know how he’s doing?”

“Of course, Katie.”

“And if there’s any way, I want to talk to him. Whatever he saw, it could be helpful.”

“Sure.”

“I’ll be tied up for the day, even if we catch him right away. Could you have Dad pick up the kids?” Stuart Dance, a retired marine biologist, worked occasionally at the famous Monterey aquarium, but was always available to chauffeur the children whenever needed.

“I’ll call right now.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Dance disconnected and glanced up to see Prosecutor Alonzo Sandoval staring numbly at the map. “Who was helping him?” he muttered. “And where the fuck is Pell?”

Variations of these two questions were also spinning through Kathryn Dance’s mind.

Along with another: What could I have done to read him better? What could I have done to avoid this tragedy altogether?

Chapter 5

The helicopter in the parking lot directed swirls of smoke outward in elegant patterns as the blades groaned and the aircraft lifted off, bearing Juan Millar to the hospital.

Vaya con Dios . . .

Dance got a call. Glanced at the phone screen. She was surprised it had taken so long for the man to get back to her. “Charles,” she said to her boss, the agent in charge of the west-central regional office of the CBI.

“I’m on my way to the courthouse. What’ve we got, Kathryn?”

She brought him up to date, including the deaths and Millar’s condition.

“Sorry to hear that. . . . Any leads, anything we can tell them?”

“Tell who?”

“The press.”

“I don’t know, Charles. We don’t have much information. He could be anywhere. I’ve ordered roadblocks and we’re doing a room-by-room search.”

“Nothing specific? Not even a direction?”

“No.”

Overby sighed. “Okay. By the way, you’re running the operation.”

“What?”

“I want you in charge of the manhunt.”

“Me?” She was surprised. CBI certainly had jurisdiction; it was the highest-ranking law-enforcement agency in the state, and Kathryn Dance was a senior agent; she was as competent as anyone to supervise the case. Still, the CBI was an investigative operation and didn’t have a large staff. The California Highway Patrol and the Sheriff’s Office would have to provide the manpower for the search.

“Why not somebody from CHP or MCSO?”

“I think we need central coordination on this one. Absolutely makes sense. Besides, it’s a done deal. I’ve cleared it with everybody.”

Already? She wondered if that was why he hadn’t returned her call right away—he was roping down CBI’s control of a big media case.

Well, his decision was fine with her. She had a personal stake in capturing Pell.

Seeing his bared teeth, hearing his eerie words.

Yeah, it’s a tough life being a cop. The little ones spend a lot of time alone, don’t they? They’d probably love some friends to play with. . . .

“Okay, Charles. I’ll take it. But I want Michael on board too.”

Michael O’Neil was the MCSO detective Dance worked with most often. She and the soft-spoken officer, a life-long resident of Monterey, had worked together for years; in fact, he’d been a mentor when she’d joined the CBI.

“That’s fine with me.”

Good, Dance thought. Because she’d already called him.

“I’ll be there soon. I want another briefing before the press conference.” Overby disconnected.

Dance was heading toward the back of the courthouse when flashing lights caught her eye. She recognized one of the CBI’s Tauruses, the grille pulsing red and blue.

Rey Carraneo, the most recent addition to the office, pulled up nearby and joined her. The slim man, with black eyes sunk beneath thick brows, had only two months on the job. He wasn’t quite as unseasoned as he looked, though, and had been a cop in Reno for three years—a tough venue—before moving to the Peninsula so he and his wife could take care of his ill mother. There were rough edges to be worn off and experience to be tucked under his extremely narrow belt but he was a tireless, reliable law enforcer. And that counted for a lot.

Carraneo was only six or seven years younger than Dance but those were important years in the life of a cop and he couldn’t bring himself to call her Kathryn, as she frequently offered. His usual greeting was a nod. He gave her a respectful one now.

“Come with me.” Recalling the Herron evidence and the gas bomb, she added, “He’s probably got an accomplice, and we know he’s got a weapon. So, eyes open.” They continued to the back of the courthouse, where arson investigators and Monterey County crime scene officers from the Enforcement Operations Bureau were looking over the carnage. It was like a scene from a war zone. Four cars had burned to the frames, the two others were half-gutted. The back of the building was black with soot, trash cans melted. A haze of blue-gray smoke hung over the area. The place stank of burning rubber—and an odor that was far more repulsive.

She studied the parking lot. Then her eyes slipped to the open back door.

“No way he got out there,” Carraneo said, echoing Dance’s thought. From the destroyed cars and the scorch marks on the pavement, it was clear that the fire had surrounded the door; the flames were meant to be a diversion. But where had he gone?

“These cars all accounted for?” she asked a fireman.

“Yeah. They’re all employees’.”

“Hey, Kathryn, we have the device,” a man in a uniform said to her. He was the county’s chief fire marshal.

She nodded a greeting. “What was it?”

“Wheelie suitcase, big one, filled with plastic milk containers of gasoline. The doer planted it under that Saab there. Slow-burning fuse.”

“A pro?”

“Probably not. We found the fuse residue. You can make ’em out of clothesline and chemicals. Got instructions from the Internet, I’d say. The sort of things kids make to blow stuff up with. Including themselves a lot of times.”

“Can you trace anything?”

“Maybe. We’ll have it sent to the MCSO lab and then we’ll see.”

“You know when it was left?”

He nodded toward the car the bomb had been planted under. “The driver got here about nine fifteen, so it’d be after that.”

“Any hope for prints?”

“Doubt it.”

Dance stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the battleground. Something felt wrong.

The dim corridor, blood on the concrete.

The open door.

Turning slowly, studying the area, Dance noticed behind the building something in a nearby pine and cypress grove: a tree from which dangled an orange ribbon—the sort used to mark shrubs and trees scheduled for cutting. Walking closer, she noticed that the mound of pine needles at the base was larger than those beneath the others. Dance dropped to her knees and dug into it. She unearthed a large scorched bag made of metallic cloth.

“Rey, need some gloves.” She coughed from the smoke.

The young agent got a pair from an MCSO crime scene deputy and brought them to her. Inside the bag were Pell’s orange prison uniform and a set of gray hooded overalls, which turned out to be some kind of fire suit. A label said the garment was made of PBI fibers and Kevlar and had an SFI rating of 3.2A/5. Dance had no idea what this meant—except that it was obviously protective enough to get Daniel Pell safely through the conflagration behind the courthouse.

Her shoulders slumped in disgust.

A fire suit? What’re we up against here?

“I don’t get it,” Rey Carraneo said.

She explained that Pell’s partner had probably set the bomb and left the fireproof bag outside the door; it had contained the fire suit and a knife. Maybe a universal cuff or shackle key too. After he’d disarmed Juan Millar, Pell had donned the garment and run through the flames to the tree marked with the orange tag, where the partner had hidden some civilian clothes. He’d changed and sprinted off.

She lifted the Motorola and reported what she’d found, then gestured an MCSO crime scene officer over and gave him the evidence.

Carraneo called her to a patch of earth not far away. “Footprints.” Several impressions, about four feet apart—left by someone running. They were clearly Pell’s; he’d left distinctive prints outside the fire door of the courthouse. The two CBI agents started jogging in the direction they led.

Pell’s footsteps ended at a nearby street, San Benito Way, along which were vacant lots, a liquor store, a dingy taqueria, a quick-copy and shipping franchise, a pawnshop and a bar.

“So here’s where the partner picked him up,” Carraneo said, looking up and down San Benito.

“But there’s another street on the other side of the courthouse. It’s two hundred feet closer. Why here?”

“More traffic there?”

“Could be.” Dance squinted as she scanned the area, coughing again. Finally she caught her breath and her eyes focused across the street. “Come on, let’s move!”

•    •    •

The man, in his late twenties, wearing shorts and a Worldwide Express uniform shirt, drove his green panel truck through the streets of downtown Salinas. He was intensely aware of the gun barrel resting on his shoulder and he was crying. “Look, mister, I don’t know what this is about, really, but we don’t carry cash. I’ve got about fifty on me, personal money, and you’re welcome—”

“Give me your wallet.” The hijacker wore shorts, a windbreaker and an Oakland A’s cap. His face was streaked with soot and part of his beard was burned off. He was middle-aged but thin and strong. He had weird light blue eyes.

“Whatever you want, mister. Just don’t hurt me. I’ve got a family.”

“Wal-let?”

It took stocky Billy a few moments to pry the billfold out of his tight shorts. “Here!”

The man flipped through it. “Now, William Gilmore, of three-four-three-five Rio Grande Avenue, Marina, California, father of these two fine children, if the photo gallery’s up to date.”

Dread unraveled inside him.

“And husband of this lovely wife. Look at those curls. Natural, I’ll bet any money. Hey, keep your eyes on the road. Swerved a bit there. And keep going where I told you.” Then the hijacker said, “Hand me your cell phone.”

His voice was calm. Calm is good. It means he’s not going to do anything sudden or stupid.

Billy heard the man punch in a number.

“ ’Lo. It’s me. Write this down.” He repeated Billy’s address. “He’s got a wife and two kids. Wife’s real pretty. You’ll like the hair.”

Billy whispered, “Who’s that you’re calling? Please, mister . . . Please. Take the truck, take anything. I’ll give you as much time as you want to get away. An hour. Two hours. Just don’t—”

“Shhhh.” The man continued his phone conversation. “If I don’t show up, that’ll mean I didn’t make it through the roadblocks because William here wasn’t convincing enough. You go visit his family. They’re all yours.”

“No!” Billy twisted around and lunged for the phone.

The gun muzzle touched his face. “Keep driving, son. Not a good time to run off the road.” The hijacker snapped the phone shut and put it into his own pocket.

“William . . . You go by Bill?”

“Billy mostly, sir.”

“So, Billy, here’s the situation. I escaped from that jail back there.”

“Yessir. That’s fine with me.”

The man laughed. “Well, thank you. Now you heard me on the phone. You know what I want you to do. You get me through any roadblocks, I’ll let you go and no harm’ll come to your family.”

Face fever hot, belly churning with fear, Billy wiped his round cheeks.

“You’re no threat to me. Everybody knows my name and what I look like. I’m Daniel Pell and my picture’ll be all over the noon news. So I don’t have any reason to hurt you, long as you do what I say. Now, summon up some calm. You’ve got to stay focused. If the police stop you I want a cheerful and curious deliveryman, frowning and asking about what happened back in town. All that smoke, all that mess. My, my. You get the idea?”

“Please, I’ll do anything—”

“Billy, I know you were listening to me. I don’t need you to do anything. I need you to do what I asked. That’s all. What could be simpler?”

Chapter 6

Kathryn Dance and Carraneo were in the You Mail It franchise on San Benito Way, where they’d just learned that a package delivery company, Worldwide Express, had made its daily morning drop-off moments after the escape.

A to B to X . . .

Dance realized that Pell could commandeer the truck to get past the roadblocks and called the Worldwide Express Salinas operations director, who confirmed that the driver on that route had missed all remaining scheduled deliveries. Dance got the tag number of his truck and relayed it to the MCSO.

They returned to Sandy Sandoval’s office, coordinating the efforts to find the vehicle. Unfortunately, there were twenty-five Worldwide trucks in the area, so Dance told the director to order the other drivers to pull over immediately at the nearest gas station. The truck that kept moving would contain Daniel Pell.

This was taking some time, though. The director had to call them on their cell phones, since a radio broadcast would alert Pell that they knew about his means of escape.

A figure walked slowly through the doorway. Dance turned to see Michael O’Neil, the senior MCSO chief deputy she’d called earlier. She nodded at him with a smile, greatly relieved he was here. There was no better law enforcer in the world with whom to share this tough burden.

O’Neil had been with the MCSO for years. He’d started as a rookie deputy and worked his way up, becoming a solid, methodical investigator with a stunning arrest—and more important, conviction—record. He was now a chief deputy and detective with the Enforcement Operations Bureau of the MCSO’s Investigations Division.

He’d resisted offers to go into lucrative corporate security or to join bigger law-enforcement ops like the CBI or FBI. He wouldn’t take a job that required relocation or extensive travel. O’Neil’s home was the Monterey Peninsula and he had no desire to be anywhere else. His parents still lived there—in the ocean-view house he and his siblings had grown up in. (His father was suffering from senility; his mother was considering selling the house and moving the man into a nursing facility. O’Neil had a plan to buy the homestead just to keep it in the family.)

With his love of the bay, fishing and his boat, Michael O’Neil could be the unwavering, unobtrusive hero in a John Steinbeck novel, like Doc in Cannery Row. In fact, the detective, an avid book collector, owned first editions of everything Steinbeck had written. (His favorite was Travels with Charley, a nonfiction account of the writer’s trip around America with his Standard Poodle, and O’Neil intended to duplicate the journey at some point in his life.)

Last Friday, Dance and O’Neil had jointly collared a thirty-year-old known as Ese, head of a particularly unpleasant Chicano gang operating out of Salinas. They’d marked the occasion by sharing a bottle of Piper Sonoma sparkling wine on the deck of a tourist-infested Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant.

Now it seemed as if the celebration had occurred decades ago. If at all.

The MCSO uniform was typical khaki, but O’Neil often dressed soft, and today he was in a navy suit, with a tieless dark shirt, charcoal gray, matching about half the hair on his head. The brown eyes, beneath low lids, moved slowly as they examined the map of the area. His physique was columnar and his arms thick, from genes and from playing tug of war with muscular seafood in Monterey Bay when time and the weather allowed him to get out his boat.

O’Neil nodded a greeting to TJ and Sandoval.

“Any word on Juan?” Dance asked.

“Hanging in there.” He and Millar worked together frequently and went fishing once a month or so. Dance knew that on the drive here he’d been in constant touch with the doctors and Millar’s family.

The California Bureau of Investigation has no central dispatch unit to contact radio patrol cars, emergency vehicles or boats, so O’Neil arranged for the Sheriff’s Office central communications operation to relay the information about the missing Worldwide Express truck to its own deputies and the Highway Patrol. He told them that within a few minutes the escapee’s truck would be the only one not stopped at a gas station.

O’Neil took a call and nodded, walking to the map. He tucked the phone between ear and shoulder, picked up a pack of self-adhesive notes featuring butterflies and began sticking them up.

More roadblocks, Dance realized.

He hung up. “They’re on Sixty-Eight, One-Eighty-Three, the One-oh-One. . . . We’ve got the back roads to Hollister covered, and Soledad and Greenfield. But if he gets into the Pastures of Heaven, it’ll be tough to spot a truck, even with a chopper—and right now fog’s a problem.”

The “Pastures of Heaven” was the name given by John Steinbeck in a book of the same title to a rich, orchard-filled valley off Highway 68. Much of the area around Salinas was flat, low farmland, but you didn’t have to go far to get into trees. And nearby too was the rugged Castle Rock area, whose cliffs, bluffs and trees would be excellent hiding places.

Sandoval said, “If Pell’s partner didn’t drive the getaway wheels, where is he?”

TJ offered, “Rendezvous point somewhere?”

“Or staying around,” Dance said, nodding out the window.

“What?” the prosecutor asked. “Why’d he do that?”

“To find out how we’re running the case, what we know. What we don’t know.”

“That sounds a little . . . elaborate, don’t you think?”

TJ laughed, pointing toward the smoldering cars. “I’d say that’s a pretty good word for this whole shebang.”

O’Neil suggested, “Or maybe he wants to slow us up.”

Dance said, “That makes sense too. Pell and his partner don’t know we’re on to the truck. For all they know we still think he’s in the area. The partner could make it look like Pell’s nearby. Maybe take a shot at somebody up the street, maybe even set off another device.”

“Shit. Another firebomb?” Sandoval grimaced.

Dance called the security chief and told him there was a possibility the partner was still around and could be a threat.

But, as it turned out, they had no time to speculate about whether or not the partner was nearby. The plan about the Worldwide Express trucks had paid off. A radio call to O’Neil from MCSO dispatch reported that two local police officers had found Daniel Pell and were presently in pursuit.

•    •    •

The dark green delivery truck kicked up a rooster tail of dust on the small road.

The uniformed officer who was driving the Salinas Police squad car, a former jarhead back from the war, gripped the wheel of the cruiser as if he were holding on to the rudder of a ten-foot skiff in twelve-foot seas.

His partner—a muscular Latino—gripped the dashboard in one hand and the microphone in the other. “Salinas Police Mobile Seven. We’re still with him. He turned onto a dirt road off Natividad about a mile south of Old Stage.”

“Roger . . . Central to Seven, be advised, subject is probably armed and dangerous.”

“If he’s armed, of course he’s dangerous,” the driver said and lost his sunglasses when the car caught air after a run-in with a massive bump. The two officers could hardly see the road ahead; the Worldwide truck was churning up dust like a sandstorm.

“Central to Seven, we’ve got all available units en route.”

“Roger that.”

Backup was a good idea. The rumors were that Daniel Pell, the crazed cult leader, this era’s Charles Manson, had gunned down a dozen people at the courthouse, had set fire to a bus filled with schoolchildren, had slashed his way through a crowd of prospective jurors, killing four. Or two. Or eight. Whatever the truth, the officers wanted as much help as they could get.

The jarhead muttered, “Where’s he going? There’s nothing up here.”

The road was used mostly for farm equipment and buses transporting migrant workers to and from the fields. It led to no major highways. There was no picking going on today but the road’s purpose, and the fact it probably led to no major highways, could be deduced from its decrepit condition and from the drinking water tanks and the portable toilets on trailers by the roadside.

But Daniel Pell might not know that and would assume this was a road like any other. Rather than one that ended, as this did, abruptly in the middle of an artichoke field. Ahead of them, thirty yards or so, Pell braked fast in panic and the truck began to skid. But there was no way to stop in time. The truck’s front wheels dropped hard into a shallow irrigation ditch, and the rear end lifted off the ground, then slammed back with a huge crash.

The squad car braked to a stop nearby. “This is Seven,” the Latino cop called in. “Pell’s off the road.”

“Roger, is he—”

The officers leapt out of the car with their pistols drawn.

“He’s going to bail, he’s going to bail!”

But nobody exited the truck.

They approached it. The back door had flown open in the crash and they could see nothing but dozens of packages and envelopes littering the floor.

“There he is, look.”

Pell lay stunned, facedown, on the floor of the vehicle.

“Maybe he’s hurt.”

“Who gives a shit?”

The officers ran forward and cuffed and dragged him out of the space where he was wedged

They dropped him on to his back on the ground. “Nice try, buddy, but—”

“Fuck. It’s not him.”

“What?” asked his partner.

“Excuse me, does that look like a forty-three-year-old white guy?”

The jarhead bent down to the groggy teenager, a gang teardrop tat on his cheek, and snapped “Who’re you?” in Spanish, a language that every law enforcer in and around Salinas could speak.

The kid avoided their eyes, muttering in English, “I no saying nothing. You can go fuck youself.”

“Oh, man.” The Latino cop glanced into the cab, where the keys were dangling from the dash. He understood: Pell had left the truck on a city street with the engine on, knowing it’d be stolen—oh, in about sixty seconds—so the police would follow it and give Pell a chance to escape in a different direction.

Another thought. Not a good one. He turned to Jarhead. “You don’t think, when we said we had Pell and they called all availables for backup . . . I mean, you don’t think they pulled ’em off the roadblocks, do you?”

“No, they wouldn’t do that. That’d be fucking stupid.”

The men looked at each other.

“Christ.” The Latino officer raced to the squad car and grabbed the microphone.

Chapter 7

“A Honda Civic,” TJ reported, hanging up from a call with DMV. “Five years old. Red. I’ve got the tags.” They knew Pell was now in the Worldwide Express driver’s personal car, which was missing from the company’s lot in Salinas.

TJ added, “I’ll let the roadblocks know.”

“When they get back on site,” Dance muttered.

To the dismay of the agents and O’Neil, some local dispatcher had ordered the nearby roadblocks abandoned for the pursuit of the Worldwide Express truck. His placid face registering what for O’Neil was disgust—a tightening of the lips—he’d sent the cars back on site immediately.

They were in a meeting room up the hall from Sandoval’s office. Now that Pell was clearly not near the courthouse, Dance wanted to return to CBI headquarters, but Charles Overby had told them to remain at the courthouse until he arrived.

“Think he wants to make sure no press conferences escape either,” TJ said, to which Dance and O’Neil gave sour laughs. “Speaking of which,” came TJ’s whisper. “Incoming! . . . Hit the decks.”

A figure strode confidently through the door. Charles Overby, a fifty-five-year-old career law enforcer.

Without any greetings, he asked Dance, “He wasn’t in the truck?”

“No. Local gangbanger. Pell left the truck running. He knew somebody’d snatch it, and we’d focus on that. He took off in the delivery driver’s own car.”

“The driver?”

“No sign.”

“Ouch.” Brown-haired, sunburned Charles Overby was athletic in a pear-shaped way, a tennis and golf player. He was the newly appointed head of the CBI’s west-central office. The agent in charge he replaced, Stan Fishburne, had taken early retirement on a medical, much to the CBI staff’s collective dismay (because of the severe heart attack on Fishburne’s account—and because of who had succeeded him on theirs).

O’Neil took a call and Dance updated Overby, adding the details of Pell’s new wheels and their concern that the partner was still nearby.

“You think he’s really planted another device?”

“Unlikely. But the accomplice staying around makes sense.”

O’Neil hung up. “The roadblocks’re all back in place.”

“Who took them down?” Overby asked.

“We don’t know.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t us or you, Michael, right?” Overby asked uneasily.

An awkward silence. Then O’Neil said, “No, Charles.”

“Who was it?”

“We’re not sure.”

“We should find that out.”

Recrimination was such a drain. O’Neil said he’d look into it. Dance knew he’d never do anything though, and with this comment to Overby the finger pointing came to a close.

The detective continued, “Nobody’s spotted the Civic. But the timing was just wrong. He could’ve gotten through on Sixty-eight or the One-Oh-One. I don’t think Sixty-eight though.”

“No,” Overby agreed. The smaller Highway 68 would take Pell back to heavily populated Monterey. The 101, wide as an interstate, could get him to every major expressway in the state.

“They’re setting up new checkpoints in Gilroy. And about thirty miles south.” O’Neil stuck monarch butterfly notes in the appropriate places.

“And you’ve got the bus terminals and airport secure?” Overby asked.

“That’s right,” Dance said.

“And San Jose and Oakland PD’re in the loop?”

“Yep. And Santa Cruz, San Benito, Merced, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and San Mateo.” The nearby counties.

Overby jotted a few notes. “Good.” He glanced up and said, “Oh, I just talked to Amy.”

“Grabe?”

“That’s right.”

Amy Grabe was the SAC—the special agent in charge—of the FBI’s San Francisco field office. Dance knew the sharp, focused law enforcer well. The west-central region of the CBI extended north to the Bay area, so she’d had a number of opportunities to work with her. Dance’s late husband, an agent with the FBI’s local resident agency, had too.

Overby continued, “If we don’t get Pell soon, they’ve got a specialist I want on board.”

“A what?”

“Somebody in the bureau who handles situations like this.”

It was a jailbreak, Dance reflected. What kind of specialist? She thought of Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive.

O’Neil too was curious. “A negotiator?”

But Overby said, “No, he’s a cult expert. Deals a lot with people like Pell.”

Dance shrugged, an illustrator gesture—those that reinforce verbal content, in this case, her doubts. “Well, I’m not sure how useful that’d be.” She had worked many joint task forces. She wasn’t opposed to sharing jurisdiction with the Feds or anyone else, but involving other agencies inevitably slowed response times. Besides, she didn’t see how a cult leader would flee for his life any differently than a murderer or bank robber.

But Overby had already made up his mind; she knew it from his tone and body language. “He’s a brilliant profiler, can really get into their minds. The cult mentality is a lot different from your typical perp’s.”

Is it?

The agent in charge handed Dance a slip of paper with a name and phone number on it. “He’s in Chicago, finishing up some case, but he can be here tonight or tomorrow morning.”

“You sure about this, Charles?”

“With Pell we can use all the help we can get. Absolutely. And a big gun from Washington? More expertise, more person power.”

More places to stash the blame, Dance thought cynically, realizing now what had happened. Grabe had asked if the FBI could help out in the search for Pell, and Overby had jumped at the offer, thinking that if more innocents were injured or the escapee remained at large, there’d be two people on the podium at the press conference, not just himself alone. But she kept the smile on her face. “All right then. I hope we get him before we need to bother anybody else.”

“Oh, and Kathryn? I just wanted you to know. Amy wondered how the escape happened, and I told her your interrogation had nothing to do with it.”

“My . . . what?”

“It’s not going to be a problem. I told her there’s nothing you did that would’ve helped Pell escape.”

She felt the heat rise to her face, which undoubtedly was turning ruddy. Emotion does that; she’d spotted plenty of deception over the years because guilt and shame trigger blood flow.

So does anger.

Amy Grabe probably hadn’t even known that Dance had interrogated Pell, let alone suspected she’d done something careless that facilitated the escape.

But she—and the San Francisco office of the bureau—sure had that idea now.

Maybe CBI headquarters in Sacramento did too. She said stiffly, “He escaped from the lockup, not the interrogation room.”

“I was talking about Pell maybe getting information from you that he could use to get away.”

Dance sensed O’Neil tense. The detective had a strong streak of protectiveness when it came to those who hadn’t been in the business as long as he had. But he knew that Kathryn Dance was a woman who fought her own battles. He remained silent.

She was furious that Overby had said anything to Grabe. Now she understood: that was why he wanted CBI to run the case—if any other agency took charge, it would be an admission that the bureau was in some way responsible for the escape.

And Overby wasn’t through yet. “Now, about security . . . I’m sure it was tight. Special precautions with Pell. I told Amy you’d made sure of that.”

Since he hadn’t asked a question, she simply gazed back coolly and didn’t give him a crumb of reassurance.

He probably sensed he’d gone too far and, eyes ferreting away, said, “I’m sure things were handled well.”

Again, silence.

“Okay, I’ve got that press conference. My turn in the barrel.” He grimaced. “If you hear anything else, let me know. I’ll be on in about ten minutes.”

The man left.

TJ looked Dance over and said, in a thick southern accent, “Damn, so you’re the one forgot to lock the barn door when you were through interrogating the cows. That’s how they got away. I was wondrin’.”

O’Neil stifled a smile.

“Don’t get me started,” she muttered.

She walked to the window and looked out at the people who’d evacuated the courthouse, milling in front of the building. “I’m worried about that partner. Where is he, what’s he up to?”

“Who’d bust somebody like Daniel Pell outa the joint?” asked TJ.

Dance recalled Pell’s kinesic reaction in the interrogation when the subject of his aunt in Bakersfield arose. “I think whoever’s helping him got the hammer from his aunt. Pell’s her last name. Find her.” She had another thought. “Oh, and your buddy in the resident agency, down in Chico?”

“Yup?”

“He’s discreet, right?”

“We bar surf and ogle when we hang out. How discreet is that?”

“Can he check this guy out?” She held up the slip of paper containing the name of the FBI’s cult expert.

“He’d be game, I’ll bet. He says intrigue in the bureau’s better than intrigue in the barrio.” TJ jotted the name.

O’Neil took a call and had a brief conversation. He hung up and explained, “That was the warden at Capitola. I thought we should talk to the supervising guard on Pell’s cell block, see if he can tell us anything. He’s also bringing the contents of Pell’s cell with him.”

“Good.”

“Then there’s a fellow prisoner who claims to have some information about Pell. She’ll round him up and call us back.”

Dance’s cell phone rang, a croaking frog.

O’Neil lifted an eyebrow. “Wes or Maggie’ve been hard at work.”

It was a family joke, like stuffed animals in the purse. The children would reprogram the ringer of her phone when Dance wasn’t looking (any tones were fair game; the only rules: never silent, and no tunes from boy bands).

She hit the receive button. “Hello?”

“It’s me, Agent Dance.”

The background noise was loud and the “me” ambiguous, but the phrasing of her name told her the caller was Rey Carraneo.

“What’s up?”

“No sign of his partner or any other devices. Security wants to know if they can let everybody back inside. The fire marshal’s okayed it.”

Dance debated the matter with O’Neil. They decided to wait a little longer.

“TJ, go outside and help them search. I don’t like it that the accomplice’s unaccounted for.”

She recalled what her father had told her after he’d nearly had a run-in with a great white in the waters off northern Australia. “The shark you don’t see is always more dangerous than the one you do.”

Chapter 8

The stocky, bearded, balding man in his hard-worn fifties stood near the courthouse, looking over the chaos, his sharp eyes checking out everyone, the police, the guards, the civilians.

“Hey, Officer, how you doing, you got a minute? Just like to ask you a few questions. . . . You mind saying a few words into the tape recorder? . . . Oh, sure, I understand. I’ll catch you later. Sure. Good luck.”

Morton Nagle had watched the helicopter swoop in low and ease to the ground to spirit away the injured cop.

He’d watched the men and women conducting the search, their strategy—and faces—making clear that they’d never run an escape.

He’d watched the uneasy crowds, thinking accidental fire, then thinking terrorists, then hearing the truth and looking even more scared than if al-Qaeda itself were behind the explosion.

As well they should, Nagle reflected.

“Excuse me, do you have a minute to talk? . . . Oh, sure. Not a problem. Sorry to bother you, Officer.”

Nagle milled through the crowds. Smoothing his wispy hair, then tugging up saggy tan slacks, he was studying the area carefully, the fire trucks, the squad cars, the flashing lights bursting with huge aureoles through the foggy haze. He lifted his digital camera and snapped some more pictures.

A middle-aged woman looked over his shabby vest—a fisherman’s garment with two dozen pockets—and battered camera bag. She snapped, “You people, you journalists, you’re like vultures. Why don’t you let the police do their job?”

He gave a chuckle. “I didn’t know I wasn’t.”

“You’re all the same.” The woman turned away and continued to stare angrily at the smoky courthouse.

A guard came up to him and asked if he’d seen anything suspicious.

Nagle thought, Now that’s a strange question. Sounds like something from an old-time TV show.

Just the facts, ma’am . . .

He answered, “Nope.”

Adding to himself, Nothing surprising to me. But maybe I’m the wrong one to ask.

Nagle caught a whiff of a terrible scent—seared flesh and hair—and, incongruously, gave another amused laugh.

Thinking about it now—Daniel Pell had put the idea in mind—he realized he chuckled at times that most people would consider inappropriate, if not tasteless. Moments like this: when looking over carnage. Over the years he’d seen plenty of violent death, images that would repel most people.

Images that often made Morton Nagle laugh.

It was a defense mechanism probably. A device to keep violence—a subject he was intimately familiar with—from eating away at his soul, though he wondered if the chuckling wasn’t an indicator that it already had.

Then an officer was making an announcement. People would soon be allowed back into the courthouse.

Nagle hitched up his pants, pulled his camera bag up higher on his shoulder and scanned the crowd. He spotted a tall, young Latino in a suit, clearly a plainclothes detective of some sort. The man was speaking to an elderly woman wearing a juror badge. They were off to the side, not many people around.

Good.

Nagle sized up the officer. Just what he wanted, young, gullible, trusting. And began slowly moving toward him.

Closing the distance.

The man moved on, oblivious to Nagle, looking for more people to interview.

When he was ten feet away, the big man slipped the camera strap around his neck, unzipped the bag, reached inside.

Five feet . . .

He stepped closer yet.

And felt a strong hand close around his arm. Nagle gasped and his heart gave a jolt.

“Just keep those hands where I can see them, how’s that?” The man was a short, fidgety officer with the California Bureau of Investigation. Nagle read the ID dangling from his neck.

“Hey, what—”

“Shhhhh,” hissed the officer, who had curly red hair. “And those hands? Remember where I want ’em? . . . Hey, Rey.”

The Latino joined them. He too had a CBI ID card. He looked Nagle up and down. Together they led him to the side of the courthouse, attracting the attention of everybody nearby.

“Look, I don’t know—”

“Shhhhh,” the wiry agent offered again.

The Latino frisked him carefully and nodded. Then he lifted Nagle’s press pass off his chest and showed it to the shorter officer.

“Hm,” he said. “This is a little out of date, wouldn’t you say?”

“Technically, but—”

“Sir, it’s four years out of date,” the Latino officer pointed out.

“That’s a big bowl of technical,” his partner said.

“I must’ve picked up the wrong one. I’ve been a reporter for—”

“So, if we called this paper, they’d say you’re a credentialed employee?”

If they called the paper they’d get a nonworking number.

“Look, I can explain.”

The short officer frowned. “You know, I sure would like an explanation. See, I was just talking to this groundskeeper, who told me that a man fitting your description was here about eight thirty this morning. There were no other reporters here then. And why would that be? Because there was no escape then. . . . Getting here before the story breaks. That’s quite a—whatta they call that, Rey?”

“Scoop?”

“Yeah, that’s quite a scoop. So, ’fore you do any explaining, turn around and put your hands behind your back.”

•    •    •

In the conference room on the second floor of the courthouse, TJ handed Dance what he’d found on Morton Nagle.

No weapons, no incendiary fuse, no maps of the courthouse or escape routes.

Just money, wallet, camera, tape recorder and thick notebook. Along with three true-crime books, his name on the cover and his picture on the back (appearing much younger, and hairier).

“He’s a paperback writer,” TJ sang, not doing justice to the Beatles.

Nagle was described in the author bio as “a former war correspondent and police reporter, who now writes books about crime. A resident of Scottsdale, Ariz., he is the author of thirteen works of nonfiction. He claims his other professions are gadabout, nomad and raconteur.”

“This doesn’t let you off the hook,” Dance snapped. “What’re you doing here? And why were you at the courthouse before the fire?”

“I’m not covering the escape. I got here early to get some interviews.”

O’Neil said, “With Pell? He doesn’t give them.”

“No, no, not Pell. With the family of Robert Herron. I heard they were coming to testify to the grand jury.”

“What about the fake press pass?”

“Okay, it’s been four years since I’ve been credentialed with a magazine or newspaper. I’ve been writing books full-time. But without a press pass you can’t get anywhere. Nobody ever looks at the date.”

“Almost never,” TJ corrected with a smile.

Dance flipped through one of the books. It was about the Peterson murder case in California a few years ago. It seemed well written.

TJ looked up from his laptop. “He’s clean, boss. At least no priors. DMV pic checks out too.”

“I’m writing a book. It’s all legit. You can check.”

He gave them the name of his editor in Manhattan. Dance called the large publishing company and spoke to the woman, whose attitude was, Oh, hell, what’s Morton got himself into now? But she confirmed that he’d signed a contract for a new book about Pell.

Dance said to TJ, “Uncuff him.”

O’Neil turned to the author and asked, “What’s the book about?”

“It isn’t like any true crime you’ve read before. It’s not about the murders. That’s been done. It’s about the victims of Daniel Pell. What their lives were like before the murders and, the ones who survived, what they’re like now. See, most nonfiction crime on TV or in books focuses only on the murderer himself and the crime—the gore, the gruesome aspects. The cheap stuff. I hate that. My book’s about Theresa Croyton—the girl who survived—and the family’s relatives and friends. The title’s going to be The Sleeping Doll. That’s what they called Theresa. I’m also going to include the women who were in Pell’s quote Family, the ones he brainwashed. And all the other victims of Pell’s too. There are really hundreds of them, when you think about it. I see violent crime like dropping a stone into a pond. The ripples of consequence can spread almost forever.”

There was passion in his voice; he sounded like a preacher. “There’s so much violence in the world. We’re inundated with it and we get numb. My God, the war in Iraq? Gaza? Afghanistan? How many pictures of blown-up cars, how many scenes of wailing mothers did you see before you lost interest?

“When I was a war correspondent covering the Middle East and Africa and Bosnia, I got numb. And you don’t have to be there in person for that to happen. It’s the same thing in your own living room when you just see the news bites or watch gruesome movies—where there’re no real consequences for the violence. But if we want peace, if we want to stop violence and fighting, that’s what people need to experience, the consequences. You don’t do that by gawking at bloody bodies; you focus on lives changed forever by evil.

“Originally it was only going to be about the Croyton case. But then I find out that Pell killed someone else—this Robert Herron. I want to include everyone affected by his death too: friends, family. And now, I understand, two guards’re dead.”

The smile was still there but it was a sad smile and Kathryn Dance realized that his cause was one with which she, as a mother and Major Crimes agent who’d worked plenty of rape, assault and homicide cases, could empathize.

“This’s added another wrinkle.” He gestured around him. “It’s much harder to track down victims and family members in a cold case. Herron was killed about ten years ago. I was thinking . . .” Nagle’s voice faded and he was frowning, though inexplicably a sparkle returned to his eyes. “Wait, wait . . . Oh my God, Pell didn’t have anything to do with the Herron death, did he? He confessed to get out of Capitola so he could escape from here.”

“We don’t know about that,” Dance said judiciously. “We’re still investigating.”

Nagle didn’t believe her. “Did he fake evidence? Or get somebody to come forward and lie. I’ll bet he did.”

In a low, even tone Michael O’Neil said, “We wouldn’t want there to be any rumors that might interfere with the investigation.” When the chief deputy made suggestions in this voice people always heeded the advice.

“Fine. I won’t say anything.”

“Appreciate that,” Dance said, then asked, “Mr. Nagle, do you have any information that could help us? Where Daniel Pell might be going, what he might be up to? Who’s helping him?”

With his potbelly, wispy hair and genial laugh, Nagle seemed like a middle-aged elf. He hitched up his pants. “No idea. I’m sorry. I really just got started on the project a month or so ago. I’ve been doing the background research.”

“You mentioned you plan to write about the women in Pell’s Family too. Have you contacted them?”

“Two of them. I asked if they’d be willing to let me interview them.”

O’Neil asked, “They’re out of jail?”

“Oh, yes. They weren’t involved in the Croyton murders. They got short terms, mostly for larceny-related offenses.”

O’Neil completed Dance’s thought. “Could one of them, or both, I guess, be his accomplice?”

Nagle considered this. “I can’t see it. They think Pell’s the worst thing that ever happened to them.”

“Who are they?” O’Neil asked.

“Rebecca Sheffield. She lives in San Diego. And Linda Whitfield is in Portland.”

“Have they kept out of trouble?”

“Think so. No police records I could find. Linda lives with her brother and his wife. She works for a church. Rebecca runs a consulting service for small businesses. My impression is they’ve put the past behind them.”

“You have their numbers?”

The writer flipped through a notebook of fat pages. His handwriting was sloppy and large—and the notes voluminous.

“There was a third woman in the Family,” Dance said, recalling the research she’d done for the interview.

“Samantha McCoy. She disappeared years ago. Rebecca said she changed her name and moved away, was sick of being known as one of Daniel’s ‘girls.’ I’ve done a little searching but I haven’t been able to find her yet.”

“Any leads?”

“West Coast somewhere is all that Rebecca heard.”

Dance said to TJ, “Find her. Samantha McCoy.”

The curly-haired agent bounded off to the corner of the room. He looked like an elf too, she reflected.

Nagle found the numbers of the two women and Dance wrote them down. She placed a call to Rebecca Sheffield in San Diego.

“Women’s Initiatives,” the receptionist said in a voice with a faint Chicana accent. “May I help you?”

A moment later Dance found herself speaking to the head of the company, a no-nonsense woman with a low, raspy voice. The agent explained about Pell’s escape. Rebecca Sheffield was shocked.

Angry too. “I thought he was in some kind of superprison.”

“He didn’t escape from there. It was the county courthouse lockup.”

Dance asked if the woman had any thoughts on where Pell might be going, who his accomplice could be, other friends he might contact.

Rebecca couldn’t, though. She said that she’d met Pell just a few months before the Croyton murders—and she was just getting to know him and the others when they were arrested. But she added that she’d gotten a call from someone about a month earlier, supposedly a writer. “I assumed he was legit. But he might’ve had something to do with the escape. Murry or Morton was the first name. I think I’ve got his number somewhere.”

“It’s all right. He’s here with us. We’ve checked him out.”

Rebecca could offer nothing more about Samantha McCoy’s whereabouts or new identity.

Then, uneasy, she said, “Back then, eight years ago, I didn’t turn him in, but I did cooperate with the police. Do you think I’m in danger?”

“I couldn’t say. But until we reapprehend him, you might want to contact San Diego police.” Dance gave the woman her numbers at CBI and her mobile, and Rebecca told her she’d try to think of anyone who might help Pell or know where he’d go.

The agent pushed down the button on the phone cradle and let it spring back up again. Then she dialed the second number, which turned out to be the Church of the Holy Brethren in Portland. She was connected to Linda Whitfield, who hadn’t heard the news either. Her reaction was completely different: silence, broken by a nearly inaudible muttering. All Dance caught was “dear Jesus.”

Praying, it seemed, not an exclamation. The voice faded, or she was cut off.

“Hello?” Dance asked.

“Yes, I’m here,” Linda said.

Dance asked the same questions she’d put to Rebecca Sheffield.

Linda hadn’t heard from Pell in years—though they’d stayed in touch for about eighteen months after the Croyton murders. Finally she’d stopped writing and had heard nothing from him since. Nor did she have any information about Samantha McCoy’s whereabouts, though she too told Dance about a call from Morton Nagle last month. The agent reassured her they were aware of him and convinced he wasn’t working with Pell.

Linda could offer no leads as to where Pell would go. She had no idea of who his accomplice might be.

“We don’t know what he has in mind,” Dance told the woman. “We have no reason to believe you’re in danger, but—”

“Oh, Daniel wouldn’t hurt me,” she said quickly.

“Still, you might want to tell your local police.”

“Well, I’ll think about it.” Then she added, “Is there a hotline I can call and find out what’s going on?”

“We don’t have anything set up like that. But the press’s covering it closely. You can get the details on the news as fast as we know them.”

“Well, my brother doesn’t have a television.”

No TV?

“Well, if there are any significant developments, I’ll let you know. And if you can think of anything else, please call.” Dance gave her the phone numbers and hung up.

A few moments later CBI chief Charles Overby strode into the room. “Press conference went well, I think. They asked some prickly questions. They always do. But I fielded them okay, I have to say. Stayed one step ahead. You see it?” He nodded at the TV in the corner. No one had bothered to turn up the volume to hear his performance.

“Missed it, Charles. Been on the phone.”

“Who’s he?” Overby asked. He’d been staring at Nagle as if he should know him.

Dance introduced them, then the writer instantly disappeared from the agent in charge’s radar screen. “Any progress at all?” A glance at the maps.

“No reports anywhere,” Dance told him. Then explained that she’d contacted two of the women who’d been in Pell’s Family. “One’s from San Diego, one’s from Portland, and we’re looking for the other right now. At least we know the first two aren’t the accomplice.”

“Because you believe them?” Overby asked. “You could tell that from the tone of their voices?”

None of the officers in the room said anything. So it was up to Dance to let her boss know he’d missed the obvious. “I don’t think they could’ve set the gas bombs and gotten back home by now.”

A brief pause. Overby said, “Oh, you called them where they live. You didn’t say that.”

Kathryn Dance, former reporter and jury consultant, had played in the real world for a long time. She avoided TJ’s glance and said, “You’re right, Charles, I didn’t. Sorry.”

The CBI head turned to O’Neil. “This’s a tough one, Michael. Lots of angles. Sure glad you’re available to help us out.”

“Glad to do what I can.”

This was Charles Overby at his best. Using the words “help us” to make clear who was running the show, while also tacitly explaining that O’Neil and the MCSO were on the line too.

Stash the blame . . .

Overby announced he was headed back to the CBI office and left the conference room.

Dance now turned to Morton Nagle. “Do you have any research about Pell I could look at?”

“Well, I suppose. But why?”

“Maybe help us get some idea of where he’s going,” O’Neil said.

“Copies,” the writer said. “Not the originals.”

“That’s fine,” Dance told him. “One of us’ll come by later and pick them up. Where’s your office?”

Nagle worked out of a house he was renting in Monterey. He gave Dance the address and phone number, then began packing up his camera bag.

Dance glanced down at it. “Hold on.”

Nagle noticed her eyes on the contents. He smiled. “I’d be happy to.”

“I’m sorry?”

He picked up a copy of one of his true-crime books, Blind Trust, and with a flourish autographed it for her.

“Thanks.” She set it down and pointed at what she’d actually been looking at. “Your camera. Did you take any pictures this morning? Before the fire?”

“Oh.” He smiled wryly at the misunderstanding. “Yes, I did.”

“It’s digital?”

“That’s right.”

“Can we see them?”

Nagle picked up the Canon and began to push buttons. She and O’Neil hunched close over the tiny screen on the back. Dance detected a new aftershave. She felt comfort in his proximity.

The writer scrolled through the pictures. Most of them were of people walking into the courthouse, a few artistic shots of the front of the building in the fog.

Then the detective and the agent simultaneously said, “Wait.” The image they were looking at depicted the driveway that led to where the fire had occurred. They could make out someone behind a car, just the back visible, wearing a blue jacket, a baseball cap and sunglasses.

“Look at the arm.”

Dance nodded. It seemed the person’s arm trailed behind, as if wheeling a suitcase.

“Is that time stamped?”

Nagle called up the readout. “Nine twenty-two.”

“That’d work out just right,” Dance said, recalling the fire marshal’s estimate of the time the gas bomb had been planted. “Can you blow up the image?”

“Not in the camera.”

TJ said he could on his computer, though, no problem. Nagle gave the memory card to him, and Dance sent TJ back to CBI headquarters, reminding him, “And Samantha McCoy. Track her down. The aunt too. Bakersfield.”

“You bet, boss.”

Rey Carraneo was still outside, canvassing for witnesses. But Dance believed that the accomplice had fled too; now that Pell had probably eluded the roadblocks there was no reason for the partner to stay around. She sent him back to headquarters as well.

Nagle said, “I’ll get started on the copies. . . . Oh, don’t forget.” He handed her the autographed paperback. “I know you’ll like it.”

When he was gone Dance held it up. “In all my free time.” And gave it to O’Neil for his collection.

Chapter 9

At lunch hour a woman in her midtwenties was sitting on a patio outside the Whole Foods grocery store in Monterey’s Del Monte Center.

A disk of sun was slowly emerging as the blanket of fog melted.

She heard a siren in the distance, a dove cooing, a horn, a child crying, then a child laughing.

Jennie Marston thought, Angel songs.

The scent of pine filled the cool air. No breeze. Dull light. A typical California day on the coast, but everything about it was intensified.

Which is what happens when you’re in love and about to meet your boyfriend.

Anticipation . . .

Some old pop song, Jennie thought. Her mother sang it from time to time, her smoker’s voice harsh and off-key, often slurred.

Blond, authentic California blond, Jennie sipped her coffee. It was expensive but good. This wasn’t her kind of store (the twenty-four-year-old part-time caterer was an Albertsons girl, a Safeway girl) but Whole Foods was a good meeting place.

She was wearing close-fitting jeans, a light pink blouse and, underneath, a red Victoria’s Secret bra and panties. Like the coffee, the lingerie was a luxury she couldn’t afford. But some things you had to splurge on. (Besides, Jennie reflected, the garments were really a gift in a way: for her boyfriend.)

Which made her think of other indulgences. Rubbing her nose, flick, flick, on the bump.

Stop it, she told herself.

But she didn’t. Another two flicks.

Angel songs . . .

Why couldn’t she have met him a year later? She’d’ve had the cosmetic work done by then and be beautiful. At least she could do something about the nose and boobs. She only wished she could fix the toothpick shoulders and boyish hips but fixing those was beyond the talents of talented Dr. Ginsberg.

Skinny, skinny, skinny . . . And the way you eat! Twice what I do and look at me. God gave me a daughter like you to test me.

Watching the unsmiling women wheeling their grocery carts to their mommy vans, Jennie wondered, Do they love their husbands? They couldn’t possibly be as much in love as she was with her boyfriend. She felt sorry for them.

Jennie finished her coffee and returned to the store, looking at massive pineapples and bins of grain and heads of funny-shaped lettuce and perfectly lined up steaks and chops. Mostly she studied the pastries—the way one painter examines another’s canvas. Good. . . . Not so good. She didn’t want to buy anything—it was way expensive. She was just too squirrelly to stay in one place.

That’s what I should’ve named you. Stay Still Jennie. For fuck’s sake, girl. Sit down.

Looking at the produce, looking at the rows of meat.

Looking at the women with boring husbands.

She wondered if the intensity she felt for her boyfriend was simply because it was all so new. Would it fade after a while? But one thing in their favor was that they were older; this wasn’t that stupid passion of your teenage years. They were mature people. And most important was their souls’ connection, which comes along so rarely. Each knew exactly how the other felt.

“Your favorite color’s green,” he’d shared with her the first time they’d spoken. “I’ll bet you sleep under a green comforter. It soothes you at night.”

Oh my God, he was so right. It was a blanket, not a comforter. But it was green as grass. What kind of man had that intuition?

Suddenly she paused, aware of a conversation nearby. Two of the bored housewives weren’t so bored at the moment.

“Somebody’s dead. In Salinas. It just happened.”

Salinas? Jennie thought.

“Oh, the escape from that prison or whatever? Yeah, I just heard about it.”

“David Pell, no, Daniel. That’s it.”

“Isn’t he, like, Charles Manson’s kid or something?”

“I don’t know. But I heard some people got killed.”

“He’s not Manson’s kid. No, he just called himself that.”

“Who’s Charles Manson?”

“Are you kidding me? Remember Sharon Tate?”

“Who?”

“Like, when were you born?”

Jennie approached the women. “Excuse me, what’s that you’re talking about? An escape or something?”

“Yeah, from this jail in Salinas. Didn’t you hear?” one of the short-haired housewives asked, glancing at Jennie’s nose.

She didn’t care. “Somebody was killed, you said?”

“Some guards and then somebody was kidnapped and killed, I think.”

They didn’t seem to know anything more.

Her palms damp, heart uneasy, Jennie turned and walked away. She checked her phone. Her boyfriend had called a while ago but nothing since then. No messages. She tried the number. He didn’t answer.

Jennie returned to the turquoise Thunderbird. She put the radio on the news, then twisted the rearview mirror toward her. She pulled her makeup and brush from her purse.

Some people got killed. . . .

Don’t worry about it, she told herself. Working on her face, concentrating the way her mother had taught her. It was one of the nice things the woman had done for her. “Put the light here, the dark here—we’ve got to do something with that nose of yours. Smooth it in . . . blend it. Good.”

Though her mother often took away the nice as fast as shattering a glass.

Well, it looked fine until you messed it up. Honestly, what’s wrong with you? Do it again. You look like a whore.

•    •    •

Daniel Pell was strolling down the sidewalk from the small covered garage connected to an office building in Monterey.

He’d had to abandon Billy’s Honda Civic earlier than he’d planned. He’d heard on the news that the police had found the Worldwide Express truck, which meant they would probably assume he was in the Civic. He’d apparently evaded the roadblocks just in time.

How ’bout that, Kathryn?

Now he continued along the sidewalk, with his head down. He wasn’t concerned about being out in public, not yet. Nobody would expect him here. Besides, he looked different. In addition to the civilian clothes he was smooth-shaven. After dumping Billy’s car he’d slipped into the back parking lot of a motel, where he’d gone through the trash. He’d found a discarded razor and a tiny bottle of the motel’s giveaway body lotion. Crouching by the Dumpster, he’d used them to shave off the beard.

He now felt the breeze on his face, smelled something in the air: ocean and seaweed. First time in years. He loved the scent. In Capitola prison the air you smelled was the air they decided to send to you through the air conditioner or heating system and it didn’t smell like anything.

A squad car went past.

Hold fast . . .

Pell was careful to maintain his pace, not looking around, not deviating from his route. Changing your behavior draws attention. And that puts you at a disadvantage, gives people information about you. They can figure out why you changed, then use it against you.

That’s what had happened at the courthouse.

Kathryn . . .

Pell had had the interrogation all planned out: If he could do so without arousing suspicion, he was going to get information from whoever was interviewing him, learn how many guards were in the courthouse and where they were, for instance.

But then to his astonishment she’d learned exactly what he was doing.

Where else could somebody find a hammer of yours? . . . Now let’s think about the wallet. Where could that’ve come from? . . .

So he’d been forced to change his plans. And fast. He’d done the best he could but the braying alarm told him she’d anticipated him. If she’d done that just five minutes earlier, he would’ve been back in the Capitola prison van. The escape plan would’ve turned to dust.

Kathryn Dance . . .

Another squad car drove quickly past.

Still no glances his way and Pell kept on course. But he knew it was time to get out of Monterey. He slipped into the crowded open-air shopping center. He noted the stores, Macy’s, Mervyns and the smaller ones selling Mrs. See’s Candy, books (Pell loved and devoured them—the more you knew, the more control you had), video games, sports equipment, cheap clothes and cheaper jewelry. The place was packed. It was June; many schools were out of session.

One girl, college age, came out of a store, a bag over her shoulder. Beneath her jacket was a tight red tank top. One glance at it, and the swelling began inside him. The bubble, expanding. (The last time he’d intimidated a con, and bribed a guard, to swing a conjugal visit with the con’s wife in Capitola was a year ago. A long, long year . . .)

He stared at her, following only a few feet behind, enjoying the sight of the hair and her tight jeans, trying to smell her, trying to get close enough to brush against her as he walked past, which is an assault just as surely as being dragged into an alley and stripped at knifepoint.

Rape is in the eye of the beholder. . . .

Ah, but then she turned into another store and vanished from his life.

My loss, dear, he thought.

But not yours, of course.

In the parking lot, Pell saw a turquoise Ford Thunderbird. Inside he could just make out a woman, brushing her long blond hair.

Ah . . .

Walking closer. Her nose was bumpy and she was a skinny little thing, not much in the chest department. But that didn’t stop the balloon within him growing, ten times, a hundred. It was going to burst soon.

Daniel Pell looked around. Nobody else nearby.

He walked forward through the rows of cars, closing the distance.

•    •    •

Jennie Marston finished with her hair.

This particular aspect of her body she loved. It was shiny and thick and when she spun her head it flowed like a shampoo model’s in a slo-mo TV commercial. She twisted the Thunderbird’s rearview mirror back into position. Shut the radio off. Touched her nose, the bump.

Stop it!

As she was reaching for the door handle she gave a gasp. It was opening on its own.

Jennie froze, staring up at the wiry man, who was leaning down.

Neither of them moved for a moment. Then he pulled the door open. “You’re the picture of delight, Jennie Marston,” he said. “Prettier than I imagined.”

“Oh, Daniel.” Overwhelmed with emotion—fear, relief, guilt, a big burning sun of feeling—Jennie Marston could think of nothing else to say. Breathless, she slipped out of the car and flew into her boyfriend’s arms, shivering and holding him so tightly that she squeezed a soft, steady hiss from his narrow chest.

Chapter 10

They got into the T-bird and she pressed her head against his neck as Daniel carefully surveyed the parking lot and the road nearby.

Jennie was thinking how difficult the past month had been, forging a relationship through email, rare phone calls and fantasy, never seeing her lover in person.

Still, she knew that it was so much better to build love this way—from a distance. It was like the women on the home front during a war, the way her mother would talk about her father in Vietnam. That was all a lie, of course, she’d later learned, but it didn’t take away the larger truth: that love should be first about two souls and only later about sex. What she felt for Daniel Pell was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

Exhilarating.

Frightening too.

She felt the tears start. No, no, stop it. Don’t cry. He won’t like it if you cry. Men get mad when that happens.

But he asked gently, “What’s the matter, lovely?”

“I’m just so happy.”

“Come on, tell me.”

Well, he didn’t sound mad. She debated, then said, “Well, I was wondering. There were some women. At the grocery store. Then I put the news on. I heard . . . somebody got burned real bad. A policeman. And then two people were killed, stabbed.” Daniel had said he just wanted the knife to threaten the guards. He wasn’t going to hurt anybody.

“What?” he snapped. His blue eyes grew hard.

No, no, what’re you doing? Jennie asked herself. You made him mad! Why did you ask him that? Now you’ve fucked everything up! Her heart fluttered.

“They did it again. They always do it! When I left, nobody was hurt. I was so careful! I got out the fire door just like we’d planned and slammed it shut. . . .” Then he nodded. “I know . . . sure. There were other prisoners in a cell near mine. They wanted me to let them out too, but I wouldn’t. I’ll bet they started to riot and when the guards went to stop them, that’s when those two got killed. Some of them had shivs, I’ll bet. You know what that is?”

“A knife, right?”

“Homemade knife. That’s what happened. And if somebody got burned, it was because he was careless. I looked carefully—there was no one else out there when I got through the fire. And how could I attack three people all by myself? Ridiculous. But the police and the news’re blaming me for it, like they always do.” His lean face was red. “I’m the easy target.”

“Just like that family eight years ago,” she said timidly, trying to calm him. Nothing takes away the danger faster than agreeing with a man.

Daniel had told her how he and his friend had gone to the Croytons’ house to pitch a business idea to the computer genius. But when they got there his friend, it seemed, had a whole different idea—he was going to rob the couple. He knocked Daniel out and started killing the family. Daniel had come to and tried to stop him. Finally he’d had to kill his friend in self-defense.

“They blamed me for that—because you know how we hate it when the killer dies. Somebody goes into a school and shoots students and kills himself. We want the bad guy alive. We need somebody to blame. It’s human nature.”

He was right, Jennie reflected. She was relieved, but also terrified that she’d upset him. “I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t’ve mentioned anything.”

She expected him to tell her to shut up, maybe even get out of the car and walk away. But to her shock he smiled and stroked her hair. “You can ask me anything.”

She hugged him again. Felt more tears on her cheek and touched them away. The makeup had clotted. She backed away, staring at her fingers. Oh, no. Look at this! She wanted to be pretty for him.

The fears coming back, digging away.

Oh, Jennie, you’re going to be wearing your hair like that? You sure you want to? . . . You don’t want bangs? They’d cover up that high forehead of yours.

What if she didn’t live up to his expectations?

Daniel Pell took her face in his strong hands. “Lovely, you’re the most beautiful woman on the face of the earth. You don’t even need makeup.”

Like he could see right into her thoughts.

Crying again. “I’ve been worried you wouldn’t like me.”

“Wouldn’t like you. Baby, I love you. What I emailed you, remember?”

Jennie remembered every word he’d written. She looked into his eyes. “Oh, you’re such a beautiful person.” She pressed her lips against his. Though they made love in her imagination at least once a day, this was their first kiss. She felt his teeth against her lips, his tongue. They stayed locked together in this fierce embrace for what seemed like forever, though it could have been a mere second. Jennie had no sense of time. She wanted him inside her, pressing hard, his chest pulsing against hers.

Souls are where love should start, but you’ve got to get the bodies involved pretty damn soon.

She slipped her hand along his bare, muscular leg.

He gave a laugh. “Tell you what, lovely, maybe we’d better get out of here.”

“Sure, whatever you want.”

He asked, “You have the phone I called you on?” Daniel had told her to buy three prepaid cell phones with cash. She handed him the one she’d answered when he’d called just after he’d escaped. He took it apart and pulled the battery and SIM card out. He threw them into a trash can and returned to the car.

“The others?”

She produced them. He handed her one and put the other in his pocket.

He said, “We ought to—”

A siren sounded nearby—close. They froze.

Angel songs, Jennie thought, then recited this good-luck mantra a dozen times.

The sirens faded into the distance.

She turned back. “They might come back.” Nodding after the sirens.

Daniel smiled. “I’m not worried about that. I just want to be alone with you.”

Jennie felt a shiver of happiness down her spine. It almost hurt.

•    •    •

The west-central regional headquarters of the California Bureau of Investigation, home to dozens of agents, was a two-story modern structure, near Highway 68, indistinguishable from the other buildings around it—functional rectangles of glass and stone, housing doctors’ and lawyers’ offices, architectural firms, computer companies and the like. The landscaping was meticulous and boring, the parking lots always half-empty. The countryside rose and fell in gentle hills, which were at the moment bright green, thanks to recent rains. Often the ground was as brown as Colorado during a dry spell.

A United Express regional jet banked sharply and low, then leveled off, vanishing over the trees for the touchdown at nearby Monterey Peninsula Airport.

Kathryn Dance and Michael O’Neil were in the CBI’s ground-floor conference room, directly beneath her office. They stood side by side, staring at a large map on which the roadblocks were indicated—this time with pushpins, not entomological Post-it notes. There had been no sightings of the Worldwide Express driver’s Honda, and the net had been pushed farther back, now eighty miles away.

Kathryn Dance glanced at O’Neil’s square face and read in it a complicated amalgam of determination and concern. She knew him well. They’d met years ago when she was a jury consultant, studying the demeanor and responses of prospective jurors during voir dire and advising lawyers which to choose and which to reject. She’d been hired by federal prosecutors to help them select jurors in a RICO trial in which O’Neil was a chief witness. (Curiously, she’d met her late husband under parallel circumstances: when she was a reporter covering a trial in Salinas and he was a prosecution witness.)

Dance and O’Neil had become friends and stayed close over the years. When she’d decided to go into law enforcement and got a job with the regional office of the CBI, she found herself working frequently with him. Stan Fishburne, then the agent in charge, was one mentor, O’Neil the other. He taught her more about the art of investigation in six months than she’d learned during her entire formal training. They complemented each other well. The quiet, deliberate man preferred traditional police techniques, like forensics, undercover work, surveillance and running confidential informants, while Dance’s specialty was canvassing, interrogation and interviewing.

She knew she wouldn’t be the agent she was today without O’Neil’s help. Or his humor and patience (and other vital talents: like offering her Dramamine before she went out on his boat).

Though their approach to their job and their talents differed, their instincts were identical and they were closely attuned to each other. She was amused to see that, while he’d been staring at the map, in fact he’d been sensing signals from her too.

“What is it?” he asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Something’s bothering you. More than just finding yourself in the driver’s seat here.”

“Yep.” She thought for a minute. That was one thing about O’Neil; he often forced her to put her tangled ideas in order before speaking. She explained, “Bad feeling about Pell. I got this idea that the guards’ deaths meant nothing to him. Juan too. And that Worldwide Express driver? He’s dead, you know.”

“I know. . . . You think Pell wants to kill?”

“No, not wants to. Or doesn’t. What he wants is whatever serves his interest, however small. In a way, that seems scarier, and makes it harder to anticipate him. But let’s hope I’m wrong.”

“You’re never wrong, boss.” TJ appeared, carrying a laptop. He set it up on the battered conference table under a sign, MOST WANTED STATEWIDE. Below it were the ten winners of that contest, reflecting the demographics of the state: Latino, Anglo, Asian and African-American, in that order.

“You find the McCoy woman or Pell’s aunt?”

“Not yet. My troops’re on the case. But check this out.” He adjusted the computer screen.

They hovered around the screen, on which was a high-resolution image of the photograph from Morton Nagle’s camera. Now larger and clearer, it revealed a figure in a denim jacket on the driveway that led to the back of the building, where the fire had started. The shadow had morphed into a large black suitcase.

“Woman?” O’Neil asked.

They could judge the person’s height by comparing it to the automobile nearby. About Dance’s height, five-six. Slimmer, though, she noted. The cap and sunglasses obscured the head and face, but through the vehicle’s window you could see hips slightly broader than a man’s would be for that height.

“And there’s a glint. See that?” TJ tapped the screen. “Earring.”

Dance glanced at the hole in his lobe, where a diamond or metal stud occasionally resided.

“Statistically speaking,” TJ said in defense of his observation.

“Okay. I agree.”

“A blond woman, about five-six or so,” O’Neil summarized.

Dance said, “Weight one-ten, give or take.” She had a thought. She called Rey Carraneo in his office upstairs, asked him to join them.

He appeared a moment later. “Agent Dance.”

“Go back to Salinas. Talk to the manager of the You Mail It store.” The accomplice had probably recently checked out the Worldwide Express delivery schedule at the franchise. “See if anyone there remembers a woman fitting her general description. If so, get a picture on EFIS.”

The Electronic Facial Identification System is a computer-based version of the old Identi-Kit, used by investigators to re-create suspects’ likenesses from the recollections of witnesses.

“Sure, Agent Dance.”

TJ hit some buttons and the jpeg zipped wirelessly to the color printer in his office. Carraneo would pick it up there.

TJ’s phone rang. “Yo.” He jotted notes during a brief conversation, which ended with, “I love you, darling.” He hung up. “Vital statistics clerk in Sacramento. B-R-I-T-N-E-E. Love that name. She’s very sweet. Way too sweet for me. Not to say it couldn’t work out between us.”

Dance lifted an eyebrow, the kinesic interpretation of which was: “Get to the point.”

“I put her on the case of the missing Family member, capital F. Five years ago Samantha McCoy changed her name to Sarah Monroe. So she wouldn’t have to throw out her monogrammed underwear, I’d guess. Then three years ago, somebody of that name marries Ronald Starkey. There goes the monogram ploy. Anyway, they live in San Jose.”

“Sure it’s the same McCoy?”

“The real McCoy, you mean. I’ve been waiting to say that. Yep. Good old Social Security. With a parole board backup.”

Dance called Directory Assistance and got Ronald and Sarah Starkey’s address and phone number.

“San Jose,” O’Neil said. “That’s close enough.” Unlike the other two women in the Family to whom Dance had already spoken, Samantha could have planted the gas bomb this morning and been home in an hour and a half.

“Does she work?” Dance asked.

“I didn’t check that out. I will, though, you want.”

“We want,” O’Neil said. TJ didn’t report to him, and in the well-established hierarchy of law enforcement the CBI trumped MCSO. But a request from Chief Deputy Michael O’Neil was the same as a request from Dance. Or even higher.

A few minutes later TJ returned to say that the tax department revealed that Sarah Starkey was employed by a small educational publisher in San Jose.

Dance got the number. “Let’s see if she was in this morning.”

O’Neil asked, “How’re you going to do that? We can’t let her know we suspect anything.”

“Oh, I’ll lie,” Dance said breezily. She called the publisher from a caller ID–blocked line. When a woman answered, Dance said, “Hi. This is the El Camino Boutique. We have an order for Sarah Starkey. But the driver said she wasn’t there this morning. Do you know what time she’ll be getting in?”

“Sarah? I’m afraid there’s some mistake. She’s been here since eight thirty.”

“Really? Well, I’ll talk to the driver again. Might be better to deliver it to her house. If you could not mention anything to Mrs. Starkey, I’d appreciate it. It’s a surprise.” Dance hung up. “She was there all morning.”

TJ applauded. “And the Oscar for the best performance by a law enforcer deceiving the public goes to . . .”

O’Neil frowned.

“Don’t approve of my subversive techniques?” Dance asked.

With his typical wry delivery O’Neil said, “No, it’s just that you’re going to have to send her something now. The receptionist’s going to dime you out. Tell her she’s got a secret admirer.”

“I know, boss. Get her one of those balloon bouquets. ‘Congratulations on not being a suspect.’ ”

Dance’s administrative assistant, short, no-nonsense Maryellen Kresbach, walked into the room with coffee for all (Dance never asked; Maryellen always brought). The mother of three wore clattery high heels and favored complicated, coiffed hair and impressive fingernails.

The crew in the conference room thanked her. Dance sipped the excellent coffee. Wished Maryellen had brought some of the cookies sitting on her desk. She envied the woman’s ability to be both a domestic powerhouse and the best assistant Dance had ever had.

The agent noticed that Maryellen wasn’t leaving after delivering the caffeine.

“Didn’t know if I should bother you. But Brian called.”

“He did?”

“He said you might not have gotten his message on Friday.”

“You gave it to me.”

“I know I did. I didn’t tell him I did. And I didn’t tell him I didn’t. So.”

Feeling O’Neil’s eyes on her, Dance said, “Okay, thanks.”

“You want his number?”

“I have it.”

“Okay.” Her assistant continued to stand resolutely in front of her boss, nodding slowly.

Well, this is a rather spiny moment.

Dance didn’t want to talk about Brian Gunderson.

The trill of the conference-room phone saved her.

She answered, listened for a moment and said, “Have somebody bring him to my office right away.”

Chapter 11

The large man, in a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation uniform, sat in front of her desk, a workaday slab of government-issue furniture on which lay random pens, some awards, a lamp and photos: of the two children, of Dance with a handsome silver-haired man, of her mother and father, and of two dogs, each paired with one of the youngsters. A dozen files also rested on the cheap laminate. They were facedown.

“This is terrible,” said Tony Waters, a senior guard from Capitola Correctional Facility. “I can’t tell you.”

Dance detected traces of a southeastern accent in the distraught voice. The Monterey Peninsula drew people from all over the world. Dance and Waters were alone at the moment. Michael O’Neil was checking on the forensics from the scene of the escape.

“You were in charge of the wing where Pell was incarcerated?” Dance asked.

“That’s right.” Bulky and with stooped shoulders, Waters sat forward in the chair. He was in his midfifties, she estimated.

“Did Pell say anything to you—about where he’s headed?”

“No, ma’am. I’ve been racking my brain since it happened. That was the first thing I did when I heard. I sat down and went through everything he’d said in the past week or more. But, no, nothing. For one thing, Daniel didn’t talk a lot. Not to us, the hacks.”

“Did he spend time in the library?”

“Huge amount. Read all the time.”

“Can I find out what?”

“It’s not logged and the cons can’t check anything out.”

“How about visitors?”

“Nobody in the last year.”

“And telephone calls? Are they logged?”

“Yes, ma’am. But not recorded.” He thought back. “He didn’t have many, aside from reporters wanting to interview him. But he never called back. I think maybe he talked to his aunt once or twice. No others I remember.”

“What about computers, email?”

“Not for the prisoners. We do for ourselves, of course. They’re in a special area—a control zone. We’re very strict about that. You know, I was thinking about it and if he communicated with anybody on the outside—”

“Which he had to do,” Dance pointed out.

“Right. It had to be through a con being released. You might want to check there.”

“I thought of that. I’ve talked to your warden. She tells me that there were only two releases in the past month and their parole officers had them accounted for this morning. They could’ve gotten messages to someone, though. The officers’re checking that out.”

Waters, she’d noted, had arrived empty-handed, and Dance now asked, “Did you get our request for the contents of his cell?”

The guard’s mood darkened. He was shaking his head, looking down. “Yes, ma’am. But it was empty. Nothing inside at all. Had been empty for a couple of days actually.” He looked up, his lips tight, as he seemed to be debating. Then his eyes dipped as he said, “I didn’t catch it.”

“Catch what?”

“The thing is, I’ve worked the Q and Soledad and Lompoc. Half dozen others. We learn to look for certain things. See, if something big’s going down, the cons’ cells change. Things’ll disappear—sometimes it’s evidence that they’re going to make a run, or evidence of shit a con’s done that he doesn’t want us to know about. Or what he’s going to do. Because he knows we’ll look over the cell with a microscope after.”

“But with Pell you didn’t think about him throwing everything out.”

“We never had an escape from Capitola. It can’t happen. And they’re watched so close, it’s almost impossible for a con to move on another one—kill him, I mean.” The man’s face was flushed. “I should’ve thought better. If it’d been Lompoc, I’d’ve known right away something was going down.” He rubbed his eyes. “I screwed up.”

“That’d be a tough leap to make,” Dance reassured him. “From housekeeping to escaping.”

He shrugged and examined his nails. He wore no jewelry but Dance could see the indentation of a wedding band. It occurred to her that, for once, this was no badge of infidelity but a concession to the job. Probably, circulating among dangerous prisoners, it was better not to wear anything they might steal.

“Sounds like you’ve been in this business for a while.”

“Long time. After the army I got into corrections. Been there ever since.” He brushed his crew-cut, grinning. “Sometimes seems like forever. Sometimes seems like just yesterday. Two years till I retire. In a funny way, I’ll miss it.” He was at ease now, realizing he wouldn’t be horsewhipped for not foreseeing the escape.

She asked about where he lived, his family. He was married and held up his left hand, laughing; her deduction about the ring proved correct. He and his wife had two children, both bound for college, he said proudly.

But while they chatted, a silent alarm was pulsing within Dance. She had a situation on her hands.

Tony Waters was lying.

Many falsehoods go undetected simply because the person being deceived doesn’t expect to be lied to. Dance had asked Waters here only to get information about Daniel Pell, so she wasn’t in interrogation mode. If Waters had been a suspect or a hostile witness, she’d have been looking for stress signs when he gave certain answers, then kept probing those topics until he admitted lying and eventually told the truth.

This process only works, though, if you determine the subject’s nondeceptive baseline behavior before you start asking the sensitive questions, which Dance, of course, had had no reason to do because she’d assumed he’d be truthful.

Even without a baseline comparison, though, a perceptive kinesic interrogator can sometimes spot deception. Two clues signal lying with some consistency: One is a very slight increase in the pitch of the voice, because lying triggers an emotional response within most people, and emotion causes vocal cords to tighten. The other signal is pausing before and during answering, since lying is mentally challenging. One who’s lying has to think constantly about what he and other people have said previously about the topic, then craft a fictitious response that’s consistent with those prior statements and what he believes the interrogator knows.

In her conversation with the guard, Dance had become aware that at several points his voice had risen in pitch and he’d paused when there was no reason for him to. Once she caught on to this, she looked back to other behaviors and saw that they suggested deception: offering more information than necessary, digressing, engaging in negation movement—touching his head, nose and eyes particularly—and aversion, turning away from her.

As soon as there’s evidence of deception, an interview turns into an interrogation, and the officer’s approach changes. It was at that point in their conversation that she’d broken off the questions about Pell and had begun talking about topics he’d have no reason to lie about—his personal life, the Peninsula, and so on. This was to establish his baseline behavior.

As she was doing this, Dance performed her standard four-part analysis of the subject himself, to give her an idea of how tactically to plan the interrogation.

First, she asked, what was his role in the incident? She concluded that Tony Waters was at best an uncooperative witness; at worst, an accomplice of Pell’s.

Second, did he have a motive to lie? Of course. Waters didn’t want to be arrested or lose his job because intentionally or through negligence he’d helped Daniel Pell escape. He might also have a personal or financial interest in aiding the killer.

Third, what was his personality type? Interrogators need this information to adjust their own demeanor when questioning the subject—should they be aggressive or conciliatory? Some officers simply determine if the subject is an introvert or extrovert, which gives a pretty good idea of how assertive to be. Dance, though, preferred a more comprehensive approach, trying to assign code letters from the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, which includes three other attributes in addition to introvert or extrovert: thinking or feeling, sensing or intuitive, judging or perceiving.

Dance concluded that Waters was a thinking-sensing-judging-extrovert, which meant that she could be more blunt with him than with a more emotional, internalized subject, and could use various reward-punishment techniques to break down the lies.

Finally, she asked: What kind of “liar’s personality” does Waters have? There are several types: Manipulators, or “High Machiavellians” (after the ruthless Italian prince), lie with impunity, seeing nothing wrong with it, using deceit as a tool to achieve their goals in love, business, politics—or crime. Other types include social liars, who lie to entertain, and adaptors, insecure people who lie to make positive impressions.

She decided that, given his career as a life-long prison guard and the ease with which he’d tried to take charge of the conversation and lead her away from the truth, Waters was in yet another category. He was an “actor,” someone for whom control was an important issue. They don’t lie regularly, only when necessary, and are less skilled than High Machs, but they’re good deceivers.

Dance now took off her glasses—chic ones, with dark red frames—and on the pretense of cleaning them, set them aside and put on narrower lenses encased in black steel, the “predator specs” she’d worn when interrogating Pell. She rose, walked around the desk and sat in the chair beside him.

Interrogators refer to the immediate space around a human being as the “proxemic zone,” ranging from “intimate,” six to eighteen inches, to “public,” ten feet away and beyond. Dance’s preferred space for interrogation was within the intermediate “personal” zone, about two feet away.

Waters noted the move with curiosity but he said nothing about it. Nor did she.

“Now, Tony. I’d just like to go over a few things one more time.”

“Sure, whatever.” He lifted his ankle to his knee—a move that seemed relaxed but in fact was a glaring defense maneuver.

She returned to a topic that, she now knew, had raised significant stress indicators in Waters. “Tell me again about the computers at Capitola.”

“Computers?”

Responding with a question was a classic indicator of deception; the subject is trying to buy time to decide where the interrogator is going and how to frame a response.

“Yes, what kind do you have?”

“Oh, I’m not a tech guy. I don’t know.” His foot tapped. “Dells, I think.”

“Laptops or desktops?”

“We have both. Mostly they’re desktops. Not that there’re, like, hundreds of them, you know.” He offered a conspiratorial smile. “State budgets and everything.” He told a story about recent financial cuts at the Department of Corrections, which Dance found interesting only because it was such a bald attempt at distracting her.

She steered him back. “Now, access to computers in Capitola. Tell me about it again.”

“Like I said, cons aren’t allowed to use them.”

Technically, this was a true statement. But he hadn’t said that cons don’t use them. Deception includes evasive answers as well as outright lies.

“Could they have access to them?”

“Not really.”

Sort of pregnant, kind of dead.

“How do you mean that, Tony?”

“I should’ve said, no, they can’t.”

“But you said guards and office workers have access.”

“Right.”

“Now, why couldn’t a con use a computer?”

Waters had originally said that this was because they were in a “control zone.” She recalled an aversion behavior and a slight change in pitch when he’d used the phrase.

He now paused for just a second as, she supposed, he was trying to recall what he’d said. “They’re in an area of limited access. Only nonviolent cons are allowed there. Some of them help out in the office, supervised, of course. Administrative duty. But they can’t use the computers.”

“And Pell couldn’t get in there?”

“He’s classified as One A.”

Dance noticed the nonresponsive answer. And the blocking gesture—a scratch of his eyelid—when he gave it.

“And that meant he wasn’t allowed in any . . . what were those areas again?”

“LA locations. Limited access.” He now remembered what he’d said earlier. “Or control zones.”

“Controlled or control?”

A pause. “Control zone.”

“Controlled—with an ed on the end—would make more sense. You’re sure that’s not it?”

He grew flustered. “Well, I don’t know. What difference does it make? We use ’em both.”

“And you use that term for other areas too? Like the warden’s office and the guards’ locker room—would they be control zones?”

“Sure. . . . I mean, some people use that phrase more than others. I picked it up at another facility.”

“Which one would that be?”

A pause. “Oh, I don’t remember. Look, I made it sound like it’s an official name or something. It’s just a thing we say. Everybody inside uses shorthand. I mean, prisons everywhere. Guards’re ‘hacks’; prisoners are ‘cons.’ It’s not official or anything. You do the same at CBI, don’t you? Everybody does.”

This was a double play: Deceptive subjects often try to establish camaraderie with their interrogators (“you do the same”) and use generalizations and abstractions (“everybody,” “everywhere”).

Dance asked in a low, steady voice, “Whether authorized or not, in whatever zone, have Daniel Pell and a computer ever been in the same room at the same time at Capitola?”

“I’ve never seen him on a computer, I swear. Honestly.”

The stress that people experience when lying pushes them into one of four emotional states: they’re angry, they’re depressed, they’re in denial or they want to bargain their way out of trouble. The words that Waters had just used—“I swear” and “honestly”—were expressions that, along with his agitated body language, very different from his baseline, told Dance that the guard was in the denial stage of deception. He just couldn’t accept the truth of whatever he’d done at the prison and was dodging responsibility for it.

It’s important to determine which stress state the subject is in because that allows the interrogator to decide on a tactic for questioning. When the subject is in the anger phase, for instance, you encourage him to vent until he exhausts himself.

In the case of denial, you attack on the facts.

Which was what she now did.

“You have access to the office where the computers are kept, right?”

“Yeah, I do, but so what? All the hacks do. . . . Hey, what is this? I’m on your side.”

A typical denier’s deflection, which Dance ignored. “And you said it’s possible some prisoners would be in that office. Has Pell ever been in there?”

“Nonviolent felons are the only ones allowed in—”

“Has Pell ever been in there?”

“I swear to God I never saw him.”

Dance noted adaptors—gestures meant to relieve tension: finger-flexing, foot-tapping—his shoulder aimed toward her (like a football player’s defensive posture) and more frequent glances at the door (liars actually glance at routes by which they can escape the stress of the interrogation).

“That’s about the fourth time you haven’t answered my question, Tony. Now, was Pell ever in any room in Capitola with a computer?”

The guard grimaced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be, you know, difficult. I just was kind of flustered, I guess. I mean, like, I felt you were accusing me of something. Okay, I never saw him on a computer, really. I wasn’t lying. I’ve been pretty upset by this whole thing. You can imagine that.” His shoulders drooped, his head lowered a half inch.

“Sure I can, Tony.”

“Maybe Daniel could’ve been.”

Her attack had made Waters realize that it was more painful to endure the battering of the interrogation than to own up to what he was lying about. Like turning a light switch, Waters was suddenly in the bargaining phase of deception. This meant he was getting close to dropping the deception but was still holding back the full truth, in an effort to escape punishment. Dance knew that she had to abandon the frontal assault now and offer him some way to save face.

In an interrogation the enemy isn’t the liar, but the lie.

“So,” she said in a friendly voice, sitting back, out of his personal zone, “it’s possible that at some point, Pell could’ve gotten access to a computer?”

“I guess it could’ve happened. But I don’t know for sure he was on one.” His head drooped even more. His voice was soft. “It’s just . . . it’s hard, doing what we do. People don’t understand. Being a hack. What it’s like.”

“I’m sure they don’t,” Dance agreed.

“We have to be teachers and cops, everything. And”—his voice lowered conspiratorially—“admin’s always looking over our shoulders, telling us to do this, do that, keep the peace, let them know when something’s going down.”

“Probably like being a parent. You’re always watching your children.”

“Yeah, exactly. It’s like having children.” Wide eyes—an affect display, revealing his emotion.

Dance nodded emphatically. “Obviously, Tony, you care about the cons. And about doing a good job.”

People in the bargaining phase want to be reassured and forgiven.

“It was nothing really, what happened.”

“Go ahead.”

“I made a decision.”

“It’s a tough job you have. You must have to make hard decisions every day.”

“Ha. Every hour.”

“So what did you have to decide?”

“Okay, see, Daniel was different.”

Dance noted the use of the first name. Pell had gotten Waters to believe they were buddies and exploited the faux friendship. “How do you mean?”

“He’s got this . . . I don’t know, power or something over people. The Aryans, the OGs, the Lats . . . he goes where he wants to and nobody touches him. Never seen anybody like him inside before. People do things for him, whatever he wants. People tell him things.”

“And so he gave you information. Is that it?”

“Good information. Stuff nobody couldn’t’ve got otherwise. Like, there was a guard selling meth. A con OD’d on it. There’s no way we could’ve found out who was the source. But Pell let me know.”

“Saved lives, I’ll bet.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. And, say somebody was going to move on somebody else? Gut ’em with a shank, whatever, Daniel’d tell me.”

Dance shrugged. “So you cut him some slack. You let him into the office.”

“Yeah. The TV in the office had cable, and sometimes he wanted to watch games nobody else was interested in. That’s all that happened. There was no danger or anything. The office’s a maximum-security lockdown area. There’s no way he could’ve gotten out. I went on rounds and he watched games.”

“How often?”

“Three, four times.”

“So he could’ve been online?”

“Maybe.”

“When most recently?”

“Yesterday.”

“Okay, Tony. Now tell me about the telephones.” Dance recalled seeing a stress reaction when he’d told her Pell had made no calls other than to his aunt; Waters had touched his lips, a blocking gesture.

If a subject confesses to one crime, it’s often easier to get him to confess to another.

Waters said, “The other thing about Pell, everybody’ll tell you, he was into sex, way into sex. He wanted to make some phone-sex calls and I let him.”

But Dance immediately noticed deviation from the baseline and concluded that although he was confessing, it was to a small crime, which usually means that there’s a bigger one lurking.

“Did he now?” she asked bluntly, leaning close once again. “And how did he pay for it? Credit card? Nine-hundred number?”

A pause. Waters hadn’t thought out the lie; he’d forgotten you had to pay for phone sex. “I don’t mean like you’d call up one of those numbers in the backs of newspapers. I guess it sounded like that’s what I meant. Daniel called some woman he knew. I think it was somebody who’d written him. He got a lot of mail.” A weak smile. “Fans. Imagine that. A man like him.”

Dance leaned a bit closer. “But when you listened there wasn’t any sex, was there?”

“No, I—” He must’ve realized he hadn’t said anything about listening in. But by then it was too late. “No. They were just talking.”

“You heard both of them?”

“Yeah, I was on a third line.”

“When was it?”

“About a month ago, the first time. Then a couple more times. Yesterday. When he was in the office.”

“Are calls there logged?”

“No. Not local ones.”

“If it was long distance it would be.”

Eyes on the floor. Waters was miserable.

“What, Tony?”

“I got him a phone card. You call an eight hundred number and punch in a code, then the number you want.”

Dance knew them. Untraceable.

“Really, you have to believe me. I wouldn’t’ve done it, except the information he gave me . . . it was good. It saved—”

“What were they talking about?” she asked in a friendly voice. You’re never rough with a confessing subject; they’re your new best friend.

“Just stuff. You know. Money, I remember.”

“What about it?”

“Pell asked how much she’d put together and she said ninety-two hundred bucks. And he said, ‘That’s all?’ ”

Pretty expensive phone sex, Dance reflected wryly.

“Then she asked about visiting hours and he said it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

So he didn’t want her to visit. No record of them together.

“Any idea of where she was?”

“He mentioned Bakersfield. He said specifically, ‘To Bakersfield.’ ”

Telling her to go to his aunt’s place and pick up the hammer to plant in the well.

“And, okay, it’s coming back to me now. She was telling him about wrens and hummingbirds in the backyard. And then Mexican food. ‘Mexican is comfort food.’ That’s what she said.”

“Did her voice have an ethnic or regional accent?”

“Not that I could tell.”

“Was it low or high, her voice?”

“Low, I guess. Kind of sexy.”

“Did she sound smart or stupid?”

“Jeez, I couldn’t tell.” He sounded exhausted.

“Is there anything else that’s helpful, Tony? Come on, we really need to get this guy.”

“Not that I can think of. I’m sorry.”

She looked him over and believed that, no, he didn’t know anything more.

“Okay. I think that’ll do it for the time being.”

He started out. At the door, he paused and looked back. “Sorry I was kind of confused. It’s been a tough day.”

“Not a good day at all,” she agreed. He remained motionless in the doorway, a dejected pet. When he didn’t get the reassurance he sought, he slumped away.

Dance called Carraneo, currently en route to the You Mail It store, and gave him the information she’d pried from the guard: that his partner didn’t seem to have any accent and that she had a low voice. That might help the manager remember the woman more clearly.

She then called the warden of Capitola and told her what happened. The woman was silent for a moment then offered a soft, “Oh.”

Dance asked if the prison had a computer specialist. It did, and she’d have him search the computers in the administrative office for online activity and emails yesterday. It should be easy since the staff didn’t work on Sunday and Pell presumably had been the only one online—if he had been.

“I’m sorry,” Dance said.

“Yeah. Thanks.”

The agent was referring not so much to Pell’s escape but to yet another consequence of it. Dance didn’t know the warden but supposed that to run a superprison, she was talented at her job and the work was important to her. It was a shame that her career in corrections, like Tony Waters’s, would probably soon be over.

Chapter 12

She’d done well, his little lovely.

Followed the instructions perfectly. Getting the hammer from his aunt’s garage in Bakersfield (how had Kathryn Dance figured that one out?). Embossing the wallet with Robert Herron’s initials. Then planting them in the well in Salinas. Making the fuse for the gas bomb (she’d said it was as easy as following a recipe for a cake). Planting the bag containing the fire suit and knife. Hiding clothes under the pine tree.

Pell, though, hadn’t been sure of her ability to look people in the eye and lie to them. So he hadn’t used her as a getaway driver from the courthouse. In fact, he’d made sure that she wasn’t anywhere near the place when he escaped. He didn’t want her stopped at a roadblock and giving everything away because she stammered and flushed with guilt.

Now, shoes off as she drove (he found that kinky), a happy smile on her face, Jennie Marston was chattering away in her sultry voice. Pell had wondered if she’d believe the story about his innocence in the deaths at the courthouse. But one thing that had astonished Daniel Pell in all his years of getting people to do what he wanted was how often they unwittingly leapt at the chance to be victims, how often they flung logic and caution to the wind and believed what they wanted to—that is, what he wanted them to.

Still, that didn’t mean Jennie would buy everything he told her, and in light of what he had planned for the next few days, he’d have to monitor her closely, see where she’d support him and where she’d balk.

They drove through a complicated route of surface streets, avoiding the highways with their potential roadblocks.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she said, voice tentative as she rested a hand on his knee with ambivalent desperation. He knew what she was feeling: torn between pouring out her love for him and scaring him off. The gushing would win out. Always did with women like her. Oh, Daniel Pell knew all about the Jennie Marstons of the world, the women breathlessly seduced by bad boys. He’d learned about them years ago, being a habitual con. You’re in a bar and you drop the news that you’ve done time, most women’ll blink and never come back from their next restroom visit. But there’re some who’ll get wet when you whisper about the crime you’d done and the time you’d served. They’d smile in a certain way, lean close and want to hear more.

That included murder—depending on how you couched it.

And Daniel Pell knew how to couch things.

Yes, Jennie was your classic bad-boy lover. You wouldn’t guess it to look at her, the skinny caterer with straight blond hair, a pretty face marred by a bumpy nose, dressing like a suburban mom at a Mary Chapin Carpenter concert.

Hardly the sort to write to lifers in places like Capitola.

Dear Daniel Pell:

You don’t know me but I saw a special about you, it was on A&E, and I don’t think it told the whole truth. I have also bought all the books I could find on you and read them and you are a fascinating man. And even if you did what they say I’m sure there were extreme circumstances about it. I could see it in your eyes. You were looking at the camera but it was like you were looking right at me. I have a background that is similar to yours, I mean your childhood (or absence of childhood (!) and I can understand where you are coming from. I mean totally. If you would like to, you can write me.

Very sincerely,

Jennie Marston

She wasn’t the only one, of course. Daniel Pell got a lot of mail. Some praising him for killing a capitalist, some condemning him for killing a family, some offering advice, some seeking it. Plenty of romantic overtures too. Most of the ladies, and men, would tend to lose steam after a few weeks, as reason set in. But Jennie had persisted, her letters growing more and more passionate.

My Dearest Daniel:

Today I was driving in the desert. Out near Palomar Observatory, where they have the big telescope. The sky was so big, it was dusk and there were stars just coming out. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. About how you said no one understands you and blames you for bad things you didn’t do, how hard that’s got to be. They don’t see into you, they don’t see the truth. Not like I do. You would never say it because your modest but they don’t see what a perfect human being you are.

I stopped the car, I couldn’t help myself, I was touching myself all over, you know doing what (I’ll bet you do, you dirty boy!) We made love there, you and me, watching the stars, I say “we” because you were there with me in spirit. I’d do anything for you, Daniel. . . .

It was such letters—reflecting her total lack of self-control and extraordinary gullibility—that had made Pell decide on her for the escape.

He now asked, “You were careful about everything, weren’t you? Nobody can trace the T-bird?”

“No. I stole it from a restaurant. There was this guy I went out with a couple years ago. I mean, we didn’t sleep together or anything.” She added this too fast, and he supposed they’d spent plenty of time humping like clueless little bunnies. Not that he cared. She continued, “He worked there and when I’d hang out I saw that nobody paid any attention to the valet-parking key box. So Friday I took the bus over there and waited across the street. When the valets were busy I got the keys. I picked the Thunderbird because this couple had just went inside so they’d be there for a while. I was on the One-oh-one in, like, ten minutes.”

“You drive straight through?”

“No, I spent the night in San Luis Obispo—but I paid cash, like you said.”

“And you burned all the emails, right? Before you left?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Good. You have the maps?”

“Yep, I do.” She patted her purse.

He looked over her body. The small swell of her chest, the thin legs and butt. Her long blond hair. Women let you know right up front the kind of license you have, and Pell knew he could touch her whenever and wherever he wanted. He put his hand on the nape of her neck; how thin, fragile. She made a sound that was actually purring.

The swelling within him continued to grow.

The purring too.

He waited as long as he could.

But the bubble won.

“Pull over there, baby.” He pointed toward a road under a grove of oak trees. It seemed to be a driveway to an abandoned farmhouse in the middle of an overgrown field.

She hit the brakes and turned down the road. Pell looked around. Not a soul he could see.

“Here?”

“This’s good.”

His hand slid from her neck down the front of her pink blouse. It looked new. She’d bought it just for him, he understood.

Pell lifted her face and pressed his lips against hers softly, not opening his mouth. He kissed her lightly, then backed away, making her come to him. She grew more and more frantic, the more he teased.

“I want you in me,” she whispered, reaching into the back, where he heard the crinkle of a bag. A Trojan appeared in her hand.

“We don’t have much time, baby. They’re looking for us.”

She got the message.

However innocent they look, girls who love bad boys know what they’re doing (and Jennie Marston didn’t look all that innocent). She unbuttoned her blouse and leaned over to the passenger seat, rubbing the padded bra against his crotch. “Lie back, sweetie. Close your eyes.”

“No.”

She hesitated.

“I want to watch you,” he whispered. Never give them more power than you have to.

More purring.

She unzipped his shorts and bent down.

Only a few minutes later he was finished. She was as talented as he’d expected—Jennie didn’t have many resources but she exploited the ones she had—and the event was fine, though when they got into the privacy of a motel room he’d up the ante considerably. But for now, this would do. And as for her, Pell knew his explosive, voluminous completion was satisfaction enough.

He turned his eyes to hers. “You’re wonderful, lovely. That was so special.”

She was so drunk on emotion that even this trite porn-movie dialogue would have sounded to her like a declaration of love out of an old-time novel.

“Oh, Daniel.”

He sat back and reassembled his clothes.

Jennie buttoned the blouse. Pell looked at the pink cloth, the embroidery, the metal tips on the collar.

She noticed him. “You like?”

“It’s nice.” He glanced out the window and studied the fields around them. Not worried about police, more intent on her. Aware she was studying the blouse.

Hesitantly Jennie said, “It’s awfully pink. Maybe too much. I just saw it and thought I’d get it.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s interesting.”

As she fastened the buttons she glanced at the pearl dots, then the embroidery, the cuffs. She’d probably had to work a whole week to afford it.

“I’ll change later if you want.”

“No, if you like it, that’s fine,” he said, getting his tone just right, like a singer hitting a difficult note. He glanced at the garment once more, then he leaned forward and kissed her—the forehead, not the mouth, of course. He scanned the field again. “We should get back on the road.”

“Sure.” She wanted him to tell her more about the blouse. What was wrong with it? Did he hate pink? Did an ex-girlfriend have a shirt like it? Did it make her boobs look small?

But, of course, he said nothing.

Jennie smiled when he touched her leg and she put the car in gear. She returned to the road, glancing down one last time at the blouse, which, Pell knew, she would never wear again. His goal had been for her to throw it out; he had a pretty good idea that she would.

And the irony was that the blouse looked really good on her, and he liked it quite a bit.

But offering his subtle disapproval and watching her reaction gave him a nice picture of exactly where she was. How controllable, how loyal.

A good teacher always knows the exact state of his student’s progress.

•    •    •

Michael O’Neil sat in a chair in Dance’s office, rocking back and forth on its rear legs, his shoes on her battered coffee table. It was his favorite way to sit. (Kinesically Dance put the habit down to nervous energy—and a few other issues, which, because she was so close to him, she chose not to analyze in more depth.)

He, TJ Scanlon and Dance were gazing at her phone, from whose speaker a computer tech from Capitola prison was explaining, “Pell did get online yesterday, but apparently he didn’t send any emails—at least not then. I couldn’t tell about earlier. Yesterday he only browsed the Web. He erased the sites he visited but he forgot about erasing search requests. I found what he was looking up.”

“Go ahead.”

“He did a Google search for ‘Alison’ and ‘Nimue.’ He searched those together, as limiting terms.”

Dance asked for spellings.

“Then he did another. ‘Helter Skelter.’ ”

O’Neil and Dance shared a troubled glance. The phrase was the title of a Beatles song, which Charles Manson was obsessed with. He had used the term to refer to an impending race war in America. It was also the title of the award-winning book about the cult leader and the murders by the man who prosecuted him.

“Then he went to Visual-Earth dot com. Like Google Earth. You can see satellite pictures of practically everywhere on the planet.”

Great, Dance thought. Though it turned out not to be. There was no way to narrow down what he’d looked for.

“It could’ve been highways in California, it could’ve been Paris or Key West or Moscow.”

“And what’s ‘Nimue’?”

“No idea.”

“Does it mean anything in Capitola?”

“No.”

“Any employees there named Alison?”

The disembodied voice of the techie said, “Nope. But I was going to say I might be able to find out what sites he logged onto. It depends on whether he just erased or shredded them. If they’re shredded, forget it. But if they’re just dumped I might be able to find them floating around in the free space somewhere on the hard drive.”

“Anything you can do would be appreciated,” Dance said.

“I’ll get right on it.”

She thanked him and they disconnected.

“TJ, check out ‘Nimue.’ ”

His fingers flew over the keyboard. The results came up and he scrolled through them. After a few minutes he said, “Hundreds of thousands of hits. Looks like a lot of people use it as a screen name.”

O’Neil said, “Somebody he knew online. Or a nickname. Or somebody’s real last name.”

Staring at the screen, TJ continued, “Trademarks too: cosmetics, electronic equipment—hm, sex products . . . Never seen one of those before.”

“TJ,” Dance snapped.

“Sorry.” He scrolled again. “Interesting. Most references are to King Arthur.”

“As in Camelot?”

“I guess.” He continued to read. “Nimue was the Lady of the Lake. This wizard, Merlin, fell in love with her—he was like a hundred or something and she was sixteen. Now that’ll guarantee you twenty minutes on Dr. Phil.” He read some more. “Merlin taught her how to be a sorceress. Oh, and she gave King Arthur this magic sword.”

“Excalibur,” O’Neil said.

“What?” TJ asked.

“The sword. Excalibur. Haven’t you heard any of this before?” the detective asked.

“Naw, I didn’t take Boring Made-up Stuff in college.”

“I like the idea that it’s somebody he was trying to find. Cross-check ‘Nimue’ with ‘Pell,’ ‘Alison,’ ‘California,’ ‘Carmel,’ ‘Croyton’ . . . Anything else?”

O’Neil suggested, “The women: Sheffield, McCoy, Whitfield.”

“Good.”

After several minutes of frantic typing the agent looked over at Dance. “Sorry, boss. Zip.”

“Check the search terms out with VICAP, NCIC and the other main criminal databases.”

“Will do.”

Dance stared at the words she’d written. What did they mean? Why had he risked going online to check them out?

Helter Skelter, Nimue, Alison . . .

And what had he been looking at on Visual-Earth? A place he intended to flee to, a place he intended to burglarize?

She asked O’Neil, “What about the forensics at the courthouse?”

The detective consulted his notes. “No red flags. Almost everything was burned or melted. The gas was in plastic milk jugs inside a cheap roller suitcase. Sold in a dozen places—Wal-Mart, Target, stores like that. The fireproof bag and fire suit were made by Protection Equipment, Inc., New Jersey. Available all over the world but most are sold in Southern California.”

“Brushfires?”

“Movies. For stuntmen. A dozen outlets. Not much to follow up on, though. There’re no serial numbers. They couldn’t lift any prints off the bag or the suit. Now, the additives in the gas mean it was BP but we can’t narrow it down to a particular station. The fuse was homemade. Rope soaked in slow-burning chemicals. None of them’re traceable either.”

“TJ, what’s the word on the aunt?”

“Zip so far. I’m expecting a breakthrough any moment.”

Her phone rang. It was another call from Capitola. The warden was with the prisoner who claimed he had some information about Daniel Pell. Did Dance want to talk to him now?

“Sure.” She hit the speakerphone button. “This is Agent Dance. I’m here with Detective O’Neil.”

“Hey. I’m Eddie Chang.”

“Eddie,” the warden added, “is doing a five-to-eight for bank robbery. He’s in Capitola because he can be a bit . . . slippery.”

“How well did you know Daniel Pell?” Dance asked.

“Not really good. Nobody did. But I was somebody who, you know, wasn’t no threat to him. So he kind of opened up to me.”

“And you’ve got some information on him?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why’re you helping us?” O’Neil asked.

“Up for parole in six months. I help you, it’ll go good for me. Provided you catch him, of course. If you don’t, I think I’ll stay in the Big C here until you do, now that I’m rolling over on him.”

O’Neil asked, “Did Pell talk about girlfriends or anyone on the outside? Particularly a woman?”

“He bragged about the women he’d had. He’d give us these great stories. It was like watching a porn film. Oh, man, we loved those stories.”

“You remember any names? Someone named Alison?”

“He never mentioned anybody.”

After what Tony Waters had told her, Dance suspected that Pell was making up the sex stories—using them as incentives to get the cons to do things for him.

She asked, “So, what do you want to tell us?”

“I have this idea where he might be headed.” Dance and O’Neil shared a glance. “Outside of Acapulco. There’s a town there, Santa Rosario, in the mountains.”

“Why there?”

“Okay, what it was, maybe a week ago we were sitting around bullshitting and there was a new con, Felipe Rivera, doing a back-to-back ’cause he got trigger-happy during a GTA. We were talking and Pell finds out he was from Mexico. So Pell’s asking him about this Santa Rosario. Rivera’d never heard of it, but Pell’s pretty anxious to find out more, so he describes it, like trying to jog his memory. It’s got a hot spring and it’s not near any big highways and there’s this steep mountain nearby. . . . But Rivera couldn’t remember anything. Then Pell shut up about it and changed the subject. So I was figuring that’s what he might’ve had in mind.”

Dance asked, “Before that, had he ever mentioned Mexico?”

“Maybe. Can’t say as I recall.”

“Think back, Eddie. Say, six months, a year. Did Pell ever talk about someplace else he’d like to go?”

Another pause. “No. Sorry. I mean, no place he thought was, man, I’ve gotta go there because it’s kick-ass, or whatever.”

“How about somewhere he was just interested in? Or curious about?”

“Oh, hey, a couple times he mentioned that Mormon place.”

“Salt Lake City.”

“No. The state. Utah. What he liked was that you could have a lot of wives.”

The Family . . .

“He said in Utah the police don’t give you any shit because it’s the Mormons who run the state and they don’t like the FBI or the state police snooping around. You can do whatever you want in Utah.”

“When did he tell you that?”

“I don’t know. A while ago. Last year. Then maybe a month ago.”

Dance glanced at O’Neil and he nodded.

“Let me call you back. Can you wait there for a minute?”

A laugh from Chang. “And where would I go?”

She disconnected, then called Linda Whitfield and, after her, Rebecca Sheffield. Neither woman knew of any interest Pell had ever expressed in either Mexico or Utah. As for the attraction of Mormon polygamy, Linda said he’d never mentioned it. Rebecca laughed. “Pell liked sleeping with several women. That’s different from being married to several women. Real different.”

Dance and O’Neil walked upstairs to Charles Overby’s office and briefed him about the possible destinations, as well as the three references they’d found in the Google search, and the crime-scene results.

“Acapulco?”

“No. It was a plant, I’m sure. He asked about it just last week and in front of other cons. It’s too obvious. Utah’s more likely. But I’ve got to find out more.”

“Well, front burner it, Kathryn,” Overby said. “I just got a call from The New York Times.” His phone rang.

“It’s Sacramento on two, Charles,” his assistant said. He sighed and grabbed the handset.

Dance and O’Neil left and just as they got into the hallway, his phone rang too. As they walked, she glanced at him several times. Michael O’Neil’s affect displays—signals of emotion—were virtually invisible most of the time, but they were obvious to her. She deduced the call was about Juan Millar. She could see clearly how upset he was about his fellow officer’s injury. She didn’t know the last time he’d been so troubled.

O’Neil hung up and gave her a summary of the detective’s condition: It was the same as earlier but he’d been awake once or twice.

“Go see him,” Dance said.

“You sure?”

“I’ll follow up here.”

Dance returned to her office, pausing to pour another coffee from the pot near Maryellen Kresbach, who said nothing more about phone messages, though Dance sensed she wanted to.

Brian called. . . .

This time she grabbed the chocolate chip cookie she’d been fantasizing about. At her desk she called Chang and the warden back.

“Eddie, I want to keep going. I want you to tell me more about Pell. Anything about him you can remember. Things he said, things he did. What made him laugh, what made him mad.”

A pause. “I don’t know what to tell you, really.” He sounded confused.

“Hey, how’s this for an idea? Pretend somebody was going to set me up on a date with Pell. What would you tell me about him before we went out?”

“A date with Daniel Pell. Whoa, that’s one fucking scary thought.”

“Do your best, Cupid.”

Chapter 13

Back in her office, Dance heard the frog croak again and she picked up her cell phone.

The caller was Rey Carraneo, reporting that the manager of the You Mail It franchise on San Benito Way in Salinas did remember a woman in the store about a week ago.

“Only, she didn’t mail anything, Agent Dance. She just asked about when the different delivery services stopped there. Worldwide Express was the most regular, he told her. Like clockwork. He wouldn’t’ve thought anything about it, except that he saw her outside a few days later, sitting on a park bench across the street. I’d guess she was checking the times herself.”

Unfortunately, Carraneo couldn’t do an EFIS image because she’d worn the baseball cap and dark sunglasses then too. Nor had the manager seen her car.

They disconnected, and she wondered again when the Worldwide Express driver’s body would be found.

More violence, more death, another family altered.

The ripples of consequence can spread almost forever.

It was just as that recollection of Morton Nagle’s words was passing through her mind that Michael O’Neil called. Coincidentally, his message was about that very driver’s fate.

•    •    •

Dance was in the front seat of her Taurus.

From the CD player, the original Fairfield Four gospel singers did their best to distract her from the carnage of the morning: “I’m standing in the safety zone . . .”

Music was Kathryn Dance’s salvation. Policework for her wasn’t test tubes and computer screens. It was people. Her job required her to blend her mind and heart and emotions with theirs and stay close to them so that she could discern the truths they knew but hesitated to share. The interrogations were usually difficult and sometimes wrenching, and the memories of what the subjects had said and done, often horrendous crimes, never left her completely.

If Alan Stivell’s Celtic harp melodies or Natty Bo and Beny Billy’s irrepressible ska Cubano tunes or Lightnin’ Hopkins’s raw, zinging chords were churning in her ears and thoughts, she tended not to hear the shocking replays of her interviews with rapists and murderers and terrorists.

Dance now lost herself in the scratchy tones of the music from a half-century ago.

“Roll, Jordan, roll . . .”

Five minutes later she pulled into an office park on the north side of Monterey, just off Munras Avenue, and climbed out. She walked into the ground-floor garage, where the Worldwide Express driver’s red Honda Civic sat, trunk open, blood smeared on the sheet metal. O’Neil and a town cop were standing beside it.

Someone else was with them.

Billy Gilmore, the driver Dance had been sure was Pell’s next victim. To her shock, he’d been found very much alive.

The heavyset man had some bruises and a large bandage on his forehead—covering the cut that was apparently the source of the blood—but, it turned out, the injuries weren’t from being beaten by Pell; he’d cut himself shifting around in the trunk to get comfortable. “I wasn’t trying to get out. I was afraid to. But somebody heard me, I guess, and called the police. I was supposed to stay in there for three hours, Pell told me. If I didn’t he said he’d kill my wife and kids.”

“They’re okay,” O’Neil explained to Dance. “We’ve got them in protection.” He related Billy’s story about Pell’s hijacking the truck, then the car. The driver had confirmed that Pell was armed.

“What was he wearing?”

“Shorts, a dark windbreaker, baseball cap, I think. I don’t know. I was really freaked out.”

O’Neil had called in the new description to the roadblocks and search parties.

Pell had given Billy no idea where he was ultimately going, but was very clear about directions to this garage. “He knew just where it was and that it’d be deserted.”

The woman accomplice had checked this out too, of course. She’d met him here and they’d headed for Utah, presumably.

“Do you remember anything else?” Dance asked.

Just after he’d slammed the trunk lid, Billy said, he’d heard the man’s voice again.

“Somebody was with him?”

“No, it was just him. I think he was making a call. He had my phone.”

“Your phone?” Dance asked, surprised. A glance at O’Neil, who immediately called the Sheriff’s Office technical-support people, and had the techs get in touch with the driver’s cell phone service provider to set up a trace.

Dance asked if Billy had heard anything that Pell said. “No. It was just mumbling to me.”

O’Neil’s mobile rang and he listened for a few minutes and said to Dance, “Nope. It’s either destroyed or the battery’s out. They can’t find a signal.”

Dance looked around the garage. “He’s dumped it somewhere. Let’s hope nearby. We should have somebody check the trash cans—and the drains in the street.”

“Bushes too,” O’Neil said and sent two of his deputies off on the task.

TJ joined them. “He did come this way. Call me crazy, boss, but this isn’t on the route I myself would take to Utah.”

Whether or not Pell was headed for Utah, his coming to downtown Monterey was surprising. It was a small town and he’d easily be spotted, and there were far fewer escape routes than if he’d gone east, north or south. A risky place to meet his accomplice, but a brilliant move. This was the last place they’d expect him.

One other question nagged.

“Billy, I need to ask you something. Why are you still alive?”

“I . . . Well, I begged him not to hurt me. Practically got on my hands and knees. It was embarrassing.”

It was also a lie. Dance didn’t even need a baseline to see the stress flood through the man’s body. He looked away and his face flushed.

“I need to know the truth. It could be important,” she said.

“Really. I was crying like a baby. I think he felt sorry for me.”

“Daniel Pell has never felt sorry for a human being in his life,” O’Neil said.

“Go on,” Dance said softly.

“Well, okay . . .” He swallowed and his face turned bright red. “We made a deal. He was going to kill me. I’m sure he was. I said if he’d let me live . . .” Tears filled his eyes. It was hard to watch the misery but Dance needed to understand Pell, and why this man was still alive, when two others had been killed under similar circumstances.

“Go on,” she said softly.

“I said if he let me live I’d do anything for him. I meant give him money or something. But he said he wanted me to . . . See, he saw my wife’s picture and he liked how she looked. So he asked me to tell him about the things we did together. You know, intimate things.” He stared at the concrete floor of the garage. “Like, he wanted all the details. I mean, everything.”

“What else?” Dance prompted.

“Naw, that was it. It was so embarrassing.”

“Billy, please tell me.”

His eyes filled with tears. His jaw was trembling.

“What?”

A deep breath. “He got my home phone number. And he said he’d call me at night sometime. Maybe next month, maybe six months. I’d never know. And when he called, my wife and me were supposed to go in the bedroom. And, you know . . .” The words caught in his throat. “I was supposed to leave the phone off the hook so he could listen to us. Pam had to say some things he told me.”

Dance glanced at O’Neil, who exhaled softly. “We’ll catch him before anything like that happens.”

The man wiped his face. “I almost told him, ‘No, you fucker. Go ahead and kill me.’ But I couldn’t.”

“Why don’t you go be with your family? Get out of town for a while.”

“I almost told him that. I really did.”

A medical tech led him back to the ambulance.

O’Neil whispered, “What the hell’re we up against here?”

Echoing Dance’s exact thought.

“Detective, I’ve got a phone,” an MCSO deputy called as he joined them. “Was up the street in a trash can. The battery was in another can, across the street.”

“Good catch,” O’Neil told the man.

Dance took a pair of latex gloves from TJ, pulled them on, then took the phone and replaced the battery. She turned it on and scrolled through recent calls. None had been received but five had been made since the escape. She called them out to O’Neil, who was on the phone with his tech people again. They did a reverse lookup.

The first wasn’t a working number; it wasn’t even a real exchange prefix—which meant that the call to the accomplice about Billy’s family had never occurred. It was simply to frighten him into cooperating.

The second and third calls were to another number, which turned out to be a prepaid mobile phone. It was presently off, probably destroyed; there was no signal to triangulate on.

The last two numbers were more helpful. The first was a 555-1212 call, directory assistance. The area code was Utah. The last number—the one Pell had presumably gotten from the operator—was an RV campsite outside Salt Lake City.

“Bingo,” TJ said.

Dance called the number and identified herself. She asked if they’d received a call forty minutes ago. The clerk said that she had, a man from Missouri, driving west, who was curious how much it cost to park a small Winnebago there by the week.

“Any other calls around that time?”

“My mother and two of the guests here, complaining about something or other. That was all.”

“Did the man say when he’d be arriving?”

“No.”

Dance thanked the woman and told her to call them immediately if he contacted them again. She explained to O’Neil and TJ what the RV camp manager had said and then phoned the Utah State Police—she was friends with a captain in Salt Lake City—and told him the situation. The USP would immediately send a surveillance team to the campsite.

Dance’s eyes slipped to the miserable driver, staring at the ground again. The man would live for the rest of his life with the horror he’d experienced today—perhaps less the kidnapping itself than the degradation of Pell’s deal.

She thought again of Morton Nagle; Billy had escaped with his life, but was yet another victim of Daniel Pell.

“Should I tell Overby about Utah?” TJ asked. “He’ll want to get word out.”

She was interrupted, though, by a phone call. “Hold on,” she told the young agent. She answered. It was the computer specialist from Capitola prison. Excited, the young man said that he’d managed to find one site that Pell had visited. It had to do with the Helter Skelter search.

“It was pretty smart,” the man said. “I don’t think he had any interest in the term itself. He used it to find a bulletin board where people post messages about crime and murder. It’s called ‘Manslaughter.’ There’re different categories, depending on the type of crimes. One’s ‘The Bundy Effect,’ about serial killers. You know, after Ted Bundy. ‘Helter Skelter’ is devoted to cult murders. I found a message that had been posted on Saturday, and I think it was meant for him.”

Dance said, “And he didn’t type the URL to Manslaughter dot com directly, in case we checked the computer and would find the website.”

“Right. He used the search engine instead.”

“Clever. Can you find out who posted it?”

“It was anonymous. No way to trace it.”

“And what did it say?”

He read her the short message, only a few lines long. There was no doubt it was intended for Pell; it gave the last-minute details of the escape. The poster of the message added something else at the end, but, as Dance listened, she shook her head. It made no sense.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

He did.

“Okay,” Dance said. “Appreciate it. Forward me a copy of that.” She gave her email address.

“Anything else I can do, let me know.”

Dance disconnected and stood silently for a moment, trying to fathom the message. O’Neil noticed her troubled face but didn’t disturb her with questions.

She debated and then came to a decision. She called Charles Overby and told him about the camper park in Utah. Her boss was delighted at the news.

Then, thinking about the conversation with Eddie Chang about her imaginary date with Pell, she called Rey Carraneo back and sent him on another assignment.

As the young agent digested her request he said uncertainly, “Well, sure, Agent Dance. I guess.”

She didn’t blame him; the task was unorthodox, to say the least. Still, she said, “Pull out all the stops.”

“Um.”

She deduced he hadn’t heard the expression.

“Move fast.”

Chapter 14

“We’re getting sand dabs.”

“Okay,” Jennie agreed. “What’s that?”

“These little fish. Like anchovies, but they’re not salty. We’ll get sandwiches. I’m having two. You want two?”

“Just one, honey.”

“Put vinegar on them. They have that at the tables.”

Jennie and Pell were in Moss Landing, north of Monterey. On the land side was the massive Duke Power plant, its steam stacks soaring high into the air. Across the highway was a small spit of land, an island really, accessible only by bridge. On this strip of sandy soil were marine service companies, docks and the rambling, massive structure where Pell and Jennie now sat: Jack’s Seafood. It had been in business for three-quarters of a century. John Steinbeck, Joseph Campbell and Henry Miller—as well as Monterey’s most famous madam, Flora Woods—would sit around the stained, scarred tables, arguing, laughing and drinking till the place closed, and sometimes until much later.

Now Jack’s was a commercial fishery, seafood market and cavernous restaurant, all rolled into one. The atmosphere was much less bohemian and volatile than in the forties and fifties, but in compensation the place had been featured on the Food Channel.

Pell remembered it from the days when the Family lived not far from here, in Seaside. The Family didn’t go out to eat much, but he’d send Jimmy or Linda to buy sand dab sandwiches and fries and coleslaw. He just loved the food and he was real happy the restaurant hadn’t closed up.

He had some business to take care of on the Peninsula but there’d be a little delay before he could proceed with that. Besides, he was starving and figured he could take a chance being out in public. The police wouldn’t be looking for a happy tourist couple—especially here, since they believed he was halfway to Utah by now, according to the news story he’d heard on the radio, some pompous ass named Charles Overby making the announcement.

Jack’s had an outdoor patio with a view of the fishing boats and the bay, but Pell wanted to stay inside and keep an eye on the door. Carefully avoiding the urge to adjust the uncomfortable automatic pistol in his back waistband, Pell sat down at the table, Jennie beside him. She pressed her knee against his.

Pell sipped his iced tea. He glanced at her and saw her watching a revolving carousel with tall cakes in it.

“You want dessert after the sand dabs?”

“No, honey. They don’t look very good.”

“They don’t?” They didn’t to him; Pell didn’t have a sweet tooth. But they were some pretty damn big hunks of cake. Inside, in Capitola, you could bargain one piece for a whole carton of cigarettes.

“They’re just sugar and white flour and flavorings. Corn syrup and cheap chocolate. They look good and they’re sweet but they don’t taste like anything.”

“For your catering jobs, you wouldn’t make those?”

“No, no, I’d never do that.” Her voice was lively as she nodded toward the merry-go-round of pastry. “People eat a lot of that stuff because it’s not satisfying, and they want more. I make a chocolate cake without any flour at all. It’s chocolate, sugar, ground nuts, vanilla and egg yolks. Then I pour a little raspberry glaze on the top. You just need a few bites of that and you’re happy.”

“Sounds pretty good.” He thought it was repulsive. But she was telling him about herself, and you always encouraged people to do that. Get ’em drunk, let ’em ramble. Knowledge was a better weapon than a knife. “Is that what you do mostly? Work for bakeries?”

“Well, I like baking best, ’cause I have more control. I make everything myself. On the other food lines you have people prepping part of the dishes.”

Control, he reflected. Interesting. He filed that fact away.

“Then sometimes I serve. You get tips when you serve.”

“I’ll bet you get good ones.”

“I can, yeah. Depends.”

“And you like it? . . . What’re you laughing at?”

“Just . . . I don’t know the last time anybody—I mean a boyfriend—asked me if I like my job. . . . Anyway, sure, serving’s fun. Sometimes I pretend I’m not just serving. I pretend it’s my party, with my friends and family.”

Outside the window a hungry seagull hovered over a piling, then landed clumsily, looking for scraps. Pell had forgotten how big they were.

Jennie continued, “It’s like when I bake a cake, say, a wedding cake. Sometimes I just think it’s the little happinesses that’re all we can count on. You bake the best cake you can and people enjoy it. Oh, not forever. But what on earth makes you happy forever?”

Good point. “I’ll never eat anybody’s cake but yours.”

She gave a laugh. “Oh, sure you will, sweetie. But I’m happy you said that. Thank you.”

These few words had made her sound mature. Which meant, in control. Pell felt defensive. He didn’t like it. He changed the subject. “Well, I hope you like your sand dabs. I love them. You want another iced tea?”

“No, I’m fine for now. Just sit close to me. That’s what I want.”

“Let’s look over the maps.”

She opened her bag and took them out. She unfolded one and Pell examined it, noticing how the layout of the Peninsula had changed in the past eight years. Then he paused, aware of a curious feeling within him. He couldn’t quite figure out the sensation. Except that it was real nice.

Then he realized: he was free.

His confinement, eight years of being under someone else’s control, was over, and he could now start his life over again. After finishing up his missions here, he’d leave for good and start another Family. Pell glanced around him, at the other patrons in the restaurant, noting several of them in particular: the teenage girl, two tables away, her silent parents hunched over their food, as if actually having a conversation would be torture. The girl, a bit plump, could be easily seduced away from home when she was alone in an arcade or Starbucks. It would take him two days, tops, to convince her it was safe to get into the van with him.

And at the counter, the young man of about twenty (he’d been denied a beer when he’d “forgotten” his ID). He was inked—silly tattoos, which he probably regretted—and wore shabby clothes, which, along with his meal of soup, suggested money problems. His eyes zipped around the restaurant, settling on every female older than sixteen or so. Pell knew exactly what it would take to sign the boy up in a matter of hours.

Pell noted too the young mother, single, if the naked ring finger told the truth. She sat slouching in a funk—man problems, of course. She was hardly aware of her baby in a stroller by her side. She never once looked down at the child, and good luck if it started crying; she’d lose patience fast. There was a story behind her defeated posture and resentful eyes, though Pell didn’t care what it might be. The only message of interest to him was that her connection to the child was fragile. Pell knew that if he could lure the woman to join them, it wouldn’t take much work to separate mother and child, and Pell would become an instant father.

He thought of the story his aunt Barbara had read him when he’d stayed with her in Bakersfield: the Pied Piper of Hamelin, the man who spirited away the children of a medieval German town, dancing as they followed, when the citizens refused to pay him for eliminating a rat infestation. The story had made a huge impression on Pell and stayed with him. As an adult he read more about the incident. The real facts were different from the Brothers Grimm and popular versions. There were probably no rats involved, no unpaid bills; a number of children simply disappeared from Hamelin and were never found again. The disappearance—and the parents’ reportedly apathetic response—remained a mystery.

One explanation was that the children, infected with plague or a disease that induced dancelike spasms, were led out of town to die because the adults feared contagion. Another was that the Pied Piper organized a religious pilgrimage for children, who died on the road in some natural disaster or when they were caught in a military conflict.

There was another theory, though, which Pell preferred. That the children left their parents willingly and followed the Pied Piper to Eastern Europe, then being colonized, where they created settlements of their own, with him as their absolute leader. Pell loved the idea that someone had the talent to lure away dozens of—some said more than a hundred—youngsters from their families and become their substitute parent. What sorts of skills had the Piper been born with, or perfected?

He was lulled from his daydreams by the waitress, who brought their food. His eyes strayed to her breasts, then down to the food.

“Looks scrumptious, sweetie,” Jennie said, staring at her plate.

Pell handed her a bottle. “Here’s the malt vinegar. You put that on them. Just sprinkle it on.”

“Okay.”

He took one more look around the restaurant: the sullen girl, the edgy boy, the distant mother . . . He wouldn’t pursue any of them now, of course. He was simply ecstatic to see that so many opportunities beckoned. After life was settled, in a month or so, he’d begin hunting again—the arcades, the Starbucks, the parks, the schoolyards and campuses, McDonald’s.

The Pied Piper of California . . .

Daniel Pell’s attention turned to his lunch and he began to eat.

•    •    •

The cars sped north on Highway 1.

Michael O’Neil was behind the wheel of his unmarked MCSO Ford, Dance beside him. TJ was in a CBI pool Taurus right behind them, and two Monterey Police cruisers were tailing them. The Highway Patrol was sending several cars to the party too, and the nearest town, Watsonville, was sending a squad car south.

O’Neil was doing close to eighty. They could’ve gone faster but traffic was heavy. Portions of the road were only two lanes. And they used only lights, no sirens.

They were presently en route to where they believed Daniel Pell and his blond accomplice were, against all odds, eating a leisurely lunch.

Kathryn Dance had had her doubts about Pell’s destination of Utah. Her intuition told her that, like Mexico, Utah was probably a false lead, especially after learning that Rebecca and Linda had never heard Pell mention the state, and after finding the mobile phone conveniently discarded near the Worldwide Express driver’s car. And, most important, he’d left the driver alive to report to the police about the phone and that he’d heard Pell making a call. The sexual game he’d played with Billy was one excuse for keeping him alive, but it struck Dance that, however kinky, no escapee would waste time on a porn encounter like that.

But then she’d heard from the computer tech at Capitola, who’d read to her the message that the accomplice had posted on the “Manslaughter” bulletin board in the “Helter Skelter” category: Package will be there about 9:20. WWE delivery truck at San Benito at 9:50. Orange ribbon on pine tree. Will meet in front of grocery store we mentioned.

This was the first part of the message, a final confirmation of the escape plan. What had been so surprising to Dance, though, was the final sentence.

Room all set and checking on those locations around Monterey you wanted.—Your lovely.

Which suggested, to everyone’s astonishment, that Pell might be staying nearby.

Dance and O’Neil could deduce no reason for this. It was madness. But if he was staying, Dance decided to make him feel confident enough to show himself. And so she’d done what she never would have otherwise. She’d used Charles Overby. She knew that once she told him about Utah, he’d run to the press immediately and announce that the search was now focused on the routes east. This would, she hoped, give Pell a false sense of security and make him more likely to appear in public.

But where might that be?

She hoped the answer to that question might be found in her conversation with Eddie Chang, getting a sense of what Daniel Pell had hinted appealed to him, his interests and urges. Sex figured prominently, Chang told her, which meant he might head for massage parlors, brothels or escort agencies, but there were few on the Peninsula. Besides, he had his female partner, who presumably would be satisfying him in that department.

“What else?” she’d asked Chang.

“Oh, hey, I remember one thing. Food.”

Daniel Pell, it seemed, had a particular love of seafood, especially a tiny fish known as the sand dab. He had mentioned on several occasions that there were only four or five restaurants in the Central Coast area that knew how to cook them right. And he was opinionated about how they should be prepared. Dance got the names of the restaurants Chang could remember. Three had closed in the years since Pell had gone into prison, but one at Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey and one in Moss Landing were still open.

That was the unorthodox assignment Dance had given Rey Carraneo: calling those two restaurants—and any others up and down the Central Coast with similar menus—and telling them about the escaped prisoner, who might be in the company of a slight woman with blond hair.

It was a long shot, and Dance didn’t have much hope that the idea would pay off. But Carraneo had just heard back from the manager of Jack’s, the landmark restaurant at Moss Landing. A couple was in there at the moment, and he thought they were acting suspicious—sitting inside where they could see the front door, which the boyfriend kept looking at, when most patrons were outside. The man was clean-shaven and wearing sunglasses and a cap so they couldn’t really tell if he was Pell. The woman appeared to be blond, though she too had a cap and shades on. But the ages of the couple were right.

Dance had called the manager of the restaurant directly and asked if someone there could find out which car the couple had come in. The manager didn’t have any idea. But the lot wasn’t crowded and one of the busboys had gone outside and, in Spanish, given Dance the tag numbers of all the cars parked in the small lot.

A fast DMV check revealed that one, a turquoise Thunderbird, had been stolen just last Friday—though, curiously, not in the area but in Los Angeles.

Maybe it was a false alarm. But Dance decided to move on the place; if nothing else, they’d collar a car thief. She’d alerted O’Neil, and then told the manager, “We’ll be there as soon as we can. Don’t do anything. Just ignore him and act normally.”

“Act normal,” the man said with a shaking voice. “Yeah, right.”

Kathryn Dance was now anticipating her next interrogation session with Pell, when he was back in custody. The number one question she was eager to learn the answer to: Why was he staying in the area?

Cruising through Sand City, a commercial strip along Highway 1, the traffic grew lighter, and O’Neil punched the accelerator hard. They’d be at the restaurant in ten minutes.

Chapter 15

“Are those the best thing you ever tasted?”

“Oh, honey, they’re good. Sandy dabs.”

“Sand dabs,” Pell corrected. He was thinking of having a third sandwich.

“So, that was my ex,” she continued. “I never see him or hear from him. Thank God.”

She’d just given him the details of the husband—an accountant and businessman and a wimpy little guy, believe it or not—who’d put her in the hospital twice with internal injuries, once with a broken arm. He screamed at her when she forgot to iron the sheets, when she didn’t get pregnant after only one month of trying, when the Lakers lost. He told her that her tits were like a boy’s, which is why he couldn’t get it up. He told her in front of his friends that she’d “look okay” if she got her nose fixed.

A petty man, Pell thought, one controlled by everything except himself.

Then he heard the further installments of the soap opera: the boyfriends after the divorce. They seemed like him, bad boys. But Pell Lite, he thought. One was a petty thief who lived in Laguna, between L.A. and San Diego. He worked low-stakes scams. One sold drugs. One was a biker. One was just a shit.

Pell had been through his share of therapy. Most of it was pointless but sometimes a shrink came up with some good insights, which Pell filed away (not for his own mental health, of course, but because they were such helpful weapons to use against people).

So why did Jennie go for bad boys? Obvious to Pell. They were like her mother; subconsciously she kept flinging herself at them in hopes they’d change their ways and love, not ignore or use, her.

This was helpful for Pell to know but he could have told her: By the way, lovely, don’t bother. We don’t change. We never, ever change. Write that down and keep it close to your heart.

Of course, though, he kept these wise words to himself.

She stopped eating. “Honey?”

“Um?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, lovely.”

“You never said anything about those, you know, girls you were living with. When they arrested you. The Family.”

“Guess I didn’t.”

“Did you stay in touch with them or anything? What were their names?”

He recited, “Samantha, Rebecca and Linda. Jimmy too, the one who tried to kill me.”

Her eyes flicked toward him. “Would you rather I didn’t ask about them?”

“No, it’s okay. You can ask me anything.”

Never tell someone not to talk about a subject. Keep a smile on your face and suck out every bit of information you can. Even if it hurts.

“Did they turn you in, the women?”

“Not exactly. They didn’t even know we were going to the Croytons’, Jimmy and me. But they didn’t back me up after I got arrested. Linda, she burnt some evidence and lied to the police. But even her, she finally caved and helped them.” A sour laugh. “And look at what I did for them. I gave them a home. Their own parents didn’t give a shit about them. I gave them a family.”

“Are you upset? I don’t want to upset you.”

“No.” Pell smiled. “It’s okay, lovely.”

“Do you think about them much?”

Ah, so that’s it. Pell had worked hard all his life to spot the subtext beneath people’s comments. He now realized that Jennie was jealous. It was a petty emotion, one that was easy to put down, but it was also a central force in the universe.

“Nope. I haven’t heard from them for years. I wrote for a while. Linda was the only one who answered. But then she said her lawyer told her it’d look bad for her parole and she stopped. Felt bad about that, I have to say.”

“I’m sorry, honey.”

“For all I know, they’re dead, or maybe married and happy. I was mad at first but then I understood that I made a mistake with them. I picked wrong. Not like you. You’re good for me; they weren’t.”

She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed his knuckles one at a time.

Pell was studying the map again. He loved maps. When you were lost, you were helpless, out of control. He remembered how maps—well, the lack of a map—played a role in the history of this area of California, where they sat right now, in fact, Monterey Bay. In the Family, years ago, Linda had read aloud after dinner, all of them sitting in a circle. Pell had often picked works by local authors and books that were set here, and he remembered one, a history of Monterey. The bay had been discovered by the Spanish in the early 1600s. The Bahia de Monte Rey, named after a rich patron of the expedition, was considered a real plum—fertile land, a perfect port, strategic location—and the governor wanted to build a major colony there. Unfortunately after the explorers sailed away they managed to lose the bay entirely.

A number of expeditions tried unsuccessfully to locate it again. With every passing year Monterey Bay took on mythical proportions. One of the largest contingents of explorers departed from San Diego and headed north on land, determined to find the bahia. Constantly at risk from the elements and the grizzly bears, the conquistadors covered every inch of the state up to San Francisco—and still managed to miss the huge bay altogether.

Simply because they had no accurate map.

When he’d managed to get online in Capitola, he’d been thrilled with a website called Visual-Earth, where you could click on a map and an actual satellite photo of the place you wanted to see came up on screen. He was astonished at this. There were some important things to look at, so he hadn’t had a chance to browse. Pell looked forward to the time when his life was more settled and he could spend hours on the site.

Now, Jennie was pointing out some locations on the map open in front of them and Pell was taking in the information. But, as always, he was also listening to everything around him.

“He’s a good puppy. Just needs more training.”

“It’s a long drive, but if we take our time, it’ll be a blast. You know?”

“I ordered ten minutes ago. Could you see what’s taking so long?”

At this last comment, Pell glanced toward the counter.

“Sorry,” explained a middle-aged man at the cash register to a customer. “Just a little short staffed today.” The man, the owner or manager, was uneasy and looked everywhere except at Pell and Jennie.

Smart people can figure out why you changed, then use it against you.

When Pell had ordered their food, there were three or four waitresses shuttling back and forth between the kitchen and the tables. Now this man was the only one working.

He’d sent all his employees into hiding.

Pell leapt up, knocking over the table. Jennie dropped her fork and jumped to her feet.

The manager stared at them in alarm.

“You son of a bitch,” Pell muttered and pulled the pistol from his waistband.

Jennie screamed.

“No, no . . . I—” The manager debated for a second and fled into the kitchen, abandoning his customers, who screamed and spilled onto the floor for cover.

“What is it, honey?” Jennie’s voice was panicked.

“Let’s go. The car.” He grabbed the map and they fled.

Outside, in the distance, south, he could see tiny flashing lights.

Jennie froze, panicked, whispering, “Angel songs, angel songs . . .”

“Come on!”

They leapt in. He slammed the car into reverse, then shifted gears and gunned the engine, heading for Highway 1, over the narrow bridge. Jennie nearly slipped out of her seat as they hit the uneven pavement on the other side of the structure. On the highway Pell turned north, got about a hundred yards then skidded to a stop. Coming the other way was another police car.

Pell glanced to his right and floored the accelerator, heading directly for the front gate of the power plant, a massive, ugly structure, something that belonged not here on this picture-postcard seashore but in the refineries of Gary, Indiana.

•    •    •

Dance and O’Neil were no more than five minutes from Moss Landing.

Her fingers tapped the grip of the Glock high on her right hip. She’d never fired her gun in the line of duty and wasn’t much of a shot—weaponry didn’t come naturally to her. Also, with children in the house she was uneasy carrying the weapon (at home she kept it in a solid lockbox beside her bed, and only she knew the combination).

Michael O’Neil, on the other hand, was a fine marksman, as was TJ. She was glad she was with them.

But would it come to a fight? she wondered. Dance couldn’t say, of course. But she knew she’d do whatever was necessary to stop the killer.

The Ford now squealed around the corner and then up a hill.

As they crested it O’Neil muttered, “Oh, hell . . .”

He jammed the brake pedal. “Hold on!”

Dance gasped, and grabbed the dashboard as they went into a fierce skid. The car came to a stop, halfway on the shoulder, only five feet from a semi stopped in the middle of the road. The highway was completely blocked all the way to Moss Landing. The opposite lanes were moving, but slowly. Several miles ahead Dance could see flashing lights and realized officers were turning back the traffic.

A roadblock?

O’Neil called Monterey County central dispatch on his Motorola. “It’s O’Neil.”

“Go ahead, sir. Over.”

“We’re on One, northbound, just short of Moss Landing. Traffic’s stopped. What’s the story?”

“Be advised. There’s . . . they’re evacuating Duke Power. Fire or something. It’s pretty bad. They’ve got multiple injuries. Two fatalities.”

Oh, no, Dance thought, exhaling a sigh. Not more deaths.

“Fire?” O’Neil asked.

“Just what Pell did at the courthouse.” Dance squinted. She could see a column of black smoke. Emergency planners took seriously any risk of a conflagration around here. Several years ago a huge fire had raged through an abandoned oil tank at the power facility. The plant was now gas—not oil—operated and the odds of a serious fire were much lower. Still, security would have frozen Highway 1 in both directions and started to evacuate anyone nearby.

O’Neil snapped, “Tell CHP or Monterey Fire or whoever’s running the scene to clear a path. We’ve got to get through. We’re in pursuit of that escapee. Over.”

“Roger, Detective . . . Hold on. . . .” Silence for a minute. Then: “Be advised. . . . Just heard from Watsonville Fire. I don’t know. . . . Okay, the plant’s not burning. The fire’s just a car in front of the main gate. I don’t know who called in the eleven-forty-one. No injuries that anybody can tell. That was a false report. . . . And we’ve got some calls from Jack’s. The suspect pulled a gun and fled.”

“Hell, he made us,” O’Neil muttered.

Dance took the microphone. “Roger. Are any police on the scene?”

“Stand by. . . . Affirmative. One Watsonville officer. The rest are fire and rescue.”

“One officer,” Dance said, scowling, shaking her head.

“Tell him that Daniel Pell’s there somewhere. And he will target innocents and officers.”

“Roger. I’ll relay that.”

Dance wondered how the sole officer would fare; Moss Landing’s worst crimes were DUIs and the thefts of cars and boats.

“You get all that, TJ?”

“Fuck” was the reply from the speaker. TJ didn’t bother much with radio codes.

O’Neil slammed the microphone into the cradle in frustration.

Their plea to move the traffic along wasn’t having any effect.

Dance told him, “Let’s try to get up there anyway. I don’t care if we need bodywork.”

O’Neil nodded. He hit the siren and started along the shoulder, which was sandy in parts, rocky in others, and in several places barely passable.

But slowly the motorcade made its way forward.

Chapter 16

When they arrived at Moss Landing, Pell and his girlfriend were nowhere to be seen.

Dance and O’Neil parked. A moment later TJ too pulled up, beside the burned Thunderbird, still smoldering.

“Pell’s car,” she pointed out. “The one stolen from L.A. on Friday.” Dance told TJ to find the manager of Jack’s.

The Watsonville cop, O’Neil, and the other officers spread out to search for witnesses. Many of them had left, probably scared off by the flames from the T-bird and the piercing siren from the power plant—maybe even thinking it was a nuclear reactor that was melting down.

Dance interviewed several people near the power plant. They reported that a wiry man and a blonde, driving the Thunderbird—it had been turquoise before the fire—had sped over the bridge from Jack’s Seafood, then stopped abruptly in front of the power plant. They’d gotten out and a moment later the car had erupted in flames.

The couple had run across the road to the shore side, one person reported, but nobody saw what became of them after that. Apparently Pell had called 911 himself to report that the plant was burning and there were injuries and two deaths.

Dance looked around her. They’d need another car; you couldn’t escape from here on foot. But then her eyes focused on the bay. With the traffic jam, it would make more sense to steal a boat. She corralled several local officers, trotted across the highway, and they spent fifteen frantic minutes talking to the people on the shoreline, to see if Pell had stolen a vessel. Nobody reported seeing the couple, nor were any boats missing.

A waste of time.

Returning to the highway, Dance noticed a store across from the power plant, a shack selling souvenirs and candy. There was a CLOSED sign on the door but inside Dance believed she could see a woman’s face, looking out.

Was Pell inside with her?

Dance gestured to a deputy, told him of her concern and together they stepped to the door. She rapped on it. No response.

Another knock, and slowly the door opened. A round woman with short curly hair glanced in alarm at their hands, resting on their guns, and asked breathlessly, “Yes?”

Eyes on the dim interior behind her, Dance asked, “Could you please step outside?”

“Um, sure.”

“Is anyone else in there?”

“No. What—?”

The deputy pushed past her and flicked the lights on. Dance joined him. A fast search revealed that the tiny place was unoccupied.

Dance returned to the woman. “Sorry for the disturbance.”

“No, that’s okay. This’s scary. Where did they go?”

“We’ve still searching. Did you see what happened?”

“No. I was inside. When I looked out there was the car burning. I kept thinking about the oil tank fire a few years ago. That was a bad one. Were you here for that?”

“I was. I could see it from Carmel.”

“We knew it was empty, the tank. Or pretty much empty. But we were all freaked out. And those wires. Electricity can be pretty spooky.”

“So you’re closed?”

“Yeah. I was going to leave early anyway. Didn’t know how long the highway would be closed. Not many tourists’d be interested in saltwater taffy with a power plant on fire across the highway.”

“Imagine not. I’d like to ask why you wondered where they went.”

“Oh, a dangerous man like that? I’d hope he’d get arrested as fast as possible.”

“But you said ‘they.’ How did you know there were several people?”

A pause. “I—”

Dance gazed at her with a smile and but unwavering eyes. “You said you didn’t see anything. You looked out only after you heard the siren.”

“I think I talked to somebody about it. Outside.”

I think . . .

A denial flag expression. Subconsciously the woman would feel she was giving an opinion, not a deceptive statement.

“Who told you?” Dance persisted.

“I didn’t know them.”

“A man or a woman?”

Another hesitation. “A girl, a woman. From out of state.” Her head was turned away and she was rubbing her nose—an aversion/negation cluster.

“Where’s your car?” Dance asked.

“My—?”

Eyes play an ambiguous role in kinesic analysis. There’s the belief among some officers that if a suspect looks to his left under your gaze, it’s a sign of lying. Dance knew that was just an old cops’ tale; averting eyes—unlike turning the body or face away from the interrogator—has no correlation to deception; direction of eye gaze is too easily controlled.

But eyes are still very revealing.

As Dance was talking to the woman, she’d noticed her looking at a particular place in the parking lot. Every time she did, she displayed general stress indicators: shifting her weight, pressing her fingers together. Dance understood: Pell had stolen her car and said that he or the infamous partner would kill her family if she said anything. Just as with the Worldwide Express driver.

Dance sighed, upset. If the woman had come forward when they’d first arrived, they might have Pell by now.

Or if I hadn’t blindly believed the CLOSED sign and knocked on the door sooner, she added to herself bitterly.

“I—” The woman started to cry.

“I understand. We’ll make sure you’re safe. What kind of car?”

“It’s a dark blue Ford Focus. Three years old. There’s a bumper sticker about global warming on it. And a dent in the—”

“Where did they go?”

“North.”

Dance got the tag number and called O’Neil, who would in turn relay a message to MCSO dispatch for an announcement to all units about the car.

As the clerk made arrangements to stay with a friend until Pell’s recapture, Dance stared at the lingering cloud of smoke around the Thunderbird. Angry. She’d made a sharp deduction from Eddie Chang’s information and they’d come up with a solid plan for the collar. But it had been a waste.

TJ joined her, with the manager of Jack’s Seafood. He gave his story of the events, clearly omitting a few facts, probably that he’d inadvertently tipped off Pell about the police. Dance couldn’t blame him. She remembered Pell from the interview—how sharp and wary he was.

The manager described the woman, who was skinny and pretty in a “mousy way” and had looked at the man adoringly throughout most of the meal. He’d thought they were honeymooners. She couldn’t keep her hands off him. He put her age at midtwenties. The manager added that they pored over a map for a good portion of the meal.

“What was it of?”

“Here, Monterey County.”

Michael O’Neil joined her, flipping closed his phone. “No reports of the Focus,” he said. “But with the evacuation it must’ve gotten lost in the traffic. Hell, he could’ve turned south and driven right past us.”

Dance called Carraneo over. The young man looked tired. He’d had a busy day but it wasn’t over yet. “Find out everything you can about the T-bird. And start calling motels and boardinghouses from Watsonville down to Big Sur. See if any blond women checked in by themselves and listed a Thunderbird as their car on the registration form. Or if anybody saw a T-bird. If the car was stolen on Friday, she’d’ve checked in Friday, Saturday or Sunday.”

“Sure, Agent Dance.”

She and O’Neil both stared west, over the water, which was calm. The sun was a wide, flat disk, low over the Pacific, the fierce beams muted; the fog hadn’t arrived yet but the late-afternoon sky was hazy, grainy. Monterey Bay looked like a flat, blue desert. He said, “Pell’s taking a huge risk staying around here. He’s got something important to do.”

It was just then that she got a call from someone who, she realized, might have some thoughts about what the killer might have in mind.

Chapter 17

There are probably ten thousand streets named Mission in California, and James Reynolds, the retired prosecutor who eight years earlier had won the conviction of Daniel Pell, lived on one of the nicer ones.

He had a Carmel zip code, though this street wasn’t in the cute part of town—the gingerbread area flooded on weekends with tourists (whom the locals simultaneously love and hate). Reynolds was in working Carmel, but it was not exactly the wrong side of the tracks. He had a precious three-quarters of an acre of secluded property not far from the Barnyard, the landscaped multilevel shopping center where you could buy jewelry and art and complicated kitchen gadgets, gifts and souvenirs.

Dance now pulled into the long driveway, reflecting that people with so much property were either the elite of recent money—neurosurgeons or geeks who survived the Silicon Valley shakeout—or longtime residents. Reynolds, who’d made his living as a prosecutor, had to be the latter.

The tanned, balding man in his midsixties met her at the door, ushered her inside.

“My wife’s at work. Well, at volunteer. I’m cooking dinner. Come on into the kitchen.”

As she followed him along the corridor of the brightly lit house Dance could read the man’s history in the many frames on the wall. The East Coast schools, Stanford Law, his wedding, the raising of two sons and a daughter, their graduations.

The most recent photos had yet to be framed. She nodded at a stack of pictures, on the top of which was one of a young woman, blond and beautiful in her elaborate white dress, surrounded by her maids of honor.

“Your daughter? Congratulations.”

“The last to fly the nest.” He gave her a thumbs-up and a grin. “How ’bout you?”

“Weddings’re a while off. I’ve got middle school next on the agenda.”

She also noticed a number of framed newspaper pages: big convictions he’d won. And, she was amused to see, trials he’d lost. He noticed her looking at one and chuckled. “The wins are for ego. The losses’re for humility. I’d take the high ground and say that I learned something from the not-guilties. But the fact is, sometimes juries’re just out to lunch.”

She knew this very well from her previous job as jury consultant.

“Like with our boy Pell. The jury should’ve recommended the death penalty. But they didn’t.”

“Why not? Extenuating circumstances?”

“Yep, if that’s what you call fear. They were scared the Family would come after them for revenge.”

“But they didn’t have a problem convicting him.”

“Oh, no. The case was solid. And I ran the prosecution hard. I picked up on the Son of Manson theme—I was the one who called him that in the first place. I pointed out all the parallels: Manson claimed he had the power to control people. A history of petty crimes. A cult of subservient women. He was behind the deaths of a rich family. In his house, crime scene found dozens of books about Manson, underlined and annotated.

“Pell actually helped get himself convicted,” Reynolds added with a smile. “He played the part. He’d sit in court and stare at the jurors, trying to intimidate, scare them. He tried it with me too. I laughed at him and said I didn’t think psychic powers had any effect on lawyers. The jury laughed too. It broke the spell.” He shook his head. “Not enough to get him the needle, but I was happy with consecutive life sentences.”

“You also prosecuted the three women in the Family?”

“I pled them out. It was pretty much minor stuff. They didn’t have anything to do with the Croyton thing. I’m positive of that. Before they ran into Pell, none of them’d ever been picked up for anything worse than drinking in public or a little pot, I think. Pell brainwashed them. . . . Jimmy Newberg was different. He had a history of violence—some aggravateds and felony drug charges.”

In the spacious kitchen, decorated entirely in yellow and beige, Reynolds put on an apron. He’d apparently slipped it off to answer the door. “I took up cooking after I retired. Interesting contrast. Nobody likes a prosecutor. But”—he nodded at a large orange skillet filled with cooking seafood—“my cioppino . . . everybody loves that.”

“So,” Dance said, looking around with an exaggerated frown. “This is what a kitchen looks like.”

“Ah, a take-out queen. Like me when I was a working bachelor.”

“My poor kids. The good news is that they’re learning defensive cooking. For last Mother’s Day? They made me strawberry crepes.”

“And all you had to do was clean up. Here, try a bowl.”

She couldn’t resist. “Okay, just a sample.”

He dished up a portion. “It needs red wine to accompany.”

“That I’ll pass on.” She tried the stew. “Excellent!”

Reynolds had been in touch with Sandoval and the Monterey County sheriff and learned the latest details of the manhunt, including the information that Pell was staying in the area. (Dance noted that, regarding the CBI, he’d called her and not Charles Overby.)

“I’ll do whatever I can to help you nail this bastard.” The former prosecutor meticulously sliced a tomato. “Just name it. I’ve already called the county storage company. They’re bringing me all my notes from the case. Probably ninety-nine percent of them won’t be helpful, but there could be a nugget or two. And I’ll go through every damn page, if I have to.” Dance glanced at his eyes, which were dark coals of determination, very different from, say, Morton Nagle’s sparkle. She had never worked any cases with Reynolds, but knew he’d be a fierce and uncompromising prosecutor.

“That’d be very helpful, James. Appreciate it.” Dance finished the stew and rinsed the bowl, placing it in. “I didn’t even know you were in the area. I’d heard you retired to Santa Barbara.”

“We have a little place there. But we’re here most of the year.”

“Well, when you called, I got in touch with MCSO. I’d like to have a deputy stationed outside.”

Reynolds dismissed the idea. “I’ve got a good alarm system. I’m virtually untraceable. When I became lead prosecutor I started getting threats—those Salinas gang prosecutions. I had my phone unlisted and transferred title to the house to a trust. There’s no way he could find me. And I’ve got a carry permit for my six-gun.”

Dance wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “He’s already killed several times today.”

A shrug. “Sure, what the hell. I’ll take a babysitter. Can’t hurt—my younger son’s here visiting. Why take chances?”

Dance scooted onto a stool. She rested her maroon wedge Aldos on the supports. The straps on the shoes were inlaid with bright daisies. Even ten-year-old Maggie had more conservative taste than she did when it came to shoes, which were one of Dance’s passions.

“For now, could you tell me something about the murders eight years ago? It might give me an idea of what he’s up to.”

Reynolds sat on an adjoining stool, sipping wine. He ran through the facts of the case: How Pell and Jimmy Newberg had broken into the house of William Croyton in Carmel, killed the businessman, his wife and two of their three children. They were all stabbed to death.

“Newberg too. My theory was that he balked about killing the kids and got into a fight with Pell, who killed him.”

“Any history between Pell and Croyton?”

“Not that we could establish. But Silicon Valley was at its peak then, and Croyton was one of the big boys. He was in the press all the time—he not only designed most of the programs himself, he was the chief of sales too. Larger-than-life kind of guy. Work hard, play hard. Big, loud, tanned. Not the most sympathetic victim in the world. Pretty ruthless businessman, rumors of affairs, disgruntled employees. But if murder was a crime only against saints, we prosecutors’d be out of a job.

“His company had been burglarized a couple of times in the year before the killing. The perps got away with computers and software, but Santa Clara County could never come up with a suspect. No indication that Pell had anything to do with it. But I always wondered if it could’ve been him.”

“What happened to the company after he died?”

“It was acquired by somebody else, Microsoft or Apple or one of the game companies, I don’t know.”

“And his estate?”

“Most of it went in trust to his daughter, and I think some to his wife’s sister, the aunt who took custody of the girl. Croyton’d been in computers ever since he was a kid. He had probably ten, twenty million dollars’ worth of old hardware and programs that he left to Cal State–Monterey Bay. The computer museum there’s really impressive, and techies come from all over the world to do research in the archives.”

“Still?”

“Apparently so. Croyton was way ahead of his time.”

“And rich.”

“Way rich.”

“That was the actual motive for the killings?”

“Well, we never knew for sure. On the facts, it was a plain-vanilla burglary. I think Pell read about Croyton and thought it’d be a cakewalk to pick up some big bucks.”

“But his take was pretty skimpy, I read.”

“A thousand and some jewelry. Would’ve been a small case. Except for five dead bodies, of course. Almost six—good thing that little girl was upstairs.”

“What’s her story?”

“Poor kid. You know what they called her?”

“ ‘The Sleeping Doll.’ ”

“Right. She didn’t testify. Even if she’d seen something, I wouldn’t’ve subjected her to the stand, not with that prick in the courtroom. I had enough evidence anyway.”

“She didn’t remember anything?”

“Nothing helpful. She went to bed early that night.”

“Where is she now?”

“No idea. She was adopted by the aunt and uncle and they moved away.”

“What was Pell’s defense?”

“They’d gone there with some business idea. Newberg snapped and killed everybody. Pell tried to stop him, they fought and Pell, quote, ‘had’ to kill him. But there was no evidence Croyton had a meeting planned—the family was in the middle of dinner when they showed up. Besides, the forensics were clear: time of death, fingerprints, trace, blood spatter, everything. Pell was the doer.”

“In prison Pell got access to a computer. Unsupervised.”

“That’s not good.”

She nodded. “We found some things he searched for. Do they mean anything to you? One was ‘Alison.’ ”

“It wasn’t one of the girls in the Family. I don’t remember anybody else connected to him with that name.”

“Another word he searched was ‘Nimue.’ A character out of mythology. King Arthur legend. But I’m thinking it’s a name or screen name of somebody Pell wanted to get in touch with.”

“Sorry, nothing.”

“Any other ideas about what he might have in mind?”

Reynolds shook his head. “Sorry. It was a big case—for me. And for the county. But, the fact is, it wasn’t remarkable. He was caught red-handed, the forensics were waterproof and he was a recidivist with a history of criminal activity going back to his early teens. I mean, this guy and the Family were on watch lists in beach communities from Big Sur to Marin. I’d’ve had to screw up pretty bad to lose.”

“All right, James. I should get going,” she said. “Appreciate the help. If you find something in the files, let me know.”

He gave her a solemn nod, no longer a dabbling retiree or kindly father-of-the-bride. She could see in Reynolds’s eyes the fierce determination that had undoubtedly characterized his approach in court. “I’ll do anything I can to help get that son of a bitch back where he belongs. Or into a body bag.”

•    •    •

They’d separated, and now, several hundred yards apart, they made their way on foot to a motel in quaint Pacific Grove, right in the heart of the Peninsula.

Pell walked leisurely and wide-eyed, like a dumbfounded tourist who’d never seen surf outside Baywatch.

They were in a change of clothing, which they’d bought at a Goodwill store in a poor part of Seaside (where he’d enjoyed watching Jennie hesitate, then discard her beloved pink blouse). Pell was now in a light gray windbreaker, cords, and cheap running shoes, a baseball cap on backward. He also carried a disposable camera. He would occasionally pause to take pictures of the sunset, on the theory that one thing escaped killers rarely do is stop to record panoramic seascapes, however impressive.

He and Jennie had driven east from Moss Landing in the stolen Ford Focus, taking none of the major roads and even cutting through a Brussels sprout field, aromatic with the scent of human gas. Eventually they’d headed back toward Pacific Grove. But when the area became more populous, Pell knew it was time to ditch the wheels. The police would learn about the Focus soon. He hid it in tall grass in the middle of a large field off Highway 68, marked with a FOR SALE—COMMERCIAL ZONED sign.

He decided they should separate on the hike to the motel. Jennie didn’t like it, not being with him, but they stayed in touch via their prepaid mobiles. She called every five minutes until he told her it was probably better not to, because the police might be listening in.

Which they weren’t, of course, but he was tired of the honey-bunny chatter and wanted to think.

Daniel Pell was worried.

How had the police tracked them to Jack’s?

He ran through the possibilities. Maybe the cap, sunglasses and shaved face hadn’t fooled the manager at the restaurant, though who’d believe that a murderous escapee would sit down like a day-tripper from San Francisco to devour a plate of tasty sand dabs fifteen miles from the detention center he’d just redecorated with fire and blood?

Finding that the T-bird was stolen was another possibility. But why would somebody run the tag of a car stolen four hundred miles away? And even if it was boosted, why call out the 101 Airborne just for a set of stolen wheels—unless they knew it had some connection to Pell?

And the cops were supposed to believe he was headed to that camper park outside of Salt Lake City he’d called.

Kathryn?

He had a feeling she hadn’t bought into the Utah idea, even after the trick with Billy’s phone and leaving the driver alive on purpose. Pell wondered if she’d put out the announcement about Utah to the press intentionally, to flush him into the open.

Which had, in fact, worked, he reflected angrily.

Wherever he went, he had a feeling, she’d be supervising the manhunt for him.

Pell wondered where she lived. He thought again about his assessment of her in the interview—her children, her husband—recalled when she gave her faint reactions, when she didn’t.

Kids, yes, husband, probably not. A divorce didn’t seem likely. He sensed good judgment and loyalty within her.

Pell paused and took a snap of the sun easing into the Pacific Ocean. It was really quite a sight.

Kathryn as a widow. Interesting idea. He felt the swelling within him again.

Somehow he managed to tuck it away.

For the time being.

He bought a few things at a store, a little bodega, which he picked because he knew his picture wouldn’t be looping on the news every five minutes; he was right, the tiny set showed only a Spanish-language soap opera.

Pell met up with Jennie in Asilomar, the beautiful park, which featured a crescent of beach for die-hard surfers and, closer toward Monterey, an increasingly rugged shoreline of rocks and crashing spray.

“Everything all right?” she asked cautiously.

“Fine, lovely. We’re doing fine.”

She led him through the quiet streets of Pacific Grove, a former Methodist retreat, filled with colorful Victorian and Tudor bungalows. In five minutes she announced, “Here we are.” She nodded at the Sea View Motel. The building was brown, with small lead windows, a wood shingle roof and plaques of butterflies above the doors. The village’s claim to fame, other than being the last dry town in California, was the monarchs—tens of thousands of the insects would cluster here from fall to spring.

“It’s cute, isn’t it?”

Pell guessed. Cute didn’t mean anything to him. What mattered was that the room faced away from the road and there were driveways off the back parking lot that would be perfect escape routes. She’d gotten exactly the kind of place she was supposed to.

“It’s perfect, lovely. Just like you.”

Another smile on her smooth face, though half-hearted; she was still shaken by the incident at Jack’s restaurant. Pell didn’t care. The bubble within him had started expanding once more. He wasn’t sure whether Kathryn was driving it, or Jennie.

“Which one’s ours?”

She pointed. “Come on, honey. I have a surprise for you.”

Hm. Pell didn’t like surprises.

She unlocked the door.

He nodded toward it. “After you, lovely.”

And reached into his waistband, gripping the pistol. He tensed, ready to push her forward as a sacrificial shield and start shooting at the sound of a cop’s voice.

But it wasn’t a setup. The place was empty. He looked around. It was even nicer than the outside suggested. Ritzy. Expensive furniture, drapes, towels, even bathrobes. Some nice paintings too. Seashores, the Lonesome Pine and more goddamn butterflies.

And candles. Lots of them. Everywhere you could put a candle there was a candle.

Oh, that was the surprise. They weren’t, thank God, lit. That’s all he’d need—come back from an escape to find his hideaway on fire.

“You have the keys?”

She handed them to him.

Keys. Pell loved them. Whether for a car, a motel room, a safe deposit box or a house, whoever possesses the keys is in control.

“What’s in there?” she asked, glancing at the bag. She’d been curious earlier, when they met on the beach not long ago, he knew. Purposely he hadn’t told her.

“Just some things we needed. And some food.”

Jennie blinked in surprise. “You bought food?”

What, was this the first time her man had bought her groceries?

“I could’ve done that,” she said quickly. Then nodding at the kitchenette, she added a perfunctory, “So. I’ll cook you a meal.”

Odd phrase. She’s been taught to think that. By her ex, or one of the abusive boyfriends. Tim the biker.

Shut up and go cook me a meal. . . .

“That’s okay, lovely. I’ll do it.”

“You?”

“Sure.” Pell knew men who insisted that “the wife” feed them. They thought they were kings of the household, to be waited on. It gave them some sense of power. But they didn’t understand that when you depended on someone for anything, you were weakened. (Also, how stupid can you be? You know how easy it is to mix rat poison into soup?) Pell was no chef but even years ago, when Linda was the Family cook, he liked to hang out in the kitchen, help her, keep an eye on things.

“Oh, and you got Mexican!” She laughed as she pulled out the ground beef, tortillas, tomatoes, canned peppers and sauces.

“You said you liked it. Comfort food. Hey, lovely.” He kissed her head. “You were real steady today at the restaurant.”

Turning away from the groceries, she looked down. “I got kind of freaked, you know. I was scared. I didn’t mean to scream.”

“No, no, you held fast. You know what that means?”

“Not really.”

“It’s an old expression sailors used to say. They’d tattoo it on their fingers, so when you made fists, you’d see it spelled out. ‘Hold fast.’ It means not running away.”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t run away from you.”

He touched his lips to her head, smelled sweat and discount perfume.

She rubbed her nose.

“We’re a team, lovely.” Which got her to stop rubbing. Pell noted that.

He went into the bathroom, peed long and then washed up. When he stepped outside he found a second surprise.

Jennie’d stripped down. She was wearing only a bra and panties, holding a cigarette lighter, working on the candles.

She glanced up. “You said you liked red.”

Pell grinned, walked to her. Ran his hand down her bony spine.

“Or would you rather eat?”

He kissed her. “We’ll eat later.”

“Oh, I want you, baby,” she whispered. It was clearly a line she’d used often in the past. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t true now.

He took the lighter. “We’ll do atmosphere later.” He kissed her, pulled her hips against him.

She smiled—a genuine one now—and pressed harder against his crotch. “I think you want me too.” A purr.

“I do want you, lovely.”

“I like it when you call me that.”

“You have any stockings?” he asked.

She nodded. “Black ones. I’ll go put them on.”

“No. That’s not what I want them for,” he whispered.

Chapter 18

One more errand before this hard day was over.

Kathryn Dance pulled up to a modest house in the netherworld between Carmel and Monterey.

When the huge military base, Fort Ord, was the industry in the area, medium-rank officers would live and, often, retire here. Before that, in the fishing and cannery days, foremen and managers lived here. Dance parked in front of a modest bungalow and walked through the picket-fence gate and along the stony path to the front door. A minute later a freckled, cheerful woman in her late thirties greeted her. Dance identified herself. “I’m here to see Morton.”

“Come on in,” Joan Nagle said, smiling, the lack of surprise—and concern—in her face telling Dance that her husband had given her some of the details of his role in the events of today, though perhaps not all.

The agent stepped into the small living room. The half-full boxes of clothes and books—mostly the latter—suggested they’d just moved in. The walls were covered with the cheap prints of a seasonal rental. Again the smells of cooking assaulted her—but this time the scent was of hamburger and onions, not Italian herbs.

A cute, round girl in pigtails, wearing wire-rimmed glasses, was holding a drawing pad. She looked up and smiled. Dance waved to her. She was about Wes’s age. On the couch, a boy in his midteens was lost in the chaos of a video game, pushing buttons as if civilization depended on him.

Morton Nagle appeared in the doorway, tugging at his waistband. “Hello, hello, hello, Agent Dance.”

“Kathryn, please.”

“Kathryn. You’ve met my wife, Joan.” A smile. “And . . . hey, Eric. Put that . . . Eric!” he called in a loud, laughing voice. “Put that away.”

The boy saved the game—Dance knew how vital that was—and set the controller down. He bounded to his feet.

“This’s Eric. Say hello to Agent Dance.”

“Agent? Like FBI?”

“Like that.”

“Sweet!”

Dance shook the hand of the teenager, as he stared at her hip, looking at the gun.

The girl, still clutching her sketchbook, came up shyly.

“Well, introduce yourself,” her mother urged.

“Hi.”

“What’s your name?” Dance asked.

“Sonja.”

Sonja’s weight is a problem, Dance noted. Her parents better address it pretty soon, though given their physiques she doubted they understood the problems she was already facing. The agent’s kinesics expertise gave her many insights into people’s psychological and emotional difficulties, but she continually had to remind herself that her job was law enforcer, not therapist.

Nagle said, “I’ve been following the news. You almost caught him?”

“Minutes away,” she said, grimacing.

“Can I get you anything?” his wife asked.

“No, thanks,” Dance said. “I can only stay a minute.”

“Come on into my office,” Nagle said.

They walked into a small bedroom, which smelled of cat pee. A desk and two chairs were the only pieces of furniture. A laptop, the letters worn off the A, H and N keys, sat beside a desk lamp that had been taped together. There were stacks of paper everywhere and probably two or three hundred books, in boxes and littering the shelves, covering the radiator and piled on the floor. “I like my books around me.” A nod toward the living room. “They do too. Even Mr. Wizard on the video game there. We pick a book and then every night I read from it out loud.”

“That’s nice.” Dance and her children did something similar, though it usually involved music. Wes and Mags devoured books, but they preferred to read on their own.

“Of course, we still find time for true culture. . . . Survivor and 24.” Nagle’s eyes just wouldn’t stop sparkling. He gave another of his chuckles when he saw her note the volume of material he had for her. “Don’t worry. That one’s yours, the small one.” He gestured toward a box of videotapes and photocopied sheets.

“Sure I can’t get you anything?” Joan asked from the doorway.

“Nothing, thanks.”

“You can stay for dinner if you like.”

“Sorry, no.”

She smiled and left. Nagle nodded after her. “She’s a physicist.” And added nothing more.

Dance told Nagle the latest details in the case and explained that she was pretty sure Pell was staying in the area.

“That’d be crazy. Everybody on the Peninsula’s looking for him.”

“You’d think.” She explained about his search at Capitola, but Nagle could contribute no insights about Alison or Nimue. Nor did he have any clue why the killer had been browsing a satellite photo site.

She glanced at the box he’d prepared for her. “Is there a bio in there? Something brief?”

“Brief? No, not really. But if you want a synopsis I could do it, sure. Three, four pages?”

“That’d be great. It’ll take me forever to pull it together from all of that.”

“All of that?” Chuckling. “That’s nothing. By the time I’m ready to write the book, I’ll have fifty times more notes and sources. But, sure, I’ll gin up something.”

“Hi,” a youthful voice said.

Dance smiled at Sonja in the doorway.

An envious glance at the agent’s figure, then her braid. “I saw you looking at my drawings. When you came in?”

“Honey, Agent Dance is busy.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“Do you want to see them?”

Dance sank to her knees to look at the sketchpad. They were pictures of butterflies, surprisingly well done.

“Sonja, these are beautiful. They could be in a gallery on Ocean in Carmel.”

“You think?”

“Definitely.”

She flipped back a page. “This one’s my favorite. It’s a swallowtail.”

The picture was of a dark blue butterfly. The color was iridescent.

“It’s sitting on a Mexican sunflower. They get nectar from that. When I’m at home we go out into the desert and I draw lizards and cactuses.”

Dance remembered that the writer’s full-time residence was Scottsdale.

The girl continued, “Here, my mommy and I go out in the woods and we take pictures. Then I draw them.”

He said, “She’s the James Audubon of butterflies.”

Joan appeared in the doorway and ushered the child out.

“Think that’ll do any good?” Nagle asked, gesturing at the box.

“I don’t know. But I sure hope so. We need some help.”

Dance said good night, turned down another dinner invitation and returned to the car.

She set the box on the seat next to her. The photocopies beckoned and she was tempted to turn on the dome light and have a look now. But the material would have to wait. Kathryn Dance was a good investigator, just as she’d been a good reporter and a good jury consultant. But she was also a mother and a widow. And the unique confluence of those roles required her to know when to pull back from her other job. It was now time to be home.

Chapter 19

This was known as the Deck.

An expanse of gray pressure-treated wood, twenty by thirty feet, extending from the kitchen of Dance’s house into the backyard and filled with mismatched lawn chairs, loungers and tables. Tiny electric Christmas lights, some amber globes, a sink and a large refrigerator were the main decorations, along with a few anemic plants in terra-cotta bowls. A narrow stairway led down to the backyard, hardly landscaped, though it was filled with plenty of natural flora: scrub oak and maple trees, monkey flowers, asters, lupine, potato vines, clover and renegade grass.

A stockade fence provided separation from the neighbors. Two birdbaths and a feeder for hummingbirds hung from a branch near the stairs. Two wind chimes lay on the ground where Dance, in her pajamas, had dumped them at 3 A.M. one particularly stormy night a month ago.

The classic Victorian house—dark green with gray, weathered banisters, shutters and trim—was in the northwestern part of Pacific Grove; if you were willing to risk a precarious lean, you could catch a glimpse of ocean, about a half-mile away.

Dance spent plenty of time on the Deck. It was often too cold or misty for an early breakfast but on lazy weekends, after the sun had melted the fog, she and the children might come here after a walk on the beach with the dogs and have bagels and cream cheese, coffee and hot chocolate. Hundreds of dinner parties, large and small, had been hosted on the uneven planks.

The Deck was where her husband, Bill, had told his parents firmly that, yes, he was marrying Kathryn Dance and, by corollary, not the Napa socialite his mother had championed for several years—an act braver for him than much of what he’d done with the FBI.

The Deck was where they’d had his memorial service.

It was also a gathering-place for friends both inside and outside the law enforcement community on the Peninsula. Kathryn Dance enjoyed her friendships but after Bill’s death she’d chosen to spend her free time with her children. Not wanting to take them to bars or restaurants with her adult friends, she brought the friends into their world.

There was beer and soda in the outdoor fridge, and usually a bottle or two of basic Central Coast Chardonnay or Pinot Grigio and Cabernet. A stained, rusty but functional barbecue grill sat here as well, and there was a bathroom downstairs, accessible from the backyard. It wasn’t unusual for Dance to come home and find her mother or father, friends or colleagues from the CBI or MCSO, enjoying a beer or coffee.

All were welcome to stop by whether she was home or away, whether the visitors announced their intentions or not, though even if she was home she might not join them. A tacit but well-understood rule held that, while people were always welcome anytime outside, the house itself was off limits, except for planned parties; privacy, sleep and homework were sacred.

Dance now climbed the steep stairs from her side yard and walked onto the Deck, carrying the box of photocopies and tapes, on top of which was perched a prepared chicken dinner she’d bought at Albertsons. The dogs greeted her, a black flat-coated retriever and a black-and-tan German shepherd. She rubbed ears and flung a few mangy stuffed toys, then continued on to two men sitting in plastic chairs.

“Hi, honey.” Stuart Dance looked younger than his seventy years. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a full head of unruly white hair. His hours at sea and on the shore had taken a toll on his skin; a few scars from the dermatologist’s scalpel and laser were evident too. Technically he was retired but he still worked at the aquarium several days a week, and nothing in the universe could keep him from the rocky shoals of the coast.

He and his daughter brushed cheeks.

“Hnnn.” From Albert Stemple, another Major Crimes agent with the CBI. The massive man, with a shaved head, wore boots, jeans, a black T-shirt. There were scars on his face as well, and others he’d alluded to—in places that didn’t see much sunlight, though a dermatologist had nothing to do with them. He was drinking a beer, feet sticking out in front of him. The CBI was not known for its cowboys, but Albert Stemple was your basic, make-my-own-rules Wild Bill Hickok. He had more collars than any other agent, as well as more official complaints (he was most proud of the latter).

“Thanks for keeping an eye on things, Al. Sorry it’s later than I’d planned.” Thinking of Pell’s threats during the interrogation—and of his remaining in the area—Dance had asked Stemple to babysit until she returned home. (O’Neil too had arranged for local officers to keep an eye on her house as long as the escapee was at large.)

Stemple grunted. “Not a problem. Overby’ll buy me dinner.”

“Charles said that?”

“Naw. But he’ll buy me dinner. Quiet here. I walked around a couple times. Nothin’ strange.”

“You want a soda for the road?”

“Sure.” The big man helped himself to two Anchor Steams from the fridge. “Don’t worry. I’ll finish ’em ’fore I get in the car. So long, Stu.” He clomped along the Deck, which creaked under his weight.

He disappeared and she heard the Crown Victoria start up fifteen seconds later and peel away, the open beers undoubtedly resting between his massive thighs.

Dance glanced through the streaked windows into the living room. Her eyes settled on a book sitting on the coffee table in the living room. It jogged her memory. “Hey, did Brian call?”

“Oh, your friend? The one who came to dinner?”

“Right.”

“What was his last name?”

“Gunderson.”

“The investment banker.”

“That’s the one. Did he call?”

“Not that I know. You want to ask the kids?”

“No, that’s okay. Thanks again, Dad.”

“No worries.” An expression from his days in New Zealand. He turned away, rapping on the window. “ ’Bye!”

“Grandpa, wait!” Maggie ran outside, her chestnut braid flapping behind her. She was clutching a book. “Hi, Mom,” she said enthusiastically. “When’d you get home?”

“Just now.”

“You didn’t say anything!” exclaimed the ten-year-old, poking her glasses up on her nose.

“Where’s your brother?”

“I don’t know. His room. When’s dinner?”

“Five minutes.”

“What’re we having?”

“You’ll see.”

Maggie held the book up to her grandfather and pointed out a small gray-purple, nautilus-like seashell. “Look. You were right.” Maggie didn’t try to pronounce the words.

“A Columbian Amphissa,” he said and pulled out the pen and notebook he was never without. Jotted. Three decades older than his daughter and he needed no glasses. Most of her genetic proclivities derived from her mother, Dance had learned.

“A tide-drift shell,” he said to Dance. “Very rare here. But Maggie found one.”

“It was just there,” the girl said.

“Okay, I’m headed home to the staff sergeant. She’s fixing dinner and my presence is required. ’Night, all.”

“ ’Bye, Grandpa.”

Her father climbed down the stairs, and Dance thanked fate or God or whatever might be, as she often did, for a good, dependable male figure in the life of a widow with children.

On her way to the kitchen her phone rang. Rey Carraneo reported that the Thunderbird at Moss Landing had been stolen from the valet parking lot of an upscale restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles the previous Friday. There were no suspects. They were expecting the report from LAPD but, like most car thefts, there were no forensics. Also he’d had no luck finding the hotel, motel or boardinghouse the woman might’ve checked into. “There’re a lot of them,” he confessed.

Welcome to the Monterey Peninsula. “We’ve got to stash the tourists somewhere, Rey. Keep at it. And say hi to your wife.”

Dance began unpacking dinner.

A lean boy with sandy hair wandered into the sunroom beside the kitchen. He was on the phone. Though only twelve, Wes was nearly as tall as his mother. She wiggled a finger at him and he wandered over to her. She kissed him on the forehead and he didn’t cringe. Which was the same as “I love you very much, Mother dear.”

“Off the phone,” she said. “Dinnertime.”

“Like, gotta go.”

“Don’t say ‘like.’ ”

The boy hung up. “What’re we having?”

“Chicken,” Maggie said dubiously.

“You like Albertsons.”

“What about bird flu?”

Wes snickered. “Don’t you know anything? You get it from live chickens.”

“It was alive once,” the girl countered.

From the corner where his sister had backed him, Wes said, “Well, it’s not an Asian chicken.”

“Hell-o. They migrate. And how you die is you throw up to death.”

“Mags, not at dinnertime!” Dance said.

“Well, you do.”

“Oh, like chickens migrate? Yeah, right. And they don’t have bird flu here. Or we would’ve heard.”

Sibling banter. But there was a little more to it, Dance believed. Her son remained deeply shaken by his father’s death. This made him more sensitive to mortality and violence than most boys his age. Dance steered him away from those topics—a tough job for a woman who tracked down felons for a living. She now announced, “As long as the chicken’s cooked, it’s fine.” Though she wasn’t sure that this was right and wondered if Maggie would dispute her.

But her daughter was lost in her seashell book.

The boy said, “Oh, mashed potatoes too. You rock, Mom.”

Maggie and Wes set the table and laid the food out, while Dance washed up.

When she returned from the bathroom, Wes asked, “Mom, aren’t you going to change?” He was looking at her black suit.

“I’m starving. I can’t wait.” Not sharing that the real reason she’d kept the outfit on was as an excuse to wear her weapon. Usually the first thing she did upon coming home was to put on jeans and a T-shirt and slip the gun into the lockbox beside her bed.

Yeah, it’s a tough life being a cop. The little ones spend a lot of time alone, don’t they? They’d probably love some friends to play with. . . .

Wes glanced once more at her suit as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking.

But then they turned to the food, eating and talking about their day—the children’s at least. Dance, of course, said nothing about hers. Wes was in a tennis camp in Monterey, Maggie at a music camp in Carmel. Each seemed to be enjoying the experience. Thank goodness neither of them asked about Daniel Pell.

When dinner was over, the trio cleared the table and did the dishes—her children always had a share of the housework. When they were through, Wes and Maggie headed into the living room to read or play video games.

Dance logged onto her computer and checked email. Nothing about the case, though she had several about her other “job.” She and her best friend, Martine Christensen, ran a website called “American Tunes,” after the famous Paul Simon song from the 1970s.

Kathryn Dance was not a bad musician, but a brief attempt at a full-time career as a singer and guitarist had left her dissatisfied (which, she was afraid, was how she’d left her audiences). She decided that her real talent was listening to music and encouraging other people to, as well.

On her infrequent vacations or on long weekends, she’d head off in search of homemade music, often with the children and dogs in tow. A “folklorist” was the name of the avocation or, more popularly, “song catcher.” Alan Lomax was perhaps the most famous, collecting music from Louisiana to the Appalachians for the Library of Congress throughout the midtwentieth century. While his taste ran to black blues and mountain music, Dance’s scavenger hunt took her farther afield, to places reflecting the changing sociology of North America: music grounded in Latino, Caribbean, Nova Scotian, Canadian, urban African-American and Native American cultures.

She and Martine helped the musicians copyright their original material, posted the taped songs and distributed to them the money that listeners paid for downloads.

When the day came when Dance was no longer willing or able to track down criminals, she knew music would be a good way to spend retirement.

Her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID number.

“Well, hello.”

“Hey there.” Michael O’Neil asked, “How’d it go with Reynolds?”

“Nothing particularly helpful. But he’s checking his old files from the Croyton case.” She added that she’d picked up Morton Nagle’s material too, but hadn’t had a chance to look through it yet.

O’Neil told her that the Focus stolen from Moss Landing hadn’t been located, and they’d discovered nothing else helpful at Jack’s Seafood. The techs had lifted fingerprints from the T-bird and the utensils: Pell’s and others that were common to both locations, presumably the woman’s. A search through state and federal databases revealed she had no record.

“We did find one thing we’re a little troubled about. Peter Bennington—”

“Your crime lab guy.”

“Right. He said there was acid on the floorboard of the T-bird, driver’s seat side, the part that didn’t burn. It was recent. Peter said it was a corrosive acid—pretty diluted but Watsonville Fire soaked the car to cool it, so it could’ve been pretty strong when Pell left it there.”

“You know me and evidence, Michael.”

“Okay, the bottom line is that it was mixed with the same substance found in apples, grapes and candy.”

“You think Pell was . . . what? Poisoning something?”

Food was the raison d’etre of Central California. There were thousands of acres of fields and orchards, a dozen big wineries and other food processors all within a half-hour drive.

“It’s a possibility. Or maybe he’s hiding out in an orchard or vineyard. We scared him at Moss Landing and he gave up on staying in a motel or boardinghouse. Think about the Pastures. . . . We ought to get some people searching.”

“Have you got anybody available?” she asked.

“I can shift some troops. Get CHP too. Hate to pull them off the search downtown and along One, but I don’t think we have any choice.”

Dance agreed. She relayed to him Carraneo’s information about the T-bird.

“Not racing forward at the speed of light, are we?”

“Nup,” she agreed.

“What’re you up to?”

“Schoolwork.”

“I thought the kids were out for the summer.”

“My schoolwork. On the manhunt.”

“I’m headed your way right now. Want some help sharpening your pencils and cleaning the blackboard?”

“Bring an apple for the teacher, and you’re on.”

Chapter 20

“Hi, Michael,” Wes said, slapping him five.

“Hey there.”

They talked about the boy’s tennis camp—O’Neil played too—and about restringing rackets. Her lean, muscular son was skillful at most sports he tried, though he was now concentrating on tennis and soccer. He wanted to try karate or aikido, but Dance deflected him from martial arts. Sometimes the boy boiled over with anger—its source his father’s death—and she didn’t like encouraging fighting as a sport.

O’Neil had undertaken a mission to keep the boy’s mind occupied with healthy diversions. He’d introduced him to two activities that were polar opposites: collecting books and spending time on O’Neil’s favorite spot on earth, Monterey Bay. (Dance sometimes thought the detective had been born in the wrong era and could easily picture him as the captain of an old-time sailing ship, or a fishing vessel in the 1930s.) Sometimes, while Dance had a mother/daughter outing with Maggie, Wes would spend the afternoon on O’Neil’s boat fishing or whale watching. Dance was violently seasick unless she popped Dramamine, but Wes had been born with sea legs.

They talked now about a fishing trip in a few weeks, then Wes said good night and wandered off to his room.

Dance poured some wine. He was a red wine drinker and preferred Cabernet. She had a Pinot Grigio. They walked into the living room, sat on the couch. O’Neil happened to be on the cushion that was directly beneath Dance’s wedding picture. The detective and Bill Swenson had been good friends and had worked together a number of times. There had been a brief window before his death during which Dance, her husband and O’Neil were all active law enforcers; they’d even worked on a case together. Bill, federal. Dance, state. O’Neil, county.

With a loud snap, the detective opened the plastic box of take-out sushi he’d brought. The crackle was a modern-day Pavlovian bell, and the two dogs leapt up and bounded toward him: Dylan, the German shepherd, named for the singer-songwriter, of course, and Patsy, the flat-coated retriever, dubbed in honor of Ms. Cline, Dance’s favorite C&W singer.

“Can I give them—?”

“Not unless you want to brush their teeth.”

“Sorry, guys,” O’Neil said. He held the tray open for her. “Forgot the apple, Teach. How’s tuna?”

She laughed and declined his offer. He started to eat, not bothering to open the soy sauce or wasabi. He looked very tired. Maybe it was just too much trouble to wrestle with the packets.

“One thing I wanted to ask,” Dance said. “Is the sheriff okay with CBI running the manhunt?”

O’Neil set down the chopsticks and ran his hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Well, I’ll tell you. When my father was in Nam his platoon sometimes had to take out Vietcong tunnels. Sometimes they’d find booby traps. Sometimes they’d find VC. It was the most dangerous job in the war. Dad developed this fear that stayed with him all his life.”

“Claustrophobia?”

“No. Volunteerphobia. He cleared one tunnel, then never raised his hand again. Nobody can quite figure out why exactly you stepped forward on this one.”

She laughed. “You’re assuming I did.” She told him about Overby’s gambit to seize control of the case before CHP and O’Neil’s own office.

“Wondered about that. Just for the record, we miss the Fish as much as you do.”

Stanley Fishburne, the former head of CBI.

“No, not as much as we do,” Dance said definitively.

“Okay, probably not. But in answer to your question, everybody’s de-lighted you’re on point here. God bless and more power to you.”

Dance moved aside piles of magazines and books, then spread Morton Nagle’s material out in front of them. Maybe the sheets represented only a small percentage of the books, clippings and notes filling Nagle’s study, but it was still a daunting quantity.

She found an inventory of the evidence and other items removed from Pell’s house in Seaside after the Croyton murders. There were a dozen books about Charles Manson, several large files and a note from the crime-scene officer: Item No. 23. Found in the box where the Manson books were kept: Trilby, novel by George du Maurier. Book had been read numerous times. Many notes in margins. Nothing relevant to case.

“You ever heard of it?” she asked.

O’Neil read a huge amount and his large collection, filling his den, contained just about every genre of book that existed. But this was one he hadn’t heard of.

Dance got her laptop, went online and looked it up. “This is interesting. George du Maurier was Daphne du Maurier’s grandfather.” She read several synopses and reviews of the book. “Seems like Trilby was a huge best seller, a Da Vinci Code of the time. Svengali?”

“Know the name—a mesmerizer—but nothing else.”

“Interesting. The story’s about a failed musician, Svengali, who meets a young and beautiful singer—her first name’s Trilby. But she wasn’t very successful. Svengali falls in love with her but she won’t have anything to do with him, so he hypnotizes her. Her career’s successful, but she becomes his mental slave. In the end, Svengali dies and—because du Maurier believed a robot can’t survive without its master—she dies too.”

“Guess there was no sequel.” O’Neil flipped through a stack of notes. “Nagle have any thoughts about what he’s up to?”

“Not really. He’s writing us a bio. Maybe there’ll be something in it.”

For the next hour they sifted through the photocopies, looking for references to any place or person in the area that Pell might’ve had an interest in, some reason for him to stay on the Peninsula. There was no reference to Alison or Nimue, from the killer’s Google search.

Nothing.

Most of the videotapes were feature TV magazine reports about Pell, the Croyton murders or about Croyton himself, the flamboyant, larger-than-life Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

“Sensationalist crap,” O’Neil announced.

“Superficial sensationalist crap.” Exactly what Morton Nagle objected to in the coverage of crime and conflict.

But there were two others, police interview tapes that Dance found more illuminating. One was for a burglary bust, thirteen years ago.

“Who are your next of kin, Daniel?”

“I don’t have any. No family.”

“Your parents?”

“Gone. Long gone. I’m an orphan, you could say.”

“When did they die?”

“When I was seventeen. But my dad’d left before that.”

“You and your father get along?”

“My father . . . That’s a hard story.”

Pell gave the officer an account of his abusive father, who had forced young Daniel to pay rent from the age of thirteen. He’d beat the boy if he didn’t come up with the money—and beat the mother as well if she defended her son. This, he explained, was why he’d taken to stealing. Finally the father had abandoned them. Coincidentally, his separated parents had died the same year—his mother of cancer, his father in a drunk-driving accident. At seventeen Pell was on his own.

“And no siblings, hm?”

“No, sir . . . I always thought that if I had somebody to share that burden with, I would’ve turned out differently. . . . And I don’t have any children myself, either. That’s a regret, I must say. . . . But I’m a young man. I’ve got time, right?”

“Oh, if you get your act together, Daniel, there’s no reason in the world you couldn’t have a family of your own.”

“Thank you for saying that, Officer. I mean that. Thank you. And what about you, Officer? You a family man? I see you’re wearing a wedding ring.”

The second police tape was from a small town in the Central Valley twelve years ago, where he’d been arrested for petty larceny.

“Daniel, listen here, I’m gonna be askin’ you a few questions. Don’t go and lie to us now, okay? That’ll go bad for you.”

“No, sir, Sheriff. I’m here to be honest. Tell God’s truth.”

“You do that and you and me’ll get along just fine. Now, how come was it you was found with Jake Peabody’s TV set and VCR in the back of your car?”

“I bought ’em, Sheriff. I swear to you. On the street. This Mexican fellow? We was talking, and he said he needed some money. Him and his wife had a sick kid, he told me.”

“See what he’s doing?” Dance asked.

O’Neil shook his head.

“The first interviewer’s intelligent. He speaks well, uses proper grammar, syntax. Pell responded exactly the same way. The second officer? Not as well educated as the first, makes grammatical mistakes. Pell picks up on that and echoes him. ‘We was talking,’ ‘Him and his wife.’ It’s a trick High Machiavellians use.” A nod at the set. “Pell is in total control of both interrogations.”

“I don’t know, I’d give him a B-minus for the sob stories,” O’Neil judged. “Didn’t buy any sympathy from me.”

“Let’s see.” Dance found the disposition reports that Nagle had included with the copies of the tapes. “Sorry, Professor. They gave him A’s. Reduced the first charge from Burglary One to a Receiving Stolen, suspended. The second? He was released.”

“I stand corrected.”

They looked through the material for another half-hour. Nothing else was useful.

O’Neil looked at his watch. “Got to go.” Wearily he rose and she walked him outside. He scratched the dogs’ heads.

“Hope you can make it to Dad’s party tomorrow.”

“Let’s hope it’ll be over with by then.” He climbed into his Volvo and headed down the misty street.

Her phone croaked.

“ ’Lo?”

“Hey, boss.”

She could hardly hear; loud music crashed in the background. “Could you turn that down?”

“I’d have to ask the band. Anything new about Juan?”

“No change.”

“I’ll go see him tomorrow. . . . Listen—”

“I’m trying.”

“Ha. First, Pell’s aunt? Her name’s Barbara Pell. But she’s brain-fried. Bakersfield PD say she’s got Alzheimer’s or something. Doesn’t know the time of day but there’s a work shed or garage behind the house with some tools in it and some other things of Pell’s. Anybody could’ve just strolled in and walked out with the hammer. Neighbors didn’t see anything. Surprise, surprise, surprise.”

“Was that Andy Griffith?”

“Same show. Gomer Pyle.”

“Bakersfield’s going to keep an eye on the woman’s house?”

“That’s affirmative. . . . Now, boss, I got the skinny for you. On Winston.”

“Who?”

“Winston Kellogg, the FBI guy. The one Overby’s bringing in to babysit you.”

Babysit . . .

“Could you pick a different word?”

“To oversee you. To ride herd. Subjugate.”

“TJ.”

“Okay, here’s the scoop. He’s forty-four. Lives in Washington now but comes from the West Coast. Former military, army.”

Just like her late husband, she thought. The military part, as well as the age.

“Detective with Seattle PD, then joined the bureau. He’s with a division that investigates cults and related crimes. They track down the leaders, handle hostage negotiations and hook up cult members with deprogrammers. It was formed after Waco.”

The standoff in Texas between law officers and the cult run by David Koresh. The assault to rescue the members ended up tragically. The compound burned and most of the people inside died, including a number of children.

“He’s got a good rep in the bureau. He’s a bit of a straight arrow but he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. That’s a direct quote from my buddy and I have no clue what it means. Oh, one other thing, boss. The Nimue search. No VICAP or other law enforcement reports. And I’ve only checked out a few hundred screen names online. Half of them’re expired; the ones that are still active seem to belong to sixteen-year-old geeks. The real surnames are mostly European and I can’t find anyone who’s got a connection out here. But I did find a variation that’s interesting.”

“Really? What?”

“It’s an online role-playing game. You know those?”

“For a computer, right? One of those big boxes with wires in it?”

“Touché, boss. It’s set in the Middle Ages and what you do is kill trolls and dragons and nasty things and rescue damsels. Kind of what we do for a living, when you think about it. Anyway, the reason it didn’t show up at first is that it’s spelled differently—N-i-X-m-u-e. The logo is the word Nimue with a big red X in the middle, it. It’s one of the hottest games online nowadays. Hundreds of millions in sales. . . . Ah, whatever happened to Ms. Pac-Man, my personal favorite?”

“I don’t think Pell’s the sort who’s into computer games.”

“But he is the sort who killed a man who wrote software.”

“Good point. Look into that. But I’m still leaning toward it being a name or screen name.”

“Don’t worry, boss. I can check ’em both out, thanks to all the leisure time you give me.”

“Enjoying the band?”

“Double touché.”

Dance let Dylan and Patsy out for their bedtime business, then made a fast search of the property. No unrecognized cars were parked nearby. She got the animals back inside. Normally they’d sleep in the kitchen but tonight she let them have the run of the house; they made a huge racket when strangers came around. She also armed the window and door alarms.

Dance went into Maggie’s room and listened to her play a brief Mozart piece on the keyboard. Then kissed her good-night and shut out the light.

She sat for a few minutes with Wes while he told her about a new kid at the camp who’d moved to town with his parents a few months ago. They’d enjoyed playing some practice matches today.

“You want to ask him and his folks over tomorrow? To Grandpa’s birthday?”

“Naw. I don’t think so.”

After his father’s death Wes had also grown more shy and reclusive.

“You sure?”

“Maybe later. I don’t know. . . . Mom?”

“Yes, dearest son.”

An exasperated sigh.

“Yes?”

“How come you’ve still got your gun?”

Children . . . nothing whatsoever gets by them.

“Forgot all about it. It’s going in the safe right now.”

“Can I read for a while?”

“Sure. Ten minutes. What’s the book?”

“Lord of the Rings.” He opened, then closed it. “Mom?”

“Yes?”

But nothing more was forthcoming. Dance thought she knew what was on his mind. She’d talk if he wanted to. But she hoped he didn’t; it’d been a really long day.

Then he said, “Nothing,” in a tone she understood to mean: There is something but I don’t want to talk about it yet. He returned to Middle Earth.

She asked, “Where are the hobbits?” A nod at the book.

“In the Shire. The horsemen are looking for them.”

“Fifteen minutes.”

“ ’Night, Mom.”

Dance slipped the Glock into the safe. She reset the lock to a simple three-digit code, which she could open in the dark. She tried it now, with her eyes closed. It took no more than two seconds.

She showered, donned sweats and slipped under the thick comforter, the sorrows of the day wafting around her like the scent of lavender from the potpourri dish nearby.

Where are you? she thought to Daniel Pell. Who’s your partner?

What are you doing at this moment? Sleeping? Driving through neighborhoods, looking for someone or something? Are you planning to kill again?

How can I figure out what you have in mind, staying close?

Drifting off to sleep, she heard in her mind lines from the tape she and Michael O’Neil had just listened to.

“And I don’t have any children myself, either. That’s a regret, I must say. . . . But I’m a young man. I’ve got time, right?”

“Oh, if you get your act together, Daniel, there’s no reason in the world you couldn’t have a family of your own.”

Dance’s eyes opened. She lay in bed for a few minutes, staring at a configuration of shadows on the ceiling. Then, pulling on slippers, she made her way into the living room. “Go back to sleep,” she said to the two dogs, who nonetheless continued to watch her attentively for the next hour or so as she prowled once again through the box that Morton Nagle had prepared for her.

TUESDAY

Chapter 21

Kathryn Dance, TJ beside her, was in Charles Overby’s corner office, early-morning rain pelting the windows. Tourists thought the climate in Monterey Bay tended toward frequent overcasts threatening showers. In fact, the area was usually desperate for rain; the gray overhead was nothing more than standard-issue West Coast fog. Today, however, the precipitation was the real thing.

“I need something, Charles.”

“What’s that?”

“An okay for some expenses.”

“For what?”

“We’re not making any headway. There’re no leads from Capitola, the forensics aren’t giving us any answers, no sightings of him . . . and most important I don’t know why he’s staying in the area.”

“What do you mean, expenses?” Charles Overby was a man of focus.

“I want the three women who were in the Family.”

“Arrest them? I thought they were in the clear.”

“No, I want to interview them. They lived with him; they’ve got to know him pretty well.”

Oh, if you get your act together, Daniel, there’s no reason in the world you couldn’t have a family of your own. . . .

It was this line from the police interview tape that had inspired the idea.

A to B to X . . .

“We want to hold a Family reunion,” said cheerful TJ. She knew he’d been partying late but his round face, under the curly red hair, was as fresh as if he’d walked out of a spa.

Overby ignored him. “But why would they want to help us? They’d be sympathetic to him, wouldn’t they?”

“No. I’ve talked to two of them, and they have no sympathy for Pell. The third changed her identity, to put that whole life behind her.”

“Why bring them here? Why not interview them where they live?”

“I want them together. It’s a gestalt interviewing approach. Their memories would trigger each other’s. I was up till two reading about them. Rebecca wasn’t with the Family very long—just a few months—but Linda lived with Pell for over a year, and Samantha for two.”

“Have you already talked to them?” The question was coy, as if he suspected her of pulling an end run.

“No,” Dance said. “I wanted to ask you first.”

He seemed satisfied that he wasn’t being outmaneuvered. Still, he shook his head. “Airfare, guards, transportation . . . red tape. I really doubt I could get it through Sacramento. It’s too out of the box.” He noticed a frayed thread on his cuff and plucked it out. “I’m afraid I have to say no. Utah. I’m sure that’s where he’s headed now. After the scare at Moss Landing. It’d be crazy for him to stay around. Is the USP surveillance team up and running?”

“Yep,” TJ told him.

“Utah’d be good. Real good.”

Meaning, Dance understood: They nail him and CBI gets the credit, with no more loss of life in California. USP misses him, it’s their flub.

“Charles, I’m sure Utah’s a false lead. He’s not going to point us there and—”

“Unless,” her boss said triumphantly, “it’s a double twist. Think about it.”

“I did, and it’s not Pell’s profile. I really want to go forward with my idea.”

“I’m not sure. . . .”

A voice from behind her. “Can I ask what that idea is?”

Dance turned to see a man in a dark suit, powder blue shirt and striped blue-and-black tie. Not classically handsome—he had a bit of a belly, prominent ears and, if he were to look down, a double chin would blossom. But he had unwavering, amused brown eyes and a flop of hair, identical brown, that hung over his forehead. His posture and appearance suggested an easygoing nature. He had a faint smile on narrow lips.

Overby asked, “Can I help you?”

Stepping closer, the man offered an FBI identification card. Special Agent Winston Kellogg.

“The babysitter is in the building,” TJ said, sotto voce, his hand over his mouth. She ignored him.

“Charles Overby. Thanks for coming, Agent Kellogg.”

“Please, call me Win. I’m with the bureau’s MVCC.”

“That’s—”

“Multiple Victims Coercive Crimes Division.”

“That’s the new term for cults?” Dance asked.

“We used to call it Cult Unit actually. But that wasn’t PCP.”

TJ frowned. “Drugs?”

“Not a politically correct phrase.”

She laughed. “I’m Kathryn Dance.”

“TJ Scanlon.”

“Thomas Jefferson?”

TJ gave a cryptic smile. Even Dance didn’t know his full name. It might even have been just TJ.

Addressing all of the CBI agents, Kellogg offered, “I want to say something up front. Yeah, I’m the Fed. But I don’t want to ruffle feathers. I’m here as a consultant—to give you whatever insights I can about how Pell thinks and acts. I’m happy to take the backseat.”

Even if he didn’t mean it 100 percent, Dance gave him credit for the reassurance. It was unusual in the world of law enforcement egos to hear one of the Washington folk say something like this.

“Appreciate that,” Overby said.

Kellogg turned to the CBI chief. “Have to say that was a good call of yours yesterday, checking out the restaurants. I never would’ve thought of that one.”

Overby hesitated, then said, “Actually, I think I told Amy Grabe that Kathryn here came up with that idea.”

TJ softly cleared his throat and Dance didn’t dare look his way.

“Well, whoever, it was a good idea.” He turned to Dance. “And what were you suggesting just now?”

Dance reiterated it.

The FBI agent nodded. “Getting the Family back together. Good. Very good. They’ve gone through a process of deprogramming by now. Even if they haven’t seen therapists, the passage of time alone would take care of any remnants of Stockholm syndrome. I really doubt they’d have any loyalty to him. I think we should pursue it.”

There was silence for a moment. Dance wasn’t going to bail out Overby, who finally said, “It is a good idea. Absolutely. The only problem is our budget. See, recently we—”

“We’ll pay,” Kellogg said. Then he shut up and simply stared at Overby.

Dance wanted to laugh.

“You?”

“I’ll get a bureau jet to fly them here, if we need one. Sound okay to you?”

The CBI chief, robbed of the only argument he could think of on such short notice, said, “How can we refuse a Christmas present from Uncle Sam? Thanks, amigo.”

•    •    •

Dance, Kellogg and TJ were in her office, when Michael O’Neil stepped inside. He shook the FBI agent’s hand, and they introduced themselves.

“No more hits on the forensics from Moss Landing,” he said, “but we’re hopeful about the Pastures of Heaven and vineyards. We’ve got health department people sampling products too. In case he’s adulterated them with acid.” He explained to Kellogg about the trace found in the Thunderbird during Pell’s escape.

“Any reason why he’d do that?”

“Diversion. Or maybe he just wants to hurt people.”

“Physical evidence isn’t my expertise, but sounds like a good lead.” Dance noted that the FBI agent had been looking aside as O’Neil gave him the details, concentrating hard as he memorized them.

Then Kellogg said, “It might be helpful to give you some insights into the cult mentality. At MVCC we’ve put together a general profile, and I’m sure some or all of it applies to Pell. I hope it’ll help you formulate a strategy.”

“Good,” O’Neil said. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen anybody quite like this guy.”

Dance’s initial skepticism about a cult expert’s usefulness had faded now that it was clear Pell had an agenda they couldn’t identify. She wasn’t sure that the killer was, in fact, like any other perp she’d come across.

Kellogg leaned against her desk. “First, like the name of my unit suggests, we consider the members of a cult victims, which they certainly are. But we have to remember that they can be just as dangerous as the leader. Charles Manson wasn’t even present at the Tate-La Bianca killings. It was the members who committed the murders.

“Now, in speaking of the leader, I’ll tend to say ‘he,’ but women can be just as effective and as ruthless as men. And often they’re more devious.

“So here’s the basic profile. A cult leader isn’t accountable to any authority except his own. He’s always in charge one hundred percent. He dictates how the subjects spend every minute of their time. He’ll assign work and keep them occupied, even if it’s just busywork. They should never have any free time to think independently.

“A cult leader creates his own morality—which is defined solely as what’s good for him and what will perpetuate the cult. External laws are irrelevant. He’ll make the subjects believe it’s morally right to do what he tells them—or what he suggests. Cult leaders are masters at getting their message across in very subtle ways, so that even if they’re caught on a wiretap their comments won’t incriminate them specifically. But the subjects understand the shorthand.

“He’ll polarize issues and create conflicts based on them versus us, black and white. The cult is right and anyone who’s not in the cult is wrong and wants to destroy them.

“He won’t allow any dissent. He’ll take extreme views, outrageous views, and wait for a subject to question him—to test loyalty. Subjects are expected to give everything to him—their time, their money.”

Dance recalled the prison conversation, the $9,200. She said, “Sounds like the woman is financing Pell’s whole escape.”

Kellogg nodded. “They’re also expected to make their bodies available. And hand over their children sometimes.

“He’ll exercise absolute control over the subjects. They have to give up their pasts. He’ll give them new names, something he chooses. He’ll tend to pick vulnerable people and play on their insecurities. He looks for loners and makes them abandon their friends and family. They come to see him as a source of support and nurture. He’ll threaten to withhold himself from them—and that’s his most powerful weapon.

“Okay, I could go on for hours but that gives you a rough idea of Daniel Pell’s thought processes.” Kellogg lifted his hands. He seemed like a professor. “What does all this mean for us? For one thing, it says something about his vulnerabilities. It’s tiring to be a cult leader. You have to monitor your members constantly, look for dissension, eradicate it as soon as you find it. So when external influences exist—like out on the street—they’re particularly wary. In their own environments, though, they’re more relaxed. And therefore more careless and vulnerable.

“Look at what happened at that restaurant. He was constantly monitoring, because he was in public. If he’d been in his own house, you probably would’ve gotten him.

“The other implication is this: The accomplice, that woman, will believe Pell is morally right and that he’s justified in killing. That means two things: We won’t get any help from her, and she’s as dangerous as he is. Yes, she’s a victim, but that doesn’t mean she won’t kill you if she has a chance. . . . Well, those are some general thoughts.”

Dance glanced at O’Neil. She knew he had the same reaction as hers: impressed with Kellogg’s knowledge of his specialty. Maybe, for once, Charles Overby had made a good decision, even if his motive was to cover his ass.

Still, though, thinking of what he’d told them about Pell, she was dismayed at what they were up against. She had firsthand knowledge of the killer’s intelligence, but if Kellogg’s profile was even partially correct the man seemed a particularly dangerous threat.

Dance thanked Kellogg, and the meeting broke up—O’Neil headed for the hospital to check on Juan Millar, TJ to find a temporary office for the FBI agent.

Dance pulled out her mobile and found Linda Whitfield’s phone number in the recent-calls log. She hit redial.

“Oh, Agent Dance. Have you heard anything new?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“We’ve been listening to the radio. . . . I heard you almost caught him yesterday.”

“That’s right.”

More muttering. Prayer again, Dance assumed.

“Ms. Whitfield?”

“I’m here.”

“I’m going to ask you something and I’d like you to think about it before you answer.”

“Go on.”

“We’d like you to come here and help us.”

“What?” she whispered.

“Daniel Pell is a mystery to us. We’re pretty sure he’s staying on the Peninsula. But we can’t figure out why. Nobody knows him better than you, Samantha and Rebecca. We’re hoping you can help us figure it out.”

“Are they coming?”

“You’re the first one I’ve called.”

A pause. “But what could I possibly do?”

“I want to talk to you about him, see if you can think of anything that suggests what his plans might be, where he might be going.”

“But I haven’t heard from him in seven or eight years.”

“There could be something he said or did back then that’ll give us a clue. He’s taking a big risk staying here. I’m sure he has a reason.”

“Well . . .”

Dance was familiar with how mental defense processes work. She could imagine the woman’s brain frantically looking for—and rejecting or holding on to—reasons why she couldn’t do what the agent asked. She wasn’t surprised when she heard, “The problem is I’m helping my brother and sister-in-law with their foster children. I can’t just up and leave.”

Dance remembered that she lived with the couple. She asked if they could handle the children for a day or two. “It won’t be any longer than that.”

“I don’t think they could, no.”

The verb “think” has great significance to interrogators. It’s a denial flag expression—like “I don’t remember” or “probably not.” Its meaning: I’m hedging but not flatly saying no. The message to Dance was that the couple could easily handle the children.

“I know it’s a lot to ask. But we need your help.”

After a pause the woman offered excuse two: “And even if I could get away I don’t have any money to travel.”

“We’ll fly you in a private jet.”

“Private?”

“An FBI jet.”

“Oh, my.”

Dance dealt with excuse three before it was raised: “And you’ll be under very tight security. No one will know you’re here, and you’ll be guarded twenty-four hours a day. Please. Will you help us?”

More silence.

“I’ll have to ask.”

“Your brother, your supervisor at work? I can give them a call and—”

“No, no, not them. I mean Jesus.”

Oh . . . “Well, okay.” After a pause Dance asked, “Could you check with Him pretty soon?”

“I’ll call you back, Agent Dance.”

They hung up. Dance called Winston Kellogg and let him know they were awaiting divine intervention regarding Whitfield. He seemed amused. “That’s one long-distance call.” Dance decided she definitely wouldn’t let Charles Overby know whose permission was required.

Was this whole thing such a great idea, after all?

She then called Women’s Initiatives in San Diego. When Rebecca Sheffield answered, she said, “Hi. It’s Kathryn Dance again, in Monterey. I was—”

Rebecca interrupted. “I’ve been watching the news for the past twenty-four hours. What happened? You almost had him and he got away?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Rebecca gave a harsh sigh. “Well, are you catching on now?”

“Catching on?”

“The fire at the courthouse. The fire at the power plant. Twice, arson. See the pattern? He found something that worked. And he did it again.”

Exactly what Dance had thought. She didn’t defend herself, though, but merely said, “He’s not quite like any escapee we’ve ever seen.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Ms. Sheffield, there’s something—”

“Hold on. First, there’s one thing I want to say.”

“Go ahead,” Dance said uneasily.

“Forgive me, but you people don’t have a clue what you’re up against. You need to do what I tell people in my seminars. They’re about empowerment in business. A lot of women think they can get together with their friends for drinks and dump on their idiotic bosses or their exes or their abusive boyfriends, and, presto, they’re cured. Well, it doesn’t work like that. You can’t stumble around, you can’t wing it.”

“Well, I appreciate—”

“First, you identify the problem. An example: you’re not comfortable dating. Second, identify the facts that are the source of the problem. You were date-raped once. Three, structure a solution. You don’t dive into dating and ignore your fears. You don’t curl up in a ball and forget men. You make a plan: start out slowly, see men at lunchtime, meet them in public places, only go out with men who aren’t physically imposing and who don’t invade your personal space, who don’t drink, et cetera. You get the picture. Then, slowly, you expand who you see. After two, three months, or six, or a year, you’ve solved the problem. Structure a plan and stick to it. See what I’m saying?”

“I do, yes.”

Dance thought two things: First, the woman’s seminars probably drew sell-out crowds. Second, wouldn’t want to hang out with Rebecca Sheffield socially. She wondered if the woman was finished.

She wasn’t.

“Okay, now I have a seminar today I can’t cancel. But if you haven’t caught him by tomorrow morning I want to come up there. Maybe there are some things I can remember from eight years ago that’ll help. Or is that against some policy or something?”

“No, not at all. It’s a good idea.”

“All right. Look, I have to go. What were you going to ask me?”

“Nothing important. Let’s hope everything works out before then but if not, I’ll call and make arrangements to get you here.”

“Sounds like a plan,” the woman said briskly and hung up.

Chapter 22

In the Sea View Motel, Daniel Pell looked up from Jennie’s computer, where he’d been online, and saw the woman easing toward him seductively.

Jennie offered a purr and whispered, “Come on back to bed, baby. Fuck me.”

Pell switched screens so she wouldn’t see what he was searching for and slipped his arm around her narrow waist.

Men and women exercise power over each other every day. Men have a harder time at first. They have to work their way inside a woman’s defenses, build subtle connections, find her likes and dislikes and fears, all of which she tries to keep hidden. It could take weeks or months to get the leash on. But once you had her, you were in charge for as long as you wanted.

Oh, we’re like, you know, soul mates. . . .

A woman, on the other hand, had tits and a pussy and all she had to do was get them close to a man—and sometimes not even—and she could get him to do virtually anything. The woman’s problem came later. When the sex was over, her control dropped off the radar screen.

Jennie Marston had been in charge a few times since the escape, no question about it: in the front seat of the T-bird, in bed with her trussed up by the stockings, and—more leisurely and much better—on the floor with some accessories that greatly appealed to Daniel Pell. (Jennie, of course, didn’t care for that particular brand of sex but her reluctant acquiescence was a lot more exciting than if she’d really been turned on.)

The spell she’d woven was now subdued, though. But a teacher never lets his student know he’s inattentive. Pell grinned and looked over her body as if he were sorely tempted. He sighed. “I wish I could, lovely. But you tired me out. Anyway, I need you to run an errand for me.”

“Me?”

“Yep. Now that they know I’m here, I need you to do it by yourself.” The news stories were reporting that he was probably still in the vicinity. He had to be much more careful.

“Oh, all right. But I’d rather fuck you.” A little pout. She was probably one of those women who thought the expression worked with men. It didn’t, and he’d teach her so at some point. But there were more important lessons to be learned at the moment.

He said, “Now, go cut your hair.”

“My hair.”

“Yeah. And dye it. The people at the restaurant saw you. I bought some brown dye for you. At the Mexican store.” He pulled a box out of the bag.

“Oh. I thought that was for you.”

She smiled awkwardly, gripping a dozen strands, fingers twining them.

Daniel Pell had no agenda with the haircut other than making it more difficult to recognize her. He understood, though, that there was something more, another issue. Jennie’s hair was like the precious pink blouse, and he was instantly intrigued. He remembered her sitting in the T-bird when he’d first seen her in the Whole Foods parking lot, proudly brushing away.

Ah, the information we give away . . .

She didn’t want to cut it. In fact, she really didn’t want to. Long hair meant something to her. He supposed she’d let it grow at some point as protection from her vicious self-image. Some emblem of pathetic triumph over her flat chest and bumpy nose.

Jennie remained on the bed. After a moment she said, “Sweetheart, I mean, I’ll cut it, sure. Whatever you want.” Another pause. “Of course, I was thinking: Wouldn’t it be better if we left now? After what happened at the restaurant? I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you. . . . Let’s just get another car and go to Anaheim! We’ll have a nice life. I promise. I’ll make you happy. I’ll support us. You can stay home until they forget about you.”

“That sounds wonderful, lovely. But we can’t leave yet.”

“Oh.”

She wanted an explanation. Pell said only, “Now go cut it.” He added in a whisper, “Cut it short. Real short.”

He handed her scissors. Her hands trembled as she took them.

“Okay.” Jennie walked into the small bathroom, clicked on all the lights. From her training at the Hair Cuttery she used to work in, or because she was stalling, she spent some moments pinning the strands up before cutting them. She stared into the mirror, fondling the scissors uneasily. She closed the door partway.

Pell moved to a spot on the bed where he could see her clearly. Despite his protests earlier, he found his face growing flushed, and the bubble starting to build inside him.

Go ahead, lovely, do it!

Tears streaking down her cheeks, she lifted a clump of hair and began to cut. Breathing deeply, then cutting. She wiped her face, then cut again.

Pell was leaning forward, staring.

He tugged his pants down, then his underwear. He gripped himself hard, and every time a handful of blond hair cascaded to the floor, he stroked.

Jennie wasn’t proceeding very quickly. She was trying to get it right. And she had to pause often to catch her breath from the crying, and wipe the tears.

Pell was wholly focused on her.

His breathing came faster and faster. Cut it, lovely. Cut it!

Once or twice he came close to finishing but he managed to slow down just in time.

He was, after all, the king of control.

•    •    •

Monterey Bay Hospital is a beautiful place, located off a winding stretch of Highway 68—a multiple-personality route that piggybacks on expressways and commercial roads and even village streets, from Pacific Grove through Monterey and on to Salinas. The road is one of the main arteries of John Steinbeck country.

Kathryn Dance knew the hospital well. She’d delivered her son and daughter here. She’d held her father’s hand after the bypass surgery in the cardiac ward and she’d sat beside a fellow CBI agent as he struggled to survive three gunshot wounds in the chest.

She’d identified her husband’s body in the MBH morgue.

The facility was in the piney hills approaching Pacific Grove. The low, rambling buildings were landscaped with gardens, and a forest surrounded the grounds; patients might awaken from surgery to find, outside their windows, hummingbirds hovering or deer gazing at them in narrow-eyed curiosity.

The portion of the Critical Care Unit, where Juan Millar was presently being tended to, however, had no view. Nor was there any patient-pleasing decor, just matter-of-fact posters of phone numbers and procedures incomprehensible to lay people, and stacks of functional medical equipment. He was in a small glass-walled room, sealed off to minimize the risk of infection.

Dance now joined Michael O’Neil outside the room. Her shoulder brushed his. She felt an urge to take his arm. Didn’t.

She stared at the injured detective, recalling his shy smile in Sandy Sandoval’s office.

Crime scene boys love their toys. . . . I heard that somewhere.

“He say anything since you’ve been here?” she asked.

“No. Been out the whole time.”

Looking at the injuries, the bandages, Dance decided out was better. Much better.

They returned to the CCU waiting area, where some of Millar’s family sat—his parents and an aunt and two uncles, if she’d gotten the introductions right. She doled out her heartfelt sympathy to the grim-faced family.

“Katie.”

Dance turned to see a solid woman with short gray hair and large glasses. She wore a colorful overblouse, from which dangled one badge identifying her as E. Dance, RN, and another indicating that she was attached to the cardiac care unit.

“Hey, Mom.”

O’Neil and Edie Dance smiled at each other.

“No change?” Dance asked.

“Not really.”

“Has he said anything?”

“Nothing intelligible. Did you see our burn specialist, Dr. Olson?”

“No,” her daughter replied. “Just got here. What’s the word?”

“He’s been awake a few more times. He moved a little, which surprised us. But he’s on a morphine drip, so doped up he didn’t make any sense when the nurse asked him some questions.” Her eyes strayed to the patient in the glass-enclosed room. “I haven’t seen an official prognosis, but there’s hardly any skin under those bandages. I’ve never seen a burn case like that.”

“It’s that bad?”

“I’m afraid so. What’s the situation with Pell?”

“Not many leads. He’s in the area. We don’t know why.”

“You still want to have Dad’s party tonight?” Edie asked.

“Sure. The kids’re looking forward to it. I might have to do a hit-and-run, depending. But I still want to have it.”

“You’ll be there, Michael?”

“Plan to. Depending.”

“I understand. Hope it works out, though.”

Edie Dance’s pager beeped. She glanced at it. “I’ve got to get to Cardiac. If I see Dr. Olson I’ll ask him to stop by and brief you.”

Her mother left. Dance glanced at O’Neil, who nodded. He showed a badge to the Critical Care nurse and she helped them both into gowns and masks. The two officers stepped inside. O’Neil stood while Dance pulled up a chair and scooted forward. “Juan, it’s Kathryn. Can you hear me? Michael’s here too.”

“Hey, partner.”

“Juan?”

Though the right eye, the uncovered one, didn’t open, it seemed to Dance that the lid fluttered slightly.

“Can you hear me?”

Another flutter.

O’Neil said in a low comforting voice, “Juan, I know you’re hurting. We’re going to make sure you have the best treatment in the country.”

Dance said, “We want this guy. We want him bad. He’s in the area. He’s still here.”

The man’s head moved.

“We need to know if you saw or heard anything that’ll help us. We don’t know what he’s up to.”

Another gesture of the head. It was subtle but Dance saw the swaddled chin move slightly.

“Did you see something? Nod if you saw or heard something.”

Now, no motion.

“Juan,” she began, “did you—”

“Hey!” a male voice shouted from the doorway. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Her first thought was that the man was a doctor and that her mother would be in trouble for letting Dance into the room unsupervised. But the speaker was a young, sturdy Latino man in a business suit. Juan’s brother.

“Julio,” O’Neil said.

The nurse ran up. “No, no, please close the door! You can’t be inside without a mask.”

He waved a stiff arm at her and continued speaking to Dance. “He’s in that condition and you’re questioning him?”

“I’m Kathryn Dance with the CBI. Your brother might know something helpful about the man who caused this.”

“Well, he’s not going to be very fucking helpful if you kill him.”

“I’ll call security if you don’t close the door this minute,” the nurse snapped.

Julio held his ground. Dance and O’Neil stepped out of the room and into the hallway, closing the door behind them. They took off the gowns and masks.

In the corridor the brother got right into her face. “I can’t believe it. You have no respect—”

“Julio,” Millar’s father said, stepping toward his son. His stocky wife, her jet black hair disheveled, joined him.

Julio ignored everyone but Dance. “That’s all you care about, right? He tells you what you want to know and then he can die?”

She remained calm, recognizing a young man out of control. She didn’t take his anger personally. “We’re very anxious to catch the man who did this to him.”

“Son, please! You’re embarrassing us.” His mother touched his arm.

“Embarrassing you?” he mocked. Then turned to Dance again. “I asked around. I talked to some people. Oh, I know what happened. You sent him down into the fire.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You sent him downstairs at the courthouse to the fire.”

She felt O’Neil stiffening but he restrained himself. He knew Dance wouldn’t let other people fight her battles. She leaned closer to Julio. “You’re upset, we’re all upset. Why don’t we—”

“You picked him. Not Mikey here. Not one of your CBI people. The one Chicano cop—and you sent him.”

“Julio,” his father said sternly. “Don’t say that.”

“You want to know something about my brother? Hm? Do you know he wanted to get into CBI? But they didn’t let him in. Because of who he was.”

This was absurd. There was a high percentage of Latinos in all California law enforcement agencies, including the CBI. Her best friend in the bureau, Major Crimes agent Connie Ramirez, had more decorations than any agent in the history of the west-central office.

But his anger wasn’t about ethnic representation in state government, of course. It was about fear for his brother’s life. Dance had a lot of experience with anger; like denial and depression, it was one of the stress response states exhibited by deceitful subjects. When somebody’s throwing a tantrum, the best approach is simply to let him tire himself out. Intense rage can be sustained only for a short period.

“He wasn’t good enough to get a job with you, but he was good enough to send to get burned up.”

“Julio, please,” his mother implored. “He’s just upset. Don’t listen to him.”

“Don’t do that, Mama! You let them get away with shit every time you say things like that.”

Tears slipped down the woman’s powdered cheeks, leaving fleshy trails.

The young man turned back to Dance. “It was Latino Boy you sent, it was the chulo.”

“That’s enough,” his father barked, taking his son’s arm.

The young man pulled away. “I’m calling the papers. I’m going to call KHSP. They’ll get a reporter here and they’ll find out what you did. It’ll be on all the news.”

“Julio—” O’Neil began.

“No, you be quiet, you Judas. You two worked together. And you let her sacrifice him.” He pulled out his mobile phone. “I’m calling them. Now. You’re going to be so fucked.”

Dance said, “Can I talk to you for a moment, just us?”

“Oh, now you’re scared.”

The agent stepped aside.

Ready for battle, Julio faced her, holding the phone like a knife, and leaned into Dance’s personal proxemic zone.

Fine with her. She didn’t move an inch, looked into his eyes. “I’m very sorry for your brother, and I know how upsetting this is to you. But I won’t be threatened.”

The man gave a bitter laugh. “You’re just like—”

“Listen to me,” she said calmly. “We don’t know for sure what happened but we do know that a prisoner disarmed your brother. He had the suspect at gunpoint, then he lost control of his weapon and of the situation.”

“You’re saying it was his fault?” Julio asked, eyes wide.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Not my fault, not Michael’s fault. Your brother’s. It didn’t make him a bad cop. But he was at fault. And if you turn this into a public issue, that fact is going to come out in the press.”

“You threatening me?”

“I’m telling you that I won’t have this investigation jeopardized.”

“Oh, you don’t know what you’re doing, lady.” He turned and stormed down the corridor.

Dance watched him, trying to calm down. She breathed deeply. Then joined the others.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Mr. Millar said, his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

“He’s upset,” Dance said.

“Please, don’t listen to him. He says things first and regrets them later.”

Dance didn’t think that the young man would be regretting a single word. But she also knew he wasn’t going to be calling reporters anytime soon.

The mother said to O’Neil, “And Juan’s always saying such nice things about you. He doesn’t blame you or anybody. I know he doesn’t.”

“Julio loves his brother,” O’Neil reassured them. “He’s just concerned about him.”

Dr. Olson arrived. The slight, placid man briefed the officers and the Millars. The news was pretty much the same. They were still trying to stabilize the patient. As soon as the dangers from shock and sepsis were under control he’d be sent to a major burn and rehab center. It was very serious, the doctor admitted. He couldn’t say one way or the other if he’d survive but they were doing everything they could.

“Has he said anything about the attack?” O’Neil asked.

The doctor looked over the monitor with still eyes. “He’s said a few words but nothing coherent.”

The parents continued their effusive apologies for their younger son’s behavior. Dance spent a few minutes reassuring them, then she and O’Neil said good-bye and headed outside.

The detective was jiggling his car keys.

A kinesics expert knows that it’s impossible to keep strong feelings hidden. Charles Darwin wrote, “Repressed emotion almost always comes to the surface in some form of body motion.” Usually it’s revealed as hand or finger gestures or tapping feet—we may easily control our words, glances and facial expressions but we exercise far less conscious mastery over our extremities.

Michael O’Neil was wholly unaware that he was playing with his keys.

She said, “He’s got the best doctors in the area here. And Mom’ll keep an eye on him. You know her. She’ll manhandle the chief of the department into his room if she thinks he needs special attention.”

A stoic smile. Michael O’Neil was good at that.

“They can do pretty miraculous things,” she said. Not having any idea what doctors could or couldn’t do. She and O’Neil had had a number of occasions on which to reassure each other over the past few years, mostly professionally, sometimes personally, like her husband’s death or O’Neil’s father’s deteriorating mental state.

Neither of them did a very good job expressing sympathy or comfort; platitudes seemed to diminish the relationship. Usually the other’s simple presence worked much better.

“Let’s hope.”

As they approached the exit she took a call from FBI Agent Winston Kellogg, in his temporary quarters at CBI. Dance paused and O’Neil continued on into the lot. She told Kellogg about Millar. And she learned from him that a canvass by the FBI in Bakersfield had located no witnesses who’d seen anybody break into Pell’s aunt’s toolshed or garage to steal the hammer. As for the wallet bearing the initials R.H., found in the well with the hammer, the federal forensic experts were unable to trace it to a recent buyer.

“And, Kathryn, I’ve got the jet tanked up in Oakland, if Linda Whitfield gets the okay from on high. One other thing? That third woman?”

“Samantha McCoy?”

“Right. Have you called her?”

At that moment Dance happened to look across the parking lot.

She saw Michael O’Neil pausing, as a tall, attractive blonde approached him. The woman smiled at O’Neil, slipped her arms around him and kissed him. He kissed her back.

“Kathryn,” Kellogg said. “You there?”

“What?”

“Samantha McCoy?”

“Sorry.” Dance looked away from O’Neil and the blonde. “No. I’m driving up to San Jose now. If she’s gone to this much trouble to keep her identity quiet I want to see her in person. I think it’ll take more than a phone call to convince her to help us out.”

She disconnected and walked up to O’Neil and the woman he was embracing.

“Kathryn.”

“Anne, good to see you,” Dance said to Michael O’Neil’s wife. The women smiled, then asked about each other’s children.

Anne O’Neil nodded toward the hospital. “I came to see Juan. Mike said he’s not doing well.”

“No. It’s pretty bad. He’s unconscious now. But his parents are there. They’d be glad for some company, I’m sure.”

Anne had a small Leica camera slung over her shoulder. Thanks to the landscape photographer Ansel Adams and the f64 Club, Northern and Central California made up one of the great photography meccas in the world. Anne ran a gallery in Carmel that sold collectible photographs, “collectible” generally defined as those taken by photographers no longer among the living: Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Anne was also a stringer for several newspapers, including big dailies in San Jose and San Francisco.

Dance said, “Michael told you about the party tonight? My father’s birthday.”

“He did. I think we can make it.”

Anne kissed her husband again and headed into the hospital. “See you later, honey.”

“ ’Bye, dear.”

Dance nodded good-bye and climbed into her car, tossing the Coach purse onto the passenger seat. She stopped at Shell for gas, coffee and a cake doughnut and headed onto Highway 1 north, getting a beautiful view of Monterey Bay. She noted that she was driving past the campus of Cal State at Monterey Bay, on the site of the former Fort Ord (probably the only college in the country overlooking a restricted area filled with unexploded ordnance). A large banner announced what seemed to be a major computer conference this weekend. The school, she recalled, was the recipient of much of the hardware and software in William Croyton’s estate. She reflected that if computer experts were still doing research based on the man’s contributions from eight years ago, he must’ve been a true genius. The programs that Wes and Maggie used seemed to be outdated in a year or two tops. How many brilliant innovations had Daniel Pell denied the world by killing Croyton?

Dance flipped through her notebook and found the number of Samantha McCoy’s employer, called and asked to be connected, ready to hang up if she answered. But the receptionist said she was working at home that day. Dance disconnected and had TJ text-message her Mapquest directions to the woman’s house.

A few minutes later the phone rang, just as she hit play on the CD. She glanced at the screen.

Coincidentally, the Fairfield Four resumed their gospel singing as Dance said hello to Linda Whitfield, who was calling from her church office.

“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound . . .”

“Agent Dance—”

“Call me Kathryn. Please.”

“ . . . that saved a wretch like me . . .”

“I just wanted you to know. I’ll be there in the morning to help you, if you still want me.”

“Yes, I’d love for you to come. Somebody from my office will call about the arrangements. Thank you so much.”

“ . . . I once was lost, but now am found . . .”

A hesitation. Then she said in a formal voice, “You’re welcome.”

Two out of three. Dance wondered if the reunion might work after all.

Chapter 23

Sitting in front of the open window of the Sea View Motel, Daniel Pell typed awkwardly on the computer keyboard.

He’d managed some access to computers at the Q and at Capitola, but he hadn’t had time to sit down and really get to know how they worked. He’d been pounding away on Jennie’s portable all morning. Ads, news, porn . . . it was astonishing.

But even more seductive than the sex was his ability to get information, to find things about people. Pell had ignored the smut and been hard at work. First he’d read everything he could on Jennie—recipes, emails, her bookmarked pages, making sure she was essentially who she claimed to be (she was). Then he searched for some people from his past—important to find them—but he didn’t have much luck. He then tried tax records, deeds offices, vital statistics. But you needed a credit card for almost everything, he learned. And credit cards, like cell phones, left obvious trails.

Then he had a brainstorm and searched through the archives of the local newspapers and TV stations. That proved much more helpful. He jotted information, a lot of it.

Among the names on his list was “Kathryn Dance.”

He enjoyed doodling a funereal frame around it.

The search didn’t give him all the information he needed, but it was a start.

Always aware of his surroundings, he noticed a black Toyota Camry pull into the lot and pause outside the window. He gripped the gun. Then he smiled as the car parked exactly seven spaces away.

She climbed out.

That’s my girl.

Holding fast . . .

She walked inside.

“You did it, lovely.” Pell glanced at the Camry. “Looks nice.”

She kissed him fast. Her hands were shaking. And she couldn’t control her excitement. “It went great! It really did, sweetie. At first he was kind of freaked and I didn’t think he was going to do it. He didn’t like the thing about the license plates but I did everything you told me and he agreed.”

“Good for you, lovely.”

Jennie had used some of her cash—she’d withdrawn $9,200 to pay for the escape and tide them over for the time being—to buy a car from a man who lived in Marina. It would be too risky to have it registered in her real name so she’d persuaded him to leave his own plates on it. She’d told him that her car had broken down in Modesto and she’d have the plates in a day or two. She’d swap them and mail his back. This was illegal and really stupid. No man would ever do that for some other guy, even one paying cash. But Pell had sent Jennie to handle it—a woman in tight jeans, a half-buttoned blouse and red bra on fine display. (Had it been a woman selling the car, Pell would have dressed her down, lost the makeup, given her four kids, a dead soldier for a husband and a pink breast cancer ribbon. You can never be too obvious, he’d learned.)

“Nice. Oh, can I have the car keys?”

She handed them over. “Here’s what else you wanted.” Jennie set two shopping bags on the bed. Pell looked through them and nodded approvingly.

She got a soda from the minifridge. “Honey, can I ask you something?”

His natural reluctance to answer questions—at least truthfully—surfaced again. But he smiled. “You can, anything.”

“Last night, when you were sleeping, you said something. You were talking about God.”

“God. What’d I say?”

“I couldn’t tell. But it was definitely ‘God.’ ”

Pell’s head turned slowly toward her. He noticed his heart rate increase. He found his foot tapping, which he stopped.

“You were really freaking out. I was going to wake you up but that’s not good. I read that somewhere. Reader’s Digest. Or Health. I don’t know. When somebody’s having a bad dream, you should never wake them up. And you said, like, ‘Fuck no.’ ”

“I said that?”

Jennie nodded. “Which was weird. ’Cause you never swear.”

That was true. People who used obscenities had much less power than people who didn’t.

“What was your dream about?” she asked.

“I don’t remember.”

“Wonder why you were dreaming about God.”

For a moment he felt a curious urge to tell her about his father. Then: What the hell’re you thinking of?

“No clue.”

“I’m kinda into religion,” she said uncertainly. “A little. More spiritual stuff than Jesus, you know.”

“Well, about Jesus, I don’t think he was the son of God or anything, but I’ll tell you, I respect Him. He could get anybody to do whatever He wanted. I mean, even now, you just mention the name and, bang, people’ll hop to in a big way. That’s power. But all those religions, the organized ones, you give up too much to belong to them. You can’t think the way you want to. They control you.”

Pell glanced at her blouse, the bra. . . . The swelling began again, the high-pressure center growing in his belly.

He tried to ignore it and looked back at the notes he’d taken from his online searches and the map. Jennie clearly wanted to ask what he had in mind but couldn’t bring herself to. She’d be hoping he was looking for routes out of town, roads that would lead ultimately to Orange County.

“I’ve got a few things to take care of, baby. I’ll need you to give me a ride.”

“Sure, just say when.”

He was studying the map carefully, and he looked up to see that she’d stepped away.

Jennie returned a moment later, carrying a few things, which she’d gotten from a bag in the closet. She set these on the bed in front of him, then knelt on the floor. It was like a dog bringing her master a ball, ready to play.

Pell hesitated. But then he reminded himself that it’s okay to give up a little control from time to time, depending on the circumstances.

He reached for her but she lay down and rolled over on her belly all by herself.

•    •    •

There are two routes to San Jose from Monterey. You can take Highway 1, which winds along the coast through Santa Cruz, then cut over on vertigo-inducing Highway 17, through artsy Los Gatos, where you can buy crafts and crystals and incense and tie-dyed Janis Joplin dresses (and, okay, Roberto Cavalli and D&G).

Or you can just take the Highway 156 cutoff to the 101 and, if you’ve got government tags, burn however much gas you want to get up to the city in an hour.

Kathryn Dance chose the second.

Gospel was gone and she was listening to Latin music—the Mexican singer Julieta Venegas. Her soulful “Verdad” was pounding from the speakers.

The Taurus was doing ninety as she zipped through Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world. Not far away was Castroville (ditto, artichokes) and Watsonville, with its sweeping pelt of berry fields and mushroom farms. She liked these towns and had no patience for detractors who laughed at the idea of crowning an artichoke queen or standing in line for the petting tanks at Monterey’s own Squid Festival. After all, these chicer-than-thou urbanites were the ones who paid obscene prices for olive oil and balsamic vinegar to cook those very artichokes and calamari rings in.

These burgs were homey and honest and filled with history. And they were also her turf, falling within the west-central region of the CBI.

She saw a sign luring tourists to a vineyard in Morgan Hill, and had a thought.

Dance called Michael O’Neil.

“Hey,” he said.

“I was thinking about the acid they found in the Thunderbird at Moss Landing. Any word?”

“Peter’s techs’ve been working on it but they still don’t have any specific leads.”

“How many bodies we have searching the orchards and vineyards?”

“About fifteen CHP, five of our people, some Salinas uniforms. They haven’t found anything.”

“I’ve got an idea. What is the acid exactly?”

“Hold on.”

Eyes slipping between the road and the pad of paper resting on her knee, she jotted the incomprehensible terms as he spelled them.

“So kinesics isn’t enough? You have to master forensics too?”

“A wise woman knows her limitations. I’ll call you in a bit.”

Dance then hit speed dial. She listened to a phone ring two thousand miles away.

A click as it answered. “Amelia Sachs.”

“Hi, it’s Kathryn.”

“How’re you doing?”

“Well, been better.”

“Can imagine. We’ve been following the case. How’s that officer? The one who was burned?”

Dance was surprised that Lincoln Rhyme, the well-known forensic scientist in New York City, and Amelia Sachs, his partner and a detective with the NYPD, had been following the story of Pell’s escape.

“Not too good, I’m afraid.”

“We were talking about Pell. Lincoln remembers the original case. In ninety-nine. When he killed that family. Are you making headway?”

“Not much. He’s smart. Too smart.”

“That’s what we’re gathering from the news. So, how are the kids?”

“Fine. We’re still waiting for that visit. My parents too. They want to meet you both.”

Sachs gave a laugh. “I’ll get him out there soon. It’s a . . . let’s say challenge.”

Lincoln Rhyme didn’t like to travel. This wasn’t owing to the problems associated with his disability (he was a quadriplegic). He simply didn’t like to travel.

Dance had met Rhyme and Sachs last year when she’d been teaching a course in the New York area and had been tapped to help them on a case. They’d stayed in touch. She and Sachs in particular had grown close. Women in the tough business of policing tend to do that.

“Any word on our other friend?” Sachs asked.

This reference was to the perp they’d been after in New York last year. The man had eluded them and vanished, possibly to California. Dance had opened a CBI file but then the trail grew cold and it was possible that the perp was now out of the country.

“I’m afraid not. Our office in L.A.’s still following up on the leads. I’m calling about something else. Is Lincoln available?”

“Hold on a minute. He’s right here.”

There was a click and Rhyme’s voice popped into her phone.

“Kathryn.”

Rhyme was not the sort for chitchat, but he spent a few minutes conversing—nothing about her personal life or the children, of course. His interest was the cases she was working. Lincoln Rhyme was a scientist, with very little patience for the “people” side of policing, as he put it. Yet, on their recent case together, he’d grown to understand and value kinesics (though being quick to point out that it was based on scientific methodology and not, he said contemptuously, gut feeling). He said, “Wish you were here. I’ve got a witness we’d love for you to grill on a multiple homicide case. You can use a rubber hose if you want.”

She could picture him in his red motorized wheelchair, staring at a large flat screen hooked up to a microscope or computer. He loved evidence the same way she loved interrogation.

“Wish I could. But I’ve got my hands full.”

“So I hear. Who’s doing the lab work?”

“Peter Bennington.”

“Oh, sure. I know him. Cut his teeth in L.A. Took a seminar of mine. Good man.”

“Got a question about the Pell situation.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

“We’ve got some evidence that might lead to what he’s up to—maybe tainting food—or where he’s hiding. But either one’s taking a lot of manpower to check out. I have to know if it makes sense to keep them committed. We could really use them elsewhere.”

“What’s the evidence?”

“I’ll do the best I can with the pronunciation.” Eyes shifting between the road and her notebook. “Carboxylic acid, ethanol and malic acid, amino acid and glucose.”

“Give me a minute.”

She heard his conversation with Amelia Sachs, who apparently went online into one of Rhyme’s own databases. She could hear the words clearly; unlike most callers, the criminalist was unable to hold his hand over the phone when speaking to someone else in the room.

“Okay, hold on, I’m scrolling through some things now. . . .”

“You can call me back,” Dance said. She hadn’t expected an answer immediately.

“No . . . just hold on. . . . Where was the substance found?”

“On the floor of Pell’s car.”

“Hm. Car.” Silence for a moment, then Rhyme was muttering to himself. Finally he asked, “Any chance that Pell had just eaten in a restaurant? A seafood restaurant or a British pub?”

She laughed out loud. “Seafood, yes. How on earth did you know?”

“The acid’s vinegar—malt vinegar specifically, because the amino acids and glucose indicate caramel coloring. My database tells me it’s common in British cooking, pub food and seafood. Thom? You remember him? He helped me with that entry.”

Rhyme’s caregiver was also quite a cook. Last December he’d served her a boeuf bourguignon that was the best she’d ever had.

“Sorry it doesn’t lead to his front door,” the criminalist said.

“No, no, that’s fine, Lincoln. I can pull the troops off the areas we had them searching. Send them to where they’ll be better used.”

“Call anytime. That’s one perp I wouldn’t mind a piece of.”

They said good-bye.

Dance disconnected, called O’Neil, and told him it was likely that the acid had come from Jack’s restaurant and wouldn’t lead them to Pell or his mission here. It was probably better for the officers to search for the killer according to their original plan.

She hung up and continued her drive north on the familiar highway, which would take her to San Francisco, where the eight-lane Highway 101 eventually funneled into just another city street, Van Ness. Now, eighty miles north of Monterey. Dance turned west and made her way into the sprawl of San Jose, a city that stood as the antithesis of Los Angeles narcissism in the old Burt Bacharach/Hal David tune “Do You Know the Way to San Jose?” Nowadays, of course, thanks to Silicon Valley, San Jose flexed an ego of its own.

Mapquest led her through a maze of large developments until she came to one filled with nearly identical houses; if the symmetrically planted trees had been saplings when they’d gone in, Dance estimated the neighborhood was about twenty-five years old. Modest, nondescript, small—still, each house would sell for well over a million dollars.

She found the house she sought and passed it by, parking across the street a block away. She walked back to the address, where a red Jeep and a dark blue Acura sat in the driveway and a big plastic tricycle rested on the lawn. Dance could see lights inside the house. She walked to the front porch. Rang the bell. Her cover story was prepared in case Samantha McCoy’s husband or children answered the door. It seemed unlikely that the woman had kept her past a secret from her spouse, but it would be better to start out on the assumption that she had. Dance needed the woman’s cooperation and didn’t want to alienate her.

The door opened and she found herself looking at a slim woman with a narrow, pretty face, resembling the actress Cate Blanchett. She wore chic, blue-framed glasses and had curly brown hair. She stood in the doorway, head thrust forward, bony hand gripping the doorjamb.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Starkey?”

“That’s right.” The face was very different from that in the pictures of Samantha McCoy eight years ago; she’d had extensive cosmetic surgery. But her eyes told Dance instantly that there was no doubt of her identity. Not their appearance, but the flash of horror, then dismay.

The agent said quietly, “I’m Kathryn Dance. California Bureau of Investigation.” The woman’s glance at the ID, discreetly held low, was so fast that she couldn’t possibly have read a word on it.

From inside, a man’s voice called, “Who is it, honey?”

Samantha’s eyes firmly fixed on Dance’s, she replied, “That woman from up the street. The one I met at Safeway I told you about.”

Which answered the question about how secret her past was.

She also thought: Smooth. Good liars are always prepared with credible answers, and they know the person they’re lying to. Samantha’s response told Dance that her husband had a bad memory of casual conversation and that Samantha had thought out every likely situation in which she’d need to lie.

The woman stepped outside, closed the door behind her and they walked halfway to the street. Without the softening filter of the screen door, Dance could see how haggard the woman looked. Her eyes were red and the crescents beneath them were dark, her facial skin dry, lips cracked. A fingernail was torn. It seemed she’d gotten no sleep. Dance understood why she was “working at home” today.

A glance back at the house. Then she turned to Dance and, with imploring eyes, whispered, “I had nothing to do with it, I swear. I heard he had somebody helping him, a woman. I saw that on the news, but—”

“No, no, that’s not what I’m here about. I checked you out. You work for that publisher on Figueroa. You were there all day yesterday.”

Alarm. “Did you—”

“Nobody knows. I called about delivering a package.”

“That . . . Toni said somebody tried to deliver something, they were asking about me. That was you.” The woman rubbed her face then crossed her arms. Gestures of negation. She was steeped in stress.

“That was your husband?” Dance asked.

She nodded.

“He doesn’t know?”

“He doesn’t even suspect.”

Amazing, Dance reflected. “Does anyone know?”

“A few of the clerks at the courthouse, where I changed my name. My parole officer.”

“What about friends and family?”

“My mother’s dead. My father couldn’t care less about me. They didn’t have anything to do with me before I met Pell. After the Croyton murders, they stopped returning my phone calls. And my old friends? Some stayed in touch for a while but being associated with somebody like Daniel Pell? Let’s just say they found excuses to disappear from my life as fast as they could. Everybody I know now I met after I became Sarah.” A glance back at the house, then she turned her uneasy eyes to Dance. “What do you want?” A whisper.

“I’m sure you’re watching the news. We haven’t found Pell yet. But he’s staying in the Monterey area. And we don’t know why. Rebecca and Linda are coming to help us.”

“They are?” She seemed astonished.

“And I’d like you to come down there too.”

“Me?” Her jaw trembled. “No, no, I couldn’t. Oh, please . . .” Her voice started to break.

Dance could see the fringes of hysteria. She said quickly, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to ruin your life. I’m not going to say anything about you. I’m just asking for help. We can’t figure him out. You might know some things—”

“I don’t know anything. Really. Daniel Pell’s not like a husband or brother or friend. He’s a monster. He used us. That’s all. I lived with him for two years and I still couldn’t begin to tell you what was going on in his mind. You have to believe me. I swear.”

Classic denial flags, signaling not deception but the stress from a past she couldn’t confront.

“You’ll be completely protected, if that’s what—”

“No. I’m sorry. I wish I could. You have to understand, I’ve created a whole new life for myself. But it’s taken so much work . . . and it’s so fragile.”

One look at the face, the horrified eyes, the trembling jaw, told Dance that there was no chance of her agreeing.

“I understand.”

“I’m sorry. I just can’t do it.”

Samantha turned and walked to the house. At the door, she looked back and gave a big smile.

Has she changed her mind? Dance was momentarily hopeful.

Then the woman waved. “ ’Bye!” she called. “Good seeing you again.”

Samantha McCoy and her lie walked back into the house. The door closed.

Chapter 24

“Did you hear about that?” Susan Pemberton asked César Gutierrez, sitting across from her in the hotel bar, as she poured sugar into her latte. She was gesturing toward a TV from which an anchorman was reading news above a local phone number.

Escapee Hotline.

“Wouldn’t it be Escaper?” Gutierrez asked.

Susan blinked. “I don’t know.”

The businessman continued, “I didn’t mean to be light about it. It’s terrible. He killed two people, I heard.” The handsome Latino sprinkled cinnamon into his cappuccino, then sipped, spilling a bit of spice on his slacks. “Oh, look at that. I’m such a klutz.” He laughed. “You can’t take me anywhere.”

He wiped at the stain, which only made it worse. “Oh, well.”

This was a business meeting. Susan, who worked for an event-planning company, was going to put together an anniversary party for his parents—but, being currently single, the thirty-nine-year-old woman automatically sized him up from a personal perspective, noting he was only a few years older than she and wore no wedding ring.

They’d disposed of the details of the party—cash bar, chicken and fish, open wine, fifteen minutes to exchange new vows and then dancing to a DJ. And now they were chatting over coffee before she went back to the office to work up an estimate.

“You’d think they would’ve got him by now.” Then Gutierrez glanced outside, frowning.

“Something wrong?” Susan asked.

“It sounds funny, I know. But just as I was getting here I saw this car pull up. And somebody who looked a little like him, Pell, got out.” He nodded at the TV.

“Who? The killer?”

He nodded. “And there was a woman driving.”

The TV announcer had just repeated that his accomplice was a young woman.

“Where did he go?”

“I wasn’t paying attention. I think toward the parking garage by the bank.”

She looked toward the place.

Then the businessman gave a smile. “But that’s crazy. He’s not going to be here.” He nodded past where they were looking. “What’s that banner? I saw it before.”

“Oh, the concert on Friday. Part of a John Steinbeck celebration. You read him?”

The businessman said, “Oh, sure. East of Eden. The Long Valley. You ever been to King City? I love it there. Steinbeck’s grandfather had a ranch.”

She touched her palm reverently to her chest. “Grapes of Wrath . . . the best book ever written.”

“And there’s a concert on Friday, you were saying? What kind of music?”

“Jazz. You know, because of the Monterey Jazz Festival. It’s my favorite.”

“I love it too,” Gutierrez said. “I go to the festival whenever I can.”

“Really?” Susan resisted an urge to touch his arm.

“Maybe we’ll run into each other at the next one.”

Susan said, “I worry . . . Well, I just wish more people would listen to music like that. Real music. I don’t think kids are interested.”

“Here’s to that.” Gutierrez tapped his cup to hers. “My ex . . . she lets our son listen to rap. Some of those lyrics? Disgusting. And he’s only twelve years old.”

“It’s not music,” Susan announced. Thinking: So. He has an ex. Good. She’d vowed never to date anyone over forty who hadn’t been married.

He hesitated and asked, “You think you might be there? At the concert?”

“Yeah, I will.”

“Well, I don’t know your situation, but if you were going to go, you want to hook up there?”

“Oh, César, that’d be fun.”

Hooking up . . .

Nowadays that was as good as a formal invitation.

Gutierrez stretched. He said he wanted to get on the road. Then he added he’d enjoyed meeting her and, without hesitating, gave her the holy trinity of phone numbers: work, home and mobile. He picked up his briefcase and they started for the door together. She noticed, though, that he was pausing, his eyes, through dark-framed glasses, examining the lobby. He frowned again, brushing uneasily at his moustache.

“Something wrong?”

“I think it’s that guy,” he whispered. “The one I saw before. There, you see him? He was here, in the hotel. Looking our way.”

The lobby was filled with tropical plants. She had a vague image of someone turning and walking out of the door.

“Daniel Pell?”

“It couldn’t be. It’s stupid. . . . Just, you know, the power of suggestion or something.”

They walked to the door, stopped. Gutierrez looked out. “He’s gone.”

“Think we should tell somebody at the desk?”

“I’ll give the police a call. I’m probably wrong but what can it hurt?” He pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911. He spoke for a few minutes, then disconnected. “They said they’d send somebody to check it out. Didn’t sound real enthusiastic. Of course, they’re probably getting a hundred calls an hour. I can walk you to your car, if you want.”

“Wouldn’t mind that.” She wasn’t so much worried about the escapee; she just liked the idea of spending more time with Gutierrez.

They walked along the main street in downtown Alvarado. Now it was the home of restaurants, tourist shops and coffeehouses—a lot different from the Wild West avenue it was a hundred years ago, when soldiers and Cannery Row workers drank, hung out in the brothels and occasionally shot it out in the middle of the street.

As Gutierrez and Susan walked along, their conversation was subdued and they both looked around them. She realized the streets were unusually deserted. Was that because of the escape? Now she began to feel uneasy.

Her office was next to a construction site a block from Alvarado. There were piles of building materials here; if Pell had come this way, she reflected, he could easily be hiding behind them, waiting. She slowed.

“That’s your car?” Gutierrez asked.

She nodded.

“Something wrong?”

Susan gave a grimace and an embarrassed laugh. She told him she was worried about Pell hiding in the building supplies.

He smiled. “Even if he was here he wouldn’t attack two of us together. Come on.”

“César, wait,” she said, reaching into her purse. She handed him a small, red cylinder. “Here.”

“What’s this?”

“Pepper spray. Just in case.”

“I think we’ll be okay. But how does it work?” Then he laughed. “Don’t want to spray myself.”

“All you have to do is point it and push there. It’s ready to go.”

They continued to the car and by the time they got there, Susan was feeling foolish. No crazed killers were lurking behind the piles of bricks. She wondered if her skittishness had lost her points in the potential date department. She didn’t think so. Gutierrez seemed to enjoy the role of gallant gentleman.

She unlocked the doors.

“I better give this back to you,” he said, holding out the spray.

Susan reached for it.

But Gutierrez lunged fast, grabbed her hair and jerked her head back fiercely. He shoved the nozzle of the canister into her mouth, open in a stifled scream.

He pushed the button.

•    •    •

Agony, reflected Daniel Pell, is perhaps the fastest way to control somebody.

Still in his apparently effective disguise as a Latino businessman, he was driving Susan Pemberton’s car to a deserted location near the ocean, south of Carmel.

Agony . . . Hurt them bad, give them a little time to recover, then threaten to hurt them again. Experts say torture isn’t efficient. That’s wrong. It isn’t elegant. It isn’t tidy. But it works real well.

The spray up Susan Pemberton’s mouth and nose had been only a second in duration but from her muffled scream and thrashing limbs he knew the pain was nearly unbearable. He let her recover. Brandished the spray in front of her panicked, watering eyes. And immediately got from her exactly what he wanted.

He hadn’t planned on the spray, of course; he had duct tape and a knife in the briefcase. But he’d decided to change his plans when the woman, to is amusement, handed the canister to him—well, to his alter ego César Gutierrez.

Daniel Pell had things to do in public and, with his picture running every half-hour on local television, he had to become someone else. After she’d wheedled the Toyota out of a gullible seller with an interest in a woman’s cleavage, Jennie Marston had bought cloth dye and instant-tan cream, which he’d mixed into a recipe for a bath that would darken his skin. He dyed his hair and eyebrows black and used Skin-Bond and hair clippings to make a realistic moustache. Nothing he could do about the eyes. If there were contact lenses that made blue brown, he didn’t know where to find them. But the glasses—cheap tinted reading glasses with dark frames—would distract from the color.

Earlier in the day Pell had called the Brock Company and gotten Susan Pemberton, who’d agreed to meet about planning an anniversary party. He dressed in a cheap suit Jennie’d bought in Mervyns and met the events planner at the Doubletree, where he got to work, doing what Daniel Pell did best.

Oh, it had been nice! Playing Susan like a fish was a luxurious high, even better than watching Jennie cut her hair or discard blouses or wince when he used the coat hanger on her narrow butt.

He now replayed the techniques: finding a common fear (the escaped killer) and common passions (John Steinbeck and jazz, which he knew little about, but he was a good bluffer); playing the sex game (her glance at his bare ring finger and stoic smile when he’d mentioned children told him all about Susan Pemberton’s romantic life); doing something silly and laughing about it (the spilled cinnamon); arousing her sympathy (his bitch of an ex-wife ruining his son); being a decent person (the party for his beloved parents, his chivalry in walking her to the car); belying suspicion (the fake call to 911).

Little by little gaining trust—and therefore gaining control.

What a total high it was to practice his art once again in the real world!

Pell found the turnoff. It led through a dense grove of trees, toward the ocean. Jennie had spent the Saturday before the escape doing some reconnaissance for him and had discovered this deserted place. He continued along the sand-swept road, passing a sign that declared the property private. He beached Susan’s car in sand at the end of the road, well out of sight of the highway. Climbing out, he heard the surf crash over an old pier not far away. The sun was low and spectacular.

He didn’t have to wait long. Jennie was early. He was happy to see that; people who arrive early are in your control. Always be wary of those who make you wait.

She parked, climbed out and walked to him. “Honey, I hope you didn’t have to wait long.” She hungrily closed her mouth around his, gripping his face in both her hands. Desperate.

Pell came up for air.

She laughed. “It’s hard to get used to you like this. I mean, I knew it was you, but still, I did a double take, you know. But it’s like me and my short hair—it’ll grow back and you’ll be white again.”

“Come here.” He took her hand and sat on a low sand dune, pulled her down next to him.

“Aren’t we leaving?” she asked.

“Not quite yet.”

A nod at the Lexus. “Whose car is that? I thought your friend was going to drop you off.”

He said nothing. They looked west at the Pacific Ocean. The sun was a pale disk just approaching the horizon, growing more fiery by the minute.

She’d be thinking: Does he want to talk, does he want to fuck me? What’s going on?

Uncertainty . . . Pell let it run up. She’d be noticing that he wasn’t smiling.

Concern flowed in like high tide. He felt the tension in her hand and arm.

Finally he asked, “How much do you love me?”

She didn’t hesitate, though Pell noted something cautious in her response. “As big as that sun.”

“Looks small from here.”

“I mean as big as the sun really is. No, as big as the universe,” she added quickly, as if trying to correct a wrong answer in class.

Pell was quiet.

“What’s the matter, Daniel?”

“I have a problem. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

She tensed. “A problem, sweetheart?”

So it’s “sweetie” when she’s happy, “sweetheart” when she’s troubled. Good to know. He filed that away.

“That meeting I had?” He’d told her only that he was going to meet someone about a “business thing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Something went wrong. I had all the plans made. This woman was going to pay me back a lot of money I’d loaned her. But she lied to me.”

“What happened?”

Pell was looking Jennie right in the eye. He reflected quickly that the only person who’d ever caught him lying was Kathryn Dance. But thinking of her was a distraction so he put her out of his mind. “She had her own plans, it turned out. She was going to use me. And you too.”

“Me? She knows me?”

“Not your name. But from the news she knows we’re together. She wanted me to leave you.”

“Why?”

“So she and I could be together. She wanted to go away with me.”

“This was somebody you used to know?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh.” Jennie fell silent.

Jealousy . . .

“I told her no, of course. There’s no way I’d even think about that.”

An attempted purr. It didn’t work.

Sweetheart . . .

“And Susan got mad. She said she was going to the police. She’d turn us both in.” Pell’s face contorted with pain. “I tried to talk her out of it. But she wouldn’t listen.”

“What happened?”

He glanced at the car. “I brought her here. I didn’t have any choice. She was trying to call the police.”

Alarmed, Jennie looked up and didn’t see anybody in the car.

“In the trunk.”

“Oh, God. Is she—”

“No,” Pell answered slowly, “she’s okay. She’s tied up. That’s the problem. I don’t know what to do now.”

“She still wants to turn you in?”

“Can you believe it?” he asked breathlessly. “I begged her. But she’s not right in the head. Like your husband, remember? He kept hurting you even though he knew he’d get arrested. Susan’s the same. She can’t control herself.” He sighed angrily. “I was fair to her. And she cheated me. She spent all the money. I was going to pay you back with it. For the car. For everything you’ve done.”

“You don’t have to worry about the money, sweetheart. I want to spend it on us.”

“No, I’m going to pay you back.” Never, ever let a woman know you want her for her money. And never, ever be in another human being’s debt.

He kissed her in a preoccupied way. “But what’re we going to do now?”

Jennie avoided his gaze and stared into the sun. “I . . . I don’t know, sweetheart. I’m not . . .” Her voice ran out of steam, just like her thoughts.

He squeezed her leg. “I can’t let anything hurt us. I love you so much.”

Faintly: “And I love you, Daniel.”

He took the knife from his pocket. Stared at it. “I don’t want to. I really don’t. People’ve been hurt yesterday because of us.”

Us. Not me.

She caught the distinction. He could sense it in the stiffening of her shoulders.

He continued, “But I didn’t do that intentionally. It was accidental. But this . . . I don’t know.” He turned the knife over and over in his hand.

She pressed against him, staring at the blade flashing in the sunset. She was shivering hard.

“Will you help me, lovely? I can’t do it by myself.”

Jennie started to cry. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t think I can.” Her eyes were fixed on the rump of the car.

Pell kissed her head. “We can’t let anything hurt us. I couldn’t live without you.”

“Me too.” She sucked in breath. Her jaw was quivering as much as her fingers.

“Help me, please.” A whisper. He rose, helped her to her feet and they continued to the Lexus. He gave her the knife, closed his hand around hers. “I’m not strong enough alone,” he confessed. “But together . . . we can do it together.” He looked at her, eyes bright. “It’ll be like a pact. You know, like a lovers’ pact. It means we’re bonded as close as two people can be. Like blood brothers. We’d be blood lovers.”

He reached into the car and hit the trunk-release button. Jennie barked a faint scream at the sound.

“Help me, lovely. Please.” He led her toward the trunk.

Then she stopped.

She handed him the knife, sobbing. “Please . . . I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Don’t be mad. I can’t do it. I just can’t.”

Pell said nothing, just nodded. Her miserable eyes, her tears reflecting red from the melting sun.

It was an intoxicating sight.

“Don’t be mad at me, Daniel. I couldn’t stand it if you were mad.”

Pell hesitated for three heartbeats, the perfect length of time to hatch uncertainty. “It’s okay. I’m not mad.”

“Am I still your lovely?”

Another pause. “Of course you are.” He told her to go wait in the car.

“I—”

“Go wait for me. It’s okay.” He said nothing more and Jennie walked back to the Toyota. He continued to the trunk of the Lexus and looked down.

At Susan Pemberton’s lifeless body.

He’d killed her an hour before, in the parking lot of her building. Suffocated her with duct tape.

Pell had never intended Jennie help him kill the woman. He’d known she’d balk. This whole incident was merely another lesson in the education of his pupil.

She’d moved a step closer to where he wanted her. Death and violence were on the table now. For at least five or ten seconds she’d considered slipping the knife into a human body, prepared to watch the blood flow, prepared to watch a human life vanish. Last week she’d never have been able to conceive of the thought; next week she’d consider it for a longer period.

Then she might actually agree to help him kill someone. And later still? Maybe he could get her to the point where she’d commit murder by herself. He’d gotten the girls in the Family to do things they hadn’t wanted to—but only petty crimes. Nothing violent. Daniel Pell, though, believed he had the talent to turn Jennie Marston into a robot who would do whatever he ordered, even kill.

He slammed the trunk. Then snagging a pine branch, he used it to obscure the footprints in the sand. He returned to the car, sweeping behind him. He told Jennie to drive up the road until the car was on gravel and he obliterated the tire prints, as well. He joined her.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Daniel,” she said, wiping her face. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Begging for reassurance.

But the lesson plan dictated that he give no response whatsoever.

Chapter 25

He was a curious man, Kathryn Dance was thinking.

Morton Nagle tugged at his sagging pants and sat down at the coffee table in her office, opening a battered briefcase.

He was a bit of a slob, his thinning hair disheveled, goatee unevenly trimmed, gray shirt cuffs frayed, body spongy. But he seemed comfortable with his physique, Dance the kinesics analyst assessed. His mannerisms, precise and economical, were stress-free. His eyes, with their elfin twinkle, performed triage, deciding instantly what was important and what wasn’t. When he’d entered her office, he’d ignored the decor, noted what Dance’s face revealed (probably exhaustion), gave young Rey Carraneo a friendly but meaningless glance and fixed immediately on Winston Kellogg.

And after he learned Kellogg’s employer, the writer’s eyes narrowed a bit further, wondering what an FBI agent was doing here.

Kellogg was dressed quite unfederal compared with this morning—in a beige checkered sports coat, dark slacks and blue dress shirt. He wore no tie. Still, his behavior was right out of the bureau, as noncommittal as their agents always are. He told Nagle only that he was here as an observer, “helping out.”

The writer offered one of his chuckles, which seemed to mean: I’ll get you to talk.

“Rebecca and Linda have agreed to help us,” Dance told him.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Really? The other one, Samantha?”

“No, not her.”

Nagle extracted three sheets of paper from his briefcase. He set them on the table. “My mini-opus, if that’s not an oxymoron. A brief history of Daniel Pell.”

Kellogg scooted his chair next to Dance’s. Unlike with O’Neil, she could detect no aftershave.

The writer repeated what he’d said to Dance the day before: his book wasn’t about Pell himself, but about his victims. “I’m looking into everybody affected by the Croytons’ deaths. Even employees. Croyton’s company was eventually bought by a big software developer and hundreds of people were laid off. Maybe that wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t died. And what about his profession? That’s a victim too. He was one of the most innovative computer designers in Silicon Valley at the time. He had dozens of copyrights on programs and patents on hardware that were way ahead of their time. A lot of them didn’t even have any application back then, they were so advanced. Now they’re gone. Maybe some were revolutionary programs for medicine or science or communications.”

Dance remembered thinking the same as she’d driven past the Cal State campus that was the recipient of much of Croyton’s estate.

Nagle continued, with a nod toward what he’d written. “It’s interesting—Pell changes his autobiography depending on whom he’s talking to. Say, he needs to form a connection with somebody whose parents died at a young age. Well, to them Pell says he was orphaned at ten. Or if he has to exploit somebody whose father was in the military, then he was the army brat of a soldier killed in combat. To hear him tell it, there are about twenty different Pells. Well, here’s the truth:

“He was born in Bakersfield, October of nineteen sixty-three. The seventh. But he tells everyone that his birthday is November twenty-second. That was the day Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy.”

“He admired a presidential assassin?” Kellogg asked.

“No, apparently he considered Oswald a loser. He thought he was too pliable and simpleminded. But what he admired was the fact that one man, with one act, could affect so much. Could make so many people cry, change the entire course of a country—well, the world.

“Now, Joseph Pell, his father, was a salesman, mother a receptionist when she could keep a job. Middle-class family. Mom—Elizabeth—drank a lot, have to assume she was distant, but no abuse, no incarceration. Died of cirrhosis when Daniel was in his midteens. With his wife gone, the father did what he could to raise the boy but Daniel couldn’t take anyone else being in charge. Didn’t do well with authority figures—teachers, bosses and especially his old man.”

Dance mentioned the tape she and Michael O’Neil had watched, the comments about his father charging rent, beating him, abandoning the family, his parents dying.

Nagle said, “All a lie. But his father was undoubtedly a hard character for Pell to deal with. He was religious—very religious, very strict. He was an ordained minister—some conservative Presbyterian sect in Bakersfield—but he never got a church of his own. He was an assistant minister but finally was released. A lot of complaints that he was too intolerant, too judgmental about the parishioners. He tried to start his own church but the Presbyterian synod wouldn’t even talk to him, so he ended up selling religious books and icons, things like that. But we can assume that he made his son’s life miserable.”

Religion was not central to Dance’s own life. She, Wes and Maggie celebrated Easter and Christmas, though the chief icons of the faith were a rabbit and a jolly fellow in a red suit, and she doled out to the children her own brand of ethics—solid, incontrovertible rules common to most of the major sects. Still, she’d been in law enforcement long enough to know that religion often played a role in crime. Not only premeditated acts of terrorism but more mundane incidents. She and Michael O’Neil had spent nearly ten hours together in a cramped garage in the nearby town of Marina, negotiating with a fundamentalist minister intent on killing his wife and daughter in the name of Jesus because the teenage girl was pregnant. (They saved the family but Dance came away with an uneasy awareness of what a dangerous thing spiritual rectitude can be.)

Nagle continued, “Pell’s father retired, moved to Phoenix and remarried. His second wife died two years ago and Joseph died last year, heart attack. Pell apparently had never stayed in touch. No uncles on either side and one aunt, in Bakersfield.”

“The one with Alzheimer’s?”

“Yes. Now, he does have a brother.”

Not an only child, as he’d claimed.

“He’s older. Moved to London years ago. He runs the sales operation of a U.S. importer/exporter. Doesn’t give interviews. All I have is a name. Richard Pell.”

Dance said to Kellogg, “I’ll have somebody track him down.”

“Cousins?” the FBI agent asked.

“Aunt never married.”

Tapping the bio he’d written. “Now, Pell’s later teens, he was constantly in and out of juvenile detention—mostly for larceny, shoplifting, car theft. But he has no long history of violence. His early record was surprisingly peaceful. There’s no evidence of street brawling, no violent assaults, no signs he ever lost his temper. One officer suggested that it seemed Pell would only hurt somebody if it was tactically useful, and that he didn’t enjoy—or hate—violence. It was a tool.” The writer looked up. “Which, you ask me, is scarier.”

Dance thought of her earlier assessment, killing emotionlessly whenever it was expedient.

“Now, no history of drugs. Pell apparently’s never been a user. And he doesn’t—or didn’t—drink any alcohol.”

“What about education?”

“Now that’s interesting. He’s brilliant. When he was in high school he tested off the charts. He got A’s in independent study classes, but never showed up when attendance was required. In prison he taught himself law and handled his own appeal in the Croyton case.”

She thought of his comment during the interview, about Hastings Law School.

“And he took it all the way to the California Supreme Court—just last year they ruled against him. Apparently it was a big blow. He thought for sure he’d get off.”

“Well, he may be smart but not smart enough to stay out of jail.” Kellogg tapped a paragraph of the bio that described maybe seventy-five arrests. “That’s a rap sheet”

“And it’s the tip of the iceberg; Pell usually got other people to commit the crimes. There’re probably hundreds of other offenses he was behind that somebody else got nailed for. Robbery, burglary, shoplifting, pickpocketing. That’s how he survived, getting people around him to do the dirty work.”

“Oliver,” Kellogg said.

“What?”

“Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist . . . You ever read it?”

Dance said, “Saw the movie.”

“Good comparison. Fagin, the guy who ran the gang of pickpockets. That was Pell.”

“ ‘Please, sir, I want some more,’ ” Kellogg said in a Cockney accent. It was lousy. Dance laughed and he shrugged.

“Pell left Bakersfield and moved to L.A., then San Francisco. Hung out with some people there, was arrested for a few things, nothing serious. No word for a while—until he’s picked up in Northern California in a homicide investigation.”

“Homicide?”

“Yep. The murder of Charles Pickering in Redding. Pickering was a county worker. He was found stabbed to death in the hills outside of town about an hour after he was seen talking to somebody who looked like Pell. Vicious killing. He was slashed dozens of times. Bloodbath. But Pell had an alibi—a girlfriend swore he was with her at the time of the killing. And there was no physical evidence. The local police held him for a week on vagrancy, but finally gave him a pass. The case was never solved.

“Then he gets the Family together in Seaside. A few more years of theft, shoplifting. Some assaults. An arson or two. Pell was suspected in the beating of a biker who lived nearby, but the man wouldn’t press charges. A month or so after that came the Croyton murders. From then on—well, until yesterday—he was in prison.”

Dance asked, “What does the girl have to say?”

“Girl?”

“The Sleeping Doll. Theresa Croyton.”

“What could she tell you? She was asleep at the time of the murders. That was established.”

“Was it?” Kellogg asked. “By who?”

“The investigators at the time, I assume.” Nagle’s voice was uncertain. He’d apparently never thought about it.

“She’d be, let’s see, seventeen now,” Dance calculated. “I’d like to talk to her. She might know some things that’d be helpful. She’s living with her aunt and uncle, right?”

“Yes, they adopted her.”

“Could I have their number?”

Nagle hesitated. His eyes swept the desktop; they’d lost their sparkle.

“Is there a problem?”

“Well, I promised the aunt I wouldn’t say anything to anybody about the girl. She’s very protective of her niece. Even I haven’t met her yet. At first the woman was dead set against my talking to her. I think she might agree eventually but if I gave you her number, I doubt very much she’d talk to you, and I suspect I’d never hear from her again.”

“Just tell us where she lives. We’ll get the name from Directory Assistance. I won’t mention you.”

He shook his head. “They changed their last name, moved out of the area. They were afraid somebody in the Family would come after them.”

“You gave Kathryn the names of the women,” Kellogg pointed out.

“They were in the phone book and in public records. You could’ve gotten them yourself. Theresa and her aunt and uncle are very unpublic.”

“You found them,” Dance said.

“Through some confidential sources. Who, I guarantee, want to stay even more confidential now that Pell’s escaped. But I know this’s important. . . . I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go see the aunt in person. Tell her you want to talk to Theresa about Pell. I’m not going to try to persuade them. If they say no, that’s it.”

Kellogg nodded. “That’s all we’re asking. Thanks.”

Looking over the bio, Dance said, “The more I learn about him, the less I know.”

The writer laughed, the sparkle returning to his face. “Oh, you want to know the why of Daniel Pell?” He dug through his briefcase, found a stack of papers and flipped to a yellow tab. “Here’s a quote from one of his prison psych interviews. For once he was being candid.” Nagle read:

“Pell: You want to analyze me, don’t you? You want to know what makes me tick? You surely know the answer to that one, Doctor. It’s the same for everybody: family, of course. Daddy whipped me, Daddy ignored me, Mommy didn’t breastfeed me, Uncle Joe did who knows what. Nature or nurture, you can lay everything at your family’s feet. But if you think too much about ’em, next thing you know, every single relative and ancestor you ever had is in the room with you and you’re paralyzed. No, no, the only way to survive is to let ’em all go and remember that you’re who you are and that’s never going to change.

“Interviewer: Then who are you, Daniel?

“Pell (laughing): Oh, me? I’m the one tugging the strings of your soul and making you do things you never thought you were capable of. I’m the one playing my flute and leading you to places you’re afraid to go. And let me tell you, Doctor, you’d be astonished at how many people want their puppeteers and their Pied Pipers. Absolutely astonished.”

•    •    •

“I have to get home,” Dance said, after Nagle had left. Her mother and the children would be anxiously awaiting her for her father’s party.

Kellogg tossed the comma of hair off his forehead. It fell back. He tried again. She glanced at the gesture and noticed something she hadn’t seen before—a bandage protruding above the collar of his shirt.

“You hurt?”

A shrug. “Got winged. A takedown in Chicago the other day.”

His body language told her he didn’t want to talk about it, and she didn’t push. But then he said, “The perp didn’t make it.” In a certain tone and with a certain glance. It was how she told people that she was a widow.

“I’m sorry. You handling it okay?”

“Fine.” Then he added, “Okay, not fine. But I’m handling it. Sometimes that’s the best you can do.”

On impulse she asked, “Hey, you have plans tonight?”

“Brief the SAC, then a bath at the hotel, a scotch, a burger and sleep. Well, okay, two scotches.”

“Have a question.”

He lifted an eyebrow.

“You like birthday cake?”

After only a brief pause he said, “It’s one of my favorite food groups.”

Chapter 26

“Mom, look. We deck-orated it! D-E-C-K.”

Dance kissed her daughter. “Mags, that’s funny.”

She knew the girl had been bursting, waiting to share the pun.

The Deck did look nice. The kids had been busy all afternoon getting ready for the party. Banners, Chinese lanterns, candles everywhere. (They’d learned from their mom; when it came to entertaining, Kathryn Dance’s guests might not get gourmet food, but they were treated to great atmosphere.)

“When can Grandpa open his presents?” Both Wes and Maggie had saved up allowance money and bought Stuart Dance outdoor gear—waders and a net. Dance knew her father’d be happy with anything his grandchildren got him but those particular items he would definitely use.

“Presents after the cake,” Edie Dance announced. “And that’s after dinner.”

“Hi, Mom.” Dance and her mother didn’t always hug but tonight Edie clasped her close as an excuse to whisper that she wanted to talk to her about Juan Millar.

The women walked into the living room.

Dance saw immediately that her mother was troubled.

“What is it?”

“He’s still hanging in there. He’s come to a couple of times.” A glance around to make sure, presumably, that the children were nowhere nearby. “Only for a few seconds each time. He couldn’t possibly give you a statement. But . . .”

“What, Mom?”

She lowered her voice further. “I was standing near him. Nobody else was in earshot. I looked down and his eyes were open. I mean the one that’s not bandaged. His lips were moving. I bent down. He said . . .” Edie glanced around again. “He said, ‘Kill me.’ He said it twice. Then he closed his eyes.”

“Is he in that much pain?”

“No, he’s so medicated he can’t feel a thing. But he could look at the bandages. He could see the equipment. He’s not a stupid man.”

“His family’s there?”

“Most of the time. Well, that brother of his, round the clock. He watches us like a hawk. He’s convinced we’re not giving Juan good treatment because he’s Latino. And he’s made a few more comments about you.”

Dance grimaced.

“Sorry, but I thought you should know.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

Very troubling. Not Julio Millar, of course. She could handle him. It was the young detective’s hopelessness that upset her so deeply.

Kill me . . .

Dance asked, “Did Betsey call?”

“Ah, your sister can’t be here,” Edie said in a breezy tone, whose subtext was irritation that their younger daughter wouldn’t make the four-hour drive from Santa Barbara for her father’s birthday party. Of course, with the Pell manhunt ongoing, Dance probably wouldn’t’ve driven there, had the situation been reversed. According to an important rule of families, though, hypothetical transgressions aren’t offenses, and that Dance was present, even by default, meant that, this time, Betsey earned the black mark.

They returned to the Deck and Maggie asked, “Mom, can we let Dylan and Patsy out?”

“We’ll see.” The dogs could be a little boisterous at parties. And tended to get too much human food for their own good.

“Where’s your brother?”

“In his room.”

“What’s he doing?”

“Stuff.”

Dance locked the weapon away for the party—an MCSO deputy on security detail was parked outside. She showered fast and changed.

She found Wes in the hallway. “No, no T-shirt. It’s your grandfather’s birthday.”

“Mom. It’s clean.”

“Polo. Or your blue-and-white button-down.” She knew the contents of his closet better than he did.

“Oh, okay.”

She looked closely at his downcast eyes. His demeanor had nothing to do with a change of shirt.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, spill.”

“Spill?”

“It’s from my era. Tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Nothing.”

“Go change.”

Ten minutes later she was setting out mounds of luscious appetizers, offering a silent prayer of thanks to Trader Joe’s.

In a dress shirt, cuffs buttoned and tails tucked, Wes strafed past and grabbed a handful of nuts. A whiff of aftershave followed. He looked good. Being a parent was a challenge, but there was plenty to be proud of too.

“Mom?” He tossed a cashew into the air. Caught it in his mouth.

“Don’t do that. You could choke.”

“Mom?”

“What?”

“Who’s coming tonight?”

Now the eyes fished away and his shoulder was turned toward her. That meant another agenda lay behind the question. She knew what was bothering him—the same as last night. And now it was time to talk.

“Just us and a few people.” Sunday evening there’d be a bigger event, with many of Stuart’s friends, at the Marine Club near the aquarium in Monterey. Today, her father’s actual birthday, she’d invited only eight or so people for dinner. She continued, “Michael and his wife, Steve and Martine, the Barbers . . . that’s about it. Oh, and somebody who’s working with us on a case. He’s from Washington.”

He nodded. “That’s all? Nobody else?”

“That’s all.” She pitched him a bag of pretzels, which he caught with one hand. “Set those out. And make sure there’re some left for the guests.”

A much-relieved Wes headed off to start filling bowls.

What the boy had been worried about was the possibility that Dance had invited Brian Gunderson.

The Brian who was the source of the book sitting prominently nearby, the Brian whose phone call to Dance at CBI headquarters Maryellen Kresbach had so diligently reported.

Brian called. . . .

The forty-year-old investment banker had been a blind date, courtesy of Maryellen, who was as compulsive about, and talented at, matchmaking as she was baking, brewing coffee and running the professional life of CBI agents.

Brian was smart and easy-going and funny too; on their first date the man had listened to her description of kinesics and promptly sat on his hands. “So you can’t figure out my intentions.” That dinner had turned out to be quite enjoyable. Divorced, no children (though he wanted them). Brian’s investment-banking business was hectic, and with his and Dance’s busy schedules, the relationship had by necessity moved slowly. Which was fine with her. Long married, recently widowed, she was in no hurry.

After a month of dinners, coffee and movies, she and Brian had taken a long hike and found themselves on the beach at Asilomar. A golden sunset, a slew of sea otters playing near shore . . . how could you resist a kiss or two? They hadn’t. She remembered liking that. Then feeling guilty for liking. But liking it more than feeling guilty.

That part of your life you can do without for a while, but not forever.

Dance hadn’t had any particular plans for the future with Brian and was happy to take it easy, see what developed.

But Wes had intervened. He was never rude or embarrassing, but he made clear in a dozen ways a mother could clearly read that he didn’t like anything about Brian. Dance had graduated from grief-counseling but she still saw a therapist occasionally. The woman told her how to introduce a possible romantic interest to the children, and she’d done everything right. But Wes had outmaneuvered her. He grew sullen and passive-aggressive whenever the subject of Brian came up or when she returned from seeing him.

That’s what he’d been wanting to ask about last night when he was reading Lord of the Rings.

Tonight, in his casual question about attendance at the party, the boy really meant, Is Brian coming?

And the corollary: Have you guys really broken up?

Yes, we have. (Though Dance wondered if Brian felt differently. After all, he’d called several times since the breakup.)

The therapist had said his behavior was normal, and Dance could work it out if she remained patient and determined. Most important, though, she couldn’t let her son control her. But in the end she decided she wasn’t patient or determined enough. And so, two weeks ago, she’d broken it off. She’d been tactful, explaining that it was just a little too soon after her husband’s death; she wasn’t ready. Brian had been upset but had taken the news well. No parting shots. And they’d left the matter open.

Let’s just give it some time. . . .

In truth the breakup was a relief; parents have to pick their battles, and, she’d decided, skirmishing over romance wasn’t worth the effort just now. Still, she was pleased about his calls and had found herself missing him.

Carting wine outside onto the Deck, she found her father with Maggie. He was holding a book and pointing to a picture of a deep-sea fish that glowed.

“Hey, Mags, that looks tasty,” Dance said.

“Mom, gross.”

“Happy birthday, Dad.” She hugged him.

“Thank you, dear.”

Dance arranged platters, dumped beer into the cooler, then walked into the kitchen and pulled out her mobile. She checked in with TJ and Carraneo. They’d had no luck with the physical search for Pell, nor come across any leads to the missing Ford Focus, anyone with the names or screen names Nimue or Alison, or hotels, motels or boardinghouses where Pell and his accomplice might be staying.

She was tempted to call Winston Kellogg, thinking he might be shying, but she decided not to. He had all the vital statistics; he’d either show or not.

Dance helped her mother with more food and, returning to the Deck, greeted the neighbors, Tom and Sarah Barber, who brought with them wine, a birthday present and their gangly mixed-breed dog, Fawlty.

“Mom, please!” Maggie called, her meaning clear.

“Okay, okay, let ’em out of doggy jail.”

Maggie freed Patsy and Dylan from the bedroom and the three canines galloped into the backyard, knocking one another down and checking out new scents.

A few minutes later another couple appeared on the Deck. Fortyish Steven Cahill could’ve been a Birkenstock model, complete with corduroy slacks and salt-and-pepper ponytail. His wife, Martine Christensen, belied her surname; she was sultry, dark and voluptuous. You’d have thought the blood in her veins was Spanish or Mexican but her ancestors predated all the Californian settlers. She was part Ohlone Indian—a loose affiliation of tribelets, hunting and gathering from Big Sur to San Francisco Bay. For hundreds, possibly thousands, of years, the Ohlone were the sole inhabitants of this region of the state.

Some years ago Dance had met Martine at a concert at a community college in Monterey, a descendant of the famed Monterey Folk Festival, where Bob Dylan had made his West Coast debut in 1965, and that a few years later morphed into the even more famous Monterey Pop Festival, which brought Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin to the world’s attention.

The concert where Dance and Martine had met was less culture-breaking than its predecessors, but more significant on a personal level. The women had hit it off instantly and had stayed out long after the last act finished, talking music. They’d soon become best friends. It was Martine who’d practically broken down Dance’s door on several occasions following Bill’s death. She’d waged a persistent campaign to keep her friend from sinking into the seductive world of reclusive widowhood. While some people avoided her, and others (her mother, for instance) plied her with exhausting sympathy, Martine embarked on a campaign that could be called ignoring sorrow. She cajoled, joked, argued and plotted. Despite Dance’s reticence, she realized that, damn it, the tactic had worked. Martine was perhaps the biggest influence in getting her life back on track.

Steve’s and Martine’s children, twin boys a year younger than Maggie, followed them up the stairs, one toting his mother’s guitar case, the other a present for Stuart. After greetings, Maggie herded the boys into the backyard.

The adults gravitated to a rickety candlelit table.

Dance saw that Wes was happier than he’d been in a long time. He was a natural social director and was now organizing a game for the children.

She thought again about Brian, then let it go.

“The escape. Are you . . .?” Martine’s melodious voice faded once she saw that Dance knew what she was talking about.

“Yep. I’m running it.”

“So the bugs hit you first,” her friend observed.

“Right in the teeth. If I have to run off before the cake and candles, that’s why.”

“It’s funny,” said Tom Barber, a local journalist and freelance writer. “We spend all our time lately thinking about terrorists. They’re the new ‘in’ villains. And suddenly somebody like Pell sneaks up behind you. You tend to forget that it’s people like him who might be the worst threat to most of us.”

Barber’s wife added, “People’re staying home. All over the Peninsula. They’re afraid.”

“Only reason I’m here,” Steven Cahill said, “is because I knew there’d be folks packing heat.”

Dance laughed.

Michael and Anne O’Neil arrived with their two children, Amanda and Tyler, nine and ten. Once again Maggie clambered up the stairs. She escorted the new youngsters to the backyard, after stocking up on sodas and chips.

Dance pointed out wine and beer, then headed into the kitchen to help. But her mother said, “You’ve got another guest.” She indicated the front door, where Dance found Winston Kellogg.

“I’m empty-handed,” he confessed.

“I’ve got more than we’ll ever eat. You can take a doggy bag home, if you want. By the way, you allergic?”

“To pollen, yes. Dogs? No.”

Kellogg had changed again. The sports coat was the same but he wore a polo shirt and jeans, Topsiders and yellow socks.

He noted her glance. “I know. For a Fed I look surprisingly like a soccer dad.”

She directed him through the kitchen and introduced him to Edie. Then they continued on to the Deck, where he was inundated with more introductions. She remained circumspect about his role here, and Kellogg said merely that he was in town from Washington and was “working with Kathryn on a few projects.”

Then she took him to the stairs leading down to the backyard and introduced him to the children. Dance caught Wes and Tyler looking at him closely, undoubtedly for armament, and whispering to each other.

O’Neil joined the two agents.

Wes waved enthusiastically to the deputy and, with another glance at Kellogg, returned to their game, which he was apparently making up on the run. He was laying out the rules. It seemed to involve outer space and invisible dragons. The dogs were aliens. The twins were royalty of some kind and a pine cone was either a magic orb or a hand grenade, perhaps both.

“Did you tell Michael about Nagle?” Kellogg asked.

She gave a brief synopsis of what they’d learned about Pell’s history and added that the writer was going to see if Theresa Croyton would talk to them.

“So, you think Pell’s here because of the murders back then?” O’Neil asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I need all the information I can get.”

The placid detective gave a smile and said to Kellogg, “No stone left unturned. That’s how I describe her policing style.”

“Which I learned from him,” Dance said, laughing, and nodding at O’Neil.

Then the detective said, “Oh, I was thinking about something. Remember? One of Pell’s phone conversations from Capitola was about money.”

“Ninety-two hundred dollars,” Kellogg said.

Dance was impressed at his retention.

“Well, here’s what I thought: We know the Thunderbird was stolen in Los Angeles. It’s logical to assume that’s where Pell’s girlfriend’s from. How ’bout we contact banks in L.A. County and see if any women customers’ve withdrawn that amount in the past, say, month or two?”

Dance liked the idea, though it would mean a lot of work.

O’Neil said to Kellogg, “That’d have to come from you folks: FBI, Treasury, IRS or Homeland Security, I’d guess.”

“It’s a good idea. Just thinking out loud, though, I’d say we’d have a manpower problem.” He echoed Dance’s concern. “We’re talking millions of customers. I know the L.A. bureau couldn’t handle it, and Homeland’d laugh. And if she was smart she’d make small withdrawals over a period of time. Or cash third-party checks and stash the money.”

“Oh, sure. Possibly. But it’d be great to ID his girlfriend. You know, ‘A second suspect—’ ”

“—‘logarithmically increases the chances for detection and arrest,’ ” Kellogg finished the quotation from an old textbook on law enforcement. Dance and O’Neil quoted it often.

Smiling, Kellogg held O’Neil’s eye. “We Feds don’t have quite the resources people think we do. I’m sure we couldn’t come up with the bodies to man the phones. Be a huge job.”

“I wonder. You’d think it’d be pretty easy to check databases, at least with the big chain banks.” Michael O’Neil could be quite tenacious.

Dance asked, “Would you need a warrant?”

O’Neil said, “Probably to release the name you would. But if a bank wanted to cooperate they could run the numbers and tell us if there was a match. We could get a warrant for the name and address in a half-hour.”

Kellogg sipped his wine. “The fact is, there’s another problem. I’m worried if we go to the SAC or Homeland with something like that—too tenuous—we might lose support we’d need later for something more solid.”

“Crying wolf, hm?” O’Neil nodded. “Guess you have to play more politics at that level than we do here.”

“But let’s think about it. I’ll make some calls.”

O’Neil looked past Dance’s shoulder. “Hey, happy birthday, young man.”

Stuart Dance, wearing a badge that said “Birthday Boy,” handmade by Maggie and Wes, shook hands, refilled O’Neil’s and Dance’s wineglasses and said to Kellogg, “You’re talking shop. Not allowed. I’m stealing you away from these children, come play with the adults.”

Kellogg gave a shy laugh and followed the man to the candlelit table, where Martine had her battered Gibson guitar out of the case and was organizing a sing-along. Dance and O’Neil stood alone. She saw Wes looking up. He’d apparently been studying the adults. He turned away, back to the Star Wars improvisation.

“He seems good,” O’Neil said, tilting his head toward Kellogg.

“Winston? Yes.”

Typically, O’Neil carried no grudge about the rejection of his suggestions. He was the antithesis of pettiness.

“He take a hit recently?” O’Neil tapped his neck.

“How’d you know?” The bandage wasn’t visible tonight.

“He was touching it the way you touch a wound.”

She laughed. “Good kinesic analysis. Yeah, just happened. He was in Chicago. The perp got a round off first, I guess, and Win took him out. He didn’t go into the details.”

They fell silent, looking over the backyard, the children, the dogs, the lights glowing brighter in the encroaching dusk. “We’ll get him.”

“Will we?” she asked.

“Yep. He’ll make a mistake. They always do.”

“I don’t know. He’s something different. Don’t you feel that?”

“No. He’s not different. He’s just more.” Michael O’Neil—the most widely read person she knew—had surprisingly simple philosophies of life. He didn’t believe in evil or good, much less God or Satan. Those were all abstractions that deflected you from your job, which was to catch people who broke rules that humans had created for their own health and safety.

No good, no bad. Just destructive forces that had to be stopped.

To Michael O’Neil, Daniel Pell was a tsunami, an earthquake, a tornado.

He watched the children playing, then said, “I gather that guy you’ve been seeing . . . It’s over with?”

Brian called. . . .

“You caught that, hm? Busted by my own assistant.”

“I’m sorry. Really.”

“You know how it goes,” Dance said, noting she’d spoken one of those sentences that were meaningless flotsam in a conversation.

“Sure.”

Dance turned to see how her mother was coming with dinner. She saw O’Neil’s wife looking at the two of them. Anne smiled.

Dance smiled back. She said to O’Neil, “So, let’s go join the sing-along.”

“Do I have to sing?”

“Absolutely not,” she said quickly. He had a wonderful speaking voice, low with a natural vibrato. He couldn’t stay on key under threat of torture.

After a half-hour of music, gossip and laughter, Edie Dance, her daughter and granddaughter set out Worcestershire-marinated flank steak, salad, asparagus and potatoes au gratin. Dance sat beside Winston Kellogg, who was holding his own very well among strangers. He even told a few jokes, with a deadpan delivery that reminded her of her late husband, who had shared not only Kellogg’s career but his easy-going nature—at least once the federal ID card was tucked away.

The conversation ambled from music to Anne O’Neil’s critique of San Francisco arts, to politics in the Middle East, Washington and Sacramento, to the far more important story of a sea otter pup born in captivity at the aquarium two days ago.

It was a comfortable gathering: friends, laughter, food, wine, music.

Though, of course, complete comfort eluded Kathryn Dance. Pervading the otherwise fine evening, like the moving bass line of Martine’s old guitar, was the thought that Daniel Pell was still at large.

WEDNESDAY

Chapter 27

Kathryn Dance was sitting in a cabin at the Point Lobos Inn—the first time she’d ever been in the expensive place. It was an upscale lodge of private cabins on a quiet road off Highway 1, south of Carmel, abutting the rugged and beautiful state park after which the inn was named. The Tudor-style place was secluded—a long driveway separated it from the road—and the deputy in the Monterey Sheriff’s Office car stationed in front had a perfect view of all approaches, which was why she’d picked it.

Dance checked in with O’Neil. At the moment he was following up on a missing person report in Monterey. Calls to TJ and Carraneo too. TJ had nothing to tell her, and the rookie agent said he was still having no luck finding a cheap motel or boardinghouse where Pell might be staying. “I’ve tried all the way up to Gilroy and—”

“Cheap hotels?”

A pause. “That’s right, Agent Dance. I didn’t bother with the expensive ones. Didn’t think an escapee’d have much money to spend on them.”

Dance recalled Pell’s secret phone conversation in Capitola, the reference to $9,200. “Pell’s probably thinking that’s exactly what you’re thinking. Which means . . .” She let Carraneo pick up her thought.

“That it’d be smarter for him to stay in an expensive one. Hm. Okay. I’ll get on it. Wait. Where are you right now, Agent Dance? Do you think he—?”

“I’ve already checked out everybody here,” she assured him. She hung up, looked at her watch again and wondered: Is this harebrained scheme really going to do any good?

Five minutes later, a knock on the door. Dance opened it to see massive CBI Agent Albert Stemple towering over a woman in her late twenties. Stocky Linda Whitfield had a pretty face, untouched by makeup, and short red hair. Her clothes were a bit shabby: black stretch pants with shiny knees and a red sweater dangling threads; its V-neck framed a pewter cross. Dance detected no trace of perfume, and Linda’s nails were unpolished and cut short.

The women shook hands. Linda’s grip was firm.

Stemple’s brow lifted. Meaning, Is there anything else?

Dance thanked him and the big agent set down Linda’s suitcase and ambled off. Dance locked the door and the woman walked into the living room of the two-bedroom cabin. She looked at the elegant place as if she’d never stayed anywhere nicer than a Days Inn. “My.”

“I’ve got coffee going.” A gesture toward the small kitchen.

“Tea, if there’s any.”

Dance made a cup. “I’m hoping you won’t have to stay long. Maybe not even overnight.”

“Any more on Daniel?”

“Nothing new.”

Linda looked at the bedrooms as if choosing one would commit her to staying longer than she wanted to. Her serenity wavered, then returned. She picked a room and took her suitcase inside, then returned a moment later and accepted the cup of tea, poured milk in and sat.

“I haven’t been on an airplane in years,” she said. “And that jet . . . it was amazing. So small, but it pushed you right back in your seat when we took off. There was an FBI agent on board. She was very nice.”

They sat on comfortable couches, a large coffee table between them. She looked around the cabin again. “My, this is nice.”

It sure was. Dance wondered what the FBI accountants would say when they saw the bill. The cabin was nearly six hundred a night.

“Rebecca’s on her way. But maybe you and I could just get started.”

“And Samantha?”

“She wouldn’t come.”

“You talked to her then?”

“I went to see her.”

“Where is she? . . . No, wait, you can’t tell me that.”

Dance smiled.

“I heard she had plastic surgery and changed her name and everything.”

“That’s true, yes.”

“At the airport I bought a newspaper to see what was going on?”

Dance wondered about the absence of a TV in her brother’s house; was it an ethical or cultural decision? Or an economic one? You could get a cable ready set for a few hundred bucks nowadays. Still, Dance noted that the heels of Linda’s shoes were virtually worn away.

“It said there was no doubt he killed those guards.” She set down the tea. “I was surprised by that. Daniel wasn’t violent. He’d only hurt someone in self-defense.”

Though, looked at from Pell’s point of view, that was exactly why he’d slaughtered the guards. “But,” Linda continued, “he did let somebody go. That driver.”

Only because it served his interest.

“How did you meet Pell?”

“It was about ten years ago. In Golden Gate Park. San Francisco. I’d run away from home and was sleeping there. Daniel, Samantha and Jimmy were living in Seaside, along with a few other people. They’d travel up and down the coast, like gypsies. They’d sell things they’d bought or made. Sam and Jimmy were pretty talented; they’d make picture frames, CD holders, tie racks. Things like that.

“Anyway, I’d run away that weekend—no big deal, I did it all the time—and Daniel saw me near the Japanese Garden. He sat down and we started talking. Daniel has this gift. He listens to you. It’s like you’re the center of the universe. It’s really, you know, seductive.”

“And you never went back home?”

“No, I did. I always wanted to run away and just keep going. My brother did. He left home at eighteen and never looked back. But I wasn’t brave enough to. My parents—we lived in San Mateo—they were real strict. Like drill instructors. My father was head of Santa Clara Bank and Trust.”

“Wait, that Whitfield?”

“Yep. The multimillionaire Whitfield. The one who financed a good portion of Silicon Valley and survived the crash. The one who was going into politics—until a certain daughter of his made the press in a big way.” A wry smile. “Ever met anybody who’s been disowned by her parents? You have now. . . . Anyway, when I was growing up they were very authoritarian. I had to do everything the way they insisted. How I made my room, what I wore, what I was taking in school, what my grades were going to be. I got spanked until I was fourteen and I think he only stopped because my mother told my father it wasn’t a good idea with a girl that age. . . . They claimed it was because they loved me, and so on. But they were just control freaks. They were trying to turn me into a little doll for them to dress up and play with.

“So I go back home but all the time I was there I couldn’t get Daniel out of my head. We’d only talked for, I don’t know, a few hours. But it was wonderful. He treated me like I was a real person. He told me to trust my judgment. That I was smart, I was pretty.” A grimace. “Oh, I wasn’t really—not either of those things. But when he said it I believed him.

“One morning my mother came to my room and told me to get up and get dressed. We were going to visit my aunt or somebody. And I was supposed to wear a skirt. I wanted to wear jeans. It wasn’t a formal thing—we were just going to lunch. But she made a big deal out of it. She screamed at me. ‘No daughter of mine . . . ’ You get the idea. Well, I grabbed my backpack and just left. I was afraid I’d never find Daniel but I remembered he’d told me he’d be in Santa Cruz that week, at a flea market on the boardwalk.”

The boardwalk was a famous amusement park on the beach. A lot of young people hung out there, at all hours of the day. Dance reflected that it’d make a good hunting ground if Daniel Pell was on the prowl for victims.

“So I hitched a ride down Highway One, and there he was. He looked happy to see me. Which I don’t think my parents ever did.” She laughed. “I asked if he knew a place I could stay. I was nervous about that, hinting. But he said, ‘You bet I do. With us.’ ”

“In Seaside?”

“Uh-huh. We had a little bungalow there. It was nice.”

“You, Samantha, Jimmy and Pell?”

“Right.”

Her body language told Dance that she was enjoying the memory: the easy position of the shoulders, the crinkles beside the eyes and the illustrator hand gestures, which emphasize the content of the words and suggest the intensity of the speaker’s reaction to what he or she is saying.

Linda picked up her tea again and sipped it. “Whatever the papers said—cult, drug orgies—that was wrong. It was really homey and comfortable. I mean, no drugs at all, or liquor. Some wine at dinner sometimes. Oh, it was nice. I loved being around people who saw you for who you were, didn’t try to change you, respected you. I ran the house. I was sort of the mother, I guess you could say. It was so nice to be in charge for a change, not getting yelled at for having my own opinion.”

“What about the crimes?”

Linda grew tense. “There was that. Some. Not as much as people say. A little shoplifting, things like that. And I never liked it. Never.”

A few negation gestures here, but Dance sensed she wasn’t being deceptive; the kinesic stress was due to her minimizing the severity of the crimes. The Family had done much worse than just shoplifting, Dance knew. There were burglary counts, and grand larceny, as well as purse snatching and pickpocketing—both crimes against persons, and under the penal code more serious than those against property.

“But we didn’t have any choice. To be in the Family you had to participate.”

“What was it like living with Daniel?”

“It wasn’t as bad as you’d think. You just had to do what he wanted.”

“And if you didn’t?”

“He never hurt us. Not physically. Mostly, he’d . . . withdraw.”

Dance recalled Kellogg’s profile of a cult leader.

He’ll threaten to withhold himself from them, and that’s a very powerful weapon.

“He’d turn away from you. And you’d get scared. You never knew if that was the end for you and you’d get thrown out. Somebody in the church office was telling me about these reality shows? Big Brother, Survivor?”

Dance nodded.

“She was saying how popular they were. I think that’s why people’re obsessed with them. There’s something terrifying about the idea of being kicked out of your family.” She shrugged and fondled the cross on her chest.

“You got a longer sentence than the others. For destroying evidence. What was that story?”

The woman’s lips grew tight. “It was stupid. I panicked. All I knew was that Daniel called and said Jimmy was dead and something had gone wrong at this house where they’d had a meeting. We were supposed to pack up and get ready to leave, the police might be after him soon. Daniel kept all these books about Charles Manson in the bedroom and clippings and things. I burned some before the police got there. I thought it’d look bad if they knew he had this thing for Manson.”

Which it had, Dance reflected, recalling how the prosecutor had used the Charles Manson theme to help him win a conviction.

Responding to Dance’s questions, Linda mentioned more about her recent life. In jail she’d become devoutly religious and, after her release, moved to Portland, where she’d gotten a job working for a local Protestant church. She’d joined it because her brother was a deacon there.

She was seeing a “nice Christian” man in Portland and was the nanny, in effect, for her brother and sister-in-law’s foster children. She wanted to become a foster parent herself—she’d had medical problems and could have no children of her own—but that was hard with the prison conviction. She added, in a tone of conclusion, “I don’t have many material things, but I like my life. It’s a rich life, in the good sense of the word.”

A knock on the door intruded. Dance’s hand strayed toward her heavy pistol.

“It’s TJ, boss. I forgot the secret password.”

Dance opened the door and the young agent entered with another woman. Slim and tall, in her midthirties, she carried a leather backpack slung over her shoulder.

Kathryn Dance rose to greet the second member of the Family.

Chapter 28

Rebecca Sheffield was a few years older than her fellow Family member. She was athletic-looking and gorgeous, though Dance thought that the short crop of prematurely gray hair, the brash jewelry and the absence of makeup made her look austere. She wore jeans and a white silk T-shirt under a brown suede jacket.

Rebecca shook Dance’s hand firmly but she immediately turned her attention to Linda, who was rising and gazing at her with a steady smile.

“Well, look who it is.” Rebecca stepped forward and hugged Linda.

“After all these years.” Linda’s voice choked. “My, I think I’m going to cry.” And she did.

They dropped the embrace but Rebecca continued to hold the other woman’s hands tightly. “It’s good to see you, Linda.”

“Oh, Rebecca . . . I’ve prayed for you a lot.”

“You’re into that now? You didn’t used to know a cross from a Star of David. Well, thanks for the prayers. Not sure they took.”

“No, no, you’re doing such good things. Really! The church office has a computer. I saw your website. Women starting their own businesses. It’s wonderful. I’m sure it does a lot of good.”

Rebecca seemed surprised that Linda had kept up with her.

Dance pointed out the available bedroom and Rebecca carried her backpack into it, and used the restroom.

“You need me, boss, just holler.” TJ left and Dance locked the door behind him.

Linda picked up her teacup, fiddled with it, not taking a sip. How people love their props in stressful situations, Dance reflected. She’d interrogated suspects who clutched pens, ashtrays, food wrappers and even their shoes to dull the stress.

Rebecca returned and Dance offered her some coffee.

“You bet.”

Dance poured her some and set out milk and sugar. “There’s no public restaurant here, but they have room service. Order whatever you’d like.”

Sipping the coffee, Rebecca said, “I’ve got to say, Linda, you’re looking good.”

A blush. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not in the shape I’d like. You’re glamorous. And thin! I love your hair.”

Rebecca laughed. “Hey, nothing like a couple years in prison to turn you gray, hm? Hey, no ring. You’re not married?”

“Nope.”

“Me either.”

“You’re kidding. You were going to marry some hunky Italian sculptor. I thought for sure you’d be hooked up now.”

“Not easy to find Mr. Right when men hear your boyfriend was Daniel Pell. I read about your father in BusinessWeek. Something about his bank expanding.”

“Really? I wouldn’t know.”

“You’re still not talking?”

Linda shook her head. “My brother doesn’t talk to them either. We’re two poor church mice. But it’s for the best, believe me. You still paint?”

“Some. Not professionally.”

“No? Really?” Linda turned to Dance, her eyes shining. “Oh, Rebecca was so good! You should see her work. I mean, she’s the best.”

“Just sketch for fun now.”

They spent a few minutes catching up. Dance was surprised that though they both lived on the West Coast they hadn’t communicated since the trial.

Rebecca glanced at Dance. “Samantha joining our coffee klatch? Or whatever her name is now?”

“No, just the two of you.”

“Sam was always the timid one.”

“ ‘Mouse,’ remember?” Linda said.

“That’s right. That’s what Pell called her. ‘My Mouse.’ ”

They refilled their cups and Dance got down to work, asking Rebecca the same basic questions she’d asked Linda.

“I was the last one to get suckered in by Mr. Pell,” the thin woman said sourly. “It was only . . . when?” A glance at Linda, who said, “January. Just four months before the Croyton situation.”

Situation. Not murders.

“How did you meet Pell?” Dance asked.

“Back then I was bumming around the West Coast, making money doing sketches of people at street fairs and on the beach, you know. I had my easel set up and Pell stopped by. He wanted his portrait done.”

Linda gave a coy smile. “I seem to remember you didn’t do much sketching. You two ended up in the back of the van. And were there for a long, long time.”

Rebecca’s smile was of embarrassment. “Well, Daniel had that side to him, sure. . . . In any case, we did spend time talking too. And he asked me if I wanted to hang out with them in Seaside. I wasn’t sure at first—I mean, we all knew about Pell’s reputation and the shoplifting and things like that. But I just said to myself, hell, I’m a bohemian, I’m a rebel and artist. Screw my lily white suburban upbringing . . . go for it. And I did. It worked out well. There were good people around me, like Linda and Sam. I didn’t have to work nine to five and could paint as much as I wanted. Who could ask for anything more in life? Of course, it turned out I’d also joined up with Bonnie and Clyde, a band of thieves. That wasn’t so good.”

Dance noticed Linda’s placid face darken at the comment.

After release from jail, Rebecca explained, she became involved in the women’s movement.

“I figured me kowtowing to Pell—treating him like the king of the roost—set the feminist cause back a few years and I wanted to make it up to them.”

Finally, after a lot of counseling, she’d started a consulting service to help women open and finance small businesses. She’d been at it ever since. She must do well for herself, Dance thought, to judge from the jewelry, clothes and Italian shoes, which if the agent’s estimate was right (Dance could be an expert footwear witness) cost the same as her best two pairs put together.

Another knock on the door. Winston Kellogg arrived. Dance was happy to see him—professionally and personally. She’d enjoyed getting to know him on the Deck last night. He’d been surprisingly social, for a hard-traveling Fed. Dance had attended a number of functions with her husband’s federal coworkers and found most of them quiet and focused, reluctant to talk. But Win Kellogg, along with her parents, had been the last to leave the party.

He now greeted the two women and, in keeping with protocol, showed them his ID. He poured himself some coffee. Up until now Dance had been asking background information but with Kellogg here it was time to get to the crux of the interview.

“All right, here’s the situation. Pell is probably still in the area. We can’t figure out where or why. It doesn’t make any sense; most escapees get as far away as they can from the site of the jail break.”

She told them in detail of how the plan at the courthouse had unfolded and the developments to date. The women listened with interest—and shock or revulsion—to the specifics.

“First, let me ask you about his accomplice.”

“That woman I read about?” Linda asked. “Who is she?”

“We don’t know. Apparently blond and young. Age is roughly midtwenties.”

“So he’s got a new girlfriend,” Rebecca said. “That’s our Daniel. Never without one.”

Kellogg said, “We don’t exactly know the relationship. She was probably a fan of his. Apparently prisoners, even the worst, get plenty of women throwing themselves at their feet.”

Rebecca laughed and glanced at Linda. “You get any love letters when you were inside? I didn’t.”

Linda gave a polite smile.

“There’s a chance,” Dance said, “that she isn’t a stranger. She’d’ve been very young at the time the Family was together but I was wondering if she could be somebody you know.”

Linda frowned. “Midtwenties now . . . she’d’ve been a teenager then. I don’t remember anyone like that.”

Rebecca added, “When I was in the Family, it was only the five of us.”

Dance jotted a note. “Now, I want to talk about what your life was like then. What Pell said and did, what interested him, what his plans were. I’m hoping something you remember will give us a clue as to what he’s up to.”

“Step one, define the problem. Step two, get the facts.” Rebecca’s eyes were on Dance.

Both Linda and Kellogg looked blank. Dance, of course, knew what she was talking about. (And was thankful that the woman wasn’t in the mood to deliver another lecture, like yesterday.)

“Jump in with whatever you want. If you have an idea that sounds bizarre, go ahead and tell us. We’ll take whatever we can get.”

“I’m game,” Linda said.

Rebecca offered, “Shoot.”

Dance asked about the structure of life in the Family.

“It was sort of a commune,” Rebecca said, “which was weird for me, growing up in capitalistic, sitcom suburbia, you know.”

As they described it, the arrangement was a little different, though, from what a communist cadre might expect. The rule seemed to be: From each according to what Daniel Pell demanded of them; to each according to what Daniel Pell decided.

Still, the Family worked pretty well, at least on a practical level. Linda had made sure the household ran smoothly and the others contributed. They ate well and kept the bungalow clean and in good repair. Both Samantha and Jimmy Newberg were talented with tools and home improvement. For obvious reasons—stolen property stored in a bedroom—Pell didn’t want the owner to paint or fix broken appliances, so they had to be completely self-sufficient.

Linda said, “That was one of Daniel’s philosophies of life. ‘Self-Reliance’—the essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I read it out loud a dozen times. He loved to hear it.”

Rebecca was smiling. “Remember reading at night?”

Linda explained that Pell believed in books. “He loved them. He made a ceremony out of throwing out the TV. Almost every night I’d read something aloud, with everyone else gathered in a circle on the floor. Those were nice nights.”

“Were there any neighbors or other friends in Seaside he had a particular connection with?”

“We didn’t have friends,” Rebecca said. “Pell wasn’t like that.”

“But some people he’d met would come by, stay for a while, then leave. He was always picking up people.”

“Losers like us.”

Linda stiffened slightly. Then said, “Well, I’d say people down on their luck. Daniel was generous. Gave them food, money sometimes.”

You give a hungry man food, he’ll do what you want, Dance reflected, recalling Kellogg’s profile of a cult leader and his subjects.

They continued reminiscing but the conversation didn’t trigger any recollections of who the houseguests might’ve been. Dance moved on.

“There are some things he searched for online recently. I was wondering if they mean anything to you. One was ‘Nimue.’ I was thinking it might be a name. A nickname or computer screen name maybe.”

“No. I’ve never heard of it. What does it mean?”

“It’s a character out of the King Arthur legend.”

Rebecca looked at the younger woman. “Hey, did you read us any of those stories?”

Linda didn’t recall. Nor had they any recollection of an Alison—the other name Pell had searched for.

“Tell me about a typical day in the Family.”

Rebecca seemed at a loss for words. “We’d get up, have breakfast . . . I don’t know.”

Shrugging, Linda said, “We were just a family. We talked about what families talk about. The weather, plans, trips we were going to take. Money problems. Who was going to be working where. Sometimes I’d stand in the kitchen after breakfast, doing dishes, and just cry—because I was so happy. I had a real family at last.”

Rebecca agreed that their life hadn’t been very different from anyone else’s, though she clearly wasn’t as sentimental as her sister-in-crime.

The discussion meandered and they revealed nothing helpful. In interviewing and interrogation, it’s a well-known rule that abstractions obscure memories, while specifics trigger them. Dance now said, “Do this for me: Pick a particular day. Tell me about it. A day you’d both remember.”

Neither could think of one that stood out, though.

Until Dance suggested, “Think of a holiday: Thanksgiving, Christmas.”

Linda shrugged. “How about that Easter?”

“My first holiday there. My only holiday. Sure. That was fun.”

Linda described making an elaborate dinner with food that Sam, Jimmy and Rebecca had “come up with.” Dance spotted the euphemism instantly; it meant the trio had stolen the groceries.

“I cooked a turkey,” Linda said. “I smoked it all day in the backyard. My, that was fun.”

Prodding, Dance asked, “So there you are, you two and Samantha—she was the quiet one, you said.”

“The Mouse.”

“And the young man who was with Pell at the Croytons’,” Kellogg said. “Jimmy Newberg. Tell us about him.”

Rebecca said, “Right. He was a funny little puppy. He was a runaway too. From up north, I think.”

“Good-looking. But he wasn’t all there.” Linda tapped her forehead.

A laugh from her comrade. “He’d been a stoner.”

“But he was a genius with his hands. Carpentry, electronics, everything. He was totally into computers, even wrote his own programs. He’d tell us about them and none of us could understand what he was talking about. He wanted to get some website going—remember, this was before everybody had one. I think he was actually pretty creative. I felt bad for him. Daniel didn’t like him that much. He’d lose patience with him. He wanted to kick him out, I think.”

“Besides, Daniel was a ladies’ man. He didn’t do well with other men around.”

Dance steered them back to the holiday.

“It was a pretty day,” Linda continued. “The sun was out. It was warm. We had music going. Jimmy’d put together a real good sound system.”

“Did you say grace?”

“No.”

“Even though it was Easter?”

Rebecca said, “I suggested it. But Pell said no.”

Linda said, “That’s right. He got upset.”

His father, Dance supposed.

“We played some games in the yard. Frisbee, badminton. Then I put dinner out.”

Rebecca said, “I’d boosted some good Cabernet and we girls and Jimmy had wine—Pell didn’t drink. Oh, I got pretty wasted. Sam did too.”

“And we ate a lot.” Linda gripped her belly.

Dance continued to probe. She was aware that Winston Kellogg had dropped out of the conversation. He might be the cult expert but he was deferring to her expertise now. She appreciated that.

Linda said, “After dinner we just hung out and talked. Sam and I sang. Jimmy was tinkering with his computer. Daniel was reading something.”

The recollections came more frequently now, a chain reaction.

“Drinking, talking, a family holiday.”

“Yeah.”

“You remember what you talked about?”

“Oh, just stuff, you know . . .” Linda fell silent. Then she said, “Wait. That reminds me of one thing you might want to know about.” She tilted her head slightly. It was a recognition response, though from the focus of her eyes—on a nearby vase filled with artificial amaryllis—the thought was not fully formed. Dance said nothing; you can often erase an elusive memory by asking someone about it directly.

The woman continued, “It wasn’t Easter. It was another dinner. But thinking about Easter reminded me. Daniel and I were in the kitchen. He was watching me cook. And there was a big crash from next door. The neighbors were fighting. He said he couldn’t wait to get out of Seaside. To his mountaintop.”

“Mountaintop?”

“Yeah.”

Kellogg asked, “His?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Did he own some property?”

“He never mentioned anything specific. Maybe he meant ‘his’ in the sense that it was something he wanted to have someday.”

Rebecca knew nothing about it.

Linda said, “I remember it clearly. He wanted to get away from everybody. Just us, just the Family. Nobody else around. I don’t think he said anything about it before or after that.”

“But not Utah? You both said he never mentioned that.”

“No,” Rebecca agreed. “But, wait . . . you know, thinking of that . . . I don’t know if it’s helpful, but I remember something too. Along those same lines. We were in bed one night and he said, ‘I need to make a big score. Come up with enough money just to get away from everybody.’ I remember that. He said ‘a big score.’ ”

“What did he mean? A robbery to buy some property?”

“Could be.”

“Linda?”

She had to plead ignorance and seemed troubled that he hadn’t shared everything with her.

Dance asked the obvious question: “Could the big score have been the Croyton break-in?”

“I don’t know,” Rebecca said. “He never told us that’s where he and Jimmy were going that night.”

Dance speculated: Maybe he did steal something valuable from Croyton’s house, after all. When the police were closing in, he hid it. She thought of the car he’d driven to the break-in. Had it been searched thoroughly? Where was it now? Maybe destroyed, maybe owned by someone else. She made a note to try to find the vehicle. Also, to check deeds registries to see if Pell owned any property.

Mountaintop . . . Could that have been what he’d been looking for online in Capitola on the Visual-Earth website? Dozen of sizable peaks were within an hour’s drive of the Peninsula.

There were still questions, but Dance was pleased at their progress. Finally, she felt she had some insights into the mind of Daniel Pell. She was about to ask more questions when her phone rang.

“Excuse me.”

She answered it.

“Kathryn. It’s me.”

She pressed the phone closer to her head. “TJ, what’s up?”

And steeled herself. The fact that he hadn’t called her “boss” meant he was about to deliver bad news.

Chapter 29

Kathryn Dance and Winston Kellogg walked along a road covered with a thin coat of damp sand toward TJ and Michael O’Neil, who stood at the open trunk of a late-model Lexus.

Another man was there too, one of the officers from the Coroner’s Division, which in Monterey County is part of the MCSO. The balding, round deputy greeted her. “Kathryn.”

Dance introduced him to Kellogg, then peered into the trunk. The victim, a woman, lay on her side. Her legs were bent and her hands and mouth were duct-taped. Her nose and face were bright red. Blood vessels had broken.

O’Neil said, “Susan Pemberton. Lived in Monterey. Single, thirty nine.”

“Probable COD is suffocation?”

The coroner officer added, “We’ve got capillary dilation and membrane inflammation and distension. That residue there? I’m sure it’s capsicum oleoresin.”

“He hit her with pepper spray and then duct-taped her.”

The coroner officer nodded.

“Terrible,” O’Neil muttered.

Dying alone, in pain, an ignominious trunk her coffin. A burst of raw anger at Daniel Pell swept through Dance.

It turned out, O’Neil explained, that Susan’s was the disappearance he’d been looking into.

“We’re sure it’s Pell?”

“It’s him,” the Coroner’s Division officer said. “Prints match.”

O’Neil added, “I’ve ordered field prints tests done for every homicide in the area.”

“Any idea of the motive?”

“Maybe. She worked for an event-planning company. He apparently used her to get in and tell him where all the files were. He stole everything. Crime scene’s been through the office. Nothing conclusive so far, except his prints.”

“Any clue why?” Kellogg asked.

“Nope.”

“How’d he find her?”

“Her boss said she left the office about five last night to meet a prospective client for drinks.”

“Pell, you think?”

O’Neil shrugged. “No idea. Her boss didn’t know who. Maybe Pell saw them and followed.”

“Next of kin?”

“Nobody here, doesn’t look like,” the Coroner’s Division officer said. “Her parents’re in Denver. I’ll make that call when I get back to the office.”

“TOD?”

“Last night, maybe seven to nine. I’ll know more after the autopsy.”

Pell had left little evidence behind, except a few faint footsteps in the sand that seemed to lead toward the beach then were lost in the pale grass littering the dunes. No other prints or tread marks were visible.

What was in the files he’d stolen? What didn’t he want them to know?

Kellogg was walking around the area, getting a feel for the crime scene, maybe considering it in light of his specialty, cult mentality.

Dance told O’Neil about Rebecca’s idea that Pell was after a big score, presumably so that he could buy an enclave somewhere.

“ ‘Mountaintop’ was what Linda said. And the big score might’ve been the Croyton break-in.” She added her idea that maybe Pell had hidden something of Croyton’s in the getaway car.

“I think it was why he was searching Visual-Earth. To check the place out.”

“Interesting theory,” O’Neil said. He and Dance would often brainstorm when they were working cases together. They’d occasionally come up with some truly bizarre theories about the crimes they were investigating. Sometimes those theories actually turned out to be right.

Dance told TJ to check out the status of the vehicle Pell had been driving on the night of the Croyton murders and if there’d been an inventory of the car’s contents. “And see if Pell owns property anywhere in the state.”

“Will do, boss.”

Dance looked around. “Why’d he abandon the car here? He could’ve gone east into the woods, and nobody would’ve found it for days. It’s a lot more visible here.”

Michael O’Neil pointed at a narrow pier extending into the ocean. “The T-bird’s out of commission. He’s ditched the stolen Ford Focus by now. Maybe he got away by boat.”

“Boat?” Dance asked.

“His footsteps go that way. None head back to the road.”

Kellogg was nodding but slowly, and the motion said, I don’t think so. “It’s a little rough, don’t you think, to dock a boat there?”

“Not for somebody who knows what they’re doing.”

“Could you?”

“Me? Sure. Depending on the wind.”

A pause as Winston Kellogg looked over the scene. Rain started coming down steadily. He didn’t seem to notice. “My thinking is that he started that way for some reason, maybe to lead us off. But then he turned and headed back over the dunes to the road, met his accomplice somewhere along here.”

Phrases like “my thinking” and “I’m of the opinion that” are what Dance called verbal anesthetic. Their purpose is to take the sting out of a speaker’s critical or contrary statement. The new kid on the block was reluctant to disagree with O’Neil but evidently felt that he was wrong about the boat.

“Why do you think that?” Dance asked.

“That old windmill.”

At the turnoff where the beach road left the main highway was an abandoned gas station, under a decorative two-story windmill.

“How long’s it been there?”

“Forty, fifty years, I’d guess. The pumps only have two windows for the price—like no one ever believed gas would ever cost more than ninety-nine cents.”

Kellogg continued, “Pell knows the area. His accomplice’s probably from out of town. He picked this place because it’s deserted but also because there’s a landmark you can’t miss. ‘Turn right at the windmill.’ ”

O’Neil wasn’t swayed. “Could be. Of course, if that was the only reason, you’d wonder why he didn’t pick someplace closer to town. Be easier to direct his accomplice to a place like that, and there are plenty of deserted areas that’d work. And think about it, the Lexus was stolen and had a body in the trunk. He’d definitely want to dump it as soon as possible.”

“Maybe, makes sense,” Kellogg conceded. He looked around, squinting in the mist. “But I’m leaning toward something else. I think he was drawn here not because of the pier but because it’s deserted and it’s a beach. He’s not a ritualistic killer but most cult leaders have a mystical bent, and water often figures in that. Something happened here, almost ceremonial, I’d say. It might’ve involved that woman with him. Maybe sex after the kill. Or maybe something else.”

“What?”

“I can’t say. My guess is she met him here. For whatever he had in mind.”

“But,” O’Neil pointed out, “there’s no evidence of another car, no evidence that he turned around and walked back to the road. You’d think there’d be some prints.”

Kellogg said, “He could’ve covered his tracks.” Pointing to a portion of the sand-covered road. “Those marks don’t look natural. He could’ve swept over them with brush or leaves. Maybe even a broom. I’d excavate that whole area.”

O’Neil went on, “I’m thinking it can’t hurt to check on stolen vessels. And I’d rather crime scene ran the pier now.”

The tennis volley continued, the FBI agent offering, “With this wind and rain . . . I really think the road should be first.”

“You know, Win, I think we’ll go with the pier.”

Kellogg tipped his head, meaning: It’s your crime scene team; I’m backing down. “Fine with me. I’ll search it myself if you don’t mind.”

“Sure. Go right ahead.”

Without a look at Dance—he had no desire to test loyalties—the FBI agent returned to the area with the dubious markings.

Dance turned and walked along a clean zone back to her car, glad to leave the crime scene behind. Forensic evidence wasn’t her expertise.

Neither were strong-willed rams butting horns.

•    •    •

The visage of grief.

Kathryn Dance knew it well. From her days as a journalist, interviewing survivors of crimes and accidents. And from her days as a jury consultant, watching the faces of the witnesses and victims recounting injustices and personal injury mishaps.

From her own life too. As a cop.

And as a widow: looking in the mirror, staring eye-to-eye with a very different Kathryn Dance, the lipstick hovering before easing away from the mask of a face.

Why bother, why bother?

Now, she was seeing the same look as she sat in Susan Pemberton’s office, across from the dead woman’s boss, Eve Brock.

“It’s not real to me.”

No, it never is.

The crying was over but only temporarily, Dance sensed. The stocky middle-aged woman held herself in tight rein. Sitting forward, legs tucked under the chair, shoulders rigid, jaw set. The kinesics of grief matched the face.

“I don’t understand the computer and the files. Why?”

“I assume there was something he wanted to keep secret. Maybe he was at an event years ago and he didn’t want anybody to know about it.” Dance’s first question to the woman had been: Was the company in business before Pell went to prison? Yes, it was.

The crying began again. “One thing I want to know. Did he . . .?”

Dance recognized a certain tone and answered the incomplete question: “There was no sexual assault.” She asked the woman about the client Susan was going to meet, but she knew no details.

“Would you excuse me for a moment?” Eve Brock was about to surrender to her tears.

“Of course.”

Eve headed for the ladies’ room.

Dance looked at Susan Pemberton’s walls, filled with photos of past events: weddings; bar and bat mitzvahs; anniversary parties; outings for local corporations, banks and fraternal groups; political fund-raisers and high school and college events. The company also worked with funeral homes to cater receptions after an interment.

She saw, to her surprise, the name of the mortician who had handled her husband’s funeral.

Eve Brock returned, her face red, eyes puffy. “I’m sorry.”

“Not a problem at all. So she met that client after work?”

“Yes.”

“Would they go for drinks or coffee somewhere?”

“Probably.”

“Nearby?”

“Usually. Alvarado.” The main street in downtown Monterey. “Or maybe Del Monte Center, Fisherman’s Wharf.”

“Any favorite watering hole?”

“No. Wherever the client wanted to go.”

“Excuse me.” Dance found her phone and called Rey Carraneo.

“Agent Dance,” he said.

“Where are you?”

“Near Marina. Still checking on stolen boats for Detective O’Neil. Nothing yet. And no luck on the motels, either.”

“Okay. Keep at it.” She disconnected and called TJ. “Where are you?”

“The emphasis tells me I’m the second choice.”

“But the answer is?”

“Near downtown. Monterey.”

“Good.” She gave him the address of Eve Brock’s company and told him to meet her on the street in ten minutes. She’d give him a picture of Susan Pemberton and have him canvass all the bars and restaurants within walking distance, as well as the shopping center and Fisherman’s Wharf. Cannery Row too.

“You love me best, boss. Bars and restaurants. My kind of assignment.”

She also asked him to check with the phone company and find out about incoming calls to Susan’s phones. She didn’t think the client was Pell; he was ballsy, but he wouldn’t come to downtown Monterey in broad daylight. But the prospective client might have valuable information about, say, where Susan was going after their meeting.

Dance got the numbers from Eve and recited them to TJ.

After they disconnected, she asked, “What would be in the files that were stolen?”

“Oh, everything about our business. Clients, hotels, suppliers, churches, bakeries, caterers, restaurants, liquor stores, florists, photographers, corporate PR departments who’d hired us . . . just everything. . . .” The recitation seemed to exhaust her.

What had worried Pell so much he had to destroy the files?

“Did you ever work for William Croyton, his family or his company?”

“For . . . oh, the man he killed . . . No, we never did.”

“Maybe a subsidiary of his company, or one of his suppliers?”

“I suppose we could have. We do a lot of corporate functions.”

“Do you have backups of the material?”

“Some are in the archives . . . tax records, cancelled checks. Things like that. Probably copies of the invoices. But a lot of things I don’t bother with. It never occurred to me that somebody would steal them. The copies would be at my accountant’s. He’s in San Jose.”

“Could you get as many of them as possible?”

“There’s so much. . . .” Her mind was stalled.

“Limit it to eight years ago, up to May of ’ninety-nine.”

It was then that Dance’s mind did another of its clicks. Could Pell be interested in something that the woman was planning in the future?

“All your upcoming jobs too.”

“I’ll do what I can, sure.”

The woman seemed crushed by the tragedy, paralyzed.

Thinking of Morton Nagle’s book The Sleeping Doll, Dance realized that she was looking at yet one more victim of Daniel Pell.

I see violent crime like dropping a stone into a pond. The ripples of consequence can spread almost forever. . . .

Dance got a picture of Susan to give to TJ and walked downstairs to the street to meet him. Her phone rang.

O’Neil’s mobile on caller ID.

“Hi,” she said, glad to see the number.

“I have to tell you something.”

“Go ahead.”

He spoke softly and Dance took the news without a single affect display, no revealed emotion.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

•    •    •

“It’s a blessing, really,” Juan Millar’s mother told Dance through her tears.

She was standing next to a grim-faced Michael O’Neil in the corridor of Monterey Bay Hospital, watching the woman do her best to reassure them and deflect their own words of sympathy.

Winston Kellogg arrived and walked up to the family, offered condolences, then shook O’Neil’s hand, fingers on the detective’s biceps, a gesture conveying sincerity among businessmen, politicians and mourners. “I’m so sorry.”

They were outside the burn unit of the ICU. Through the window they could see the complicated bed and its surrounding spacecraft accoutrements: wires, valves, gauges, instrumentation. In the center was a still mound, covered by a green sheet.

The same color sheet had covered her husband’s corpse. Dance recalled seeing it and thinking, frantically, But where did the life go, where did it go?

At that moment she’d come to loathe this particular shade of green.

Dance stared at the body, hearing in her memory Edie Dance’s whispered words.

He said, “Kill me.” He said it twice. Then he closed his eyes. . . .

Millar’s father was inside the room itself, asking the doctor questions whose answers he probably wasn’t digesting. Still, the role of parent who’d survived his son required this—and would require much more in the days ahead.

The mother chatted away and told them again that the death was for the best, there was no doubt, the years of treatment, the years of grafts . . .

“For the best, absolutely,” she said, inadvertently offering Charles Overby’s favorite adverbial crutch.

Edie Dance, working an unplanned late shift, now came down the hall, looking distraught but determined, a visage that her daughter recognized clearly. Sometimes feigned, sometimes genuine, the expression had served her well in the past. Today it would, of course, be a reflection of her true heart.

Edie moved straight to Millar’s mother. She took the woman by the arm and, recognizing approaching hysteria, bestowed words on her—a few questions about her own state of mind, but mostly about her husband’s and other children’s, all aimed at diverting the woman’s focus from this impossible tragedy. Edie Dance was a genius in the art of compassion. It was why she was such a popular nurse.

Rosa Millar began to calm and then cried, and Dance could see the staggering horror melting into manageable grief. Her husband joined them, and Edie handed his wife over to him like a trapeze artist transferring one acrobat to another in midair.

“Mrs. Millar,” Dance said, “I’d just like to—”

Then found herself flying sideways, barking a scream, hands not dropping to her weapon but rising to keep her head from slamming into one of the carts parked here. Her first thought: How had Daniel Pell gotten into the hospital?

“No!” O’Neil shouted. Or Kellogg. Probably both. Dance caught herself as she went down on one knee, knocking coils of yellow tubing and plastic cups to the floor.

The doctor too leapt forward, but it was Winston Kellogg who got the enraged Julio Millar in a restraint hold, arm bent backward, and held him down easily by a twisted wrist. The maneuver was fast and effortless.

“No, son!” the father shouted, and the mother cried harder.

O’Neil helped Dance up. No injuries other than what would be bruises come morning, she guessed.

Julio tried to break away but Kellogg, apparently much stronger than he appeared, tugged the arm up slightly. “Take it easy, don’t hurt yourself. Just take it easy.”

“Bitch, you fucking bitch! You killed him! You killed my brother!”

O’Neil said, “Julio, listen. Your parents are upset enough. Don’t make it worse.”

“Worse? How could it be worse?” He tried to kick out.

Kellogg simply sidestepped him and lifted the wrist higher. The young man grimaced and groaned. “Relax. It won’t hurt if you relax.” The FBI agent looked at the parents, their hopeless eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“Julio,” his father said, “you hurt her. She’s a policewoman. They’ll put you in jail.”

“They should put her in jail! She’s the killer.”

Millar senior shouted, “No, stop it! Your mother, think about your mother. Stop it!”

Smoothly, O’Neil had his cuffs out. He was hesitating. He glanced at Kellogg. The men were debating. Julio seemed to be relaxing.

“Okay, okay, get off me.”

O’Neil said, “We’ll have to cuff you if you can’t control yourself. Understand?”

“Yeah, yeah, I understand.”

Kellogg let go and helped him up.

Everyone’s eyes were on Dance. But she wasn’t going to take the matter to the magistrate. “It’s all right. There’s no problem.”

Julio stared into Dance’s eyes. “Oh, there’s a problem. There’s a big problem.”

He stormed off.

“I’m sorry,” Rosa Millar said through her tears.

Dance reassured her. “Does he live at home?”

“No, an apartment nearby.”

“Have him stay with you tonight. Tell him you need his help. For the funeral, to take care of Juan’s affairs, whatever you can think of. He’s in as much pain as everybody. He just doesn’t know what to do with it.”

The mother had moved to the gurney where her son lay. She muttered something. Edie Dance walked up to her again and whispered into her ear, touching her arm. An intimate gesture between women who’d been complete strangers until a couple of days ago.

After a moment Edie returned to her daughter. “You want the kids to spend the night?”

“Thanks. It’s probably best.”

Dance said good-bye to the Millars and added, “Is there anything we can do? Anything at all?”

The father answered in a voice that seemed perplexed by the question. “No, no.” Then he added softly, “What else is there to be done?”

Chapter 30

The town of Vallejo Springs in Napa, California, has several claims to fame.

It’s the site of a museum featuring many works of Eduard Muybridge, the nineteenth-century photographer credited with inventing moving pictures (and—a lot more interesting than his art—he was a man who murdered his wife’s lover, admitted it in court and got off scot-free).

Another draw is the local vineyards, which produce a particularly fine strain of the Merlot grape—one of the three most famous used to make red wine. Contrary to a bad rap generated by a movie of a few years ago, Merlot isn’t your Yugo of grapes. Just look at Pétrus, a wine from the Pomerol section of Bordeaux, made almost entirely from Merlot and perhaps the most consistently expensive wine in the world.

Morton Nagle was now crossing the town limits because of Vallejo Springs’s third attraction, albeit one that was known to very few people.

Theresa Croyton, the Sleeping Doll, and her aunt and uncle lived here.

Nagle had done his homework. A month of tracking down twisty leads had turned up a reporter in Sonoma, who’d given him the name of a lawyer, who’d done some legal work for the girl’s aunt. He’d been reluctant to give Nagle any information but did offer the opinion that the woman was overbearing and obnoxious—and cheap. She’d dunned him on a bill. Once he was convinced that Nagle was a legitimate writer he gave up the town the family lived in and their new name on a guarantee of anonymity. (“Confidential source” is really just a synonym for spineless.)

Nagle had been to Vallejo Springs several times, meeting with the Sleeping Doll’s aunt in an attempt to get an interview with the girl (the uncle didn’t figure much in the equation, Nagle had learned). She was reluctant, but he believed that she would eventually agree.

Now, back in this picturesque town, he parked near the spacious house, waiting for the opportunity to talk to the woman alone. He could call, of course. But Nagle felt that phone calls—like email—were a very ineffective way of communicating. On a telephone people you’re speaking to are your equals. You have much less control and power of persuasion than if you see them in person.

They can also just hang up.

He had to be careful. He’d noticed the police cruising past the house of the Bollings, the surname the family had adopted, at frequent intervals. This in itself meant nothing—Vallejo Springs was a rich town and had a large, well-endowed constabulary—but Nagle noticed that the squad cars seemed to slow when they drove by.

He noticed too that there were far more police cars out and about now than last week. Which suggested to him what he already suspected: that Theresa was a town sweetheart. The cops would be on high alert to make sure nothing happened to her. If Nagle overstepped, they’d escort him to the town line and dump him in the dust, like an unwelcome gunslinger in some bad western.

He sat back, eyes on the front door, and thought about opening lines for his book.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is a village of contradictions, a mecca for tourists, the jewel in the crown of the Central Coast, yet beneath the pristine and the cute you’ll find the secretive world of the rich and ruthless from San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Hollywood. . . .

Hm. Work on that.

Nagle chuckled.

And then he saw the SUV, a white Escalade, pulling out of the Bollings’ driveway. The girl’s aunt, Mary, was behind the wheel, alone in the car. Good. He’d never get close if Theresa was with her.

Nagle started his car, a Buick worth the price of the SUV’s transmission alone, and followed. Theresa’s aunt made a stop at a gas station, filled the tank with premium. She chatted with a woman at a nearby pump, driving a red Jaguar S-type. The aunt seemed harried. Her gray hair wasn’t brushed and she looked tired. Even from the edge of the parking lot, Nagle could make out dark circles under her eyes.

Pulling out of Shell, she drove through the quaint, unmistakably Californian downtown: a street adorned with plants and flowers and quirky sculptures and lined with coffee shops, understated restaurants, a garden center, an independent bookstore, a yoga place and small retail operations selling wine, crystals, pet supplies and L.L. Bean–style clothing.

A few hundred yards along the road was the strip mall where the locals shopped, anchored by an Albertsons grocery and a Rite Aid drugstore. Mary Bolling parked in the lot and walked inside the grocery store. Nagle parked near her SUV. He stretched, longing for a cigarette, though he hadn’t smoked in twenty years.

He continued the endless debate with himself.

So far he hadn’t transgressed. Hadn’t broken any rules.

He could still head home, no moral harm done.

But should he?

He wasn’t sure.

Morton Nagle believed he had a purpose in life, which was to expose evil. It was an important mission, one he felt passionate about. A noble mission.

But the goal was to reveal evil, and let people make their own judgments. Not to fight it himself. Because once you crossed the line and your purpose became seeking justice, not illuminating it, there were risks. Unlike the police, he didn’t have the Constitution telling him what he could and couldn’t do, which meant there was a potential for abuse.

By asking Theresa Croyton to help find a killer, he was exposing her and her family—himself and his too—to very real dangers. Daniel Pell obviously had no problem killing youngsters.

It was so much better to write about human beings and their conflicts than to make judgments about those conflicts. Let the readers decide what was good or bad, and act accordingly. On the other hand, was it right for him to sit back and let Pell continue his slaughter, when he could do more?

The time for his slippery debate ended, though. Mary Bolling was walking out of Albertsons, wheeling a cart filled with groceries.

Yes or no?

Morton Nagle hesitated only a few seconds, then pulled open the door, stepped out and hitched up his pants. He strode forward.

“Excuse me. Hi, Mrs. Bolling. It’s me.”

She paused, blinked and stared at him. “What are you doing here?”

“I—”

“I haven’t agreed to let you talk to Theresa.”

“I know, I know . . . That’s not—”

“How dare you show up here like this? You’re stalking us!”

Her cell phone was in her hand.

“Please,” Nagle said, feeling a sudden desperation to sway her. “This is something different. I’m here doing a favor for someone. We can talk about the book later.”

“A favor?”

“I drove up from Monterey to ask you something. I wanted to see you in person.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know about Daniel Pell.”

“Of course I know.” She said this as if he were the village idiot.

“There’s a policewoman who’d like to talk to your niece. She thinks maybe Theresa can help her find Pell.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry. There’s no risk. She—”

“No risk? Are you mad? You could’ve led him here!”

“No. He’s somewhere in Monterey.”

“Did you tell them where we are?”

“No, no! This policewoman’ll meet her wherever you like. Here. Anywhere. She just wants to ask Theresa—”

“No one is going to talk to her. No one is going to see her.” The woman leaned forward. “There will be very serious consequences if you don’t leave immediately.”

“Mrs. Bolling, Daniel Pell has killed—”

“I watch the fucking news. Tell that policewoman, whoever she is, that there’s not a single thing Theresa can tell her. And you can forget about ever talking to her for your goddamn book.”

“No, wait, please—”

Mary Bolling turned and ran back to the Escalade, as her abandoned shopping cart ambled in the opposite direction down the shallow incline. By the time a breathless Nagle had grabbed the cart just before it slammed into a Mini Cooper, the aunt’s SUV was spinning tires as it vanished from the lot.

•    •    •

Not long ago a CBI agent, now former, had once called this the “Gals’ Wing.”

He was referring to that portion of the Monterey headquarters that happened to be the home of two female investigative agents—Dance and Connie Ramirez—as well as Maryellen Kresbach and the no-nonsense office manager, Grace Yuan.

The unfortunate utterer was a fiftyish agent, one of those fixtures in offices all over the world who wake up counting the days to retirement, and who’ve done so since their twenties. He’d had his share of collars at the Highway Patrol some years back, but his move to the CBI had been a mistake. He wasn’t up to the challenges of the job.

He also apparently lacked any sense of survival.

“And this is the Gals’ Wing,” he’d said, loud enough for everyone to hear, during a lunch-hour tour of HQ with a young woman he was wooing.

Dance and Connie Ramirez made eye contact.

That night they went on a panty-hose-buying mission and when the poor agent came to work the next day he found his entire office spiderwebbed in mesh, fishnet and glittery synthetic leg wear. Some personal hygiene products also figured in the decor. He ran whining to then–CBI head Stan Fishburne, who, bless him, could hardly keep a straight face during the inquisition. “What do you mean you only said, ‘Gals’ Wing,’ Bart? You actually said that?”

He threatened a complaint to Sacramento, but he didn’t last long enough in the CBI to see the matter through. Ironically, after the offender’s departure, the population of that portion of the office adopted the moniker instantly and the hallway was now known to everyone in the CBI as “GW.”

Whose undecorated hallway Kathryn Dance was walking down at the moment.

“Maryellen, hi.”

“Oh, Kathryn, I’m sorry to hear about Juan. We’re all going to make a donation. You know where his parents would like it to go?”

“Michael’ll let us know.”

“Your mother called. She’s going to stop by with the kids later, if that’s okay.”

Dance made sure to see her children whenever she could, even during business hours, if a case was taking up a lot of time and she’d be working late. “Good. How’s the Davey situation?”

“It’s taken care of,” said the woman firmly. The person in question was Maryellen’s son, Wes’s age, who’d been having trouble in school because of some issues with what amounted to a preteen gang. Maryellen now relayed the news of the resolution with a look of happy malice, which told Dance that extreme measures had been used to get the offenders transferred or otherwise neutralized.

Dance believed that Maryellen Kresbach would make a great cop.

In her office she dropped her jacket onto a chair, hitched the awkward Glock to the side and sat. She looked through her email. Only one was relevant to the Pell case. His brother, Richard Pell, was replying from London.

Officer Dance:

I received your forwarded email from the U.S. embassy here. Yes, I heard of the escape, it has made the news here. I have not had any contact with my brother for 12 years, when he came to visit my wife and me in Bakersfield at the same time my wife’s twenty-three-year old sister was visiting us from New York. One Saturday we got a call from the police that she’d been detained at a jewelry store downtown for shoplifting.

The girl had been an honor’s student in college and quite involved in her church. She’d never been in any trouble in her life before that.

It seemed that she’d been “hanging out” with my brother and he’d talked her into stealing a “few things.” I searched his room and found close to $10,000 worth of merchandise. My sister-in-law was given probation and my wife nearly left me as a result.

I never had anything to do with him again. After the murders in Carmel in ’99, I decided to move my family to Europe.

If I hear from him, I will certainly let you know, though that is unlikely. The best way to describe my relationship now is this: I’ve contacted the London Metropolitan Police and they have an officer guarding my house.

So much for that lead.

Her mobile rang. The caller was Morton Nagle. In an alarmed voice he asked, “He killed someone else? I just saw the news.”

“I’m afraid so.” She gave him the details. “And Juan Millar died, the officer who was burned.”

“I’m so sorry. Are there other developments?”

“Not really.” Dance told him that she’d spoken with Rebecca and Linda. They’d shared some information that might prove to be helpful, but nothing was leading directly to Pell’s doorstep. Nagle had come across nothing in his research about a “big score” or a mountaintop.

He had news of his own efforts, though they weren’t successful. He’d talked to Theresa Croyton’s aunt, but she was refusing to let him, or the police, see the girl.

“She threatened me.” His voice was troubled and Dance was sure that there would be no sparkle in his eyes at the moment.

“Where are you?”

He didn’t say anything.

Dance filled in, “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

She glanced at the caller ID, but he was on his mobile, not a hotel or pay phone.

“Is she going to change her mind?”

“I really doubt it. You should’ve seen her. She abandoned a hundred dollars’ worth of groceries and just ran.”

Dance was disappointed. Daniel Pell was a mystery and she was now obsessed with learning everything she could about him. Last year when she’d assisted on that case in New York with Lincoln Rhyme, she’d noted the criminalist’s obsessive fascination with every detail of the physical evidence; she was exactly the same—though with the human side of crime.

But there’re compulsions like double-checking every detail of a subject’s story, and there are compulsions like avoiding sidewalk cracks when you’re walking home. You have to know which are vital and which aren’t.

She decided they’d have to let the Sleeping Doll lead go.

“I appreciate your help.”

“I did try. Really.”

After hanging up, Dance talked to Rey Carraneo again. Still no luck on the motels and no reports of boats stolen from local marinas.

Just as she hung up, TJ called. He’d heard back from the DMV. The car that Pell had been driving during the Croyton murders hadn’t been registered for years, which meant it’d probably been sold for scrap. If he had stolen something valuable from the Croytons’ the night of the murders, it was most likely lost or melted into oblivion. TJ had also checked the inventory from when the car was impounded. The list was short and nothing suggested that any of the items had come from the businessman’s house.

She gave him the news about Juan Millar too, and the young agent responded with utter silence. A sign that he was truly shaken.

A few moments later her phone rang again. It was Michael O’Neil with his ubiquitous, “Hey. It’s me.” His voice was laden with exhaustion, sorrow too. Millar’s death was weighing on him heavily.

“Whatever’d been on the pier where we found the Pemberton woman was gone—if there was anything. I just talked to Rey. He tells me there’re no reports of any stolen craft so far. Maybe I was off base. Your friend find anything the other way—toward the road?”

She noted the loaded term “friend” and replied, “He hasn’t called. I assume he didn’t stumble across Pell’s address book or a hotel key.”

“And negative on sources for the duct tape, and the pepper spray’s sold in ten thousand stores and mail-order outlets.”

She told O’Neil that Nagle’s attempt to contact Theresa had failed.

“She won’t cooperate?”

“Her aunt won’t. And she’s first base. I don’t know how helpful it’d be anyway.”

O’Neil said, “I liked the idea. She’s the only nexus to Pell and that night.”

“We’ll have to try harder without her,” Dance said.

“How’re you doing?”

“Fine,” he answered.

Stoic . . .

A few minutes after they disconnected, Winston Kellogg arrived and Dance asked him, “Any luck at the Pemberton crime scene, the road?”

“Nope. The scene itself—we searched for an hour. No tread marks, no discarded evidence. Maybe Michael was right. Pell did get away by boat from that pier.”

Dance laughed to herself. The chest-bumping males had each just conceded the other might’ve been right—though she doubted they’d ever admit it to each other.

She updated him on the missing files from Susan Pemberton’s office and Nagle’s failure to arrange an interview with Theresa Croyton. TJ, she explained, was looking for the client Susan had met with just before Pell had killed her.

Dance glanced at her watch. “Got an important meeting. Want to come?”

“Is it about Pell?”

“Nope. It’s about snack time.”

Chapter 31

As they walked down the halls of CBI, Dance asked Kellogg where he lived.

“The District—that’s Washington, D.C., to you all. Or that little place known as ‘Inside the Beltway,’ if you watch the pundits on Sunday-morning talk TV. Grew up in the Northwest—Seattle—but didn’t really mind the move east. I’m not a rainy-day kind of guy.”

The talk meandered to personal lives and he volunteered that he and his ex had no children, though he himself had come from a big family. His parents were still alive and lived on the East Coast.

“I’ve got four brothers. I was the youngest. I think my parents ran out of names and started on consumer products. So, I’m Winston, like cigarettes. Which is a really bad idea when your last name is cornflakes. If my parents had been any more sadistic my middle name’d be Oldsmobile.”

Dance laughed. “I’m convinced I didn’t get invited to the junior prom because nobody wanted to take a Dance to the dance.”

Kellogg received a degree in psych from the University of Washington, then went into the army.

“CID?” She was thinking about her late husband’s stint in the army, where he’d been a Criminal Investigations Division officer.

“No. Tactical planning. Which meant paper, paper, paper. Well, computer, computer, computer. I was fidgety. I wanted to get into the field so I left and joined the Seattle Police Department. Made detective and did profiling and negotiations. But I found the cult mentality interesting. So I thought I’d specialize in that. I know it sounds lame but I just didn’t like the idea of bullies preying on vulnerable people.”

She didn’t think it was lame at all.

Down more corridors.

“How’d you get into this line?” he asked.

Dance gave him a brief version of the story. She’d been a crime reporter for a few years—she’d met her husband while covering a criminal trial (he gave her an exclusive interview in exchange for a date). After she grew tired of reporting, she went back to school and got degrees in psychology and communications, improving her natural gift of observation and an ability to intuit what people were thinking and feeling. She became a jury consultant. But nagging dissatisfaction with that job and a sense that her talents would be more worthwhile in law enforcement had led her to the CBI.

“And your husband was like me, a feebie?”

“Been doing your homework?” Her late husband, William Swenson, had been a dependable career special agent for the FBI, but he was just like tens of thousands of others. There was no reason for a specialist like Kellogg to have heard of him, unless he’d gone to some trouble to check.

A bashful grin. “I like to know where I’m going on assignments. And who I’m going to meet when I get there. Hope you’re not offended.”

“Not at all. When I interview a subject I like to know everything about his terrarium.” Not sharing with Kellogg that she’d had TJ scope out the agent through his friend in the Chico resident agency.

A moment passed and he asked, “Can I ask what happened to your husband? Line of duty?”

The thud in her belly generated by that question had become less pronounced over the years. “It was a traffic accident.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. . . . Now, welcome to Chez CBI.” Dance waved him into the lunchroom.

They poured coffee and sat at one of the cheap tables.

Her cell chirped. It was TJ.

“Bad news. My bar-hopping days are over. Just as I got started. I found out where the Pemberton woman was before she was killed.”

“And?”

“With some Latino guy in the bar at the Doubletree. A business meeting, some event he wanted her to handle, the waiter thinks. They left about six thirty.”

“You get a credit-card receipt?”

“Yep, but she paid. Business expense. Hey, boss, I think we should start doing that.”

“Anything else about him?”

“Zip. Her picture’ll be on the news so he might see it and come forward.”

“Susan’s phone logs?”

“About forty calls yesterday. I’ll check them out when I’m back in the office. Oh, and statewide real estate tax records? Nope, Pell don’t own no mountaintops or anything else. I checked Utah too. Nothing there either.”

“Good. I forgot about that.”

“Or Oregon, Nevada, Arizona. I wasn’t being diligent. I was just trying to prolong my bar time as much as I could.”

After they hung up she relayed the information to Kellogg, who grimaced. “A witness, hm? Who’ll see her picture on the tube and decide this is a real nice time to take that vacation to Alaska.”

“And I can hardly blame him.”

Then the FBI agent smiled as he looked over Dance’s shoulder. She glanced back. Her mother and children were walking into the lunchroom.

“Hi, honey,” she said to Maggie, then hugged her son. There’d be a day, pretty soon, when public hugs would be verboten and she was storing up for the drought. He tolerated the gesture well enough today.

Edie Dance and her daughter cast glances each other’s way, acknowledging Millar’s death but not specifically referring to the tragedy. Edie and Kellogg greeted each other, and exchanged a similar look.

“Mom, Carly moved Mr. Bledsoe’s wastebasket!” Maggie told her breathlessly. “And every time he threw something out it went on the floor.”

“Did you keep from giggling?”

“For a while. But then Brendon did and we couldn’t stop.”

“Say hello to Agent Kellogg.”

Maggie did. But Wes only nodded. His eyes shifted away. Dance saw the aversion immediately.

“You guys want hot chocolate?” she asked.

“Yay!” Maggie cried. Wes said he would too.

Dance patted her jacket pockets. Coffee was gratis but anything fancier took cash, and she’d left all of hers in her purse in her office; Edie had no change.

“I’ll treat,” Kellogg said, digging into his pocket.

Wes said quickly, “Mom, I want coffee instead.”

The boy had sipped coffee once or twice in his life and hated it.

Maggie said, “I want coffee too.”

“No coffee. It’s hot chocolate or soda.” Dance supposed that Wes didn’t want something that the FBI agent paid for. What was going on here? Then she remembered how his eyes had scanned Kellogg on the Deck the other night. She thought he’d been looking for his weapon; now she understood he’d been sizing up the man Mom had brought to his grandfather’s party. Was Winston Kellogg the new Brian, in his eyes?

“Okay,” her daughter said, “chocolate.”

Wes muttered, “That’s okay. I don’t want anything.”

“Come on, I’ll loan it to your mom,” Kellogg said, dispensing the coins.

The children took them, Wes reluctantly and only after his sister did.

“Thanks,” Wes said.

“Thank you very much,” Maggie offered.

Edie poured coffee. They sat at the unsteady table. Kellogg thanked Dance’s mother again for the dinner the previous night and asked about Stuart. Then he turned to the children and wondered aloud if they liked to fish.

Maggie said sort of. She didn’t.

Wes loved to but responded, “Not really. You know, it’s boring.”

Dance knew the agent had no motive but breaking the ice, his question probably inspired by his conversation with her father at the party about fishing in Monterey Bay. She noted some stress reactions—he was trying too hard to make a good impression, she guessed.

Wes fell silent and sipped his chocolate while Maggie inundated the adults with the morning’s events at music camp, including a rerun, in detail, of the trash can caper.

The agent found herself irritated that the problem with Wes had reared its head yet again . . . and for no good reason. She wasn’t even dating Kellogg.

But Dance knew the tricks of parenting and in a few minutes had Wes talking enthusiastically about his tennis match that morning. Kellogg’s posture changed once or twice and the body language told Dance that he too was a tennis player and wanted to contribute. But he’d caught on that Wes was ambivalent about him and he smiled as he listened, but didn’t add anything.

Finally Dance told them she needed to get back to work, she’d walk them out. Kellogg told her he was going to check in with the San Francisco field office.

“Good seeing you all.” He waved.

Edie and Maggie said good-bye to him. After a moment Wes did too—only so he wouldn’t be outdone by his sister, Dance sensed.

The agent wandered off up the hallway toward his temporary office.

“Are you coming to Grandma’s for dinner?” Maggie asked.

“I’m going to try, Mags.” Never promise if there’s a chance you can’t deliver.

“But if she can’t,” Edie said, “what’re you in the mood for?”

“Pizza,” Maggie said fast. “With garlic bread. And mint chocolate chip for dessert.”

“And I want a pair of Ferragamos,” Dance said.

“What’re those?”

“Shoes. But what we want and what we get are sometimes two different things.”

Her mother put another offer on the table. “How’s a big salad? With blackened shrimp?”

“Sure.”

Wes said, “That’ll be great.” The children were infinitely polite with their grandparents.

“But I think garlic bread can be arranged,” Edie added, which finally pried a smile from him.

•    •    •

Outside the CBI office, one of the administrative clerks was on his way to deliver documents to the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office in Salinas.

He noticed a dark car pulling into the lot. The driver, a young woman wearing sunglasses despite the fog, scanned the parking lot. She’s uneasy about something, the clerk thought. But, of course, you got that a lot here: people who’d come in voluntarily as suspects or reluctant complaining witnesses. The woman looked at herself in the mirror, pulled on a cap and climbed out. She didn’t go to the front door. Instead she approached him.

“Excuse me?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“This is the California Bureau of Investigation?”

If she’d looked at the building she would’ve seen the large sign that repeated four of the words in her question. But, being a good public servant, he said, “That’s right. Can I help you?”

“Is this the office where Agent Dance works?”

“Kathryn Dance. Yes.”

“Is she in now?”

“I don’t—” The clerk looked across the lot and barked a laugh. “Well, guess what, miss? That’s her, right over there, the younger woman.”

He saw Dance with her mother and the two kids, whom the clerk had met on a couple of occasions.

“Okay. Thank you, Officer.”

The clerk didn’t correct her. He liked being misidentified as a real law enforcer. He got into his car and pulled out of the driveway. He happened to glance in the rearview mirror and saw the woman standing just where he’d left her. She seemed troubled.

He could’ve told her she didn’t need to be. Kathryn Dance, in his opinion, was one of the nicest people in the whole of the CBI.

•    •    •

Dance closed the door of her mother’s Prius hybrid. It hummed out of the lot and the agent waved good-bye.

She watched the silver car negotiate the winding road toward Highway 68. She was troubled. She kept imagining Juan Millar’s voice in her head.

Kill me. . . .

The poor man.

Although his brother’s lashing out had nothing to do with it, Kathryn Dance did feel guilty that she’d picked him to go check on what was happening in the lockup. He was the most logical one, but she wondered if, being younger, he’d been more careless than a more experienced officer might’ve been. It was impossible to think that Michael O’Neil, or big Albert Stemple, or Dance herself would have let Pell get the upper hand.

Turning back toward the building, she was thinking of the first few moments of the fire and the escape. They’d had to move so quickly. But should she have waited, thought out her strategy better?

Second-guessing. It went with the territory of being a cop.

Returning to the building, humming Julieta Venegas’s music. The notes were swirling through her thoughts, intoxicating—and taking her away from Juan Millar’s terrible wounds and terrible words and Susan Pemberton’s death . . . and her son’s eyes, flipping from cheerful to stony the moment the boy had seen Dance with Winston Kellogg.

What to do about that?

Dance continued through the deserted parking lot toward the front door of CBI, glad that the rain had stopped.

She was nearing the stairs when she heard a scrape of footstep on the asphalt and turned quickly to see that a woman had come up behind her, silently until now. She was a mere six or so feet away, walking directly toward her.

Dance stopped fast.

The woman did too. She shifted her weight.

“Agent Dance . . . I . . .”

Neither spoke for a moment.

Then Samantha McCoy said, “I’ve changed my mind. I want to help.”

Chapter 32

“I couldn’t sleep after you came to see me. And when I heard he’d killed someone else, that woman, I knew I had to come.”

Samantha, Dance and Kellogg were in her office. The woman sat upright, gripping the arms of the chair hard, looking from one to the other. Never more than a second’s gaze at either. “You’re sure it was Daniel who killed her?”

“That’s right,” Kellogg said.

“Why?”

“We don’t know. We’re looking into it now. Her name was Susan Pemberton. She worked for Eve Brock. Do the names mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“It’s an event-planning company. Pell took all their files and presumably destroyed them. There was something in them that he wanted to hide. Or maybe there’s an event coming up that he’s interested in. Do you have any thoughts about what that might be?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

Dance told her, “I want to get you together with Linda and Rebecca as soon as possible.”

“They’re both here?”

“That’s right.”

Samantha nodded slowly.

Kellogg said, “I need to follow up on a few things here. I’ll join you later.”

Dance told Maryellen Kresbach where she’d be and the women left the CBI building. The agent had Samantha park her car in the secure garage under the building, so no one would see it. They then both got into Dance’s Ford.

Samantha clicked on her seat belt and then stared straight ahead. Suddenly she blurted, “One thing, my husband, his family . . . my friends. They still don’t know.”

“What did you tell him about being away?”

“A publishing conference . . . And Linda and Rebecca? I’d just as soon they didn’t know my new name, about my family.”

“That’s fine with me. I haven’t given them any details they didn’t already know. Now, you ready?”

A shaky smile. “No. I’m not the least ready. But, okay, let’s go.”

When they arrived at the inn Dance checked with the MCSO deputy outside and learned there’d been no unusual activity in or around the cabin.

She gestured Samantha out of the car. The woman hesitated and climbed from the vehicle, squinting, taking in everything around her. She’d be vigilant, of course, under the circumstances, but Dance sensed something else behind this attentiveness.

Samantha gave a faint smile. “The smells, the sound of the ocean . . . I haven’t been back to the Peninsula since the trial. My husband keeps asking me to drive down for the weekend. I’ve come up with some doozy excuses. Allergies, carsickness, pressing manuscripts to edit.” Her smile faded. She glanced at the cabin. “Pretty.”

“It’s only got two bedrooms. I wasn’t expecting you.”

“If there’s a couch, I can sleep on that. I don’t want to bother anybody.”

Samantha the unassuming one, the shy one, Dance recalled.

Mouse.

“I hope it’ll just be for one night.” Kathryn Dance stepped forward and knocked on the door to the past.

•    •    •

The Toyota smelled of cigarette smoke, which Daniel Pell hated.

He himself never smoked, though he’d bartered cigarettes like a floor broker on a stock exchange when he was inside the Q or Capitola. He would’ve let the kids in the Family smoke—dependency in someone else is exploitable, of course—but he loathed the smell. Reminded him of growing up, his father sitting in his big armchair, reading the Bible, jotting notes for sermons nobody would ever hear and chain-smoking. (His mother nearby, smoking and drinking.) His brother, not smoking or doing much else but hauling young Daniel out from where he was hiding, his closet, the tree house, the basement bathroom. “I’m not doing all the fucking work myself.”

Though his brother ended up not doing any of the work; he just handed Daniel a scrub bucket or toilet brush or dishrag and went to hang with his friends. He’d return to the house occasionally to pound on his brother if the house wasn’t spic-and-span, or sometimes even if it was.

Cleanliness, son, is next to godliness. There’s truth in that. Now, polish the ashtrays. I want them to sparkle.

So he and Jennie were now driving with the windows down, the scent of pine and cold salty air swirling into the car.

Jennie did that rubby-nose thing, like she was trying to massage the bump out, and was quiet. She was content now, not purring but back on track. His distance last night, after she’d balked at helping him “kill” Susan Pemberton on the beach, had worked just fine. They’d returned to the Sea View and she’d done the only thing she could to try to win back his love—and spent two strenuous hours proving it. He’d withheld at first, been sullen, and she tried even harder. She even was starting to enjoy the pain. It reminded him of the time the Family had stopped at Carmel Mission years ago. He’d learned about the monks who’d beat themselves bloody, getting a high in the name of God.

But that reminded Daniel Pell of his chunky father looking at him blankly over the Bible, through a cloud of Camel cigarette smoke, so he pushed the memory away.

Last night, after the sex, he’d grown warmer to her. But later he’d stepped outside and pretended to make a phone call.

Just to keep her on edge.

When he’d returned, she hadn’t asked about the call. Pell had returned to the material he’d gotten from Susan Pemberton’s office, and went online once more.

This morning, he’d told her he had to go see someone. Let that sit, watched her insecurities roll up—taps on the lumpy nose, a half-dozen “sweetheart”s—and then finally he’d said, “I’d like it if you came along.”

“Really?” A thirsty dog lapping up water.

“Yep. But, I don’t know. It might be too hard for you.”

“No, I want to. Please.”

“We’ll see.”

She’d pulled him back to bed and they’d continued their balance-of-power game. He let himself be tugged temporarily back into her camp.

Now, though, as they drove, he had no interest in her body whatsoever; he was firmly back in control.

“You understand about yesterday, at the beach? I was in a funny mood. I get that way when something precious to me is endangered.” This was a bit of an apology—who can resist that?—along with the reminder that it might happen again.

“That’s one thing I love about you, sweetie.”

Not “sweetheart” now. Good.

When Pell had had the Family, tucked away all cozy in the town of Seaside, he’d used a lot of techniques for controlling the girls and Jimmy. He’d give them common goals, he’d dispense rewards evenly, he’d give them tasks but withhold the reason for doing them, he’d keep them in suspense until they were nearly eaten alive by uncertainty.

And—the best way to cement loyalty and avoid dissension—he’d create a common enemy.

He now said to her, “We have another problem, lovely.”

“Oh. That’s where we’re going now?” Rub-a-dub on the nose. It was a wonderful barometer.

“That’s right.”

“I told you, honey, I don’t care about the money. You don’t have to pay me back.”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with that. It’s more important. Much more. I’m not asking you to do what I did last night. I’m not asking you to hurt anybody. But I need some help. And I hope you will.”

Carefully playing with the emphasis.

She’d be thinking of the fake phone call last night. Who’d he been talking to? Somebody else he could call on to step in?

“Whatever I can do, sure.”

They passed a pretty brunette, late teens, on the sidewalk. Pell noted immediately her posture and visage—the determined walk, the angry, downcast face, the unbrushed hair—which suggested she’d fled after an argument. Perhaps from her parents, perhaps her boyfriend. So wonderfully vulnerable. A day’s work, and Daniel Pell could have her on the road with him.

The Pied Piper . . .

But, of course, now wasn’t the time and he left her behind, feeling the frustration of a hunter unable to stop by the roadside and take a perfect buck in a field nearby. Still, he wasn’t upset; there’d be plenty of other young people like her in his future.

Besides, feeling the gun and knife in his waistband, Pell knew that in just a short period of time his hunt lust would be satisfied.

Chapter 33

Standing in the open doorway of the cabin at Point Lobos Inn, Rebecca Sheffield said to Dance, “Welcome back. We’ve been gossiping and spending your money on room service.” She nodded toward a bottle of Jordan Cabernet, which only she was drinking.

Rebecca glanced at Samantha and, not recognizing her, said, “Hello.” Probably thinking she was another officer involved in the case.

The women walked inside. Dance shut and double-locked the door.

Samantha looked from one woman to the other. It seemed as if she’d lost her voice, and for a moment Dance believed she’d turn and flee.

Rebecca did a double take and blinked. “Wait. Oh my God.”

Linda didn’t get it, her brows furrowed.

Rebecca said, “Don’t you recognize her?”

“What do you—? Wait. It’s you, Sam?”

“Hello.” The slim woman was racked with uneasiness. She couldn’t hold a gaze for more than a few seconds.

“Your face,” Linda said. “You’re so different. My.”

Samantha shrugged, blushing.

“Uh-huh, prettier. And you’ve got some meat on your bones. Finally. You were a scrawny little thing.” Rebecca walked forward and firmly hugged Samantha. Then, hands on her shoulders, she leaned back. “Great job . . . What’d they do?”

“Implants on my jaw and cheeks. Lips and eyes mostly. Nose, of course. And then . . .” She glanced at her round chest. A faint smile. “But I’d wanted to do that for years.”

Linda, crying, said, “I can’t believe it.” Another hug.

“What’s your new name?”

Not looking at either of them, she said, “I’d rather not say. And listen, both of you. Please. You can’t tell anybody about me. If they catch Daniel and you want to talk to reporters, please don’t mention me.”

“No problem with that.”

“Your husband doesn’t know?” Linda asked, glancing at Samantha’s engagement and wedding rings.

A shake of the head.

“How’d you pull that one off?” Rebecca asked.

Samantha swallowed. “I lie. That’s how.”

Dance knew that married couples lie to each other with some frequency, though less often than romantic partners who aren’t married. But most lies are trivial; very few involve something as fundamental as Samantha’s.

“That’s gotta be a pain,” Rebecca said. “Need a good memory.”

“I don’t have any choice,” Samantha added. Dance recognized the kinesic attributes of defensiveness, body parts folding, stature shrinking, crossings, aversions. She was a volcano of stress.

Rebecca said, “But he has to know you did time?”

“Yes.”

“Then how—?”

“I told him it was a white-collar thing. I helped my boss embezzle some stocks because his wife needed an operation.”

“He believed that?”

Samantha gave a timid look to Rebecca. “He’s a good man. But he’d walk out the door if he knew the truth. That I was in a cult—”

“It wasn’t a cult,” Linda said quickly.

“Whatever it was, Daniel Pell was involved. That’s reason enough to leave me. And I wouldn’t blame him.”

Rebecca asked, “What about your parents? Do they know anything?”

“My mother’s dead, and my father’s as involved in my life as he always was. Which is not at all. But I’m sorry, I’d rather not talk about all this.”

“Sure, Sam,” Rebecca said.

The agent now returned to the specifics of the case. First, she gave them the details of the Pemberton killing, the theft of the company’s files.

“Are you sure he did it?” Linda asked.

“Yes. The prints are his.”

She closed her eyes and muttered a prayer. Rebecca’s face tightened angrily.

Neither of them had ever heard the name Pemberton, nor of the Brock Company. They couldn’t recall any events Pell might’ve gone to that had been catered.

“Wasn’t a black-tie kind of life back then,” Rebecca said.

Dance now asked Samantha about Pell’s accomplice, but, like the others, she had no idea who the woman might be. Nor did she recall any references to Charles Pickering in Redding. Dance told them about the email from Richard Pell and asked if they’d ever had any contact with him.

“Who?” Rebecca asked.

Dance explained.

“An older brother?” Linda interrupted. “No, Scotty was younger. And he died a year before I met Daniel.”

“He had a brother?” Rebecca asked. “He said he was an only child.”

Dance told them the story about the crimes Pell had committed with his brother’s sister-in-law.

Linda shook her head. “No, no. You’re wrong. His brother’s name was Scott and he was mentally disabled. That’s one of the reasons we connected so well. My cousin’s got cerebral palsy.”

Rebecca said, “And he told me he was an only child, like me.” A laugh. “He was lying to get our sympathy. What’d he tell you, Sam?”

She was reluctant to answer. Then she said, “Richard was older. He and Daniel didn’t get along at all. Richard was a bully. Their mother was drunk all the time and she never cleaned up, so his father insisted the boys do it. But Richard would force Daniel to do all the work. He beat him up if he didn’t.”

“He told you the truth?” Linda asked stiffly.

“Well, he just mentioned it.”

“The Mouse scores.” Rebecca laughed.

Linda said, “He told me he didn’t want anybody else in the Family to know about his brother. He only trusted me.”

“And I wasn’t supposed to mention he was an only child,” Rebecca said.

Linda’s face was troubled. “We all tell fibs sometimes. I’ll bet the incident with the sister-in-law—what his brother told you about—didn’t happen at all, or it wasn’t so bad, and his brother used it as an excuse to cut things off.”

Rebecca was clearly not convinced of this.

Dance supposed that Pell had identified both Linda and Rebecca as more of a threat to him than Samantha. Linda was the mother of the Family and would have some authority. Rebecca was clearly brash and outspoken. But Samantha . . . he could control her much better and knew she could be trusted with the truth—well, some truth.

Dance was glad she’d decided to come help them.

She noticed that Samantha was looking at the coffeepot.

“Like some?”

“I’m a little tired. Haven’t had much sleep lately.”

“Welcome to the club,” Rebecca said.

Samantha half rose but Dance waved her down. “Milk, sugar?”

“Oh, don’t go to any trouble. Really.”

The agent noticed that Linda and Rebecca shared a faint smile at Samantha’s habitual timidity.

Mouse . . .

“Thanks. Milk.”

Dance continued, “Linda mentioned Pell might have wanted to move to the country somewhere, a ‘mountaintop.’ Do you have any idea what he was talking about?”

“Well, Daniel told me a bunch of times he wanted to get out to the country. Move the Family there. It was real important to him to get away from everybody. He didn’t like neighbors, didn’t like the government. He wanted space for more people. He wanted the Family to grow.”

“He did?” Rebecca asked.

Linda said nothing about this.

“Did he ever mention Utah?”

“No.”

“Where could he have had in mind?”

“He didn’t say. But it sounded like he’d been doing some serious thinking about it.”

Recalling that he’d possibly used a boat to escape from the Pemberton crime scene, Dance had an idea. She asked, “Did he ever mention an island?”

Samantha laughed. “An island? No way.”

“Why not?”

“He’s terrified of the water. He’s not getting into anything that floats.”

Linda blinked. “I didn’t know that.”

Rebecca didn’t either. A wry smile. “Of course not. He’d only share his fears with his Mouse.”

“Daniel said the ocean’s somebody else’s world. People have no business being there. You shouldn’t be in a place that you can’t be master of. Same thing with flying. He didn’t trust pilots or airplanes.”

“We were thinking he escaped from the murder scene by boat.”

“Impossible.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

Dance excused herself for a moment, called Rey Carraneo and had him call off the search for stolen boats. She hung up, reflecting that O’Neil’s theory was wrong and Kellogg’s was right.

“Now, I’d like to think about his motives for staying here. What about money?” She mentioned Rebecca’s comment about a big score—a robbery or break-in, a big heist. “I was thinking he might be here because he hid money or something valuable somewhere. Or has unfinished business. Something to do with the Croyton murders?”

“Money?” Samantha shook her head. “No, I don’t really think that’s it.”

Rebecca said firmly, “I know he said it.”

“Oh, no, I’m not saying he didn’t,” the Mouse added quickly. “Just, he might not have meant ‘big’ in the sense we’d use. He didn’t like to commit crimes that’d be too visible. We broke into houses—”

“Well, hardly any,” Linda corrected.

Rebecca sighed. “Well . . . we pretty much did, Linda. And you folks’d been busy before I joined you.”

“It was exaggerated.”

Samantha said nothing to support either woman, and seemed uneasy, as if afraid they’d call on her again to be the tiebreaker. She continued, “He said if somebody did anything too illegal, the press would cover the story and then the police got after you in a big way. We stayed away from banks and check-cashing offices. Too much security, too risky.” She shrugged. “Anyway, all the stealing—it was never about the money.”

“It wasn’t?” Dance asked.

“No. We could’ve made as much doing legitimate jobs. But that’s not what turned Daniel on. What he liked was getting people to do things they didn’t want to. That was his high.”

Linda said, “You make it sound like that’s all we did.”

“I didn’t mean it like that—”

“We weren’t a gang of thugs.”

Rebecca ignored Linda. “I think he was definitely into making money.”

Samantha smiled uncertainly. “Well, I just had this sense it was more about manipulating people. He didn’t need a lot of money. He didn’t want it.”

“He’d have to pay for his mountaintop somehow,” Rebecca pointed out.

“That’s true, I guess. I could be wrong.”

Dance sensed this was an important key to understanding Pell, so she asked them about their criminal activities, hoping it might spark some specific memories.

Samantha said, “He was good, Daniel was. Even knowing what we were doing was wrong, I couldn’t help but admire him. He’d know the best places to go for pickpocketing or breaking into houses. How security worked in department stores, what designer labels had security tags and which didn’t, what kind of clerk would take returns without receipts.”

Linda said, “Everybody makes him out to be this terrible criminal. But it was really just a game to him. Like, we’d have disguises. Remember? Wigs, different clothes, fake glasses. It was all harmless fun.”

Dance was inclined to believe Samantha’s theory that sending the Family out on their missions was more about power than money.

“But what about the Charles Manson connection?”

“Oh,” Samantha said. “There was no Manson connection.”

Dance was surprised. “But all the press said so.”

“Well, you know the press.”

Samantha was typically reluctant to disagree, but she was clearly certain about this. “He thought Manson was an example of what not to do.”

But Linda shook her head. “No, no, he had all those books and articles about him.”

Dance recalled that she’d gotten a longer prison sentence because she’d destroyed some of the incriminating material about Manson the night of the Croyton murders. She seemed troubled now that her heroic act might have been pointless.

“The only parallels were that he lived with several women and had us doing crimes for him. Manson wasn’t in control of himself, Daniel said. He claimed he was Jesus, he tattooed a swastika on his forehead, he thought he had psychic powers, he ranted about politics and race. That was another example of emotions controlling you. Just like tattoos and body piercings or weird haircuts. They give people information about you. And information is control. No, he thought Manson did everything wrong. Daniel’s heroes were Hitler—”

“Hitler?” Dance asked her.

“Yep. Except he faulted him because of that ‘Jewish thing.’ It was a weakness. Pell said that if Hitler could suck it up and live with Jews, even include them in the government, he’d have been the most powerful man in history. But he couldn’t control himself, so he deserved to lose the war. He admired Rasputin too.”

“The Russian monk?”

“Right. He worked his way into Nicholas and Alexandra’s household. Pell liked Rasputin’s use of sex to control people.” Drawing a laugh from Rebecca and a blush from Linda. “Svengali too.”

“The Trilby book?” Dance asked.

“Oh,” Samantha said. “You know about that? He loved that story. Linda read it a dozen times.”

“And frankly,” Rebecca said, “it was pretty bad.”

Glancing at her notebook, the agent asked the newcomer about the keywords Pell had searched in prison.

“ ‘Nimue’?” Samantha repeated. “No. But he had a girlfriend named Alison once.”

“Who?” Linda asked.

“When he was in San Francisco. Before the Family. She was in this group, sort of like the Family.”

“What’re you talking about?” Linda asked.

Samantha nodded. She looked uneasily at Linda. “But it wasn’t his group. He just was bumming around and met Alison and got to know some of the people in that cult, or whatever it was. Daniel wasn’t a member—he didn’t take orders from anybody—but he was fascinated with it, and hung out with them. He learned a lot about how to control people. But they got suspicious of him—he wouldn’t really commit. So he and Alison left. They hitchhiked around the state. Then he got arrested or picked up by the police for something, and she went back to San Francisco. He tried to find her but he never could. I don’t know why he’d want to try now.”

“What was her last name?”

“I don’t know.”

Dance wondered aloud if Pell was looking for this Alison—or someone named Nimue—for revenge. “After all, he’d need a pretty good reason to risk going online in Capitola to find somebody.”

“Oh,” Samantha said, “Daniel didn’t believe in revenge.”

Rebecca said, “I don’t know, Sam. What about that biker? That punk up the street? Daniel almost killed him.”

Dance remembered Nagle telling them about a neighbor in Seaside whom Pell had assaulted.

“First of all,” Linda said, “Daniel didn’t do it. That was somebody else.”

“Well, no, he beat the crap out of him. Nearly killed him.”

“But the police let him go.”

Curious proof of innocence, Dance reflected.

“Only because the guy didn’t have the balls to press charges.” Rebecca looked at Samantha. “Was it our boy?”

Samantha shrugged, avoiding their gaze. “I think so. I mean, yeah, Daniel beat him up.”

Linda looked unconvinced.

“But that wasn’t about revenge . . . See, the biker thought he was some kind of neighborhood godfather. He tried to blackmail Daniel, threatened to go to the police about something that never even happened. Daniel went to see him and started playing these mind games with him. But the biker just laughed at him and told Daniel he had one day to come up with the money.

“Next thing there’s an ambulance in front of the biker’s house. His wrists and ankles were broken. But that wasn’t revenge. It was because he was immune to Daniel. If you’re immune, then Daniel can’t control you, and that makes you a threat. And he said all the time, ‘Threats have to be eliminated.’ ”

“Control,” Dance said. “That pretty much sums up Daniel Pell, doesn’t it?”

This, it seemed, was one premise from their past that all three members of the Family could agree on.

Chapter 34

From the patrol car, the MCSO deputy kept his vigilant eye on his turf: the grounds, the trees, the gardens, the road.

Guard duty—it had to be the most boring part of being a police officer, hands down. Stakeouts came in a close second, but at least then you had a pretty good idea that the surveillee was a bad guy. And that meant you might get a chance to draw your weapon and go knock heads.

You’d get to do something.

But baby-sitting witnesses and good guys—especially when the bad guys don’t even know where the good ones are—was borrrrring.

All that happened was you got a sore back and sore feet and had to balance the issue of coffee with bathroom breaks and—

Oh, hell, the deputy muttered to himself. Wished he hadn’t thought that. Now he realized he had to pee.

Could he risk the bushes? Not a good idea, considering how nice this place was. He’d ask to use one inside. First he’d make a fast circuit just to be sure everything was secure, then go knock on the door.

He climbed out of the car and walked down the main road, looking around at the trees, the bushes. Still nothing odd. Typical of what you’d see around here: a limo driving past slowly, the driver actually wearing one of those caps like they did in the movies. A housewife across the street was having her gardener arrange flowers beneath her mailbox before he planted them, the poor guy frustrated at her indecision.

The woman looked up and saw the deputy, nodded his way.

He nodded back, flashing on a wispy fantasy of her coming over and saying how much she liked a man in a uniform. The deputy had heard stories of cops making a traffic stop and the women “paying the fine” behind a row of trees near the highway or in the backs of squad cars (the seats of Harley-Davidsons figured in some versions, as well). But those were always I-know-somebody-who-knows-somebody stories. It’d never happened to any of his friends. He suspected too that if anybody—even this desperate housewife—proposed a romp, he couldn’t even get it up.

Which put him in mind of the geography below the belt again and how much he needed to relieve himself.

Then he noticed the housewife was waving to him and approaching. He stopped.

“Is everything okay around here, Officer?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ever noncommittal.

“Are you here about that car?” she asked.

“Car?”

She gestured. “Up there. About ten minutes ago I saw it park, but the driver, he sort of pulled up in between some trees, I thought it was a little funny, parking that way. You know, we’ve had a few break-ins around here lately.”

Alarmed now, the deputy stepped closer to where she was indicating. Through the bushes he saw a glint of chrome or glass. The only reason to drive a car that far off the road was to hide it.

Pell, he thought.

Reaching for his gun, he took a step up the street.

Wsssssh.

He glanced back at the odd sound just as the shovel, swung by the housewife’s gardener, slammed into his shoulder and neck, connecting with a dull ring.

A grunt. The deputy dropped to his knees, his vision filled with a dull yellow light, black explosions going off in front of him. “Please, no!” he begged.

But the response was simply another blow of the shovel, this one better aimed.

•    •    •

Dressed in his dirt-stained gardener outfit, Daniel Pell dragged the cop into the bushes where he couldn’t be seen. The man wasn’t dead, just groggy and hurting.

Quickly he stripped off the deputy’s uniform and put it on, rolled up the cuffs of the too-long slacks. He duct-taped the officer’s mouth and cuffed him with his own bracelets. He slipped the cop’s gun and extra clips into his pocket, then placed the Glock he’d brought with him in the holster; he was familiar with that weapon and had dry-fired it often enough to be comfortable with the trigger pull.

Glancing behind him, he saw Jennie retrieving the flowers from the patch of dirt around the neighbor’s mailbox and dumping them into a shopping bag. She’d done a good job in her role as housewife. She’d distracted the cop perfectly and she’d hardly flinched when Pell had smacked the poor bastard with the shovel.

The lesson of “murdering” Susan Pemberton had paid off; she’d moved closer to the darkness within her. But he’d still have to be careful now. Killing the deputy would be over the top. Still, she was coming along nicely; Pell was ecstatic. Nothing made him happier than transforming someone into a creature of his own making.

“Get the car, lovely.” He handed her the gardener outfit.

A smile blossoming, full. “I’ll have it ready.” She turned and hurried up the street with the clothes, shopping bag and shovel. She glanced back, mouthing, “I love you.”

Pell watched her, enjoying the confident stride.

Then he turned away and walked slowly up the driveway that led to the house of the man who’d committed an unforgivable sin against him, a sin that would spell the man’s death: former prosecutor James Reynolds.

•    •    •

Daniel Pell peered through a crack in the curtain of a front window. He saw Reynolds on a cordless phone, holding a bottle of wine, walking from one room to another. A woman—his wife, Pell guessed—walked into what seemed to be the kitchen. She was laughing.

Pell had thought it’d be easy to find almost anybody nowadays, computers, the Internet, Google. He’d discovered some information about Kathryn Dance, which would be useful. But James Reynolds was invisible. No phone listing, no tax records, no addresses in any of the old state and county directories or bar association lists.

He would eventually have found the prosecutor through public records, Pell supposed, but could hardly browse through the very county government building he’d just escaped from. Besides, he had little time. He needed to finish his business in Monterey and leave.

But then he’d had his brainstorm and turned to the archives of local newspapers on the Internet. He’d found a listing in the Peninsula Times about the prosecutor’s daughter’s wedding. He’d called the venue where the event was held, the Del Monte Spa and Resort, and found the name of the wedding planner, the Brock Company. A bit of coffee—and pepper spray—with Susan Pemberton had earned Pell the files that contained the name and address of the man who’d paid for the fete, James Reynolds.

And now here he was.

More motion inside.

A man in his late twenties was also in the house. Maybe a son—the brother of the bride. He’d have to kill them all, of course, and anyone else inside. He didn’t care one way or the other about hurting the family but he couldn’t leave anyone alive. Their deaths were simply a practical matter, to give Pell and Jennie more time to get away. At gunpoint he’d force them into a closed space—a bathroom or den—then use the knife, so no one would hear shots. With some luck, the bodies wouldn’t be found until after he’d finished his other mission here on the Peninsula and would be long gone.

Pell now saw the prosecutor hang up his phone and start to turn. Pell ducked back, checked his pistol and pressed the doorbell. There was the rustle of noise from inside. A shadow filled the peephole. Pell stood where he could be seen in his uniform, though he was looking down casually.

“Yes? Who is it?”

“Mr. Reynolds, it’s Officer Ramos.”

“Who?”

“I’m the relief deputy, sir. I’d like to talk to you.”

“Just a second. I’ve got something on the stove.”

Pell gripped his pistol, feeling that a huge irritation was about to be relieved. He suddenly felt aroused. He couldn’t wait to get Jennie back to the Sea View. Maybe they wouldn’t make it all the way to the motel. He’d take her in the backseat. Pell now stepped back into the shadows of a large, tangled tree beside the door, enjoying the feel of the heavy gun in his hand. A minute passed. Then another. He knocked again. “Mr. Reynolds?”

“Pell, don’t move!” a voice shouted. It was coming from outside, behind him. “Drop the weapon.” The voice was Reynolds’s. “I’m armed.”

No! What had happened? Pell shivered with anger. He nearly vomited he was so shaken and upset.

“Listen to me, Pell. If you move one inch I will shoot you. Take the weapon in your left hand by the barrel and set it down. Now!”

“What? Sir, what are you talking about?”

No, no! He’d planned this so perfectly! He was breathless with rage. He gave a brief glance behind him. There was Reynolds, holding a large revolver in both hands. He knew what he was doing and didn’t seem the least bit nervous.

“Wait, wait, Prosecutor Reynolds. My name’s Hector Ramos. I’m the relief—”

He heard the click as the hammer on Reynolds’s gun cocked.

“Okay! I don’t know what this is about. But okay. Jesus.” Pell took the barrel in his left hand and crouched, lowering it to the deck.

When, with a screech, the black Toyota skidded into the driveway and braked to a stop, the horn blaring.

Pell dropped flat to his belly, swept up the gun and began firing in Reynolds’s direction. The prosecutor crouched and fired several shots himself but, panicked, missed. Pell then heard the distant keening of sirens. Torn between self-preservation and his raw lust to kill the man, he hesitated a second. But survival won out. He sprinted down the driveway, toward Jennie, who had opened the passenger door for him.

He tumbled inside and they sped away, Pell finding some bleak satisfaction in emptying his weapon toward the house, hoping for at least one mortal hit.

Chapter 35

Dance, Kellogg and James Reynolds stood in his dewy front lawn, amid pristine landscaping, lit by the pulse of colored lights.

The prosecutor’s first concern, he explained, was that no one had been hit by his, or Pell’s, slugs. He’d fired in defensive panic—he was still shaken—and even before the car had skidded away he was troubled that a bullet might have injured a neighbor. He’d run to the street to look at the car’s tags, but the vehicle was gone by then so he jogged to the houses nearby. No one had been injured by a stray shot, though. The deputy in the bushes outside the house would have some bad bruises, a concussion and very sore muscles, but nothing more serious than that, the medics reported.

When the doorbell rang and “Officer Ramos” announced his presence at the front door, Reynolds had actually been on the phone with Kathryn Dance, who was telling him urgently that Pell, possibly disguised as a Latino, knew where he lived and was planning to kill him. The prosecutor had drawn his weapon and sent his wife and son into the basement to call 911. Reynolds had slipped out a side door and come up behind the man.

He’d been seconds away from shooting to kill; only the girlfriend’s intervention had saved Pell.

The prosecutor now stepped away to see how his wife was doing, then returned a moment later. “Pell took all this risk just for revenge? I sure called that one wrong.”

“No, James, it wasn’t revenge.” Without mentioning her name—reporters were already starting to show up—Dance explained about Samantha McCoy’s insights into Pell’s psychology and told him about the incident in Seaside, where the biker had laughed at him. “You did the same thing in court. When he tried to control you, remember? That meant you were immune to him. And, even worse, you controlled him—you turned him into Manson, into somebody else, somebody he had no respect for. He was your puppet. Pell couldn’t allow that. You were too much of a danger to him.”

“That’s not revenge?”

“No, it was about his future plans,” Dance said. “He knew you wouldn’t be intimidated, and that you had some insights and information about him—maybe even something in the case notes. And he knew that you were the sort who wouldn’t rest until he was recaptured. Even if you were retired.”

She remembered the prosecutor’s determined visage in his house.

Whatever I can do . . .

“You wouldn’t be afraid to help us track him down. That made you a threat. And, like he said, threats have to be eliminated.”

“What do you mean by the ‘future’? What’s he got in mind?”

“That’s the big question. We just don’t know.”

“But how the hell did you manage to call two minutes before he showed up?”

Dance shrugged. “Susan Pemberton.”

“The woman killed yesterday.”

“She worked for Eve Brock.”

His eyes flashed in recognition. “The caterer, I mean, the event-planner who handled Julia’s wedding. He found me through her. Brilliant.”

“At first I thought Pell used Susan to get into the office and destroy some evidence. Or to get information about an upcoming event. I kept picturing her office, all the photos on the walls. Some were of local politicians, some were of weddings. Then I remembered seeing the pictures of your daughter’s wedding in your living room. The connection clicked. I called Eve Brock and she told me that, yes, you’d been a client.”

“How’d you know about the Latino disguise?”

She explained that Susan had been seen in the company of a slim Latino man not long before she’d been killed. Linda had told them about Pell’s use of disguises. “Becoming Latino seemed a bit far-fetched . . . but apparently it wasn’t.” She nodded at a cluster of bullet holes in the prosecutor’s front wall.

Finished with their canvassing, TJ and Rey Carraneo arrived to report that there’d been no sightings of the killer’s new wheels.

Michael O’Neil too joined them. He’d been with the crime scene officers as they’d worked the street and the front yard.

O’Neil nodded politely toward Kellogg, as if the recent disagreements were long forgotten. Crime scene, O’Neil reported, hadn’t discovered much at all. They’d found shell casings from a 9mm pistol, some useless tire prints (they were so worn the technicians couldn’t ID the brand) and “about a million samples of trace that’ll lead us nowhere.” The latter information was delivered with the sour hyperbole O’Neil slung out when frustrated.

And, he added, the guard gave only a groggy and inarticulate description of his attacker and the girl with him, but he couldn’t add anything to what they already knew.

Reynolds called his daughter, since Pell now knew her and her husband’s names, and told her to leave town until the killer was recaptured. Reynolds’s wife and other son would join them, but the prosecutor refused to leave. He was going to stay in the area—though at a separate hotel, under police guard—until he’d had a chance to review the Croyton murders files, which would arrive from the county court archives soon. He was more determined than ever to help them get Pell.

Most of the officers left—two stayed to guard Reynolds and his family, and two were keeping the reporters back—and soon Kellogg, O’Neil and Dance were alone, standing on the fragrant grass.

“I’m going back to Point Lobos,” Dance said to both of the men. Then to Kellogg: “You want me to drop you off at HQ, for your car?”

“I’ll go with you to the inn,” Kellogg said. “If that’s okay.”

“Sure. What about you, Michael? Want to come with us?” She could see that Millar’s death was still weighing heavily on him.

The chief deputy glanced at Kellogg and Dance, standing side by side, like a couple in front of their suburban house saying goodnight to guests after a dinner party. He said, “Think I’ll pass. I’ll make a statement to the press then stop by to see Juan’s family.” He exhaled, sending a stream of breath into the cool night. “Been a long day.”

•    •    •

He was exhausted.

And his round belly contained pretty much an entire bottle of Vallejo Springs’s smooth Merlot wine.

There was no way Morton Nagle was going to drive home tonight through a tangle of combat traffic in Contra Costa County, then the equally daunting roads around San Jose. He’d found a motel not far from the vineyards he’d moped around in all day and checked in. He washed his face and hands, ordered a club sandwich from room service and uncorked the wine.

Waiting for the food to arrive, he called his wife and spoke to her and the children, then got through to Kathryn Dance.

She told him that Pell had tried to kill the prosecutor in the Croyton trial.

“Reynolds? No!”

“Everybody’s all right,” Dance said. “But he got away.”

“You think maybe that was his goal? Why he was staying in the area?”

The agent explained she didn’t think so. She believed he’d intended to kill Reynolds as a prelude to his real plan, because he was frightened of the prosecutor. But what that real plan might be continued to elude them.

Dance sounded tired, discouraged.

Apparently he did too.

“Morton,” Dance asked, “are you all right?”

“I’m just wondering how bad my headache’ll be tomorrow morning.”

She gave a sour laugh.

Room service knocked on the door. He said good-bye and hung up the phone.

Nagle ate the meal without much appetite and channel surfed, seeing virtually nothing that flickered by on the screen.

The large man lay back in bed, kicking off his shoes. As he sipped from the plastic glass of wine he was thinking of a color photo of Daniel Pell in Time magazine years ago. The killer’s head was turned partially away but the unearthly blue eyes stared straight into the camera. They seemed to follow you wherever you were, and you couldn’t shake the thought that even if you closed the magazine, Pell would continue to stare into your soul.

Nagle was angry that he’d failed in his attempt to get the aunt’s agreement, that the trip here had been a waste of time.

But then he told himself that, at least, he’d stayed true to his journalist’s ethics and protected his sources—and protected the girl. He’d been as persuasive as he could with the aunt but hadn’t stepped over the moral boundary and told Kathryn Dance the girl’s new name and location.

No, Nagle realized, he’d done everything right in a difficult situation.

Growing drowsy, he found he was feeling better. He’d go home tomorrow, back to his wife and children. He’d do the best he could with the book without Theresa. He’d heard from Rebecca Sheffield and she was game to go ahead—she’d been making a lot of notes on life in the Family—and wanted to sit down with him when he returned. She was sure she could convince Linda Whitfield to be interviewed, as well. And there were certainly no lack of victims of Daniel Pell to write about.

Finally, drunk and more or less content, Morton Nagle drifted off to sleep.

Chapter 36

They sat around the TV, leaning forward, watching the news like three reunited sisters.

Which in a way they were, thought Samantha McCoy.

“Can you believe that?” Rebecca asked in a low, angry voice.

Linda, who with Sam was cleaning up the remnants of a room-service dinner, shook her head in dismay.

James Reynolds, the prosecutor, had been the target of Daniel Pell.

Sam was very disturbed by the assault. She remembered Reynolds well. A stern but reasonable man, he’d negotiated what her lawyer had said were fair plea bargains. Sam, in fact, had thought he was quite lenient. There was no evidence that they’d had any involvement in the Croyton deaths—Sam, like the others, was stunned and horrified at the news. Still, the Family’s record of petty crimes was extensive and if he’d wanted to, James Reynolds could have gone to trial and probably gotten much longer sentences from a jury.

But he was sympathetic to what they’d been through; he realized they’d fallen under the spell of Daniel Pell. He called it the Stockholm syndrome, which Sam had looked up. It was an emotional connection that victims develop with their hostage takers or kidnappers. Sam was happy to accept Reynolds’s leniency, but she wasn’t going to let herself off the hook by blaming her actions on some psychological excuse. Every single day she felt bad about the thefts and letting Pell run her life. She hadn’t been kidnapped; she’d lived with the Family voluntarily.

A picture came on the TV: an artist’s rendering of Pell with darker skin, moustache and black hair, glasses and a vague Latino look. His disguise.

“That’s way bizarre,” Rebecca offered.

The knock on the door startled them. Kathryn Dance’s voice announced her arrival. Linda rose to let her in.

Samantha liked her—a cop with a great smile, who wore an iPod like her gun and had shoes with bold daisies embossed on the straps. She’d like a pair of shoes like that. Sam rarely bought fun or frivolous things for herself. Sometimes she’d window-shop and think, Neat, I’d like one of those. But then her conscience tweaked, and she decided, No, I don’t deserve it.

Winston Kellogg too was smiling, but his was different from Dance’s. It seemed like his badge, something to be flashed, saying: I’m really not what you think. I’m a federal agent, but I’m human too. He was appealing. Kellogg wasn’t really handsome, certainly not in a classic way. He had a bit of double chin, was a little round in the middle. But his manner and voice and eyes made him sexy.

Glancing at the TV screen, Dance asked, “You heard?”

Linda said, “I’m so happy he’s all right. His family was there too?”

“They’re all fine.”

“On the news, they mentioned a deputy was hurt?” Rebecca asked.

Kellogg said, “He’ll be all right.” He went on to explain how Pell and his partner had planned the man’s murder, killing the other woman, Susan Pemberton, yesterday solely to find out where Reynolds lived.

Sam thought of what had struck her years ago: the obsessed, unstoppable mind of Daniel Pell.

Dance said, “Well, I wanted to thank you. The information you gave us saved his life.”

“Us?” Linda asked.

“Yep.” She explained how the observations they’d offered earlier—particularly about Pell’s reaction to being laughed at and about disguises—had let her deduce what the killer might be up to.

Rebecca was shaking her head, her expressive lips tight. She said, “But he did get away from you, I noticed.”

Sam was embarrassed at Rebecca’s abrasive comment. It always amazed her how people wouldn’t hesitate to criticize or insult, even when there was no purpose to it.

“He did,” Dance said, looking the taller woman in the eyes. “We didn’t get there in time.”

“The newscaster said Reynolds tried to capture him himself,” Rebecca said.

“That’s right,” Kellogg said.

“So maybe he’s the reason Pell got away.”

Dance held her eye easily. Sam was so envious of that ability. Her husband would often say, “Hey, what’s the matter? Look at me.” It seemed that her eighteen-month-old son was the only person in the world she could look in the eye.

Dance said to Rebecca, “Possibly. But Pell was at the front door with a gun. James didn’t really have any choice.”

Rebecca shrugged. “Still. One of him, all of you.”

“Come on,” Linda snapped. “They’re doing the best they can. You know Daniel. He thinks out everything. He’s impossible to get ahead of.”

The FBI agent said, “No, you’re right, Rebecca. We have to work harder. We’re on the defensive. But we will get him, I promise.”

Samantha noticed Kellogg glance at Kathryn Dance and Sam thought: Damn, he’s sweet on her, the phrase from one of the hundreds of old-time books she’d spent her summers reading as a girl. As for the policewoman? Hm, could be. Sam couldn’t tell. But she didn’t waste much time thinking about the romantic life of two people she’d known for one day. They were part of a world she wanted to leave behind as fast as possible.

Rebecca relented. “Well, if we got you that close last time, maybe we’ll get you there five minutes earlier the next.”

Dance nodded. “Thank you for that. And everything. We really appreciate it. Now, a couple of things. Just to reassure you, I’ve added another deputy outside. There’s no reason to believe that Pell has any clue you’re here, but I thought it couldn’t hurt.”

“Won’t say no to that,” Rebecca said.

The agent glanced at the clock. It was 10:15. “I’m proposing we call it quits for tonight. If you think of anything else about Pell or the case and want to talk about it, I can be here in twenty minutes. Otherwise, we’ll reconvene in the morning. You’ve got to be exhausted.”

Samantha said, “Reunions have a way of doing that.”

•    •    •

Parking in the back of the Sea View, Jennie shut off the Toyota’s engine. Daniel Pell didn’t get out. He felt numb and everything seemed surreal: the lights ghostly auras in the fog, the slow-motion sound of the waves piling up on Asilomar Beach.

An alternate world, out of some weird movie the cons would watch in Capitola and talk about for months afterward.

All because of the bizarre incident at the prosecutor’s house.

“Are you all right, sweetie?”

He said nothing.

“I don’t like it that you’re unhappy.” She rested a hand on his leg. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out for you.”

He was thinking of that instant eight years ago, at the Croyton trial, when he had turned his blue eyes, blue like ice, on prosecutor James Reynolds, to intimidate, to make him lose his concentration. But Reynolds had glanced his way and snickered. Then turned to the jury with a wink and a sour joke.

And they had laughed too.

All his efforts were wasted. The spell was broken. Pell had been convinced that he could will his way to an acquittal, to make the jury believe that Jimmy Newberg was the killer, that Pell was a victim too; all he’d done was act in self-defense.

Reynolds, laughing, like Pell was some kid making faces at adults.

Calling him the Son of Manson . . .

Controlling me!

That had been the unforgivable sin. Not prosecuting Pell—no, many people had done that. But controlling him. Jerking him about like a puppet to be laughed at.

And not long after that the jury foreman had read the verdict. He saw his precious mountaintop vanishing, his freedom, his independence, the Family. All gone. His whole life destroyed by a laugh.

And now Reynolds—a threat to Pell as serious as Kathryn Dance—would go underground, be far more difficult to find.

He shivered in rage.

“You okay, baby?”

Now, still feeling like he was in a different dimension, Pell told Jennie the story about Reynolds in court and the danger he represented—a story no one knew.

And, funny, she didn’t seem to think it was so odd.

“That’s terrible. My mother’d do that, laugh at me in front of other people. And she’d hit me too. I think the laughing was worse. A lot worse.”

He was actually moved by her sympathy.

“Hey, lovely? . . . You held fast tonight.”

She smiled and made fists—as if displaying the tattooed letters, H-O-L-D F-A-S-T.

“I’m proud of you. Come on, let’s go inside.”

But Jennie didn’t move. Her smile slipped away. “I was thinking about something.”

“What?”

“How did he figure it out?”

“Who?”

“The man tonight, Reynolds.”

“Saw me, I suppose. Recognized me.”

“No, I don’t think so. It sounded like the sirens were coming, you know, before you knocked on the door.”

“They were?”

“I think so.”

Kathryn . . . Eyes as green as mine are blue, short pink nails, red rubber band around her braid, pearl on her finger and a polished shell at her throat. Holes in her lobes but no earrings.

He could picture her perfectly. He could almost feel her body next to him. The balloon within him began to expand.

“Well, there’s this policewoman. She’s a problem.”

“Tell me about her.”

Pell kissed Jennie and slipped his hand down her bony spine, past the strap of her bra, and kept going into the waistband of her slacks, felt the lace. “Not here. Inside. I’ll tell you about her inside.”

Chapter 37

“I’ve had enough of that,” Linda Whitfield said, nodding toward the TV, where news stories about Pell kept looping over and over.

Samantha agreed.

Linda walked into the kitchen and made decaf coffee and tea, then brought out the cups and milk and sugar, along with some cookies. Rebecca took the coffee but set it down and continued to sip her wine.

Sam said, “That was nice, what you said at dinner.”

Linda had said grace, apparently improvised, but articulate. Samantha herself wasn’t religious but she was touched by Linda’s words, intended for the souls of the people Daniel Pell had killed and their families, as well as gratitude for the chance to reunite with her sisters and a plea for a peaceful resolution of this sad situation. Even Rebecca—the steel magnolia among them—had seemed moved.

When she was young, Sam often wished her parents would take her to church. Many of her friends went with their families, and it seemed like something parents and a daughter could do together. But then, she’d have been happy if they’d taken her to grocery shop or for a drive to the airport to watch the planes take off and land while they ate hot dogs from a catering truck parked near the fence, like Ellie and Tim Schwimmer from next door did with their folks.

Samantha, I’d love to go with you but you know how important the meeting is. The issue isn’t just about Walnut Creek. It could affect all of Contra Costa. You can make a sacrifice too. The world’s not all about you, dear. . . .

But enough of that, Sam commanded herself.

During dinner the conversation had been superficial: politics, the weather, what they thought of Kathryn Dance. Now Rebecca, who’d had plenty of wine, tried to draw Linda out some, find out what had happened in prison to make her so religious, but the woman might have sensed, as did Sam, that there was something challenging about the questions and deflected them. Rebecca had been the most independent of the three and was still the most blunt.

Linda did, though, explain about her day-to-day life. She ran the church’s neighborhood center, which Sam deduced was a soup kitchen, and helped with her brother and sister-in-law’s foster children. It was clear from the conversation—not to mention her shabby clothing—that Linda was struggling financially. Still, she claimed she had a “rich life” in the spiritual sense of the word, a phrase she’d repeated several times.

“You don’t talk to your parents at all?” Sam asked.

“No,” Linda said softly. “My brother does every once in a while. But I don’t.” Sam couldn’t tell whether the words were defiant or wistful. (Sam recalled that Linda’s father had tried to run for some election following Linda’s arrest and been defeated—after the opposing candidate ran ads implying that if Lyman Whitfield couldn’t maintain law and order in his family he’d hardly be a good public servant.)

The woman added that she was dating a man from her church. “Nice” was how she described him. “He works at Macy’s.” Linda didn’t go into specifics and Samantha wondered if she was actually dating him or they were merely friends.

Rebecca was much more forthcoming about her life. Women’s Initiatives was doing well, with a staff of four full-time employees, and she lived in a condo overlooking the water. As for her romantic life, she described her latest boyfriend, a landscape designer, almost fifteen years older but handsome and pretty well off. Rebecca had always wanted to get married but, as she talked about their future, Sam deduced there were stumbling blocks and guessed that his divorce wasn’t final (if the papers had even been filed). Rebecca mentioned other recent boyfriends too.

Which made Sam a bit envious. After prison she’d changed her identity and moved to San Francisco, where she hoped she could get lost in the anonymity of a big city. She’d avoided socializing for fear she’d let slip some fact about her real identity, or that somebody might recognize her, despite the surgery.

Finally the loneliness caught up and she started to go out. Her third date, Ron Starkey, was a Stanford electrical engineer grad. He was sweet and shy and a bit insecure—a classic nerd. He wasn’t particularly interested in her past; in fact, he seemed oblivious to just about everything except avionics navigation equipment, movies, restaurants and, now, their son.

Not the sort of personality most women would go for, but Samantha decided it was right for her.

Six months later they were married, and Peter was born a year after that. Sam was content. Ron was a good father, a solid man. She only wished she’d met him a few years later, after she’d lived and experienced a bit more of life. She felt that meeting Daniel Pell had resulted in a huge hole in her life, one that could never be filled.

Both Linda and Rebecca tried to get Sam to talk about herself. She demurred. She didn’t want anyone, least of all these women, to have any possible clues as to her life as Sarah Starkey. If word got out, Ron would leave her. She knew it. He’d broken up with her for a few months when she’d tearfully “confessed” about the fake embezzlement; he’d walk right out the door—and take their child with him, she knew—if he learned she’d been involved with Daniel Pell and been lying to him about it for years.

Linda offered the plate of cookies again.

“No, no,” Samantha said. “I’m full. I haven’t eaten that much for dinner in a month.”

Linda sat nearby, ate half a cookie. “Oh, Sam, before you got here we were telling Kathryn about that Easter dinner. Our last one together. Remember that?”

“Remember it? It was fantastic.”

It had been a wonderful day, Sam recalled. They’d sat outside around a driftwood table she and Jimmy Newberg had made. Piles of food, great music from Jimmy’s complicated stereo, sprouting wires everywhere. They’d dyed Easter eggs, filling the house with the smell of hot vinegar. Sam tinted all of hers blue. Like Daniel’s eyes.

The Family wouldn’t survive long after that; six weeks later the Croyton family and Jimmy would be dead, the rest of them in jail.

But that had been a good day.

“That turkey,” Sam said, shaking her head at the memory. “You smoked it, right?”

Linda nodded. “About eight hours. In that smoker Daniel made for me.”

“The what?” Rebecca asked.

“That smoker out back. The one he made.”

“I remember. But he didn’t make it.”

Linda laughed. “Yes, he did. I told him I’d always wanted one. My parents had one and my father’d smoke hams and chickens and ducks. I wanted to help but they wouldn’t let me. So Daniel made me one.”

Rebecca was confused. “No, no . . . he got it from what’s-her-name up the street.”

“Up the street?” Linda frowned. “You’re wrong. He borrowed some tools and made it out of an old oil drum. He surprised me with it.”

“Wait, it was . . . Rachel. Yeah, that was her name. Remember her? Not a good look—gray roots with bright red hair.” Rebecca looked perplexed. “You have to remember her.”

“I remember Rachel.” Linda’s response was stiff. “What’s she got to do with anything?”

Rachel was a stoner who’d caused serious disharmony within the Family because Pell had spent a lot of time at her house doing, well, what Daniel Pell loved to do most. Sam hadn’t cared—anything to avoid Pell’s unpleasantries in the bedroom was fine with her. But Linda had been jealous. Their last Christmas together Rachel had stopped by the Family’s house on some pretense when Daniel was away. Linda had thrown the woman out of the house. Pell had heard about it and promised he wouldn’t see her anymore.

“He got the smoker from her,” said Rebecca, who’d arrived after the Yuletide blow-out and knew nothing about the jealousy.

“No, he didn’t. He made it for my birthday.”

Sam foresaw disaster looming. She said quickly, “Well, whatever, you made a real nice turkey. I think we had sandwiches for two weeks.”

They both ignored her. Rebecca sipped more of the wine. “Linda, he gave it to you on your birthday because he was with her that morning and she gave it to him. Some surfer dude made it for her but she didn’t cook.”

“He was with her?” Linda whispered. “On my birthday?”

Pell had told Linda he hadn’t seen Rachel since the incident at Christmas. Linda’s birthday was in April.

“Yeah. And, like, three times a week or so. You mean you didn’t know?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sam said. “It was a long—”

“Shut up,” Linda snapped. She turned to Rebecca. “You’re wrong.”

“What, you’re surprised Daniel lied to you?” Rebecca was laughing. “He told you he had a retarded brother and he told me he didn’t have a brother. Let’s ask the authority. Sam, was Daniel seeing Rachel that spring?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wrong answer . . . Yes, you do,” Rebecca announced.

“Oh, come on,” Sam said. “What difference does it make?”

“Let’s play who knows Daniel best. Did he say anything to you about it? He told everything to his Mouse.”

“We don’t need to—”

“Answer the question!”

“I don’t have any idea. Rebecca, come on. Let it go.”

“Did he?”

Yes, in fact, he had. But Sam said, “I don’t remember.”

“Bullshit.”

“Why would he lie to me?” Linda growled.

“Because you told him that Mommy and Daddy didn’t let you play at the cookout. That gave him something to work with. And he used it. And he didn’t just buy you one. He claimed he made it! What a fucking saint!”

“You’re the one who’s lying.”

“Why?”

“Because Daniel never made anything for you.”

“Oh, please. Are we back in high school?” Rebecca looked Linda over. “Oh, I get it. You were jealous of me! That’s why you were so pissed off then. That’s why you’re pissed off now.”

This was true too, Sam reflected. After Rebecca joined the Family Daniel had spent far less time with the other women. Sam could handle it—anything as long as he was happy and didn’t want to kick her out of the Family. But Linda, in the role of mother, was stung that Rebecca seemed to supplant her.

Linda denied it now. “I was not. How could anybody afford to be jealous living in that situation? One man and three women living together?”

“How? Because we’re human, that’s how. Hell, you were jealous of Rachel.”

“That was different. She was a slut. She wasn’t one of us, she wasn’t part of the Family.”

Sam said, “Look, we’re not here about us. We’re here to help the police.”

Rebecca scoffed. “How could we not be here about us? The first time we’ve been together after eight years? What, you think we’d just show up, write a top-ten list—‘Things I remember about Daniel Pell’—and go home? Of course, this’s about us as much as him.”

Angry too, Linda gazed at Sam. “And you don’t have to defend me.” A contemptuous nod toward Rebecca. “She’s not worth it. She wasn’t there from the beginning like we were. She wasn’t a part of it, and she took over.” Turning to Rebecca. “I was with him for more than a year. You? A few months.”

“Daniel asked me. I didn’t force my way in.”

“We were going along fine, and then you show up.”

“ ‘Going along fine’?” Rebecca set down her wineglass and sat forward. “Are you hearing what you’re saying?”

“Rebecca, please,” Sam said. Her heart was pounding. She thought she’d cry as she looked at the two red-faced women, facing each other across a coffee table of varnished yellowing logs. “Don’t.”

The lean woman ignored her. “Linda, I’ve been listening to you since I got here. Defending him, saying it wasn’t so bad, we didn’t steal all that much, maybe Daniel didn’t kill so-and-so . . . Well, that’s bullshit. Get real. Yes, the Family was sick, totally sick.”

“Don’t say that! It’s not true.”

“Goddamn it, it is true. And Daniel Pell’s a monster. Think about it. Think about what he did to us. . . .” Rebecca’s eyes were glowing, jaw trembling. “He looked at you and saw somebody whose parents never gave her an inch of freedom. So what does he do? He tells you what a fine, independent person you are, how you’re being stifled. And puts you in charge of the house. He makes you Mommy. He gives you power, which you never had before. And he hooks you in with that.”

Tears dotted Linda’s eyes. “It wasn’t like that.”

“You’re right. It was worse. Because then look at what happened. The Family breaks up, we go to jail and where do you end up? Right back where you started. With a domineering male figure again—only this time, Daddy’s God. If you thought you couldn’t say no to your real father, think about your new one.”

“Don’t say that,” Sam began. “She’s—”

Rebecca turned on her. “And you. Just like the old days. Linda and I go at it, and you play Little Miss United Nations, don’t want anybody upset, don’t want anybody making waves. Why? Is it because you care about us, dear? Or is it because you’re terrified we’ll self-destruct and you’ll be even more alone than you already are?”

“You don’t have to be like that,” Sam muttered.

“Oh, I think I do. Let’s take a look at your story, Mouse. Your parents didn’t know you existed. ‘Go do whatever you want, Sammy. Mommy and Daddy’re too busy with Greenpeace or the National Organization for Women or walking for the cure to tuck you in at night.’ And what does Daniel do for you? He’s suddenly the involved parent you never had. He looks out for you, tells you what to do, when to brush your teeth, when to repaint the kitchen, when to get on all fours in bed . . . and you think it means he loves you. So, guess what? You’re hooked too.

“And now? You’re back to square one, just like Linda. You didn’t exist to your parents, and now you don’t exist to anyone. Because you’re not Samantha McCoy. You became somebody else.”

“Stop it!” Sam was crying hard now. The harsh words, born from a harsh truth, stung deeply. There were things she could say too—Rebecca’s selfishness, her bluntness bordering on cruelty—but she held back. It was impossible for her to be harsh, even in self-defense.

Mouse . . .

But Linda didn’t have Sam’s reticence. “And what gives you the right to talk? You were just some tramp pretending to be this bohemian artist.” Linda’s voice shook with anger, tears streaming down her face. “Sure, we had some problems, Sam and me, but we cared for each other. You were just a whore. And here you are, judging us. You weren’t any better!”

Rebecca sat back, her face still. Sam could almost see the anger bleeding away. She looked down at the table, said in a soft voice, “You’re right, Linda. You’re absolutely right. I’m no better at all. I fell for it too. He did the same thing to me.”

“You?” the woman snapped. “You didn’t have any connection with Daniel! You were just there to fuck.”

“Exactly,” she said with a sad smile on her face, one of the saddest that Samantha McCoy had ever seen.

Sam asked, “What do you mean, Rebecca?”

More wine. “How do you think he got me hooked?” Another sip of wine. “I never told you that I hadn’t slept with anybody for three years before I met him.”

“You?”

“Funny, huh? Sexy me. The femme fatale of the Central Coast? The truth was a lot different. What did Daniel Pell do for me? He made me feel good about my body. He taught me that sex was good. It wasn’t dirty.” She set down the wineglass. “It wasn’t something that happened when my father got home from work.”

“Oh,” Sam whispered.

Linda said nothing.

Downing the last of the wine. “Two or three times a week. Middle and high school . . . You want to hear what my graduation present was?”

“Rebecca . . . I’m so sorry,” Sam said. “You never said anything.”

“You mentioned that day in the van, when we met?” Speaking to Linda, whose face was unmoved. “Yeah, we were there for three hours. You thought we were fucking. But all we did was talk. He was comforting me because I was so freaked out. Just like so many other times—being with a man who wanted me, and me wanting him, only I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t let him touch me. A sexy package—with no passion inside. But Daniel? He knew exactly what to say to make me feel comfortable.

“And now look at me—I’m thirty-three and I’ve dated four different men this year and, you know, I can’t remember the name of the second one. Oh, and guess what—every one of them was at least fifteen years older than me. . . . No, I’m not any better than you guys. And everything I said to you, I mean it twice for myself.

“But come on, Linda, look at him for who he is and what he did to us. Daniel Pell’s the worst thing you can possibly imagine. Yes, it was all that bad . . . Sorry, I’m drunk and this’s brought up more crap than I was prepared to deal with.”

Linda said nothing. Sam could see the conflict in her face. After a moment she said, “I’m sorry for your misfortune. I’ll pray for you. Now please excuse me, I’m going to bed.”

Clutching her Bible, she went off to the bedroom.

“That didn’t go over very well,” Rebecca said. “Sorry, Mouse.” She leaned back, eyes closed, sighing. “Funny about trying to escape the past. It’s like a dog on a tether. No matter how much he runs, he just can’t get away.”

Chapter 38

Dance and Kellogg were in her office at CBI headquarters, where they’d briefed Overby, working late for a change, on the events at Reynolds’s house—and learned from TJ and Carraneo that there were no new developments. The hour was just after 11:00 P.M.

She put her computer on standby. “Okay, that’s it,” she said. “I’m calling it a night.”

“I’m with you there.”

As they walked down the dim hallway, Kellogg said, “I was thinking, they really are a family.”

“Back there? At the lodge?”

“Right. The three of them. They’re not related. They don’t even like each other particularly. But they are a family.”

He said this in a tone suggesting that he defined the word from the perspective of its absence. The interaction of the three women, which she’d noted clinically and found revealing, even amusing, had touched Kellogg in some way. She didn’t know him well enough either to deduce why or to ask. She noted his shoulders lift very slightly and two fingernails of his left hand flicked together, evidence of general stress.

“You going to pick up the children?” he asked.

“No, they’ll stay at their grandparents’ tonight.”

“They’re great, they really are.”

“And you never thought about having kids?”

“Not really.” His voice faded. “We were both working. I was on the road a lot. You know. Professional couples.”

In interrogation and kinesic analysis the content of speech is usually secondary to the tone—the “verbal quality”—with which the words are delivered. Dance had heard many people tell her they’d never had children, and the resonance of the words explained whether that fact was inconsequential, a comfortable choice, a lingering sorrow.

She’d sensed something significant in Kellogg’s statement. She noted more indications of stress, little bursts of body language. Maybe a physical problem on his part or his wife’s. Maybe it had been a big issue between them, the source of their breakup.

“Wes has his doubts about me.”

“Ah, he’s just sensitive about Mom meeting other men.”

“He’ll have to get used to it someday, won’t he?”

“Oh, sure. But just now . . .”

“Got it,” Kellogg said. “Though he seemed to be comfortable when you’re with Michael.”

“Oh, that’s different. Michael’s a friend. And he’s married. He’s no threat.” Aware of what she’d just said, Dance added quickly, “It’s just, you’re the new kid in town. He doesn’t know you.”

There was a faint hesitation before Kellogg answered. “Sure, I can see that.”

Dance glanced at him to find the source of the pause. His face gave nothing away.

“Don’t take Wes’s reaction personally.”

Another pause. “Maybe it’s a compliment.”

His face remained neutral after this exploratory venture too.

They walked outside. The air was so crisp it would signal impending autumn in any other region. Dance’s fingers were quivering from the chill but she liked the sensation. It felt, she decided, like ice numbing an injury.

The mist coalesced into rain. “I’ll drive you to yours,” she said. Kellogg’s car was parked behind the building.

They both got in and she drove to his rental.

Neither of them moved for a minute. She put the transmission in park. She closed her eyes, stretched and pressed her head back against the rest. It felt good.

She opened her eyes and saw him turning toward her and, leaving one hand on the dash, touched the shoulder closest to him—both firmly yet somehow tentatively. He was waiting for some signal. She gave him none, but looked into his eyes and remained silent. Both of which, of course, were signals in themselves.

In any case, he didn’t hesitate any longer but leaned forward and kissed her, aiming straight for her lips. She tasted mint; he’d subtly dropped a Tic Tac or Altoid when she wasn’t looking. Slick, she thought, laughing to herself. She’d done the same with Brian that day on the beach, in front of the sea otter and seal audience. Kellogg now backed off slightly, regrouping and waiting for intelligence about the first skirmish.

This gave Dance a moment to figure how she was going to handle it.

She made a decision and, when he eased in again, met him halfway; her mouth opened. She kissed back fervently. She slipped her arms up to his shoulders, which were as muscular as she’d thought they’d be. His beard stubble troubled her cheek.

His hand slipped behind her neck, pulling her harder into him. She felt that uncurling within her, heart stepping up its pace. Mindful of the bandaged wound, she pressed her nose and lips against the flesh beneath his ear, the place where, with her husband, she’d rested her face when they’d made love. She liked the smooth plane of skin there, the smell of shave cream and soap, the pulse of blood.

Then Kellogg’s hand detached itself from her neck and found her chin, easing her face to him again. Their whole mouths participated now, and their breathing came fast. She felt his fingers moving tentatively to her shoulder, locating the satin strap and, using it as a road map, beginning to move down, outside her blouse. Slowly, ready to divert at the least sign of reluctance.

Her response was to kiss him harder. Her arm was near his lap, and she could feel his erection flirting with her elbow. He shifted away, perhaps so he wouldn’t seem too eager, too forward, too much of a teenager.

But Kathryn Dance pulled him closer as she reclined—kinesically, an agreeable, submissive position. Images of her husband came to mind once or twice, but she observed them from a distance. She was completely with Winston Kellogg at this moment.

Then his hand reached the tiny metal hoop where the strap transitioned to the white Victoria’s Secret cup.

And he stopped.

The hand retreated, though the evidence near her elbow was undiminished. The kisses became less frequent, like a merry-go-round slowing after the power’s shut off.

But this seemed to her exactly right. They’d arrived at the highest pinnacle they could under the circumstances—which included the manhunt for a killer, the short time they’d known each other and the terrible deaths that had recently occurred.

“I think—” he whispered.

“No, it’s okay.”

“I—”

She smiled and lightly kissed away any more words.

He sat back and squeezed her hand. She curled against him, feeling her heart rate slow as she found within herself a curious balance: the perfect stasis of reluctance and relief. Rain pelted the windshield. Dance reflected that she always preferred to make love on rainy days.

“But one thing?” he said.

She glanced at him.

Kellogg continued, “The case won’t go on forever.”

From his mouth to God’s ear . . .

“If you’d be interested in going out afterward. How does that sound?”

“ ‘Afterward’ has a nice ring to it. Real nice.”

•    •    •

A half-hour later Dance was parking in front of her house.

She went through the standard routine: a check of security, a glass of Pinot Grigio, two pieces of cold flank steak left over from last night and a handful of mixed nuts enjoyed to the sound track of phone messages. Then came canine feeding and their backyard tasks and stowing her Glock—without the kids home she kept the lockbox open, though she still stashed the gun inside, since imprinted memory would guide her hand there automatically no matter how deep a sleep she awoke from. Alarms on.

She opened the window to the guards—about six inches—to let in the cool, fragrant night air. Shower, a clean T-shirt and shorts. She dropped into bed, protecting herself from the mad world by an inch-thick down comforter.

Thinking: Golly damn, girl, making out in a car—with a bench front seat, no buckets, just made for reclining with the man of the hour. She recalled mint, recalled his hands, the flop of hair, the absence of aftershave.

She also heard her son’s voice and saw his eyes earlier that day. Wary, jealous. Dance thought of Linda’s comments earlier.

There’s something terrifying about the idea of being kicked out of your family. . . .

Which was ultimately Wes’s fear. The concern was unreasonable, of course, but that didn’t matter. It was real to him. She’d be more careful this time. Keep Wes and Kellogg separate, not mention the word “date,” sell the idea that, like him, she had friends who were both male and female. Your children are like suspects in an interrogation: It’s not smart to lie but you don’t need to tell them everything.

A lot of work, a lot of juggling.

Time and effort . . .

Or, she wondered, her thoughts spinning fast, was it better just to forget about Kellogg, wait a year or two before she dated? Age thirteen or fourteen is hugely different from twelve. Wes would be better then.

Yet Dance didn’t want to. She couldn’t forget the complicated memories of his taste and touch. She thought too of his tentativeness about children, the stress he exhibited. She wondered if it was because he was uneasy around youngsters and was now forming a connection with a woman who came with a pair of them. How would he deal with that? Maybe—

But, hold on here, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

You were making out. You enjoyed it. Don’t call the caterer yet.

For a long time she lay in bed, listening to the sounds of nature. You were never very far from them around here—throaty sea animals, temperamental birds and the settling bed sheet of surf. Often, loneliness sprang into Kathryn Dance’s life, a striking snake, and it was at moments like this—in bed, late, hearing the sound track of night—that she was most vulnerable to it. How nice it was to feel your lover’s thigh next to yours, to hear the adagio of shallow breath, to awake at dawn to the thumps and rustling of someone’s rising: sounds, otherwise insignificant, that were the comforting heartbeats of a life together.

Kathryn Dance supposed longing for these small things revealed weakness, a sign of dependency. But what was so wrong with that? My God, look at us fragile creatures. We have to depend. So why not fill that dependency with somebody whose company we enjoy, whose body we can gladly press against late at night, who makes us laugh? . . . Why not just hold on and hope for the best?

Ah, Bill. . . . She thought to her late husband. Bill. . . .

Distant memories tugged.

But so did fresh ones, with nearly equal gravitation.

. . . afterward. How does that sound?

THURSDAY

Chapter 39

In her backyard again.

Her Shire, her Narnia, her Hogwarts, her Secret Garden.

Seventeen-year-old Theresa Croyton Bolling sat in the gray teak Smith & Hawken glider and read the slim volume in her hand, flipping pages slowly. It was a magnificent day. The air was as sweet as the perfume department at Macy’s, and the nearby hills of Napa were as peaceful as ever, covered with a mat of clover and grass, verdant grapevines and pine and gnarly cypress.

Theresa was thinking lyrically because of what she was reading—beautifully crafted, heartfelt, insightful. . . .

And totally boring poetry.

She sighed loudly, wishing her aunt were around to hear her. The paperback drooped in her hand and she gazed over the backyard once more. A place where she seemed to spend half her life, the green prison, she sometimes called it.

Other times, she loved the place. It was beautiful, a perfect setting to read, or practice her guitar (Theresa wanted to be a pediatrician, a travel writer or, in the best of all worlds, Sharon Isbin, the famous classical guitarist).

She was here, not in school, at the moment because of an unplanned trip she and her aunt and uncle were going to be taking.

Oh, Tare, we’ll have fun. Roger’s got this thing he has to do in Manhattan, a speech, or research, I don’t really know. Wasn’t paying attention. He was going on and on. You know your uncle. But won’t it be great, getting away, just on a whim? An adventure.

Which was why her aunt had taken her out of school at 10:00 A.M. on Monday. Only, hello, they hadn’t left yet, which was a little odd. Her aunt explaining there were some “logistical difficulties. You know what I mean?”

Theresa was eighth in her class of 257 students at Vallejo Springs High. She said, “Yes, I do. You mean ‘logistic.’ ”

But what the girl didn’t understand was, since they were still not on a fucking airplane to New York, why couldn’t she stay in school until the “difficulties” were taken care of?

Her aunt had pointed out, “Besides, it’s study week. So study.”

Which didn’t mean study; what it meant was no TV.

And meant no hanging with Sunny or Travis or Kaitlin.

And meant not going to the big literacy benefit formal in Tiburon that her uncle’s company was a sponsor of (she’d even bought a new dress).

Of course, it was all bullshit. There was no trip to New York, there were no difficulties, logistic, logistical or otherwise. It was just an excuse to keep her in the green prison.

And why the lies?

Because the man who’d killed her parents and her brother and sister had escaped from prison. Which her aunt actually seemed to believe she could keep secret from Theresa.

Like, please . . . The news was the first thing you saw on Yahoo’s home page. And everybody in California was talking about it on MySpace and Facebook. (Her aunt had disabled the family’s wireless router somehow, but Theresa had simply piggybacked through a neighbor’s unsecured system.)

The girl tossed the book on the planks of the swing and rocked back and forth, as she pulled the scrunchi out of her hair and rebound her ponytail.

Theresa was certainly grateful for what her aunt had done for her over the years and gave the woman a lot of credit, she really did. After those terrible days in Carmel eight years ago her aunt had taken charge of the girl everybody called the Sleeping Doll. Theresa found herself adopted, relocated, renamed (Theresa Bolling; could be worse) and plopped down on the chairs of dozens of therapists, all of whom were clever and sympathetic and who plotted out “routes to psychological wellness by exploring the grieving process and being particularly mindful of the value of transference with parental figures in the treatment.”

Some shrinks helped, some didn’t. But the most important factor—time—worked its patient magic and Theresa became someone other than the Sleeping Doll, survivor of a childhood tragedy. She was a student, friend, occasional girlfriend, veterinary assistant, not bad sprinter in the fifty- and the hundred-yard dash, guitarist who could play Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer” and do the diminished chord run up the neck without a single squeak on the strings.

Now, though, a setback. The killer was out of jail, true. But that wasn’t the real problem. No, it was the way her aunt was handling everything. It was like reversing the clock, sending her back in time, six, seven, oh, God, eight years. Theresa felt as if she were the Sleeping Doll once again, all the gains erased.

Honey, honey, wake up, don’t be afraid. I’m a policewoman. See this badge? Why don’t you get your clothes and go into your bathroom and get changed.

Her aunt was now panicked, edgy, paranoid. It was like in that HBO series she’d watched when she was over at Bradley’s last year. About a prison. If something bad happened, the guards would lock down the place.

Theresa, the Sleeping Doll, was in lockdown. Stuck here in Hogwarts, in Middle Earth . . . in Oz . . .

The green prison.

Hey, that’s sweet, she thought bitterly: Daniel Pell is out of prison and I’m stuck inside one.

Theresa picked up the poetry book again, thinking of her English test. She read two more lines.

Borrrring.

Theresa then noticed, through the chain-link fence at the end of the property, a car ease past, braking quickly, it seemed, as the driver looked through the bushes her way. A moment’s hesitation and then the car continued on.

Theresa planted her feet and the swinging stopped.

The car could belong to anyone. Neighbors, one of the kids on break from school. . . . She wasn’t worried—not too much. Of course, with her aunt’s media blackout, she had no idea if Daniel Pell had been rearrested or was last seen heading for Napa. But that was crazy. Thanks to her aunt she was practically in the witness protection program. How could he possibly find her?

Still, she’d go sneak a look at the computer, see what was going on.

A faint twist in her stomach.

Theresa stood and headed for the house.

Okay, we’re bugging a little now.

She looked behind her, back at the gap through the bushes at the far end of their property. No car. Nothing.

And turning back to the house, Theresa stopped fast.

The man had scaled the tall fence twenty feet away, between her and the house. He looked up, breathing hard from the effort, from where he landed on his knees beside two thick azaleas. His hand was bleeding, cut on the jagged top of the six-foot chain link.

It was him. It was Daniel Pell!

She gasped.

He had come here. He was going to finish the murders of the Croyton family.

A smile on his face, he rose stiffly and began to walk toward her.

Theresa Croyton began to cry.

•    •    •

“No, it’s all right,” the man said in a whisper, as he approached, smiling. “I’m not going to hurt you. Shhhh.”

Theresa tensed. She told herself to run. Now, do it!

But her legs wouldn’t move; fear paralyzed her. Besides, there was nowhere to go. He was between her and the house and she knew she couldn’t vault the six-foot chain-link fence. She thought of running away from the house, into the backyard, but then he could tackle her and pull her into the bushes, where he’d . . .

No, that was too horrible.

Gasping, actually tasting the fear, Theresa shook her head slowly. Felt her strength ebbing. She looked for a weapon. Nothing: only an edging brick, a bird feeder, The Collected Poems of Emily Dickinson.

She looked back at Pell.

“You killed my parents. You . . . Don’t hurt me!”

A frown. “No, my God,” the man said, eyes wide. “Oh, no, I just want to talk to you. I’m not Daniel Pell. I swear. Look.”

He tossed something in her direction, ten feet away. “Look at it. The back. Turn it over.”

Theresa glanced at the house. The one time she needed her aunt, the woman was nowhere in sight.

“There,” the man said.

The girl stepped forward—and he continued to retreat, giving her plenty of room.

She walked closer and glanced down. It was a book. A Stranger in the Night, by Morton Nagle.

“That’s me.”

Theresa wouldn’t pick it up. With her foot, she eased it over. On the back cover was a picture of a younger version of the man in front of her.

Was it true?

Theresa suddenly realized that she’d seen only a few pictures of Daniel Pell, taken eight years ago. She’d had to sneak a look at a few articles online—her aunt told her it would set her back years psychologically if she read anything about the murders. But looking at the younger author photo, it was clear that this wasn’t the gaunt, scary man she remembered.

Theresa wiped her face. Anger exploded inside her, a popped balloon. “What’re you doing here? You fucking scared me!”

The man pulled his sagging pants up as if planning to walk closer. But evidently he decided not to. “There was no other way to talk to you. I saw your aunt yesterday when she was shopping. I wanted her to ask you something.”

Theresa glanced at the chain link.

Nagle said, “The police are on their way, I know. I saw the alarm on the fence. They’ll be here in three, four minutes, and they’ll arrest me. That’s fine. But I have to tell you something. The man who killed your parents has escaped from prison.”

“I know.”

“You do? Your aunt—”

“Just leave me alone!”

“There’s a policewoman in Monterey who’s trying to catch him but she needs some help. Your aunt wouldn’t tell you, and if you were eleven or twelve I’d never do this. But you’re old enough to make up your own mind. She wants to talk to you.”

“A policewoman?”

“Please, just call her. She’s in Monterey. You can—Oh, God.”

The gunshot from behind Theresa was astonishingly loud, way louder than in the movies. It shook the windows and sent birds streaking into the clear skies.

Theresa cringed at the sound and dropped to her knees, watching Morton Nagle tumble backward onto the wet grass, his arms flailing in the air.

Eyes wide in horror, the girl looked at the deck behind the house.

Weird, she didn’t even know her aunt owned a gun, much less knew how to shoot it.

•    •    •

TJ Scanlon’s extensive canvassing of James Reynolds’s neighborhood had yielded no helpful witnesses or evidence.

“No vee-hicles. No nothin’.” He was calling from a street near the prosecutor’s house.

Dance, in her office, stretched and her bare feet fiddled with one of the three pairs of shoes under her desk. She badly wanted an ID of Pell’s new car, if not a tag number; Reynolds had reported only that it was a dark sedan, and the officer who’d been bashed with the shovel couldn’t remember seeing it at all. The MCSO’s crime scene team hadn’t found any trace or other forensic evidence to give even a hint as to what Pell might be driving now.

She thanked TJ and disconnected, then joined O’Neil and Kellogg in the CBI conference room, where Charles Overby was about to arrive to ask for fodder for the next press conference—and his daily update to Amy Grabe of the FBI, and the head of the CBI in Sacramento, both of whom were extremely troubled that Daniel Pell was still free. Unfortunately, though, Overby’s briefing this morning would be primarily about the funeral plans for Juan Millar.

Her eyes caught Kellogg’s and they both looked away. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to the FBI agent about last night in the car.

Then decided: What is there to talk about?

. . . afterward. How does that sound?

Young Rey Carraneo, eyes wide, stuck his perfectly round head into the conference room and said breathlessly, “Agent Dance, I’m sorry to interrupt.”

“What, Rey?”

“I think . . .” His voice vanished. He’d been sprinting. Sweat dotted his dark face.

“What? What’s wrong?”

The skinny agent said, “The thing is, Agent Dance, I think I’ve found him.”

“Who?”

“Pell.”

Chapter 40

The young agent explained that he’d called the upscale Sea View Motel in Pacific Grove—only a few miles from where Dance lived—and learned that a woman had checked in on Saturday. She was midtwenties, attractive and blond, slightly built. On Tuesday night, the desk clerk saw a Latino man go into her room.

“The clincher’s the car, though,” Carraneo said. “On the registration she put down Mazda. With a fake tag number—I just ran it. But the manager was sure he saw a turquoise T-bird there for a day or two. It’s not there anymore.”

“They’re at the motel now?”

“He thinks so. The curtain’s drawn but he saw some motion and lights inside.”

“What’s her name?”

“Carrie Madison. But there’s no credit card info. She paid cash and showed a military ID but it was in a plastic wallet sleeve and scratched. Might’ve been faked.”

Dance leaned against the edge of the table, staring at the map. “Occupancy of the motel?”

“No vacancies.”

She grimaced. Plenty of innocents in the place.

Kellogg said, “Let’s plan the takedown.” To Michael: “You have MCSO tactical on alert?”

O’Neil was looking at Dance’s troubled face, and Kellogg had to repeat the question. The detective answered, “We can get teams there in twenty minutes.” He sounded reluctant.

Dance was, as well. “I’m not sure.”

“About what?” the FBI agent asked.

“We know he’s armed and he’ll target civilians. And I know the motel. The rooms look out on a parking lot and courtyard. Hardly any cover. He could see us coming. If we try to empty the rooms nearby and across the way, he’d spot us. If we don’t, people’re going to get hurt. Those walls wouldn’t stop a twenty-two.”

Kellogg asked, “What’re you thinking?”

“Surveillance. Get a team around the building, watch it nonstop. When he leaves, take him on the street.”

O’Neil nodded. “I’d vote for that too.”

“Vote for what?” Charles Overby asked, joining them.

Dance explained the situation.

“We’ve found him? All right!” He turned to Kellogg. “What about FBI tactical teams?”

“They can’t get here in time. We’ll have to go with county SWAT.”

“Michael, you’ve called them?”

“Not yet. Kathryn and I have some problems with a takedown.”

“What?” Overby asked testily.

She explained the risk. The CBI chief understood but he shook his head. “Bird in the hand.”

Kellogg too persisted. “I really don’t think we can risk waiting. He’s gotten away from us twice now.”

“If he gets any hint we’re moving in—and all he has to do is look out the window—he’ll go barricade. If there’s a door to the adjoining room—”

“There is,” Carraneo said. “I asked.”

She gave him a nod for his initiative. Then continued, “He could take hostages. I say we get a team on the roof across the way and maybe somebody in a housekeeping uniform. Sit back and watch. When he leaves, we’ll tail him. He hits a deserted intersection, block him in and get him in a crossfire. He’ll surrender.”

Or be killed in a shootout. Either way . . .

“He’s too slippery for that,” Kellogg countered. “We surprise him in the motel, we move fast, he’ll give up.”

Our first spat, Dance thought wryly. “And go back to Capitola? I don’t think so. He’ll fight. Tooth and nail. Everything the women have told me about him makes me believe that. He can’t stand to be controlled or confined.”

Michael O’Neil said, “I know the motel too. It could turn barricade real easy. And I don’t think Pell’s the sort you could have a successful negotiation with.”

Dance was in an odd situation. She had a strong gut feel that moving too fast was a mistake. But when it came to Daniel Pell she was wary of trusting her instinct.

Overby said, “Here’s a thought. If we do end up with a barricade, what about the women in the Family? Would they be willing to help talk him out?”

Dance persisted. “Why would Pell listen to them? They never had any sway over him eight years ago. They sure don’t now.”

“But still, they’re the closest thing to family that Pell’s got.” He stepped toward her phone. “I’ll give them a call.”

The last thing she wanted was Overby scaring them off.

“No, I’ll do it.” Dance called and spoke to Samantha and explained the situation to her. The woman begged Dance not to involve her; there was too great a risk her name would appear in the press. Rebecca and Linda, though, said they were willing to do what they could if it came to a barricade.

Dance hung up and related to those in the room what the women had said.

Overby said, “Well, there’s your backup plan. Good.”

Dance wasn’t convinced that Pell would be swayed by sympathetic pleas for surrender, even—or maybe especially—from members of his former surrogate family. “I still say surveillance. He’s got to come out eventually.”

O’Neil said firmly, “I agree.”

Kellogg looked absently at a map on the wall, troubled. He then turned to Dance. “If you’re really opposed, okay. It’s your choice. But remember what I was saying about the cult profile. When he goes out on the street he’ll be alert, expecting something to go down. He’ll have contingencies planned out. In the motel he won’t be as well prepared. He’ll be complacent in his castle. All cult leaders are.”

“Didn’t work too well in Waco,” O’Neil pointed out.

“Waco was a standoff. Koresh and his people knew the officers were there. Pell won’t have a clue we’re coming.”

That was true, she reflected.

“It is Winston’s expertise, Kathryn,” Overby said. “That’s why he’s here. I really think we should move.”

Maybe her boss genuinely felt this way, though he could hardly oppose the view of the specialist that he’d wanted on board.

Stash the blame . . .

She stared at the map of Monterey.

“Kathryn?” Overby asked, his voice testy.

Dance debated. “Okay. We go in.”

O’Neil stiffened. “We can afford some time here.”

She hesitated again, glancing at Kellogg’s confident eyes as he too scanned the map. “No, I think we should move on it,” she said.

“Good,” Overby said. “The proactive approach is the best. Absolutely.”

Proactive, Dance thought bitterly. A good press conference word. She hoped the announcement to the media would be the successful arrest of Daniel Pell, and not more casualties.

“Michael?” Overby asked. “You want to contact your people?”

O’Neil hesitated, then called his office and asked for the MCSO SWAT commander.

•    •    •

Lying in bed in the soft morning light, Daniel Pell was thinking that they’d now have to be particularly careful. The police would know what he looked like in the Latino disguise. He could bleach much of the color out and change his hair again, but they’d be expecting that too.

Still, he couldn’t leave yet. He had one more mission on the Peninsula, the whole reason for his remaining here.

Pell made coffee and when he returned to the bed, carrying the two cups, he found Jennie looking at him.

Like last night, her expression was different. She seemed more mature than when they’d first met.

“What, lovely?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“You’re not coming with me to my house in Anaheim, are you?”

Her words hit him hard. He hesitated, not sure what to say, then asked, “Why do you think that?”

“I just feel it.”

Pell set the coffee on the table. He started to lie—deception came so easily to him. And he could have gotten away with it. Instead he said, “I have other plans for us, lovely. I haven’t told you yet.”

“I know.”

“You do?” He was surprised.

“I’ve known all along. Not exactly known. But I had a feeling.”

“After we take care of a few things here, we’re going somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“A place I have. It’s not near anything. There’s no one around. It’s wonderful, beautiful. We won’t be bothered there. It’s on a mountain. Do you like the mountains?”

“Sure, I guess.”

That was good. Because Daniel Pell owned one.

Pell’s aunt, in Bakersfield, was the only decent person in his family, as far as he was concerned. Aunt Barbara thought her brother, Pell’s father, was mad, the chain-smoking failed minister obsessed with doing exactly what the Bible told him, terrified of God, terrified of making decisions on his own, as if that might offend Him. So the woman tried to divert the Pell boys as best she could. Richard would have nothing to do with her. But she and Daniel spent a lot of time together. She didn’t corral him, didn’t order him around. Didn’t force him to be a housekeeper, and never even raised her voice to him, much less her hand. She let him come and go as he wished, spent money on him, asked about what he’d done during the days when he visited. She took him places. Pell remembered driving up into the hills for picnics, the zoo, movies—where he sat amid the smell of popcorn and her weighty perfume, mesmerized by the infallible assuredness of Hollywood villains and heroes up on the screen.

She also shared her views with him. One of which was her belief that there’d be a wildfire of a race war in the country at some point (her vote was the millennium—oops on that one), so she bought two hundred plus acres of forestland in Northern California, a mountaintop near Shasta. Daniel Pell had never been racist but neither was he stupid, and when the aunt ranted about the forthcoming Great War of Black and White, he was with her 100 percent.

She deeded over the land to her nephew so that he and other “decent, good, right-thinking people” (defined as “Caucasian”) could escape to it when the shooting started.

Pell hadn’t thought much about the place at the time, being young. But then he’d hitchhiked up there and knew instantly it was the place for him. He loved the view and the air, mostly loved the idea that it was so private; he’d be unreachable by the government and unwelcome neighbors. (It even had some large caves—and he often fantasized about what would go on in those, expanding the balloon within him nearly to the bursting point.) He did some clearing work himself and built a shack by hand. He knew that some day this would be his kingdom, the village the Pied Piper would lead his children to.

Pell had to make sure, though, that the property stayed invisible—not from the rampaging minorities but from law enforcers, given his history and proclivity toward crime. He bought books written by survivalists and the right-wing, antigovernment fringe about hiding ownership of property, which was surprisingly easy, provided you made sure the property taxes were paid (a trust and a savings account were all that it took). The arrangement was “self-perpetuating,” a term that Daniel Pell loved; no dependency.

Pell’s mountaintop.

Only one glitch had interfered with his plan. After he and a girl he’d met in San Francisco, Alison, had hitched up there, he happened to run into a guy who worked for the county assessor’s office, Charles Pickering. He’d heard rumors of building supplies being delivered there. Did that mean improvements? Which in turn would mean a tax hike? That itself wouldn’t’ve been a problem; Pell could have added money to the trust. But, the worst of all coincidences, Pickering had family in Marin County and recognized Pell from a story in the local paper about his arrest for a break-in.

Later that day the man tracked Pell down near his property. “Hey, I know you,” the assessor said.

Which turned out to be his last words. Out came the knife and Pickering was dead thirty seconds after slumping to the ground in a bloody pile.

Nothing was going to jeopardize his enclave.

He’d escaped that one, though the police had held him for a time—long enough for Alison to decide it was over and head back south. (He’d been searching for her ever since; she’d have to die, of course, since she knew where his property was.)

The mountaintop was what sustained him after he went into the Q and then into Capitola. He dreamed of it constantly, living there with a new Family. It was what had driven him to study appellate law and craft a solid appeal for the Croyton murders, which he believed he’d win, getting the convictions knocked down, maybe even to time served.

But last year he’d lost.

And he’d had to start thinking of escape.

Now he was free, and after doing what he needed to in Monterey he’d get to his mountain as soon as he could. When that idiot of a prison guard had let Pell into the office on Sunday he’d managed to take a look at the place on the website Visual-Earth. He wasn’t exactly sure of the coordinates of his property but he’d come close enough. And been thrilled to see that the area appeared as deserted as ever, no structures for miles around—the caves invisible from the prying eye of the satellite.

Lying now in the Sea View Motel, he told Jennie about the place—in general terms, of course. It was against his nature to share too much. He didn’t tell her, for instance, that she wouldn’t be the only one living there, but one of a dozen he’d lure away from their homes. And he certainly couldn’t tell her what he envisioned for them all, living on the mountaintop. Pell realized the mistakes he’d made in Seaside ten years ago. He was too lenient, too slow to use violence.

This time, any threats would be eliminated. Fast and ruthlessly.

Absolute control . . .

But Jennie was content—even excited—about the few facts he shared. “I mean it. I’ll go wherever you are, sweetie. . . .” She took his coffee cup from his hands, set it aside. She lay back. “Make love to me, Daniel. Please?”

Make love, he noticed. Not fuck.

It was an indication that his student had graduated to another level. This, more than her body, began expanding the bubble within him.

He smoothed a strand of dyed hair off her forehead and kissed her. His hands began that familiar, yet always new, exploration.

Which was interrupted by a jarring ring. He grimaced and picked up the phone, listened to what the caller said and then held his hand over the mouthpiece. “It’s housekeeping. They saw the ‘Do not disturb’ sign and want to know when they can make up the room.”

Jennie gave a coy smile. “Tell her we need at least an hour.”

“I’ll tell her two. Just to be sure.”

Chapter 41

The staging area for the assault was in an intersection around the corner from the Sea View Motel.

Dance still wasn’t sure about the wisdom of a tactical operation here, but once the decision had been made, certain rules fell automatically into place. And one of those was that she had to take a backseat. This wasn’t her expertise and there was little for her to do but be a spectator.

Albert Stemple and TJ would represent the CBI on the takedown teams, which were made up mostly of SWAT deputies from Monterey County and several Highway Patrol officers. The eight men and two women were gathered beside a nondescript truck, which held enough weapons and ammunition to put down a modest riot.

Pell was still inside the room that the woman had rented; the lights were off but a surveillance officer, on the back side of the motel, clapped a microphone on the wall and reported sounds coming from their room. He couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like they were having sex.

That was good news, thought Dance. A naked suspect is a vulnerable suspect.

On the phone with the manager, she asked about the rooms next to Pell’s. The one to his left was empty; the guests had just left with fishing tackle, which meant they wouldn’t be back until much later. Unfortunately, though, as for the room on the other side, a family appeared to be still inside.

Dance’s initial reaction was to call them and tell them to get down on the floor in the back. But they wouldn’t do that, of course. They’d flee, flinging open the door, the parents rushing the children outside. And Pell would know exactly what was going on. He had the instincts of a cat.

Imagining them, the others in the rooms nearby and the housekeeping staff, Kathryn Dance thought suddenly, Call it off. Do what your gut tells you. You’ve got the authority. Overby wouldn’t like it—that would be a battle—but she could handle him. O’Neil and the MCSO would back her up.

Still, she couldn’t trust her instinct at the moment. She didn’t know people like Pell; Winston Kellogg did.

He happened to arrive just then, walking up to the tactical officers, shaking hands and introducing himself. He’d changed outfits yet again. But there was nothing country club about his new look. He was in black jeans, a black shirt and a thick bulletproof vest, the bandage on his neck visible.

TJ’s words came back to her.

He’s a bit of a straight arrow but he’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. . . .

In this garb, with his attentive eyes, he reminded her even more of her late husband. Bill had spent most of his time doing routine investigations, but occasionally he’d dressed for tactical ops. She’d seen him once or twice looking like this, confidently holding an elaborate machine gun.

Dance watched Kellogg load and chamber a round in a large silver automatic pistol.

“Now that’s some weapon of mass destruction,” TJ said. “Schweizerische Industries Gesellschaft.”

“What?” Impatient.

“S-I-G as in SIG-Sauer. It’s the new P220. Forty-five.”

“It’s forty-five caliber?”

“Yup,” TJ said. “Apparently the bureau’s adopted a let’s-make-sure-they’re-never-getting-up-ever-ever-again philosophy. One I’m not necessarily opposed to.”

Dance and all the other agents at the CBI carried only 9mm Glocks, concerned that a higher caliber could cause more collateral damage.

Kellogg pulled on a windbreaker advertising him as an FBI agent and joined her and O’Neil, who was today in his khaki chief deputy uniform—body armor too.

Dance briefed them about the rooms next to Pell’s. Kellogg said when they did the kick-in, he’d simultaneously have somebody enter the room next door and get the family down, under cover.

Not much, but it was something.

Rey Carraneo radioed in; he was in a surveillance position on the far side of the parking lot, out of sight, behind a Dumpster. The lot was empty of people at the moment—though there were a number of cars—and the housekeepers were going about their business, as Kellogg had instructed. At the last minute, as the tac teams were on their way, other officers would pull them to cover.

In five minutes the officers had finished dressing in armor and checking weapons. They were huddled in a small yard near the main office. They looked at O’Neil and Dance but it was Kellogg who spoke first. “I want a rolling entry, one team through the door, the second backup, right behind.” He held up a sketch of the room, which the manager had drawn. “First team, here to the bed. Second, the closets and bathroom. I need some flash-bangs.”

He was referring to the loud, blinding hand grenades used to disorient suspects without causing serious injury.

One of the MCSO officers handed him several. He put them in his pocket.

Kellogg said, “I’ll take the first team in. I’m on point.”

Dance wished he wouldn’t; there were far younger officers on the Monterey SWAT team, most of them recent military discharges with combat experience.

The FBI agent continued, “He’ll have that woman with him, and she may appear to be a hostage but she’s just as dangerous as he is. Remember, she’s the one who lit up the courthouse and that’s what killed Juan Millar.”

Acknowledging nods from them all.

“Now, we’ll circle around the side of the building and move in fast along the front. Those going past his window, stay on your bellies. Don’t crouch. As close to the building as you can get. Assume he’s looking out. I want people in armor to pull the housekeepers behind cars. Then we go in. And don’t assume there are only two perps in there.”

His words put in mind Dance’s conversation with Rebecca Sheffield.

Structure the solution . . .

He said to Dance, “That sound okay to you?”

Which wasn’t really the question he was asking.

His query was more specific: Do I have authority here?

Kellogg was being generous enough to give her one last chance to pull the plug on the op.

She debated only a moment and said, “It’s fine. Do it.” Dance started to say something to O’Neil but couldn’t think of any words that conveyed her thoughts—she wasn’t sure what those thoughts were, in any case. He didn’t look at her, just drew his Glock and, along with TJ and Stemple, moved out with a backup team.

“Let’s get into position,” Kellogg said to the tactical officers.

Dance joined Carraneo by the Dumpster and plugged in her headset and stalk mike.

A few minutes later her radio crackled. Kellogg, saying, “On my five, we move.”

Affirmative responses came in from the leaders of the various teams.

“Let’s do it. One . . . two . . .”

Dance wiped her palm on her slacks and closed it around the grip of her weapon.

“ . . . three . . . four . . . five, go!”

The men and women dashed around the corner and Dance’s eyes flipped back and forth from Kellogg to O’Neil.

Please, she thought. No more deaths . . .

Had they structured it right?

Had they recognized the patterns?

Kellogg got to the door first, giving a nod to the MCSO officer carrying a battering ram. The big man swung the weighty tube into the fancy door and it crashed open. Kellogg pitched in one of the grenades. Two officers rushed into the room beside Pell’s and others pulled the maids behind parked cars. When the flash-bang detonated with a stunning explosion Kellogg’s and O’Neil’s teams raced inside.

Then: silence.

No gunshots, no screams.

Finally she heard Kellogg’s voice, lost in a staticky transmission, ending with “ . . . him.”

“Say again,” Dance transmitted urgently. “Say again, Win. Do you have him?”

A crackle. “Negative. He’s gone.”

•    •    •

Her Daniel was brilliant, her Daniel knew everything.

As they drove, fast but not over the limit, away from the motel, Jennie Marston looked back.

No squad cars yet, no lights, no sirens.

Angel songs, she recited to herself. Angel songs, protect us.

Her Daniel was a genius.

Twenty minutes ago, as they’d started to make love, he’d frozen, sitting up in bed.

“What, honey?” she’d asked, alarmed.

“Housekeeping. Have they ever called about making up the room?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why would they today? And it’s early. They wouldn’t call until later. Somebody wanted to see if we were in. The police! Get dressed. Now.”

“You want—”

“Get dressed!”

She leapt from bed.

“Grab what you can. Get your computer and don’t leave anything personal.” He’d put a porn movie on TV, looked outside, then walked to the adjoining door, held the gun up and kicked it in, startling two young men inside.

At first she thought he’d kill them but he just told them to stand up and turn around, tied their hands with fishing line and taped washcloths in their mouths. He pulled their wallets out and looked them over. “I’ve got your names and addresses. You stay here and be quiet. If you say anything to anybody, your families’re dead. Okay?”

They nodded and Daniel closed the adjoining door and blocked it with a chair. He dumped out the contents of the fishermen’s cooler and tackle boxes and put their own bags inside. They dressed in the men’s yellow slickers and, wearing baseball caps, they carried the gear and the fishing rods outside.

“Don’t look around. Walk right to our car. But slow.” They headed across the parking lot. He spent some minutes loading the car, trying to look casual. They then climbed in and drove away, Jennie struggling to keep calm. She wanted to cry, she was so nervous.

But excited too. She had to admit that. The escape had been a total high. She’d never felt so alive, driving away from the motel. She thought about her husband, the boyfriends, her mother . . . nothing she’d experienced with any of them approached what she felt at this moment.

They passed four police cars speeding toward the motel. No sirens.

Angel songs . . .

Her prayer worked. Now, they were miles from the inn and no one was after them.

Finally he laughed and exhaled a long breath. “How about that, lovely?”

“We did it, sweetie!” She whooped and shook her head wildly as if she were at a rock concert. She pressed her lips against his neck and bit him playfully.

Soon they were pulling into the parking lot of the Butterfly Inn, a small dump of a motel on Lighthouse, the commercial strip in Monterey. Daniel told her, “Go get a room. We’ll be finished up here soon, but it might not be till tomorrow. Get it for a week, though; it’ll be less suspicious. In the back again. Maybe that cottage there. Use a different name. Tell the clerk you left your ID in your suitcase and you’ll bring it later.”

Jennie registered and returned to the car. They carried the cooler and boxes inside.

Pell lay on the bed, arms behind his neck. She curled up next to him. “We’re going to have to hide out here. There’s a grocery store up the street. Go get some food, would you, lovely?”

“And more hair dye?”

He smiled. “Not a bad idea.”

“Can I be a redhead?”

“You can be green if you want. I’d love you anyway.”

God, he was perfect. . . .

She heard the crackle of the TV coming on as she stepped out of the door, slipping the cap on. A few days ago she’d never have thought she’d be okay with Daniel hurting people, giving up her house in Anaheim, never seeing the hummingbirds and wrens and sparrows in her backyard again.

Now, it seemed perfectly natural. In fact, wonderful.

Anything for you, Daniel. Anything.

Chapter 42

“And how did he know you were there?” Overby asked, standing in Dance’s office. The man was jumpy. Not only had he engineered CBI’s taking over the manhunt, but he was now on record as supporting the bad tactical decision at the motel. Paranoid too. Dance could tell this from his body language and his verbal content as well: his use of “you,” whereas Dance or O’Neil would’ve said “we.”

Stashing the blame . . .

“Must’ve sensed something about the hotel was different, maybe the staff were acting strange,” Kellogg replied. “Like in the restaurant at Moss Landing. He’s got the instincts of a cat.”

Echoing Dance’s thoughts earlier.

“And I thought your people heard him inside, Michael.”

“Porn,” Dance said.

The detective explained, “He had porn on pay-per-view. That was what surveillance heard.”

The postmortem was discouraging, if not embarrassing. It turned out that the manager had, without knowing it, seen Pell and the woman leaving—pretending to be the two fishermen in the adjoining room—headed off for squid and salmon in Monterey Bay. The two men, bound and gagged in the next room, were reluctant to talk; Dance pried out of them that Pell had gotten their addresses and threatened to kill their families if they called for help.

Patterns . . . goddamn patterns.

Winston Kellogg was upset about the escape, but not apologetic. He’d made a judgment call, like Dance’s at Moss Landing. His plan could have worked, but fate had intervened, and she respected that he wasn’t bitter or whiny about the outcome; he was focused on the next steps.

Overby’s assistant joined them. She told her boss he had a call from Sacramento, and SAC Amy Grabe, from the FBI, was holding on two. She wasn’t happy.

An angry grunt. The CBI chief turned and followed her back to his office.

Carraneo called to report that the canvass he and several other officers were conducting had so far yielded nothing. A cleaning woman thought she’d seen a dark car driving toward the back of the lot before the raid. No tag number. No one had seen anything else.

Dark sedan. The same useless description they’d gotten at James Reynolds’s house. A Monterey Sheriff’s deputy arrived with a large packet. He handed it to O’Neil. “Crime scene, sir.” The detective set out photos and a list of the physical evidence. There was no doubt; the fingerprints revealed that the two occupants of the room were indeed Pell and his accomplice. Clothes, food wrappers, newspapers, personal hygiene items, some cosmetics. Also clothespins, what looked like a whip made out of a coat hanger, dotted with blood, panty hose that had been tied to the bedposts, dozens of condoms—new and used—and a large tube of K-Y lubricant.

Kellogg said, “Typical of cult leaders. Jim Jones in Guyana? He had sex three or four times a day.”

“Why is that?” Dance asked.

“Because they can. They can do pretty much whatever they want.”

O’Neil’s phone rang and he took the call. He listened for a few moments. “Good. Scan it and send it to Agent Dance’s computer. You have her email? . . . Thanks.”

He looked at Dance. “Crime scene found an email in the pocket of the woman’s jeans.”

A few minutes later Dance called up the message on the screen. She printed out the .pdf attachment.

From: CentralAdmin2235@Capitolacorrectional.com

To: JMSUNGIRL@Euroserve.co.uk

Re:

Jennie, my lovely—

Bargained my way into the office to write this. I had to. There’s something I want to say. I woke up thinking about you—our plans to go out to the beach, and the desert, and watching the fireworks every night in your backyard. I was thinking, you’re smart and beautiful and romantic—who could ask for anything more in a girl? We’ve danced around it a lot and haven’t said it but I want to now. I love you. There’s no doubt in my mind, you’re unlike anybody I’ve ever met. So, there you have it. Have to go now. Hope these words of mine haven’t upset you or “freaked” you out.

Soon, Daniel

So Pell had sent emails from Capitola—though prior to Sunday, Dance noted, probably why the tech hadn’t found them.

Dance noted that Jennie was her first name. Last or middle initial M.

JMSUNGIRL.

O’Neil added, “Our tech department’s contacting the ISP now. Foreign servers aren’t very cooperative but we’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

Dance was staring at the email. “Look at what he said: beach, desert and fireworks every night. All three near her house. That ought to give us some ideas.”

Kellogg said, “The car was stolen in Los Angeles. . . . She’s from Southern California somewhere: beach and desert. But fireworks every night?”

“Anaheim,” Dance said.

The other parent present nodded. O’Neil said, “Disneyland.”

Dance met O’Neil’s eye. She said, “Your idea earlier: the banks and withdrawals of ninety-two hundred dollars. All of L.A. County—okay, maybe that was too much. But Anaheim? Much smaller. And now, we know her first name. And possibly an initial. Can your people handle this one, Win?”

“Sure, that’d be a more manageable number of banks,” he said agreeably. He picked up the phone and called the request in to the L.A. field office.

Dance called the Point Lobos Inn. She explained to the women what had happened at the motel.

“He got away again?” Samantha asked.

“I’m afraid so.” She gave her the details of the email, including the screen name, but none of them could recall anybody with that name or initials.

“We also found evidence of S and M activity.” She described the sexual gear. “Could that’ve been Pell, or would it’ve been the woman’s idea? Might help us narrow down a search, if it was hers. A professional, a dominatrix maybe.”

Samantha was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I, ah . . . That would’ve been Daniel’s idea. He was kind of that way.” Embarrassed.

Dance thanked her. “I know you’re anxious to leave. I promise I won’t keep you much longer.”

It was only a few minutes later that Winston Kellogg received a call. His eyes flashed in surprise. He looked up. “They’ve got an ID. A woman named Jennie Marston withdrew nine thousand two hundred dollars—virtually her whole savings account—from Pacific Trust in Anaheim last week. Cash. We’re getting a warrant, and our agents and Orange County deputies’re going to raid her house. They’ll let us know what they find.”

Sometimes you do get a break.

O’Neil grabbed the phone and in five minutes a jpeg image of a young woman’s driver’s license photo was on Dance’s computer. She called TJ into her office.

“Yo?”

She nodded at the screen. “Do an EFIS image. Make her a brunette, redhead, long hair, short hair. Get it to the Sea View. I want to make sure it’s her. And if it is, I want a copy sent to every TV station and newspaper in the area.”

“You bet, boss.” Without sitting, he typed on her keyboard, then hurried out, as if he were trying to beat the picture’s arrival to his office.

Charles Overby stepped into the doorway. “That call from Sacramento is—”

“Hold on, Charles.” Dance briefed him on what had happened and his mood changed instantly.

“Well, a lead. Good. At last . . . Anyway, we’ve got another issue. Sacramento got a call from the Napa County Sheriff’s Office.”

“Napa?”

“They’ve got someone named Morton Nagle in jail.”

Dance nodded slowly. She hadn’t told Overby about enlisting the writer’s aid to find the Sleeping Doll.

“I talked to the sheriff. And he’s not a happy camper.”

“What’d Nagle do?” Kellogg asked, lifting an eyebrow to Dance.

“The Croyton girl? She lives up there somewhere with her aunt and uncle. He apparently wanted to talk her into being interviewed by you.”

“That’s right.”

“Oh. I didn’t hear about it.” He let that linger for a moment. “The aunt told him no. But this morning he snuck onto their property and tried to convince the girl in person.”

So much for uninvolved, objective journalism.

“The aunt took a shot at him.”

“What?”

“She missed but if the deputies hadn’t shown up, the sheriff thinks she would’ve taken him out on the second try. And nobody seemed very upset about that possibility. They think we had something to do with it. This’s a can of worms.”

“I’ll handle it,” Dance told him.

“We weren’t involved, were we? I told him we weren’t.”

“I’ll handle it.”

Overby considered this, then gave her the sheriff’s number and headed back to his office. Dance called the sheriff and identified herself. She told him the situation.

The man grunted. “Well, Agent Dance, I appreciate the problem, Pell and all. Made the news up here, I’ll tell you. But we can’t just release him. Theresa’s aunt and uncle went forward with the complaint. And I have to say we all keep a special eye out for that girl around here, knowing what she went through. The magistrate set bail at a hundred thousand and none of the bailbondsmen’re interested in handling it.”

“Can I talk to the prosecutor?”

“He’s on trial, will be all day.”

Morton Nagle would have to spend a little time in jail. She felt bad for him, and appreciated his change of mind. But there was nothing she could do. “I’d like to talk to the girl’s aunt or uncle.”

“I don’t know what good it’d do.”

“It’s important.”

A pause. “Well, now, Agent Dance, I really don’t think they’d be inclined. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it.”

“Will you give me their number? Please?” Direct questions are often the most effective.

But so are direct answers. “No. Good-bye now, Agent Dance.”

Chapter 43

Dance and O’Neil were alone in her office.

She’d learned from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department that Jennie Marston’s father was dead and her mother had a history of petty crime, drug abuse and emotional disabilities. There was no record of the mother’s whereabouts; she had a few relatives on the East Coast but no one had heard from Jennie in years.

Dance learned that Jennie had gone to community college for a year, studying food management, then dropped out, apparently to get married. She’d worked for a Hair Cuttery for a year and then went into food service, employed by a number of caterers and bakeries in Orange County, a quiet worker who would arrive on time, do her job and then leave. She led a solitary life, and deputies could find no acquaintances, no close friends. Her ex-husband hadn’t talked to her in years but said that she deserved whatever happened to her.

Not surprisingly, police records revealed a history of difficult relationships. Deputies had been summoned by hospital workers at least a half-dozen times on suspicion of domestic abuse involving the ex and at least four other partners. Social Services had started files, but Jennie had never pursued any complaints, let alone sought restraining orders.

Just the sort to fall prey to someone like Daniel Pell.

Dance mentioned this to O’Neil. The detective nodded. He was looking out Dance’s window at two pine trees that had grafted themselves to each other over the years, producing a knuckle-like knot at eye level. Dance would often stare at the curious blemish when the facts of a case refused to coalesce into helpful insights.

“So, what’s on your mind?” she asked.

“You want to know?”

“I asked, didn’t I?” In a tone of good humor.

It wasn’t reciprocated. He said testily, “You were right. He was wrong.”

“Kellogg? At the motel?”

“We should’ve followed your initial plan. Set up a surveillance perimeter the minute we heard about the motel. Not spent a half-hour assembling Tactical. That’s how he caught on. Somebody gave something away.”

Instincts of a cat . . .

She hated defending herself, especially to someone she was so close to. “A takedown made sense at the time; a lot was going on and it was happening fast.”

“No, it didn’t make sense. That’s why you hesitated. Even at the end, you weren’t sure.”

“Who knows anything in situations like this?”

“Okay, you felt it was the wrong approach and what you feel is usually right.”

“It was just bad luck. If we’d moved in earlier, we probably would’ve had him.” She regretted saying this, afraid he’d take her words as a criticism of the MCSO.

“And people would’ve died. We’re just goddamn lucky nobody was hurt. Kellogg’s plan was a prescription for a shootout. I think we’re lucky Pell wasn’t there. It could’ve been a bloodbath.” He crossed his arms—a protective gesture, which was ironic because he still had on the bulletproof vest. “You’re giving up control of the operation. Your operation.”

“To Winston?”

“Yes, exactly. He’s a consultant. And it seems like he’s running the case.”

“He’s the specialist, Michael. I’m not. You’re not.”

“He is? I’m sorry, he talks about the cult mentality, he talks about profiles. But I don’t see him closing in on Pell. You’re the one who’s been doing that.”

“Look at his credentials, his background. He’s an expert.”

“Okay, he’s got some insights. They’re helpful. But he wasn’t enough of an expert to catch Pell an hour ago.” He lowered his voice. “Look, at the hotel, Overby backed Winston. Obviously—he’s the one who wanted him on board. You got the pressure from the FBI and your boss. But we’ve handled pressure before, the two of us. We could’ve backed them down.”

“What exactly are you saying? That I’m deferring to him for some other reason?”

Looking away. An aversion gesture. People feel stress not only when they lie; sometimes they feel it when they tell the truth. “I’m saying you’re giving Kellogg too much control over the operation. And, frankly, over yourself.”

She snapped, “Because he reminds me of my husband? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. Does he remind you of Bill?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“You brought it up.”

“Well, anything other than professional judgment’s none of your business.”

“Fine,” O’Neil said tersely. “I’ll stick to professional judgment. Winston was off base. And you acquiesced to him, knowing he was wrong.”

“ ‘Knowing?’ It was fifty-five, forty-five on the tac approach at the motel. I had one opinion at first. I changed it. Any good officer can be swayed.”

“By reason. By logical analysis.”

“What about your judgment? How objective are you?”

“Me? Why aren’t I objective?”

“Because of Juan.”

A faint recognition response in O’Neil’s eyes. Dance had hit close to home, and she supposed the detective felt responsible in some way for the young officer’s death, thinking perhaps that he hadn’t trained Millar enough.

His protégés . . .

She regretted her comment.

Dance and O’Neil had fought before; you can’t have friendship and a working relationship without wrinkles. But never with an edge this sharp. And why was he saying what he did, his comments slipping over the bounds into her personal life? This was a first.

And the kinesics read almost as jealousy.

They fell silent. The detective lifted his hands and shrugged. This was an emblem gesture, which translated: I’ve said my piece. The tension in the room was as tight as that entwined pine knot, thin fibers woven together into steel.

They resumed their discussion of the next steps: checking with Orange County for more details about Jennie Marston, canvassing for witnesses and following up on the crime scene at the Sea View Motel. They sent Carraneo to the airport, bus station and rental-car offices armed with the woman’s picture. They kicked around a few other ideas too, but the climate in the office had dropped significantly, summer to fall, and when Winston Kellogg came into the room, O’Neil retreated, explaining that he had to check in with his office and brief the sheriff. He said a perfunctory good-bye that was aimed at neither of them.

•    •    •

His hand throbbing from the cut sustained when he vaulted the Bollings’ chain-link fence, Morton Nagle glanced at the guard outside the holding cell of Napa County Men’s Detention.

The big Latino reciprocated with a cold gaze.

Apparently Nagle had committed the number-one offense in Vallejo Springs—not the technical infractions of trespass and assault (where the hell had they got that?) but the far more troubling crime of upsetting their local daughter.

“I have a right to make a phone call.”

No response.

He wanted to reassure his wife that he was okay. But mostly he wanted to get word to Kathryn Dance about where Theresa was. He’d changed his mind and given up on his book and journalistic ethics. Goddamn it, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that Daniel Pell got caught and flung back into Capitola.

Not illuminating evil, but attacking it himself. Like a shark. Seeing Theresa in person was what had swayed him: a dear, attractive, vivacious girl who deserved to be leading the normal life of a teenager, and pure evil had destroyed the hope for that. Telling people her story wasn’t enough; Morton Nagle personally wanted Pell’s head.

But apparently they were going to keep him incommunicado for as long as they possibly could.

“I really would like to make a phone call.”

The guard looked at him as if he’d been caught selling crack to kids outside Sunday school and said nothing.

He stood up and paced. The look from the guard said, Sit down. Nagle sat.

Ten long, long minutes later he heard a door open. Footsteps approached.

“Nagle.”

He gazed at another guard. Bigger than the first one.

“Stand up.” The guard pushed a button and the door opened. “Hold out your hands.”

It sounded ridiculous, like someone offering a child some candy. He lifted them and watched the cuffs clatter around his wrists.

“This way.” The man took him by the arm, strong fingers closing around his biceps. Nagle smelled garlic and cigarette smoke residue. He almost pulled away but didn’t think it would be a smart idea. They walked like this, the chains clinking, for fifty feet down a dim corridor. They continued to interview room A.

The guard opened it and gestured Nagle inside.

He paused.

Theresa Croyton, the Sleeping Doll, sat at a table, looking up at him with dark eyes. The guard pushed him forward and he sat down across from her.

“Hello again,” he said.

The girl looked over his arms and face and hands, as if searching for evidence of prisoner abuse. Or maybe hoping for it. She noticed the bandage on his hand, squinted and then must have remembered that he’d cut it vaulting the fence.

He knew she was only seventeen but there was nothing young about her, except the white delicacy of her skin. She didn’t die in Daniel Pell’s attack, Nagle thought. But her childhood did. His anger at the killer burned hotter yet.

The guard stepped back. But he remained close; Nagle could hear his large body absorbing sounds.

“You can leave us alone,” Theresa said.

“I have to be here, Miss. Rules.” He had a moveable smile. Polite to her, hostile to Nagle.

Theresa hesitated, then focused on the writer. “Tell me what you were going to say in my backyard. About Daniel Pell.”

“He’s staying in the Monterey area for some reason. The police can’t figure out why.”

“And he tried to kill the prosecutor who sent him to jail?”

“James Reynolds, that’s right.”

“He’s okay?”

“Yes. The policewoman I was telling you about saved him.”

“Who are you exactly?” she asked. Direct questions, unemotional.

“Your aunt didn’t tell you anything?”

“No.”

“I’ve been speaking to her for a month now about a book I wanted to write. About you.”

“Me? Like, why would you want to write that? I’m nobody interesting.”

“Oh, I think you are. I wanted to write about somebody who’s been hurt by something bad. How they were beforehand, how they are after. How their life changes—and how things might’ve gone without the crime.”

“No, my aunt didn’t tell me any of that.”

“Does she know you’re here?”

“Yeah, I told her. She drove me here. She won’t let me have a driver’s license.”

She glanced up at the guard, then back to Nagle. “They didn’t want me to talk to you either, the police here. But there was nothing they could do about it.”

“Why did you come to see me, Theresa?” he asked.

“That policewoman you mentioned?”

Nagle was astonished. “You mean, it’s all right if she comes to see you?”

“No,” the girl said adamantly, shaking her head.

Nagle couldn’t blame her. “I understand. But—”

“I want to go see her.”

The writer wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. “You want to what?”

“I want to go down to Monterey. Meet her in person.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

She nodded firmly. “Like, yeah, I do.”

“Why?”

“Because.”

Which Nagle thought was as good a response as any.

“I’ll have my aunt drive me down there now.”

“She’ll do that?”

“Or I’ll take the bus. Or hitchhike. You can come with us.”

“Well, there’s one problem,” Nagle said.

The girl frowned.

He chuckled. “I’m in jail.”

She looked toward the guard, surprise in her eyes. “Didn’t you tell him?”

The guard shook his head.

Theresa said, “I bailed you out.”

“You?”

“My father was worth a lot of money.” She now gave a laugh, a small one, but genuine and from her heart. “I’m a rich girl.”

Chapter 44

Footsteps approaching.

The gun was in Daniel Pell’s hand instantly.

In the cheap hotel, its aroma air freshener and insecticide, he glanced outside, slipped the pistol back into his waistband, seeing that it was Jennie. He shut off the TV and opened the door. She stepped inside, carrying a heavy shopping bag. He took it from her and set it on the bedside table beside a clock alarm flashing 12:00.

“How’d it go, lovely? See any police?”

“None.” She pulled her cap off and rubbed her scalp. Pell kissed her head, smelled sweat and the sour scent of the dye.

Another glance out the window. After a long moment Daniel Pell came to a decision. “Let’s get out of here for a bit, lovely.”

“Outside? I thought you didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“Oh, I know a place. It’ll be safe.”

She kissed him. “Like we’re going on a date.”

“Like a date.”

They put their caps on and walked to the door. Her smile gone, Jennie paused and looked him over. “You okay, sweetheart?”

Sweetheart.

“Sure am, lovely. Just that scare back at the motel. But everything’s fine now. Fine as could be.”

They drove along a complicated route of surface streets to a beach on the way to Big Sur, south of Carmel. Wooden walkways wound past rocks and dunes cordoned off with thin wires to protect the fragile environment. Sea otters and seals hovered in the raging surf and, at ebb, the tidal pools displayed whole universes in their saltwater prisms.

It was one of the most beautiful stretches of beach on the Central Coast.

And one of the most dangerous. Every year three or four people died here, wandering out onto the craggy rocks for photos, only to be swept breathlessly into the forty-five-degree water by a surprise wave. Hypothermia could kill, though most didn’t last that long. Usually the screaming victims were smashed on the rocks or drowned, tangled in the mazelike kelp beds.

Normally the place would be crowded, but now, with the day’s sweeping fog, wind and mist, the area was deserted. Daniel Pell and his lovely walked from the car down to the water. A gray wave exploded on rocks fifty feet away.

“Oh, it’s beautiful. But it’s cold. Put your arm around me.”

Pell did. Felt her shivering.

“This is amazing. Near my house, the beaches there? They’re all flat. It’s, like, just sand and surf. Unless you go down to La Jolla. Even then, it’s nothing like this. It’s very spiritual here. . . . Oh, look at them!” Jennie sounded like a schoolgirl. She was staring at the otters. A large one balanced a rock on his chest and pounded something against it.

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s breaking open a shell. Abalone or a clam or something.”

“How’d they figure out how to do that?”

“Got hungry, I guess.”

“Where we’re going, your mountain? Is it as pretty as this?”

“I think it’s prettier. And a lot more deserted. We don’t want tourists, do we?”

“Nope.” Her hand went to her nose. Was she sensing something was wrong? She muttered something, the words lost in the relentless wind.

“What was that?”

“Oh, I said ‘angel songs.’ ”

“Lovely, you keep saying that. What do you mean?”

Jennie smiled. “I do that too much. It’s like a prayer, or a mantra. I say it over and over to help me feel better.”

“And ‘angel song’ is your mantra?”

Jennie laughed. “When I was little and Mother’d get arrested—”

“For what?”

“Oh, I don’t have time to tell you everything.”

Pell looked around again. The area was deserted. “That bad, huh?”

“You name it, she did it. Shoplifting, menacing, stalking. Assault too. She attacked my father. And boyfriends who were breaking up with her—there were a lot of those. If there was a fight, the police came to our house or wherever we were and a lot of times they’d be in a hurry and use the siren. Whenever I’d hear it, I’d think, Thank God, they’re going to take her away for a while. It’s like the angels were coming to save me. I got to think of sirens like that. Angel songs.”

“Angel songs. I like that.” Pell nodded.

Suddenly he turned her around and kissed her on the mouth. He leaned back and looked at her face now.

The same face that had been on the motel TV screen a half-hour earlier while she’d been out shopping.

“There’s been a new development in the Daniel Pell escape. His accomplice has been identified as Jennie Ann Marston, twenty-five, from Anaheim, California. She’s described as about five foot five, weighing a hundred and ten pounds. Her driver’s license picture is in the upper left-hand corner of your screen and the photos to the right and below show what she might look like now, after cutting and dyeing her hair. If you see her, do not attempt to apprehend. Call 911 or the hotline you see at the bottom of your screen.”

The picture was unsmiling, as if she was upset that the Motor Vehicles camera would capture her flawed nose and make it more prominent than her eyes, ears and lips.

Apparently Jennie had left something in the Sea View Motel room after all.

He turned her around to face the raging ocean, stood behind her.

“Angel songs,” she whispered.

Pell held her tight for a moment, then kissed her on the cheek.

“Look at that,” he said, gazing at the beach.

“What?”

“That rock there, in the sand.”

He bent down and unearthed a smooth stone, which weighed maybe ten pounds. It was luminescent gray.

“What do you think it looks like, lovely?”

“Oh, when you hold it that way it’s like a cat, don’t you think? A cat sleeping all curled up. Like my Jasmine.”

“That was your cat?” Pell hefted it in his hand.

“When I was a little girl. My mother loved it. She’d never hurt Jasmine. She’d hurt me, she’d hurt a lot of people. But never Jasmine. Isn’t that funny?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking, lovely. It looks just like a cat.”

•    •    •

Dance called O’Neil first with the news.

He didn’t pick up, so she left a message about Theresa. It wasn’t like him not to answer but she knew he wasn’t screening. Even his outburst—well, not outburst, okay—even his criticism earlier had been grounded in a law enforcer’s desire to run a case most efficiently.

She wondered now, as she occasionally did, what it would be like to live with the cop/book-collector/seafarer. Good and bad, each in large quantities, was her usual conclusion, and she now hung up on that thought at the same time she did the phone.

Dance found Kellogg in the conference room. She said, “We’ve got Theresa Croyton. Nagle just called from Napa. Get this. She bailed him out.”

“How ’bout that? Napa, hm? That’s where they moved to. Are you going up there to talk to her?”

“No, she’s coming here. With her aunt.”

“Here? With Pell still loose?”

“She wanted to come. Insisted, in fact. It was the only way she’d agree.”

“Gutsy.”

“I’ll say.”

Dance called massive Albert Stemple and arranged for him to take over Theresa’s guard detail when they arrived.

She looked up and found Kellogg studying the pictures on her desk, the ones of her children. His face was still. She wondered again if there was something about the fact that she was a mother that touched, or troubled, him. This was an open question between them, she noted, wondering if there were others—or, more likely, what the others would be.

The great, complicated journey of the heart.

She said, “Theresa won’t be here for a while. I’d like to go back to the inn, see our guests again.”

“I’ll leave that up to you. I think a male figure’s a distraction.”

Dance agreed. The sex of each participant makes a difference in how an interrogator handles a session, and she often adjusted her behavior along the androgyny scale depending on the subject. Since Daniel Pell had been such a powerful force in these women’s lives, the presence of a man might throw off the balance. Kellogg had backed off earlier and let her pursue the questioning, but it would be better for him not to be there at all. She told him this and said she appreciated his understanding.

She started to rise but he surprised her by saying, “Wait, please.”

Dance sat back. He gave a faint laugh and looked into her eyes.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you, Kathryn. And it wouldn’t mean anything . . . except for last night.”

What was this? she wondered. An ex who isn’t exactly an ex. Or a girlfriend who’s very much present?

Neither of which made any difference at this point. They hardly knew each other and the emotional connection was potentially significant but negligible so far. Whatever it might be, better to air the issue now, up front.

“About children.”

Dance dropped the it’s-about-me line of thought, and sat forward, giving him her full attention.

“The fact is my wife and I did have a child.”

The tense of the verb made Kathryn Dance’s stomach clench.

“She died in a car accident when she was sixteen.”

“Oh, Win . . .”

He gestured at the picture of Dance and her husband. “Bit of a parallel. Car crash . . . Anyway, I was a shit about it. Terrible. I couldn’t handle the situation at all. I tried to be there for Jill, but I really wasn’t, not the way I should’ve been. You know what it’s like being a cop. The job can fill up as much of your life as you want. And I let too much in. We got divorced and it was a really bad time for a few years. For both of us. We’ve patched it up and we’re friends now, sort of. And she’s remarried.

“But I just have to say, the kid thing. It’s hard for me to be natural with them. I’ve cut that out of my life. You’re the first woman I’ve gotten anywhere near close to who has children. All I’m saying is, if I act a little stiff, it’s not you or Wes or Maggie. They’re wonderful. It’s something I’m working on in therapy. So there.” He lifted his hands, which is usually an emblem gesture, meaning, I’ve said what I wanted to. Hate me or love me, but there it is. . . .

“I’m so sorry, Win.”

Without hesitation, she took his hand and pressed it. “I’m glad you told me. I know it was hard. And I did see something. I wasn’t sure what, though.”

“Eagle eye.”

She laughed. “I overheard Wes one time. He told his friend it sucks to have a mom who’s a cop.”

“Especially one who’s a walking lie detector.” He smiled too.

“I’ve got my own issues, because of Bill.”

And because of Wes, she thought, but said nothing.

“We’ll take things slow.”

“Slow is good,” she said.

He gripped her forearm, a simple, intimate and appropriate gesture.

“Now I should get back to the Family reunion.”

She walked him to his temporary office, then drove back to the Point Lobos Inn.

As soon as she walked inside, she knew the atmosphere had changed. The kinesics were wholly different from yesterday. The women were restless and edgy. She noted postures and facial expressions that suggestion tension, defensiveness and outright hostility. Interviews and interrogations were long-term processes, and it wasn’t unusual for a successful day to be followed by one that was a complete waste of time. Dance was discouraged and assessed that it might take long hours, if not days, to get them in a place mentally where they could once again provide helpful information.

Still, she gave it a shot. She ran through what they’d learned about Jennie Marston and asked if the women knew anything about her. They didn’t. Dance then tried to resume the conversation of yesterday but today the comments and recollections were superficial. Linda seemed to be speaking for all of them when she said, “I just don’t know how much more I can add. I’d like to go home.”

Dance believed they’d already proved invaluable; they’d saved the life of Reynolds and his family and had given insights into Pell’s MO and, more important, his goal to retreat to a “mountaintop” somewhere; with more investigation they might find out where. Still, Dance wanted them to stay until she’d interviewed Theresa Croyton, in the hope that something the girl said might be a springboard to help the women’s memories, though, as she’d promised the aunt, she said nothing of the impending visit. They agreed reluctantly to wait for a few more hours.

As Dance left, Rebecca accompanied her outside. They stood under an awning; a light drizzle was falling. The agent lifted an eyebrow. She was wondering if the woman was going to deliver another lecture on their incompetence.

But the message was different.

“Maybe it’s obvious but I thought I should mention something. Sam doesn’t appreciate how dangerous Pell is, and Linda thinks he’s a poor, misunderstood product of his childhood.”

“Go on.”

“What we were telling you yesterday about him—all that psychological stuff—well, it’s true. But I’ve been through plenty of therapy and I know it’s easy to focus on the jargon and the theory and forget about the person behind them. You’ve managed to stop Pell from doing what he wants to, a couple of times, and nearly caught him. Does he know your name?”

A nod. “But do you think he’d waste time coming after me?”

“Are you immune to him?” Rebecca asked, cocking an eyebrow.

And that answered the question right there. Yes, she was immune to his control. And therefore she was a risk.

Threats have to be eliminated. . . .

“I have a feeling he’s worried. You’re a real danger to him and he wants to stop you. And he gets to people through their family.”

“Patterns,” Dance said.

Rebecca nodded. “You have family in the area, I assume?”

“My parents and children.”

“Are the children with your husband?”

“I’m a widow.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“But they’re not at home right now. And I’ve got a deputy guarding them.”

“Good, but watch your back.”

“Thank you.” Dance nodded back into the cabin. “Did something happen last night? Between all of you?”

She laughed. “I think we’ve had a little more past than we can handle. We aired some laundry. It should’ve been aired years ago. But I’m not sure everybody felt that way.”

Rebecca walked back inside and closed and locked the door. Dance glanced in through a gap in the curtain. She saw Linda reading the Bible, Samantha looking at her cell phone, undoubtedly thinking up some lie to tell her husband about her out-of-town conference. Rebecca sat down and began covering her sketchpad with broad, angry strokes.

The legacy of Daniel Pell and his Family.

Chapter 45

Kathryn Dance had been gone a half hour when one of the deputies called the cabin to check up on the women.

“Everything’s fine,” Sam replied—apart from the broiling tensions inside the suite.

He had her make sure the windows and doors were locked. She checked and confirmed that everything was secure.

Sealed in, nice and tight. She felt a burst of anger that Daniel Pell had them trapped once again, stuck in this little box of a cabin.

“I’m going stir crazy,” Rebecca announced. “I’ve got to get outside.”

“Oh, I don’t think you should.” Linda looked up. Sam noticed that the tattered Bible had many fingerprints on the page it was open to. She wondered what particular passages had given her so much comfort. She wished she could turn to something so simple for peace of mind.

Rebecca shrugged. “I’m just going out there a little ways.” She gestured toward Point Lobos State Park.

“Really, I don’t think you should.” Linda’s voice was brittle.

“I’ll be careful. I’ll wear my galoshes and look both ways.” She was trying to make a joke but it fell flat.

“It’s stupid but do what you want.”

Rebecca said, “Look, I’m sorry about last night. I drank too much.”

“Fine,” Linda said distractedly and continued to read her Bible.

Sam said, “You’ll get wet.”

“I’ll go to one of the shelters. I want to do some drawing.” Rebecca pulled on her leather jacket, unlatched the back door and, picking up her sketchpad and box of pencils, stepped outside. Sam saw her looking back and could easily read the regret in the woman’s face for her vicious words last night. “Lock it after me.”

Sam went to the door and put the chain on, double locked it. She watched the woman walking down the path, wishing she hadn’t gone.

But for an entirely different reason than her safety.

She was now alone with Linda.

No more excuses.

Yes or no? Sam continued the internal debate that had begun several days ago, prompted by Kathryn Dance’s invitation to come to Monterey and help them.

Come back, Rebecca, she thought.

No, stay away.

“I don’t think she should’ve done that,” Linda muttered.

“Should we tell the guards?”

“What good would it do? She’s a big girl.” A grimace. “She’ll tell you so herself.”

Sam said, “Those things that happened to her, with her father. That’s so terrible. I had no idea.”

Linda continued to read. Then she looked up. “They want to kill him, you know.”

“What?”

“They’re not going to give Daniel a chance.”

Sam didn’t respond. She was still hoping Rebecca would return, hoping she wouldn’t.

With an edge to her voice Linda said, “He can be saved. He’s not hopeless. But they want to gun him down on sight. Be rid of him.”

Of course they do, Sam thought. As to the question of his redemption, that was unanswerable in her mind.

“That Rebecca . . . Just like I remember her.” Linda grunted.

Sam said, “What’re you reading?”

Linda asked, “Would you know if I told you the chapter and verse?”

“No.”

“So.” Linda started to read but then she looked up from the holy book again. “She was wrong. What Rebecca said. It wasn’t a nest of self-deception, or whatever she thinks.”

Sam was silent.

Okay, she told herself. Go ahead. Now’s the time.

“I know she was wrong about one thing.”

“What’s that?”

Sam exhaled long. “I wasn’t a mouse all the time.”

“Oh, that. Don’t take it seriously. I never said you were.”

“I stood up to him once. I told him no.” She gave a laugh. “Ought to get a T-shirt printed up: ‘I told Daniel Pell no.’ ”

Linda’s lips pressed together. The attempt at humor fell leaden between them.

Walking to the TV, Sam shut it off. Sat down in an armchair, leaning forward. Linda’s voice was wary as she said, “This is going somewhere. I can tell. But I’m not in the mood to get beat up again.”

“It’s about beating me up, not you.”

“What?”

A few deep breaths. “About the time I said no to Daniel.”

“Sam—”

“Do you know why I came down here?”

A grimace. “To help capture the evil escapee. To save lives. You felt guilty. You wanted a nice drive in the country. I don’t have any idea, Sam. Why did you come?”

“I came because Kathryn said you’d be here, and I wanted to see you.”

“You’ve had eight years. Why now?”

“I thought about tracking you down before. I almost did once. But I couldn’t. I needed an excuse, some motivation.”

“You needed Daniel to escape from prison for motivation? What’s this all about?” Linda set the Bible down, open. Samantha kept staring at the pencil notes in the margins. They were dense as bees clustered in a hive.

“You remember that time you were in the hospital?”

“Of course.” In a soft voice. The woman was gazing steadily at Sam. Wary.

The spring before the Croyton murders Pell had told Sam he was serious about retreating to the wilderness. But he wanted to increase the size of the Family first.

“I want a son,” Pell had announced with all the bluntness of a medieval king bent on heirs. A month later Linda was pregnant.

And a month after that she’d miscarried. Their absence of insurance relegated them to a line at a lower-tier hospital in the barrio, frequented by pickers and illegals. The resulting infection led to a hysterectomy. Linda was devastated; she’d always wanted children. She’d told Sam often that she was meant to be a mother, and, aware of how badly her parents had raised her, she knew how to excel at the role.

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

Sam picked up a cup filled with tepid tea. “Because it wasn’t supposed to be you who got pregnant. It was supposed to be me.”

“You?”

Sam nodded. “He came to me first.”

“He did?”

Tears stung Sam’s eyes. “I just couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t have his baby. If I did he’d have control over me for the rest of my life.” No point in holding back, Sam reflected. She gazed at the table and said, “So I lied. I said you weren’t sure you wanted to stay in the Family. Ever since Rebecca joined, you were thinking about leaving.”

“You what?”

“I know. . . .” She wiped her face. “I’m sorry. I told him that if you had his baby it’d show how much he wanted you to stay.”

Linda blinked. She looked around the room, picked up and rubbed the cover of the holy book.

Sam continued, “And now you can’t have children at all. I took them away from you. I had to choose between you and me, and I chose me.”

Linda stared at a bad picture in a nice frame. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“Guilt, I guess. Shame.”

“So this confession then, that’s about you too, right?”

“No, it’s about us. All of us. . . .”

“Us?”

“All right, Rebecca’s a bitch.” The word felt alien in her mouth. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d used it. “She doesn’t think before she says things. But she was right, Linda. None of us’re leading normal lives. Rebecca should have a gallery and be married to some sexy painter and be flying around the world. But she’s jumping from older man to older man—we know why now. And you should have a real life, get married, adopt kids, a ton, and spoil ’em like crazy. Not spend your time in soup kitchens and caring for children you see for two months and never again. And maybe you could even give your dad and mom a call. . . . No, Linda, it isn’t a rich life you’re living. And you’re miserable. You know you are. You’re hiding behind that.” A nod at the Bible. “And me?” She laughed. “Well, I’m hiding even deeper than you are.”

Sam rose and sat next to Linda, who leaned away. “The escape, Daniel coming back like this . . . it’s a chance for us to fix things. Look, here we are! The three of us in a room together again. We can help each other.”

“And what about now?”

Sam wiped her face. “Now?”

“Do you have children? You haven’t told us a thing about your mysterious life.”

A nod. “I have a son.”

“What’s his name?”

“My—?”

“What’s his name?”

Sam hesitated. “Peter.”

“Is he a nice boy?”

“Linda—”

“Is he a nice boy, I asked.”

“Linda, you think it wasn’t so bad back then, in the Family. And you’re right. But not because of Daniel. Because of us. We filled all those gaps in our lives that Rebecca was talking about. We helped each other! And then it fell apart and we’re back to where we started. But we can help each other again! Like real sisters.” Sam leaned forward and gripped the Bible. “You believe in this, right? You think things happen for a purpose. Well, I think we were meant to get back together. To give us this chance to fix our lives.”

“Oh, but mine is perfectly fine,” Linda said evenly, pulling the Bible away from Sam’s trembling fingers. “Work on yours as much as you want.”

•    •    •

Daniel Pell parked the Camry in a deserted lot off Highway 1, near Carmel River State Beach, beside a sign that warned of the dangerous waters here. He was alone in the car.

He caught a whiff of Jennie’s perfume.

Slipping his pistol into a pocket of the windbreaker, he climbed out of the car.

That perfume again.

Noticing Jennie Marston’s blood in the crescent of his nails. He spit on his fingers and wiped it, but couldn’t remove all of the crimson stain.

Pell looked around at the meadows, the cypress and pine and oak woods and the rugged outcroppings of granite and Carmelo formation rock. In the gray ocean sea lions, seals and otters swam and played. A half-dozen pelicans flew in perfect formation over the uneasy surface, and two gulls fought relentlessly for a scrap of food washed up on the shore.

Head down, Pell moved south through the thick trees. There was a path nearby but he didn’t dare take it, though the park seemed deserted; he couldn’t risk being seen as he headed for his destination: the Point Lobos Inn.

The rain had stopped but the overcast was heavy and more sprinkles seemed likely. The air was cold and thick with the scent of pine and eucalyptus. After ten minutes he came to the dozen cabins of the inn. Crouching, he circled to the rear of the place and continued, pausing to get his bearings and look for police. He froze, gripping his gun, when a deputy appeared, surveyed the grounds, then returned to the front of the cabin.

Easy, he told himself. Now’s not the time to be careless. Take your time.

He walked for five minutes through the fragrant misty forest. About a hundred yards away, invisible to the cabins and the deputy, was a small clearing, inside which was a shelter. Someone sat at a picnic bench underneath it.

Pell’s heart gave an uncharacteristic thud.

The woman was looking out over the ocean. A pad of paper was in her hand, and she was sketching. Whatever she was drawing, he knew it would be good. Rebecca Sheffield was talented. He remembered when they’d met, a cool, clear day by the beach. She’d squinted up from the low chair in front of her easel near where the Family had a booth at a flea market.

“Hey, how’d you like me to do your portrait?”

“I guess. How much?”

“You’ll be able to afford it. Take a seat.”

He looked around once more and, not seeing anyone else, made his way toward the woman, who was oblivious to his approach. Wholly focused on the scenery, on the motion of her pencil.

Pell closed the distance quickly, until he was right behind her. He paused.

“Hello,” he whispered.

She gasped, dropped the pad and stood, turning quickly. “Jesus.” A moment of silence.

Then Rebecca’s face lurched into a smile as she stepped forward. The wind slapped them hard and nearly carried off her words, “Damn, I missed you.”

“Come here, lovely,” he said and pulled her toward him.

Chapter 46

They’d moved into the grove of trees, so there was no chance of being spotted by anyone at the motel.

“They know about Jennie,” Rebecca said.

“I know. I saw it on the TV.” He grimaced. “She left something in the room. They tracked her down.”

“And?”

He shrugged. “She won’t be a problem.” Glanced down at the blood in his nails.

“Lovely, if you hadn’t called, I don’t know what would’ve happened.”

Pell had left a message on Rebecca’s voice mail at home, giving her the name of the Sea View motel. The call he’d received there, supposedly from housekeeping, was from Rebecca, telling him in a frantic whisper that the police were on their way—Kathryn Dance had asked if the women would help out in the event Pell took hostages. He hadn’t wanted Jennie to know about Rebecca yet so he’d come up with the story about the maids.

“That was lucky,” Rebecca said, wiping a coating of mist from her face. Pell thought she did look pretty good. Jennie was fine in bed, but less of a challenge. Rebecca could keep you going all night. Jennie needed sex to validate herself; Rebecca simply needed sex. He got a twist inside him, the bubble expanding.

“How are my little gals holding up under the pressure?”

“Bickering and driving me fucking crazy. I mean, it’s like not a day’s gone by. Same as eight years ago. Except Linda’s a Bible-thumper and Sam isn’t Sam. Changed her name. And she’s got boobs too.”

“And they’re helping the cops, they’re actually doing that?”

“Oh, you bet. I tried to lead things off as best I could. But I couldn’t be too obvious about it.”

“And they don’t guess anything about you?”

“Nope.”

Pell kissed her again. “You’re the best, baby. I’m free only ’cause of you.”

Jennie Marston had been just a pawn in the escape; it was Rebecca who’d planned everything. After his appeal was finally rejected, Pell had begun thinking about escape. He’d managed some unsupervised phone time in Capitola and spoken to Rebecca. For some time she’d been considering how to break Pell out. But there’d been no opportunities until recently, when Rebecca told him she’d come up with an idea.

She had read about the unsolved Robert Herron killing—which Pell had nothing to do with—and decided to make him the prime suspect so he’d be transferred to a lower-security facility for the indictment and trial. Rebecca had found some of his tools, which she’d had from the days of the Family in Seaside, and slipped them into his aunt’s garage in Bakersfield.

Pell had sifted through his fan letters to look for a candidate who’d help. He settled on Jennie Marston, a woman in Southern California who suffered from the disease of bad-boy worship. She seemed wonderfully desperate and vulnerable. Pell had limited access to computers, so Rebecca had set up an untraceable email address and masqueraded as Pell to win Jennie’s heart and work out the plan. One reason they’d picked her was that Jennie lived only an hour or so away from Rebecca, who could check her out and learn details of her life to make it seem that she and Pell had some spiritual connection.

Oh, you’re so much like me, honey, it’s like we’re two sides of the same coin.

The love of cardinals and hummingbirds, the color green, Mexican comfort food. . . . It doesn’t take much, in this mean world, to make somebody like Jennie Marston your soul mate.

Finally Rebecca, as Pell, convinced Jennie that he was innocent of the Croyton killings and got her to agree to help him escape. Rebecca had come up with the idea for the gas bombs after scoping out the Salinas lockup and the delivery-service schedules at the You Mail It franchise. She’d sent the woman instructions: stealing the hammer, making up the fake wallet, planting them in Salinas. And then how to construct the gas bomb and where to buy the fire suit and bag. Rebecca had checked with Jennie, via email, and then, when everything seemed in order, posted the message on the “Manslaughter” bulletin board that everything was in place.

Pell now asked her, “That was Sam when I phoned, wasn’t it?”

The call—thirty minutes ago—purporting to be the guard checking up on them was Pell. The arrangement he’d made with Rebecca was that he’d ask whoever answered—if she didn’t—to check the window locks. That meant he’d be there soon and Rebecca was supposed to go to the shelter and wait for him.

“She didn’t catch on. The poor thing’s still a little mouse. She just doesn’t get it.”

“I want to get out of here as soon as possible, lovely. What’s our time like?”

“Won’t be long now.”

Pell said, “I’ve got her address. Dance’s.”

“Oh, one thing you’ll want to know. Her kids aren’t at home. She didn’t say where they are but I found a Stuart Dance—probably her father or brother—in the phone book. I’d guess they’re there. Oh, and there’s a cop guarding them. There’s no husband.”

“A widow, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“Just did. How old are the kids?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“No.”

Rebecca eased back and studied him. “For an undocumented alien you look pretty damn good. You really do.” Her arms looped him. The nearness of her body, bathed in air fragrant with ripe sea vegetation and pine, added to his already stoked arousal. He slipped his hand into the small of her back. The pressure inside him growing. He kissed her hungrily, tongue slipping into her mouth. “Daniel . . . not now. I have to get back.”

But Pell hardly heard the words. He led her farther into the forest, put his hands on her shoulders and started to push her down. She held up a finger. Then set her sketchpad on the wet ground, cardboard base down. She knelt on it. “They’d wonder how I got wet knees.” And began to unzip his jeans.

That was Rebecca, he reflected. Always thinking.

•    •    •

Michael O’Neil finally called.

She was glad to hear his voice, though the tone was purely professional, and she knew he didn’t want to talk about their fight earlier. He was, she sensed, still angry. Which was odd for him. It bothered her, but there was no time to consider their grievances, given his news.

“Got a call from CHP,” O’Neil said. “Some hikers halfway to Big Sur found a purse and some personal effects on the beach. Jennie Marston’s. No body yet, but there was blood all over the sand. And blood and some hairs and scalp tissue on a rock that crime scene found. Pell’s prints’re on the rock. The Coast Guard has two boats out looking. There wasn’t anything helpful in the purse. ID and credit cards. If that’s where she kept what’s left of the ninety-two hundred dollars, Pell’s got it now.”

He killed her. . . .

Dance closed her eyes. Pell had seen her picture on TV and knew she’d been identified. She’d become a liability to him.

A second suspect logarithmically increases the chances for detection and arrest. . . .

“I’m sorry,” O’Neil said. He’d understand what she was thinking—that Dance never would have guessed releasing the woman’s picture would result in her death.

I believed it would be just another way to help find this terrible man.

The detective said, “It was the right call. We had to do it.”

We, she noted. Not you.

“How long ago?”

“Crime scene’s estimating an hour. We’re checking along One and the cross roads, but no witnesses.”

“Thanks, Michael.”

She said nothing more, waiting for him to say something else, something about their earlier discussion, something about Kellogg. Didn’t matter what, just some words that would give her a chance to broach the subject. But he said merely, “I’m making plans for a memorial service for Juan. I’ll let you know the details.”

“Thanks.”

“ ’Bye.”

Click.

She called Kellogg and Overby with the news. Her boss was debating whether it was good or bad. Someone else had been killed on his watch, but at least it was one of the perps. On the whole, he suggested, the press and public would receive the development as a score for the good guys.

“Don’t you think, Kathryn?”

Dance had no chance to formulate an answer, though, because just then the CBI’s front desk called on the intercom to tell her the news that Theresa Croyton, the Sleeping Doll, had arrived.

•    •    •

The girl didn’t resemble what Kathryn Dance expected.

In baggy sweats, Theresa Croyton Bolling was tall and slim and wore her light brown hair long, to the middle of her back. The strands had a reddish sheen. Four metallic dots were in her left ear, five in the other, and the majority of her fingers were encircled by silver rings. Her face, free of makeup, was narrow and pretty and pale.

Morton Nagle ushered the girl and her aunt, a solid woman with short, gray hair, into Dance’s office. Mary Bolling was somber and cautious and it was obvious that this was the last place in the world she wanted to be. Hands were shaken and greetings exchanged. The girl’s was casual and friendly, if a bit nervous; the aunt’s stiff.

Nagle would want to stay, of course—talking to the Sleeping Doll had been his goal even before Pell’s escape. But some bargain had apparently been struck that he’d take a backseat for the time being. He now said he’d be at home if anybody needed him.

Dance gave him a sincere “Thank you.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Nagle,” Theresa said.

He nodded a friendly farewell to both of them—the teenager and the woman who’d tried to gun him down (she looked as if she’d like a second opportunity). Nagle gave one of his chuckles, tugged up his saggy pants and left.

“Thank you for coming. You go by ‘Theresa’?”

“Mostly Tare.”

Dance said to her aunt, “Do you mind if I talk to your niece alone?”

“It’s okay.” This was from the girl. The aunt hesitated. “It’s okay,” the girl repeated more firmly. A hit of exasperation. Like musicians with their instruments, young people can get an infinite variety of sounds out of their voices.

Dance had arranged a room at a chain motel near CBI headquarters. It was booked under one of the fictional names she sometimes used for witnesses.

TJ escorted the aunt to the office of Albert Stemple, who would take her to the motel and wait with her.

When they were alone, Dance came out from around the desk and closed her door. She didn’t know if the girl had hidden memories to be tapped, some facts that could help lead them to Pell. But she was going to try to find out. It would be difficult, though. Despite the girl’s strong personality and her gutsy foray here, she’d be doing what every other seventeen-year-old in the universe would do at a time like this: raising subconscious barriers to protect herself from the pain of recollection.

Dance would get nothing from her until those barriers were lowered. In her interrogations and interviews the agent didn’t practice classic hypnosis. She did, though, know that subjects who were relaxed and not focused on external stimuli could remember events that otherwise they might not. The agent directed Theresa to the comfortable couch and shut off the bright overhead light, leaving a single yellow desk lamp burning.

“You comfortable?”

“Sure, I guess.” Still, she clasped her hands together, shoulders up, and smiled at Dance with her lips taut. Stress, the agent noted. “That man, Mr. Nagle, said you wanted to ask me about what happened the night my parents and brother and sister were killed.”

“That’s right. I know you were asleep at the time, but—”

“What?”

“I know you were asleep during the murders.”

“Who told you that?”

“Well, all the news stories . . . the police.”

“No, no, I was awake.”

Dance blinked in surprise. “You were?”

The girl’s expression was even more surprised. “Like, yeah. I mean, I thought that’s why you wanted to see me.”

Chapter 47

“Go ahead, Tare.”

Dance felt her heart tapping fast. Was this the portal to an overlooked clue that might lead to Daniel Pell’s purpose here?

The girl tugged at her earlobe, the one with five dots of metal in it, and the top of her shoe rose slightly, indicating she was curling her toes.

Stress . . .

“I was asleep earlier, for a while. Yeah. I wasn’t feeling good. But then I woke up. I had a dream. I don’t remember what it was, but I think it was scary. I woke myself up with a noise, kind of moaning. You know how that happens?”

“Sure.”

“Or shouting. Only . . .” Her voice faded, she was squeezing her ear again.

“You’re not sure it was you making the noise? It might’ve been somebody else?”

The girl swallowed. She’d be thinking that the sound had perhaps come from one of her dying family members. “Right.”

“Do you remember what time?” The TODs were between six thirty and eight, Dance recalled.

But Theresa couldn’t remember for sure. She guessed around seven.

“You stayed in bed?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Did you hear anything after that?”

“Yeah, voices. I couldn’t hear them real well. I was, you know, groggy, but I definitely heard them.”

“Who was it?”

“I don’t know, men’s voices. But definitely not my father or brother. I remember that.”

“Tare, did you tell anybody this back then?”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “But nobody was interested.”

How on earth had Reynolds missed it?

“Well, tell me now. What did you hear?”

“There were, like, a couple of things. First of all, I heard somebody mention money. Four hundred dollars. I remember that exactly.”

Pell had been found with more than that when he was arrested. Maybe he and Newberg were going through Croyton’s wallet and commenting on how much money was inside. Or was the phrase actually “four hundred thousand”?

“What else?”

“Okay, then somebody—a man, but somebody different—said something about Canada. And somebody else asked a question. About Quebec.”

“And what was the question?”

“He just wanted to know what Quebec was.”

Somebody not knowing about Quebec? Dance wondered if that was Newberg—the women had said that while he was a genius at woodworking, electronics and computers he was pretty damaged otherwise, thanks to drugs.

So, a Canadian connection. Is that where Pell wanted to escape to? A lot easier to get through that border than going south. A lot of mountaintops too.

Dance smiled and sat forward. “Go on, Tare. You’re doing great.”

“Then,” Theresa continued, “somebody was talking about used cars. Another man. He had a really low voice. He talked fast.”

Used-car dealerships were popular venues for money laundering. Or they might have been talking about getting a car for their escape. And it hadn’t been just Pell and Newberg. Somebody else was there. A third person.

“Did your father do business in Canada?”

“I don’t know. He traveled a lot. But I don’t think he ever mentioned Canada. . . . I could never figure out why the police back then didn’t ask me more about it. But since Pell was in jail, it didn’t matter. But now that he’s out . . . Ever since Mr. Nagle said you needed help finding the killer, I’ve been trying to make sense out of what I heard. Maybe you can figure it out.”

“I hope I can.”

“Anything else?”

“No, it was about then that I guess I fell back asleep. And the next thing I knew . . .” She swallowed again. “There was this woman in a uniform there. A policewoman. She had me get dressed and . . . that was it.”

Dance reflected: four hundred dollars, a car dealership, a French Canadian province.

And a third man.

Was Pell intent on heading north now? At the very least she’d call Homeland Security and Immigration; they could keep an eye on the northern border crossings.

Dance tried again, walking the girl through the events of that terrible night.

But the efforts were useless. She knew nothing more.

Four hundred dollars . . . Canada . . . What’s Quebec? . . . used cars . . . Did they contain the key to the Daniel Pell conspiracy?

And then Dance had a thought that, surprisingly, involved her own family: herself, Wes and Maggie. An idea occurred to her. She ran through the facts of the murder in her mind. Impossible . . . But then the theory grew more likely, though she didn’t like the conclusion.

She reluctantly asked, “Tare, you said this was around seven P.M. or so?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Where did your family eat?”

“Where? The den most of the time. We weren’t allowed to use the dining room. That was just for, like, formal things.”

“Did you watch TV while you were having dinner?”

“Yeah. A lot. Me and my brother and sister, at least.”

“And was the den near your bedroom?”

“Like, right down the stairs. How did you know?”

“Did you ever watch Jeopardy!?”

She frowned. “Yeah.”

“Tare, I’m wondering if maybe the voices you heard were from the show. Maybe somebody picking the category of geography for four hundred dollars. And the answer was ‘the French-speaking province of Canada.’ The question would be ‘What is Quebec?’ ”

The girl fell silent. Her eyes were still. “No,” she said firmly, shaking her head. “No, that wasn’t it. I’m sure.”

“And the voice talking about the dealership—could it have been a commercial? Somebody talking fast in a low voice. Like they do on car ads.”

The girl’s face flushed with dismay. Then anger. “No!”

“But maybe?” Dance asked gently.

Theresa’s eyes closed. “No.” A whisper. Then: “I don’t know.”

That was why Reynolds hadn’t pursued the child’s testimony. He too had figured out she was talking about a TV show.

Theresa’s shoulders slumped forward, collapsing in on themselves. It was a very subtle movement but Dance could clearly read the kinesic signal of defeat and sorrow. The girl had been so certain that she’d remembered something helpful to find the man who’d killed her family. Now, she realized that her courageous trip here, defying her aunt . . . The efforts had been pointless. She was crestfallen. “I’m sorry. . . .” Tears pooled in her eyes.

Kathryn Dance smiled. “Tare, don’t worry. It’s nothing.” She gave the girl a Kleenex.

“Nothing? It’s terrible! I wanted to help so bad. . . .”

Another smile. “Oh, Tare, believe me, we’re just getting warmed up.”

•    •    •

In her seminars Dance told the story of the city slicker stopping in a small town to ask a farmer directions. The stranger looks at the dog sitting at the man’s feet and says, “Your dog bite?” The farmer says no and when the stranger reaches down to pet the dog, he gets bitten. The man jumps back and angrily says, “You said your dog didn’t bite!” The farmer replies, “Mine doesn’t. This here dog’s not mine.”

The art of interviewing isn’t only about analyzing the subjects’ answers and their body language and demeanor; it’s also about asking the right questions.

The facts about the Croytons’ murders and every moment afterward had been documented by police and reporters. So Kathryn Dance decided to inquire about the one period of time that no one had apparently ever asked about: before the murders.

“Tare, I want to hear about what happened earlier.”

“Earlier?”

“Sure. Let’s start with earlier that day.”

Theresa frowned. “Oh, I don’t even remember much about it. I mean, what happened that night, it kind of shoved everything else away.”

“Give it a try. Think back. It was May. You were in school then, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What day of the week?”

“Um, it was Friday.”

“You remembered that pretty fast.”

“Oh, because on a lot of Fridays Dad’d take us kids places. That day we were going to the carnival rides in Santa Cruz. Only everything got messed up because I got sick.” Theresa thought back, rubbing her eyes. “Brenda and Steve—my sister and brother—and I were going, and Mom stayed at home because she had a benefit or something on Saturday she had to work on.”

“But plans got changed?”

“Right. We were, like, on our way but . . .” She looked down. “I got sick. In the car. So we turned around and went home.”

“What did you have? A cold?”

“Stomach flu.” Theresa winced and touched her belly.

“Oh, I just hate that.”

“Yeah, it sucks.”

“And you got back home about when?”

“Five thirty, maybe.”

“And you went straight to bed.”

“Yeah, that’s right.” She looked out the window at the gnarled tree.

“And then you woke up, hearing the TV show.”

The girl twined a brown strand of hair around a finger. “Quebec.” A laughing grimace.

At this point, Kathryn Dance paused. She realized she had a decision to make, an important one.

Because there was no doubt that Theresa was being deceptive.

When she’d been making casual conversation and, later, talking about what Theresa had overheard from the TV room, the girl’s kinesic behavior was relaxed and open, though she obviously was experiencing general stress—anyone who’s talking to a police officer as part of an investigation, even an innocent victim, experiences this.

But as soon as she started talking about the trip to the Santa Cruz boardwalk she displayed hesitations of speech, she covered parts of her face and ear—negation gestures—and looked out the window—aversion. Trying to appear calm and casual, she revealed the stress she was experiencing by bobbing her foot. Dance sensed deception stress patterns and that the girl was in the denial response state.

Everything Theresa was telling her was presumably consistent with facts that Dance could verify. But deception includes evasion and omission as well as outright lying. There were things Theresa wasn’t sharing.

“Tare, something troubling happened on the drive, didn’t it?”

“Troubling? No. Really. I swear.”

A triple play there: two denial flag expressions, along with answering a question with a question. Now the girl was flushed and her foot bobbed again, an obvious cluster of stress responses.

“Go on, tell me. It’s all right. There’s nothing you have to worry about. Tell me.”

“Like, you know. My parents, my brother and sister . . . They were killed. Who wouldn’t be upset?” A bit of anger now.

Dance nodded sympathetically. “I mean before that. You’ve left Carmel, you’re driving to Santa Cruz. You’re not feeling well. You go home. Other than being sick, what was there about that drive that bothered you?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

That sentence, from a person in a denial state, means: I remember perfectly well but I don’t want to think about it. The memory’s too painful.

“You’re driving along and—

“I—” Theresa began, then she fell silent. And lowered head to hands, breaking into tears. A torrent, accompanied by the sound track of breathless sobbing.

“Tare.” Dance rose and handed her a wad of tissues as the girl cried hard, though quietly, the sobs like hiccups.

“It’s okay,” the agent said compassionately, gripping her arm. “Whatever happened, it’s fine. Don’t worry.”

“I . . .” The girl was paralyzed; Dance could see she was trying to make a decision. Which way would it go? the agent wondered. She’d either spill everything, or stonewall—in which case the interview was now over.

Finally she said, “Oh, I’ve wanted to tell somebody. I just couldn’t. Not the counselors or friends, my aunt . . .” More sobbing. Collapsed chest, chin down, hands in her lap when not mopping her face. The textbook kinesic signs that Theresa Croyton had moved into the acceptance stage of emotional response. The terrible burden of what she’d been living with was finally going to come out. She was confessing.

“It’s my fault. It’s all my fault they’re dead!”

Now she pressed her head back against the couch. Her face was red, tendons rose, tears stained the front of her sweater.

“Brenda and Steve and Mom and Dad . . . all because of me!”

“Because you got sick?”

“No! Because I pretended to be sick!”

“Tell me.”

“I didn’t want to go to the boardwalk. I couldn’t stand going, I hated it! All I could think of was to pretend to be sick. I remembered about these models who put their fingers down their throats so they throw up and don’t get fat. When we were in the car on the highway I did that when nobody was looking. I threw up in the backseat and said I had the flu. It was all gross, and everybody was mad and Dad turned around and drove back home.”

So that was it. The poor girl was convinced it was her fault her family’d been slaughtered because of the lie she told. She’d lived with this terrible burden for eight years.

One truth had been excavated. But at least one more remained. And Kathryn Dance wanted to unearth this one as well.

“Tell me, Tare. Why didn’t you want to go to the pier?”

“I just didn’t. It wasn’t fun.”

Confessing one lie doesn’t lead automatically to confessing them all. The girl had now slipped into denial once again.

“Why? You can tell me. Go on.”

“I don’t know. It just wasn’t fun.”

“Why not?”

“Well, Dad was always busy. So he’d give us money and tell us he’d pick us up later and he’d go off and make phone calls and things. It was boring.”

Her feet tapped again and she squeezed the right-side earrings in a compulsive pattern: top, bottom, then the middle. The stress was eating her up.

Yet it wasn’t only the kinesics that were sending significant deception signals to Kathryn Dance. Children—even a seventeen-year-old high school student—are often hard to analyze kinesically. Most interviewers of youngsters perform a content-based analysis, judging their truth or deception by what they say, not how they say it.

What Theresa was telling Dance didn’t make sense—both in terms of the story she was offering, and in terms of Dance’s knowledge of children and the place in question. Wes and Maggie, for instance, loved the Santa Cruz boardwalk, and would have leapt at the chance to spend hours there unsupervised with a pocketful of money. There were hundreds of things for children to do, carnival rides, food, music, games.

And another contradiction Dance noted: Why hadn’t Theresa simply said she wanted to stay home with her mother before they left that Friday and let her father and siblings go without her? It was as if she didn’t want them to go to Santa Cruz either.

Dance considered this for a moment.

A to B . . .

“Tare, you were saying your father worked and made phone calls when you and your brother and sister went on the rides?”

She looked down. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Where would he go to make the calls?”

“I don’t know. He had a cell phone. Not a lot of people had them then. But he did.”

“Did he ever meet anybody there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Tare, who were these other people? The ones he’d be with?”

She shrugged.

“Were they other women?”

“No.”

“You sure?”

Theresa was silent, looking everywhere but at Dance. Finally she said, “Maybe. Some, yeah.”

“And you think they might’ve been girlfriends of his?”

A nod. Tears again. Through clenched teeth she began, “And . . .”

“What, Tare?”

“He said when we got home, if Mom asked, we were supposed to say he was with us.” Her face was flushed now.

Dance recalled that Reynolds hinted Croyton was a womanizer.

A bitter laugh escaped the girl’s trembling lips. “I saw him. Brenda and me, we were supposed to stay on the boardwalk but we went to an ice cream place across Beach Street. And I saw him. There was this woman getting into his car and he was kissing her. And she wasn’t the only one. I saw him later, with somebody else, going into her apartment or house by the beach. That’s why I didn’t want him to go there. I wanted him to go back home and be with Mommy and us. I didn’t want him to be with anybody else.” She wiped her face. “And so I lied,” she said simply. “I pretended I was sick.”

So he’d meet his mistresses in Santa Cruz—and take his own children with him to allay his wife’s suspicion, abandoning them till he and his lover were finished.

“And my family got killed. And it was my fault.”

Dance leaned forward and said, “No, no, Tare. It’s not your fault at all. We’re pretty sure Daniel Pell intended to kill your father. It wasn’t random. If he’d come by that night and you weren’t there, he would’ve left and come back when your dad was home.”

She grew quiet. “Yeah?”

Dance wasn’t sure about this at all. But she absolutely couldn’t let the girl live with the terrible burden of her guilt. “Yeah.”

Theresa calmed at this tentative comfort. “Stupid.” She was embarrassed. “It’s all so stupid. I wanted to come help you catch him. And I haven’t done anything except act like a baby.”

“Oh, we’re doing fine,” Dance said with significance, reflecting some intriguing thoughts she’d just had.

“We are?”

“Yep . . . In fact, I’ve just thought of some more questions. I hope you’re up for them.” Dance’s stomach gave a peculiar, and opportune, growl just at that moment. They both laughed, and the agent added, “Provided there’re two Frappuccinos and a cookie or two in the near future.”

Theresa wiped her eyes. “I could go for that, yeah.”

Dance called Rey Carraneo and set him on the mission of collaring some sustenance from Starbucks. She then made another call. This one was to TJ, telling him to remain in the office; she believed there’d be a change of plans.

A to B to X . . .

Chapter 48

Parked up the road from the Point Lobos Inn, out of sight of the guards, Daniel Pell continued to stare at a space between the cypress trees. “Come on,” he muttered.

And then, just a few seconds later, there she was, Rebecca, hurrying through the bushes with her backpack. She climbed into the car and kissed him firmly.

She sat back. “Shitty weather,” she said, grinned and kissed him again. “Sorry I’m late.”

“Nobody saw you?”

A laugh. “Climbed out the window. They think I went to bed early.”

He put the car in gear and they started up the highway.

This was Daniel Pell’s last night in the Monterey Peninsula—and, in a way, his last night on earth. Later, they’d steal another car—an SUV or truck—and head north, winding along the increasingly narrow and rugged roads of Northern California until they came to Pell’s mountain property. He’d be king of the mountain, king of a new Family, not answering to anybody, no one to interfere. No one to challenge him. A dozen young people, two dozen, seduced by the Pied Piper.

Heaven . . .

But first his mission here. He had to make certain his future was guaranteed.

Pell handed her the map of Monterey County. She opened a slip of paper and read the street and number as she studied the map. “It’s not too far. Shouldn’t take us more than fifteen minutes.”

•    •    •

Edie Dance glanced out the window of the front of her house and observed the police car.

It certainly made her feel comfortable, with an escaped killer somewhere in the area, and she appreciated the fact that Katie was looking out for them.

Still, it wasn’t Daniel Pell who occupied her thoughts, but Juan Millar.

Edie was tired, the old bones not behaving, and she was grateful she’d decided not to work overtime—it was always available for any nurse who wanted it. Death and taxes weren’t the only certain aspects of life; the need for health care was a third, and Edie Dance would have a career for as long as she wished, anywhere she wished. She couldn’t understand her husband’s preference for marine, over human, life. People were so fascinating, helping them, reassuring them, taking away their pain.

Kill me . . .

Stuart would be back with the children soon. She loved her grandchildren, of course, but she also truly enjoyed their company. Edie knew how lucky she was that Katie lived nearby; so many of her friends had children hundreds, even thousands, of miles away.

Yes, she was happy Wes and Mags were staying here, but she’d be a lot happier when that terrible man was arrested again and thrown back in jail. Katie’s becoming a CBI agent had always bothered her a lot—Stu actually seemed pleased, which irritated her all the more. Edie Dance would never suggest a woman give up a career—she’d worked all her life—but, my God, carrying around a gun and arresting murderers and drug dealers?

Edie would never say it, but her secret desire was that her daughter would meet another man, remarry and abandon police work. Katie had been a successful jury consultant. Why not go back to that? And she and Martine Christensen had that wonderful website, which actually made a little money. If the women devoted themselves to it full-time, think how successful it could be.

Edie had loved her son-in-law dearly. Bill Swenson was sweet, funny, a great father. And the accident that had taken his life was a true tragedy. But that was several years ago. Now it was time for her daughter to move on.

Too bad Michael O’Neil wasn’t available; he and Katie were a perfect match (Edie couldn’t see why on earth he was with that prima donna Anne, who seemed to treat her children like Christmas decorations and cared more about her gallery than her home). Then that FBI agent at Stu’s party, Winston Kellogg, seemed pretty nice too. He reminded Edie of Bill. And then there was Brian Gunderson, the man Katie’d dated recently.

Edie never worried about her daughter’s good sense when it came to picking partners. Her problem was like the one plaguing Edie’s golf swing—the follow-through. And she knew the source. Katie’d told her about Wes, his unhappiness at his mom’s dating. Edie had been in nursing for a long time, both pediatric and adult. She’d seen how controlling children can be, how clever and manipulative, even subconsciously. Her daughter had to approach the subject. But she simply wouldn’t. Her approach was duck and cover. . . .

But it wasn’t Edie’s role to talk to the boy directly. Grandparents have the unqualified joy of children’s company, but the price for that is abdicating much of the right to parental intervention. Edie’d said her piece to Katie, who’d agreed but, apparently, ignored her completely by breaking up with Brian and—

The woman cocked her head.

A noise from outside, the backyard.

She glanced up to see if Stu had arrived. No, the carport was empty, except for her Prius. Looking out the front window she saw the police officer was still there.

Then she heard the sound again. . . . The clatter of rocks.

Edie and Stu lived off Ocean, on the long hill descending from downtown to Carmel Beach. Their backyard was a stepped series of gardens, boarded by rock walls. Walking the short path to or from the neighbor’s adjoining backyard sometimes set loose a tiny spill of gravel down the face of those walls. That’s what the noise sounded like.

She walked to the back deck and opened the door, stepped outside. She couldn’t see anyone and heard nothing else. Probably just a cat or a dog. They weren’t supposed to run free; Carmel had strict pet laws. But the town was also very animal friendly (the actress Doris Day owned a wonderful hotel here, where pets were welcome), and several cats and dogs roamed the neighborhood.

She closed the door and, hearing Stu’s car pull into the driveway, forgot all about the noise. Edie Dance walked to the refrigerator to find a snack for the children.

•    •    •

The interview with the Sleeping Doll had come to an intriguing conclusion.

Back in her office, Dance called and checked up on the girl and her aunt, both safely ensconced in the motel and protected by a 250-pound monolith of a CBI agent who carried two large weapons. They were fine, Albert Stemple reported, then added, “The girl’s nice. I like her. The aunt you can keep.”

Dance read over the notes she’d taken in the interview. Then read them again. Finally she called TJ.

“Your genie awaits, boss.”

“Bring me what we’ve got so far on Pell.”

“The whole ball of wax? Whatever that means.”

“All the wax.”

Dance was reviewing James Reynolds’s notes from the Croyton murder case when TJ arrived—only three or four minutes later, breathless. Maybe her voice had sounded more urgent than she’d realized.

She took the files he carted and spread them out until they covered her desk an inch thick. In a short time they’d accumulated an astonishing amount of material. She began riffling through the pages.

“The girl, was she helpful?”

“Yep,” the agent replied absently, staring at a particular sheet of paper.

TJ made another comment but she wasn’t paying any attention. Flipping through more reports, more pages of handwritten notes, and looking over Reynolds’s time line and his other transcriptions. Then returning to the piece of paper she held.

Finally she said, “I’ve got a computer question. You know a lot about them. Go check this out.” She circled some words on the sheet.

He glanced down. “What about it?”

“It’s fishy.”

“Not a computer term I’m familiar with. But I’m on the case, boss. We never sleep.”

•    •    •

“We’ve got a situation.”

Dance was addressing Charles Overby, Winston Kellogg and TJ. They were in Overby’s office and he was playing with a bronze golf ball mounted on a wooden stand, like a gearshift in a sports car. She wished Michael O’Neil were here.

Dance then dropped the bomb. “Rebecca Sheffield’s working with Pell.”

“What?” Overby blurted.

“It gets better. I think she was behind the whole escape.”

Her boss shook his head, the theory troubling him. He was undoubtedly wondering if he’d authorized something he shouldn’t have.

But Winston Kellogg encouraged her. “Interesting. Go on.”

“Theresa Croyton told me a few things that made me suspicious. So I went back and looked over the evidence so far. Remember that email we found in the Sea View? Supposedly Pell sent it to Jennie from prison. But look.” She showed the printout. “The email address says Capitola Correctional. But it has a ‘dot com’ extension. If it was really a Department of Corrections address it would’ve had ‘dot ca dot gov.’ ”

Kellogg grimaced. “Hell, yes. Missed that completely.”

“I just had TJ check out the address.”

The young agent explained, “The company’s a service provider in Denver. You can create your own domain, as long as the name’s not taken by somebody else. It’s an anonymous account. But we’re getting a warrant to look at the archives.”

“Anonymous? Then why do you think it was Rebecca?” Overby asked.

“Look at the email. That phrase. ‘Who could ask for anything more in a girl?’ It’s not that common. It stuck with me because it echoes a line in an old Gershwin song.”

“Why is that important?”

“Because Rebecca used the exact expression the first time I met her.”

Overby said, “Still—”

She pushed forward, not in the mood to be obstructed. “Now, let’s look at the facts. Jennie stole the Thunderbird from that restaurant in L.A. on Friday and checked into the Sea View on Saturday. Her phone and credit card records show she was in Orange County all last week. But the woman who checked out the You Mail It office near the courthouse was there on Wednesday. We faxed a warrant to Rebecca’s credit card companies. She flew from San Diego to Monterey on Tuesday, flew back on Thursday. Rented a car here.”

“Okay,” Overby allowed.

“Now, I’m guessing that in Capitola it wasn’t Jennie that Pell was talking to; it was Rebecca. He must’ve given her Jennie’s name and street and email address. Rebecca took over from there. They picked her because she lived near Rebecca, at least close enough to check her out.”

Kellogg added, “So she knows where Pell is, what he’s doing here.”

“Has to.”

Overby said, “Let’s pick her up. You can work your magic, Kathryn.”

“I want her in custody, but I need some more information before I interrogate her. I want to talk to Nagle.”

“The writer?”

She nodded. Then said to Kellogg, “Can you bring Rebecca in?”

“Sure, if you can get some backup for me.”

Overby said he’d call the MCSO and have another officer meet Kellogg outside the Point Lobos Inn. The agent in charge surprised Dance by pointing out something she hadn’t thought of: They had no reason to think Rebecca was armed, but since she’d driven from San Diego and not gone through airport security she could have a weapon with her.

Dance said, “Good, Charles.” Then, a nod at TJ. “Let’s go see Nagle.”

•    •    •

Dance and the younger agent were en route to their destination when her phone rang.

“Hello?”

Winston Kellogg said in an uncharacteristically urgent voice, “Kathryn, she’s gone.”

“Rebecca?”

“Yes.”

“Are the others okay?”

“They’re fine. Linda said Rebecca wasn’t feeling well, went to lie down. Didn’t want to be disturbed. We found her bedroom window open but her car’s still at CBI.”

“So Pell picked her up?”

“I’m guessing.”

“How long ago?”

“She went to bed an hour ago. They don’t know when she slipped out.”

If Rebecca had wanted to hurt the other women, she could’ve done it herself or snuck Pell in through the window. Dance decided they weren’t at immediate risk, especially with the guards.

“Where are you now?” she asked Kellogg.

“Going back to CBI. I think Pell and Rebecca are making a run for it. I’ll talk to Michael about getting roadblocks set up again.”

When they hung up, she called Morton Nagle.

“Hello?” he answered.

“It’s Kathryn. Listen, Rebecca’s with Pell.”

“What? He kidnapped her?”

“They’re working together. She was behind the escape.”

“No!”

“They might be headed out of town but there’s a chance you’re in danger.”

“Me?”

“Lock your doors. Don’t let anybody in. We’re on our way. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

It took them closer to ten, even with TJ’s aggressive—he called it “assertive”—driving; the roads were crowded with tourists getting an early start on the weekend. They skidded to a stop in front of the house and walked to the front door. Dance knocked. The writer answered a moment later. He glanced past her at TJ, then scanned the street. The agents stepped inside.

Nagle closed the door. His shoulders slumped.

“I’m sorry.” The writer’s voice broke. “He told me if I gave anything away on the phone, he’d kill my family. I’m so sorry.”

Daniel Pell, standing behind the door, touched the back of her head with a pistol.

Chapter 49

“It’s my friend. The cat to my mouse. With the funny name. Kathryn Dance . . .”

Nagle continued, “When you phoned, your number came up on caller ID. He made me tell him who it was. I had to say everything was fine. I didn’t want to. But my children. I—”

“It’s all right—” she began.

“Shhhhh, Mr. Writer and Ms. Interrogator. Shush.”

In the bedroom to the left, Dance could see Nagle’s family lying belly-down on the floor, their hands on top of their heads. His wife, Joan, and the children—teenage Eric and young, round Sonja. Rebecca was sitting on the bed over them, holding a knife. She gazed at Dance without a fleck of emotion.

The only reason the family weren’t dead, Dance knew, was that Pell was controlling Nagle through them.

Patterns . . .

“Come on out here, baby, lend a hand.”

Rebecca slid off the bed and joined them.

“Get their guns and phones.” Pell held the gun to Dance’s ear while Rebecca took her weapon. Then Pell told her to cuff herself.

She did.

“Not tight enough.” He squeezed the bracelets and Dance winced.

They did the same with TJ and pushed both of them down on the couch.

“Watch it,” TJ muttered.

Pell said to Dance, “Listen to me. You listening?”

“Yes.”

“Is anybody else coming?”

“I didn’t call anyone.”

“That’s not what I asked. You, being the ace interrogator, ought to know that.” The essence of calm.

“As far as I know, no. I was coming here to ask Morton some questions.”

Pell set their phones on a coffee table. “If anybody calls you, tell them that everything’s fine. You’ll be back at your headquarters in an hour or so. But you can’t talk now. We clear on that? If not, I pick one of the kiddies in there and—”

“Clear,” she said.

“Now, no more words from anybody. We’ve—”

“This is not smart,” TJ said.

No, no, Dance thought. Let him control you! With Daniel Pell you can’t be defiant.

Pell stepped up to him and, almost leisurely, touched his gun to the man’s throat. “What did I tell you?”

The young man’s flippancy was gone. “Not to say a word.”

“But you did say something. Why would you do that? What a stupid, stupid thing to do.”

He’s going to kill him, Dance thought. Please, no. “Pell, listen to me—”

“You’re talking too,” the killer said, and swung the gun toward her.

“I’m sorry,” TJ whispered.

“That’s more words.”

Pell turned to Dance. “I’ve got a few questions for you and your little friend here. But in a minute. You sit tight, enjoy the scene of domestic bliss.” Then he said to Nagle, “Keep going.”

Nagle returned to what was apparently the task Dance and TJ had interrupted: It seemed he was burning all of his notes and research material.

Pell watched the bonfire and added absently, “And if you miss something and I find it, I will cut your wife’s fingers off. Then start on your kids’. And quit crying. It’s not dignified. Have some control.”

•    •    •

Ten agonizing minutes of silence passed as Nagle found his notes and tossed them into the fire.

Dance knew that as soon as he finished, and Pell learned from her and TJ what he needed to know, they’d be dead.

Nagle’s wife was sobbing. She said, “Leave us alone, please, please, anything . . . I’ll do anything. Please . . .”

Dance glanced into the bedroom, where she lay beside Sonja and Eric. The little girl was crying pathetically.

“Quiet there, Mrs. Writer.”

Dance glanced at her watch, partly obscured by the cuffs. She imagined what her own children were doing now. The thought was too painful, though, and she forced herself to concentrate on what was happening in the room.

Was there anything she could do?

Bargain with him? But to bargain you need something of value the other person wants.

Resist? But to resist you need weapons.

“Why are you doing this?” Nagle moaned, as the last of the notes went up in flames.

“Hush there.”

Pell rose and stirred the fire with a poker to keep the pages burning. He dusted his hands off. He held up his sooty fingers. “Makes me feel at home. I’ve been fingerprinted probably fifty times in my life. I can always tell the new clerks. Their hands shake when they roll your fingers. Okay, then.” He turned to Dance. “Now, I understand from your call earlier to Mr. Writer here you figured out about Rebecca. Which is what I have to talk to you about. What do you know about us? And who else knows it? We’ve got to make some plans and we need to know what to do next. And understand this, Agent Dance, you’re not the only one who can spot liars at fifty paces. I have that gift too. You and me, we’re naturals.”

Whether she lied or not didn’t matter. They were all dead.

“Oh, and I should say that Rebecca found another address for me. The home of one Stuart Dance.”

Dance felt this news like a slap in the face. She struggled to keep from being sick. A wash of heat, scalding water, enveloped her face and chest.

“You son of a bitch,” TJ raged.

“And if you tell me the truth, your mom and pop and kiddies’ll be fine. I was right about your brood, wasn’t I? At our first get-together. And no husband. You, a poor widow, Rebecca tells me. Sorry about that. Anyway, I’ll bet the kiddies’re with the grandfolks right now.”

At that moment Kathryn Dance came to a decision.

It was a gamble, and under other circumstances it would have been a difficult, if not impossible, choice. Now, although the consequences would probably be tragic, one way or the other, there was no option.

No weapons—except words, and her intuition. A to B to X . . .

They would have to do.

Dance shifted so she was facing Pell directly. “Aren’t you curious why we’re here?”

“That’s a question. I didn’t want a question. I wanted an answer.”

Make sure he remains in charge—Daniel Pell’s trademark. “Please, let me go on. I am answering your question. Please, let me.”

Pell looked her over with a frown. He didn’t object.

“Now think about it. Why would we come here in such a big hurry?”

Normally she would have used a subject’s first name. But doing so could be interpreted as an attempt to dominate, and Daniel Pell needed to know he was in control.

He grimaced impatiently. “Get to the point.”

Rebecca scowled. “She’s stalling. Let’s go, baby.”

Dance said, “Because I had to warn Morton—”

Rebecca whispered, “Let’s just finish up and get going. Jesus, we’re wasting—”

“Quiet, lovely.” Pell turned his bright blue eyes back to Dance, just as he’d done in Salinas during their interview on Monday. It seemed like years ago. “Yeah, you wanted to warn him about me. So?”

“No. I wanted to warn him about Rebecca.”

“What’re you talking about?”

Dance held Pell’s eyes as she said, “I wanted to warn him that she was going to use you to kill him. Just like she used you at William Croyton’s house eight years ago.”

Chapter 50

Dance saw the flicker in Daniel Pell’s otherworldly eyes.

She’d touched something close to the god of control.

She used you. . . .

“This is such bullshit,” Rebecca snapped.

“Probably,” Pell said.

Dance noted the conditional word, not an absolute one. The agent eased forward. We believe that those who are physically closer to us tell the truth more than those leaning away. “She set you up, Daniel. And you want to know why? To kill William Croyton’s wife.”

He was shaking his head, but he was listening to every word.

“Rebecca was Croyton’s lover. And when his wife wouldn’t give him a divorce she decided to use you and Jimmy Newberg to kill her.”

Rebecca laughed harshly.

Dance said, “You remember the Sleeping Doll, Daniel? Theresa Croyton?”

Now she was using his first name. She’d established a bond—by suggesting a common enemy.

He said nothing. His eyes flicked to Rebecca, then back to Dance, who continued, “I just talked to the girl.”

Rebecca was shocked. “You what?”

“We had a long conversation. It was quite revealing.”

Rebecca tried to recover. “Daniel, she didn’t talk to her at all. She’s bluffing to save her ass.”

But Dance asked, “Was Jeopardy! on the TV in the den the night you and Newberg broke into the Croytons’? She told me it was. Who else would have known that?”

What is Quebec? . . .

The killer blinked. Dance saw she had his complete attention. “Theresa told me that her father was having affairs. He’d drop the children off at the Santa Cruz boardwalk and then meet his lovers there. One night Croyton spotted Rebecca doing sketches and picked her up. They started an affair. She wanted him to get a divorce but he wouldn’t, or couldn’t, because of his wife. So Rebecca decided to kill her.”

“Oh, this is ridiculous,” Rebecca raged. “She doesn’t know any of this.”

But Dance could see it was posed. The woman was flushed and her hands and feet were flashing subtle but clear affect displays from the stress. There was now no doubt that Dance was on to something.

Dance looked at him with steady eyes. “The boardwalk . . . Rebecca would’ve heard about you there, wouldn’t she, Daniel? That’s where the Family went to sell things at flea markets and to steal and shoplift. Caused kind of a stir, this cult of criminals. Gypsies, they called you. It made the news. She needed a fall guy, a killer. Linda told me you two met on the boardwalk. You thought you seduced her? No, it was the other way around.”

Rebecca’s voice remained calm. “Shut up! She’s lying, Dan—”

“Quiet!” Pell snapped.

“She joined your clan when? Not long before the Croyton murders. A few months?” Dance pressed forward relentlessly. “Rebecca talked her way into the Family. Didn’t it seem a little sudden? Didn’t you wonder why? She wasn’t like the others. Linda and Samantha and Jimmy, they were children. They’d do what you wanted. But Rebecca was different. Independent, aggressive.”

Dance recalled Winston Kellogg’s comment about cult leaders.

. . . women can be just as effective and as ruthless as men. And often they’re more devious. . . .

“Once she was in the Family she saw right away that she could use Jimmy Newberg too. She told him that Croyton had something valuable in his house and he suggested that the two of you break in and steal it. Right?”

Dance saw that she was. “But Rebecca had made other plans with Jimmy. Once you were in the Croytons’ house, he was supposed to kill Croyton’s wife, then kill you. With you gone, he and Rebecca could be in charge. Of course, her idea was to turn Jimmy in after the killings—or maybe even kill him herself. William Croyton would go through a suitable period of mourning and he’d marry her.”

“Honey, no. This is—”

Pell lunged forward and grabbed Rebecca’s short hair, pulled her close. “Don’t say another word. Let her talk!”

Moaning in pain, cringing, she slipped to the floor.

With Pell’s attention elsewhere, Dance caught TJ’s eye. He nodded slowly.

She continued, “Rebecca thought only Croyton’s wife would be home. But the whole family was there because Theresa said she was sick. Whatever happened that night—only you know that, Daniel—whatever happened, everybody ended up dead.

“And when you called the Family to tell them what happened, Rebecca did the only thing she could to save herself: She turned you in. She’s the one who made the call that got you arrested.”

“That’s bullshit,” Rebecca said. “I’m the one who got him out of jail now!”

Dance laughed coldly. She said to Pell, “Because she needed to use you again, Daniel. To kill Morton. A few months ago she got a call from him and he tells her about the book The Sleeping Doll, how he’s going to write about the Croytons—their life before the murders and Theresa’s life afterward. She knows he’d learn about the affairs Croyton had. It was just a matter of time before somebody put the pieces together—that she was behind a plot to murder Croyton’s wife.

“So Rebecca came up with the plan to break you out of Capitola. . . . One thing I don’t know,” she added, “is what she said to you, Daniel, to convince you to murder him.” She glanced angrily at Rebecca, as if she were offended by what the woman had done to her good friend Daniel Pell. “So what lies did you tell him?”

Pell shouted at Rebecca, “What you told me—is it true or not?” But before she could speak, Pell grabbed Nagle, who cringed. “That book you’re writing! What were you going to say about me?”

“It wasn’t about you. It was about Theresa and the Croytons and the girls in the Family. That’s all. It was about your victims, not you.”

Pell pushed the man to the floor. “No, no! You were going to write about my land!”

“Land?”

“Yes!”

“What’re you talking about?”

“My land, my mountaintop. You found out where it was, you were going to write about it in your book!”

Ah, Dance finally understood. Pell’s precious mountaintop. Rebecca had convinced him that the only way to keep it secret was to kill Morton Nagle and destroy the notes.

“I don’t know anything about that, I swear.”

Pell looked him over closely. He believed the writer, Dance could see.

“As soon as you killed Nagle and his family, Daniel, you know what was coming next, don’t you? Rebecca was going to murder you. Claim you kidnapped her from the inn.”

Dance gave a sad laugh. “Daniel, you thought all along you were in charge. But, no, she was Svengali. She was the Pied Piper.”

Pell blinked at her words, then rose and charged toward Rebecca, knocking a table over as he lifted the gun.

The woman cringed but suddenly she too leapt forward, swinging the knife madly, slicing into Pell’s arm, grabbing at his gun. The weapon went off, the bullet digging a chunk of rosy brick out of the fireplace.

Instantly Dance and TJ were on their feet.

The young agent kicked Rebecca hard in the ribs and grabbed Pell’s gun hand. They wrestled for control of the weapon, sliding to the floor.

“Call nine-one-one,” Dance shouted to Nagle, who scrabbled for a phone.

She started for the guns on the table, recalling: Check your backdrop, aim, squeeze in bursts, count the rounds, at twelve drop the clip, reload. Check your backdrop . . .

Screaming from Nagle’s wife, wailing from his daughter.

“Kathryn,” TJ shouted breathlessly. She saw that Pell was twisting the gun toward her.

It fired.

The bullet streaked past her.

TJ was young and strong, but his wrists were still cuffed and Pell had desperation and adrenaline coursing through him. With his free hand he pounded at TJ’s neck and head. Finally the killer broke away, holding the gun, as the young agent rolled desperately for cover under a table.

Dance struggled forward but knew she’d never make it to the weapons in time. TJ was dead. . . .

Then a huge explosion.

Another.

Dance dropped to her knees and looked behind her.

Morton Nagle had picked up one of their guns and was firing the weapon toward Pell. Clearly unfamiliar with guns, he jerked the trigger and the bullets were wide. Still he stood his ground and kept firing. “You son of a bitch!”

Crouching, hands up in a futile effort to protect himself, Pell cringed, hesitated a moment, fired one round into Rebecca’s belly and then flung the door open and ran outside.

Dance took the gun from Nagle, grabbed TJ’s as well and shoved it into his cuffed hands.

The agents got to the half-open door just as a round slammed into the jamb, peppering them with splinters. They jumped back, crouching. She fished the cuff keys from her jacket and undid the bracelets. TJ did the same.

Cautiously they glanced outside at the empty street. A moment later they heard the screech of an accelerating car.

Calling back to Nagle, “Keep Rebecca alive! We need her!” Dance ran to her car and grabbed the microphone off the dash. It slipped out of her shaking hands. She took a breath, controlled the tremors and called the Monterey Sheriff’s Office.

Chapter 51

An angry man is a man out of control.

But Daniel Pell couldn’t staunch the rage as he sped away from Monterey, replaying what had just happened. Kathryn Dance’s voice, Rebecca’s face.

Replaying the events of eight years ago too.

Jimmy Newberg, the goddamn computer freak, the doper, had said that he had inside information about William Croyton—thanks to a programmer who’d been fired six months earlier. He’d managed to find out Croyton’s alarm code and had a key to the back door (though Pell now knew where he’d gotten those—from Rebecca, of course). Jimmy’d said too that the eccentric Croyton kept huge amounts of cash in the house.

Pell would never rob a bank or check-cashing operation, nothing big. But, still, he needed money to expand the Family and to move to his mountaintop. And here was a chance for a once-in-a-lifetime break-in. No one was going to be home, Jimmy said, so there’d be no risk of injuries. They’d walk away with a hundred thousand dollars, and Croyton would make a routine call to the police and the insurance company, then forget the matter.

Just what Kathryn Dance had figured.

The two men had snuck through the backyard and made their way to the house through the sumptuous landscaping. Pell had seen the lights on, but Jimmy told him they were on a timer for security. They slipped into the house through a side utility door.

But something wasn’t right. The alarm was off. Pell turned to Jimmy to tell him that somebody must be home after all, but the young man was already hurrying into the kitchen.

Walking right up to the middle-aged woman cooking dinner, her back to him. No! Pell remembered thinking in shock. What was he doing?

Murdering her, it turned out.

Using a paper towel, Jimmy pulled a steak knife from his pocket—one from the Family’s house, with Pell’s fingerprints on it, he realized—and, gripping the woman around the mouth, stabbed her deeply. She slumped to the floor.

Enraged, Pell whispered, “What the hell are you doing?”

Newberg turned and hesitated, but his face was telegraphing what was coming. When he lunged, Pell was already leaping aside. He just managed to dodge the vicious blade. Pell swept up a frying pan, smashed it into Newberg’s head. He crashed to the floor, and, with a butcher knife from the counter, Pell killed him.

A moment later William Croyton hurried into the kitchen, hearing the noise of the struggle. His two older children were behind him, screaming as they stared at their mother’s body. Pell pulled his gun out and forced the hysterical family into the pantry. He finally calmed Croyton down enough to ask about the money, which the businessman said was in the desk in the ground-floor office.

Daniel Pell had found himself looking at the sobbing, terrified family as if he were looking at weeds in a garden or crows or insects. He’d had no intention of killing anyone that night, but to stay in control of his life he had no choice. In two minutes they were all dead; he used the knife so the neighbors would hear no gunshots.

Pell had then wiped what fingerprints he could, taken Jimmy’s steak knife and all his ID, then run to the office, where he found, to his shock, that, yes, there was money in the desk, but only a thousand dollars. A fast search of the master bedroom downstairs revealed only pocket change and costume jewelry. He never even got upstairs, where that little girl was in bed, asleep. (He was now glad she’d been up there; ironically, if he’d killed her then, he never would’ve learned about Rebecca’s betrayal.)

And, yes, to the sound track of Jeopardy! he’d run back to the kitchen, where he pocketed the dead man’s wallet and his wife’s diamond cocktail ring.

Then outside, to his car. And only a mile later he was pulled over by the police.

Rebecca . . .

Thinking back to meeting her for the first time—the “coincidental” meeting that she’d apparently engineered near the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

Pell remembered how much he loved the boardwalk, all the rides. Amusement parks fascinated him, people giving up complete control to somebody else—either risking harm on the roller coasters and parachute drops or becoming mindless laboratory rats on rides like the boardwalk’s famous hundred-year-old Looff carousel, round and round. . . .

Remembered too Rebecca eight years ago, near that very same merry-go-round, gesturing him over.

“Hey, how’d you like me to do your portrait?”

“I guess. How much?”

“You’ll be able to afford it. Take a seat.”

And then after five minutes, with only the basic features of his face sketched in, she’d lowered the charcoal stick, looked him over and asked, challenging, if there was someplace private to go. They’d walked to the van, Linda Whitfield watching them with a solemn, jealous face. Pell hardly noticed her.

And a few minutes later, after kissing frantically, his hands all over her, she’d eased back.

“Wait . . .”

What? he’d wondered. Clap, AIDS?

Breathless, she’d said, “I . . . have to say something.” She’d paused, looking down.

“Go on.”

“You might not like this, and if not, okay, we’ll just call it quits and you get a picture for free. But I feel this connection with you, even after just a little while, and I’ve got to say . . .”

“Tell me.”

“When it comes to sex, I don’t really enjoy it . . . unless you hurt me. I mean, really hurt me. A lot of men don’t like that. And it’s okay . . .”

His response was to roll her over on her taut little belly.

And pull off his belt.

He gave a grim laugh now. It was all bullshit, he realized. Somehow in that ten minutes on the beach and five minutes in the van she’d tipped to his fantasy and played it for all it was worth.

Svengali and Trilby . . .

He now continued driving until his right arm began to throb with pain from Rebecca’s knife slash at Nagle’s house. He pulled over, opened his shirt and looked at it. Not terrible—the bleeding was slowing. But, damn, it hurt.

Nothing like the slash of her betrayal, though.

He was at the edge of the quiet portion of town and would have to continue through populated areas, where the police would be looking for him everywhere.

He made a U-turn and drove through the streets until he found an Infiniti, pausing at a stoplight ahead of him. Only one person inside. No other cars were around. Pell slowed but didn’t hit the brakes until he was right on top of the luxury car. The bumpers tapped with a resonant thud. The Infiniti rolled forward a few feet. The driver glared in his rearview mirror and got out.

Pell, shaking his head, climbed out too. He stood, studying the damage.

“Weren’t you looking?” The driver of the Infiniti was a middle-aged Latino man. “I just bought it last month.” He glanced up from the cars and frowned at the blood on Pell’s arm. “Are you hurt?”

His eyes followed the stain down to Pell’s hand, where he saw the gun.

But by then it was too late.

Chapter 52

The first thing Kathryn Dance had done at Nagle’s house—while TJ called in the escape—was to phone the deputy guarding her parents and children and have him take them, under guard, to CBI headquarters. She doubted Pell would waste time at this point carrying out his threats, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.

She now asked the writer and his wife if Pell had said anything about where he might be fleeing, especially his mountaintop. Nagle had been honest with Pell; he’d never heard anything about an enclave in the wilderness. He, his wife and children could add nothing more. Rebecca was badly wounded and unconscious. O’Neil had sent a deputy with her in the ambulance. The moment she was able to talk, he’d call the detective.

Dance now joined Kellogg and O’Neil, who stood nearby, heads bowed, as they discussed the case. Whatever personal reservations O’Neil had about the FBI man, and vice versa, you couldn’t tell it from their posture and gesturing. They were efficiently and quickly coordinating roadblocks and planning a search strategy.

O’Neil took a phone call. He frowned. “Okay, sure. Call Watsonville. . . . I’ll handle it.” He hung up and announced, “Got a lead. Carjacking in Marina. Man fitting Pell’s description—and bleeding—snatched a black Infiniti. Had a gun.” He added grimly, “Witness said he heard a gunshot, and when he looked, Pell was closing the trunk.”

Dance closed her eyes and sighed in disgust. Yet another death.

O’Neil said, “There’s no way he’s staying on the Peninsula anymore. He jacked the car in Marina so he’s headed north. Probably aiming for the One-oh-one.” He climbed into his car. “I’ll set up a command post in Gilroy. And Watsonville, in case he sticks to the One.”

She watched him drive off.

“Let’s get up there too,” Kellogg said, turning to his car.

Following him, Dance heard her phone ring. She took the call. It was from James Reynolds. She briefed him on what had just happened, and then the former prosecutor said he’d been through the files from the Croyton murders. He’d found something that might be helpful. Did Dance have a minute now?

“You bet.”

•    •    •

Sam and Linda huddled together, watching the news reports about yet another attempted murder by Daniel Pell: the writer, Nagle. Rebecca, described as an accomplice of Pell’s, had been badly wounded. And Pell had once again escaped. He was in a stolen car, most likely heading north, the owner of the car another victim.

“Oh, my,” Linda whispered.

“Rebecca was with him all along.” Sam stared at the TV screen, her face a mask of shock. “But who shot her? The police? Daniel?”

Linda closed her eyes momentarily. Sam didn’t know if this was a prayer or a reaction to the exhaustion from the ordeal they’d been through in the past few days. Crosses to bear, Sam couldn’t help but think. Which she didn’t tell to her Christian friend.

Another newscaster devoted a few minutes to describing the woman who’d been shot, Rebecca Sheffield, founder of Women’s Initiatives in San Diego, one of the women in the Family eight years ago. She mentioned that Sheffield had been born in Southern California. Her father had died when she was six and she’d been raised by her mother, who had never remarried.

“Six years old?” Linda muttered.

Sam blinked. “She lied. None of that stuff with her father ever happened. Oh, boy, were we taken in.”

“This is all way too much for me. I’m packing.”

“Linda, wait.”

“I don’t want to talk about anything, Sam. I’ve had it.”

“Just let me say one thing.”

“You’ve said plenty.”

“I don’t think you were really listening.”

“And I wouldn’t be listening if you said it again.” She headed toward her bedroom.

Sam jumped when the phone rang. It was Kathryn Dance.

“Oh, we just heard—”

But the agent said, “Listen to me, Sam. I don’t think he’s headed north. I think he’s coming for you.”

“What?”

“I just heard from James Reynolds. He found a reference to Alison in his old case files. It seems that during his interrogation after the Croyton deaths, Pell assaulted him. Reynolds was questioning him about the incident in Redding, the Charles Pickering murder, and was talking about Alison, his girlfriend you mentioned. Pell went crazy and attacked him, or tried to—the same thing that happened to me in Salinas—because he was getting close to something important.

“James thinks he killed Pickering because the man knew about Pell’s mountaintop. And that’s why he was trying to find Alison. She’d know about it too.”

“But why hurt us?”

“Because Pell told you about Alison. Maybe you wouldn’t make the connection between her and his property, maybe you wouldn’t even remember. But that place is so important to him—his kingdom—that he’s willing to murder anybody who’s a risk to it. That means you. Both of you.”

“Linda, come here!”

The woman appeared in the doorway, frowning angrily.

Dance continued, “I’ve just radioed the officers outside. They’re going to take you to CBI headquarters. Agent Kellogg and I are on our way to the inn now. We’re going to wait in the cabin and see if Pell shows up.”

Breathlessly Sam said to Linda, “Kathryn thinks Daniel might be coming this way.”

“No!” The curtains were drawn, but the women instinctively looked toward the windows. Then Sam glanced toward Rebecca’s bedroom. Had she remembered to lock the window after finding that the woman had climbed out? Yes, Sam recalled, she had.

There was a knock on the door. “Ladies, it’s Deputy Larkin.”

Sam glanced at Linda. They froze. Then Linda slowly walked to the peephole and looked out. She nodded and opened the door. The MCSO deputy stepped inside. “I’ve been asked to take you to CBI. Just leave everything and come with me.” The other deputy was outside, looking around the parking lot.

Sam said into the phone, “It’s the deputy, Kathryn. We’re leaving now.”

They hung up.

Samantha grabbed her purse. “Let’s go.” Her voice was shaking.

The deputy, hand near his pistol, nodded them forward.

At that moment a bullet struck him in the side of his head. Another shot, and the second deputy grabbed his chest, slumping to the ground, crying out. A third bullet struck him as well. The first officer crawled toward his car and collapsed on the sidewalk.

Linda gasped. “No, no!”

Footsteps were running on the pavement. Daniel Pell was sprinting toward the cabin.

Sam was paralyzed.

Then she leapt forward and slammed the door, managed to get the chain on and step aside just as another bullet snapped through the wood. She lunged for the phone.

Daniel Pell gave two solid kicks. The second one cracked the lock on the door, though the chain held. It opened only a few inches.

“Rebecca’s room!” Sam cried. She ran to Linda and grabbed her arm but the woman stood rooted in the doorway.

Sam assumed she was frozen in panic.

But her face didn’t look frightened at all.

She pulled away from Sam. “Daniel,” she called.

“What are you doing?” Sam screamed. “Come on!”

Pell kicked the door again, but the chain continued to hold. Sam dragged Linda a step or two closer to Rebecca’s bedroom but she pulled away. “Daniel,” Linda repeated. “Please, listen to me. It’s not too late. You can give yourself up. We’ll get you a lawyer. I’ll make sure you’re—”

Pell shot her.

Simply lifted the gun, aimed through the gap in the door and shot Linda in the abdomen as casually as if he were swatting a fly. He tried to shoot again but Sam dragged her into the bedroom. Pell kicked the door once more. This time it crashed open, smashing into the wall and shattering a picture of a seashore.

Sam closed and locked Rebecca’s door. She whispered fiercely, “We’re going outside, now! We can’t wait here.”

Pell tested the bedroom knob. Kicked the panel. But this door opened outward and it now held firmly against his blows.

Feeling a horrifying tickle on her back, sure that at any moment he’d shoot through the door and hit her by chance, Sam helped Linda to the windowsill, pushed her out, then tumbled after her onto the damp, fragrant earth. Linda was whimpering in pain and clutching her side.

Sam helped her up and, holding her arm in a bruising grip, guided her, jogging, toward Point Lobos State Park.

“He shot me,” Linda moaned, still astonished. “It hurts. Look . . . Wait, where are we going?”

Sam ignored her. She was thinking only of getting as far away as she could from the cabin. As for their destination, Sam couldn’t say. All she could see ahead of them was acres of trees, formations of harsh rock and, at the end of the world, the explosive, gray ocean.

Chapter 53

“No,” Kathryn Dance gasped. “No . . .”

Win Kellogg skidded the car to a stop beside the two deputies, sprawled on the sidewalk in front of the cabin.

“See how they are,” Kellogg told her and pulled out his cell phone to call for backup.

Gun in her sweating hand, Dance knelt beside the deputy, saw he was dead, his blood a huge stain, slightly darker than the dark asphalt that was his deathbed. The other officer as well. She glanced up and mouthed, “They’re gone.”

Kellogg folded up his phone and joined her.

Though they’d had no tactical training together, they approached the cabin like seasoned partners, making sure they offered no easy target and checking out the half-open door and the windows. “I’m going in,” Kellogg said.

Dance nodded.

“Just back me up. Keep an eye on the doorways inside. Scan. Constantly scan them. He’ll lead with the gun. Look for metal. And if there’re bodies inside, ignore them until the place is clear.” He touched her arm. “That’s important. Okay? Ignore them even if they’re screaming for help. We can’t do anything for anyone if we’re wounded. Or dead.”

“Got it.”

“Ready?”

No, not the least bit. But she nodded. He squeezed her shoulder. Then took several deep breaths and pushed through the doorway fast, weapon up, swinging it back and forth, covering the inside of the cabin.

Dance was right behind him, remembering to target the doors—and to raise her muzzle when he passed in front of her.

Scan, scan, scan . . .

She glanced behind them from time to time, checking out the open doorway, thinking Pell could easily have circled around and be waiting for them.

Then Kellogg called, “Clear.”

And inside, thank God, no bodies. Kellogg, though, pointed out bloodstains, fresh ones on the sill of an open window in the bedroom Rebecca had been using. Dance noticed some on the carpet too.

She looked outside, saw more blood and footprints in the dirt beneath it. She told Kellogg this and added, “Think we have to assume they got away and he’s after them.”

The FBI agent said, “I’ll go. Why don’t you wait here for the backup?”

“No,” she said automatically; there was no debate. “The reunion was my idea. And I’m not letting them die. I owe them that.”

He hesitated. “All right.”

They ran to the back door. Inhaling deeply, she flung it open; with Kellogg behind her, Dance sprinted outside, expecting at any moment to hear the crack of a gunshot and feel the numbing slap of a bullet.

•    •    •

He hurt me.

My Daniel hurt me.

Why?

The pain in Linda’s heart was nearly as bad as the pain in her side. The good Christian within her had forgiven Daniel for the past. She was ready to forgive him for the present.

Yet he’d shot me.

She wanted to lie down. Let Jesus cloak them, let Jesus save them. She whispered this to Sam, but maybe she didn’t. Maybe it was in her imagination.

Samantha said nothing. She kept them jogging, Linda in agony, along the twisty paths of the beautiful yet stern park.

Paul, Harry, Lisa . . . the names of the foster children reeled through her mind.

No, that was last year. They were gone now. She had others now.

What were their names?

Why don’t I have a family?

Because God our Father has another plan for me, that’s why.

Because Samantha betrayed me.

Mad thoughts, rolling through her mind like the nearby sea cycled over the bony rocks.

“It hurts.”

“Keep going,” was Sam’s whisper. “Kathryn and that FBI agent’ll be here any minute.”

“He shot me. Daniel shot me.”

Her vision crinkled. She was going to faint. Then what’ll the Mouse do? Lug my 162 pounds over her shoulder?

No, she’ll betray me like she did before.

Samantha, my Judas.

Through the sound of the troubled waves, the wind hissing through the slippery pines and cypress, Linda heard Daniel Pell behind them. The snap of a branch occasionally, a rustle of leaves. They hurried on. Until the root of a scrub oak caught her foot and she went down hard, her wound burning with pain. She screamed.

“Shhhhh.”

“It hurts.”

Sam’s voice, shaking with fear. “Come on, get up, Linda. Please!”

“I can’t.”

More footfalls. He was closer now.

But then it occurred to Linda that maybe the sounds were the police. Kathryn and that cute FBI agent.

She winced in agony as she turned to look.

But, no, it wasn’t the police. She could see, fifty feet away, Daniel Pell. He spotted them. He slowed, caught his breath and continued forward.

Linda turned to Samantha.

But the woman was no longer there.

Sam had left her yet again, just like she’d done years ago.

Abandoned her to those terrible nights in Daniel Pell’s bedroom.

Abandoned then, abandoned now.

Chapter 54

“My lovely, my Linda.”

He approached slowly.

She winced at the pain. “Daniel, listen to me. It’s not too late. God will forgive you. Turn yourself in.”

He laughed, as if this were a joke of some sort. “God,” he repeated. “God forgives me. . . . Rebecca told me you’d gone religious.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

“Where’s Sam?”

“Please! You don’t need to do this. You can change.”

“Change? Oh, Linda, people don’t change. Never, never, never. Why, you’re still the same person you were when I found you, all red-eyed and lumpy, under that tree in Golden Gate Park, a runaway.”

Linda felt her vision turning to black sand and yellow lights. The pain ebbed as she nearly fainted. When she floated back to the surface, he was leaning forward with his knife. “I’m sorry, baby. I’ve got to do it this way.” An absurd but genuine apology. “But I’ll be fast. I know what I’m doing. You won’t feel much.”

“Our Father . . .”

He pushed her head to the side so that her neck was exposed. She tried to resist but she couldn’t. The fog was burned away completely now and as he moved the blade toward her throat, it flashed with a red glint from the low sun.

“Who art in heaven. Hallowed be—”

And then a tree fell.

Or an avalanche of rock crashed onto the path.

Or a flock of gulls, screaming in rage, landed on him.

Daniel Pell grunted and slammed into the rocky ground.

Samantha McCoy leapt off the killer, climbed to her feet and, hysterical, swung the solid tree branch onto his head and arms. Pell seemed astonished to see his little Mouse attacking him, the woman who scurried off to do everything he told her, who never told him no.

Except once . . .

Daniel slashed at her with the knife but she was too fast for him. He grabbed for the gun, which had fallen to the trail. But the rough branch connected hard again and again, bouncing off his head, tearing his ear. He wailed in pain. “Goddamn.” He struggled to his feet. Lashing out with his fist, he caught her in the knee with a solid blow and she dropped hard.

Daniel dove for the gun, grabbed it. He scrabbled back, rose to his feet once more and swung the pistol muzzle her way. But Samantha rolled to her feet and struck with the branch again, two-handed. It connected with his shoulder. He stepped back, flinching.

Two words from the past came back to Linda, seeing Sam fight. What Daniel used to say when he was proud of someone in the Family: “You held fast, lovely.”

Hold fast . . .

Samantha lunged again, swinging the branch.

But now Daniel had a solid stance. He managed to catch the branch with his left hand. For a moment they stared at each other, three feet apart, the wooden stick connecting them like a live wire. Daniel gave a sad smile and lifted the gun.

“No,” Linda croaked.

Samantha gave a smile too. And she pushed toward him, hard, and let go of the branch. Daniel stepped backward—into the air. He’d been standing on the edge of a cliff, twenty feet above another nature trail.

He cried out, fell backward and tumbled down the rough rock face.

Whether he survived or not, Linda didn’t know. Not at first. But then she supposed he must have. Samantha glanced down with a grimace, helped Linda to her feet. “We’ve got to go. Now.” And led her into the dense woods.

•    •    •

Exhausted, in agony, Samantha McCoy struggled to keep Linda upright.

The woman was pale, but the bleeding wasn’t bad. The wound would be excruciating but she could at least walk.

A whisper.

“What?”

“Thought you left me.”

“No way. But he had the gun—I had to trick him.”

“He’s going to kill us.” Linda still sounded amazed.

“No, he’s not. Don’t talk. We have to hide.”

“I can’t go on.”

“Down by the water, the beach, there’re caves. We can hide in one. Until the police get here. Kathryn’s on her way. They’ll come after us.”

“No, I can’t. It’s miles.”

“It’s not that far. We can make it.”

They continued for another fifty feet, then Sam felt Linda start to falter.

“No, no . . . I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Sam found some reserve of strength and managed to get Linda another twenty feet. But then she collapsed—at the worst possible place, a clearing visible for a hundred yards from all around. She expected Pell to appear at any moment. He could easily pick them off.

A shallow trough in the rocks was nearby; it would hide them well enough.

Whispers floating from Linda’s mouth.

“What?” Sam asked.

She leaned closer. Linda was speaking to Jesus, not her.

“Come on, we’ve got to go.”

“No, no, you go on. Please. I mean it. . . . You don’t need to make up for what happened. You just saved my life a minute ago. We’re even. I forgive you for what happened back in Seaside. I—”

“Not now, Linda!” Sam snapped.

The wounded woman tried to rise but then collapsed. “I can’t.”

“You have to.”

“Jesus’ll take care of me. You go on.”

“Come on!”

Linda closed her eyes and began to whisper a prayer.

“You are not going to die here! Stand up!”

She took a deep breath, nodded and, with Sam’s help, climbed to her feet. Together they staggered off the path, stumbling through brush and over roots as they made their way to the shallow ravine.

They were on a promontory about fifty feet above the ocean. The crashing of the surf was nearly constant, a jet engine, not a pulse. Deafening too.

The low sunlight hit them full on in a blinding, orange wash. Sam squinted and made out the ravine, very close now. They’d lie down in it, pull brush and leaves over themselves.

“You’re doing fine. A few more feet.”

Well, twenty.

But then they closed the distance to ten.

And finally they reached their sanctuary. It was deeper than Sam had thought and would be perfect cover.

She began to ease Linda into it.

Suddenly, with the sound of crackling underbrush, a figure pushed out of the woods, coming right at them.

“No,” Sam cried. Letting Linda slump toward the ground, she grabbed a small rock, a pathetic weapon.

Then, gasping, she barked a hysterical laugh.

Kathryn Dance, crouching, whispered, “Where is he?”

Her heart slamming, Sam mouthed, “I don’t know.” Then repeated the words louder. “We saw him about fifty yards back that way. He’s hurt. But I saw him walking.”

“He’s armed?”

A nod. “A gun. And a knife.”

Dance scanned the area around them, squinting into the sun. She then assessed Linda’s condition. “Get her down there.” Nodding at the ravine. “Press something on the wound.”

Together they eased the woman into the depression.

“Please, stay with us,” Sam whispered.

“Don’t worry,” Dance said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Chapter 55

Winston Kellogg was somewhere to the south of them.

After they’d left the Point Lobos Inn, they’d lost track of the footprints and blood near a fork in the nature trails. Arbitrarily Dance had gone right, Kellogg left.

She’d moved silently through the brush—staying off the trail—until she saw motion by the edge of a cliff. She’d identified the women and approached them quickly.

Now, she called the FBI agent from her mobile phone.

“Win, I’ve got Sam and Linda.”

“Where are you?”

“We’re about a hundred yards from where we split up. I went due west. We’re almost to the cliff. There’s a round rock near us, about twenty feet high.”

“Do they know where Pell is?”

“He was near here. Below us and to our left about fifty yards. And he’s still armed. Pistol and knife.”

Then she tensed, looking down, saw a man’s form on the sand. “Win, where are you? Are you on the beach?”

“No. I’m on a path. The beach is below me, maybe two, three hundred feet away.”

“Okay, he’s there! You see that small island? Seals all over it. And gulls.”

“Got it.”

“The beach in front of that.”

“I can’t see it from here. But I’m moving that way.”

“No, Win. There’s no cover for your approach. We need tactical. Wait.”

“We don’t have time. He’s gotten away too many times already. I’m not letting it happen again.”

The gunslinger attitude . . .

It bothered her a lot. Suddenly she really didn’t want anything to happen to Winston Kellogg.

. . . afterward. How does that sound? . . .

“Just . . . be careful. I lost sight of him. He was on the beach, but he’s in the rocks now. There’d be perfect firing positions from there. He can cover all the approaches.”

Dance stood up, shielding her eyes as she scanned the beach. Where is he?

She found out a second later.

A bullet slammed into the rocks not far from her, and then she heard the crack of Pell’s pistol.

Samantha screamed and Dance dropped to cover in the recess, nicking her skin, furious that she’d presented a target.

“Kathryn,” Kellogg called on the radio, “are you firing?”

“No, that was Pell.”

“You okay?”

“We’re fine.”

“Where did it come from?”

“I couldn’t see. Had to be the rocks near the beach.”

“You stay down. He’s got your position now.”

She asked Samantha, “Does he know the park?”

“The Family spent a lot of time here. He knows it pretty good, I’d guess.”

“Win, Pell knows Point Lobos. You could walk right into a trap. Really, why don’t you wait?

“Hold on.” Kellogg’s voice was a quiet rasp. “I think I see something. I’ll call you back.”

“Wait. . . . Win. Are you there?”

She changed position, moving some distance away so Pell wouldn’t be looking for her. She glanced out fast between two rocks. Couldn’t see a thing. Then she noticed Winston Kellogg making his way toward the beach. Against the massive rocks, gnarled trees, the expanse of ocean, he seemed so fragile.

Please . . . Dance sent him a silent message to stop, to wait.

But, of course, he kept on moving, her tacit plea as ineffectual as, she reflected, his would have been with her.

•    •    •

Daniel Pell knew more cops were on their way.

But he was confident. He knew this area perfectly. He’d robbed plenty of tourists in Point Lobos—many of them stupid to the point of being co-conspirators. They’d leave their valuables in their cars and at the picnic grounds, never thinking that anybody would conceive of robbing fellow humans in such a spiritual setting.

He and the Family had also spent plenty of time just relaxing here, camping out on the way back from Big Sur when they didn’t feel like making the drive up to Seaside. He knew routes that would get him to the highway, or to the private residences nearby, invisible routes. He’d steal another car, head east into the back roads of the Central Valley, through Hollister, and work his way north.

To the mountaintop.

But now he had to deal with the immediate pursuers. There were just two or three, he believed. He hadn’t seen them clearly. They must’ve stopped at the cabin, seen the dead deputies, then pursued him on their own. And it seemed that only one was actually nearby.

He closed his eyes momentarily against the pain. He pressed the stab wound, which had opened in the fall down the rocks. His ear was throbbing from Sam’s blow.

Mouse . . .

He rested his head and shoulder against a cold, wet rock. It seemed to lessen the agony.

He wondered if one of the pursuers was Kathryn Dance. If so, he suspected that, no, it wasn’t a coincidence she’d shown up at the cabin. She’d have guessed that he had stolen the Infiniti not to go north but to head here.

Well, one way or the other, she wasn’t going to be a threat much longer.

But how to handle the immediate situation?

The cop pursuing him was getting close. There were only two approaches to where he was at the moment. Whoever came after him would either have to climb down a twenty-foot-high rock face, completely exposed to Pell below, or—taking the path—would turn a sharp corner from the beach and be a perfect target.

Pell knew that only a tactical officer would try the rock face and that his pursuer probably wouldn’t be decked out in rappelling gear. They’d have to come from the beach. He hunkered down behind a cluster of rocks, hidden from above and from the beach, and waited for the officer to get close, resting the gun on a boulder.

Hewouldn’t shoot to kill. He’d wound. Maybe in the knee. And then, when he was down, Pell would blind him with the knife. He’d leave the radio nearby so the cop, racked by agony, would call for help, screaming and distracting the other officers. Pell could escape into a deserted area of the park.

He now heard someone approaching, trying to be quiet. But Pell had hearing like a wild animal’s. He curled his hand around his gun.

The emotion was gone. Rebecca and Jennie and even the hateful Kathryn Dance were far, far from his thoughts.

Daniel Pell was in perfect control.

•    •    •

Dance, in yet another spot on the ridge, hidden by thick pines, looked out fast.

Winston Kellogg was on the beach now, close to where Pell must have been when he’d fired at her. The agent was moving slowly, looking around him, gun in both hands. He looked up at a cliff and seemed to be debating climbing it. But the walls were steep and Kellogg was in street shoes, impractical for the slippery stone. Besides, he’d undoubtedly be an easy target climbing down the other side.

Looking back to the path in front of him he seemed to notice marks in the sand, where she’d seen Pell. He crouched and moved closer to them. He paused at an outcropping.

“What’s going on?” Samantha asked.

Dance shook her head.

She looked down at Linda. The woman was half-conscious and paler than before. She’d lost a lot of blood. She’d need emergency treatment soon.

Dance called MCSO central and asked for the status of the troops.

“First tac responders in five minutes, boats in fifteen.”

Dance sighed. Why was it taking the cavalry so damn long? She gave them her approximate position and explained how the med techs should approach, to stay out of the line of fire. Dance glanced out again and saw Winston Kellogg ease around the rock, glistening burgundy in the low sun. The agent was heading directly toward the spot where she’d seen Pell vanish a few minutes earlier.

A long minute passed. Two.

Where was he? What—

The boom of an explosion.

What the hell was that?

Then a series of gunshots from behind the outcropping, a pause, then several more pistol cracks.

“What happened?” Samantha called.

“I don’t know.” Dance pulled her radio out. “Win. Win! Are you there? Over.”

But the only sounds she heard over the rush of the waves were the edgy cries of the frightened, fleeing gulls.

Chapter 56

Kathryn Dance hurried along the beach, her Aldo shoes, among her favorites, ruined by the salt water.

She didn’t care.

Behind her, back on the ridge, medical technicians were trundling Linda to the ambulance parked at the Point Lobos Inn, Samantha with her. She nodded to two MCSO officers ringing yellow tape from rock to rock, though the only intruder to trouble the crime scene would be the rising tide. Dance ducked under the plastic tape and turned the corner, continuing to the scene of the death.

Dance paused. Then walked straight up to Winston Kellogg and hugged him. He seemed shaken and kept staring at what lay in front of them: the body of Daniel Pell.

He was on his back, his sand-stained knees in the air, arms out to the sides. His pistol lay nearby where it had flown from his hand. Pell’s eyes were partly open, intensely blue no longer, but hazy in death.

Dance realized that her hand remained on Kellogg’s back. She dropped it and stepped aside. “What happened?” she asked.

“I nearly walked right into him. He was hiding there.” He pointed out a stand of rocks. “But I saw him just in time. I got under cover. I had one of the flash-bangs left from the motel. I pitched it his way and it stunned him. He started shooting. But I was lucky. The sun was behind me. Blinded him, I guess. I returned fire. And . . .” He shrugged.

“You’re okay?”

“Oh, sure. Little scraped up from the rocks. Not used to mountain climbing.”

Her phone rang. She answered, glancing at the screen. It was TJ.

“Linda’s going to be fine. Lost some blood, but the slug missed the important stuff. Oh, and Samantha’s not hurt bad.”

“Samantha?” Dance hadn’t noticed the woman was injured. “What happened?”

“Cuts and bruises is all. Had a boxing match with the deceased, prior to his deceasing, of course. She’s hurting but she’ll be peachy.”

She’d fought with Pell?

Mouse . . .

Monterey County Sheriff’s crime scene officers arrived and began working the site. Michael O’Neil, she noticed, wasn’t here.

One of the CS officers said to Kellogg, “Hey, congrats.” He nodded at the body.

The FBI agent smiled noncommitally.

A smile, kinesics experts know, is the most elusive signal that the human face generates. A frown, a perplexed gaze or an amorous glance means only one thing. A smile, though, can telegraph hate, indifference, humor or love.

Dance wasn’t sure exactly what this smile meant. But she noticed that an instant later, as he stared at the man he’d just killed, the expression vanished, as if it had never existed.

•    •    •

Kathryn Dance and Samantha McCoy stopped by Monterey Bay Hospital to see Linda Whitfield, who was conscious and doing well. She’d spend the night in the hospital but the doctors said she could go home tomorrow.

Samantha was chauffeured by Rey Carraneo back to a new cabin in the Point Lobos Inn, where she’d decided to spend the night, rather than returning home. Dance asked Samantha to join her for dinner, but the woman said she wanted some “downtime.”

And who could blame her?

Dance left the hospital and returned to CBI, where she saw Theresa and her aunt, standing by their car, apparently awaiting her return to say good-bye. The girl’s face brightened when she saw Dance. They greeted each other warmly.

“We heard,” the aunt said, unsmiling. “He’s dead?” As if she couldn’t have too much confirmation.

“That’s right.”

She gave them the details of the incident at Point Lobos. The aunt seemed impatient, though Theresa was eager to hear exactly what had happened. Dance didn’t edit the account.

Theresa nodded and took the news unemotionally.

“We can’t thank you enough,” the agent said. “What you did saved lives.”

The subject didn’t come up of what had actually happened on the night her family was killed, Theresa’s feigned illness. Dance supposed that would remain a secret between herself and the girl forever. But why not? Sharing with one person was often as cathartic as sharing with the world.

“You’re driving back tonight?”

“Yeah,” the girl said with a glance at her aunt. “But we’re making a stop first.”

Dance thinking: seafood dinner, shopping at the cute stores in Los Gatos?

“I want to see the house. My old house.”

Where her parents and siblings had died.

“We’re going to meet Mr. Nagle. He talked to the family who lives there now and they’ve agreed to let me see it.”

“Did he suggest that?” Dance was ready to run interference for the girl and knew that Nagle would back down in an instant.

“No, it was my idea,” Theresa said. “I just, you know, want to. And he’s going to come to Napa and interview me. For that book. The Sleeping Doll. That’s the title. Isn’t it weird having a book written about you?”

Mary Bolling didn’t say anything, though her body language—slightly lifted shoulders, a shift in the jaw—told Dance instantly that she didn’t approve of the evening’s detour and that there’d been an argument on the subject.

As often, following significant life incidents—like the Family’s reunion or Theresa’s journey here to help catch her family’s killer—there’s a tendency to look for fundamental changes in the participants. But that didn’t happen very often and Dance didn’t think it had here. She found herself looking at the same two people they’d undoubtedly been for some time: a protective middle-aged woman, blunt but stepping up to the difficult task of becoming a substitute parent, and a typically attitudinal teenage girl who’d impulsively done a brave thing. They’d had a disagreement about how to spend the rest of the evening and, in this case, the girl had won, undoubtedly with concessions.

Maybe, though, the very fact that the disagreement had occurred and been resolved was a step forward. This was, Dance supposed, how people change: incrementally.

She hugged Theresa, shook her aunt’s hand and wished them a safe trip.

Five minutes later Dance was back in the GW side of CBI headquarters, accepting a cup of coffee and an oatmeal cookie from Maryellen Kresbach.

Walking into her office, she kicked off the damaged Aldos and dug in her closet for a new pair: Joan and David sandals. Then she stretched and sat, sipping the strong coffee and searching through her desk for the remainder of a pack of M&Ms she’d stashed there a few days ago. She ate them quickly, stretched again and enjoyed looking at the pictures of her children.

Photos of her husband too.

How she would have liked to lie in bed next to him tonight and talk about the Pell case.

Ah, Bill . . .

Her phone chirped.

She glanced at the screen and her stomach did a small jump.

“Hi,” she said to Michael O’Neil.

“Hey. Just got the news. You okay? Heard there were rounds exchanged.”

“Pell parked one near me. That’s all.”

“How’s Linda?”

Dance gave him the details.

“And Rebecca?”

“ICU. She’ll live. But she’s not getting out any time soon.”

He, in turn, told her about the phony getaway car—Pell’s favorite means of diversion and distraction. The Infiniti driver wasn’t dead. He had been forced by Pell to call and report his own murder and carjacking. He’d then driven home, put the car in the garage and sat in a dark room until he’d heard the news of Pell’s death.

He added that he was sending her the crime scene reports from the Butterfly Inn, which Pell and Jennie had checked into after escaping from the Sea View and from Point Lobos.

She’d been glad to hear O’Neil’s voice. But something was off. There was still the matter-of-fact tone. He wasn’t angry, but he wasn’t overly pleased to be speaking to her. She thought his earlier remarks about Winston Kellogg were out of line but, while she didn’t want an apology, she did wish that the rough seas between them would calm.

She asked, “You all right?” With some people, you had to prime the pump.

“Fine,” he said.

That goddamn word, which could mean everything from “wonderful” to “I hate you.”

She suggested he come by the Deck that night.

“Can’t, sorry. Anne and I have plans.”

Ah. Plans.

That’s one of those words too.

“Better go. Just wanted to let you know about the Infiniti driver.”

“Sure, take care.”

Click. . . .

Dance grimaced for the benefit of no one and turned back to a file.

Ten minutes later Winston Kellogg’s head appeared in the door. She gestured toward the chair and he dropped down into it. He hadn’t changed; his clothes were still muddy and sandy. He saw her salt-stained shoes sitting by the door and gestured toward his own. Then laughed, pointing to a dozen pairs in her closet. “Probably nothing in there that’d work for me.”

“Sorry,” she answered, deadpan. “They’re all a size six.”

“Too bad, that lime-green number has a certain appeal.”

They discussed the reports that needed to be completed and the shooting review board that would have to issue a report on the incident. She’d wondered how long he’d be in the area and realized that whether or not he followed through on asking her out he’d have to stay for four or five days; a review board could take that long to convene, hear testimony and write the report.

. . . afterward. How does that sound? . . .

Like Dance herself a few minutes ago, Kellogg stretched. His face gave a very faint signal—he was troubled. It would be the shootout, of course. Dance had never even fired her weapon at a suspect, let alone killed anyone. She’d been instrumental in tracking down dangerous perps, some of whom had been killed in the takedown. Others had gone to death row. But that was different from pointing a gun at someone and ending his life.

And here Kellogg had done so twice in a relatively short period of time.

“So what’s next for you?” she asked.

“I’m giving a seminar in Washington on religious fundamentalism—it shares a lot with cult mentality. Then some time off. If the real world cooperates, of course.” He slouched and closed his eyes.

In his smudged slacks, and with floppy hair and a bit of five-o’clock shadow, he was really an appealing man, Dance reflected.

“Sorry,” he said, opening his eyes and laughing. “Bad form to fall asleep in colleagues’ offices.” The smile was genuine and whatever had been troubling him earlier was now gone. “Oh, one thing. I’ve got paperwork tonight, but tomorrow, can I hold you to that offer of dinner? It is afterward, remember?”

She hesitated, thinking, You know counterinterrogation strategy: anticipate every question the interrogator’s going to ask and be ready with an answer.

But even though she’d just been thinking about this very matter, she was caught off guard.

So what’s the answer? she asked herself.

“Tomorrow?” he repeated, sounding shy—curiously, for a man who’d just nailed one of the worst perps in Monterey County history.

You’re stalling, she told herself. Her eyes swept the pictures of her children, her dogs, her late husband. She thought of Wes.

She said, “You know, tomorrow’d be great.”

Chapter 57

“It’s over,” she said in a low voice to her mother.

“I heard. Michael briefed us at CBI.”

They were at her parents’ house in Carmel. The family was back from the castle keep of headquarters.

“Did the gang hear?”

Meaning the children.

“I put some spin on it. Phrased it like, oh, Mom’ll be home at a decent hour tonight because, by the way, that stupid case of hers is over with, they got the bad guy, I don’t know the details. That sort of thing. Mags didn’t pay any attention—she’s working up a new song for piano camp. Wes headed right for the TV but I had Stu drag him outside to play Ping-Pong. He seems to’ve forgotten about the story. But the key word is ‘seems.’ ”

Dance had shared with her parents that, where her children were concerned, she wanted to minimize news about death and violence, particularly as it involved her work. “I’ll keep an eye on him. And thanks.”

Dance cracked open an Anchor Steam beer and split it in two glasses. Handed one to her mother.

Edie sipped and then, with a frown, asked, “When did you get Pell?”

Dance gave her the approximate time. “Why?”

Glancing at the clock, her mother said, “I was sure I heard somebody in the backyard around four, four-thirty. I didn’t think anything of it at first but then I got to wondering if Pell found out where we lived. Wanting to get even or something. I was feeling a little bit spooked. Even with the squad car out front.”

Pell wouldn’t hesitate to hurt them, of course—he’d planned to do so—but the timing was off. Pell was already at Morton Nagle’s house by then, or on the way.

“It probably wasn’t him.”

“Must’ve been a cat. Or the Perkins’ dog. They have to learn to keep it inside. I’ll talk to them.”

She knew her mother would do just that.

Dance rounded up the children and herded them into the family Pathfinder, where the dogs awaited. She hugged her father and they made plans for her to pick her parents up for his birthday party at the Marine Club on Sunday evening. Dance was the designated driver, so they could enjoy themselves and drink as much champagne and Pinot Noir as they wanted. She thought about inviting Winston Kellogg but decided to wait on that one. See how tomorrow’s “afterward” date went.

Dance thought about dinner and could summon up zero desire to cook. “Can you guys live with pancakes at Bayside?”

“Woo-hoo!” Maggie called. And began debating aloud what kind of syrup she wanted. Wes was happy but more restrained.

When they got to the restaurant and were seated at a booth, she reminded her son it was his job to pick their Sunday afternoon adventure this week before the birthday party. “So, what’s our plan? Movie? Hiking?”

“I don’t know yet.” Wes examined the menu for a long time. Maggie wanted a to-go order for the dogs. Dance explained that the pancakes weren’t to celebrate the reunion with the canines; it was simply because she wasn’t in the mood to cook.

As the large, steaming plates were arriving, Wes asked, “Oh, you hear about that festival thing? The boats?”

“Boats?”

“Grandpa was telling us about it. It’s a boat parade in the bay and a concert. At Cannery Row.”

Dance recalled something about a John Steinbeck festival. “Is that on Sunday? Is that what you’d like to do?”

“It’s tomorrow night,” Wes said. “It’d be fun. Can we go?”

Dance laughed to herself. There was no way he could’ve known about her dinner date with Kellogg tomorrow. Or could he? She had intuition when it came to the children; why couldn’t it work the other way?

Dance dressed the pancakes with syrup and allowed herself a pat of butter. Stalling. “Tomorrow? Let me think.”

Her initial reaction, on seeing Wes’s unsmiling face, was to call Kellogg and postpone or even cancel the date.

Sometimes it’s just easier. . . .

She stopped Maggie from drowning her pancakes in a frightening avalanche of blueberry and strawberry syrups, then turned to Wes and said impulsively, “Oh, that’s right, honey, I can’t. I have plans.”

“Oh.”

“But I’m sure Grandpa’d want to go with you.”

“What’re you going to do? See Connie? Or Martine? Maybe they’d like to come too. We could all go. They could bring the twins.”

“Yeah, the twins, Mom!” Maggie said.

Dance heard her therapist’s words: Kathryn, you can’t look at the substance of what he’s saying. Parents tend to feel that their children raise valid objections about potential step-parents or even casual dates. You can’t think that way. What he’s upset with is what he sees as your betrayal of his father’s memory. It has nothing to do with the partner himself.

She made a decision. “No, I’m going to have dinner with the man I’ve been working with.”

“Agent Kellogg,” the boy shot back.

“That’s right. He has to go back to Washington soon, and I wanted to thank him for all the work he’s done for us.”

She felt a bit cheesy for gratuitously suggesting that because he lived so far away Kellogg was no long-term threat. (Though she supposed Wes’s sensitive mind could easily jump to the conclusion that Dance was already planning to uproot them from friends and family here on the Peninsula and resettle them in the nation’s capital.)

“Okay,” the boy said, cutting up the pancakes, eating some, pensive. Dance was using his appetite as a barometer of his reaction.

“Hey, son of mine, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

“Grandpa would love to go to see the boats with you.”

“Sure.”

Then she asked another impulsive question. “Don’t you like Winston?”

“He’s okay.”

“You can tell me.” Her own interest in food was flagging.

“I don’t know. . . . He’s not like Michael.”

“No, he’s not. But there aren’t many people like Michael.” The dear friend who isn’t returning my calls at the moment. “That doesn’t mean I can’t have dinner with them, does it?”

“I guess.”

They ate for a few minutes. Then Wes blurted, “Maggie doesn’t like him either.”

“I didn’t say that! Don’t say things I didn’t say.”

“Yeah, you did. You said he’s got a potbelly.”

“Did not!” Though her blush told Dance that she had.

She smiled, put down her fork. “Hey, you two, listen up. Whether I have dinner with somebody or not, or even go out to the movies with them, nothing’s going to change us. Our house, the dogs, our lives. Nothing. That’s a promise. Okay?”

“Okay,” Wes said. It was a bit knee-jerk, but he didn’t seem completely unconvinced.

But now Maggie was troubled. “Aren’t you ever going to get married again?”

“Mags, what brought that up?”

“Just wondering.”

“I can’t even imagine getting married again.”

“You didn’t say no,” Wes muttered.

Dance laughed at the interrogator’s perfect response. “Well, that’s my answer. I can’t even imagine it.”

“I want to be best woman,” Maggie said.

“Maid of honor,” Dance corrected.

“No, I saw this after-school special. They do it different now.”

“Differently,” her mother corrected again. “But let’s not get distracted. We’ve got pancakes and iced tea to polish off. And plans to make for Sunday. You’ve got to do some thinking.”

“I will.” Wes seemed reassured.

Dance ate the rest of her dinner, feeling elated at this victory: being honest with her son and receiving his acquiescence to the date. Oddly, this tiny step did a huge amount to take away the horror of the day’s events.

On a whim she gave in to Maggie’s final plea on behalf of the dogs and ordered one pancake and a side of sausage for each, minus the syrup. The girl served the food in the back of the Pathfinder. Dylan the shepherd devoured his in several gulps while the ladylike Patsy ate the sausage fastidiously, then carried the pancake to a space between the backseats, impossible to reach, and deposited it there for a rainy day.

•    •    •

At home, Dance spent the next few hours at domestic chores, fielding phone calls, including one from Morton Nagle, thanking her again for what she’d done for his family.

Winston Kellogg did not call, which was good (meaning the date was still on).

Michael O’Neil did not call either, which wasn’t so good.

Rebecca Sheffield was in stable condition after extensive surgery. She’d be in the hospital, under guard, for the next six or seven days. More operations were needed.

Dance talked to Martine Christensen for some time about the “American Tunes” website, then, business disposed of, it was time for dessert: popcorn, which made sense after a sweet dinner. Dance found a Wallace and Gromit Claymation tape, cued it up and at the last minute managed to save the Redenbacher from the microwave of mass destruction before she set the bag ablaze, as she had last week.

She was pouring the contents into a bowl when her phone croaked yet again.

“Mom,” Wes said impatiently. “I’m like starving.” She loved his tone. It meant he’d snapped out of his unhappy mood.

“It’s TJ,” she announced, opening up her mobile.

“Say hi,” the boy offered, shoving a handful of popcorn into his mouth.

“Wes says hi.”

“Back at him. Oh, tell him I got to level eight on ‘Zarg.’ ”

“Is that good?”

“You have no idea.”

Dance relayed the message and Wes’s eyes glowed. “Eight? No way!”

“He’s impressed. So what’s up?”

“Who’s getting all the stuff?”

“ ‘Stuff’ would be?”

“Evidence, reports, emails, everything. The ball of wax, remember?”

He meant for the final disposition report. It would be massive in this case, with the multiple felonies and the interagency paperwork. She’d run the case and the CBI had primary jurisdiction.

“Me. Well, I should say us.”

“I liked the first answer better, boss. Oh, by the way, remember ‘Nimue’?”

The mystery word . . .

“What about it?”

“I just found another reference to it. You want me to follow up?”

“Think we better. Leave no t undotted. So to speak.”

“Is tomorrow okay? It’s not much of a date tonight, but Lucretia might be the woman of my dreams.”

“You’re going out with somebody named Lucretia? You may have to concentrate. . . . Tell you what. Bring me all the wax. And the Nimue ‘stuff.’ I’ll get started on it.”

“Boss, you’re the best. You’re invited to the wedding.”

FRIDAY

Chapter 58

Kathryn Dance, in a black suit and burgundy blouse—not the warmest of outfits, all things considered—was sitting outside at the Bay View Restaurant near Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey.

The place lived up to its name, usually offering a postcard image of the coast all the way up to Santa Cruz, which was, however, invisible at the moment. The early morning was a perfect example of June Gloom on the Peninsula. Fog like smoke from a damp fire surrounded the wharf. The temperature was fifty-five degrees.

Last night she’d been in an elated mood. Daniel Pell had been stopped, Linda Whitfield would be all right, Nagle and his family had survived. She and Winston Kellogg had made their plans for “afterward.”

Today, though, things were different. A darkness hung over her; she couldn’t shake it, and the mood had nothing to do with the weather. Many things were contributing to it, not the least of which was planning the memorial services and funerals for the guards killed at the courthouse, the deputies at the Point Lobos Inn yesterday and Juan Millar too.

She sipped her coffee. Then blinked in surprise as a hummingbird appeared from nowhere and dipped its beak into the feeder hanging on the side of the restaurant, near a spill of gardenias. Another bird strafed in and drove the first away. They were pretty creatures, jewels, but could be mean as scrap-yard dogs.

Then she heard, “Hello.”

Winston Kellogg came up behind her, slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. Not too close to the mouth, not too far away. She smiled and hugged him.

He sat down.

Dance waved to the waitress, who refilled her cup and poured one for Kellogg.

“So I was doing some research about the area,” Kellogg said. “I thought we could go down to Big Sur tonight. Some place called Ventana.”

“It’s beautiful. I haven’t been for years. The restaurant’s wonderful. It’s a bit of a drive.”

“I’m game. Highway One, right?”

Which would take them right past Point Lobos. She flashed back to the gunshots, the blood, Daniel Pell lying on his back, dull blue eyes staring unseeing at a dark blue sky.

“Thanks for getting up so early,” Dance said.

“Breakfast and dinner with you. The pleasure’s mine.”

She gave him another smile. “Here’s the situation. TJ finally found the answer to ‘Nimue,’ I think.”

Kellogg nodded. “What Pell was searching for in Capitola.”

“At first I thought it was a screen name, then I was thinking it might have to do with this computer game, ‘Nimue’ with an X, the popular one.”

The agent shook his head.

“Apparently it’s hot. I should have consulted the experts—my kids. Anyway, I was toying with the idea that Pell and Jimmy went to the Croytons’ to steal some valuable software, and I remembered Reynolds told me that Croyton gave away all this computer research and software to Cal State-Monterey Bay. I thought maybe there was something in the college archives that Pell planned to steal. But, no, it turns out that Nimue’s something else.”

“What?”

“We’re not exactly sure. That’s what I need your help on. TJ found a folder on Jennie Marston’s computer. The name was—” Dance found a slip of paper and read, “Quote ‘Nimue—cult suicide in L.A.’ ”

“What was inside?”

“That’s the problem. He tried to open it. But it’s password-protected. We’ll have to send it to CBI headquarters in Sacramento to crack, but frankly, that’ll take weeks. It might not be important but I’d like to find out what it’s all about. I was hoping you’d have somebody in the bureau who could decrypt it faster.”

Kellogg told her he knew of a computer wiz in the FBI’s San Jose field office—in the heart of Silicon Valley. “If anybody can break it they can. I’ll get it to him today.”

She thanked him and handed over the Dell, in a plastic bag and with a chain-of-custody tag attached. He signed the card and set the bag beside him.

Dance waved for the waitress. Toast was about all she could manage this morning, but Kellogg ordered a full breakfast.

He said, “Now, tell me about Big Sur. It’s supposed to be pretty.”

“Breathtaking,” she said. “One of the most romantic places you’ll ever see.”

•    •    •

Kathryn Dance was in her office when Winston Kellogg came to collect her at five thirty for their date. He was in formal casual. He and Dance came close to matching—brown jackets, light shirts and jeans. His blue, hers black. Ventana was an upscale inn, restaurant and winery but this was, after all, California. You needed a suit and tie only in San Francisco, L.A. and Sacramento.

For funerals too, of course, Dance couldn’t help but think.

“First, let’s get work out of the way.” He opened his attaché case and handed her the plastic evidence bag containing the computer found in the Butterfly Inn.

“Oh, you’ve got it already?” she asked. “The mystery of Nimue is about to be solved.”

He grimaced. “Afraid not, sorry.”

“Nothing?” she asked.

“The file was either intentionally written as gibberish or it had a wipe bomb on it, the bureau tech guys said.”

“Wipe bomb?”

“Like a digital booby trap. When TJ tried to open it, it got turned to mush. That was their term too, by the way.”

“Mush.”

“Just random characters.”

“No way to reconstruct it?”

“Nope. And, believe me, they’re the best in the business.”

“Not that it matters that much, I suppose,” Dance said, shrugging. “It was just a loose end.”

He smiled. “I’m the same way. Hate it when there are danglers. That’s what I call them.”

“Danglers. I like that.”

“So are you ready to go?”

“Just a second or two.” She rose and walked to the door. Albert Stemple was standing in the hallway. TJ too.

She glanced at them, sighed and nodded.

The massive, shaved-head agent stepped into the office, with TJ right behind him.

Both men drew their weapons—Dance just didn’t have the heart—and in a few seconds Winston Kellogg was disarmed, cuffs on his hands.

“What the hell’s going on?” he raged.

Dance provided the answer, surprised at how serene her voice sounded as she said, “Winston Kellogg, you’re under arrest for the murder of Daniel Pell.”

Chapter 59

They were in room 3, one of the interrogation rooms in CBI’s Monterey office, and it was Dance’s favorite. This was a little bigger than the other (which was room 1, there being no number 2). And the one-way mirror was a little shinier. It also had a small window and, if the curtains were open, you could see a tree outside. Sometimes, during her interrogations, she’d use the view to distract or draw out the interviewees. Today the curtain was closed.

Dance and Kellogg were alone. Behind the sparkling mirror the video camera was set up and running. TJ was there, along with Charles Overby, both unseen, though the mirror, of course, implied observers.

Winston Kellogg had declined an attorney and was willing to talk. Which he did in an eerily calm voice (very much the same tone as Daniel Pell’s in his interrogation, she reflected, unsettled at the thought). “Kathryn, let’s just step back here, can we? Is that all right? I don’t know what you think is going on but this isn’t the way to handle it. Believe me.”

The subtext of these words was arrogance—and the corollary, betrayal. She tried to push the pain away as she replied simply, “Let’s get started.” She slipped her black-framed glasses on, her predator specs.

“Maybe you’ve gotten some bad information. Why don’t you tell me what you think the problem is and we’ll see what’s really going on?”

As if he were talking to a child.

She looked Winston Kellogg over closely. It’s an interrogation just like any other, Dance told herself. Though it wasn’t, of course. Here was a man she’d felt romantic toward and who had lied to her. Someone who had used her, like Daniel Pell had used . . . well, everyone.

Then she forced aside her own emotion, hard though that was, and concentrated on the task in front of her. She was going to break him. Nothing would stop her.

Because she knew him well by now, the analysis unfolded quickly in her mind.

First, how should he be categorized in the context of the crime? A suspect in a homicide.

Second, does he have a motive to lie? Yes.

Third, what’s his personality type? Extroverted, thinking, judging. She could be as tough with him as she needed to be.

Fourth, what is his liar’s personality? A High Machiavellian. He’s intelligent, has a good memory, is adept at the techniques of deception and will use all those skills to create lies that work to his advantage. He’ll give up lying if he’s caught, and use other weapons to shift the blame, threaten or attack. He’ll demean and patronize, trying to unnerve her and exploit her own emotional responses, a dark mirror image of her own mission as an interrogator. He’ll try to get information to use against me later, she reminded herself.

You had to be very careful with High Machs.

The next step in her kinesic analysis would be to determine what stress response state he fell into when lying—anger, denial, depression or bargaining—and to probe his story when she recognized one.

But here was the problem. She was one of the best kinesics analysts in the country, yet she hadn’t spotted Kellogg’s lies, which he’d dished up right in front of, and to, her. Largely his behavior was not outright lying but evasion—withholding information is the hardest type of deception to detect. Still, Dance was skilled at spotting evasion. More significant, Kellogg was, she decided, in that rare class of individuals virtually immune to kinesic analysts and polygraph operators: excluded subjects, like the mentally ill and serial killers.

The category also includes zealots.

Which was what she now believed Winston Kellogg was. Not the leader of a cult, but someone just as fanatical and just as dangerous, a man convinced of his own righteousness.

Still, she needed to break him. She needed to get to the truth, and to do that, Dance had to spot stress flags within him to know where to probe.

So she attacked. Hard, fast.

From her purse, Dance took a digital audiotape recorder and set it on the table between them. She hit play.

The sounds of a phone ringing, then:

“Tech Resource. Rick Adams speaking.”

“My name’s Kellogg from Ninth Street. MVCC.”

“Sure, Agent Kellogg. What can I do for you?”

“I’m in the area and have a problem on my computer. I’ve got a protected file and the guy who sent it to me can’t remember the password. It’s a Windows XP operating system.”

“Sure. That’s a piece of cake. I can handle it.”

“Rather not use you guys for a personal job. They’re cracking down on that back at HQ.”

“Well, there’s a good outfit in Cupertino we farm stuff out to. They’re not cheap.”

“Are they fast?”

“Oh, for that? Sure.”

“Great. Give me their number.”

She shut the recorder off. “You lied to me. You said the ‘bureau tech guys’ cracked it. They didn’t.”

“I—”

“Winston, Pell didn’t write anything about Nimue or suicides. I created that file last night.”

He could only stare at her.

She said, “Nimue was a red herring. There was nothing on Jennie’s computer until I put it there. TJ did find a reference to Nimue but it was a newspaper story about a woman named Alison Sharpe, an interview in a local paper in Montana—’My Month with Daniel Pell,’ something like that. They met in San Francisco about twelve years ago, when she was living in a group like the Family and going by the name Nimue. The leader named everyone after Arthurian characters. She and Pell hitchhiked around the state but she left him after he was picked up in Redding on that murder charge. Pell probably didn’t know her surname and searched the only two names he knew—Alison and Nimue—to find her and kill her because she knew where his mountaintop was.”

“So you faked this file and asked me to help you crack it. Why the masquerade, Kathryn?”

“I’ll tell you why. Body language isn’t limited to the living, you know. You can read a lot into a corpse’s posture too. Last night TJ brought me all the files in the case for the final disposition report. I was looking over the crime-scene pictures from Point Lobos. Something didn’t seem right. Pell wasn’t hiding behind the rocks. He was out in the open, on his back. His legs were bent and there were water and sand stains on his knees. Both knees, not just one. That was curious. People crouch when they’re fighting, or at least keep one foot planted on the ground. I saw exactly the same posture in a case involving a man who’d been killed in a gang hit, forced on his knees to beg before he was shot. Why would Pell leave cover, get down on both knees and shoot at you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” No emotion whatsoever.

“And the coroner’s report said that from the downward angle of the bullets through his body you were standing full height, not crouching. If it was a real firefight you would’ve been in a defensive stance, crouching yourself. . . . And I remembered the sequence of the sounds. The flash-bang went off and then I heard the shots, after a delay. No, I think that you saw where he was, tossed the flash-bang and moved in fast, disarmed him. Then had him kneel and you tossed your cuffs on the ground for him to put on. When he was reaching for them, you shot him.”

“Ridiculous.”

She continued, unfazed. “And the flash-bang? After the assault at the Sea View you were supposed to check all the ordnance back in. That’s standard procedure. Why keep it? Because you were waiting for a chance to move in and kill him. And I checked the timing of your call for backup. You didn’t make it from the inn, like you pretended. You made it later, to give you a chance to get Pell alone.” She held up a hand, silencing another protest. “But whether my theory was ridiculous or not, his death raised questions. I thought I should check further. I wanted to know more about you. I got your file from a friend of my husband’s on Ninth Street. I found some interesting facts. You’d been involved in the shooting deaths of several suspected cult leaders during attempts to apprehend. And two cult leaders died of suicides under suspicious circumstances when you were consulting with local law enforcement agencies in their investigations.

“The suicide in L.A. was the most troubling. A woman who ran a cult committed suicide by jumping out of her sixth-story window, two days after you arrived to help out the LAPD. But it was curious—no one had ever heard her talk about suicide before that. There was no note, and, yes, she was being investigated but only for civil tax fraud. No reason to kill herself.

“So, I had to test you, Winston. I wrote the document in that file.”

It was a fake email that suggested a girl with the name of Nimue was in the suicide victim’s cult and had information that the woman’s death was suspicious.

“I got a tap warrant on your phone, put a simple Windows password on the file and handed over the computer to see what you’d do. If you’d told me you’d read the file and what it contained, that would’ve been the end of the matter. You and I’d be on our way to Big Sur right now.

“But, no, you made your phone call to the tech, had the private company crack the code and you read the file. There was no wipe bomb. No mush. You destroyed it yourself. You had to, of course. You were afraid we’d catch on to the fact that your life for the past six years has been traveling around the country and murdering people like Daniel Pell.”

Kellogg gave a laugh. Now, faint kinesic deviation; the tone was different. An excluded subject, yes, but he was feeling the stress. She’d touched close to home.

“Please, Kathryn. Why on earth would I do that?”

“Because of your daughter.” She said this not without some sympathy.

And the fact that he gave no response, merely held her eye as if he were in great pain, was an indication—though a tiny one—that she was narrowing in on the truth.

“It takes a lot to fool me, Winston. And you’re very, very good. The only variation from your baseline behavior I ever noticed was when it came to children and family. But I didn’t think much of it. At first I supposed that was because of the connection between us, and you weren’t comfortable with children and were wrestling with the idea of having them in your life.

“Then, I think you saw that I was curious, or suspicious, and you confessed that you’d lied, that you had had a daughter. You told me about her death. Of course, that’s a common trick—confession to one lie to cover up another, related one. And what was the lie? Your daughter did die in a car accident, yes, but it wasn’t exactly how you described it. You apparently destroyed the police report in Seattle—nobody could find it—but TJ and I made some calls and pieced together the story.

“When she was sixteen your daughter ran away from home because you and your wife were getting divorced. She ended up with a group in Seattle—very much like the Family. She was there for about six months. Then she and three other members of the cult died in a suicide pact because the leader told them to leave, they hadn’t been loyal enough. They drove their car into Puget Sound.”

There’s something terrifying about the idea of being kicked out of your family. . . .

“And then you joined the MVCC and made it your life’s work to stop people like that. Only sometimes the law didn’t cooperate. And you had to take it into your own hands. I called a friend in Chicago PD. You were the cult expert on the scene last week, assisting them. Their report said you claimed the perp fired at you, and you had to ‘neutralize the threat.’ But I don’t think he did shoot. I think you killed him and then wounded yourself.” She tapped her neck, indicating his bandage. “Which makes that murder too, just like Pell.”

She grew angry. It hit fast, like a flash of hot sunlight as a cloud passed on. Control it, she told herself. Take a lesson from Daniel Pell.

Take a lesson from Winston Kellogg.

“The dead man’s family filed a complaint. They claimed he was set up. He had a long rap sheet, sure. Just like Pell. But he never touched guns. He was afraid of the deadly-weapon count.”

“He touched one long enough to shoot me.”

A very faint shift of Kellogg’s foot. Almost invisible, but it telegraphed stress. So, he wasn’t completely immune to her interrogation.

His response was a lie.

“We’ll know more after reviewing the files. And we’re checking with other jurisdictions too, Winston. Apparently you insisted on helping local police all over the country whenever there was a crime involving a cult.”

Charles Overby had implied that it was his own idea to bring in a federal specialist on cults. Last night, though, she’d begun to suspect that this probably wasn’t what happened and she’d asked her boss point-blank how the FBI agent had come to work the Pell case. Overby hemmed and hawed but ultimately admitted that Kellogg had told the bureau’s Amy Grabe he was coming to the Peninsula to consult on the manhunt for Pell; it wasn’t up for debate. He’d been here as soon as the paperwork in Chicago was cleaned up.

“I looked back at the Pell case. Michael O’Neil was upset that you wanted a takedown at the Sea View, rather than surveillance. And I wondered why you wanted to be first through the door. The answer is so that you’d have a clear shot at Pell. And yesterday, at the beach at Point Lobos, you got him on his knees. And then you killed him.”

“That’s your evidence that I murdered him? His posture? Really, Kathryn.”

“And MCSO crime scene found the bullet of the slug you fired at me on the ridge.”

He fell silent at this.

“Oh, you weren’t shooting to hit me, I understand. You just wanted to keep me where I was, with Samantha and Linda, so that I wouldn’t interfere with your chance to kill Pell.”

“It was an accidental discharge,” he said matter-of-factly. “Careless of me. I should’ve owned up to it but it was embarrassing. Here I am, a professional.”

Lie . . .

Under her gaze, his shoulders dipped slightly. His lips tightened. Dance knew there’d be no confession—she wasn’t even after that—but he did shift into a different stress state. He wasn’t a completely emotionless machine, it seemed. She’d hit him hard, and it hurt.

“I don’t talk about my past and what happened with my daughter. I should’ve shared more with you, maybe, but you don’t talk about your husband much either, I notice.” He fell silent for a moment. “Look around us, Kathryn. Look at the world. We’re so fragmented, so shattered. The family’s a dying breed, and yet we’re starving for the comfort of one. Starving . . . And what happens? Along come people like Daniel Pell. And they suck the vulnerable, needy ones right in. The women in Pell’s Family—Samantha and Linda. They were good kids, never did anything wrong, not really. And they got seduced by a killer. Why? Because he dangled in front of them the one thing they didn’t have: a family.

“It was only a matter of time before they, or Jennie Marston, or somebody else under his spell started killing. Or maybe kidnapping children. Abusing them. Even in prison, Pell had his followers. How many of them went on to do the same thing he’d done, after they were released? . . . These people have to be stopped. I’m aggressive about it, I get results. But I don’t cross the line.”

“You don’t cross your line, Winston. But it’s not your own standards you have to apply. That’s not how the system works. Daniel Pell never thought he was doing anything wrong either.”

He gave her a smile and a shrug, the emblem gesture, which she took to mean, You see it your way, I see it mine. And we’ll never agree on this.

To Dance it was as clear as saying, “I’m guilty.”

Then the smile faded, as it had at the beach yesterday. “One thing. Us? That was real. Whatever else you think about me, that was real.”

Kathryn Dance recalled walking down the hall with him at CBI when he’d made the wistful comment on the Family, implying gaps in his own life: solitude, a job substituting for a failed marriage, his daughter’s unspeakably terrible death. Dance didn’t doubt that, though he had deceived her about his mission, this lonely man had been trying, genuinely, to make a connection with her.

And as a kinesic analyst she could see that his comment—“That was real”—was absolutely honest.

But it was also irrelevant to the interrogation and not worth the breath to respond to.

Then a faint V formed between his brows and the faux smile was back. “Really, Kathryn. This is isn’t a good idea. It’ll be a nightmare running a case like this. For the CBI . . . for you personally too.”

“Me?”

Kellogg pursed his lips for a moment. “I seem to recall some questions were raised about your conduct in the handling of the interrogation at the courthouse in Salinas. Maybe something was said or done that helped Pell escape. I don’t know the details. Maybe it was nothing. But I did hear Amy Grabe has a note or two on it.” He shrugged, lifting his palms. The cuffs jingled.

Overby’s ass-covering comment to the FBI, coming back to haunt. Dance was seething at Kellogg’s threat but she offered no affect displays whatsoever. Her shrug was even more dismissive than his. “If that issue comes up, I guess we’ll just have to look at the facts.”

“I suppose so. I just hope it doesn’t affect your career, long term.”

Taking off her glasses, she eased forward into a more personal proxemic zone. “Winston, I’m curious. Tell me: What did Daniel say to you before you killed him? He’d dropped the gun and he was on his knees, reaching for the cuffs. Then he looked up. And he knew, didn’t he? He wasn’t a stupid man. He knew he was dead. Did he say anything?”

Kellogg gave an involuntary recognition response, though he said nothing.

Her outburst was inappropriate, of course, and she knew it marked the end of the interrogation. But that didn’t matter. She had her answers, she had the truth—or at least an approximation of it. Which, according to the elusive science of kinesic analysis and interrogation, is usually enough.

Chapter 60

Dance and TJ were in Charles Overby’s office. The CBI chief sat behind his desk, nodding and looking at a picture of himself and his son catching a salmon. Or, she couldn’t tell for sure, looking at his desk clock. It was 8:30 P.M. Two straight nights the agent in charge had been working late. A record.

“I saw the whole interview. You got some good stuff. Absolutely. But he was pretty slick. Didn’t really admit anything. Hardly a confession.”

“He’s a High Mach with an antisocial personality, Charles. He’s not the sort to confess. I was just probing to see what his defenses would be and how he’d structure the denials. He destroyed computer files when he thought they implicated him in a suspicious suicide in L.A.? He used unauthorized ordnance? His gun went off ‘accidentally’ in my direction? A jury’d laugh all the way to a guilty verdict. For him, the interrogation was a disaster.”

“Really? He looked pretty confident.”

“He did, and he’ll be a good defendant on the stand—if he takes the stand. But tactically his case is hopeless.”

“He was arresting an armed killer. And you’re claiming that his motive is that his daughter died because of some cult thing? That’s not compelling.”

“I never worry too much about motive. If a man kills his wife, it doesn’t really matter to the jury if it was because she served him a burned steak or he wants her insurance money. Murder’s murder. It’ll become a lot less soap opera when we link Kellogg to the others who’ve been killed.”

Dance told him about the other deaths, the suspicious takedown in Chicago last week, and others, in Fort Worth and New York. The suicide in L.A. and one in Oregon. One particularly troubling case was in Florida, where Kellogg had gone to assist Dade County deputies investigating charges of kidnapping earlier in the year. A Miami man had a communal house on the outskirts of the city. The Latino certainly had a devoted following, some of them quite fanatical. Kellogg shot him when he’d apparently lunged for a weapon during a raid. But it was later discovered that the commune also ran a soup kitchen and a respected Bible study class and was raising funds for a day-care center for children of working single parents in the neighborhood. The kidnapping charges turned out to be bogus, leveled by his ex-wife.

The local papers were still questioning the circumstances of his death.

“Interesting, but I’m not sure any of that would be admissible,” her boss offered. “What about forensics from the beach?”

Dance felt a pang that Michael O’Neil wasn’t here to go through the technical side of the case. (Why wasn’t he calling back?)

“They found the slug that Kellogg fired at Kathryn,” TJ said. “It conclusively matches his SIG.”

Overby grunted. “Accidental discharge . . . Relax, Kathryn, somebody’s got to be the devil’s advocate here.”

“The shell casings from Pell’s gun on the beach were found closer to Kellogg’s position than Pell’s. Kellogg probably fired Pell’s weapon himself to make it look like self-defense. Oh, and the lab found sand in Kellogg’s handcuffs. That means Kellogg—”

“Suggests,” Overby corrected.

“Suggests that Kellogg disarmed Pell, got him into the open, tossed the cuffs down and, when Pell went to pick them up, killed him.”

Dance said, “Look, Charles, I’m not saying it’ll be a shoo-in, but Sandoval can win it. I can testify that Pell wasn’t a threat when he was shot. The pose of the body’s clear.”

Overby’s eyes scanned his desk and settled on yet another framed fish picture. “Motive?”

Hadn’t he paid attention earlier? Probably not.

“Well, his daughter. He’s killing anybody who’s connected—”

The CBI chief looked up and his eyes were sharp and probing. “No, not Kellogg’s motive for killing him. Our motive. For bringing the case.”

Ah. Right. He meant, of course, her motive. Was it retribution because she’d been betrayed by Kellogg? “It’ll come up, you know. We’ll need a response.”

Her boss was on a roll today.

But so was she. “Because Winston Kellogg murdered someone within our jurisdiction.”

Overby’s phone rang. He stared at it for four trills then answered.

TJ whispered, “That’s a good motive. Better than he served you a lousy steak.”

The CBI chief hung up, staring at the picture of the salmon. “We’ve got visitors.” He straightened his tie. “The FBI’s here.”

•    •    •

“Charles, Kathryn . . .”

Amy Grabe took the coffee cup that was offered by Overby’s assistant and sat. She gave a nod to TJ.

Dance chose an upright chair near the attractive but no-nonsense special agent in charge of the San Francisco field office. Dance didn’t go for the more comfortable but lower couch across from the woman; sitting even an inch below someone puts you at a psychological disadvantage. Dance proceeded to tell the FBI agent the latest details about Kellogg and Nimue.

Grabe knew some, but not all, of the tale. She frowned as she listened, motionless, unlike fidgety Overby. Her right hand rested on the opposite sleeve of her stylish burgundy suit.

Dance made her case. “He’s an active duty agent killing these people, Amy. He lied to us. He staged a dynamic entry when there was no need to. He nearly got a dozen people hurt. Some could’ve been killed.”

Overby’s pen bounced like a drumstick, and TJ’s kinesics read: Okay, now, this is an awkward moment.

Grabe’s eyes, beneath perfect brows, scanned everyone in the room as she said, “It’s all very complicated and difficult. I understand that. But whatever happened, I’ve gotten a call. They’d like him released.”

“They—Ninth Street?”

She nodded. “And higher. Kellogg’s a star. Great collar record. Saved hundreds of people from these cults. And he’s going to be taking on fundamentalist cases. I mean terrorists. Now, if it makes you feel any better, I talked to them, and they’ll have an inquiry. Look into the takedowns, see if he used excessive force.”

“The most powerful handgun known to man,” TJ recited, then fell silent under his boss’s withering glance.

“Look into it?” Dance asked, her voice incredulous. “We’re talking questionable deaths—fake suicides, Amy. Oh, please. It’s a vendetta. Pure and simple. Jesus, even Pell was above revenge. And who knows what else Kellogg’s done.”

“Kathryn,” her boss warned.

The FBI agent said, “The fact is he’s a federal agent investigating crimes in which the perps are particularly dangerous and smart. In some instances they’ve been killed resisting. Happens all the time.”

“Pell wasn’t resisting. I can testify to that—as an expert witness. He was murdered.”

Overby was tapping a pencil on his immaculate blotter. The man was a knotted ball of stress.

“Kellogg has arrested—he has arrested, you know—a lot of dangerous individuals. A few have been killed.”

“Fine, Amy, we can go on and on about this for hours. My concern isn’t anything other than presenting a single homicide case to Sandy Sandoval, whether Washington likes it or not.”

“Federalism at work,” TJ said.

Tap, tap . . . The pencil bounced and Overby cleared his throat.

“It’s not even a great case,” the SAC pointed out. She’d apparently read all the details on the trip to the Peninsula.

“It doesn’t have to be a slam dunk. Sandy can still win it.”

Grabe put the coffee down. She turned her placid face to Overby and leveled hard eyes at him. “Charles, they’ve asked that you don’t pursue it.”

Dance wasn’t going to let them dump the case. And, all right, some of her goddamn motive was because the man who’d asked her out, who’d won a bit of her heart, had betrayed her.

. . . afterward. How does that sound?

Overby’s eyes took in more pictures and mementos on his desk. “It’s a tough situation. . . . You know what Oliver Wendell Holmes said? He said that tough cases make bad law. Or maybe hard cases make bad law. I don’t remember.”

What does that mean? she wondered.

Grabe said in a soft tone, “Kathryn, Daniel Pell was a dangerous man. He killed law enforcers, he killed people you know and he killed innocents. You’ve done a great job in an impossible situation. You stopped a really bad doer. And Kellogg contributed to that. It’s a gold star for everybody.”

“Absolutely,” Overby said. He set down the bouncing writing implement. “You know what this reminds me of, Amy? Jack Ruby killing Kennedy’s assassin. Remember? I don’t think anybody had a problem with what Ruby did, gunning Oswald down.”

Dance’s jaw closed, her teeth pressing together firmly. She flicked her thumb against her forefinger. Just as he’d “reassured” Grabe of Dance’s innocence in contributing to Pell’s escape, her boss was going to sell her out again. By declining to submit the case to Sandy Sandoval, Overby wasn’t just covering his ass; he was as guilty of murder as Kellogg himself. Dance sat back, her shoulders slumping slightly. She saw TJ’s grimace from the corner of her eye.

“Exactly,” Grabe said. “So—”

Then Overby held up a hand. “But a funny thing about that case.”

“What case?” the FBI agent asked.

“The Ruby case. Texas arrested him for murder. And guess what? Jack Ruby got convicted and sent to jail.” A shrug. “I’ll have to say no, Amy. I’m submitting the Kellogg case to the Monterey County Prosecutor. I’m going to recommend indictment for murder. Lesser included offense’ll be manslaughter. Oh, and aggravated assault on a CBI agent. Kellogg did take a shot at Kathryn, after all.”

Dance felt her heart thud. Had she heard this right? TJ glanced at her with a raised eyebrow.

Overby was looking at Dance. He said, “And I think we should go for misuse of legal process too, and lying to an investigative agent. What do you think, Kathryn?”

Those hadn’t occurred to her. “Excellent.” She noticed TJ’s thumb subtly point upward.

Grabe rubbed her cheek with a short, pink-polished nail. “Do you really think this is a good idea, Charles?”

“Oh, I do. Absolutely.”

SATURDAY

Chapter 61

Tears pooling in her eyes, a woman lay on the bed of the cheap transient hotel off Del Monte, near Highway 1. Listening to the hiss of traffic, she was staring at the ceiling.

She wished she could stop crying.

But she couldn’t.

Because he was dead.

Her Daniel was gone.

Jennie Marston touched her head, under the bandage, which stung furiously. She kept replaying the last few hours of their time together, Thursday. Standing on the beach south of Carmel, as he held the rock in the shape of Jasmine, her mother’s cat, the one thing her mother would never hurt.

Recalling how Daniel held the rock, turning it over and over.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking, lovely. It looks just like a cat.” Then he’d held her tighter and whispered, “I was watching the news.”

“Oh, back at the motel?”

“That’s right. Lovely, the police found out about you.”

“About—”

“Your name. They know who you are.”

“They do?” she whispered in horror.

“Yes.”

“Oh, no . . . Daniel, sweetheart, I’m sorry . . .” She’d started shaking.

“You left something in the room, right?”

Then she remembered. The email. It was in her jeans. In a weak voice she said, “It was the first one where you said you loved me. I couldn’t throw it out. You told me to, but I just couldn’t. I’m so sorry. I—”

“It’s okay, lovely. But now we have to talk.”

“Sure, sweetheart,” she’d said, resigned to the worst. She caressed her bumpy nose and no silent recitations of angel songs, angel songs were going to help.

He was going to leave her. Make her go away.

But things were more complicated than that. It seemed that one of the women in the Family was working with him. Rebecca. They were going to get another Family together and go to his mountaintop, live by themselves.

“You weren’t supposed to be part of it, lovely, but when I got to know you I changed my mind. I knew I couldn’t live without you. I’ll talk to Rebecca. It’ll take a little while. She’s . . . difficult. But eventually she’ll do what I say. You’ll become friends.”

“I don’t know.”

“You and me, lovely, we’ll be the team. She and I never had that connection. It was about something else.”

If he meant they just had sex, that was okay. Jennie wasn’t jealous about that, not too much. She was jealous about him loving someone else, sharing laughs and stories, someone else being his lovely.

He’d continued, “But now we have to be careful. The police know you and they’ll be able to find you easily. So you’ve got to disappear.”

“Disappear?”

“For a while. A month or two. Oh, I don’t like it either. I’ll miss you.”

And she could see that he would.

“Don’t worry. Everything’ll work out. I won’t let you go.”

“Really?”

“We’re going to pretend that I killed you. The police will stop looking for you. I’m going to have to cut you a little. We’ll put some blood on that rock and purse. They’ll think I hit you with the rock and threw you into the ocean. It’ll hurt.”

“If it means we can be together.” (Though thinking: Not my hair, not again! What would she look like now?)

“I’d rather cut myself, lovely. But there’s no way around it.”

“It’s okay.”

“Come on over here. Sit down. Hold my leg. Squeeze my leg tight. It’ll hurt less that way.”

The pain was terrible. But she bit down on her sleeve and squeezed his leg hard and managed not to scream as the knife cut and the blood flowed.

The bloody purse, the bloody statue of Jasmine . . .

They’d driven to where he’d hidden the blue Ford Focus stolen at Moss Landing, and he gave her the keys. They’d said good-bye and she’d gotten another room, in this cheap hotel. Just as she’d entered the room, and turned on the TV, lying back and cradling the agonizing wound on her head, she’d seen on the news that her Daniel had been shot dead at Point Lobos.

She’d screamed into the pillow, beaten the mattress with her bony hands. Finally she’d sobbed herself into a tortured sleep. Then she’d wakened and lain in bed, staring at the ceiling, her eyes flicking from one corner to the other. Endlessly. The compulsive gazing.

It reminded her of the endless hours lying in the bedroom when she was married, head back, waiting for the nosebleed to stop, the pain to go away.

And Tim’s bedroom.

And a dozen others.

Lying on her back, waiting, waiting, waiting . . .

Jennie knew she had to get up, get moving. The police were looking for her—she’d seen her driver’s license picture on TV, unsmiling, and her nose huge. Her face burned with horror at the image.

So get off your ass . . .

Yet for the past few hours, as she’d lain on the cheap bed, swayback and with coils ridging through the skimpy cover, she’d felt something curious within her.

A change, like the first frost of autumn. She wondered what the feeling was. Then she understood.

Anger.

This was an emotion rare to Jennie Marston. Oh, she was great at feeling bad, great at being afraid, great at scurrying, great at waiting for the pain to go away.

Or waiting for the pain to begin.

But now she was angry. Her hands shook and her breath came fast. And then, though the fury remained, she found herself completely calm. It was just like making candy—you cook the sugar for a long time until it reaches the hard-boil stage, bubbling and dangerous (it would stick to your skin like burning glue). And then you poured it onto a piece of marble, and it cooled into a brittle sheet.

That’s what Jennie felt within her now. Cold anger within her heart. Hard . . .

Teeth set, heart pounding, she walked into the bathroom and took a shower. She sat at the cheap desk, in front of a mirror, and put on her makeup. She spent nearly a half-hour doing this, then looked at herself in the mirror. And she liked what she saw.

Angel songs . . .

She was thinking back to last Thursday, as they’d stood beside the Ford Focus, Jennie crying, hugging Daniel hard.

“I’ll miss you so much, sweetie,” she said.

Then his voice had lowered. “Now, lovely, I’ve got to go take care of something, make sure our mountaintop is safe. But there’s one thing you need to do.”

“What, Daniel?”

“Remember that night on the beach? When I needed you to help me? With that woman in the trunk?”

She nodded. “You . . . you want me to help you do something like that again?”

His blue eyes staring into hers. “I don’t want you to help. I need you to do it yourself.”

“Me?”

He’d leaned close and gazed into her eyes. “Yes. If you don’t, we’ll never have any peace, we’ll never be together.”

She slowly nodded. He’d then handed her the pistol he’d taken from the deputy guarding James Reynolds’s house. He showed her how to use it. Jennie was surprised at how easy it was.

Now, feeling the anger within her, splintery as hard candy, Jennie walked to the bed of the cheap motel and shook out the contents of the small shopping bag she was using as a purse: the gun, half of her remaining money, some personal effects and the other thing Daniel had given her: a slip of paper. Jennie now opened the note and stared at what it contained: the names Kathryn Dance, Stuart and Edie Dance, and several addresses.

She heard her lover’s voice as he’d slipped the gun into the bag and handed it to her. “Be patient, lovely. Take your time. And what’s the most important thing I’ve taught you?”

“To stay in control,” she’d recited.

“You get an A-plus, lovely.” And he delivered what turned out to be their last kiss.

Chapter 62

Leaving headquarters, Dance headed down to the Point Lobos Inn, to see about transferring the bill from Kellogg’s credit card to the CBI’s own account.

Charles Overby wasn’t happy about the expenditure, of course, but there was an inherent conflict of interest in having a criminal defendant pay for expenses to help out the very institution that had arrested him. So Overby had agreed to swallow the cost of the inn. His shining moment of supporting Kellogg’s prosecution didn’t extend to other aspects of his personality, though. He whined mightily about the bill. (“Jordan Cabernet? Who drank the Jordan? And two bottles?”)

Dance didn’t tell him that she’d volunteered to let Samantha McCoy stay there for an extra few days.

As she was driving she listened to some music by Altan, the Celtic group. “Green Grow the Rushes O” was the song. The melody was haunting, which seemed appropriate under the circumstances, since she was en route to the location where people had died.

She was thinking of the trip to Southern California next weekend, the kids and dogs in tow. She was going to record a group of Mexican musicians near Ojai. They were fans of the website and had emailed Martine some samples of their music. Dance wanted to get some live recordings. The rhythms were fascinating. She was looking forward to the trip.

The roads here weren’t crowded; the bad weather had returned. Dance saw only one car behind her on the entire road, a blue sedan trailing behind her a half-mile.

Dance turned off the road and headed to the Point Lobos Inn. She glanced at her phone. Still no message from O’Neil, she was troubled to learn. Dance could call him on the pretense of a case, and he’d call her back immediately. But she couldn’t do that. Besides, probably better to keep some distance. It’s a fine line when you’re friends with a married man.

She turned down the inn’s driveway and parked, listened to the end of the elegiac song. Dance recalled her own husband’s funeral. It was logical that Bill, with a wife, two children and a home in Pacific Grove, should be buried nearby. His headstrong mother, though, had wanted him buried in San Francisco, a city he’d fled when he was eighteen, returning only on holidays, and not a lot of them. Mrs. Swenson had been strident when discussing her son’s resting place.

Dance had prevailed, though she felt bad to see her mother-in-law’s tears and had paid for the victory in small ways for a year afterward. Bill was now on a hillside where you could see plenty of trees, a stretch of Pacific Ocean and a sliver of the ninth hole at Pebble Beach—a gravesite for which thousands of golfers would have paid dearly. She recalled that, though neither she nor her husband played, they’d planned on taking lessons at some point.

“Maybe when we retire,” he’d said.

“Retire. What’s that mean again?”

She now parked and walked into the Point Lobos Inn office, then took care of the paperwork.

“We already had some calls,” the clerk said. “Reporters wanting to get pictures of the cabin. And somebody’s planning to give tours of where Pell got shot. That’s sick.”

Yep, it was. Morton Nagle would not have approved; perhaps the tactless entrepreneur would appear as a footnote in The Sleeping Doll.

As Dance was walking back to the car, she was aware of a woman nearby, looking out into the mists toward the ocean, her jacket fluttering in the breeze. As Dance continued on, the woman turned away from the view and fell into a pace that matched the agent’s, not far behind.

She also noticed that a blue car was parked nearby. It was familiar. Was this the driver who’d been behind her? Then she noticed that it was a Ford Focus, and recalled that the vehicle stolen at Moss Landing had never been recovered. It too was blue. Were there any other loose ends that—

At that moment the woman walked up to her quickly and called, a harsh voice over the wind, “Are you Kathryn Dance?”

Surprised, the agent stopped and turned. “That’s right. Do I know you?”

The woman continued until she was a few feet away.

She took off her sunglasses, revealing a familiar face, though Dance couldn’t place it.

“We’ve never met. But we kind of know each other. I’m Daniel Pell’s girlfriend.”

“You’re—” Dance gasped.

“Jennie Marston.”

Dance’s hand dropped to her pistol.

But before she touched the weapon’s grip, Jennie said, “I want to turn myself in.” She held her wrists out, apparently for the handcuffs. A considerate gesture Dance had never seen in all her years as a law-enforcement agent.

•    •    •

“I was supposed to kill you.”

This news didn’t alarm her as much as it might, considering that Daniel Pell was dead, Jennie’s hands were cuffed and Dance had found no weapons on her or in the car.

“He gave me a gun, but it’s back at the motel. Really, I’d never hurt you.”

She didn’t seem capable of it, true.

“He said no policeman had ever gotten into his mind like you had. He was afraid of you.”

Threats have to be eliminated. . . .

“So he faked your death?”

“He cut me.” Jennie showed her a bandage on the back of her head. “Some skin and hair and blood. Your head bleeds a lot.” She sighed. “Then he gave me your address and your parents’. I was supposed to kill you. He knew you’d never let him get away.”

“You agreed?”

“I didn’t really say anything one way or the other.” She shook her head. “He was so hard to say no to. . . . He just assumed I would. Because I’d always done what he wanted. He wanted me to kill you and then come live with him and Rebecca in the woods somewhere. We’d start a new Family.”

“You knew about Rebecca?”

“He told me.” In a wisp of a voice: “Did she write the emails to me? Pretending to be him?”

“Yes.”

Her lips pressed together tightly. “They didn’t sound like the way he talked. I thought somebody else wrote them. But I didn’t want to ask. Sometimes you just don’t want to know the truth.”

Amen, thought Kathryn Dance. “How did you get here? Did you follow me?”

“That’s right. I wanted to talk to you in person. I thought if I just turned myself in, they’d take me right to jail. But I had to ask: Were you there when he was shot? Did he say anything?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Oh. I was just wondering.” Her lips tightened, a kinesic clue to remorse. Then a glance at Dance. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I’ve had worse scares lately,” Dance told her. “Why didn’t you run, though? Maybe in a few weeks, when your body didn’t wash up on shore, we’d’ve wondered. But you could’ve gotten to Mexico or Canada by the time we started searching.”

“I guess I just got out from underneath his spell. I thought things’d be different with Daniel. I got to know him first—you know, not just the physical stuff—and we developed this real connection. Or I thought it was. But then I figured that was all a lie. Rebecca probably told him everything about me so he could hook me in, you know. Just like my husband and boyfriends. I used to get picked up in bars or at catering jobs. Daniel did the same thing, only he was just a lot smarter about it.

“All my life I thought I needed a man. I’d have this idea I was like a flashlight and men were the batteries. I couldn’t shine without one in my life. But then after Daniel was killed I was in this motel room and all of a sudden I felt different. I got mad. It was weird. I could taste it, I was so mad. That, like, never happened to me before. And I knew I had to do something about it. But not moaning about Daniel, not going out and finding a new man. Which I always would do in the past. No, I wanted to do something for me. And what’s the best thing I could do? Get arrested.” She gave a laugh. “Sounds stupid, but it’s all my decision. Nobody else’s.”

“I think that’s a good one.”

“We’ll see. So, I guess that’s it.”

It pretty much was, Dance decided.

She escorted Jennie back to the Taurus. As they drove to Salinas, Dance mentally tallied up the charges. Arson, felony murder, conspiracy, harboring a fugitive, several others.

Still, the woman had surrendered voluntarily and appeared as contrite as they came. Dance would interview her later, if she agreed, and if Jennie was as sincere as she seemed, the agent would go to bat for her with Sandoval.

At the lockup in the courthouse Dance processed her into the system.

“Is there anybody you want me to call?” Dance asked.

She started to say something, then stopped and gave a soft laugh. “No. I think it’s best, you know, just to start over. I’m fine.”

“They’ll get you a lawyer, then maybe you and I could spend some more time talking.”

“Sure.”

And she was led down the very hallway her lover had escaped from almost one week before.

Chapter 63

It was perhaps a spectacularly bright Saturday afternoon two or three hundred feet up, but the grounds of Monterey Bay Hospital were leached gray by the dense fog.

The mist carried with it the fragrance of pine, eucalyptus and flowers—gardenia, Kathryn Dance believed, but wasn’t sure. She liked plants but, like meals, she preferred to purchase them fully functional from those in the know, rather than try her own hand and risk destruction.

Standing beside one of the gardens, Dance watched Linda Whitfield being wheeled out of the front door by her brother. Roger was a slim, austere man whose age could have been anywhere from thirty-five to fifty-five. He fit Dance’s expectations, quiet and conservative, wearing pressed jeans, a dress shirt starched and ironed, and a striped tie, held in place with a bar that had a cross on it. He’d greeted Dance with a very firm handshake and no smile whatsoever.

“I’ll get the truck. Excuse me, please.”

“Are you up for the drive?” Dance asked the woman after he’d gone.

“We’ll see. We know some people in Mendocino who used to be in our church. Roger called them. We might stop there for the night.”

Linda’s eyes were unfocused and she’d been giving giddy laughs at nothing in particular; Dance deduced that the painkiller she’d taken was really, really good.

“I’d vote for stopping. Take it easy. Be coddled.”

“Coddled.” She laughed at the word. “How’s Rebecca? I haven’t asked about her.”

“Still in intensive care.” A nod at the hospital. “Probably not too far from where you were.”

“Is she going to be okay?”

“They think so.”

“I’ll pray for her.” Another laugh. It reminded Dance of Morton Nagle’s signature chuckle.

Dance crouched down beside the chair. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did. I know it was hard. And I’m so sorry you were hurt. But we couldn’t’ve stopped him without you.”

“God does His work, life goes on. It’s all for the good.”

Dance didn’t follow; it was like one of Charles Overby’s nonsequiturs.

Linda blinked. “Where will Daniel be buried?”

“We called his aunt in Bakersfield, but she doesn’t even remember her own name. His brother—Richard? He’s not interested. He’ll be buried here after the autopsy. In Monterey County, for indigent funerals, the body’s cremated. There’s a public cemetery.”

“Is it consecrated?”

“I don’t know. I’d suppose so.”

“If not, could you find a place for him? A proper resting place. I’ll pay.”

The man who’d tried to kill her?

“I’ll make sure.”

“Thank you.”

It was then that a dark blue Acura careened recklessly up the driveway and skidded to a stop nearby. The car’s arrival was so abrupt that Dance crouched in alarm and her hand dropped to her pistol.

But the agent relaxed immediately, seeing Samantha McCoy emerging from the driver’s seat. The woman joined Dance and Linda. She asked, “How’re you feeling?”

“I’m on pills right now. I think I’ll be pretty sore tomorrow. Well, probably for the next month.”

“You were leaving without saying good-bye?”

“My, why would you think that? I was going to call.”

The deception was easily spotted by Dance. Probably by Samantha as well.

“You look good.”

Another slurred chuckle was the response.

Silence. Deep silence; the fog swallowed up whole any ambient noise.

With her hands on her hips, Samantha looked down at Linda. “Strange few days, huh?”

The woman gave a curious laugh, both groggy and cautious.

“Linda, I want to call you. We could get together.”

“Why? To psychoanalyze me? To save me from the clutches of the church?” Bitterness bled from the words.

“I just want to see you. It doesn’t have to be about more than that.”

With some mental effort Linda offered, “Sam, we were different people eight, nine years ago, you and me. We’re even more different now. We have nothing in common.”

“Nothing in common? Well, that’s not true. We went through hell together.”

“Yeah, we did. And God helped us through it and then sent us in different directions.”

Samantha crouched and carefully took the woman’s arm, mindful of the wound. She was well within Linda’s personal proxemic zone. “Listen to me. You listening?”

“What?” Impatient.

“There was a man once.”

“A man?”

“Listen. This man was in his house and there was a bad flood, really bad. The river filled his first floor and a boat came by to rescue him but he said, ‘No, go on, God’ll save me.’ He ran to the second floor, but the water rose up there too. Another rescue boat came by but he said, ‘No, go on, God’ll save me.’ Then the river kept rising and he climbed to the roof and a helicopter came by but he said, ‘No, go on, God’ll save me.’ And the helicopter flew away.”

Words slurred from the medication, Linda asked, “What’re you talking about?”

Sam continued, unfazed. “Then the water sweeps him off the roof and he drowns. Next thing he’s in heaven and he sees God and he says, ‘God, why didn’t you save me?’ And God shakes his head and says, ’Funny, I don’t understand what went wrong. I sent you two boats and a helicopter.”

Dance chuckled. Linda blinked at the punch line and, the agent thought, wanted to smile but forced herself not to.

“Come on, Linda—we’re each other’s helicopters. Admit it.”

The woman said nothing.

Sam thrust a card into the woman’s hand. “Here’s my number.”

Linda said nothing for a long moment, staring at the card. “Sarah Starkey? That’s your name?”

Samantha smiled. “I can’t change it back at this point. But I am going to tell my husband. Everything. He’s on his way here now with our son. We’re going to spend a few days in the area. That’s what I’m hoping. But after I tell him, he might just get back in the car and head home.”

Linda gave no response. She flicked the card with her thumb, slipped it into her purse and looked up the driveway as a battered silver pickup truck approached. It stopped and Roger Whitfield climbed out.

Samantha introduced herself to Linda’s brother, using her original name, not “Sarah.”

The man greeted her with a raised eyebrow and another formal handshake. Then he and Dance helped Linda into the car, and the agent closed the door.

Samantha stepped up on the running board. “Linda, remember: helicopters.”

The woman said, “Good-bye, Sam. I’ll pray for you.”

With no other words or gestures, the brother and sister drove off. Samantha and Dance watched them ease down the winding drive as the taillights, glowing orbs in the fog, grew fainter.

After they were gone, Dance asked, “When’s your husband getting here?”

“He left San Jose an hour ago. Pretty soon, I’d guess.” Sam nodded after the pickup truck. “Think she’s going to call me?”

All of Kathryn Dance’s skill as an investigator, all of her talent as a reader of body language couldn’t answer that question. The best she could come up with was, “She didn’t throw your card away, did she?”

“Not yet,” Samantha said, offered a weak smile and walked back to her car.

•    •    •

The evening sky was clear, the fog busy elsewhere.

Kathryn Dance was on the Deck, alone, though Patsy and Dylan were nearby, roaming the backyard, engaged in dog intrigue. She’d finished the preparations for her father’s big birthday party tomorrow night and was sipping a German beer while listening to A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor’s variety radio show she’d been a fan of for years. When the program concluded she shut off the stereo and heard in its stead the distant sound track of Maggie playing scales and the faint bass of Wes’s stereo.

Listening to the boy’s music—she thought it was Coldplay—Kathryn Dance debated a moment then impulsively pulled out her cell phone, found a number in the Samsung and pushed send.

“Well, hi there,” Brian Gunderson said, answering the phone.

Caller ID has created a whole new response mechanism, she thought. He’d’ve had three full seconds to figure out a game plan for the conversation, tailored specifically to Kathryn Dance.

“Hi,” she responded. “Hey, sorry I haven’t gotten back to you. I know you called a few times.”

Brian gave a laugh and she remembered the times they’d spent together, dinner, walking on the beach. He had a nice laugh. And he kissed well. “I’d say if anybody has an excuse, it’s you. I’ve been watching the news. Who’s Overby?”

“My boss.”

“Oh, the crazy one you told me about?”

“Yep.” Dance wondered how indiscreet she’d been.

“I saw a press conference and he mentioned you. He said you were his assistant in capturing Pell.”

She laughed. If TJ had heard, it was only a matter of time until she got a message for “Assistant Dance.”

“So you got him.”

“He’s got.”

And then some.

“How’ve you been?” she asked.

“Good. Up in San Fran for a few days, wheedling money out of people who were wheedling money out of other people. And I wheedled a fee. Worked out for everybody.” He added that he’d had a flat tire on the 101, returning home. An amateur barbershop quartet coming back from a gig had stopped, directed traffic and changed the tire for him.

“They sing while they changed it?”

“Sadly, no. But I’m going to one of their shows in Burlingame.”

Was this an invitation? she wondered

“How are the kids?” he asked.

“Fine. Being kids.” She paused, wondering if she should ask him out for drinks first, or go right for dinner. She figured dinner was safe, given that they had a history.

Brian said, “Anyway, thanks for calling back.”

“Sure.”

“But, never mind.”

Never mind?

“The reason I called? A friend and I’re going down to La Jolla this week.”

Friend. What a marvelously diverse word that is.

“That’s great. You going to snorkel? You said you wanted to, I remember.” There was a huge underwater wildlife refuge there. She and Brian had talked about going.

“Oh, yeah. We’ve got that planned. I just called to see if I could pick up that book I lent you, the one about backpacking trails down near San Diego.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Not a problem. I bought another one. Keep it. I’m sure you’ll get down there some day.”

She gave a laugh—a Morton Nagle chuckle. “Sure.”

“Everything else going well?”

“Real well, yeah.”

“I’ll call you when I’m back in town.”

Kathryn Dance, kinesics analyst and seasoned interrogator, knew that people often lie expecting—even hoping—that the listener spots the deception. Usually in contexts just like this one.

“That’d be great, Brian.”

She guessed they’d never share another word together in their lives.

Dance folded up the phone and walked into her bedroom. She pushed aside the sea of shoes and found her old Martin 00-18 guitar, with a mahogany back and sides and a spruce top aged the color of taffy.

She carried it out to the Deck, sat down and, with fingers clumsy from the chill—and lack of practice—tuned up and started to play. First, some scales and arpeggios, then the Bob Dylan song “Tomorrow Is a Long Time.”

Her thoughts were meandering, from Brian Gunderson to the front seat of the CBI Taurus and Winston Kellogg.

Tasting mint, smelling skin and aftershave . . .

As she played, she noticed motion inside the house. Dance saw her son beeline to the refrigerator and cart a cookie and glass of milk back into his room. The raid took all of thirty seconds.

She found herself thinking that she’d been treating Wes’s attitude all along as an aberration, a flaw to be fixed.

Parents tend to feel that their children raise valid objections about potential stepparents or even casual dates. You can’t think that way.

But now Dance wasn’t so sure. Maybe they do raise real concerns at times. Maybe we should listen to them, and as carefully and with as open a mind as if interviewing witnesses in a criminal investigation. Maybe she’d been taking him for granted all along. Sure, Wes was a child, not a partner, but he still should have a vote. Here I am, she thought, a kinesic expert, establishing baselines and looking for deviations as signals that something’s not right.

With Winston Kellogg, was I deviating from my own baseline?

Maybe the boy’s reaction was a clue that she had.

Something to think about.

Dance was halfway through a Paul Simon song, humming the melody, not sure of the lyrics, when she heard the creak of the gate below the Deck.

The instrument went silent as she glanced over to see Michael O’Neil breach the stairs. He was wearing the gray and maroon sweater she’d bought for him when she’d been skiing in Colorado a year ago.

“Hey,” he said. “Intruding?”

“Never.”

“Anne’s got an opening in an hour. But I thought I’d stop by here first, say hi.”

“Glad you did.”

He pulled a beer from the fridge and, when she nodded, got another for her too. He sat down next to her. The Becks snapped open crisply. They both sipped long.

She started playing an instrumental transcribed for guitar, an old Celtic tune by Turlough O’Carolan, the blind, itinerant Irish harpist.

O’Neil said nothing, just drank the beer and nodded with the rhythm. His eyes, she noticed, were turned toward the ocean—though he couldn’t see it; the view was obscured by lush pines. She remembered that once, after seeing the old Spencer Tracy movie about Hemingway’s obsessed fisherman, Wes had called O’Neil the “Old Man of the Sea.” He and Dance had laughed hard at that.

When she finished playing, he said, “There’s a problem with the Juan situation. Did you hear?”

“Juan Millar? No, what?”

“The autopsy report came in. The Coroner’s Division found secondary causes. Labeled them suspicious. We’ve got a file started at MCSO.”

“What happened?”

“It wasn’t infection or shock he died of, which is usually what happens in a bad burn. It was from an interaction of morphine and diphenhydramine—that’s an antihistamine. The morphine drip was open wider than it should’ve been and none of the doctors had prescribed an antihistamine. It’s dangerous to mix with morphine.”

“Intentional?”

“Looks like it. He couldn’t do it himself. We’re probably looking at murder.”

Dance heard her mother’s whispered report of Millar’s words.

Kill me . . .

She wondered who might’ve been behind the death. Mercy killings were among the most difficult, and emotional, cases to investigate.

Dance shook her head. “And after all his family’s been through. Whatever we can do, let me know.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Dance smelling wood-fire smoke—and another dose of O’Neil’s aftershave. She enjoyed the combination. She started to play once again. Elizabeth Cotten’s finger-picking version of “Freight Train,” as infectious a melody as ever existed. It would rattle around in her brain for days.

O’Neil said, “Heard about Winston Kellogg. Never would’ve called that one.”

Word travels fast.

“Yep.”

“TJ gave me all the gruesome details.” He shook his head and gestured for Dylan and Patsy. The dogs bounded over to him. He handed out Milk Bones from a cookie jar that sat beside a bottle of dubious tequila. They took the treats and raced off. He said, “Sounds like it’ll be a tough case. Pressure from Washington to drop it, I’ll bet.”

“Oh, yeah. Uphill all the way.”

“If you’ve interested, we might want to make some calls.”

“Chicago, Miami or L.A.?”

O’Neil blinked, then gave a laugh. “You’ve been considering it too, hm? What’s the strongest?”

Dance replied, “I’d go with the suspicious suicide in L.A. It’s in state, so CBI’s got jurisdiction and Kellogg can’t claim that the cult leader died during a takedown. And that’s the file that Kellogg destroyed. Why else would he do that, if he wasn’t guilty?”

She’d decided that if Kellogg got off the hook on the Pell killing, which was a possibility, she wouldn’t let the matter rest there. She’d pursue the case against him in other venues.

And apparently she wasn’t going to do it alone.

“Good,” O’Neil said. “Let’s get together tomorrow and look over the evidence.”

She nodded.

The detective finished the beer and got another one. “I don’t suppose Overby’d spring for a trip to L.A.”

“Believe it or not, I think he would.”

“Really?”

“If we fly coach.”

“And standby,” O’Neil added.

They laughed.

“Any requests?” She tapped the old Martin, which resounded like a crisp drum.

“Nope.” He leaned back and stretched his scuffed shoes out in front of him. “Whatever you’re in the mood for.”

Kathryn Dance thought for a moment and began to play.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The California Bureau of Investigation, within the state’s Attorney General’s Office, does indeed exist, and I hope the dedicated men and women of that fine organization will forgive me for taking the liberty of reorganizing it some, and creating an office on the picturesque Monterey Peninsula. I’ve tinkered a bit too with the excellent Monterey County Sheriff’s Office.

Similarly, I trust the residents of Capitola, near Santa Cruz, will forgive my plopping a fictional superprison down in their midst.

Those interested in the topics of kinesics and interrogation and wishing to read further might enjoy the books I’ve found extremely helpful and which sit prominently on Kathryn Dance’s and my bookshelves: Principles of Kinesic Interview and Interrogation and The Truth about Lying, Stan B. Walters; Detecting Lies and Deceit, Aldert Vrij; The Language of Confession, Interrogation, and Deception, Roger W. Shuy; Practical Aspects of Interview and Interrogation, David E. Zulawski and Douglas E. Wicklander; What the Face Reveals, eds. Paul Ekman and Erika Rosenberg; Reading People, Jo-Ellan Dimitrius and Mark Mazzarella; Introduction to Kinesics: An Annotation System for Analysis of Body Motion and Gestures, R. L. Birdwhitsell (the dancer turned anthropologist credited with coining the term “kinesics”).

And thanks, as always, to Madelyn, Julie, Jane, Will and Tina.

You can’t see me, but I’m always present.

Run as fast as you can, but you’ll never escape me.

Fight me with all your strength, but you’ll never defeat me.

I kill when I wish, but can never be brought to justice. Who am I?

Old Man Time.

I

12:02 A.M. TUESDAY

Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.

—WILLIAM FAULKNER

Chapter 1

“How long did it take them to die?”

The man this question was posed to didn’t seem to hear it. He looked in the rearview mirror again and concentrated on his driving. The hour was just past midnight and the streets in lower Manhattan were icy. A cold front had swept the sky clear and turned an earlier snow to slick glaze on the asphalt and concrete. The two men were in the rattling Band-Aid-mobile, as Clever Vincent had dubbed the tan SUV. It was a few years old; the brakes needed servicing and the tires replacing. But taking a stolen vehicle in for work would not be a wise idea, especially since two of its recent passengers were now murder victims.

The driver—a lean man in his fifties, with trim black hair—made a careful turn down a side street and continued his journey, never speeding, making precise turns, perfectly centered in his lane. He’d drive the same whether the streets were slippery or dry, whether the vehicle had just been involved in murder or not.

Careful, meticulous.

How long did it take?

Big Vincent—Vincent with long, sausage fingers, always damp, and a taut brown belt stretching the first hole—shivered hard. He’d been waiting on the street corner after his night shift as a word-processing temp. It was bitterly cold but Vincent didn’t like the lobby of his building. The light was greenish and the walls were covered with big mirrors in which he could see his oval body from all angles. So he’d stepped into the clear, cold December air and paced and ate a candy bar. Okay, two.

As Vincent was glancing up at the full moon, a shockingly white disk visible for a moment through a canyon of buildings, the Watchmaker reflected aloud, “How long did it take them to die? Interesting.”

Vincent had known the Watchmaker—whose real name was Gerald Duncan—for only a short time but he’d learned that you asked the man questions at your own risk. Even a simple query could open the door to a monologue. Man, could he talk. And his answers were always organized, like a college professor’s. Vincent knew that the silence for the last few minutes was because Duncan was considering his answer.

Vincent opened a can of Pepsi. He was cold but he needed something sweet. He chugged it and put the empty can in his pocket. He ate a packet of peanut butter crackers. Duncan looked over to make sure Vincent was wearing gloves. They always wore gloves in the Band-Aid-Mobile.

Meticulous . . .

“I’d say there are several answers to that,” Duncan said in his soft, detached voice. “For instance, the first one I killed was twenty-four, so you could say it took him twenty-four years to die.”

Like, yeah . . . thought Clever Vincent with the sarcasm of a teenager, though he had to admit that this obvious answer hadn’t occurred to him.

“The other was thirty-two, I think.”

A police car drove by, the opposite way. The blood in Vincent’s temples began pounding but Duncan didn’t react. The cops showed no interest in the stolen Explorer.

“Another way to answer the question,” Duncan said, “is to consider the elapsed time from the moment I started until their hearts stopped beating. That’s probably what you meant. See, people want to put time into easy-to-digest frames of reference. That’s valid, as long as it’s helpful. Knowing the contractions come every twenty seconds is helpful. So is knowing that the athlete ran a mile in three minutes, fifty-eight seconds, so he wins the race. Specifically how long it took them tonight to die . . . well, that isn’t important, as long as it wasn’t fast.” A glance at Vincent. “I’m not being critical of your question.”

“No,” Vincent said, not caring if he was critical. Vincent Reynolds didn’t have many friends and could put up with a lot from Gerald Duncan. “I was just curious.”

“I understand. I just didn’t pay any attention. But the next one, I’ll time it.”

“The girl? Tomorrow?” Vincent’s heart beat just a bit faster.

He nodded. “Later today, you mean.”

It was after midnight. With Gerald Duncan you had to be precise, especially when it came to time.

“Right.”

Hungry Vincent had nosed out Clever Vincent now that he was thinking of Joanne, the girl who’d die next.

Later today . . .

The killer drove in a complicated pattern back to their temporary home in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, south of Midtown, near the river. The streets were deserted; the temperature was in the teens and the wind flowed steadily through the narrow streets.

Duncan parked at a curb and shut the engine off, set the parking brake. The men stepped out. They walked for a half block through the icy wind. Duncan glanced down at his shadow on the sidewalk, cast by the moon. “I’ve thought of another answer. About how long it took them to die.”

Vincent shivered again—mostly, but not only, from the cold.

“When you look at it from their point of view,” the killer said, “you could say that it took forever.”

Chapter 2

What is that?

From his squeaky chair in the warm office, the big man sipped coffee and squinted through the bright morning light toward the far end of the pier. He was the morning supervisor of the tugboat repair operation, located on the Hudson River north of Greenwich Village. There was a Moran with a bum diesel due to dock in forty minutes but at the moment the pier was empty and the supervisor was enjoying the warmth of the shed, where he sat with his feet up on the desk, coffee cradled against his chest. He wiped some condensation off the window and looked again.

What is it?

A small black box sat by the edge of the pier, the side that faced Jersey. It hadn’t been there when the facility had closed at six yesterday, and nobody would have docked after that. Had to come from the land side. There was a chain-link fence to prevent pedestrians and passersby from getting into the facility, but, as the man knew from the missing tools and trash drums (go figure), if somebody wanted to break in, they would.

But why leave something?

He stared for a while, thinking, It’s cold out, it’s windy, the coffee’s just right. Then he decided, Oh, hell, better check. He pulled on his thick gray jacket, gloves and hat and, taking a last slug of coffee, stepped outside into the breathtaking air.

The supervisor made his way through the wind along the pier, his watering eyes focused on the black box.

The hell is it? The thing was rectangular, less than a foot high, and the low sunlight sharply reflected off something on the front. He squinted against the glare. The whitecapped water of the Hudson slushed against the pilings below.

Ten feet away from the box he paused, realizing what it was.

A clock. An old-fashioned one, with those funny numbers—Roman numerals—and a moon face on the front. Looked expensive. He glanced at his watch and saw the clock was working; the time was accurate. Who’d leave a nice thing like that here? Well, all right, I got myself a present.

As he stepped forward to pick it up, though, his legs went out from under him and he had a moment of pure panic thinking he’d tumble into the river. But he went straight down, landing on the patch of ice he hadn’t seen, and slid no further.

Wincing in pain, gasping, he pulled himself to his feet. The man glanced down and saw that this wasn’t normal ice. It was reddish brown.

“Oh, Christ,” he whispered as he stared at the large patch of blood, which had pooled near the clock and frozen slick. He leaned forward and his shock deepened when he realized how the blood had gotten there. He saw what looked like bloody fingernail marks on the wooden decking of the pier, as if someone with slashed fingers or wrists had been holding on to keep from falling into the churning waters of the river.

He crept to the edge and looked down. No one was floating in the choppy water. He wasn’t surprised; if what he imagined was true, the frozen blood meant the poor bastard had been here a while ago and, if he hadn’t been saved, his body’d be halfway to Liberty Island by now.

Fumbling for his cell phone, he backed away and pulled his glove off with his teeth. A final glance at the clock, then he hurried back to the shed, calling the police with a stubby, quaking finger.

Before and After.

The city was different now, after that morning in September, after the explosions, the huge tails of smoke, the buildings that disappeared.

You couldn’t deny it. You could talk about the resilience, the mettle, the get-back-to-work attitude of New Yorkers, and that was true. But people still paused when planes made that final approach to LaGuardia and seemed a bit lower than normal. You crossed the street, wide, around an abandoned shopping bag. You weren’t surprised to see soldiers or police dressed in dark uniforms carrying black, military-style machine guns.

The Thanksgiving Day parade had come and gone without incident and now Christmas was in full swing, crowds everywhere. But floating atop the festivities, like a reflection in a department store’s holiday window, was the persistent image of the towers that no long were, the people no longer with us. And, of course, the big question: What would happen next?

Lincoln Rhyme had his own Before and After and he understood this concept very well. There was a time he could walk and function and then came the time when he could not. One moment he was as healthy as everyone else, searching a crime scene, and a minute later a beam had snapped his neck and left him a C-4 quadriplegic, almost completely paralyzed from the shoulders down.

Before and After . . .

There are moments that change you forever.

And yet, Lincoln Rhyme believed, if you make too grave an icon of them, then the events become more potent. And the bad guys win.

Now, early on a cold Tuesday morning, these were Rhyme’s thoughts as he listened to a National Public Radio announcer, in her unshakable FM voice, report about a parade planned for the day after tomorrow, followed by some ceremonies and meetings of government officials, all of which logically should have been held in the nation’s capital. But the up-with-New-York attitude had prevailed and spectators, as well as protesters, would be present in force and clogging the streets, making the life of security-sensitive police around Wall Street far more difficult. As with politics, so with sports: Play-offs that should occur in New Jersey were now scheduled for Madison Square Garden—as a display, for some reason, of patriotism. Rhyme wondered cynically if next year’s Boston Marathon would be held in New York City.

Before and After . . .

Rhyme had come to believe that he himself really wasn’t much different in the After. His physical condition, his skyline, you could say, had changed. But he was essentially the same person as in the Before: a cop and a scientist who was impatient, temperamental (okay, sometimes obnoxious), relentless and intolerant of incompetence and laziness. He didn’t play the gimp card, didn’t whine, didn’t make an issue of his condition (though good luck to any building owners who didn’t meet the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements for door width and ramps when he was at a crime scene in their buildings).

As he listened to the report now, the fact that certain people in the city seemed to be giving in to self-pity irritated him. “I’m going to write a letter,” he announced to Thom.

The slim young aide, in dark slacks, white shirt and thick sweater (Rhyme’s Central Park West town house suffered from a bad heating system and ancient insulation), glanced up from where he was overdecorating for Christmas. Rhyme enjoyed the irony of his placing a miniature evergreen tree on a table below which a present, though an unwrapped one, already waited: a box of adult disposable diapers.

“Letter?”

He explained his theory that it was more patriotic to go about business as usual. “I’m going to give ’em hell. The Times, I think.”

“Why don’t you?” asked the aide, whose profession was known as “caregiver” (though Thom said that, being in the employ of Lincoln Rhyme, his job description was really “saint”).

“I’m going to,” Rhyme said adamantly.

“Good for you . . . though, one thing?”

Rhyme lifted an eyebrow. The criminalist could—and did—get great expression out of his extant body parts: shoulders, face and head.

“Most of the people who say they’re going to write a letter don’t. People who do write letters just go ahead and write them. They don’t announce it. Ever notice that?”

“Thank you for the brilliant insight into psychology, Thom. You know that nothing’s going to stop me now.”

“Good,” repeated the aide.

Using the touchpad controller, the criminalist drove his red Storm Arrow wheelchair closer to one of the half dozen large, flat-screen monitors in the room.

“Command,” he said into the voice-recognition system, via a microphone attached to the chair. “Word processor.”

WordPerfect dutifully opened on the screen.

“Command, type. ‘Dear sirs.’ Command, colon. Command, paragraph. Command, type, ‘It has come to my attention—’”

The doorbell rang and Thom went to see who the visitor was.

Rhyme closed his eyes and was composing his rant to the world when a voice intruded. “Hey, Linc. Merry Christmas.”

“Uhm, ditto,” Rhyme grumbled to paunchy, disheveled Lon Sellitto, walking through the doorway. The big detective had to maneuver carefully; the room had been a quaint parlor in the Victorian era but now was chockablock with forensic science gear: optical microscopes, an electron microscope, a gas chromatograph, laboratory beakers and racks, pipettes, petri dishes, centrifuges, chemicals, books and magazines, computers—and thick wires, which ran everywhere. (When Rhyme began doing forensic consulting out of his town house, the power-hungry equipment frequently would blow circuit breakers. The juice running into the place probably equaled the combined usage by everyone else on the block.)

“Command, volume, level three.” The environmental control unit obediently turned down NPR.

“Not in the spirit of the season, are we?” the detective asked.

Rhyme didn’t answer. He looked back at the monitor.

“Hey, Jackson.” Sellitto bent down and petted a small, longhaired dog curled up in an NYPD evidence box. He was temporarily living here; his former owner, Thom’s elderly aunt, had passed away recently in Westport, Connecticut, after a long illness. Among the young man’s inheritances was Jackson, a Havanese. The breed, related to the bichon frise, originated in Cuba. Jackson was staying here until Thom could find a good home for him.

“We got a bad one, Linc,” Sellitto said, standing up. He started to take off his overcoat but changed his mind. “Jesus, it’s cold. Is this a record?”

“Don’t know. Don’t spend much time on the Weather Channel.” He thought of a good opening paragraph of his letter to the editor.

“Bad,” Sellitto repeated.

Rhyme glanced at Sellitto with a cocked eyebrow.

“Two homicides, same M.O. More or less.”

“Lots of ‘bad ones’ out there, Lon. Why’re these any badder?” As often happened in the tedious days between cases Rhyme was in a bad mood; of all the perps he’d come across, the worst was boredom.

But Sellitto had worked with Rhyme for years and was immune to the criminalist’s attitudes. “Got a call from the Big Building. Brass want you and Amelia on this one. They said they’re insisting.”

“Oh, insisting?”

“I promised I wouldn’t tell you they said that. You don’t like to be insisted.”

“Can we get to the ‘bad’ part, Lon? Or is that too much to ask?”

“Where’s Amelia?”

“Westchester, on a case. Should be back soon.”

The detective held up a wait-a-minute finger as his cell phone rang. He had a conversation, nodding and jotting notes. He disconnected and glanced at Rhyme. “Okay, here we have it. Sometime last night our perp, he grabs—”

“He?” Rhyme asked pointedly.

“Okay. We don’t know the gender for sure.”

“Sex.”

“What?”

Rhyme said, “Gender’s a linguistic concept. It refers to designating words male or female in certain languages. Sex is a biological concept differentiating male and female organisms.”

“Thanks for the grammar lesson,” the detective muttered. “Maybe it’ll help if I’m ever on Jeopardy! Anyway, he grabs some poor schmuck and takes ’em to that boat repair pier on the Hudson. We’re not exactly sure how he does it, but he forces the guy, or woman, to hang on over the river and then cuts their wrists. The vic holds on for a while, looks like—long enough to lose a shitload of blood—but then just lets go.”

“Body?”

“Not yet. Coast Guard and ESU’re searching.”

“I heard plural.”

“Okay. Then we get another call a few minutes later. To check out an alley downtown, off Cedar, near Broadway. The perp’s got another vic. A uniform finds this guy duct-taped and on his back. The perp rigged this iron bar—weighs maybe seventy-five pounds—above his neck. The vic has to hold it up to keep from getting his throat crushed.”

“Seventy-five pounds? Okay, given the strength issues, I’ll grant you the perp’s sex probably is male.”

Thom came into the room with coffee and pastries. Sellitto, his weight a constant issue, went for the Danish first, his diet hibernated during the holidays. He finished half and, wiping his mouth, continued. “So the vic’s holding up the bar. Which maybe he does for a while—but he doesn’t make it.”

“Who’s the vic?”

“Name’s Theodore Adams. Lived near Battery Park. A nine-one-one came in last night from a woman said her brother was supposed to meet her for dinner and never showed. That’s the name she gave. Sergeant from the precinct was going to call her this morning.”

Lincoln Rhyme generally didn’t find soft descriptions helpful. But he conceded that “bad” fit the situation.

So did the word “intriguing.” He asked, “Why do you say it’s the same M.O.?”

“Perp left a calling card at both scenes. Clocks.”

“As in tick-tock?”

“Yup. The first one was by the pool of blood on the pier. The other was next to the vic’s head. It was like the doer wanted them to see it. And, I guess, hear it.”

“Describe them. The clocks.”

“Looked old-fashioned. That’s all I know.”

“Not a bomb?” Nowadays—in the time of the After—every item of evidence that ticked was routinely checked for explosives.

“Nope. Won’t go bang. But the squad sent ’em up to Rodman’s Neck to check for bio or chemical agents. Same brand of clock, looks like. Spooky, one of the respondings said. Has this face of a moon on it. Oh, and just in case we were slow, he left a note under the clocks. Computer printout. No handwriting.”

“And they said . . . ?”

Sellitto glanced down at his notebook, not relying on memory. Rhyme appreciated this in the detective. He wasn’t brilliant but he was a bulldog and did everything slowly and with perfection. He read, “ ‘The full Cold Moon is in the sky, shining on the corpse of earth, signifying the hour to die and end the journey begun at birth.’” He looked up at Rhyme. “It was signed ‘the Watchmaker.’”

“We’ve got two vics and a lunar motif.” Often, an astronomical reference meant that the killer was planning to strike multiple times. “He’s got more on the agenda.”

“Hey, why d’you think I’m here, Linc?”

Rhyme glanced at the beginning of his missive to the Times. He closed his word-processing program. The essay about Before and After would have to wait.

Chapter 3

A small sound from outside the window. A crunch of snow.

Amelia Sachs stopped moving. She glanced out at the quiet, white backyard. She saw no one.

She was a half hour north of the city, alone in a pristine Tudor suburban house that was still as death. An appropriate thought, she reflected, since the owner of the place was no longer among the living.

The sound again. Sachs was a city girl, used to the cacophony of urban noises—threatening and benign. The intrusion into the excessive suburban quiet set her on edge.

Was its source a footstep?

The tall, red-haired detective, wearing a black leather jacket, navy blue sweater and black jeans, listened carefully for a moment, absently scratching her scalp. She heard another crunch. Unzipped her jacket so her Glock was easily accessible. Crouching, she looked outside fast. Saw nothing.

And returned to her task. She sat down on the luxurious leather office chair and began to examine the contents of a huge desk. This was a frustrating mission, the problem being that she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for. Which often happened when you searched a crime scene that was secondary or tertiary or whatever four-times-removed might be called. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to call this a crime scene at all. It was unlikely that any perpetrators had ever been present, nor had any bodies been discovered here, any loot hidden. This was simply a little-used residence of a man named Benjamin Creeley, who’d died miles away and had not been to this house for a week before his death.

Still she had to search, and search carefully—because Amelia Sachs was not here in the role she usually worked: crime scene cop. She was the lead detective in the first homicide case of her own.

Another snap outside. Ice, snow, branch, deer, squirrel . . . She ignored it and continued the search that had started a few weeks earlier, all thanks to a knot in a piece of cotton rope.

It was this length of clothesline that had ended the life of fifty-six-year-old Ben Creeley, found dangling from the banister of his Upper East Side town house. A suicide note was on the table, no signs of foul play evident.

Just after the man’s death, though, Suzanne Creeley, his widow, went to the NYPD. She simply didn’t believe that he’d killed himself. The wealthy businessman and accountant had been moody lately, yes. But only, she believed, because he’d been working very long hours on some particularly difficult projects. His occasionally dour moods were a far cry from suicidal depression. He had no history of mental or emotional problems and wasn’t taking antidepressants. Creeley’s finances were solid. There’d been no recent changes to his will or insurance policy. His partner, Jordan Kessler, was on a business trip to a client’s office in Pennsylvania. But he and Sachs had spoken briefly and he confirmed that while Creeley had seemed depressed lately he hadn’t, Kessler believed, ever mentioned suicide.

Sachs was permanently assigned to Lincoln Rhyme for crime scene work but she wanted to do more than forensics exclusively. She’d been lobbying Major Cases for the chance to be lead detective on a homicide or terrorist investigation. Somebody in the Big Building had decided that Creeley’s death warranted more looking into and gave her the case. Aside from the general consensus that Creeley wasn’t suicidal, though, Sachs at first could find no evidence of foul play. But then she made a discovery. The medical examiner reported that at the time of his death Creeley had a broken thumb; his entire right hand was in a cast.

Which simply wouldn’t’ve let him tie the knot in his hangman’s noose or secure the rope to the balcony railing.

Sachs knew because she’d tried a dozen times. Impossible without using the thumb. Maybe he’d tied it before the biking accident, a week prior to his death, but it just didn’t seem likely that you’d tie a noose and keep it handy, waiting for a future date to kill yourself.

She decided to declare the death suspicious and opened a homicide file.

But it was shaping up to be a tough case. The rule in homicides is either they’re solved in the first twenty-four hours or it takes months to close them. What little evidence existed (the liquor bottle he’d been drinking from before he died, the note and the rope) had yielded nothing. There were no witnesses. The NYPD report was a mere half-page long. The detective who’d run the case had spent hardly any time on it, typical for suicides, and he provided Sachs with no other information.

The trail to any suspects had pretty much dried up in the city, where Creeley had worked and where the family spent most of their time; all that remained in Manhattan was to interview the dead man’s partner, Kessler, in more depth. Now, she was searching one of the few remaining sources for leads: the Creeleys’ suburban home, at which the family spent very little time.

But she was finding nothing. Sachs now sat back, staring at a recent picture of Creeley shaking the hand of someone who appeared to be a businessman. They were on the tarmac of an airport, in front of some company’s private jet. Oil rigs and pipelines loomed in the background. He was smiling. He didn’t look depressed—but who does in snapshots?

It was then that another crunch sounded, very close, outside the window behind her. Then one more, even closer.

That’s no squirrel.

Out came the Glock, one shiny 9-millimeter round in the chamber and thirteen underneath it. Sachs made her way quietly out the front door and circled around to the side of the house, pistol in both hands, but close to her side (never in front of you when rounding a corner, where it can be knocked aside; the movies always get it wrong). A fast look. The side of the house was clear. Then she moved toward the back, placing her black boots carefully on the walkway, which was thick with ice.

A pause, listening.

Yes, definitely footsteps. The person was moving hesitantly, maybe toward the back door.

A pause. A step. Another pause.

Ready, Sachs told herself.

She eased closer to the back corner of the house.

Which is when her foot slid off a patch of ice. She gave a faint, involuntary gasp. Hardly audible, she thought.

But it was loud enough for the trespasser.

She heard the pounding of feet fleeing through the backyard, crunching through the snow.

Damn . . .

In a crouch—in case it was a feint to draw her to target—she looked around the corner and lifted the Glock fast. She saw a lanky man in jeans and a thick jacket sprinting away through the snow.

Hell . . . Just hate it when they run. Sachs had been dealt a tall body and bum joints—arthritis—and the combination made running pure misery.

“I’m a police officer. Stop!” She started sprinting after him.

Sachs was on her own for the pursuit. She’d never told Westchester County Police that she was here. Any assistance would have to come through a 911 call and she didn’t have time for that.

“I’m not going to tell you again. Stop!”

No response.

They raced in tandem through the large yard then into the woods behind the house. Breathing hard, a pain below her ribs joining the agony in her knees, she moved as fast as she could but he was pulling ahead of her.

Shit, I’m gonna lose him.

But nature intervened. A branch protruding from the snow caught his shoe and he went down hard, with a huge grunt that Sachs heard from forty feet away. She ran up and, gasping for breath, rested the side of the Glock against his neck. He stopped squirming.

“Don’t hurt me! Please!”

“Shhhh.”

Out came the cuffs.

“Hands behind your back.”

He squinted. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Hands.”

He did as he was told but in an awkward way that told her he’d probably never been collared. He was younger than she’d thought—a teenager, his face dotted with acne.

“Don’t hurt me, please!”

Sachs caught her breath and searched him. No ID, no weapons, no drugs. Money and a set of keys. “What’s your name?”

“Greg.”

“Last name?”

A hesitation. “Witherspoon.”

“You live around here?”

He sucked in air, nodding to his right. “The house there, next door to the Creeleys’.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“Why’d you run?”

“I don’t know. I was scared.”

“Didn’t you hear me say I was police?”

“Yeah, but you don’t look like a cop . . . a policewoman. You really are one?”

She showed him her ID. “What were you doing at the house?”

“I live next door.”

“You said that. What were you doing?” She pulled him up into a sitting position. He looked terrified.

“I saw somebody inside. I thought it was Mrs. Creeley or maybe somebody in the family or something. I just wanted to tell her something. Then I looked inside and saw you had a gun. I got scared. I thought you were with them.”

“Who’s them?”

“Those guys who broke in. That’s what I was going to tell Mrs. Creeley about.”

“Broke in?”

“I saw a couple of guys break into their house. A few weeks ago. It was around Thanksgiving.”

“Did you call the police?”

“No. I guess I should have. But I didn’t want to get involved. They looked, like, tough.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“I was outside, in our backyard, and I saw ’em go to the back door, look around and then kind of, you know, break the lock and go inside.”

“White, black?”

“White, I think. I wasn’t that close. I couldn’t see their faces. They were just, you know, guys. Jeans and jackets. One was bigger than the other.”

“Color of their hair?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long were they inside?”

“An hour, I guess.”

“You see their car?”

“No.”

“Did they take anything?”

“Yeah. A stereo, CDs, a TV. Some games, I think. Can I stand up?”

Sachs pulled him to his feet and marched him to the house. She noted that the back door had been jimmied. Pretty slick job too.

She looked around. A big-screen TV was still in the living room. There was lots of nice china in the cabinet. The silver was there too. And it was sterling. The theft wasn’t making sense. Had they stolen a few things as cover for something else?

She examined the ground floor. The house was immaculate—except for the fireplace. It was a gas model, she noted, but inside there was a lot of ash. With gas logs, there was no need for paper or kindling. Had the burglars set a fire?

Without touching anything inside, she shone her flashlight over the contents.

“Did you notice if those men had a fire going when they were here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

There were also streaks of mud in front of the fireplace. She had basic crime scene equipment in the trunk of her car. She’d dust for prints around the fireplace and desk and collect the ash and mud and any other physical evidence that might be helpful.

It was then that her cell phone vibrated. She glanced at the screen. An urgent text message from Lincoln Rhyme. She was needed back in the city ASAP. She sent an acknowledging message.

What had been burned? she wondered, staring at the fireplace.

“So,” Greg said. “Like, can I go now?”

Sachs looked him over. “I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but after any death the police conduct a complete inventory of everything in the house the day the owner dies.”

“Yeah?” He looked down.

“In an hour I’m calling Westchester County Police and having them check the list against what’s here now. If anything’s missing they’ll call me and I’ll give them your name and call your parents.”

“But—”

“The men didn’t steal anything at all, did they? After they left, you went in through the back door and helped yourself to . . . what?”

“I just borrowed a few things is all. From Todd’s room.”

“Mr. Creeley’s son?”

“Yeah. And one of the Nintendos was mine. He never returned it.”

“The men? Did they take anything?”

A hesitation. “Didn’t look like it.”

She undid the handcuffs. Sachs said, “You’ll have everything back by then. Put it in the garage. I’ll leave the door open.”

“Oh, like, yeah. I promise,” he said breathlessly. “Definitely . . . Only . . .” He started to cry. “The thing is I ate some cake. It was in the refrigerator. I don’t . . . I’ll buy them another one.”

Sachs said, “They don’t inventory food.”

“They don’t?”

“Just get everything else back here.”

“I promise. Really.” He wiped his face on his sleeve.

The boy started to leave. She asked, “One thing? When you heard that Mr. Creeley killed himself were you surprised?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Why?”

The boy gave a laugh. “He had a seven-forty. I mean, the long one. Who’s going to kill themselves, they drive a BMW, right?”

Chapter 4

They were terrible ways to die.

Amelia Sachs had pretty much seen it all, or so she thought. But these were as cruel means of death as she could recall.

She’d spoken to Rhyme from Westchester and he’d told her to hurry to lower Manhattan, where she was to run two scenes of homicides committed apparently hours apart by somebody calling himself the Watchmaker.

Sachs had already run the simpler of the two—a pier in the Hudson River. It was a fast scene to process; there was no body and most of the trace had been swept away or contaminated by the abrasive wind flowing along the river. She’d photographed and videoed the scene from all angles. She noted where the clock had been—troubled that the scene had been disturbed by the bomb squad when they’d collected it for testing. But there was no alternative, with a possible explosive device.

She collected the killer’s note, too, partly crusted with blood. Then she’d taken samples of the frozen blood. She noted fingernail marks on the pier where the victim had held on, dangling above the water, then slid off. She collected a torn nail—it was wide, short and unpolished, suggesting that the victim was a man.

The killer had cut his way through the chain-link fence protecting the pier. Sachs took a sample of the wire to check for tool marks. She found no fingerprints, footprints or tire tread marks near the point of entry or the pool of frozen blood.

No witnesses had been located.

The medical examiner reported that if the victim had indeed fallen into the Hudson, as seemed likely, he would have died of hypothermia within ten minutes or so. NYPD divers and the Coast Guard were continuing their search for the body and any evidence in the water.

Sachs was now at the second scene, the alleyway off Cedar Street, near Broadway. Theodore Adams, midthirties, was lying on his back, duct tape gagging him and binding his ankles and wrists. The killer had looped a rope over a fire escape, ten feet above him, and tied one end to a heavy, six-foot-long metal bar with holes in the ends like the eye of a needle. This the killer had suspended above the victim’s throat. The other end of the rope he’d placed in the man’s hands. Being bound, Adams couldn’t slide out from under the bar. His only hope was to use all his strength to keep the massive weight suspended until someone happened along to save him.

But no one had.

He’d been dead for some time and the bar had continued to compress his throat until the body froze solid in the December cold. His neck was only about an inch thick under the crushing metal. His expression was the chalky, neutral gaze of death but she could imagine how his face must have looked for the—what?—ten or fifteen minutes he’d struggled to stay alive, growing red from the effort, then purple, eyes bulging.

Who on earth would murder in these ways, which were obviously picked for prolonged deaths?

Wearing a white Tyvek bodysuit to prevent trace from her clothes and hair from contaminating the scene, Sachs readied the evidence collection equipment, as she discussed the scene with two of her colleagues in the NYPD, Nancy Simpson and Frank Rettig, officers based at the department’s main crime scene facility in Queens. Nearby was their Crime Scene Unit’s rapid response vehicle—a large van filled with the essential crime scene investigation equipment.

She slipped rubber bands around her feet to distinguish her prints from the perp’s. (Another of Rhyme’s ideas. “But why bother? I’m in the Tyvek, Rhyme, not street shoes,” Sachs had once pointed out. He’d looked at her wearily. “Oh, excuse me. I guess a perp would never think to buy a Tyvek suit. How much do they cost, Sachs? Forty-nine ninety-five?”)

Her first thoughts were that the killings were either organized-crime hits or the work of a psychopath; OC clips were often staged like these to send messages to rival gangs. A sociopath, on the other hand, might set up such an elaborate killing out of delusion or for gratification, which might be sadistic—if it had a sexual motivation—or simply cruel for its own sake, apart from lust. In her years on the street she’d learned that inflicting pain was a source of power in itself and could even be addictive.

Ron Pulaski, in uniform and leather jacket, approached. The blond NYPD patrolman, slim and young, had been helping out Sachs on the Creeley case and was on call to assist on cases that Rhyme was handling. After a bad run-in with a perp had put him in the hospital for a long stay, he’d been offered medical disability retirement.

The rookie had told Sachs that he’d sat down with Jenny, his young wife, and discussed the issue. Should he go back on duty or not? Pulaski’s twin brother, also a cop, provided input too. And in the end he chose to undergo therapy and return to the force. Sachs and Rhyme had been impressed with his youthful zeal and pulled some strings to get him assigned to them whenever possible. He later confessed to Sachs (never to Rhyme, of course) that the criminalist’s refusal to be sidelined by his quadriplegia and his aggressive regimen of daily therapy were Pulaski’s main inspiration to get back on active duty.

Pulaski wasn’t in Tyvek, so he stopped at the yellow tape marking the scene. “Jesus,” he muttered as he stared at the grotesque sight.

Pulaski told her that Sellitto and other officers were checking with security guards and office managers in the buildings around the alley to learn if anyone had seen or heard the attack or knew Theodore Adams. He added, “The bomb squad’s still checking on the clocks and’ll deliver ’em to Rhyme’s later. I’m going to get all the license plates of the cars parked around here. Detective Sellitto told me to.”

Her back to Pulaski, Sachs nodded. But she really wasn’t paying much attention to this information; it wasn’t useful to her at the moment. She was about to search the scene and was trying to clear her thoughts of distractions. Despite the fact that by definition crime scene work involves inanimate objects, there’s a curious intimacy to the job; to be effective, CS cops have to mentally and emotionally become the perps. The whole horrific scenario plays itself out in their imaginations: what the killer was thinking, where he stood when he lifted the gun or club or knife, how he adjusted his stance, whether he lingered to watch the victim’s death throes or fled immediately, what caught his attention at the scene, what tempted and repulsed him, what was his escape route. This wasn’t psychological profiling—that occasionally helpful, media-chic portrait-painting of suspects; this was the art of mining the huge clutter at crime scenes for those few important nuggets that could lead to a suspect’s door.

Sachs was now doing this, becoming someone else—the killer who’d engineered this terrible end to another human being.

Eyes scanning the scene, up and down, sideways: the cobblestones, the walls, the body, the iron weight . . .

I’m him. . . . I’m him. . . . What do I have in mind? Why did I want to kill these vics? Why in these ways? Why on the pier, why here?

But the cause of death was so unusual, the killer’s mind so removed from hers, that she had no answers to these questions, not yet. She pulled on her headset. “Rhyme, you there?”

“And where else would I be?” he asked, sounding amused. “I’ve been waiting. Where are you? The second scene?”

“Yes.”

“What are you seeing, Sachs?”

I’m him. . . .

“Alleyway, Rhyme,” she said into the stalk mike. “It’s a cul-de-sac for deliveries. It doesn’t go through. The vic’s close to the street.”

“How close?”

“Fifteen feet out of a hundred-foot alley.”

“How’d he get there?”

“No sign of tread marks but he was definitely dragged to the place he was killed; there’s salt and crud on the bottom of his jacket and pants.”

“Are there doors near the body?”

“Yes. He’s pretty much in front of one.”

“Did he work in the building?”

“No. I’ve got his business cards. He’s a freelance writer. His work address is the same as his apartment.”

“He might’ve had a client there or in one of the other buildings.”

“Lon’s checking now.”

“Good. The door that’s closest? Would that’ve been someplace the perp could have waited for him?”

“Yeah,” she replied.

“Have a guard open it up and I want you to search what’s on the other side.”

Lon Sellitto called from the perimeter of the scene, “No witnesses. Everybody’s fucking blind. Oh, and deaf too . . . And there must be forty or fifty different offices in the buildings around the alley. If anybody knew him, it may take a while to find out.”

Sachs relayed the criminalist’s request to open the back door near the body.

“You got it.” Sellitto headed off on this mission, blowing warming breath into his cupped hands.

Sachs videotaped and photographed the scene. She looked for and found no evidence of sexual activity involving the body or nearby. She then began walking the grid—walking over every square inch of the scene twice, looking for physical evidence. Unlike many crime scene professionals, Rhyme insisted on a single searcher—except in the case of mass disasters, of course—and Sachs always walked the grid alone.

But whoever’d committed the crime had been very careful not to leave anything obvious behind, except the note and the clock, the metal bar, the duct tape and rope.

She told him this.

“Not really in their nature to make it easy for us, is it, Sachs?”

His cheerful mood grated; he wasn’t right next to a victim who’d died this fucking lousy death. She ignored the comment and continued working the scene: performing a basic processing of the corpse so it could be released to the medical examiner, collecting his effects, dusting for fingerprints and doing electrostatic prints of shoe treads, collecting trace with an adhesive roller, like the sort used for removing pet hairs.

It was likely that the perp had driven here, given the weight of the bar, but there were no tread marks. The center of the alley was covered with rock salt to melt the ice, and the grains prevented good contact with the cobblestones.

Then she squinted. “Rhyme, something odd here. Around the body, for probably three feet around it, there’s something on the ground.”

“What do you think it is?”

Sachs bent down and with a magnifier examined what seemed to be fine sand. She mentioned this to Rhyme.

“Was it for the ice?”

“No. It’s only around him. And there’s none anywhere else in the alley. They’re using salt for the snow and ice.” Then she stepped back. “But there’s only a fine residue left. It’s like . . . yes, Rhyme. He swept up. With a broom.”

“Swept?”

“I can see the straw marks. It’s like he scattered handfuls of sand on the scene and then swept it up. . . . But maybe he didn’t do it. There wasn’t anything like this at the first scene, on the pier.”

“Is there any sand on the victim or the bar?”

“I don’t know. . . . Wait, there is.”

“So he did it after the killing,” Rhyme said. “It’s probably an obscuring agent.”

Diligent perps would sometimes use a powdery or granular material of some kind—sand, kitty litter or even flour—to spread on the ground after committing a crime. They’d then sweep or vacuum up the material, taking most of the trace particles with it.

“But why?” Rhyme mused.

Sachs stared at the body, stared at the cobblestone alley.

I’m him. . . .

Why would I sweep?

Perps often wipe fingerprints and take the obvious evidence with them but it’s very rare when someone goes to the trouble of using an obscuring agent. She closed her eyes and, as hard as it was, pictured herself standing over the young man, who was struggling to keep the bar off his throat.

“Maybe he spilled something.”

But Rhyme said, “Doesn’t seem likely. He wouldn’t be that careless.”

She continued to think: I’m careful, sure. But why would I sweep?

I’m him. . . .

“Why?” Rhyme whispered.

“He—”

“Not he,” the criminalist corrected. “You’re him, Sachs. Remember. You.”

“I’m a perfectionist. I want to get rid of as much evidence as possible.”

“True, but what you gain by sweeping up,” Rhyme said, “you lose by staying on the scene longer. I think there has to be another reason.”

Going deeper, feeling herself lifting the bar, putting the rope in the man’s hands, staring down at his struggling face, his bulging eyes. I put the clock next to his head. It’s ticking, ticking. . . . I watch him die.

I leave no evidence, I sweep up . . .

“Think, Sachs. What’s he up to?”

I’m him. . . .

Then she blurted, “I’m coming back, Rhyme.”

“What?”

“I’m coming back to the scene. I mean, he’s coming back. That’s why he swept up. Because he absolutely didn’t want to leave anything that’d give us a description of him: no fibers, hairs, shoe prints, dirt in his soles. He’s not afraid we’ll use it to track him to his hidey-hole—he’s too good to be leaving trace like that. No, he’s afraid we’ll find something that’ll help us recognize him when he comes back.”

“Okay, that could be it. Maybe he’s a voyeur, likes to watch people die, likes to watch cops at work. Or maybe he wants to see who’s hunting for him . . . so he can start a hunt of his own.”

Sachs felt a trickle of fear down her back. She looked around her. There was, as usual, a small crowd of gawkers standing across the street. Was the killer among them, watching her right now?

Then Rhyme added, “Or maybe he’s already been back. He came by earlier this morning to see that the vic was really dead. Which means—”

“That he might’ve left some evidence somewhere else, outside the scene. On the sidewalk, the street.”

“Exactly.”

Sachs slipped under the tape out of the designated crime scene and looked over the street. Then the sidewalk in front of the building. There she found a half dozen shoe prints in the snow. She had no way of knowing if any of them were the Watchmaker’s but several—made by wide, waffle-stomper boots—suggested that somebody, a man probably, had stood in the mouth of the alley for a few minutes, shifting weight from foot to foot. She looked around and decided there was no reason for anybody to be standing there—no pay phones, mailboxes or windows were nearby.

“Got some unusual boot prints here in the mouth of the alley, by the curb on Cedar Street,” she told Rhyme. “Large.” She searched this area too, digging into a snowbank. “Got something else.”

“What?”

“A gold metal money clip.” Her fingers stinging from the cold through the latex gloves, she counted the cash inside. “It’s got three hundred forty in new twenties. Right next to the boot prints.”

“Did the vic have any money on him?”

“Sixty bucks, also pretty fresh.”

“Maybe the perp boosted the clip and then dropped it getting away.”

She placed it in an evidence bag, then finished searching other portions of the scene, finding nothing else.

The back door of the office building opened. Sellitto and a uniformed guard from the security staff of the building were there. They stood back as Sachs processed the door itself—finding and photographing what she described to Rhyme as a million fingerprints (he only chuckled) and the dim lobby on the other side. She didn’t find anything obviously relevant to the murder.

Suddenly a woman’s panicky voice cut through the cold air. “Oh, my God, no!”

A stocky brunette in her thirties ran up to the yellow tape, where she was stopped by a patrol officer. Her hands were at her face and she was sobbing. Sellitto stepped forward. Sachs joined them. “Do you know him, ma’am?” the big detective asked.

“What happened, what happened? No . . . oh, God . . .”

“Do you know him?” the detective repeated.

Wracked with crying, the woman turned away from the terrible sight. “My brother . . . No, is he—oh, God, no, he can’t be . . .” She sank to her knees on the ice.

This would be the woman who’d reported her brother missing last night, Sachs understood.

Lon Sellitto had the personality of a pitbull when it came to suspects. But with victims and their relatives he showed a surprising tenderness. In a soft voice, thickened by a Brooklyn drawl, he said, “I’m so sorry. He’s gone, yes.” He helped her up and she leaned against the wall of the alley.

“Who did it? Why?” Her voice rose to a screech as she stared at the terrible tableau of her brother’s death. “Who’d do something like this? Who?”

“We don’t know, ma’am,” Sachs said. “I’m sorry. But we’ll find him. I promise you.”

Gasping for breath, she turned. “Don’t let my daughter see, please.”

Sachs looked past her to a car, parked half on the curb, where she’d left it in her panic. In the passenger seat was a teenage girl, who was staring at Sachs with a frown, her head cocked. The detective stepped in front of the body, blocking the girl’s view of her uncle.

The sister, whose name was Barbara Eckhart, had jumped from her car without her coat and was huddling against the cold. Sachs led her through the open door into the service lobby that she’d just run. The hysterical woman asked to use the restroom and when she emerged she was still shaken and pale, though the crying was under control.

Barbara had no idea what the killer’s motive might be. Her brother, a bachelor, worked for himself, a freelance advertising copywriter. He was well liked and had no enemies that she knew of. He wasn’t involved in any romantic triangles—no jealous husbands—and had never done drugs or anything else illegal. He’d moved to the city two years earlier.

That he had no apparent OC connection troubled Sachs; it moved the psycho factor into first place, far more dangerous to the public than a mob pro.

Sachs explained how the body would be processed. It would be released by the medical examiner to the next of kin within twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Barbara’s face grew stony. “Why did he kill Teddy like that? What was he thinking?”

But that was a question for which Amelia Sachs had no answer.

Watching the woman return to her car, Sellitto helping her, Sachs couldn’t take her eyes off the daughter, who was staring back at the policewoman. The look was hard to bear. The girl must know by now that this man was in fact her uncle and he was dead, but Sachs could see what seemed to be a small bit of hope in the girl’s face.

Hope, about to be destroyed.

Hungry.

Vincent Reynolds lay on his musty bed in their temporary home, which was, of all things, a former church, and felt his soul’s hunger, silently mimicking the grumbling of his bulging belly.

This old Catholic structure, in a deserted area of Manhattan near the Hudson River, was their base of operation for the killings. Gerald Duncan was from out of town and Vincent’s apartment was in New Jersey. Vincent had said they could stay at his place but Duncan had said, no, they could hardly do that. They should have no contact whatsoever with their real residences. He’d sounded sort of like he was lecturing. But not in a bad way. It was like a father instructing his son.

“A church?” Vincent had asked. “Why?”

“Because it’s been on the market for fourteen and a half months. Not a hot property. And nobody’s going to be showing it this time of year.” A fast look at Vincent. “Don’t worry. It’s desanctified.”

“It is?” asked Vincent, who figured that he’d committed enough sins to be guaranteed a direct route to hell, if there was one; trespassing in a church, sanctified or de-, was the very least of his offenses.

The real estate agent kept the doors locked, of course, but a watchmaker’s skills are essentially those of a locksmith (the first clock makers, Duncan had explained, were locksmiths) and the man easily picked one of the back door locks then fitted it with a padlock of his own, so they could come and go, unseen by anyone on the street or sidewalk. He changed the lock on the front door too and left a bit of wax on it so they’d know if anybody tried to get in when they were away.

The place was gloomy and drafty and smelled of cheap cleansers.

Duncan’s room was the former priest’s bedroom on the second floor in the rectory portion of the structure. Across the hall was Vincent’s room, where he was now lying, the old office. It contained a cot, table, hotplate, microwave and refrigerator (Hungry Vincent, of course, got the kitchen, such as it was). The church still had electricity in case brokers needed the lights, and the heat was on so the pipes wouldn’t burst, though the thermostat was set very low.

When he’d first seen it, knowing Duncan’s obsession with time, Vincent had said, “Too bad there’s no clock tower. Like Big Ben.”

“That’s the name of the bell, not the clock.”

“On the Tower of London?”

“In the clock tower,” the older man had corrected again. “At the Palace of Westminster, where Parliament sits. Named after Sir Benjamin Hall. In the late eighteen fifties it was England’s largest bell. In early clocks, the bells were the only thing that told you the time. There were no faces or hands.”

“Oh.”

“The word ‘clock’ comes from the Latin clocca, which means bell.”

This man knew everything.

Vincent liked that. He liked a lot of things about Gerald Duncan. He’d been wondering if these two misfits could become real friends. Vincent didn’t have many. He’d sometimes go out for drinks with the paralegals and other word-processing operators. But even Clever Vincent tended not to say too much because he was afraid he’d let slip the wrong thing about a waitress or the woman sitting at a table nearby. Hunger made you careless (just look at what had happened with Sally Anne).

Vincent and Duncan were opposites in many ways but they had one thing in common: dark secrets in their hearts. And anyone who’s ever shared that knows it makes up for vast differences in lifestyle and politics.

Oh, yes, Vincent was definitely going to give their friendship a shot.

He now washed up, again thinking of Joanne, the brunette they’d be visiting today: the flower girl, their next victim.

Vincent opened the small refrigerator. He took out a bagel and cut it in half with his hunting knife. It had an eight-inch blade and was very sharp. He smeared cream cheese on the bagel and ate it while he drank two Cokes. His nose stung from the chill. Meticulous Gerald Duncan insisted that they wear gloves here too, which was kind of a pain, but today, because it was so cold, Vincent didn’t mind.

He lay back on the bed, imagining what Joanne’s body looked like.

Later today . . .

Feeling hungry, starving to death. His gut was drying up from the craving. If he didn’t have his little heart-to-heart with Joanne pretty soon he’d waste away to steam.

Now he drank a can of Dr Pepper, ate a bag of potato chips. Then some pretzels.

Starving . . .

Hungry . . .

Vincent Reynolds would not on his own have come up with the idea that the urge to sexually assault women was a hunger. That idea was courtesy of his therapist, Dr. Jenkins.

When he was in detention because of Sally Anne—the only time he’d been arrested—the doctor had explained that he had to accept that the urges he felt would never go away. “You can’t get rid of them. They’re a hunger in a way. . . . Now, what do we know about hunger? It’s natural. We can’t help feeling hungry. Don’t you agree?”

“Yessir.”

The therapist had added that even though you couldn’t stop hunger completely you could “satisfy it appropriately. You understand what I mean? With food, you’d have a healthy meal when it’s the appropriate time, you don’t just snack. With people, you have a healthy, committed relationship, leading up to marriage and a family.”

“I get it.”

“Good. I think we’re making progress. Don’t you agree?”

And the boy had taken great heart in the man’s message, though it translated into something a little different from what the good doctor intended. Vincent reasoned that he’d use the hunger analogy as a helpful guide. He’d only eat, that is, have a little heart-to-heart with a girl, when he really needed to. That way he wouldn’t become desperate—and careless, the way he had with Sally Anne.

Brilliant.

Don’t you agree, Dr. Jenkins?

Vincent finished the pretzels and soda and wrote another letter to his sister. Clever Vincent drew a few cartoons in the margins. Pictures he thought she might like. Vincent wasn’t a terrible artist.

There was a knock on his door.

“Come in.”

Gerald Duncan pushed the door open. The men said good morning to each other. Vincent glanced into Duncan’s room, which was perfectly ordered. Everything on the desk was arranged in a symmetrical pattern. The clothes were pressed and hanging in the closet exactly two inches apart. This could be one hurdle to their friendship. Vincent was a slob.

“You want something to eat?” Vincent asked.

“No, thanks.”

That’s why the Watchmaker was so skinny. He rarely ate, he was never hungry. That could be another hurdle. But Vincent decided he’d ignore that fault. After all, Vincent’s sister never ate much either and he still loved her.

The killer made coffee for himself. While the water was heating he took the jar of beans out of the refrigerator and measured out exactly two spoons’ worth. These clattered as he poured them into the hand grinder and turned the handle a dozen times until the noise stopped. He carefully poured the grounds into a paper cone filter inside a drip funnel. He tapped it to make sure the grounds were level. Vincent loved watching Gerald Duncan make coffee.

Meticulous . . .

Duncan looked at his gold pocket watch. He wound the stem very carefully. He finished the coffee—he drank it fast like medicine—and then looked at Vincent. “Our flower girl,” he said, “Joanne. Will you go check on her?”

A thud in his gut. So long, Clever Vincent.

“Sure.”

“I’m going to the alley on Cedar Street. The police will be there by now. I want to see whom we’re up against.”

Whom . . .

Duncan pulled his jacket on and slung his bag over his shoulder. “You ready?”

Vincent nodded and donned his cream-colored parka, hat and sunglasses.

Duncan was saying, “Let me know if people are coming by the workshop to pick up orders or if she’s working alone.”

The Watchmaker had learned that Joanne spent a lot of time in her workshop, a few blocks away from her retail flower store. The workshop was quiet and dark. Picturing the woman, her curly brown hair, her long but pretty face, Hungry Vincent couldn’t get her out of his mind.

They walked downstairs and into the alley behind the church.

Duncan hooked the padlock. He said, “Oh, I wanted to say something. The one for tomorrow? She’s a woman too. That’d be two in a row. I don’t know how often you like to have your . . . what do you call it? A heart-to-heart?”

“That’s right.”

“Why do you say that?” Duncan asked. The killer, Vincent had learned, had a tireless curiosity.

That phrase too came from Dr. Jenkins, his buddy the detention center doc, who’d tell him to come to his office anytime he wanted and talk about how he was feeling; they’d have themselves a good old heart-to-heart.

For some reason, Vincent liked the words. The phrase also sounded a lot better than “rape.”

“I don’t know. I just do.” He added that he’d have no problem with two women in a row.

Sometimes eating makes you even hungrier, Dr. Jenkins.

Don’t you agree?

As they stepped carefully over the icy patches on the sidewalk, Vincent asked, “Um, what are you going to do with Joanne?”

In killing his victims Duncan had one rule: Their deaths could not be quick. This wasn’t as easy as it sounded, he’d explained in that precise, detached voice of his. Duncan had a book titled Extreme Interrogation Techniques. It was about terrifying prisoners into talking by subjecting them to tortures that would eventually kill them if they didn’t confess: putting weights over their throats, cutting their wrists and letting them bleed, a dozen others.

Duncan explained, “I don’t want to take too long, in her case. I’ll gag her and tie her hands behind her. Then get her on her stomach and wrap a wire around her neck and her ankles.”

“Her knees’ll be bent?” Vincent could picture it.

“That’s right. It was in the book. Did you see the illustrations?”

Vincent shook his head.

“She won’t be able to keep her legs at that angle for very long. When they start to straighten, it pulls the wire around her neck taut and she’ll strangle herself. It’ll take about eight, ten minutes, I’d guess.” He smiled. “I’m going to time it. As you suggested. When it’s over I’ll call you and she’s all yours.”

A good old heart-to-heart . . .

They stepped out of the alley as a blast of freezing wind struck them. Vincent’s parka, which was unzipped, blew open.

He stopped, alarmed. On the sidewalk a few feet away was a young man. He had a scrawny beard and wore a threadbare jacket. A backpack was slung over a shoulder. A student, Vincent guessed. Head down, he kept walking briskly.

Duncan glanced at his partner. “What’s the matter?”

Vincent nodded at his side, where the hunting knife, in a scabbard, was stuck into his waistband. “I think he saw it. I’m . . . I’m sorry. I should’ve zipped my jacket, but . . .”

Duncan’s lips pressed together.

No, no . . . Vincent hoped he hadn’t made Duncan unhappy. “I’ll go take care of him, if you want. I’ll—”

The killer looked toward the student, who was walking quickly away from them.

Duncan turned to Vincent. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

He couldn’t hold the man’s piercing blue eyes. “No.”

“Wait here.” Gerald Duncan studied the street, which was deserted, except for the student. He reached into his pocket and took out the box cutter he’d used to slash the wrists of the man on the pier last night. Duncan walked quickly after the student. Vincent watched him catching up until the killer was only a few feet behind him. They turned the corner, heading east.

This was terrible . . . Vincent hadn’t been meticulous. He’d put everything at risk: his chance for friendship with Duncan, his chance for the heart-to-hearts. All because he’d been careless. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry.

He reached into his pocket, found a KitKat and wolfed it down, eating some of the wrapper with the candy.

Five agonizing minutes later Duncan returned, holding a wrinkled newspaper.

“I’m sorry,” Vincent said.

“It’s all right. It’s okay.” Duncan’s voice was soft. Inside the paper was the bloody box cutter. He wiped the blade with the paper and retracted the razor blade. He threw away the bloody paper and gloves. He put a new pair on. He insisted they carry two or three pairs with them at all times.

Duncan said, “The body’s in a Dumpster. I covered it up with trash. If we’re lucky it’ll be in a landfill or out to sea before somebody notices the blood.”

“Are you all right?” Vincent thought there was a red mark on Duncan’s cheek.

The man shrugged. “I got careless. He fought back. I had to slash his eyes. Remember that. If somebody resists, slash their eyes. That stops them resisting right away and you can control them however you want.”

Slash their eyes . . .

Vincent nodded slowly.

Duncan asked, “You’ll be more careful?”

“Oh, yes. Promise. Really.”

“Now go check on the flower girl and meet me at the museum at quarter past four.”

“Okay, sure.”

Duncan turned his light blue eyes on Vincent. He gave a rare smile. “Don’t be upset. There was a problem. It’s been taken care of. In the great scheme of things, it was nothing.”

Chapter 5

The body of Teddy Adams was gone, the grieving relatives too.

Lon Sellitto had just left for Rhyme’s and the scene was officially released. Ron Pulaski, Nancy Simpson and Frank Rettig were removing the crime scene tape.

Still stung by the look of desperate hope in the face of Adams’s young niece, Amelia Sachs had gone over the scene yet again with even more diligence than usual. She checked other doorways and possible entrance and escape routes the perp might’ve used. But she found nothing else. She didn’t remember the last time a complicated crime like this had yielded so little evidence.

After packing up her equipment she mentally shifted back to the Benjamin Creeley case and called the man’s wife, Suzanne, to tell her that several men had broken into their Westchester house.

“I didn’t know that. Do have any idea what they stole?”

Sachs had met the woman several times. She was very thin—she jogged daily—and had short frosted hair, a pretty face. “It didn’t look like much was missing.” She decided to say nothing about the neighbor boy; she figured she’d scared him into going straight.

Sachs asked if anyone would have been burning something in the fireplace, and Suzanne replied that no one had even been to the house recently.

“What do you think was going on?”

“I don’t know. But it’s making the suicide look more doubtful. Oh, by the way, you need a new lock on your back door.”

“I’ll call somebody today. . . . Thank you, Detective. It means a lot that you believe me. About Ben not killing himself.”

After they hung up, Sachs filled out a request for analysis of the ash, mud and other evidence at the Creeleys’ house and packed these materials separately from the Watchmaker evidence. She then completed the chain-of-custody cards and helped Simpson and Rettig pack up the van. It took two of them to wrap the heavy metal bar in plastic and stow it.

She was just swinging shut the van’s door when she glanced up, across the street. The cold had driven off most of the spectators but she noted a man standing with a Post in front of an old building being renovated on Cedar Street, near Chase Plaza.

That’s not right, Sachs thought. Nobody stands on the street corner and reads a newspaper in this weather. If you’re worried about the stock market or curious about a recent disaster, you flip through quickly, find out how much money you lost or how far the church bus plummeted and then keep on walking.

But you don’t just stand in the windy street for Page Six gossip.

She couldn’t see the man clearly—he was partially hidden behind the newspaper and a pile of debris from the construction site. But one thing was obvious: his boots. They’d have a traction tread, which could have left the distinctive impressions she found in the snow at the mouth of the alley.

Sachs debated. Most of the other officers had left. Simpson and Rettig were armed but not tactically trained and the suspect was on the other side of a three-foot-high metal barricade set up for an upcoming parade. He could escape easily if she approached him from where she was now, across the street. She’d have to handle the take-down more subtly.

She walked up to Pulaski, whispered, “There’s somebody at your six o’clock. I want to talk to him. Guy with the paper.”

“The perp?” he asked.

“Don’t know. Maybe. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m getting into the RRV with the CS team. They’re going to drop me at the corner to the east. Can you drive a manual?”

“Sure.”

She gave him the keys to her bright red Camaro. “You drive west on Cedar toward Broadway, maybe forty feet. Stop fast, get out and vault the barricade, come back this way.”

“Flush him.”

“Right. If he’s just out reading the paper, we’ll have a talk, check his ID and get back to work. If not, I’m guessing he’ll turn and run right into my arms. You come up behind and cover me.”

“Got it.”

Sachs made a show of taking a last look around the scene and then climbed into the big brown RRV van. She leaned forward. “We’ve got a problem.”

Nancy Simpson and Frank Rettig glanced toward her. Simpson unzipped her jacket and put her hand on the grip of her pistol.

“No, don’t need that. I’ll tell you what’s going down.” She explained the situation then said to Simpson, who was behind the wheel, “Head east. At the light make a left. Just slow up. I’ll jump out.”

Pulaski climbed into the Camaro, fired it up and couldn’t resist pumping the gas to get a sexy whine out of the Tubi exhausts.

Rettig asked, “You don’t want us to stop?”

“No, just slow up. I want the suspect to be sure I’m leaving.”

“Okay,” Simpson said. “You got it.”

The RRV headed east. In the sideview mirror Sachs saw Pulaski start forward—easy, she told him silently; it was a monster engine and the clutch gripped like Velcro. But he controlled the horses and rolled forward smoothly, the opposite direction from the van.

At the intersection of Cedar and Nassau the RRV turned and Sachs opened the door. “Keep going. Don’t slow up.”

Simpson did a great job keeping the van steady. “Good luck,” the crime scene officer called.

Sachs leapt out.

Whoa, a little faster than she’d planned. She nearly stumbled, caught herself and thanked the Department of Sanitation for the generous sprinkling of salt on the icy street. She started along the sidewalk, coming up behind the man with the newspaper. He didn’t see her.

A block away, then a half block. She opened her jacket and gripped the Glock that rode high on her belt. About fifty feet past the suspect, Pulaski suddenly pulled to the curb, climbed out and—without the guy’s noticing—easily jumped over the barricade. They had him sandwiched in, separated by a barrier on one side and the building being renovated on the other.

A good plan.

Except for one glitch.

Across the street from Sachs were two armed guards, stationed in front of the Housing and Urban Development building. They’d been helping with the crime scene and one of them glanced at Sachs. He waved to her, calling, “Forget something, Detective?”

Shit. The man with the newspaper whirled around and saw her.

He dropped the paper, jumped the barrier and sprinted as fast as he could down the middle of the street toward Broadway, catching Pulaski on the other side of the metal fence. The rookie tried to leap it, caught his foot and went down hard in the street. Sachs paused but saw he wasn’t badly hurt and she continued after the suspect. Pulaski rolled to his feet and together they sprinted after the man, who had a thirty-foot head start and was increasing his lead.

She grabbed her walkie-talkie and pressed TRANSMIT. “Detective Five Eight Eight Five,” she gasped. “In foot pursuit of a suspect in that homicide near Cedar Street. Suspect is heading west on Cedar, wait, now south on Broadway. Need backup.”

“Roger, Five Eight Eight Five. Directing units to your location.”

Several other RMPs—radio mobile patrols, squad cars—responded that they were nearby and en route to cut off the suspect’s escape.

As Sachs and Pulaski approached Battery Park, the man suddenly stopped, nearly stumbling. He glanced to his right—at the subway.

No, not the train, she thought. Too many bystanders in close proximity.

Don’t do it. . . .

Another glance over his shoulder and he plunged down the stairs.

She stopped, calling to Pulaski, “Go after him.” A deep breath. “If he shoots, check your backdrop real carefully. Let him go rather than fire if there’s any doubt at all.”

His face uneasy, the rookie nodded. Sachs knew he’d never been in a firefight. He called, “Where’re you—”

“Just go!” she shouted.

The rookie took a breath and started sprinting again. Sachs ran to the subway entrance and watched Pulaski descend three steps at a time. Then she crossed the street and trotted a half block south. She drew her gun and stepped behind a newsstand.

Counting down . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .

One.

She stepped out, turning to the subway exit, just as the suspect sprinted up the stairs. She trained the gun on him. “Don’t move.”

Passersby were screaming and dropping to the ground. The suspect’s reaction, though, was simply disgust, presumably that his trick hadn’t worked. Sachs had thought he might be coming this way. The surprise in his eyes when he saw the subway could’ve been phony, she’d decided. It told her that maybe he’d been making for the station all along—as a possible feint. He raised his hands lethargically.

“On the ground, face down.”

“Come on. I—”

“Now!” she snapped.

He glanced at her gun and then complied. Winded from the run, her joints in pain, she dropped a knee into the middle of his back to cuff him. He winced. Sachs didn’t care. She was just in one of those moods.

“They got a suspect. At the scene.”

Lincoln Rhyme and the man who delivered this interesting news were sitting in his lab. Dennis Baker, fortyish, compact and handsome, was a supervisory lieutenant in Major Cases—Sellitto’s division—and had been ordered by City Hall to make sure the Watchmaker was stopped as fast as possible. He’d been one of those who’d “insisted” that Sellitto get Rhyme and Sachs on the case.

Rhyme lifted an eyebrow. Suspect? Criminals often did return to the scene of the crime, for various reasons, and Rhyme wondered if Sachs had actually collared the killer.

Baker turned back to his cell phone, listening and nodding. The lieutenant—who bore an uncanny resemblance to the actor George Clooney—had that focused, humorless quality that makes for an excellent police administrator but a tedious drinking buddy.

“He’s a good guy to have on your side,” Sellitto had said of Baker just before the man arrived from One Police Plaza.

“Fine, but is he going to meddle?” Rhyme had asked the rumpled detective.

“Not so’s you’d notice.”

“Meaning?”

“He wants a big win under his belt and he thinks you can deliver it. He’ll give you all the slack—and support—you need.”

Which was good, because they were down some manpower. There was another NYPD detective who often worked with them, Roland Bell, a transplant from the South. The detective had an easy-going manner, very different from Rhyme’s, though an equally methodical nature. Bell was on vacation with his two sons down in North Carolina, visiting his girlfriend, a local sheriff in the Tarheel State.

They also often worked with an FBI agent, renowned for his antiterrorism and undercover work, Fred Dellray. Murders of this sort aren’t usually federal crimes but Dellray often helped Sellitto and Rhyme on homicides and would make the resources of the Bureau available without the typical red tape. But the Feds had their hands full with several massive Enron-style corporate fraud investigations that were just getting under way. Dellray was stuck on one of these.

Hence, Baker’s presence—not to mention his influence at the Big Building—was a godsend. Sellitto now disconnected his cell phone call and explained that Sachs was interviewing the suspect at the moment, though he wasn’t being very cooperative.

Sellitto was sitting next to Mel Cooper, the slightly built, ballroom-dancing forensic technician that Rhyme insisted on using. Cooper suffered for his brilliance as a crime scene lab man; Rhyme called him at all hours to run the technical side of his cases. He’d hesitated a bit when Rhyme called him at the lab in Queens that morning, explaining that he’d planned to take his girlfriend and his mother to Florida for the weekend.

Rhyme’s response was, “All the more incentive to get here as soon as possible, wouldn’t you say?”

“I’ll be there in a half hour.” He was now at an examination table in the lab, awaiting the evidence. With a latex-gloved hand, he fed some biscuits to Jackson; the dog was curled up at his feet.

“If there’s any canine hair contamination,” Rhyme grumbled, “I won’t be happy.”

“He’s pretty cute,” Cooper said, swapping gloves.

The criminalist grunted. “Cute” was not a word that figured in the Lincoln Rhyme dictionary.

Sellitto’s phone rang again and he took the call, then disconnected. “The vic at the pier—Coast Guard and our divers haven’t found any bodies yet. Still checking missing persons reports.”

Just then Crime Scene arrived and Thom helped an officer cart in the evidence from the scenes Sachs had just run.

About time . . .

Baker and Cooper lugged in a heavy, plastic-wrapped metal bar.

The murder weapon in the alleyway killing.

The CS officer handed over chain-of-custody cards, which Cooper signed. The man said good-bye but Rhyme didn’t acknowledge him. The criminalist was looking at the evidence. This was the moment that he lived for. After the spinal cord accident, his passion—really an addiction—for the sport of going one-on-one with perps continued undiminished, and the evidence from crimes was the field on which this game was played.

He felt eager anticipation.

And guilt too.

Because he wouldn’t be filled with this exhilaration if not for someone else’s loss: the victim on the pier and Theodore Adams, their families and friends. Oh, he felt sympathy for their sorrow, sure. But he was able to wrap up the sense of tragedy and put it somewhere. Some people called him cold, insensitive, and he supposed he was. But those who excel in a field do so because a number of disparate traits happen to come together within them. And Rhyme’s sharp mind and relentless drive and impatience happened to coincide with the emotional distance that is a necessary attribute of the best criminalists.

He was squinting, gazing at the boxes, when Ron Pulaski arrived. Rhyme had first met him when the young man had been on the force only a short time. Although that was a year earlier—and Pulaski was a family man with two children—Rhyme couldn’t stop thinking of him as the “rookie.” Some nicknames you just can’t shake.

Rhyme announced, “I know Amelia has somebody in custody but in case it isn’t the perp, I don’t want to lose time.” He turned to Pulaski. “Give me the lay of the land. First scene, the pier.”

“All right,” he began uneasily. “The pier is located approximately at Twenty-second Street in the Hudson River. It extends into the river fifty-two feet at a height of eighteen feet above the surface of the water. The murder—”

“So they’ve recovered the body?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Then you meant apparent murder?”

“Right. Yessir. The apparent murder occurred at the far end of the pier, that is, the west end, sometime between six last night and six this morning. The dock was closed then.”

There was very little evidence: just the fingernail, probably a man’s, the blood, which Mel Cooper tested and found to be human and type AB positive, which meant that both A and B antigens—proteins—were present in the victim’s plasma, and neither anti-A nor anti-B antigens were. In addition a separate protein, Rh, was present. The combination of AB antigens and Rh positive made the victim’s the third-rarest blood type, accounting for about 3.5 percent of the population. Further tests confirmed that the victim was a male.

In addition, they concluded that he was probably older and had coronary problems since he was taking an anticoagulant—a blood thinner. There were no traces of other drugs or indications of infection or disease in the blood.

There were no fingerprints, trace or footprints at the scene and no tire tread marks nearby, other than those left by employees’ vehicles.

Sachs had collected a piece of the chain link and Cooper examined the cut edges, learning that the perp had used what seemed to be standard wire cutters to get through the fence. The team could match these marks with those made by a tool if they found one but there was no way to trace the cutter back to its source by the impressions alone.

Rhyme looked over the pictures of the scene, particularly the pattern the blood had made as it flowed onto the pier. He guessed that the victim had been hanging over the edge of the deck, at chest level, his fingers desperately wedged into the space between the planks. The fingernail marks showed that eventually he’d lost his grip. Rhyme wondered how long the vic had been able to hang on.

He nodded slowly. “Tell me about the next scene.”

Pulaski replied, “All right, that homicide occurred in an alley off Cedar Street, near Broadway. This alley featured a dead end. It was fifteen feet wide and one hundred and four feet long and was surfaced with cobblestones.”

The body, Rhyme recalled, was fifteen feet from the mouth of the alley.

“What’s the time of death?”

“At least eight hours before he was found, the ME tour doc said. The body was frozen solid so it’ll take a while to determine with any certainty.” The young officer suffered from the habit of copspeak.

“Amelia told me about the service and fire doors in the alley. Did anybody ask what time they were locked for the night?”

“Three of the buildings’re commercial. Two of them lock their service doors at eight thirty and one at ten. The other’s a government administration building. That door’s locked at six. There’s a late-night garbage pickup at ten.”

“Body discovered when?”

“Around seven A.M.”

“Okay, the vic in the alley was dead at least eight hours, last door was locked at ten and garbage picked up then. So the killing took place between, say, ten fifteen and eleven P.M. Parking situation?”

“I got the license plates of every car in a two-block radius.” Pulaski was holding up a Moby-Dick of a notebook.

“What the hell’s that?”

“Oh, I wrote down notes about all the cars. Thought it might be helpful. You know, where they were parked, anything suspicious about them.”

“Waste of time. We just needed the tag numbers for names and addresses,” Rhyme explained. “To cross-check DMV with NCIC and the other databases. We don’t care who needed bodywork or had bald tires or a crack pipe in the backseat. . . . Well, did you?”

“What?”

“Run the tags?”

“Not yet.”

Cooper went online but found no warrants on any of the registered owners of the cars. At Rhyme’s instruction he also checked to see if any parking tickets were issued in that area around the time of the killing. There were none.

“Mel, run the vic’s name. Warrants? Anything else about him?”

There were no state warrants on Theodore Adams, and Pulaski recounted what his sister had said about him—that he apparently had no enemies or personal life issues that might result in his murder.

“Why these vics, though?” Rhyme asked. “Are they random? . . . I know Dellray’s busy but this’s important. Give him a call and have him run Adams’s name. See if the feds have anything on him.”

Sellitto made a call to the federal building and got through to Dellray—who was in a bad mood because of the “fucking quagmire” of a financial fraud case he’d been assigned. Still, he managed to look through the federal databases and active case files. But the results were negative on Theodore Adams.

“Okay,” Rhyme announced, “until we find something else let’s assume they’re random victims of a crazy man.” He squinted at the pictures. “Where the hell’re the clocks?”

A call to the bomb squad revealed that they’d been cleared of any bio or toxic threat and were on their way to Rhyme’s right now.

The cash in the faux gold money clip appeared fresh out of an ATM machine. The bills were clean but Cooper found some good prints on the clip. Unfortunately, when he ran them through IAFIS, the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System, there were no hits. The few prints on the cash in Adams’s pocket came back negative as well, and the serial numbers revealed the bills hadn’t been flagged by the Treasury Department for possible involvement in money laundering or other crimes.

“The sand?” Rhyme asked, referring to the obscuring agent.

“Generic,” Cooper called, not looking up from the microscope. “Sort used in playgrounds rather than construction. I’ll check it for other trace.”

And no sand at the pier, Rhyme recalled Sachs telling him. Was that because, as she’d speculated, the perp was planning to return to the alley? Or simply because the substance wasn’t needed on the pier, where the brutal wind from the Hudson would sweep the scene clean?

“What about the span?” Rhyme asked.

“The what?”

“The bar the vic’s neck was crushed with. It’s a needle-eye span.” Rhyme had made a study of construction materials in the city, since a popular way to dispose of bodies was to dump them at job sites. Cooper and Sellitto weighed the length of metal—it was eighty-one pounds—and got it onto the examining table. The span was about six feet long, an inch wide and three inches high. A hole was drilled in each end. “They’re used mostly in shipbuilding, heavy equipment, cranes, antennas and bridges.”

“That’s gotta be the heaviest murder weapon I’ve ever seen,” Cooper said.

“Heavier than a Suburban?” asked Lincoln Rhyme, the man for whom precision was everything. He was referring to the case of the wife who’d run over her philandering husband with a very large SUV in the middle of Third Avenue several months earlier.

“Oh, that . . . his cheatin’ heart,” Cooper sang in a squeaky tenor. Then he tested for fingerprints and found none. He filed off some shavings from the rod. “Probably iron. I see evidence of oxidation.” A chemical test revealed that this was the case.

“No identifying markings?”

“Nope.”

Rhyme grimaced. “That’s a problem. There’ve got to be fifty sources in the metro area. . . . Wait. Amelia said there was some construction nearby—”

“Oh,” Pulaski said, “she had me check there and they weren’t using any metal bars like that. I forgot to mention it.”

“You forgot,” Rhyme muttered. “Well, I know the city’s doing some major work on the Queensboro Bridge. Let’s give ’em a try.” Rhyme said to Pulaski, “Call the work crew at the Queensboro and find out if spans’re being used there and, if so, are any missing.”

The rookie nodded and pulled out his mobile phone.

Cooper looked over the analysis of the sand. “Okay, got something here. Thallium sulfate.”

“What’s that?” Sellitto asked.

“Rodent poison,” said Rhyme. “It’s banned in this country but you sometimes find it in immigrant communities or in buildings where immigrants work. How concentrated?”

“Very . . . and there’s none in the control soil and residue that Amelia collected. Which means it’s probably from someplace the perp’s been.”

“Maybe he’s planning to kill somebody with it,” Pulaski suggested, as he waited on hold.

Rhyme shook his head. “Not likely. It’s not easy to administer and you need a high dosage for humans. But it could lead us to him. Find out if there’ve been any recent confiscations or environmental agency complaints in the city.”

Cooper made the calls.

“Let’s look at the duct tape,” Rhyme instructed.

The tech examined the rectangles of shiny gray tape, which had been used to bind the victim’s hands and feet and gag him. He announced that the tape was generic, sold in thousands of home improvement, drug and grocery stores around the country. Testing the adhesive on the tape revealed very little trace, just a few grains of snow-removal salt, which matched samples Sachs had taken from the general area, and the sand that the Watchmaker had spread to help him clean up trace.

Disappointed that the duct tape wasn’t more helpful, Rhyme turned to the photos Sachs had shot of Adams’s body. Then he wheeled closer to the examination table and peered at the screen. “Look at the edges of the tape.”

“Interesting,” Cooper said, glancing from the digital photos to the tape itself.

What had struck the men as odd was that the pieces of tape had been cut with extreme precision and applied very carefully. Usually it was just torn off the roll, sometimes ripped by the attacker’s teeth (which often left DNA-laden saliva), and wrapped sloppily around the victim’s hands, ankles and mouth. But the strips used by the Watchmaker were perfectly cut with a sharp object. The lengths were identical.

Ron Pulaski hung up, then announced, “They don’t use needle-eye spans on the work they’re doing now on the bridge.”

Well, Rhyme hadn’t expected easy answers.

“And the rope he was holding on to?”

Cooper looked it over, examined some databases. He shook his head. “Generic.”

Rhyme nodded at several whiteboards that stood empty in the corner of the lab. “Start our charts. You, Ron, you have good handwriting?”

“It’s good enough.”

“That’s all we need. Write.”

When running cases Rhyme kept charts of all the evidence they found. They were like crystal balls to him; he’d stare at the words and photos and diagrams to try to understand who the perp might be, where he was hiding, where he was going to strike next. Gazing at his evidence boards was the closest Lincoln Rhyme ever came to meditating.

“We’ll use his name as the heading, since he was so courteous to let us know what he wants to be called.”

As Pulaski wrote what Rhyme dictated, Cooper picked up a tube containing a tiny sample of what seemed to be soil. He looked it over through the microscope, starting on 4x power (the number-one rule with optical scopes is to start low; if you go right to higher magnifications you’ll end up looking at artistically interesting but forensically useless abstract images).

“Looks like your basic soil. I’ll see what else’s in it.” He prepared a sample for the chromatograph/mass spectrometer, a large instrument that separates and identifies substances in trace evidence.

When the results were ready Cooper looked over the computer screen and announced, “Okay, we’ve got some oils, nitrogen, urea, chloride . . . and protein. Let me run the profile.” A moment later his computer filled with additional information. “Fish protein.”

“So maybe the perp works in a fish restaurant,” Pulaski said enthusiastically. “Or a fish stand in Chinatown. Or, wait, maybe the fish counter at a grocery store.”

Rhyme asked, “Ron, you ever hear a public speaker say, ‘Before I begin, I’d like to say something’?”

“Uhm. I think.”

“Which is a little odd, because if he’s talking he’s already begun, right?”

Pulaski lifted an eyebrow.

“My point is that in analyzing the evidence you do something before you start.”

“Which is what?”

“Find out where the evidence came from. Now, where did Sachs collect the fish protein dirt?”

He looked at the tag. “Oh.”

“Where is ‘oh’?”

“Inside the victim’s jacket.”

“So whom does the evidence tell us something about?”

“The victim, not the perp.”

“Exactly! Is it helpful to know that he has it in his jacket, not on? Who knows? Maybe it will be. But the important point is to not blindly send the troops to every fishmonger in the city too fast. You comfortable with that theory, Ron?”

“Real comfortable.”

“I’m so pleased. Write down the fishy soil under the victim’s profile and let’s get on with it, shall we? When’s the medical examiner sending us a report?”

Cooper said, “Could be a while. Coming up on Christmastime.”

Sellitto sang, “’Tis the season to be killing . . .”

Pulaski gave a frown. Rhyme explained to him, “The deadliest times of the year are hot spells and holidays. Remember, Ron: Stress doesn’t kill people; people kill people—but stress makes ’em do it.”

“Got fibers here, brown,” Cooper announced. He glanced at the notes attached to the bag. “Back heel of the victim’s shoe and his wristwatch band.”

“What kind of fibers?”

Cooper examined them closely and ran the profile through the FBI’s fiber database. “Automotive, it looks like.”

“Makes sense he’d have a car—you can’t really carry an eighty-one-pound iron bar around on the subway. So our Watchmaker parked in the front part of the alley and dragged the vic to his resting place. What can we tell about the vehicle?”

Not much, as it turned out. The fiber was from carpet used in more than forty models of cars, trucks and SUVs. As for tread marks, the part of the alley where he’d parked was covered with salt, which had interfered with the tires’ contact with the cobblestones and prevented the transfer of tread marks.

“A big zero in the vehicle department. Well, let’s look at his love note.”

Cooper slipped the white sheet of paper out of a plastic envelope.

The full Cold Moon is in the sky,

shining on the corpse of earth,

signifying the hour to die

and end the journey begun at birth.

—THE WATCHMAKER

“Is it?” Rhyme asked.

“Is it what?” Pulaski asked, as if he’d missed something.

“The full moon. Obviously. Today.”

Pulaski flipped through Rhyme’s New York Times. “Yep. Full.”

“What’s he mean by the Cold Moon in caps?” Dennis Baker asked.

Cooper did some searching on the Internet. “Okay, it’s a month in the lunar calendar. . . . We use the solar calendar, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, based on the sun. The lunar calendar marks time from new moon to new moon. The names of the months describe the cycle of our lives from birth to death. They’re named according to milestones in the year: the Strawberry Moon in the spring, the Harvest Moon and Hunter Moon in the fall. The Cold Moon is in December, the month of hibernation and death.”

As Rhyme had noted earlier, killers referencing the moon or astrological themes tended to be serial perps. There was some literature suggesting that people were actually motivated by the moon to commit crimes but Rhyme believed that was simply the influence of suggestion—like the increase in alien abduction reports just after Steven Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released.

“Run the name Watchmaker through the databases, along with ‘Cold Moon.’ Oh, and the other lunar months too.”

After ten minutes of searching through the FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program and the National Crime Information Center, as well as state databases, they had no hits.

Rhyme asked Cooper to find out where the poem itself had come from but he found nothing even close in dozens of poetry websites. The tech also called a professor of literature at New York University, a man who helped them on occasion. He’d never heard of it. And the poem was either too obscure to turn up in a search engine or more likely it was the Watchmaker’s own creation.

Cooper said, “As for the note itself, it’s generic paper from a computer printer. Hewlett-Packard LaserJet ink, nothing distinctive.”

Rhyme shook his head, frustrated at the absence of leads. If the Watchmaker was in fact a cyclical killer he could be somewhere right now, checking out—or even murdering—his next victim.

A moment later Amelia Sachs arrived, pulled off her jacket. She was introduced to Dennis Baker, who told her he was glad she was on the case; her reputation preceded her, the wedding-ring-free cop added, smiling a bit of flirt her way. Sachs responded with a brisk, professional handshake. All in a day’s work for a woman on the force.

Rhyme briefed her on what they’d learned from the evidence so far.

“Not much,” she muttered. “He’s good.”

“What’s the story on the suspect?” Baker asked.

Sachs nodded toward the door. “He’ll be here in a minute. He took off when we tried to get him but I don’t think he’s our boy. I checked him out. Married, been a broker with the same firm for five years, no warrants. I don’t even think he could carry it.” She nodded at the iron span.

There was a knock on the door.

Behind her, two uniformed officers brought in an unhappy-looking man in handcuffs. Ari Cobb was in his midthirties, good-looking in a dime-a-dozen businessman way. The slightly built man was wearing a nice coat, probably cashmere, though it was stained with what looked like street sludge, presumably from his arrest.

“What’s the story?” Sellitto asked him gruffly.

“As I told her”—a cool nod toward Sachs—“I was just walking to the subway on Cedar Street last night and I dropped some money. That’s it right there.” He nodded toward the bills and money clip. “This morning I realized what happened and came back to look for it. I saw the police there. I don’t know, I just didn’t want to get involved. I’m a broker. I have clients who’re real sensitive about publicity. It could hurt my business.” It was only then that the man seemed to realize that Rhyme was in a wheelchair. He blinked once, got over it, and resumed his indignant visage once more.

A search of his clothing found none of the fine-grained sand, blood or other trace to link him to the killings. Like Sachs, Rhyme doubted this was the Watchmaker, but given the gravity of the crimes he wasn’t going to be careless. “Print him,” Rhyme ordered.

Cooper did so and found that the friction ridges on the money clip were his. A check of DMV revealed that Cobb didn’t own a car, and a call to his credit card companies showed that he hadn’t rented one recently using his plastic.

“When did you drop the money?” Sellitto asked.

He explained that he’d left work about seven thirty the previous night. He’d had some drinks with friends, then left about nine and walked to the subway. He remembered pulling a subway pass out of his pocket when he was walking along Cedar, which was probably when he lost the clip. He continued on to the station and returned home, the Upper East Side, about 9:45. His wife was on a business trip so he went to a bar near his apartment for dinner by himself. He got home about eleven.

Sellitto made some calls to check out his story. The night guard at his office confirmed he’d left at seven thirty, a credit card receipt showed he was at a bar down on Water Street around nine, and the doorman in his building and a neighbor confirmed that he had returned to his apartment at the time that he said. It seemed impossible for him to have abducted two victims, killed one at the pier and then arranged the death of Theodore Adams in the alley, all between nine fifteen and eleven.

Sellitto said, “We’re investigating a very serious crime here. It happened near where you were last night. Did you notice anything that could help us?”

“No, nothing at all. I swear I’d help if I could.”

“The killer could be going to strike again, you know.”

“I’m sorry about that,” he said, not sounding very sorry at all. “But I panicked. That’s not a crime.”

Sellitto glanced at his guards. “Take him outside for a minute.”

After he was gone, Baker muttered, “Waste of time.”

Sachs shook her head. “He knows something. I’ve got a hunch.”

Rhyme deferred to Sachs when it came to what he called—with some condescension—the “people” side of being a cop: witnesses, psychology and, God forbid, hunches.

“Okay,” he said. “But what do we do with your hunch?”

It wasn’t Sachs who responded, though, but Lon Sellitto. He said, “Got an idea.” He opened his jacket, revealing an impossibly wrinkled shirt, and fished out his cell phone.

Chapter 6

Vincent Reynolds was walking down the chilly streets of SoHo, in the blue light of this deserted part of the neighborhood, east of Broadway, some blocks from the area’s chic restaurants and boutiques. He was fifty feet behind his flower girl—Joanne, the woman who would soon be his.

His eyes were on her, and he felt a hunger, keen and electric, as intense as the one he’d felt the night he met Gerald Duncan for the first time, which had proved to be a very important moment for Vincent Reynolds.

After the Sally Anne incident—when Vincent got arrested because he lost control—he told himself that he’d have to be smarter. He’d wear a ski mask, he’d take the women from behind so they couldn’t see him, he’d use a condom (which helped him slow down, anyway), he’d never hunt close to home, he’d vary the techniques and the neighborhoods of the attacks. He’d plan the rapes carefully and be prepared to walk away if there was a risk he’d get caught.

Well, that was his theory. But in the past year it’d been getting harder and harder to control the hunger. Impulse would take over and he’d see a woman by herself on the street and think, I have to have her. Now! I don’t care if anybody sees me.

The hunger does that to you.

Two weeks earlier he’d been having a piece of chocolate cake and a Coke at a diner up the street from the office where he regularly temped. He glanced at the waitress, a new one. She had a round face and a slim figure, curls of golden hair. He noticed her tight blue blouse that was two buttons open and, in his soul, the hunger erupted.

She smiled at him as she brought his check and he decided he had to have her. Right away.

He heard her say to her boss she was going into the alley for a cigarette. Vincent paid and stepped outside. He walked to the alley and then glanced into it. There she was, in her coat, leaning against the wall, looking away from him. It was late—he preferred the 3 to 11 P.M. shift—and though there were some passersby on the sidewalk, the alley was completely empty. The air was cold, the cobblestones would be colder, but he didn’t care; her body would keep him warm.

It was then that he heard a voice whisper in his ear, “Wait five minutes.”

Vincent jumped and swiveled around to look at a man with a round face and lean body, in his fifties, with a calm way about him. He was gazing past Vincent into the alley.

“What?”

“Wait.”

“Who’re you?” Vincent wasn’t afraid, exactly—he was two inches taller, fifty pounds heavier—but the odd look in the man’s shockingly blue eyes spooked him.

“That doesn’t matter. Pretend we’re just friends, talking.”

“Fuck that.” Heart pounding, hands shaking, Vincent started to walk away.

“Wait,” the man said softly once more. His voice was almost hypnotic.

The rapist waited.

A minute later he saw a door open in a building across the alley from the back of the restaurant. The waitress walked to the doorway and spoke to two men. One was in a suit, the other was in a police uniform.

“Jesus,” Vincent whispered.

“It’s a sting,” the man said. “She’s a cop. The owner’s running numbers out of the restaurant, I think. They’re setting him up.”

Vincent recovered fast. “So? That doesn’t matter to me.”

“If you’d done what you had in mind you’d be in cuffs now. Or shot dead.”

“Had in mind?” Vincent asked, trying to sound innocent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The stranger only smiled, motioning Vincent up the street. “Do you live here?”

A pause then Vincent answered, “New Jersey.”

“You work in the city?”

“Yeah.”

“You know Manhattan well?”

“Pretty good.”

The man nodded, looking Vincent up and down. He identified himself as Gerald Duncan and suggested they go someplace warm to talk. They walked three blocks to a diner and Duncan had coffee and Vincent had another piece of cake and a soda.

They talked about the weather, the city budget, downtown Manhattan at midnight.

Then Duncan said, “Just a thought, Vincent. If you’re interested in a little work I could use somebody who isn’t overly concerned with the law. And it might let you practice your . . . hobby.” He nodded back in the direction of the alley.

“Collecting sitcoms from the seventies?” asked Clever Vincent.

Duncan smiled again and Vincent decided he liked the man.

“What do you want me to do?”

“I’ve only been to New York a few times. I need a man who knows the streets, the subways, traffic patterns, neighborhoods . . . who knows something about the way police work. The details, I’ll save for later.”

Hmm.

“What line are you in?” Vincent had asked.

“Businessman. We’ll let it go at that.”

Hmm.

Vincent told himself to leave. But he felt the lure of the man’s comment—about practicing his hobby. Anything that might help him feed the hunger was worth considering, even if it was risky. They continued to talk for a half hour, sharing some information, withholding some. Duncan explained that his hobby was collecting antique watches, which he repaired himself. He’d even built a few from scratch.

As he’d finished his fourth dessert of the day Vincent asked, “How did you know she was a cop?”

Duncan seemed to debate for a moment. Then he said. “I’ve been checking out somebody at the diner. The man at the end of the counter. Remember him? He was in the dark suit.”

Vincent nodded.

“I’ve been following him for the past month. I’m going to kill him.”

Vincent smiled. “You’re kidding.”

“I don’t really kid.”

And Vincent had learned that was true. There was no Clever Gerald. Or Hungry Gerald. There was just one: Calm and Meticulous Gerald, who expressed his intention that night to kill the man in the diner—Walter somebody—in the same matter-of-fact way that he’d made good on that promise by cutting the son of a bitch’s wrists and watching him struggle until he fell from a pier into the freezing brown water of the Hudson River.

The Watchmaker had gone on to tell Vincent that he was in town to kill other people too. Among them were some women. As long as Vincent was careful and didn’t spend more than twenty or thirty minutes, he could have their bodies after they were dead—to do what he wished. In exchange, Vincent would help him—as a guide to the city and its roads and transportation system, and to stand guard and sometimes drive the getaway car.

“So. You interested?”

“I guess,” Vincent said, though his private response was a lot more enthusiastic than that.

And Vincent was now hard at work on this job, following the third victim: Joanne Harper, their flower girl, Clever Vincent had dubbed her. He watched her take out a key and disappear through the service door to her workshop. He eased to a stop, ate a candy bar and leaned against a lamp pole, looking through the shop’s grimy window.

His hand touched the bulge at his waistband, where the Buck knife rested. Staring at the vague form of Joanne, turning on lights, taking her coat off, moving around the workshop. She was alone.

Gripping the knife.

He wondered if she had freckles, he wondered what her perfume smelled like. He wondered if she whimpered when she was in pain. Did she—

But, no, he shouldn’t think like this! He was here only to get information. He couldn’t break the rules, couldn’t disappoint Gerald Duncan. Vincent inhaled the painfully cold air. He should wait.

But then Joanne walked near the window. He got a good look at her. Oh, she’s pretty . . .

Vincent’s palms began to sweat. Of course, he could simply take her now and leave her tied up for Duncan to kill later. That would be something that a friend would understand. They’d both get what they wanted.

After all, sometimes you just can’t wait.

The hunger does that to you. . . .

Next time, pack warm. What were you thinking?

Riding in a pungent cab, thirty-something Kathryn Dance held her hands out in front of a backseat heater exhaling air that wasn’t hot, wasn’t even warm; at best, she decided, it was uncold. She rubbed together her fingers, tipped in dark red nails, and then gave her black-stockinged knees a chance at the air.

Dance came from a locale where the temperature was seventy-five, give or take, all year-round and you had to drive up Carmel Valley Road a long, long way to find enough sledding snow to keep your son and daughter happy. In her last-minute packing for the seminar here in New York, somehow she’d forgotten that the Northeast plus December equals the Himalayas.

She was reflecting: Here I can’t drop the last five pounds of what I gained in Mexico last month (where she’d done nothing but sit in a smoky room, interrogating a suspected kidnapper). If I can’t lose it, at least the extra weight ought to do its duty as insulation. Ain’t fair . . . She pulled her thin coat more tightly around her.

Kathryn Dance was a special agent with the California Bureau of Investigation, based in Monterey. She was one of the nation’s preeminent experts in interrogation and kinesics—the science of observing and analyzing the body language and verbal behavior of witnesses and suspects. She’d been in New York for the past three days presenting her kinesics seminar to local law enforcement agencies.

Kinesics is a rare specialty in police work, but to Kathryn Dance there was nothing like it. She was a people addict. They fascinated her, they electrified her. Confounded and challenged her too. These billions of odd creatures moving through the world, saying the strangest and most wonderful and terrible things . . . She felt what they felt, she feared what scared them, she got pleasure from their joy.

Dance had been a reporter after college: journalism, that profession tailor-made for the aimless with insatiable curiosities. She ended up on the crime beat and spent hours in courtrooms, observing lawyers and suspects and jurors. She realized something about herself: She could look at a witness, listen to his words and get an immediate sense of when he was telling the truth and when he wasn’t. She could look at jurors and see when they were bored or lost or angry or shocked, when they believed the suspect, when they didn’t. She could tell which lawyers were ill-suited to the bar and which were going to shine.

She could spot the cops whose whole heart was in their jobs and the ones who were only biding their time. (One of the former in particular caught her eye: a prematurely silver-haired FBI agent out of the San Jose field office, testifying with humor and panache in a gang trial she was covering. She finagled an exclusive interview with him after the guilty verdicts, and he finagled a date. Eight months later she and William Swenson were married.)

Eventually bored with the reporter’s life, Kathryn Dance decided on a career change. Life turned crazy for a time as she juggled her roles as mother of two small children and wife and grad student, but she managed to graduate from UC-Santa Cruz with a joint master’s in psych and communications. She opened a jury consulting business, advising attorneys which jurors to choose and which to avoid during voir dire jury selection. She was talented and made very good money. But six years ago, she decided to change course once again. With the help of a supportive, tireless husband and her mother and father, who lived in nearby Carmel, she headed back to school once more: the California State Bureau of Investigation training academy in Sacramento.

Kathryn Dance became a cop.

The CBI doesn’t break out kinesics as a specialty so Dance was technically just another investigative agent, working homicides, kidnappings, narcotics, terrorism and the like. Still, in law enforcement, talents are spotted early and news of her talent quickly spread. She found herself the resident expert in interview and interrogation (fine with her, since it gave her some bargaining power to trade off undercover and forensic work, which she had little interest in).

She now glanced at her watch, wondering how long this volunteer mission would take. Her flight wasn’t until the afternoon but she’d have to give herself plenty of time to get to JFK; traffic in the city was horrendous, even worse than the 101 Freeway around San Jose. She couldn’t miss the plane. She was eager to get back to her children, and—funny about caseloads—the files on your desk never seem to disappear when you’re out of the office; they only multiply.

The cab squealed to a stop.

Dance squinted out the window. “Is this the right address?”

“It’s the one you gave me.”

“It doesn’t look like a police station.”

He glanced up at the ornate building. “Sure don’t. That’ll be six seventy-five.”

Yes and no, Dance thought to herself.

It was a police station and yet it wasn’t.

Lon Sellitto greeted her in the front hallway. The detective had taken her course in kinesics the day before at One Police Plaza and had just called, asking if she could come by now to give them a hand on a multiple homicide. When he’d telephoned he’d given her the address and she’d assumed it was a precinct house. It happened to be filled with nearly as much forensic equipment as the lab at the Monterey CBI headquarters but was, nonetheless, a private home.

And it was owned by Lincoln Rhyme, no less.

Another fact Sellitto had neglected to mention.

Dance had heard of Rhyme, of course—many law enforcers knew of the brilliant quadriplegic forensic detective—but wasn’t aware of the details of his life or his role in the NYPD. The fact he was disabled soon failed to register; unless she was studying body language intentionally, Kathryn Dance tended to pay most attention to people’s eyes. Besides, one of her colleagues in the CBI was a paraplegic and she was accustomed to people in wheelchairs.

Sellitto now introduced her to Rhyme and a tall, intense police detective named Amelia Sachs. Dance noted at once that they were more than professional partners. No great kinesic deductions were necessary to make this connection; when she walked in, Sachs had her fingers entwined with Rhyme’s and was whispering something to him with a smile.

Sachs greeted her warmly and Sellitto introduced her to several other officers.

Dance was aware of a tinny sound coming from over her shoulder—earbuds dangling behind her. She laughed and shut off her iPod, which she carried with her like a life-support system.

Sellitto and Sachs told her about the homicide case they needed some help on—a case that Rhyme seemed to be in charge of, though he was a civilian.

Rhyme didn’t participate much in the discussion. His eyes continually returned to a large whiteboard, on which were notations of the evidence. The other officers were giving her details of the case, though she couldn’t help but observe Rhyme—the way he squinted at the board, would mutter something under his breath and shake his head, as if chastising himself for missing something. Occasionally his eyes would close. Once or twice he offered a comment about the case but he largely ignored Dance.

She was amused. The agent was used to skepticism. Most often it arose because she simply didn’t look like a typical cop, this five-foot-five woman with dark blond hair worn usually, as now, in a tight French braid, light purple lipstick, iPod earbuds dangling, the gold and abalone jewelry her mother had made, not to mention her passion—quirky shoes (chasing perps didn’t usually figure in Dance’s daily life as a cop).

Now, though, she suspected she understood Lincoln Rhyme’s lack of interest. Like many forensic scientists, he wouldn’t put much stock in kinesics and interviewing. He’d probably voted against calling her.

As for Dance herself, well, she recognized the value of physical evidence, but it had no appeal to her. It was the human side of crime and crime solving that made her own heart race.

Kinesics versus forensics . . .

Fair enough, Detective Rhyme.

While the handsome, sardonic and impatient criminalist continued to gaze at the evidence charts, Dance absorbed the details of the case, which was a strange one. The murders by the self-anointed Watchmaker were horrific, sure, but Dance wasn’t shocked. She’d worked cases that were just as gruesome. And, after all, she lived in California, where Charles Manson had set the standard for evil.

Another detective from the NYPD, Dennis Baker, now told her specifically what they needed. They’d found a witness who might have some helpful information but he wasn’t forthcoming with details.

“He claims he didn’t see anything,” Sachs added. “But I have a feeling he did.”

Dance was disappointed that it wasn’t a suspect but a witness she’d be interviewing. She preferred the challenge of confronting criminals, and the more deceitful the better. Still, interviewing witnesses took much less time than breaking suspects and she couldn’t miss her flight.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she told them. She fished in her Coach purse and put on round glasses with pale pink frames.

Sachs gave her the details about Ari Cobb, the reluctant witness, laying out the chronology of the man’s evening, as they’d been able to piece it together, and his behavior that morning.

Dance listened carefully as she sipped coffee that Rhyme’s caregiver had poured for her and indulged in half a Danish.

When she’d gotten all the background Dance organized her thoughts. Then she said to them, “Okay, let me tell you what I’ve got in mind. First, a crash course. Lon heard this yesterday at the seminar but I’ll let the rest of you know how I handle interviewing. Kinesics traditionally was studying somebody’s physical behavior—body language—to understand their emotional state and whether they were being deceptive or not. Most people, including me, use the term now to mean all forms of communication—not just body language but spoken comments and written statements too.

“First, I’ll take a baseline reading of the witness—see how he acts when he’s answering things that we know are truthful—name, address, job, things like that. I’ll note his gesturing, posture, word choice and the substance of what he says.

“Once I have the baseline I’ll start asking questions and find out where he exhibits stress reactions. Which means he’s either lying or has some important issues with the topic I’m asking him about. Up until then, what I’ve been doing is ‘interviewing’ him. Once I suspect he’s lying, then the session will become an ‘interrogation.’ I start to whittle away at him, using a lot of different techniques, until we get to the truth.”

“Perfect,” said Baker. Although Rhyme was apparently in charge, Dennis Baker, Dance deduced, was from headquarters; he had the belabored look of a man on whose shoulders an investigation like this ultimately—and politically—rested.

“You have a map of the area we’re talking about,” Dance said. “I’d like to know the geography of the area involved. You can’t be an effective interrogator without it. I like to say I need to know the subject’s terrarium.”

Lon Sellitto gave a fast laugh. Dance smiled in curiosity. He explained, “Lincoln says exactly the same about forensics. If you don’t know the geography, you’re working in a vacuum. Right, Linc?”

“Sorry?” the criminalist asked.

“Terrarium, you like that?”

“Ah.” His polite smile was the equivalent of Dance’s son saying, “Whatever.”

Dance examined the map of lower Manhattan, memorizing the details of the crime scene and of Ari Cobb’s afterwork schedule the previous day, as Sachs and a young patrol officer, named Pulaski, pointed them out.

Finally she felt comfortable with the facts. “Okay, let’s get to work. Where is he?”

“A room across the hall.”

“Bring him in.”

Chapter 7

A moment later an NYPD patrol officer brought in a short, trim businessman wearing an expensive suit. Dance didn’t know if they’d actually arrested him but the way he touched his wrists told her that he’d been in cuffs recently.

Dance greeted the man, who was uneasy and angry, and nodded him to a chair. She sat across from him—nothing between them—and scooted forward until she was in a neutral proxemic zone, the term referring to the physical space between a subject and an interviewer. This zone can be adjusted to make the subject more or less comfortable. She was not too close to be invasive but not so far away as to give him a sense of security. (“You push the edge of edgy,” she’d say in her lectures.)

“Mr. Cobb, my name’s Kathryn Dance. I’m a law enforcement agent and I’d like to talk to you about what you saw last night.”

“This is ridiculous. I already told them”—a nod at Rhyme—“everything I saw.”

“Well, I just arrived. I don’t have the benefit of your previous answers.”

Jotting responses, she asked a number of simple questions—where he lived and worked, marital status, and the like—which gave her Cobb’s baseline reaction to stress. She listened carefully to his answers. (“Watching and listening are the two most important parts of the interview. Speaking comes last.”)

One of the first jobs of an interviewer is to determine the personality type of the subject—whether he’s an introvert or extrovert. These types aren’t what most people think; they’re not about being boisterous or retiring. The distinction is about how people make decisions. An introvert is governed by intuition and emotion more than logic and reason; an extrovert, the opposite. Assigning personalities helps the interviewer in framing the questions and picking the right tone and physical demeanor to adopt when asking them. For instance, taking a gruff, clipped approach with an introvert will make him withdraw into his shell.

Ari Cobb, though, was a classic extrovert and an arrogant one at that—no kid gloves were needed. This was Kathryn Dance’s favorite kind of subject. She got to kick serious butt when interviewing them.

Cobb cut off a question. “You’ve held me way too long. I have to get to work. What happened to that man isn’t my fault.”

Respectful but firm, Dance said, “Oh, it’s not a question of fault. . . . Now, Ari, let’s talk about last night.”

“You don’t believe me. You’re calling me a liar. I wasn’t there when the crime happened.”

“I’m not suggesting you’re lying. But there still might’ve been something you saw that could help us. Something you think isn’t important. See, part of my job is helping people remember things. I’ll walk you through the events of last night and maybe something’ll occur to you.”

“Well, there’s nothing I saw. I just dropped some money. That’s all. I handled the whole thing badly. And now it’s a federal case. This is such bullshit.”

“Let’s just go back to yesterday. One step at a time. You were working in your office. Stenfeld Brothers Investments. In the Hartsfield Building.”

“Yeah.”

“All day?”

“Right.”

“You got off work at what time?”

“Seven thirty, a little before.”

“And what did you do after that?”

“I went to Hanover’s for drinks.”

“That’s on Water Street,” she said. Always keep your subjects guessing exactly how much you know.

“Yeah. It was a martini and Karaoke thing. They call it Martuney Night. Like ‘tunes.’”

“Clever.”

“I’ve got a group I meet there. We go a lot. Some friends. Close friends.”

She noticed that his body language meant he was about to add something—probably he was anticipating her asking for their names. Being too ready with an alibi is an indicator of deception—the subject tends to think that offering it is good enough and the police won’t bother to check it out, or won’t be smart enough to figure out that having a drink at 8 P.M. doesn’t exculpate you from a robbery that happened at seven thirty.

“You left when?”

“At nine or so.”

“And went home?”

“Yes.”

“To the Upper East Side.”

A nod.

“Did you take a limo?”

“Limo, right,” he said sarcastically. “No, the subway.”

“From which station?”

“Wall Street.”

“Did you walk?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Carefully,” he said, grinning. “It was icy.”

Dance smiled. “The route?”

“I walked down Water Street, cut over on Cedar to Broadway then south.”

“And that’s where you lost your money clip. On Cedar. How did that happen?” Her tone and the questions were completely nonthreatening. He was relaxing now. His attitude was less aggressive. Her smiles and low, calm voice were putting him at ease.

“As near as I can figure, it fell out when I was getting my subway pass.”

“How much money was it again?”

“Over three hundred.”

“Ouch . . .”

“Yeah, ouch.”

She nodded at the plastic bag containing the money and clip. “Looks like you just hit the ATM too. Worst time to lose money, right? After a withdrawal.”

“Yep.” He offered a grimacing smile.

“When did you get to the subway?”

“Nine-thirty.”

“It wasn’t later, you sure?”

“I’m positive. I checked my watch when I was on the platform. It was nine thirty-five, to be exact.” He glanced down at his big gold Rolex. Meaning, she supposed, that a watch this expensive was sure to tell accurate time.

“And then?”

“I went back home and had dinner in a bar near my building. My wife was out of town. She’s a lawyer. Does corporate financing work. She’s a partner.”

“Let’s go back to Cedar Street. Were there any lights on? People home in their apartments?”

“No, it’s all offices and stores there. Not residential.”

“No restaurants?”

“A few but they’re only open for lunch.”

“Any construction?”

“They’re renovating a building on the south side of the street.”

“Was anybody on the sidewalks?”

“No.”

“Cars driving slowly, suspiciously?”

“No,” Cobb said.

Dance was vaguely aware of the other officers watching her and Cobb. They were undoubtedly impatient, waiting, like most people, for the big Confession Moment. She ignored them. Nobody really existed except the agent and her subject. Kathryn Dance was in her own world—a “zone,” her son, Wes, would say (he was the athlete of the family).

She looked over the notes she’d taken. Then she closed the notebook and replaced one pair of glasses with another, as if she were exchanging reading for distance glasses. The prescriptions were the same, but instead of the larger round lenses and pastel frames these were small and rectangular, with black metal frames, making her look predatory. She called them her “Terminator specs.” Dance eased closer to Cobb. He crossed his legs.

In a voice much edgier, she asked, “Ari, where did that money really come from?”

“The—”

“Money? You didn’t get it at an ATM.” It was during his comments about the cash that she noticed an increased stress level—his eyes stayed locked on to hers, but the lids lowered slightly and his breathing altered, both major deviations from his nondeceptive baseline.

“Yes, I did,” he countered.

“What bank?”

A pause. “You can’t make me tell you that.”

“But we can subpoena your bank records. And we’ll detain you until we get them. Which could take a day or two.”

“I went to the fucking ATM!”

“That’s not what I asked. I asked where the cash in your money clip came from.”

He looked down.

“You haven’t been honest with me, Ari. Which means you’re in serious trouble. Now, the money?”

“I don’t know. Probably some of it was from petty cash at my firm.”

“Which you got yesterday?”

“I guess.”

“How much?”

“I—”

“We’ll subpoena your employer’s books too.”

He looked shocked at this. He said quickly, “A thousand dollars.”

“Where’s the rest of it? Three hundred forty in the money clip. Where’s the rest?”

“I spent some at Hanover’s. It’s a business expense. It’s legitimate. As part of my job—”

“I was asking where the rest of it is.”

A pause. “I left some at home.”

“At home? Is your wife back now? Could she confirm that?”

“She’s still away.”

“Then we’ll send an officer to look for the money. Where is it, exactly?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Over six hundred dollars? How could you forget where six hundred dollars is?”

“I don’t know. You’re confusing me.”

She leaned closer still, into a more threatening proxemic zone. “What were you really doing on Cedar Street?”

“Walking to the fucking subway.”

Dance grabbed the map of Manhattan. “Hanover’s is here. The subway’s here.” Her finger made a loud sound with every tap on the heavy paper. “It makes no sense to walk down Cedar to get from Hanover’s to the Wall Street subway station. Why would you walk that way?”

“I wanted some exercise. Walk off the Cosmopolitans and chicken wings.”

“With ice on the sidewalks and the temperature in the teens? You do that often?”

“No. I just happened to last night.”

“If you don’t walk it often then how do you know so much about Cedar Street? The fact there’re no residences, the closing time of the restaurants and the construction work?”

“I just do. What the hell’s this all about?” Sweat was dotting his forehead.

“When you dropped the money, did you take your gloves off to get your subway pass out of your pocket?”

“I don’t know.”

“I assume you did. You can’t reach into a pocket with winter gloves on.”

“Okay,” he snapped. “You know so much, then I did.”

“With the temperature as cold as it was, why would you do that ten minutes before you got to the subway station?”

“You can’t talk to me this way.”

She said in a firm, low voice, “And you didn’t check the time on the subway platform, did you?”

“Yes, I did. It was nine thirty-five.”

“No, you didn’t. You’re not going to be flashing a five-thousand-dollar watch on the subway platform at night.”

“Okay, that’s it. I’m not saying anything else.”

When an interrogator confronts a deceptive subject, that person experiences intense stress and responds in various ways to try to escape from that stress—barriers to the truth, Dance called them. The most destructive and difficult response state to break through is anger, followed by depression, then denial, and finally bargaining. The interrogator’s role is to decide what stress state the suspect is in and neutralize it—and any subsequent ones—until finally the subject reaches the acceptance state, that is, confession, in which he finally will be honest.

Dance had assessed that though Cobb displayed some anger he was primarily in the denial state—such subjects are very quick to plead memory problems and to blame the interrogator for misunderstandings. The best way to break down a subject in denial is to do what Dance had just done—it’s known as “attacking on the facts.” With an extrovert you slam home weaknesses and contradictions in their stories one after another until their defenses are shattered.

“Ari, you got off work at seven-thirty and went to Hanover’s. We know that. You were there for about an hour and a half. After that you walked two blocks out of your way to Cedar Street. You know Cedar real well because you go there to pick up hookers. Last night between nine and nine thirty, one of them stopped her car near the alley. You negotiated a price and paid her. You got into the car with her. You got out of the car around ten fifteen or so. That’s when you dropped the money by the curb, probably checking your cell phone to see if your wife had called or getting a little extra cash for a tip. Meanwhile, the killer had pulled into the alley and you noticed it and saw something. What? What did you see?”

“No . . .”

“Yes,” Dance said evenly. She stared at him and said nothing more.

Finally his head lowered and his legs uncrossed. His lip was trembling. He wasn’t confessing but she’d moved him up a step in the chain of stress response states—from denial to bargaining. Now Dance had to change tack. She had both to offer sympathy and to give him a way to save face. Even the most cooperative subjects in the bargaining state will continue to lie or stonewall if you don’t leave them some dignity and a way to escape the worst consequences of what they’ve done.

She pulled her glasses off and sat back. “Look, Ari, we don’t want to ruin your life. You got scared. It’s understandable. But this is a very dangerous man we’re trying to stop. He’s killed two people and he may be going to kill some more. If you can help us find him, what we’ve learned about you here today doesn’t have to come out in public. No subpoenas, no calls to your wife or boss.”

Dance glanced at Detective Baker, who said, “That’s absolutely right.”

Cobb sighed. Eyes on the floor, he muttered, “Fuck. It was three hundred goddamn dollars. Why the hell did I go back there this morning?”

Greed and stupidity, though Kathryn Dance. But she said kindly, “We all make mistakes.”

A hesitation. Then he sighed again. “See, this’s the crazy thing. It wasn’t much—what I saw, I mean. You’re probably not going to believe me. I hardly saw anything. I didn’t even see a person.”

“If you’re honest with us we’ll believe you. Go on.”

“It was about ten-thirty, a little after. After I got out of the . . . girl’s car I started to walk to the subway. You’re right. I stopped and pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. I turned it on to check messages. That’s when the money fell out, I guess. It was at the alley. I glanced down it and saw some taillights at the end.”

“What kind of car?” Sachs asked.

“I didn’t see the car, just taillights. I swear.”

Dance believed this. She nodded to Sachs.

“Wait,” Rhyme said abruptly. “The end of the alley?”

So the criminalist had been listening after all.

“Right. All the way at the end. Then the reverse lights came on and it started backing toward me. The driver was moving pretty fast so I kept walking. Then I heard the squeal of brakes and he stopped and shut the engine off. He was still in the alley. I kept on walking. I heard the door slam and this noise. Like a big piece of metal falling to the ground. That was it. I didn’t see anybody. I was past the alley at that point. Really.”

Rhyme glanced at Dance, who nodded that he was telling the truth.

“Describe the girl you were with,” Dennis Baker said. “I want to talk to her too.”

Cobb said quickly, “Thirties, African-American, short curly hair. Her car was a Honda, I think. I didn’t see the license plate. She was pretty.” He added this as some pathetic justification.

“Name?”

Cobb sighed. “Tiffanee. With two e’s. Not a y.”

Rhyme gave a faint laugh. “Call Vice, ask about girls working regularly on Cedar,” he ordered his slim, balding assistant.

Dance asked a few more questions, then nodded, glanced at Lon Sellitto and said, “I think Mr. Cobb here has told us as much as he knows.” She looked at the businessman and said sincerely, “Thanks for your cooperation.”

He blinked, unsure what to make of her comment. But Kathryn Dance wasn’t being sarcastic. She never took personally the words or glares (occasionally even spittle or flung objects) from the subjects. A kinesic interviewer has to remember that the enemy is never the subject himself but simply the barriers to truth that he raises, sometimes not even intentionally.

Sellitto, Baker and Sachs debated for a few minutes and decided to release the businessman without charging him. The skittish man left, with a look at Dance that she was very familiar with: part awe, part disgust, part pure hatred.

After he’d left, Rhyme, who was looking at a diagram of the scene of the killing in the alley, said, “This’s curious. For some reason the perp decided he didn’t want the vic at the end of the alley, so he backed up and picked the spot about fifteen feet from the sidewalk. . . . Interesting fact. But is it useful?”

Sachs nodded. “You know, it might be. The far end of the alley didn’t get any snow, it looked like. They might not’ve used salt there. We could lift some footprints or tire treads.”

Rhyme made a call—with an impressive voice recognition program—and sent some officers back to the scene. They called back a short time later and reported that they had found fresh tire treads at the end of the alley, along with a brown fiber, which seemed to match the ones on the victim’s shoe and wristwatch. They uploaded the digital pictures of the fiber and treads and gave the wheelbase dimensions.

Despite her lack of interest in forensics, Dance found herself intrigued by this choreography. Rhyme and Sachs were a particularly insightful team. She couldn’t help but be impressed when ten minutes later, the technical man, Mel Cooper, looked up from a computer screen and said, “With the wheelbase and those particular brown fibers, it’s probably a Ford Explorer, either two or three years old.”

“Odds are it’s the older one,” Rhyme said.

Why did he say that? Dance wondered.

Sachs saw the frown on her face and answered, “The brakes squealed.”

Ah.

Sellitto turned to Dance. “That was good, Kathryn. You nailed him.”

Sachs asked, “How’d you do it?”

She explained the process she’d used. “I went fishing. I reviewed everything he’d told us—the afterwork bar, the subway, the cash and money clip, the alleyway, the chronology of events and the geography. I checked out his kinesic reaction to each response. The cash was a particularly sensitive subject. What was he doing with the money that he shouldn’t’ve been? An extroverted, narcissistic businessman like him? I figured it was either drugs or sex. But a Wall Street broker’s not buying street drugs; he’d have a connection. That left hookers. Simple.”

“That’s slick, don’t you think, Lincoln?” Cooper asked.

Dance was surprised to see that the criminalist could shrug. He then said noncommitally, “Worked out well. We got some evidence it might’ve taken us a while to find.” His eyes went back to the board.

“Linc, come on. We got his vehicle make. We wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for her.” Sellitto said to Dance, “Don’t take it personal. He doesn’t trust witnesses.”

Rhyme frowned at the detective. “It’s not a contest, Lon. Our goal is the truth, and my experience has been that the reliability of witnesses is somewhat less than that of physical evidence. That’s all. Nothing personal about it.”

Dance nodded. “Funny you say that. I tell people in my lectures the same thing: that our main job as cops isn’t throwing bad guys in jail, it’s getting to the truth.” She too shrugged. “We just had a case in California—death row prisoner exonerated the day before his scheduled execution. A private eye friend of mine spent three years working for his lawyer to get to the bottom of what happened. He just wouldn’t accept that everything was what it seemed to be. The prisoner was thirteen hours away from dying and it turned out he was innocent. . . . If that PI hadn’t kept looking for the truth all those years, he’d be dead now.”

Rhyme said, “And I know what happened. The defendant was convicted because of a witness’s perjured testimony, and DNA analysis freed him, right?”

Dance turned. “No, actually there were no witnesses to the killing. The real killer planted fake physical evidence implicating him.”

“How ’bout that,” said Sellitto and he and Amelia Sachs shared a smile. Rhyme glanced at them both coolly. “Well,” he said to Dance, “it’s fortunate that things worked out for the best. . . . Now I better get back to work.” His eyes returned to the whiteboard.

Dance said good-bye to them all and pulled on her coat as Lon Sellitto showed her out. On the street Dance walked to the curb, where she plugged the iPod earbuds back in and clicked the unit on. This particular playlist contained folk rock, Irish and some kick-ass Rolling Stones (once at a concert she’d done a kinesic analysis of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for her friends’ benefit).

She was waving down a cab when she realized there was an odd, unsettled feeling within her. A moment passed before she recognized it. She was feeling a nagging sense of regret that her brief involvement in the Watchmaker case was now over.

Joanne Harper was feeling good.

The trim thirty-two-year-old was in the workshop a few blocks east of her retail flower store in SoHo. She was among her friends.

That is to say, roses, cymbidium orchids, birds-of-paradise, lilies, heliconia, anthurium and red ginger.

The workshop was a large ground-floor area in what had been a warehouse. It was drafty and cold and she kept most of the rooms dark to protect the flowers. Still, she loved it here, the coolness, the dim light, the smells of lilac and fertilizer. She was in the middle of Manhattan, yes, but it seemed more like a quiet forest.

The woman added some more florist’s foam to the huge ceramic vase in front of her.

Feeling good.

For a couple of reasons: because she was working on a lucrative project that she had complete discretion to design.

And because of the buzz from her date the previous night.

With Kevin, who knew that angel trumpets needed exceptionally good drainage to thrive, and that creeping red sedum flowered in brilliant crimson all the way through September, and that Donn Clendenon whacked three over the wall to help the Mets beat Baltimore in 1969 (her father had captured two of the homers with his Kodak).

Kevin the cute guy, Kevin with the dimple and grin. Sans present or past wives.

Did it get any better than that?

A shadow crossed the front window. She glanced up, but saw no one. This was a deserted stretch of east Spring Street and pedestrians were rare. She scanned the windows. Really ought to have Ramon clean them. Well, she’d wait till warmer weather.

She continued assembling the vase, thinking again about Kevin. Would something work out between them?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Didn’t really matter (okay, sure it did, but a thirty-two-year-old SUW—single urban woman—had to take the didn’t-really-matter approach). But the important thing was she had fun with him. Having played the post-divorce dating game in Manhattan for a few years, she felt entitled to have some fun with another man.

Joanne Harper, who bore a resemblance to the redhead on Sex and the City, had come here ten years earlier to become a famous artist, live in a storefront studio in the East Village and sell her paintings out of a Tribeca gallery. But the art world had other ideas. It was too harsh, too petty, too, well, unartistic. It was about being shocking or troubled or fuckable or rich. Joanne gave up on fine arts and tried graphic design for a while but was dissatisfied with that too. On a whim she took a job in an interior landscaping company in Tribeca and fell in love with the business. She decided that if she was going to starve at least she’d be hungry doing what she was passionate about.

The joke, though, was that she became a success. She managed to open her own company a few years ago. It now included both the Broadway retail store and this—the Spring Street commercial operation, which serviced companies and organizations, providing daily flowers for offices and large arrangements for meetings, ceremonies and special events.

She continued to add foam, greens, eucalyptus and marbles to the vases—the flowers would be added at the last minute. Joanne shivered slightly from the chill air. She glanced at the clock on the dim wall of the workshop. Not too long to wait, she reflected. Kevin had to make a couple of deliveries in the city today. He’d called this morning and told her he’d be at the retail shop in the afternoon. And, hey, if you’re not doing anything, maybe we could go for some cappuccino or something.

Coffee the day after a date? Now that—

Another shadow fell on the window.

She looked up again quickly. No one. But she felt uneasy. Her eyes strayed to the front door, which she never used. Boxes were stacked up in front of it. It was locked . . . or was it?

Joanne squinted but with the glare from the bright sun she couldn’t tell. She walked around the worktable to check.

She tested the latch. Yes, it was locked. Joanne looked up, and gasped.

A few feet from her, on the sidewalk outside, was a huge man, staring at her. Tall and fat, he was leaning forward and staring through the window of the workshop, shielding his eyes. He was wearing old-fashioned aviator sunglasses with mirrored lenses, a baseball cap and a cream-colored parka. Because of the glare, and the grime on the windows, he couldn’t see that she was right in front of him.

Joanne froze. People sometimes peeked in, curious about the place, but there was an intensity about his posture, the way he hovered, that bothered her a lot. The front door wasn’t special glass; anyone with a hammer or brick could break in. And with the sparse foot traffic in this part of SoHo an assault here might go completely unnoticed.

She backed up.

Perhaps his eyes grew accustomed to the light or he found a bit of clean window and noticed her. He jerked back, surprised. He seemed to debate something. Then he turned and disappeared.

Stepping forward, Joanne pressed her face against the window, but she couldn’t see where he’d gone. There was something way creepy about him—the way he’d just stood there, hunched over, head cocked, hands stuffed into his pockets, staring through those weird sunglasses.

Joanne wheeled the vases to the side and glanced outside again. No sign of the man. Still, she gave in to the temptation to leave and go to the retail store, check the morning’s receipts and chat with her clerks until Kevin arrived. She put on her coat, hesitated and left via the service door. She looked up the street. No sign of him. She started toward Broadway, west, the direction the big man had gone. She stepped into a thick beam of perfectly clear sunlight, which seemed nearly hot. The brilliance blinded her and she squinted, alarmed that she couldn’t see clearly. Joanne paused, not wanting to walk past the alley up the street. Had the man gone in there? Was he hiding, waiting for her?

She decided to walk east, the opposite direction, and loop around to Broadway on Prince Street. It was more deserted that way, but at least she wouldn’t have to walk past any alleys. She pulled her coat tighter around her and hurried up the street, head down. Soon the image of the fat man had slipped from her mind and she was thinking once again about Kevin.

Dennis Baker went downtown to report on their progress, and the rest of the team continued to examine the evidence.

The fax phone rang and Rhyme looked at the unit eagerly in hopes it was something helpful. But the pages were for Amelia Sachs. Rhyme was watching her face closely as she read them. He knew the look. Like a dog after a fox.

“What, Sachs?”

She shook her head. “The analysis of the evidence from Ben Creeley’s place in Westchester. No IAFIS hits on the prints but there were leather texture marks on some of the fireplace tools and on Creeley’s desk. Who opens desk drawers wearing gloves?”

There was, of course, no database of glove marks but if Sachs could find a pair in a suspect’s possession that matched this pattern, that would be solid circumstantial evidence placing him at the scene, nearly as good as a clear friction-ridge print.

She continued to read. “And the mud I found in front of the fireplace? It doesn’t match the soil in Creeley’s yard. Higher acid content and some pollutants. Like from an industrial site.” Sachs continued. “There were also some traces of burned cocaine in the fireplace.” She looked at Rhyme and gave a wry smile. “A bummer if my first murder vic turns out to be not so innocent.”

Rhyme shrugged. “Nun or dope dealer, Sachs, murder’s still murder. What else do you have?”

“The ash I found in the fireplace—the lab couldn’t recover much but they found these.” She held up a photo of financial records, like a spreadsheet or ledger, which seemed to show entries totaling millions of dollars. “They found part of a logo or something on it. The techs’re still checking it out. And they’ll send the entries to a forensic accountant, see if he can make any sense of it. And they also found part of his calendar. Stuff about getting his car oil changed, a haircut appointment—hardly the agenda for the week you’re going to kill yourself, by the way. . . . Then the day before he died he went to the St. James Tavern.” She tapped a sheet—the recovered page from his calendar.

A note from Nancy Simpson explained about the place. “Bar on East Ninth Street. Sleazy neighborhood. Why’d a rich accountant go there? Seems funny.”

“Not necessarily.”

She glanced Rhyme’s way then walked to the corner of the room. He got the message and followed in the red Storm Arrow wheelchair.

Sachs crouched down beside him. He wondered if she’d take his hand (since some sensation had returned to his right fingers and wrist, holding hands had taken on great importance to them both). But there was a very thin line between their personal and their business lives and she now remained purely professional.

“Rhyme,” she whispered.

“I know what—”

“Let me finish.”

He grunted.

“I have to follow up on this.”

“Priorities. Your case is colder than the Watchmaker, Sachs. Whatever happened to Creeley, even if he was murdered, the perp’s probably not a multiple doer. The Watchmaker is. He has to be our priority. Whatever evidence there is about Creeley’ll still be there after we nail our boy.”

She was shaking her head. “I don’t think so, Rhyme. I’ve pushed the button. I’ve started asking questions. You know how that works. Word’s starting to spread about the case. Evidence and suspects could be disappearing right now.”

“And the Watchmaker’s probably targeting somebody else right now too. He could be killing somebody else right now. . . . And, believe me, if there’s another murder and we drop the ball there’ll be hell to pay. Baker told me the request for us came from the top floor.”

Insisted . . .

“I won’t drop the ball. You get another scene, I’ll run it. If Bo Haumann stages a tactical op, I’ll be there.”

Rhyme gave an exaggerated frown. “Tactical? You don’t get dessert until you finish your vegetables.”

She laughed, and now he felt the pressure of her hand. “Come on, Rhyme, we’re in cop land. Nobody runs just one case at a time. Most Major Cases desks’re littered with a dozen files. I can handle two.”

Troubled by a foreboding he couldn’t articulate, Rhyme hesitated then said, “Let’s hope, Sachs. Let’s hope.”

It was the best blessing he could give.

Chapter 8

He came here?

Amelia Sachs, standing beside a planter that smelled of urine and sported a dead yellow stalk, glanced through the grimy window.

She suspected the place would be bad, knowing the address, but not this bad. Sachs was standing outside the St. James Tavern, on a wedge of broken concrete rising from the sidewalk. The bar was on East Ninth Street, in Alphabet City, the nickname referring to the north-south avenues that ran through it: A, B, C and D. The place had been a terror some years ago, a remnant of the gang wastelands on the Lower East Side. It had improved somewhat (crack houses were morphing into expensive fix-’em-uppers w/ vu) but it was still a rough-and-tumble ’hood; sitting in the snow at Sachs’s feet was a discarded hypodermic needle, and a spent 9-millimeter shell casing rested on the window ledge six inches from her face.

What the hell had accountant/venture capitalist, two-home-owning, Beemer-driving Benjamin Creeley been doing in a place like this the day before he died?

At the moment, the large, shabby tavern wasn’t too crowded. Through the greasy window she spotted aging locals at the bar or tables: spongy women and scrawny men who’d get a lot, or most, of their daily calories from the bottle. In a small room in the back were some white men in jeans, dungarees, work shirts. Four of them, all loud—even through the window she could hear their crude voices and laughter. She thought immediately of the punks who’d spend hour after hour in the Mafia social clubs, some slow, some lazy—but all of them dangerous. One glance told her these were men who’d hurt people.

Entering the place, Sachs found a stool at the small end of the bar’s L, where she was less visible. The bartender was a woman of around fifty, with a narrow face, red fingers, hair teased up like a country-western singer’s. There was a weariness about her. Sachs thought, It’s not that she’s seen it all; it’s that everything she has seen has been in places just like this.

The detective ordered a Diet Coke.

“Hey, Sonja,” called a voice from the back room. In the filthy mirror behind the bar Sachs could see it belonged to a blond man in extremely tight blue jeans and a leather jacket. He had a weasely face and appeared to have been drinking for some time. “Dickey here wants you. He’s a shy boy. Come on over here. Come on and visit the shy boy.”

“Fuck you,” somebody else shouted. Presumably Dickey.

“Come ’ere, Sonja, sweetheart! Sit on shy boy’s lap. It’ll be comfy. Real smooth. No bumps.”

Some guffaws.

Sonja knew that she too was the butt of their mean humor but she called back gamely, “Dickey? He’s younger’n my son.”

“That’s okay—everybody knows he’s a motherfucker!”

Huge laughter.

Sonja’s eyes met Sachs’s and then looked away quickly, as if she’d been caught aiding and abetting the enemy. But one advantage of drunks is that they can’t sustain anything—cruelty or euphoria—for very long and soon they were on to sports and rude jokes. Sachs sipped her soda, asked Sonja, “So. How’s it going?”

The woman offered an unbreakable smile. “Just fine.” She had no interest in sympathy, especially from a woman who was younger and prettier and didn’t tend bar in a place like this.

Fair enough. Sachs got down to business. She flashed her badge, subtly, and then showed her a picture of Benjamin Creeley. “Do you remember seeing him in here?”

“Him? Yeah, a few times. What’s this about?”

“Did you know him?”

“Not really. Just sold him some drinks. Wine, I remember. He wanted red wine. We got shitty wine but he drank it. He was pretty decent. Not like some people.” No need to glance into the back room to indicate whom she meant. “But I haven’t seen him for a while. Maybe a month. Last time he came in he got into a big argument. So I figured he wouldn’t be coming back.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Just heard some shouting and then he was storming out the door.”

“Who was he arguing with?”

“I didn’t see it. I just heard.”

“He ever do drugs that you saw?”

“No.”

“Were you aware that he killed himself?”

Sonja blinked. “No shit.”

“We’re following up on his death. . . . I’d appreciate keeping it to yourself, my asking you about it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Can you tell me anything about him?”

“God, I don’t even know his name. I guess he was in here maybe three times. He have a family?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Oh, that’s tough. That’s harsh.”

“Wife and a teenage boy.”

Sonja shook her head. Then she said, “Gerte might’ve known him better. She’s the other bartender. She works more’n me.”

“Is she here now?”

“Naw, should be here in a while. You want I should have her call you?”

“Give me her number.”

The woman jotted it down. Sachs leaned forward and nodded toward the picture of Creeley and said, “Did he meet anybody in particular here that you can remember?”

“All I know is it was in there. Where they usually hang.” She nodded at the back room.

A millionaire businessman and that crowd? Had two of them been the ones who’d broken into the Creeleys’ Westchester house and had the marshmallow roast in his fireplace?

Sachs looked into the mirror, studying the men’s table, littered with beer bottles, ashtrays and gnawed chicken wing bones. These guys had to be in a crew. Maybe young capos in an organized crime outfit. There were a lot of Sopranos franchises around the city. They were usually petty criminals but often it was the smaller crews who were more dangerous than the traditional Mafia, which avoided hurting civilians and steered clear of crack and meth and the seamier side of the underworld. She tried to get her head around a Benjamin Creeley–gang connection. It was tough.

“You see them with pot, coke—any drugs?”

Sonja shook her head. “Nope.”

Sachs leaned forward and whispered to Sonja, “You know what crew’re they connected with?”

“Crew?”

“A gang. Who’s their boss, who they report to? Anything?”

Sonja didn’t speak for a moment. She glanced at Sachs to see if she was serious and then gave a laugh. “They’re not in a gang. I thought you knew. They’re cops.”

At last the clocks—the Watchmaker’s calling cards—arrived from the bomb squad with a clean bill of health.

“Oh, you mean they didn’t find any really tiny weapons of mass destruction inside?” Rhyme asked caustically. He was irritated that they’d been out of his possession—more risk of contamination—and at the delay in their arrival.

Pulaski signed the chain-of-custody cards and the patrolman who’d delivered the clocks left.

“Let’s see what we’ve got.” Rhyme moved his wheelchair to the examination table as Cooper unpacked the clocks from plastic bags.

They were identical, the only difference being the blood crusted on the base of the clock that had been left on the pier. They seemed old—they weren’t electric; you wound them by hand. But the components were modern. The works inside were in a sealed box, which had been opened by the bomb squad, but both clocks were still running and showed the correct time. The housing was wood, painted black, and the face was antiqued white metal. The numbers were Roman numerals, and the hour and minute hands, also black, ended in sharp arrows. There was no second hand but the clocks clicked loudly every second.

The most unusual feature was a large window in the top half of the face that displayed a disk on which were painted the phases of the moon. Centered in the window now was the full moon, depicted with an eerie human face, staring outward with ominous eyes and thin lips.

The full Cold Moon is in the sky . . .

Cooper went over the clocks with his usual precision and reported that there were no friction ridge prints and only minimal trace evidence, all of which matched samples that Sachs had collected around both scenes, meaning that none of it had been picked up in the Watchmaker’s car or residence.

“Who makes them?”

“Arnold Products. Framingham, Massachusetts.” Cooper did a Google search and read from the website. “They sell clocks, leather goods, office decorations, gifts. Upscale. The stuff’s not cheap. A dozen different models of clocks. This is the Victorian. Genuine brass mechanism, oak, modeled after a British clock sold in the eighteen hundreds. Costs fifty-four dollars wholesale. They don’t sell to the public. Have to go through the dealer.”

“Serial numbers?”

“Only on the mechanisms. Not the clocks themselves.”

“Okay,” Rhyme ordered, “make the call.”

“Me?” Pulaski asked, blinking.

“Yup. You.”

“I’m supposed to—”

“Call the manufacturer and give them the serial numbers of the mechanism.”

Pulaski nodded. “Then see if they can tell us which store it was shipped to.”

“One hundred percent,” Rhyme said.

The rookie took out his phone, got the number from Cooper and dialed.

Of course, the killer might not have been the purchaser. He could’ve stolen them from a store. He could’ve stolen them from a residence. He could’ve bought them used at a garage sale.

But “could’ve” is a word that goes with the territory of crime scene work, Rhyme reflected.

You have to start somewhere.

THE WATCHMAKER

CRIME SCENE ONE

Location:

• Repair pier in Hudson River, 22nd Street.

Victim:

• Identity unknown.

• Male.

• Possibly middle-aged or older, and may have coronary condition (presence of anticoagulants in blood).

• No other drugs, infection or disease in blood.

• Coast Guard and ESU divers checking for body and evidence in New York Harbor.

• Checking missing persons reports.

Perp:

• See below.

M.O.:

• Perp forced victim to hold on to deck, over water, cut fingers or wrists until he fell.

• Time of attack: between 6 P.M. Monday and 6 A.M. Tuesday.

Evidence:

• Blood type AB positive.

• Fingernail torn, unpolished, wide.

• Portion of chain-link fence cut with common wire cutters, untraceable.

• Clock. See below.

• Poem. See below.

• Fingernail markings on deck.

• No discernible trace, no fingerprints, no footprints, no tire tread marks.

CRIME SCENE TWO

Location:

• Alley off Cedar Street, near Broadway, behind three commercial buildings (back doors closed at 8:30 to 10 P.M.) and one government administration building (back door closed at 6 P.M.).

• Alley is a cul-de-sac. Fifteen feet wide by one hundred and four feet long, surfaced in cobblestones, body was fifteen feet from Cedar Street.

Victim:

• Theodore Adams.

• Lived in Battery Park.

• Freelance copywriter.

• No known enemies.

• No warrants, state or federal.

• Checking for a connection with buildings around alley. None found.

Perp:

• The Watchmaker.

• Male.

• No database entries for the Watchmaker.

M.O.:

• Dragged from vehicle to alley, where iron bar was suspended over him. Eventually crushed throat.

• Awaiting medical examiner’s report to confirm.

• No evidence of sexual activity.

• Time of death: approximately 10:15 P.M. to 11 P.M. Monday night. Medical examiner to confirm.

Evidence:

• Clock.

• No explosives, chemical- or bioagents.

• Identical to clock at pier.

• No fingerprints, minimal trace.

• Arnold Products, Framingham, MA. Calling to find distributors and retailers.

• Poem left by perp at both scenes.

• Computer printer, generic paper, HP LaserJet ink.

• Text:

The full Cold Moon is in the sky,

shining on the corpse of earth,

signifying the hour to die

and end the journey begun at birth.

—The Watchmaker

• Not in any poetry databases; probably his own.

• Cold Moon is lunar month, the month of death.

• $60 in pocket, no serial number leads; prints negative.

• Fine sand used as “obscuring agent.” Sand was generic. Because he’s returning to the scene?

• Metal bar, 81 pounds, is needle-eye span. Not being used in construction across from the alleyway. No other source found.

• Duct tape, generic, but cut precisely, unusual. Exactly the same lengths.

• Thallium sulfate (rodent poison) found in sand.

• Soil containing fish protein found inside victim’s jacket.

• Very little trace found.

• Brown fibers, probably automotive carpeting.

Other:

• Vehicle.

• Probably Ford Explorer, about three years old. Brown carpet.

• Review of license tags of cars in area Tuesday morning reveals no warrants. No tickets issued Monday night.

• Checking with Vice about prostitutes, re:witness.

There’s a good-old-boy network in urban government, a matrix of money, patronage and power extending like a steel cobweb everywhere, high and low, connecting politicos to civil servants to business associates to labor bosses to workers. . . . It’s endless.

New York City is no exception, of course, but the good-old-boy network Amelia Sachs found herself enmeshed in at the moment had one difference: a prime player was a good old girl.

The woman was in her midfifties, wearing a blue uniform with plenty of gingerbread on the front—commendations, ribbons, buttons, bars. An American flag pin, of course. (Like politicians, NYPD brass who appear in public have to wear the red, white and blue.) She had a pageboy cut of dull salt-and-pepper hair, framing a long, somber face.

Marilyn Flaherty was an inspector, one of the few women at this level in the department (the rank of inspector trumps captain). She was a senior officer in the Operations Division. This was a command that reported directly to the chief of department—the NYPD designation for police chief. Op Div had many functions, among them liaising with other organizations and agencies about major events in the city—planned ones, like dignitaries’ visits, and unexpected, like terrorist attacks. Flaherty’s most important role was being the police department’s contact with City Hall.

Flaherty had come up through the ranks, like Sachs (coincidentally, both women had also grown up in adjacent Brooklyn neighborhoods). The inspector had worked in Patrol Services—walking a beat—then the Detective Bureau, then she’d run a precinct. Stern and brittle, thick and broad, she was a formidable woman in all ways, with the wherewithal—okay, the balls—to maneuver through the minefield a woman in the upper ranks of law enforcement faces.

To observe that she’d succeeded, you had only to glance at the wall and take note of the framed pictures of friends: city officials, union bosses and wealthy real estate developers and businessmen. One depicted her and a stately bald man sitting on the porch of a big beach house. Another showed her at the Metropolitan Opera, on the arm of a man Sachs recognized—a businessman as rich as Donald Trump. Another indicator of her success was the size of the One Police Plaza office in which they now sat; Flaherty somehow had landed a massive corner model with a view of the harbor, while all the command inspectors Sachs knew didn’t have such nice digs.

Sachs was sitting opposite Flaherty, the inspector’s expansive and polished desk between them. The other person present in the room was Robert Wallace, a deputy mayor. He sported a jowly, self-confident face and a head of silver hair sprayed into a politician’s perfect coif.

“You’re Herman Sachs’s daughter,” Flaherty said. Without waiting for a response she looked at Wallace. “Patrolman. Good man. I was at the ceremony where they gave him that commendation.”

Sachs’s father had been given a number of commendations over the years. She wondered which one this had been for. The time he talked a drunken husband into giving up the knife he was holding to his wife’s throat? The time he went through a plate-glass window, disarming a robber in a convenience store while he was off duty? The time he delivered a baby in the Rialto theater, with Steve McQueen fighting bad guys up on the silver screen while the Latina mother lay on the popcorn-littered floor, grunting in her rigorous labor?

Wallace asked, “What’s this all about? We understand there might be some crimes police officers’re involved in?”

Flaherty turned her steel gray eyes to Sachs and nodded.

Go.

“It’s possible. . . . We have a drug situation. And a suspicious death.”

“Okay,” Wallace said, stretching the syllables out with a sigh and wincing. The former Long Island businessman, now on the mayor’s senior staff, served as special commissioner to root out corruption in city government. He’d been ruthlessly efficient at the job; in the past year alone he’d closed up major fraud schemes among building inspectors and teachers’ union officials. He was clearly troubled at the thought of crooked cops.

Flaherty’s creased face, though, unlike Wallace’s, gave nothing away.

Under the inspector’s gaze, Sachs explained about the suicide of Benjamin Creeley, suspicious because of the broken thumb, as well as the burned evidence at his house, traces of cocaine and the possible connection to some cops who frequented the St. James.

“The officers’re from the One One Eight.”

Meaning the 118th Precinct, located in the East Village. The St. James, she’d learned, was the watering hole for the station house.

“There were four of them in the bar when I was there, but others hang out there too from time to time. I have no idea who Creeley met with. Whether it was one or two or a half dozen.”

Wallace asked, “You get their names?”

“No. I didn’t want to ask too many questions at this point. And I didn’t even get a confirmation that Creeley actually met with anyone from the house. It’s likely, though.”

Flaherty touched a diamond ring on her right middle finger. It was huge. Other than this, and a thick gold bracelet, she wore no jewelry. The inspector remained emotionless but Sachs knew this particular news would trouble her a great deal. Even the hint of dirty cops sent a chill throughout city government, but a problem at the 118 would be especially awkward. It was a showcase house, with a higher share of collars, as well as a higher rate of casualties among its officers, than other precincts. More senior cops moved from the 118 to positions in the Big Building than from anywhere else.

“After I found out there might be a connection between them and Creeley,” Sachs said, “I hit an ATM and took out a couple of hundred bucks. I exchanged that for all the cash in the till at the St. James. Some of the bills had to come from the officers there.”

“Good. And you ran the serial numbers.” Flaherty rolled a Mont Blanc pen absently along the desk blotter.

“That’s right. Negative on the numbers from Treasury and Justice. But nearly all the bills tested positive for cocaine. One for heroin.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Wallace said.

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Flaherty said. Sachs nodded and explained to the dep mayor what the inspector was referring to: Many twenty-dollar bills in general circulation contained some drugs. But the fact that nearly every bill the cops in the St. James had paid with showed trace was a cause for concern.

“Same composition as the coke that was found in Creeley’s fireplace?” Flaherty asked.

“No. And the bartender said she’d never seen them with drugs.”

Wallace asked, “Do you have any evidence that police officers were directly involved in the death?”

“Oh, no. I’m not even suggesting that. The scenario I’m thinking of is that, if any cops’re involved at all, it was just hooking Creeley up with some crew, looking the other way and taking some points if he was laundering money or a percentage of the profit from the drugs. Then burying any complaints or stepping on investigations from other houses.”

“Any arrests in the past?”

“Creeley? No. And I called his wife. She said she never saw him doing any drugs. But a lot of users can keep a secret pretty well. Dealers definitely can if they’re not using the product themselves.”

The inspector shrugged. “Of course, it could be completely innocent. Maybe Creeley just met a business acquaintance at the St. James. You mentioned he was arguing with somebody there just before he died?”

“Seems that way.”

“And so one of his business deals went bad. Real estate or something. Might have nothing to do with the One One Eight.”

Sachs nodded emphatically. “Absolutely. It could be a pure coincidence that the St. James’s a hangout for cops. Creeley could’ve been killed because he borrowed money from the wrong people or was a witness to something.”

Wallace looked out the window at the bright, cold sky. “With the death, I think we’ve got to jump on this. Fast. Let’s get IAD involved.”

Internal Affairs would be the logical outfit to investigate any crimes involving police. But Sachs didn’t want that, at least not at this point. She’d turn the case over to them later, but not until she’d nailed the perps herself.

Flaherty touched the marbled pen once more then seemed to think better. Men can get away with all kinds of careless mannerisms; women can’t afford to, not at this level. With fingers tipped in perfectly manicured nails, the polish clear, Flaherty placed the pen in her top drawer. “No, not IAD.”

“Why not?” Wallace asked.

The inspector shook her head. “It’s too close to the One One Eight. Word could get back.”

Wallace nodded slowly. “If you think it’s best.”

“I do.”

But Sachs’s elation that Internal Affairs wasn’t going to take over her case didn’t last long. Flaherty added, “I’ll find somebody here to give it to. Somebody senior.”

Sachs hesitated only a moment. “I’d like to follow up on it, Inspector.”

Flaherty said, “You’re new. You’ve never handled anything internal.” So the inspector’d been doing her homework too. “These’re different sorts of cases.”

“I understand that. But I can handle it.” Sachs was thinking: I’m the one who broke the case. I’ve taken it this far. And it’s my first homicide. Goddamn it, don’t take it away from me.

“This isn’t just crime scene work.”

Calmly she said, “I’m lead investigator on the Creeley homicide. I’m not doing tech work.”

“Still, I think it’s best. . . . So. If you could get me all the case files, everything you have.”

Sachs was sitting forward, her index fingernail digging into her thumb. What could she do to keep the case?

It was then that the deputy mayor frowned. “Wait. Aren’t you the one who works with that ex-cop in the wheelchair?”

“Lincoln Rhyme. That’s right.”

He considered this for a moment then looked at Flaherty. “I say let her run with it, Marilyn.”

“Why?”

“She’s got a solid-gold reputation.”

“We don’t need a reputation. We need somebody with experience. No offense.”

“None taken,” Sachs replied evenly.

“These are very sensitive issues. Inflammatory.”

But Wallace liked his idea. “The mayor’d love it. She’s associated with Rhyme and he’s good press. And he’s civilian. People’ll look at it like she’s an independent investigator.”

People . . . meaning reporters, Sachs understood.

“I don’t want a big, messy investigation,” Flaherty said.

Sachs said quickly, “It won’t be. I’ve got only one officer working with me.”

“Who?”

“Out of Patrol. Ronald Pulaski. He’s a good man. Young but good.”

After a pause Flaherty asked, “How would you proceed?”

“Find out more about Creeley’s connection with the One One Eight and the St. James. And about his life—see if there might’ve been another reason to murder him. I want to talk to his business partner. Maybe there was a problem with clients or some work he was doing. And we need to find out more about the connection between Creeley and the drugs.”

Flaherty wasn’t completely convinced but she said, “Okay, we’ll try it your way. But you keep me informed. Me and nobody else.”

A huge sense of relief flooded through Sachs. “Of course.”

“Informed by phone or in person. No e-mails or memos . . .” Flaherty frowned. “One thing, you have any other cases on your plate?”

Inspectors don’t rise to this level without a sixth sense. The woman had asked the one question Sachs was hoping she wouldn’t.

“I’m assisting on the homicide—the Watchmaker.”

Flaherty frowned. “Oh, you’re on that one? I didn’t know that. . . . Compared with a serial doer, this St. James situation isn’t as important.”

Rhyme’s words, echoing: Your case is colder than the Watchmaker. . . .

Wallace was lost in thought for a moment. Then he glanced at Flaherty. “I think we have to be adults here. What’s going to look worse for the city? A man who kills a few people or a scandal in the police department that the press breaks before we control it? Reporters go for crooked cops like sharks after blood. No, I want to move on this. Big.”

Sachs bridled at Wallace’s comment—kills a few people—but she couldn’t deny that their goals were the same. She wanted to see the Creeley case through to the end.

For the second time in one day she found herself saying, “I can handle both cases. I promise you it won’t be a problem.”

In her mind she heard a skeptical voice saying, Let’s hope, Sachs.

Chapter 9

Amelia Sachs collected Ron Pulaski from Rhyme’s, a kidnapping she gathered the criminalist wasn’t too pleased about, though the rookie didn’t seem very busy at the moment.

“How fast’ve you had her up to?” Pulaski touched the dashboard of her 1969 Camaro SS. Then he said quickly, “I mean ‘it,’ not ‘her.’”

“You don’t need to be so politically correct, Ron. I’ve been clocked at one eighty-seven.”

“Whoa.”

“You like cars?”

“More, I like cycles, you know. My brother and I had two of ’em when we were in high school.”

“Matching?”

“What?”

“The cycles.”

“Oh, because we’re twins, you mean. Naw, we never did that. Dress alike and stuff. Mom wanted us to but we were dorky enough as it was. She laughs now, of course—’cause of our uniforms. Anyway, when we were riding, it wasn’t like we could just go out and buy whatever we wanted, two matching Hondas 850s or whatever. We got whatever we could, second- or third-hand.” He gave a sly grin. “One night, Tony was asleep, I snuck into the garage and swapped out the engines. He never caught on.”

“You still ride?”

“God gives you a choice: children or motorcycles. The week after Jenny got pregnant, some lucky dude in Queens got himself a real fine Moto Guzzi at a good price.” He grinned. “With a particularly sweet engine.”

Sachs laughed. Then she explained their mission. There were several leads she wanted to follow up on: The other bartender at the St. James—Gerte was her name—would be arriving at work soon and Sachs needed to talk to her. She also wanted to talk to Creeley’s partner, Jordan Kessler, who was returning from his Pittsburgh business trip.

But first there was one other task.

“How’d you like to go undercover?” she asked.

“Well, okay, I guess.”

“Some of the crew from the One One Eight might’ve gotten a look at me at the St. James. So this one’s up to you. But you won’t be wearing any wires, anything like that. We’re not getting evidence, just information.”

“What do I do?”

“In my briefcase. On the backseat.” She downshifted hard, skidded through a turn, straightened the powerful car. Pulaski picked up the briefcase from the floor. “Got it.”

“The papers on top.”

He nodded, looking them over. The heading on an official-looking form was Hazardous Evidence Inventory Control. Accompanying it was a memo that explained about a new procedure for doing periodic spot checks of dangerous evidence, like firearms and chemicals, to make sure they were properly accounted for.

“Never heard about that.”

“No, because I made it up.” She explained that the point was to give them a credible excuse to go into the bowels of the 118th Precinct and compare the evidence logs with the evidence actually present.

“You tell them you’re checking all the evidence but what I want you to look at is the logs of the narcotics that’ve been seized in the past year. Write down the perp, date, quantity and the arrests. We’ll compare it with the district attorney’s disposition report on the same cases.”

Pulaski was nodding. “So we’ll know if any drugs disappeared between the time they were logged in and when the perp went to trial or got pled out. . . . Okay, that’s good.”

“I hope so. We won’t necessarily know who took them but it’s a start. Now, go play spy.” She stopped a block away from the 118th, on a shabby street of tenements in the East Village. “You comfortable with this?”

“Never done anything quite like it, gotta say. But, sure, I’ll give it a shot.” He hesitated, looking over the form, then took a deep breath and climbed out of the car.

When he was gone, Sachs made some calls to trusted, and discreet, colleagues in the NYPD, the FBI and the DEA to see if any organized crime, homicide or narcotics cases at the 118th had been dropped or were stalled under circumstances that might be suspicious. No one had heard of anything like that but the statistics revealed that despite its shining conviction record, there’d been very few organized crime investigations out of the house. Which suggested that detectives might be protecting local gangs. One FBI agent told her that some of the traditional mob had been making forays into the East Village once again, now that it was becoming gentrified.

Sachs then called a friend of hers running a gang task force in Midtown. He told her that there were two main posses in the East Village—one Jamaican, one Anglo. Both dealt in meth and coke and wouldn’t hesitate to kill a witness or take out somebody who’d tried to cheat them or wasn’t paying on time. Still, the detective said, staging a death to look like a suicide by hanging just wasn’t the style of either gang. They’d cap him on the spot with a Mac-10 or an Uzi and head off for a Red Stripe or a Jameson.

A short time later, Pulaski returned, with his typical voluminous notes. This boy writes down everything, Sachs reflected.

“So how’d it go?”

Pulaski was struggling to keep from grinning. “Okay, I guess.”

“You nailed it, hm?”

A shrug. “Well, the desk sergeant wasn’t going to let me in but I gave him this look, like what the hell’re you doing, stopping me. You want to call Police Plaza and tell ’em they’re not getting the form thanks to you? He backed right down. Surprised me.”

“Good job.” She tapped her fist to his, and she could see how pleased the young man was at his performance.

Sachs pulled away from the curb and they headed out of the East Village. When she thought they were far enough away from the house, she pulled over and they started comparing the two sets of figures.

After ten minutes they had the results. The quantities noted in the precinct log and the DA’s report were very close. Only about six or seven ounces of pot and four of cocaine were unaccounted for, over the entire year.

Pulaski said, “And none of the evidence logs looked doctored. I figured that might be something to look for too.”

So one motive—that the St. James crew and Creeley were selling drugs boosted from the 118th’s evidence locker—wasn’t in play. This small amount missing could’ve been lost because of crime scene testing or spillage or inaccurate logging at the scene.

But even if the cops weren’t stealing from the locker, they might still have been dealing, of course. Maybe the cops scored the drugs directly from a source. Or they were perped at a bust before they were logged into evidence. Or Creeley himself might’ve been the supplier.

Pulaski’s first undercover operation answered one question but others remained.

“Okay, onward and upward, Ron. Now, tell me, you want a bartender or a businessman?”

“I don’t really care. How ’bout we flip a coin?”

“The Watchmaker probably bought the clocks at Hallerstein’s Timepieces,” Mel Cooper announced to Rhyme and Sellitto, hanging up the phone. “The Flatiron District.”

Before he’d been dragged off by Sachs on the Creeley case, Pulaski had tracked down the Northeast wholesaler for Arnold Products. The head of the distribution company had just returned the rookie’s call.

Cooper reported that the distributor didn’t keep records by serial number, but that if the clocks had been sold in the New York area, it would have been at Hallerstein’s, the only outlet there. The store was located south of Midtown in the neighborhood named after the historic triangular building on Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street, which resembled an old-time flatiron.

“Check out the store,” Rhyme instructed.

Cooper searched online. Hallerstein’s didn’t have its own website but was listed in several sites that sold antique clocks and watches. It had been in operation for years. The owner was a man named Victor Hallerstein. A check on him revealed no record. Sellitto punched in caller ID block and called, not identifying himself, just to check on the store hours. He pretended he’d been in before and asked if he was speaking to Hallerstein himself. The man said he was. Sellitto thanked him and hung up.

“I’ll go talk to him, see what he has to say.” Sellitto pulled on his coat. It was always better to drop in on witnesses unexpectedly. Phoning ahead gave them a chance to think up lies, whether or not they had anything to hide.

“Wait, Lon,” Rhyme said.

The big detective glanced his way.

“What if he didn’t sell the clock to the Watchmaker?”

Sellitto nodded. “Yeah, I thought of that—what if he is the Watchmaker or a partner or buddy of his?”

“Or maybe he’s behind the whole thing and the Watchmaker’s working for him.”

“Thought of that too. But, hey, not to worry. I’ve got it covered.”

With a sound track of Irish harp music pulsing in her ears, California Bureau of Investigation agent Kathryn Dance was absently watching the streets of lower Manhattan stream past, en route to Kennedy Airport.

Christmas decorations, tiny lights and tacky cardboard.

Lovers too. Arm in arm, gloved hands in gloved hands. Out shopping. On vacation.

She was thinking of Bill. Wondered if he would’ve liked it here.

Funny, the small things you remember so perfectly—even after two and a half years, which is such a huge gulf of time under other circumstances.

Mrs. Swenson?

This is Kathryn Dance. My husband’s name is Swenson.

Oh. Well, this is Sergeant Wilkins. CHP.

Why would the Highway Patrol call her at home and not refer to her as Agent Dance?

Forever challenged in the kitchen, Dance had been making dinner, singing a Roberta Flack song, sotto voce, and trying to figure out a food processor attachment. She was making split pea soup.

I’m afraid I have to tell you something, Mrs. Dance. It’s about your husband.

Holding the phone in one hand, the cookbook in the other, she’d stopped moving and stared at the recipe as she took in his words. Dance could still picture the page in the cookbook perfectly, though she’d read it only that one time. She even remembered the caption under the picture. A hearty, tasty soup that you can whip up in no time. And it’s nutritious too.

She could make the soup from memory.

Though she never had.

Kathryn Dance knew it would still be some time before she healed—well, “heal” was the word her grief counselor used. But that wasn’t right, because you never did heal, she’d come to realize. A scar that replaces slashed skin is still a scar. In time a numbness replaces the pain. But the flesh is forever changed.

Dance smiled to herself now, in the cab, as she noted that she’d crossed her arms and curled up her feet. A kinesics expert knows what those gestures are all about.

The streets seemed identical to her—dark canyons, gray and dim brown, punctuated with bright neon: ATM. Salad Bar. Nails $9.95. Such a contrast to the Monterey Peninsula, with the pine and oak and eucalyptus and sandy patches dotted with succulent groundcover. The passage of the smelly Chevy taxi was slow. The town she lived in, Pacific Grove, was a Victorian village 120 miles south of San Francisco. Populated with eighteen thousand souls and nestled between chic Carmel and hardworking Monterey, of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row fame, Pacific Grove could be traversed in the time it had taken the cab to drive four blocks.

Gazing at the city streets, she was thinking, dark and congested, chaotic, utterly frantic, yes . . . Still, she loved New York City. (She was, after all, a people addict, and she’d never seen so many of them in one place.) Dance wondered how the children would respond to the city.

Maggie would go for it, Dance knew without doubt. She could easily picture the ten-year-old, her pigtail sweeping back and forth as she stood in the middle of Times Square and glanced from billboards to passersby to hawkers to traffic to Broadway theaters, enthralled.

Wes? He’d be different. He was twelve and had had a tough time since his father died. But finally his humor and confidence seemed to be returning. At last Dance had been comfortable enough to leave him with his grandparents while she went to Mexico on the kidnapper extradition, her first international trip since Bill’s death. According to Dance’s mother, he’d seemed fine when she was away and so she’d scheduled a seminar here; the NYPD and state police had been after her for a year to present one in the area.

Still, though, she knew she’d have to keep an eye on the lean, handsome boy with curly hair and Dance’s green eyes. He continued to grow sullen at times, detached and angry. Some of it typical male adolescence, some of it the residue of losing his father at a young age. Typical behavior, her counselor had explained, nothing to worry about. But Dance felt that it might take a little time before he’d be ready for the chaos of New York, and she’d never push him. When she got home she’d ask him whether he wanted to visit. Dance couldn’t understand parents who seemed to believe they needed magic incantations or psychotherapy to find out what their children wanted. All you really needed to do was ask and listen carefully to their answers.

Yep, Dance decided that, if he was comfortable, she’d bring them here on vacation next year, before Christmas. A Boston girl, born and bred, Dance’s main objection to the central California coast was the lack of seasons. The weather was lovely—but for the holidays you longed for the bite of the cold in your nose and mouth, the snowstorms, the glowing logs in the fireplace, the frost spiderwebbing the windows.

Dance was now pulled from her reverie by her cell phone’s musical chirp, which changed frequently—a joke by the children (though the number-one rule—Never program a cop’s phone to SILENT—was adhered to).

She looked at caller ID.

Hm. Interesting. Yes or no?

Kathryn Dance gave in to impulse and hit the ANSWER button.

Chapter 10

As he drove, the big detective fidgeted, he touched his belly, he tugged at his collar.

Kathryn Dance took in the body language of Lon Sellitto as he drove the unmarked Crown Vic—the same official vehicle she had in California—fast through the streets of New York, grille lights flashing, no siren.

The call she’d taken in the cab was from him, once again asking if she’d help them in the case. “I know you’ve got a flight, I know you’ve got to get home, but . . .”

He explained that they’d discovered a possible source for the clocks left at the Watchmaker’s crime scenes and wanted her to interview the man who might’ve sold them. There was a possibility, though slight, that he had some connection with the Watchmaker and they wanted her opinion about him.

Dance had debated only a brief moment before agreeing. She’d regretted her abrupt departure from Lincoln Rhyme’s town house earlier; Kathryn Dance hated leaving a case unfinished, even if it wasn’t hers. She’d had the cab turn around and return to Rhyme’s, where Lon Sellitto was waiting for her.

Now, in the detective’s car, Dance asked, “It was your idea to call me, wasn’t it?”

“How’s that?” Sellitto asked.

“Not Lincoln’s. He’s not sure what to make of me.”

His one-second pause was a flashing sign. Sellitto said, “You did a good job with that witness, Cobb.”

Dance smiled. “I know I did. But he’s not sure what to make of me.”

Another pause. “He likes his evidence.”

“Everybody has their weaknesses.”

The detective laughed. He hit the siren button and they sped through a red light.

As he drove, Dance glanced at him, watched his hands and eyes, listened to his voice. She assessed: He’s truly obsessed with getting the Watchmaker, and the other cases undoubtedly sitting on his desk now are as insubstantial as steam. And, as she’d observed when he was in her class yesterday, he was dogged and savvy, with no problem taking as much time as he needed to understand a problem or to get an interrogation technique right; if anybody grew impatient with him, well, that was their problem.

His energy’s nervous but very different from that of Amelia Sachs, who has harm issues. He grumbles out of habit but he’s essentially a very content man.

This was something Dance did automically, the analysis. A gesture, a glance, an offhand statement became to her another piece of that miraculous puzzle that was a human being. She was usually able to shut it off when she wished—it’s no fun to be out for a Pinot Grigio or Anchor Steam beer and finding yourself analyzing your drinking buddies (and it’s a lot less fun for them). But sometimes the thoughts just flowed; this habit went with the territory of being Kathryn Dance.

The people addict . . .

“You have a family?” he asked.

“Two children, yes.”

“And what’s your husband do?”

“I’m a widow.” Dance’s job was recognizing the effect of different tones of voice, and she now delivered these words in a particular way, both offhand and grave, which he would take to mean “I don’t want to talk about it.” A woman might grip her arm in sympathy; Sellitto did what most of his sex would: muttered a genuine but awkward “sorry” and moved on. He began talking about the evidence they’d found in the case and the leads—which were primarily nonleads. He was funny and gruff.

Ah, Bill . . . Know what? I think you’d’ve liked this guy. Dance knew that she did.

He told her about the store where it was likely the clocks came from. “I was saying, we don’t think this Hallerstein’s the doer. But that doesn’t mean he’s not involved. There’s a chance this could get a little, you know, hairy.”

“I’m not armed,” Dance pointed out.

The laws about carrying guns from one jurisdiction to another are very strict and most cops are prohibited from bringing weapons from their home state to another. Not that it mattered; Dance had never fired her Glock except on the range and hoped to be able to say the same at her retirement party.

“I’ll stay close,” Sellitto reassured.

Hallerstein’s Timepieces sat by itself in the middle of a gloomy block next to some wholesaler storefronts and warehouses. She eyed the place. The facade of the building was covered with scabby paint and grime but inside Hallerstein’s shop window, protected by thick steel bars, the displayed clocks and watches were immaculate.

As they walked to the door Dance said, “If you don’t mind, Detective, you establish the credentials, then let me handle things. That okay?”

Some cops, on their local turf, would’ve had a problem with her taking over. She’d sensed, though, that Sellitto would not (he had self-confidence to burn) but she needed to ask the question. He replied, “It’s your, you know, ball game. That’s why we called you.”

“I’m going to say some things that sound a little odd. But it’s part of the plan. Now, if I sense he’s the perp, I’ll lean forward and intertwine my fingers.” A gesture that would make her more vulnerable and put the killer subconsciously at ease—less likely to go for a weapon. “If I think he’s innocent, I’ll take my purse off my shoulder and put it on the counter.”

“Got it.”

“Ready?”

“After you.”

Dance pushed a button and they were buzzed into the shop. It was a small place, filled with every kind of clock imaginable: tall grandfather clocks, similar but smaller tabletop clocks, ornate sculptures containing timepieces, sleek, modern-style clocks, a hundred others, as well as fifty or sixty pristine watches.

They walked to the back, where a stocky man, balding, around sixty, was watching them cautiously from behind a counter. He was sitting in front of a dismantled clock mechanism that he was working on.

“Afternoon,” Sellitto said.

The man nodded. “Hello.”

“I’m Detective Sellitto with the police department and this is Agent Dance.” Sellitto showed his ID. “You’re Victor Hallerstein?”

“That’s right.” He pulled off a pair of glasses with an extra magnifying lens on a stalk at the side and glanced at Sellitto’s badge. He smiled, with his mouth, though not his eyes, and he shook their hands.

“You’re the owner?” Dance asked.

“Owner, right. Chief cook and bottle washer. I’ve had the store for ten years. Same location. Almost eleven.”

Unnecessary information. Often a sign of deception. But it also could simply have been offered because he was uneasy at the unexpected appearance of two cops. One of the most important rules in kinesics is that a single gesture or behavior means very little. You can’t accurately judge a response in isolation but only by looking at “clusters”—for instance, the body language of crossing one’s arms has to be considered in light of the subject’s eye contact, hand movement, tone of voice and the substance of what he’s saying, as well as his choice of words.

And to be meaningful, the behavior has to be consistent when the same stimuli are repeated.

Kinesic analysis, Kathryn Dance would lecture, isn’t about home runs; it’s about a consistently well-played game.

“How can I help you? Police, huh? Another robbery around the neighborhood?”

Sellitto glanced at Dance, who didn’t respond but gave a laugh and looked around. “I have never seen so many clocks in one place in my life.”

“Been selling them for a long time.”

“Are these all for sale?”

“Make me an offer I can’t refuse.” A laugh. Then: “Seriously, some I wouldn’t sell. But most, sure. Hey, it’s a store, right?”

“That one is beautiful.”

He glanced at the one she was indicating. An Art Nouveau style in gold metal, with a simple face. “Seth Thomas, made in nineteen oh five. Stylish, dependable.”

“Expensive?”

“Three hundred. It’s only gold plate, mass produced. . . . Now, you want expensive?” Hallerstein pointed to a ceramic clock, in pink, blue and purple, painted with flowers. Dance found it irritatingly gaudy. “Five times as much.”

“Ah.”

“I see that reaction. But in the clock collecting world, one man’s tacky is another man’s art.” He smiled. The caution and concern weren’t gone but Hallerstein was slightly less defensive.

She frowned. “At noon what do you do? Wear earplugs?”

A laugh. “Most of them, you can shut the chimes off. The cuckoos’re the ones that drive me crazy. So to speak.”

She asked a few more questions about his business, filing away a library of gestures and glances and tones and words—establishing the baseline for his behavior.

Finally, keeping her tone conversational, she asked, “Sir, we’d like to know: Did someone recently buy two clocks like this one?” She showed him the picture of one of the Arnold Products clocks left at the crime scenes. Her eyes scanned him as he stared at the photo, his face neutral. She decided he was studying it for too long, an indication that his mind was engaged in a debate.

“Can’t say I recall. I sell a lot of clocks, believe me.”

Faulty memory—a flag for the stress state of denial in a deceptive person, just like Ari Cobb earlier. His eyes scanned the photo again carefully, as if trying to be helpful, but his shoulder turned toward her slightly, his head dipped and his voice rose in pitch. “No, I really don’t think so. Sorry, I can’t help.”

She sensed he was deceptive, not only from the kinesics but his recognition response (in his case, the neutral visage, which deviated from his expressive baseline); most likely he knew the clock. But was he deceptive because he simply didn’t want to get involved, or because he sold clocks to someone he thought might be a criminal, or because he was involved in the killings himself?

Hands clasped in front of her, or purse on the counter?

In determining personality type, Dance had categorized the reluctant witness earlier, Cobb, as an extrovert; Hallerstein was the opposite, an introvert, someone who makes decisions based on intuition and emotion. She drew this conclusion about the dealer because of his clear passion for his clocks and the fact he was only a moderately successful businessman (he’d rather sell what he loved than run a mass-market operation and make more profit).

To get an introvert to tell the truth, she’d have to bond with him, make him feel comfortable. An attack like the one on Cobb would make Hallerstein freeze up instantly.

Dance sighed, her shoulders slumping. “You were our last hope.” She sighed, glancing at Sellitto, who, bless him, gave a good portrayal of a disappointed cop, shaking his head with a grimace.

“Hope?” Hallerstein asked.

“The man who bought these clocks committed a very serious crime. They’re the only real leads we have.”

The concern that blossomed in Hallerstein’s face seemed genuine but Kathryn Dance had met a lot of good actors. She put the paper back into her purse. “Those clocks were found next to his murder victims.”

Eyes frozen for a moment. This is one stressed-out shopkeeper we’ve got ourselves here.

“Murder?”

“That’s right. Two people were killed last night. The clocks might’ve been left as messages of some kind. We’re not sure.” Dance frowned. “The whole thing is pretty confusing. If I were going to murder someone and leave a message I wouldn’t hide it thirty feet away from the victim. I’d leave it a lot closer and out in the open. So we just don’t know.”

Dance watched his reaction carefully. To her calculated misstatement, Hallerstein gave the same response as would anyone unfamiliar with the situation, a shake of the head at the tragedy but no other reaction. Had he been the killer, he would most likely have given a recognition response—usually centering around the eyes and nose—that her words didn’t coincide with his knowledge of the facts. He would’ve thought: But the killer did leave it by the body; why would somebody move it? And that thought would have been accompanied by very specific gestures and body language.

A good deceiver can minimize a recognition response so that most people aren’t aware of it but Dance’s radar was operating at full strength and she believed the dealer passed the test. She was convinced he hadn’t been at the crime scenes or knew the Watchmaker.

She put her purse on the counter.

Lon Sellitto moved his hand away from his hip, where it had been resting.

But her job had just begun. They’d established that the dealer wasn’t the killer and didn’t know him, but he definitely had information.

“Mr. Hallerstein, the people who were killed died in very unpleasant ways.”

“Wait, they were on the news, right? A man was crushed? And then somebody was thrown into the river.”

“Right.”

“And . . . that clock was there?”

Almost “my” clock. But not quite.

Play the fish carefully, she told herself.

She nodded. “We think he’s going to hurt somebody again. And like I said, you were our last hope. If we have to track down other dealers who might’ve sold the killer the clocks it could take weeks.”

Hallerstein’s face clouded.

Dismay is easily recognized in a person’s face but it can arise in response to many different emotions—sympathy, pain, disappointment, sorrow, embarrassment—and only kinesics can reveal the source if the subject doesn’t volunteer the information. Kathryn Dance now examined the man’s eyes, his fingers caressing the clock in front of him, his tongue touching the corner of his lips. Suddenly she understood: Hallerstein was displaying the flight-or-fight response.

He was afraid—for his own safety.

Got it.

“Mr. Hallerstein, if you could remember anything to help us, we’d guarantee you were safe.”

A glance at Sellitto, who nodded. “Oh, you bet. We’ll put an officer outside your shop if we need to.”

The unhappy man toyed with a tiny screwdriver.

Dance took the picture out of her purse again. “Could you just take another look? See if you can remember anything.”

But he didn’t need to look. His posture caved in slightly, chest receding, head forward. Hallerstein sprinted into the acceptance response state. “I’m sorry. I lied.”

Which you hardly ever heard. She’d given him the chance to claim that he’d looked at the picture too fast or was confused. But he didn’t care about that. Do not pass go—it was confession time, pure and simple.

“I knew the clock right away. The thing is, though, he said if I told anybody, he’d come back, he’d hurt me, he’d destroy all my watches and clocks, my whole collection! But I didn’t know anything about any murder. I swear! I thought he was a crank.” His jaw was trembling and he put his hand back on the casing of the clock he’d been working on. A gesture that Dance interpreted to mean he was desperately seeking comfort.

She sensed something else as well. Kinesic experts have to judge if the subject’s responses are appropriate to the questions they’ve been asked or the facts they’ve been told. Hallerstein was troubled by the murders, yes, and afraid for himself and his treasures, but his reaction was out of proportion to what they’d been discussing.

She was about to explore this when the clock dealer explained exactly why he was so upset.

“He’s leaving these clocks at the places where he kills his victims?” Hallerstein asked.

Sellitto nodded.

“Well, I have to tell you.” His voice clutched and he continued in a whisper. “He didn’t just buy two clocks. He bought ten.”

Chapter 11

“How many?” Rhyme said, shaking his head as he repeated what Sellitto had just told him. “He’s planning ten victims?”

“Looks that way.”

Sitting on either side of Rhyme in the lab, Kathryn Dance and Sellitto showed him the composite picture of the Watchmaker that the detective had made at the clock store, using EFIT—Electronic Facial Identification Technology, a computerized version of the old Identi-Kit, which reconstructed a suspect’s features from witness prompts. The image was of a white man in his late forties or early fifties, with a round face, double chin, thick nose and unusually light blue eyes. The dealer had added that the killer was a little over six feet tall. His body was lean and his hair black and medium length. He wore no jewelry. Hallerstein recalled dark clothes but couldn’t remember exactly what he was wearing.

Dance then recounted Hallerstein’s story. A man had called the shop a month earlier, asking for a particular kind of clock—not a specific brand but any one that was compact, had a moon-phase feature and a loud tick. “Those were the most important,” she said. “The moon and a loud tick.”

Presumably so that the victims could hear the sound as they died.

The dealer ordered ten clocks. When they’d arrived the man came in and paid cash. He didn’t give his name or where he was from or why he wanted the clocks but he knew a great deal about timepieces. They talked about collectibles, who’d recently bought certain well-known timepieces at auctions and what horologic exhibits were presently in the city.

The Watchmaker wouldn’t let Hallerstein help him out to the car with the clocks. He’d made several trips, carrying them himself.

As for evidence at the shop there was very little. Hallerstein didn’t do much cash business, so most of the nine hundred dollars and change that the Watchmaker had paid him was still in the till. But the dealer had told Sellitto, “Won’t do you much good if you want fingerprints. He wore gloves.”

Cooper scanned the money for prints anyway and found only the dealer’s, which Sellitto had taken as controls. The serial numbers on the bills weren’t registered anywhere. Brushing the cash for trace revealed nothing but dust with no distinguishing characteristics.

They’d tried to determine exactly when the Watchmaker had contacted the dealer and, reviewing the telephone logs, they found the likely calls. But it turned out that they’d been made from pay phones, located in downtown Manhattan.

Nothing else at Hallerstein’s was of any help.

A call came in from Vice, reporting that the officers had no luck finding the prostitute Tiffanee, with e or y, in the Wall Street area. The detective said he’d keep on it but since there’d been a murder most of the girls had vanished from the neighborhood.

It was then that Rhyme’s eyes settled on one entry on the evidence chart.

Soil with fish protein . . .

Dragged from vehicle to alley . . .

He then looked at the crime scene photos again. “Thom!”

“What?” the aide called from the kitchen.

“I need you.”

The young man appeared instantly. “What’s wrong?”

“Lie down on the floor.”

“You want me to do what?”

“Lie down on the floor. And, Mel, drag him over to that table.”

“I thought something was wrong,” Thom said.

“It is. I need you to lie down on the floor. Now!”

The aide looked at him with an expression of wry disbelief. “You’re kidding.”

“Now! Hurry.”

“Not on this floor.”

“I tell you to wear jeans to work. You’re the one who insists on overpriced slacks. Put that jacket on—the one on the hook. Then hurry up. On your back.”

A sigh. “This is going to cost you big-time.” The aide pulled the jacket on and lay down on the floor.

“Wait, get the dog out of there,” Rhyme called. Jackson the Havanese had jumped out of his box, apparently thinking it was playtime. Cooper scooped the dog up and handed him to Dance.

“Can we get on with it? No, zip up the jacket. It’s supposed to be winter.”

“It is winter,” Cooper replied. “It’s just not winter inside.”

Thom zipped the jacket up to the neck and lay back.

“Mel, put some aluminum dust on your fingers and then drag him across the room.”

The tech didn’t even bother to ask the purpose of the exercise. He dipped his fingers in the dark gray fingerprint powder and stood over Thom.

“How do I drag him?”

“That’s what I want to figure out,” Rhyme said. He squinted. “What’s the most efficient way?” He told Cooper to grab the bottom of the jacket and pull it up over Thom’s face and drag him that way, headfirst.

Cooper pulled off his glasses and gripped the jacket.

“Sorry,” he muttered to the aide.

“I know, you’re just following orders.”

Cooper did as Rhyme told him. The tech was breathing heavily from the effort but the aide moved smoothly along the floor. Sellitto watched impassively and Kathryn Dance was trying to keep from smiling.

“That’s far enough. Take the jacket off and hold it open for me.”

Sitting, Thom disrobed. “Can I get up off the floor now?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Rhyme was staring at the jacket. The aide climbed to his feet and dusted himself off.

“What’s this all about?” Sellitto asked.

Rhyme grimaced. “Damnit, the rookie was right and he didn’t even know it.”

“Pulaski?”

“Yep. He assumed the fish trace was from the Watchmaker. I assumed it was the victim’s. But look at the jacket.”

Cooper’s fingers had left traces of the aluminum fingerprint powder inside the garment, in exactly the places where the soil had been found on Theodore Adams’s jacket. The Watchmaker himself had left the substance on the victim when he was dragging him in the alley.

“Stupid,” Rhyme repeated. Careless thinking infuriated him—especially his own. “Now, next step. I want to know everything there is to know about fish protein.”

Cooper turned back to the computer.

Rhyme then noticed Kathryn Dance glancing at her watch. “Missed your plane?” he asked.

“I’ve got an hour. Doesn’t look good, though. Not with security and Christmas crowds.”

“Sorry,” the rumpled detective offered.

“If I helped, it was worth it.”

Sellitto pulled his phone off his belt. “I’ll have a squad car sent round. I can get you to the airport in a half hour. Lights and sirens.”

“That’d be great. I might make it.” Dance pulled on her coat and started for the door.

“Wait. I’ve got an offer for you.”

Both Sellitto and Dance turned their heads to the man who’d spoken.

Rhyme looked at the California agent. “How’d you like an all-expenses-paid night in beautiful New York City?”

She cocked an eyebrow.

The criminalist continued. “I’m wondering if you could stay for another day.”

Sellitto was laughing. “Linc, I don’t believe it. You’re always complaining that witnesses are useless. Changing your ways?”

Rhyme frowned. “No, Lon. What I complain about is how most people handle witnesses—visceral, gut feel, all that woo-woo crap. Pointless. But Kathryn does it right—she applies a methodology based on repeatable and observable responses to stimuli and draws verifiable conclusions. Obviously it’s not as good as friction ridges or reagent A-ten in drug analysis but what she does is . . .” He looked for a word. “Helpful.”

Thom laughed. “That’s the best compliment you could get. Helpful.”

“No need to fill in, Thom,” Rhyme snapped. He turned to Dance. “So? How ’bout it?”

The woman’s eyes scanned the evidence board and Rhyme noticed she wasn’t focused on the cold notations of the clues, but on the pictures. Particularly the photographs of Theodore Adams’s corpse, his frosted eyes staring upward.

“I’ll stay,” she said.

Vincent Reynolds walked slowly up the steps of the Metropolitan Museum on Fifth Avenue, out of breath by the time he got to the top. His hands and arms were very strong—helpful for when he had his heart-to-hearts with the ladies—but he got zero aerobic exercise.

Joanne, his flower girl, floated into his thought. Yes, he’d followed and come close to raping her. But at the last minute another of his incarnations had taken charge, Smart Vincent, who was the rarest of the brood. The temptation had been great but he couldn’t disappoint his friend. (Vincent also didn’t think it was a wise idea to give any grief to a man whose advice for dealing with conflict was to “slash the eyes.”) So he’d merely checked up on her again, eaten a huge lunch and taken the train here.

He now paid and entered the museum, noticing a family—the wife resembled his sister. He’d just written the previous week asking her to come to New York for Christmas but hadn’t heard back. He’d like to show her the sights. She could hardly come at the moment, of course, not while he and Duncan were busy. He hoped she’d visit soon, though. Vincent was convinced that having her more in his life would make a difference. It would provide a stability that would make him less hungry, he believed. He wouldn’t need heart-to-hearts quite so often.

I really wouldn’t mind changing a little bit, Dr. Jenkins.

Don’t you agree?

Maybe she’d get here for New Year’s. They could go to Times Square and watch the ball drop.

Vincent headed into the museum proper. There wasn’t any doubt about where to find Gerald Duncan. He’d be in the area that held the important touring exhibits—the treasures of the Nile, for instance, or jewels from the British Empire. Now, the exhibit was “Horology in Ancient Times.”

Horology, Duncan had explained, was the study of time and timepieces.

The killer had come here several times recently. It drew the older man the way porn shops drew Vincent. Normally distant and unemotional, Duncan always lit up when he was staring at the displays. It made Vincent happy to see his friend actually enjoying something.

Duncan was looking over some old pottery things called incense clocks. Vincent eased up next to him.

“What’d you find?” asked Duncan, who didn’t turn his head. He’d seen Vincent’s reflection in the glass of the display case. He was like that—always aware, always seeing what he needed to see.

“She was alone in the workshop all the time I was there. Nobody came in. She went to her store on Broadway and met this delivery guy there. They left. I called and asked for her—”

“From?”

“A pay phone. Sure.”

Meticulous.

“And the clerk said she’d gone out for coffee. She’d be back in about an hour but she wouldn’t be in the store. Meaning, I guess, she’d go back to the workshop.”

“Good.” Duncan nodded.

“And what’d you find?”

“The pier was roped off but nobody was there. I saw police boats in the river, so they haven’t found the body yet. At Cedar Street I couldn’t get very close. But they’re taking the case real seriously. A lot of cops. There were two that seemed in charge. One of them was pretty.”

“A girl, really?” Hungry Vincent perked up. The thought of having a heart-to-heart with a policewoman had never occurred to him. But he suddenly liked the idea.

A lot.

“Young, in her thirties. Red hair. You like red hair?”

He’d never forget Sally Anne’s red hair, how it cascaded on the old, stinky blanket when he was lying on top of her.

The hunger soared. He was actually salivating. Vincent dug into his pocket, pulled out a candy bar and ate it fast. He wondered where Duncan was going with his comments about red hair and the pretty policewoman but the killer said nothing more. He stepped to another display, containing old-time pendulum clocks.

“Do you know what we have to thank for precise time-telling?”

The professor is at the lectern, thought Clever Mr. V, having replaced Hungry Mr. V for the moment, now that he’d had his chocolate.

“No.”

“Trains.”

“How come?”

“When people’s entire lives were limited to a single town they could start the day whenever they decided. Six A.M. in London might be six eighteen in Oxford. Who cared? And if you did have to go to Oxford, you rode your horse and it didn’t matter if the time was off. But with a railroad, if one train doesn’t leave the station on time and the next one comes barreling through, well, the results are going to be unpleasant.”

“That makes sense.”

Duncan turned away from the display. Vincent was hoping they’d leave now, go downtown and get Joanne. But Duncan walked across the room to a large case of thick glass. It was behind a velvet rope. A big guard stood next to it.

Duncan stared at the object inside, a gold-and-silver box about two feet square, eight inches deep. The front was filled with a dozen dials that were stamped with spheres and pictures of what looked like the planets and stars and comets, along with numbers and weird letters and symbols, like in astrology. The box itself was carved with images too and was covered with jewels.

“What is it?” Vincent asked.

“The Delphic Mechanism,” Duncan explained. “It’s from Greece, more than fifteen hundred years old. It’s on tour around the world.”

“What does it do?”

“Many things. See those dials there? They calculate the movement of the sun and moon and planets.” He glanced at Vincent. “It actually shows the earth and planets moving around the sun, which was revolutionary, and heretical, for the time—a thousand years before Copernicus’s model of the solar system. Amazing.”

Vincent remembered something about Copernicus from high school science—though what he remembered most was a girl in the class, Rita Johansson. The recollection he enjoyed most was of the pudgy brunette, late one autumn afternoon, lying on her tummy in a field near the school, a burlap bag over her head, and saying in a polite voice, “Please, no, please don’t.”

“And look at that dial,” Duncan said, interrupting Vincent’s very pleasant memory.

“The silver one?”

“It’s platinum. Pure platinum.”

“That’s more valuable than gold, right?”

Duncan didn’t answer. “It shows the lunar calendar. But a very special one. The Gregorian calendar—the one we use—has three hundred and sixty-five days and irregular months. The lunar calendar’s more consistent than the Gregorian—the months are always the same length. But they don’t correspond to the sun, which means that the lunar month that starts on, say, April fifth of this year will fall on a different day next year. But the Delphic Mechanism shows a lunisolar calendar, which combines the two. I hate the Gregorian and the pure lunar.” There was passion in his voice. “They’re sloppy.”

He hates them? Vincent was thinking.

“But the lunisolar—it’s elegant, harmonious. Beautiful.”

Duncan nodded at the face of the Delphic Mechanism. “A lot of people don’t believe it’s authentic because scientists can’t duplicate its calculations without computers. They can’t believe that somebody built such a sophisticated calculator that long ago. But I’m convinced it’s real.”

“Is it worth a lot?”

“It’s priceless.” After a moment he added, “There’ve been dozens of rumors about it—that it contained answers to the secrets of life and the universe.”

“You think that?”

Duncan continued to stare at the light glistening off the metal. “In a way. Does it do anything supernatural? Of course not. But it does something important: It unifies time. It helps us understand that it’s an endless river. The Mechanism doesn’t treat a second any differently than it does a millennium. And somehow it was able to measure all of those intervals with nearly one hundred percent accuracy.” He pointed at the box. “The ancients thought of time as a separate force, sort of a god itself, with powers of its own. The Mechanism is an emblem of that view, you could say. I think we’d all be better off looking at time that way: how a single second can be as powerful as a bullet or knife or bomb. It can affect events a thousand years in the future. Can change them completely.”

The great scheme of things . . .

“That’s something.”

Though Vincent’s tone must have revealed that he didn’t share Duncan’s enthusiasm.

But this was apparently all right. The killer looked at his pocket watch. He gave a rare laugh. “You’ve had enough of my crazy rambling. Let’s go visit our flower girl.”

Patrolman Ron Pulaski’s life was this: his wife and children, his parents and twin brother, his three-bedroom detached house in Queens and the small pleasures of cookouts with buddies and their wives (he made his own barbecue sauce and salad dressings), jogging, scraping together babysitter money and sneaking off with his wife to the movies, working in a backyard so small that his twin brother called it a grass throw rug.

Simple stuff. So Pulaski was pretty uneasy meeting Jordan Kessler, Benjamin Creeley’s partner. When the coin toss in Sachs’s Camaro earned him the businessman, rather than the bartender, he’d called and arranged to see Kessler, who’d just returned from a business trip. (His jet, meaning really his, not a, jet, had just landed, and his driver was bringing him into the city.)

He now wished he’d picked the bartender. Big money made him uneasy.

Kessler was at a client’s office in lower Manhattan and wanted to postpone seeing Pulaski. But Sachs had told him to be insistent and he had been. Kessler agreed to meet him in the Starbucks on the ground floor of his client’s building.

The rookie walked into the lobby of Penn Energy Transfer, quite a place—glass and chrome and filled with marble sculptures. On the wall were huge photographs of the company’s pipelines, painted different colors. For factory accessories they were pretty artistic. Pulaski really liked those pictures.

In the Starbucks a man squinted the cop’s way and waved him over. Pulaski bought himself a coffee—the businessman already had some—and they shook hands. Kessler was a solid man, whose thin hair was distractingly combed over a shiny crown of scalp. He wore a dark blue shirt, starched smooth as balsa wood. The collar and cuffs were white and the cuff links rich gold knots.

“Thanks for meeting down here,” Kessler said. “Not sure what a client would think about a policeman visiting me on the executive floor.”

“What do you do for them?”

“Ah, the life of an accountant. Never rests.” Kessler sipped his coffee, crossed his legs and said in a low voice, “It’s terrible, Ben’s death. Just terrible. I couldn’t believe it when I heard. . . . How’re his wife and son taking it?” Then he shook his head and answered his own question. “How would they be taking it? They’re devastated, I’m sure. Well, what can I do for you, Officer?”

“Like I explained, we’re just following up on his death.”

“Sure, whatever I can do to help.”

Kessler didn’t seem nervous to be talking to a police officer. And there was nothing condescending in the way he talked to a man who made a thousand times less money than he did.

“Did Mr. Creeley have a drug problem?”

“Drugs? Not that I ever saw. I know he took pain pills for his back at one time. But that was a while ago. And I don’t think I ever saw him, what would you say? I never saw him impaired. But one thing: We didn’t socialize much. Kind of had different personalities. We ran our business together and we’ve known each other for six years but we kept our private lives, well, private. Unless it was with clients we’d have dinner maybe once, twice a year.”

Pulaski steered the conversation back on track. “What about illegal drugs?”

“Ben? No.” Kessler laughed.

Pulaski thought back to his questions. Sachs had told him to memorize them. If you kept looking at your notes, she said, it made you seem unprofessional.

“Did he ever meet with anybody who you’d describe as dangerous, maybe someone who gave you the impression they were criminals?”

“Never.”

“You told Detective Sachs that he was depressed.”

“That’s right.”

“You know what he was depressed about?”

“Nope. Again, we didn’t talk much about personal things.” The man rested his arm on the table and the massive cuff link tapped loudly. Its cost was probably equal to Pulaski’s monthly salary.

In Pulaski’s mind, he heard his wife telling him, Relax, honey. You’re doing fine.

His brother chimed in with: He may have gold links but you’ve got a big fucking gun.

“Apart from the depression, did you notice anything out of the ordinary about him lately?”

“I did, actually. He was drinking more than usual. And he’d taken up gambling. Went to Vegas or Atlantic City a couple times. Never used to do that.”

“Could you identify this?” Pulaski handed the businessman a copy of the images lifted from the ash that Amelia Sachs had recovered at Creeley’s house in Westchester. “It’s a financial spreadsheet or balance sheet,” the patrolman said.

“Understand that.” A little condescending now but it seemed unintentional.

“They were in Mr. Creeley’s possession. Do they mean anything to you?”

“Nope. They’re hard to read. What happened to them?”

“That’s how we found them.”

Don’t say anything about them being burned up, Sachs had told him. Play it close to the chest, you mean, Pulaski offered, then decided he shouldn’t be using those words with a woman. He’d blushed. His twin brother wouldn’t have. They shared every gene except the one that made you shy.

“They seem to show a lot of money.”

Kessler looked at them again. “Not so much, just a few million.”

Not so much.

“Getting back to the depression. How did you know he was depressed? If he didn’t talk about it.”

“Just moping around. Irritated a lot. Distracted. Something was definitely eating at him.”

“Did he ever say anything about the St. James Tavern?”

“The . . . ?”

“A bar in Manhattan.”

“No. I know he’d leave work early from time to time. Meet friends for drinks, I think. But he never said who.”

“Was he ever investigated?”

“For what?”

“Anything illegal.”

“No. I would’ve heard.”

“Did Mr. Creeley have any problems with his clients?”

“No. We had a great relationship with all of them. Their average return was three, four times the S and P Five Hundred. Who wouldn’t be happy?”

S and P . . . Pulaski didn’t get this one. He wrote it down anyway. Then the word “happy.”

“Could you send me a client list?”

Kessler hesitated. “Frankly, I’d rather you didn’t contact them.” He lowered his head slightly and stared into the rookie’s eyes.

Pulaski looked right back. He asked, “Why?”

“Awkward. Bad for business. Like I said before.”

“Well, sir, when you think about it, there’s nothing embarrassing about the police asking a few questions after someone’s death, is there? It is pretty much our job.”

“I suppose so.”

“And all your clients know what happened to Mr. Creeley, don’t they?”

“Yes.”

“So us following up—your clients’d expect us to.”

“Some might, others wouldn’t.”

“In any case, you have done something to control the situation, haven’t you? Hired a PR firm or maybe met with your clients yourself to reassure them?”

Kessler hesitated. Then he said, “I’ll have a list put together and sent to you.”

Yes! Pulaski thought, three-pointer! And forced himself not to smile.

Amelia Sachs had said to save the big question till the end. “What’ll happen to Mr. Creeley’s half of the company?”

Which contained the tiny suggestion that Kessler had murdered his partner to take over the business. But Kessler either didn’t catch this or didn’t take any offense if he did. “I’ll buy it out. Our partnership agreement provides for that. Suzanne—his wife—she’ll get fair market value of his share. It’ll be a good chunk of change.”

Pulaski wrote that down. He gestured at the photo of the pipelines, visible though the glass door. “Your clients’re big companies like this one?”

“Mostly we work for individuals, executives and board members.” Kessler added a packet of sugar to his coffee and stirred it. “You ever involved in business, Officer?”

“Me?” Pulaski grinned. “Nope. I mean, worked summers for an uncle one time. But he went belly up. Well, not him. His printshop.”

“It’s exciting to create a business and grow it into something big.” Kessler sipped the coffee, stirred it again and then leaned forward. “It’s pretty clear you think there’s something more to his death than just a suicide.”

“We like to cover all bases.” Pulaski had no clue what he meant by that; it just came out. He thought back to the questions. The well was dry. “I think that’ll be it, sir. Appreciate your help.”

Kessler finished his coffee. “If I can think of anything else I’ll give you a call. You have a card?”

Pulaski handed one to the businessman, who asked, “That woman detective I talked to. What was her name again?”

“Detective Sachs.”

“Right. If I can’t get through to you, should I call her? Is she still working on the case?”

“Yessir.”

As Pulaski dictated, Kessler wrote Sachs’s name and mobile number on the back of the card. Pulaski also gave him the phone number at Rhyme’s.

Kessler nodded. “Better get back to work.”

Pulaski thanked him again, finished his coffee and left. One last look at the biggest of the pipeline photographs. That was really something. He wouldn’t mind getting a little one to hang up in his rec room. But he supposed a company like Penn Energy hardly had a gift shop, like Disney World.

Chapter 12

A heavyset woman walked into the small coffee shop. Black coat, short hair, jeans. That’s how she’d described herself. Amelia Sachs waved from a booth in the back.

This was Gerte, the other bartender at the St. James. She was on her way to work and had agreed to meet Sachs before her shift.

There was a no-smoking sign on the wall but the woman continued to strangle a live cigarette between her ruddy index and middle fingers. Nobody on the staff here said anything about it; professional courtesy in the restaurant world, Sachs guessed.

The woman’s dark eyes narrowed as she read the detective’s ID.

“Sonja said you had some questions. But she didn’t say what.” Her voice was low and rough.

Sachs sensed that Sonja had probably told her everything. But the detective played along and gave the woman the relevant details—the ones that she could share, at least—and then showed her the picture of Ben Creeley. “He committed suicide.” No surprise in Gerte’s eyes. “And we’re looking into his death.”

“I seen him, I guess, a couple, three times.” She looked at the menu blackboard. “I can eat for free at the St. James. But I’m going to miss dinner. Since I’m here. With you.”

“How ’bout I buy you some food?”

Gerte waved at the waitress and ordered.

“You want anything?” the waitress asked Sachs.

“You have herbal tea?”

“If Lipton’s an herb, we got it.”

“I’ll have that.”

“Anything to eat?”

“No, thanks.”

Gerte looked at the detective’s slim figure and gave a cynical laugh. She then asked, “So that guy who killed himself—did he leave a family?”

“That’s right.”

“Tough. What’s his name?”

A question that didn’t instill confidence that Gerte would be a source of good info. And, sure enough, it turned out that she really wasn’t any more helpful than Sonja. All she recalled was that she’d seen him in the bar about once a month for the past three months. She too had the impression that he’d been hanging out with the cops in their back room but wasn’t positive. “The place is pretty busy, you know.”

Depends on how you define busy, Sachs reflected. “You know any of the officers there personally?”

“From the precinct? Yeah, some of them.”

As the beverages arrived, Gerte recited a few first names, some descriptions. She didn’t know anybody’s last name. “Most of ’em who come in’re okay. Some’re shits. But ain’t that the whole world? . . . About him.” A nod at Creeley’s picture. “I remember he didn’t laugh much. He was always looking around, over his shoulder, out the windows. Nervous like.” The woman poured cream and Equal into her coffee.

“Sonja said he had an argument the last time he came in. Do you remember any other fights?”

“Nope.” Sipping coffee loudly. “Not while I was there.”

“You ever see him with any drugs?”

“Nope.”

Useless, Sachs was thinking. This seemed like a dead end.

The bartender drew deeply on her cigarette and shot the smoke toward the ceiling. She squinted at Sachs and gave a meaningless smile with her bright red lips. “So why you so interested in this guy?”

“Just routine.”

Gerte gave a knowing look and finally said, “Two guys come into the St. James and not long after that they’re both dead. And that’s routine, huh?”

“Two?”

“You didn’t know.”

“No.”

“Figured you didn’t. Otherwise you woulda said something up front.”

“Tell me.”

Gerte fell silent and looked off; Sachs wondered if the woman was spooked. But she was merely staring at the hamburger and fries coming in for a landing on the table.

“Thanks, honey,” she growled. Then looked back at Sachs. “Sarkowski. Frank Sarkowski.”

“What happened?”

“Killed in a robbery, I heard.”

“When?”

“Early November. Something like that.”

“Who’d he see at the St. James?”

“He was in the back room some is all I know.”

“Did they know each other?” A nod toward Creeley’s picture.

The woman shrugged and eyed her hamburger. She pulled the bun off, spread a little mayonnaise on it and struggled with the ketchup lid. Sachs opened it for her.

“Who was he?” the policewoman asked.

“Businessman. Looked like a bridge-and-tunnel guy. But I heard he lived in Manhattan and had money. They were Gucci jeans he wore. I never talked to him except to take his order.”

“How’d you find out about his death?”

“Overheard something. Them talking.”

“The officers from the precinct?”

She nodded.

“Any other deaths that you heard of?”

“Nope.”

“Any other crimes? Shakedowns, assaults, bribes?”

She shook her head, pouring ketchup on the burger and making a pool for dunking the fries. “Nothing. That’s all I know.”

“Thanks.” Sachs put ten down on the table to cover the woman’s meal.

Gerte glanced at the money. “The desserts’re pretty good. The pie. You ever eat here, have the pie.”

The detective added another five.

Gerte looked up and gave an astute smile. “Why’m I telling you all this stuff? You’re wondering, right?”

Sachs nodded with a smile. She’d been wondering exactly that.

“You wouldn’t understand. Those guys in the back room, the cops? The way they look at us, Sonja and me, the things they say, the things they don’t say. The way they joke about us when they think we can’t hear ’em . . .” She gave a bitter smile. “Yeah, I pour drinks for a living, okay? That’s all I do. But that don’t give ’em the right to make fun of me. Everybody’s got the right to some dignity, don’t they?”

Joanne Harper, Vincent’s dream girl, had not returned to the workshop yet.

The men were in the Band-Aid-mobile, parked on east Spring Street across from the darkened workshop where Duncan was about to kill his third victim and Vincent was about to have his first heart-to-heart in a long, long time.

The SUV wasn’t anything great but it was safe. The Watchmaker had stolen it from someplace where he said it wouldn’t be missed for a while. It also sported New York plates that’d been stolen from another tan Explorer—to pass an initial call-in by the cops if they happened to get spotted (they rarely checked the VIN number, only plates, the Watchmaker lectured Vincent).

That was smart, Vincent allowed, though he’d asked what they’d do if some cop did check the VIN. It wouldn’t match the tag and he’d know the Explorer was stolen.

Duncan had replied, “Oh, I’d kill him.” As if it was obvious.

Moving right along . . .

Duncan looked at his pocket watch and replaced it, zipped up the pocket. He opened his shoulder bag, which contained the clock and other tools of the trade, all carefully organized. He wound the clock, set the time and zipped the cover of the bag closed. Through the nylon, Vincent could hear the ticking.

They hooked up hands-free headsets to their mobile phones and Vincent set a police scanner on the seat next to him (Duncan’s idea, of course). He clicked it on and heard a mundane clatter of transmissions about traffic accidents, the progress of street closings for some event on Thursday, an apparent heart attack on Broadway, a chain snatching. . . .

Life in da big city . . .

Duncan looked himself over carefully, made sure all his pockets were sealed. He rolled a dog-hair remover over his body, to pick up trace evidence, and reminded Vincent to do the same before he came inside for his heart-to-heart with Joanne.

Meticulous . . .

“Ready?”

Vincent nodded. Duncan climbed out of the Band-Aid-mobile, looked up and down the street, then walked to the service door. He picked the lock in about ten seconds. Amazing. Vincent smiled, admiring his friend’s skill. He ate two candy bars, chewed them down with fierce bites.

A moment later the phone vibrated and he answered. Duncan said, “I’m inside. How’s the street look?”

“A few cars from time to time. Nobody on the sidewalks. It’s clear.”

Vincent heard a few metallic clicks. Then the man’s voice in a whisper: “I’ll call you when she’s ready.”

Ten minutes later Vincent saw someone in a dark coat walking toward the workshop. The stance and motion suggested it was a woman. Yep, it was his flower girl, Joanne.

A burst of hunger filled him.

He ducked low, so she wouldn’t see him. He pushed the TRANSMIT button on the phone.

He heard the click of Duncan’s phone. No “hello” or “yes.”

Vincent lifted his head slightly and saw her walk up to the door. He said into the phone, “It’s her. She’s alone. She should be inside any minute.”

The killer said nothing. Vincent heard the click of the phone hanging up.

Okay, he was a keeper.

Joanne Harper and Kevin had had three coffees at Kosmo’s Diner, otherwise just another functional, boring eatery in SoHo, but as of today a very special place. She was now walking to the back door of the workshop, reflecting that she wished she could have lingered for another half hour or so. Kevin had wanted to—there were more jokes to tell, more stories to share—but her job loomed. It wasn’t due till tomorrow night, but this was an important client and she needed to make sure the arrangements were perfect. She’d reluctantly told him she had to get back.

She glanced up and down the street, still a bit uneasy about the pudgy man in the parka and the weird sunglasses. But the area was deserted. Stepping inside the workshop, she slammed the door and double-locked it.

Hanging up her coat, Joanne inhaled deeply, the way she always did when she first walked inside, enjoying the myriad scents inside the shop: jasmine, rose, lilac, lily, gardenia, fertilizer, loam, mulch. It was intoxicating.

She flicked on the lights and started toward the arrangements she’d been working on earlier. Then she froze and gave a scream.

Her foot had struck something. It scurried away from her. She leapt back, thinking: Rat!

But then she looked down and laughed. What she’d kicked was a large spool of florist wire in the center of the aisle. How had it gotten there? All of the spools hung from hooks on the wall nearby. She squinted through the dimness and saw that somehow this one had slipped off and rolled across the floor. Odd.

Must be ghosts of florists past, she said to herself, then regretted the joke. The place was eerie enough and an image of the fat man in the sunglasses came back immediately. Don’t go spooking yourself.

She picked up the spool and saw why it had fallen: the hook had slipped out of the wood. That’s all. But then she noticed something else curious. This spool was one of the new ones; she hadn’t used any wire from it yet, she thought. But she must have; some was missing.

She laughed. Nothing like love to make a girl forgetful.

Then she paused, cocking her head. She was listening to a sound she was unaccustomed to.

What was it?

Very odd . . . dripping water?

No, it was mechanical. Metal . . .

Weird. It sounded like a ticking clock. Where was it coming from? The workshop had a large wall clock in the back but it was electric and didn’t tick. Joanne looked around. The noise, she decided, was coming from a small, windowless work area just beyond the refrigerated room. She’d check it out in a minute.

Joanne bent down to repair the hook.

Chapter 13

Amelia Sachs skidded to a stop in front of Ron Pulaski. After he jumped in she pointed the car north and gunned the engine.

The rookie gave her the details of the meeting with Jordan Kessler. He added, “He seemed legit. Nice guy. But I just thought I ought to check with Mrs. Creeley myself to confirm everything—about what Kessler gets because of Creeley’s death. She said she trusts him and everything’s on the up-and-up. But I still wasn’t sure so I called Creeley’s lawyer. Hope that was okay.”

“Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

“Don’t know. Just thought I’d ask.”

“It’s always okay to do too much work in this business,” Sachs told him. “The problems’re when somebody doesn’t do enough.”

Pulaski shook his head. “Hard to imagine somebody working for Lincoln and being lazy.”

She gave a cryptic laugh. “And what’d the lawyer say?”

“Basically the same thing Kessler and the wife said. He buys out Creeley’s share at fair market value. It’s all legit. Kessler said his partner had been drinking more and had taken up gambling. His wife told me she was surprised he did that. Never was an Atlantic City kind of guy.”

Sachs nodded. “Gambling—maybe some mob connections there. Dealing to them, or just taking along recreational drugs. Money laundering maybe. He win or lose, you know?”

“Dropped some big money, seems like. I was wondering if he hit a loan shark to cover the loss. But his wife said the losses were no big deal, what with his income and everything. A couple hundred thousand didn’t hurt much. She wasn’t real happy about it, you can imagine. . . . Kessler said he had a good relationship with all his clients. But I asked for a list. I think we ought to talk to them ourselves.”

“Good,” Sachs told him. Then she added, “Things’re getting gluier. There was another death. Murder/robbery, maybe.” She explained about her meeting with Gerte and told him about Frank Sarkowski. “I need you to track down the file.”

“You bet.”

“I—”

She stopped speaking. She’d glanced into the rearview mirror and felt a tug in her gut. “Hm.”

“What?” Pulaski asked.

She didn’t answer but made a leisurely turn to the right, went several blocks more and then made a sharp left. “Okay, we may have a tail. Saw it a few minutes ago. Merc made those turns with us just now. No, don’t look.”

It was a black Mercedes with darkened windows.

She turned again, abruptly, and braked to a stop. The rookie grunted at the tug from the belt. The Merc kept going. Sachs glanced back, missed the tag but saw that the car was an AMG, the expensive, souped-up version of the German car.

She spun the Camaro in a U-turn but just then a delivery truck double-parked in front of her. By the time she got around it the Merc was gone.

“Who do you think it was?”

Sachs shifted hard. “Probably a coincidence. Real rare to get tailed. And, believe me, it never happens by some dude in a hundred-and-forty-thousand-dollar car.”

Touching the cold body, the florist lying on the concrete, her face as pale as white roses scattered on the floor.

The cold body, cold as the Cold Moon, but still soft; the hardness of death had not yet set in.

Cutting the cloth off, the blouse, the bra . . .

Touching . . .

Tasting . . .

These were the images cascading through Vincent Reynolds’s thoughts as he sat in the driver’s seat of the Band-Aid-mobile, staring into the dark workshop across the street, breathing fast, anticipating what he was about to do to Joanne. Consumed with hunger.

Noise intruded. “Traffic Forty-two, can you . . . they want to add some barriers at Nassau and Pine. By the reviewing stand.”

“Sure, we can do that. Over.”

The words represented no threat to him or Gerald Duncan and so Vincent continued his fantasy.

Tasting, touching . . .

Vincent imagined that the killer would probably be pulling Joanne down on the floor, trussing her up right now. Then he frowned. Would Duncan be touching her in certain places? Her chest, between her legs?

Vincent was jealous.

Joanne was his girlfriend, not Duncan’s. Goddamn it! If he wanted to fuck something, let him go find a nice girl on his own. . . .

But then he told himself to calm down. The hunger did that to you. It made you crazy, possessed you like the people in those gory zombie films Vincent watched. Duncan’s your friend. If he wants to play around with her, let him. They could share her.

Vincent looked at his watch impatiently. It was taking soooo long. Duncan had told him that time wasn’t absolute. Some scientists once did an experiment where they put one clock way high in the air on a tower and one at sea level. The higher one ran more quickly than the one on the ground. Some law of physics. Psychologically, Duncan had added, time is relative too. If you’re doing something you love, it goes by fast. If you’re waiting for something, it moves slowly.

Just like now. Come on, come on.

The radio sitting on the dashboard crackled again. More traffic info, he assumed.

But Vincent was wrong.

“Central to any available unit in lower Manhattan. Proceed to Spring Street, east of Broadway. Be advised, looking for florist shops in the vicinity, in connection with the homicides on the pier at Two Two Street and the alley off Cedar Street last night. Proceed with caution.”

“Jesus, Lord,” Vincent muttered aloud, staring at the scanner. Hitting REDIAL on the phone, he glanced up the street—no sign of any police yet.

One ring, two . . .

“Pick up!”

Click. Duncan didn’t say anything—this was according to their plans. But Vincent knew he was on the line.

“Get out, now! Move! The cops’re coming.”

Vincent heard a faint gasp. The phone disconnected.

“This is RMP Three Three Seven. We’re three minutes from scene.”

“Roger that, Three Three Seven . . . Further to that call—we have a report, a ten-three-four, assault in progress, at four-one-eight Spring. All available units respond.”

“Roger.”

“RMP Four Six One, we’re on the way too.”

“Come on, for Christ sake,” Vincent muttered. He put the Explorer in gear.

Then a huge crash as a ceramic urn slammed through the glass front door of the florist’s workshop. Duncan came charging outside. He sprinted over the shattered glass shards, nearly fell on the ice and then raced to the Explorer, leaping into the passenger seat. Vincent sped away.

“Slow down,” the killer commanded. “Turn at the next street.”

Vincent eased off the gas. It was just as well he brought the speed down because, just as he did, a squad car skidded around the corner in front of them.

Two more converged on the street, the officers leaping out.

“Stop at the light,” Duncan said calmly. “Don’t panic.”

Vincent felt a quiver run through his body. He wanted to punch it, just take the chance. Duncan sensed this. “No. Just behave like everybody else here. You’re curious. Look at the police cars. That’s okay to do.”

Vincent looked.

The light changed.

“Slow.”

He eased away from the light.

More cop cars streaked past, responding to the call.

The scanner reported several other cars were en route. An officer radioed that there was no ID of the suspected perp. No one said anything about the Band-Aid-mobile. Vincent’s hands were shaking but he kept the big SUV steady, square in the middle of his lane, speed never wavering. Finally, after they’d put some distance between them and the florist shop, Vincent said softly, “They knew it was us.”

Duncan turned to him. “They what?”

“The police. They were sending cars to look for florists around here, like it had something to do with the murders last night.”

Gerald Duncan considered this. He didn’t seem shaken or mad. He frowned. “They knew we were there? That’s curious. How could they possibly know?”

“Where should I go?” Vincent asked.

His friend didn’t answer. He continued to look out at the streets. Finally he said in a calm voice, “For now, just drive. I have to think.”

“He got away?” Rhyme’s voice snapped through the speaker of the Motorola. “What happened?”

Standing beside Sachs at the scene in front of the florist shop, Lon Sellitto replied, “Timing. Luck. Who the fuck knows?”

“Luck?” Rhyme snapped harshly, as if it were a foreign word he didn’t understand. Then he paused. “Wait . . . Are you using a scrambled frequency?”

Sellitto said, “We are for tactical, but Central isn’t, not for nine-one-one calls. He must’ve heard the initial call. Shit. Okay, we’ll make sure they’re all scrambled on the Watchmaker case.”

Rhyme then asked, “What does the scene say, Sachs?”

“I just got here.”

“Well, search it.”

Click.

Brother . . . Sellitto and Sachs glanced at each other. As soon as she’d gotten the call about the 10-34 on Spring, she’d dropped Pulaski off to find the Sarkowski homicide file and sped here to search the scene.

I can do both.

Let’s hope, Sachs. . . .

She tossed her purse onto the backseat of the Camaro, locked the door and headed to the florist shop. She saw Kathryn Dance walking up the street from the main retail shop, where she’d interviewed the owner, Joanne Harper, who’d narrowly escaped being the Watchmaker’s third victim.

An unmarked car pulled up to the curb, the emergency lights in the grille flashing. Dennis Baker shut them off and climbed out. He hurried toward Sachs.

“It was him?” Baker asked.

“Yep,” Sellitto told him. “Respondings found another clock inside. Same kind.”

Three down, Sachs thought grimly. Seven to go . . .

“Another love note?”

“Not this time. But we were real close. I’m guessing he didn’t have a chance to leave one.”

“I heard the call,” Baker said. “How’d you figure out it was him?”

“There’d been an environmental agency bust a block from here—a spill at an exterminating company stockpiling illegal thallium sulfate, rat poison. Then Lincoln learned the main use of the fish protein found at the Adams killing was fertilizer for orchids. Lon had dispatch send out cars to florists and landscaping companies near the extermination operation.”

“Rat poison.” Baker gave a laugh. “That Rhyme, he thinks of everything, doesn’t he?”

“And then some,” Sellitto added.

Dance joined them. She explained what she’d learned from the interview: Joanne Harper had returned from coffee and found some wire misplaced in the store. “That didn’t bother her too much. But she heard this ticking and then thought she heard somebody in a back room. She called nine-one-one.”

Sellitto continued, “And since we had squad cars headed to the area anyway, we got there before he killed her. But just before.”

Dance added that the florist had no clue why anyone would want to hurt her. She’d been through a divorce a long time ago but hadn’t heard from her ex in years. She had no enemies that she could think of.

Joanne also told Dance that she’d seen someone watching her through the window earlier that day, a heavyset white man in a cream-colored parka, old-style sunglasses and baseball cap. She hadn’t seen much else because of the dirty windows. Dance wondered if there was a connection with Adams, the first victim, but Joanne had never heard of him.

Sachs asked, “How’s she doing?”

“Shook up. But going back to work. Not in the workshop, though. At her store on Broadway.”

Sellitto said, “Until we get this guy or figure out a motive I’ll order a car outside the store.” He pulled out his radio and arranged for it.

Nancy Simpson and Frank Rettig, the CS officers, walked up to Sachs. Between them was a young man in a stocking cap and baggy jacket. He was skinny and looked freezing cold. “Gentleman here wants to help,” Simpson said. “Came up to us at the RRV.”

With a glance at Sachs, who nodded, Dance turned to him and asked what he’d seen. There was no need for a kinesics expert, though. The kid was happy to play good citizen. He explained that he’d been walking down the street and saw somebody jump out the florist’s workshop. He was a middle-aged man in a dark jacket. Glancing at the EFIT composite Sellitto and Dance had made at the clock store, he said, “Yeah, could be him.”

He’d run to a tan SUV, driven by a white guy with a round face and wearing sunglasses. But he hadn’t seen anything more specific about the driver.

“There’re two of them?” Baker sighed. “He’s got a partner.”

Probably the one Joanne had seen at her workshop earlier.

“Was it an Explorer?”

“I don’t know an Explorer from a . . . any other kind of SUV.”

Sellitto asked about the license number. The witness hadn’t seen it.

“Well, we’ve got the color at least.” Sellitto put out an Emergency Vehicle Locator. An EVL would alert all Radio Mobile Patrol cars as well as most other law enforcers and traffic cops in the area to look for a tan Explorer with two white men inside.

“Okay, let’s move on this,” Sellitto called.

Simpson and Rettig helped Sachs assemble equipment to run the scenes. There were several of them: the store itself, the alley, the sidewalk area where he’d escaped, as well as where the Explorer had been parked.

Kathryn Dance and Sellitto returned to Rhyme’s, while Baker kept canvassing for witnesses, showing pictures of the Watchmaker’s composite to people on the street and workers in the warehouses and businesses along Spring.

Sachs collected what evidence she could locate. Since the first clock hadn’t been an explosive device, there was no need to get the bomb squad involved; a simple field test for nitrates was sufficient to make sure. She packed it up, along with the remaining evidence, then stripped off the Tyvek and pulled on her leather jacket. She hurried up the street and dropped into the front seat of the Camaro, fired the car up and turned on the heater full blast.

She reached behind the passenger seat for her purse to get her gloves. But when she picked up the leather bag, the contents spilled out.

Sachs frowned. She was very careful always to keep the purse latched. She couldn’t afford to lose the contents, which included two extra ammunition clips for her Glock, as well as a can of tear gas. She clearly remembered twisting the latch when she’d arrived.

She looked at the passenger-side window. Smears on the glass made by gloves were consistent with somebody using a slimjim to pop the door lock. And some of the insulating fuzz around the window was pushed aside.

Burglarized while doing a crime scene. This’s a first.

She looked through the bag, item by item. Nothing was gone. The money and charge cards were all there—though she’d have to call the credit card companies in case the thief had jotted down the numbers. The ammunition and CS tear-gas spray were intact. Hand straying to her Glock, she looked around. There was a small crowd gathered nearby, curious about the police activity. She climbed out and approached them, asking if anybody had seen the break-in. Nobody had.

Returning to the Chevy, Sachs got her bare-bones crime scene kit from the trunk and ran the car just like any other crime scene—checking for footprints, fingerprints and trace inside and out. She found nothing. She replaced the equipment and dropped into the front seat once again.

Then she saw, a half block away, a big black car edge out of an alleyway. She thought of the Mercedes she’d seen earlier, when she’d picked up Pulaski. She couldn’t see the make, though, and the car disappeared in traffic before she could turn her vehicle around and head after it.

Coincidence or not? she wondered.

The big Chevy engine began to push heat into the car and she strapped in. She pushed the transmission into first. Easing forward, she thought to herself, Well, no harm done.

She was halfway up the block, shoving the shifter into third, though, when the thought hit her: What was he looking for? The fact that her money and plastic were still there suggested that the perp was after something else.

Amelia Sachs knew that it’s the people with motives you can’t figure out who are always the most dangerous.

Chapter 14

At Rhyme’s, Sachs delivered the evidence to Mel Cooper.

Before she put on her latex gloves, she walked to a canister and pulled out a few dog biscuits, fed them to Jackson. He ate them down fast.

“You ever think about getting a helper dog?” Kathryn Dance asked Rhyme.

“He is a helper dog.”

“Jackson?” Sachs frowned.

“Yep. He helps plenty. He distracts people so I don’t have to entertain them.”

The women laughed. “I mean a real one.”

One of his therapists had suggested a dog. Many paraplegics and quadriplegics had helper animals. Not long after the accident, when the counselor had first brought it up, he’d resisted the idea. He couldn’t explain why, exactly, but believed it had to do with his reluctance to depend on something, or someone, else. Now, the idea didn’t seem so bad.

He frowned. “Can you train them to pour whiskey?” The criminalist looked from the dog to Sachs. “Oh, you got a call when you were at the scene. Someone named Jordan Kessler.”

“Who?

“He said you’d know.”

“Oh, wait—sure, Creeley’s partner.”

“He wanted to talk to you. I told him you weren’t here so he left a message. He said that he talked to the rest of the company employees and that Creeley definitely had been depressed lately. And Kessler’s still putting together a client list. But it’ll take a day or two.”

“A couple of days?”

“What he said.”

Rhyme’s eyes were on the evidence she was assembling on an examination table next to Cooper. His mind drifted away from the St. James situation—what he was calling the “Other Case.” As opposed to “His Case,” the Watchmaker. “Let’s get to the evidence,” he announced.

Sachs pulled on latex gloves and began unpacking the boxes and bag.

The clock was the same as the first two, ticking and showing the correct time. The moon face just slightly past full.

Together, Cooper and Sachs dismantled it but found no trace of any significance.

No footprints, friction ridge prints, weapons or anything else had been left behind in the florist’s shop. Rhyme wondered if there was some special tool the killer had used to cut the florist’s wire or some technique that might reveal a past or present career or training. But, no, he’d used Joanne’s own clippers. Like the duct tape, though, the wire had been cut in precise lengths. Each one was exactly six feet long. Rhyme wondered whether he was going to bind her with the wire or whether it was the intended murder weapon.

Joanne Harper had locked the door when she left the shop to meet a friend for coffee. It was clear that the killer had picked the lock to get inside. This didn’t surprise Rhyme; a man who knows the mechanics of timepieces could easily learn the skills of lockpicking.

A search of DMV records revealed 423 owners of tan Explorers in the metropolitan area. They cross-referenced the list against warrants and found only two: a man in his sixties, wanted as a scofflaw for dozens of parking tickets, and a younger man busted for selling coke. He wondered if this was the Watchmaker’s assistant but it turned out he was still in jail for the offense. The Watchmaker might well be among the remaining names on the list but there was no way to talk to every one, though Sellitto was going to have someone check those whose addresses were in lower Manhattan. There’d also been a few hits on the Emergency Vehicle Locator but none of the drivers’ descriptions fit those of the Watchmaker or his partner.

Sachs had collected samples of trace from the shop itself and found that, yes, the soil and fish protein, in the form of fertilizer, had indeed come from Joanne’s. There was some inside the building but Sachs had also found considerable amounts outside, in and around discarded bags of the fertilizer.

Rhyme was shaking his head.

“What’s the problem?” Sellitto asked.

“It’s not the protein itself. It’s the fact it was on the second victim. Adams.”

“Because?”

“It means the perp was checking out the workshop earlier—presumably the victim and looking for alarms or security cameras. He’s been staking out his locations. Which means there’s a reason he’s picking these particular victims. But what the hell is it?”

The man crushed to death in the alley wasn’t apparently involved in any criminal activities and had no enemies. The same was true with Joanne Harper. And she’d never heard of Adams—no link between them. Yet they’d both been targeted by the Watchmaker. Why them? Rhyme wondered. An unknown victim at the pier, a young businessman, a florist . . . and seven others to go. What is there about them that’s driving him to kill? What’s the connection?

“What else did you find?”

“Black flakes,” Cooper said, holding up a plastic envelope. Inside were dots like dried black ink.

Sachs said, “They were from where he got the wire spool and where he was probably hiding. Also, I found a few of them outside the front door where he’d stepped on the glass running to the Explorer.”

“Well, run them through the GC.”

Cooper fired up the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer and loaded a sample of the flakes. In a few minutes the results came up on the screen.

“So, what do we have, Mel?”

The tech shoved his glasses higher on his nose. He leaned forward. “Organic . . . Looks like about seventy-three percent n-alkanes, then polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and thiaarenes.”

“Ah, roofing tar.” Rhyme squinted.

Kathryn Dance gave a laugh. “You know that?”

Sellitto said, “Oh, Lincoln used to wander around the city collecting everything he could find for his evidence databases. . . . Must’ve been fun going out to dinner with you, Linc. You bring test tubes and bags with you?”

“My ex could tell you all about it,” Rhyme replied with an amused grunt. His attention was on the black spots of tar. “I’ll bet he’s been checking out another victim from a place that’s getting a new roof.”

“Or maybe they’re reroofing his place,” Cooper offered.

“Doubt he’s spending time enjoying cocktails and the sunset on his own roof in this weather,” Rhyme replied. “Let’s assume it’s somebody else’s. I want to find out how many buildings are being reroofed right now.”

“There could be hundreds of them, thousands,” Sellitto said.

“Probably not in this weather.”

“And how the hell do we find them anyway?” the rumpled detective asked.

“ASTER.”

“What’s that?” Dance asked.

Rhyme recited absently, “Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer. It’s an instrument and data package on the Terra satellite—a joint venture between NASA and the Japanese government. It captures thermal images from space. Orbits every . . . what, Mel?”

“About ninety-eight minutes. But it takes sixteen days to cover the entire Earth.”

“Find out when it was over New York most recently. I want thermal images and see if they can delineate heat over two hundred degrees—I imagine tar’s at least that temperature when it’s applied. Should narrow down where he’s been.”

“The whole city?” Cooper asked.

“He’s hunting in Manhattan, looks like. Let’s go with that first.”

Cooper had a lengthy conversation then hung up. “They’re on it. They’ll do their best.”

Thom showed Dennis Baker into the town house. “No other witnesses around the florist’s workshop,” the lieutenant reported, pulling off his coat and gratefully accepting a cup of coffee. “We searched for an hour. Either nobody saw anything or has the guts to admit they did. This guy’s got everybody spooked.”

“We need more.” Rhyme looked at the diagram that Sachs had sketched of the scene. “Where was the SUV parked?” he asked.

“Across the street from the workshop,” Sachs replied.

“And you searched the spot where it was parked.” It wasn’t a question. Rhyme knew she would have. “Any cars in front or behind it?”

“No.”

“Okay, he runs to the car, his partner drives to the closest intersection and turns, hoping to get lost in the traffic. He won’t break any laws so he’ll make a nice, careful—and sharp—turn, staying in his lane.” Like speed bumps and sudden braking, sharp, slow turns often dislodge important trace from treads of tires. “If the street’s still sealed off, I want a team from Crime Scene to sweep up everything at the intersection. It’s a long shot but I think we have to try.” He turned to Baker. “You just left the scene, right? About ten, fifteen minutes ago?”

“About that,” Baker replied, sitting and stretching as he downed his coffee. He looked exhausted.

“Was the street still sealed?”

“Wasn’t paying much attention. I think it was.”

“Find out,” Rhyme said to Sellitto, “and if so, send a team.”

But the detective’s call revealed that the street was now open to traffic. Any trace left by the killer’s Explorer would have been obliterated by the first or second vehicle making the same turn.

“Damn,” Rhyme muttered, his eyes returning once again to the evidence chart, thinking it had been a long time since a case had presented so much difficulty.

Thom rapped on the doorjamb and led someone else into the room, a middle-aged woman in an expensive black coat. She was familiar to Rhyme but he couldn’t recall the name.

“Hello, Lincoln.”

Then he remembered. “Inspector.”

Marilyn Flaherty was older than Rhyme but they’d both been captains at the same time and had worked together on a few special commissions. He remembered her as being smart and ambitious—and, out of necessity, just a little bit flintier and more driven than her male counterparts. They spoke for a few minutes about mutual acquaintances and colleagues past and present. She asked about the Watchmaker case and he gave her a synopsis.

The inspector then pulled Sachs aside and asked about the status of the investigation, meaning, of course, the Other Case. Rhyme couldn’t help overhearing Sachs tell her that she’d found nothing conclusive. There’d been no major drug thefts from the evidence room of the 118th Precinct. Creeley’s partner and his employees confirmed the businessman’s depression and reported that he’d been drinking more lately. It turned out that he’d been going to Vegas and/or Atlantic City recently.

“Possible organized crime connection,” Flaherty pointed out.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Sachs said. Then she added that there seemed to be no clients with grudges against Creeley but that she and Pulaski were awaiting the client list from Jordan Kessler to check it out themselves.

Suzanne Creeley, though, remained convinced that he’d had nothing to do with drugs or criminal activity and that he hadn’t killed himself.

“And,” Sachs said, “we’ve got another death.”

“Another one?”

“A man who came to the St. James a few times. Maybe met with the same people that Creeley did.”

Another death? Rhyme reflected. He had to admit that the Other Case was developing some very interesting angles.

“Who?” Flaherty asked.

“Another businessman. Frank Sarkowski. Lived in Manhattan.”

Flaherty was looking over the lab, the evidence charts, the equipment, frowning. “Any clue who killed him?”

“I think it was during a robbery. But I won’t know until I read the file.”

Rhyme could see the frustration in Flaherty’s face.

Sachs too was tense. He soon realized why. As soon as Flaherty said, “I’m going to hold off on Internal Affairs for the time being,” Sachs relaxed. They weren’t going to take the case away from her. Well, Lincoln Rhyme was happy for Sachs, though in his heart he would have preferred that she hand off the Other Case to Internal Affairs and get back to working on His Case.

Flaherty asked, “That young officer? Ron Pulaski? He’s working out okay?”

“He’s doing a good job.”

“I’m going to report to Wallace, Detective.” The inspector nodded at Rhyme. “Lincoln, it was good seeing you again. Take care.”

“So long, Inspector.”

Flaherty walked to the door and let herself out, walking just like a general on a parade ground.

Amelia Sachs was about to call Pulaski and find out what he’d learned about Sarkowski when she heard a voice near her ear. “The Grand Inquisitor.”

Sachs turned to look at Sellitto, dumping sugar in his coffee. He said, “Hey, step into my office.” And gestured toward the front hallway of Rhyme’s town house.

Leaving the others, the two detectives walked into the low-lit entryway.

“Inquisitor. That’s what they call Flaherty?” Sachs asked.

“Yup. Not that she isn’t good.”

“I know. I checked her out.”

“Uhm.” The big detective sipped coffee and finished a Danish. “Look, I’m up to my ass in psycho clockmakers so I don’t know what’s up with this St. James thing. But if you got cops maybe’re on the take, how come it’s you and not Internal Affairs running the case?”

“Flaherty didn’t want to bring them in yet. Wallace agreed.”

“Wallace?”

“Robert Wallace. The deputy mayor.”

“Yeah, I know him. Stand-up guy. And it’s the right call, bringing in IAD. Why didn’t she want to?”

“She wanted to give it to somebody in her command. She said the One One Eight’s too close to the Big Building. Somebody’d find out Internal Affairs was involved and they’d cut and run.”

Sellitto jutted his lower lip out in concession. “That could be.” Then his voice lowered even further. “And you didn’t argue too much ’cause you wanted the case.”

She looked him in the eye. “That’s right.”

“So you asked and you got.” He gave a cool laugh.

“What?”

“Now you’re walking point.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Just, you gotta know the score. Now, anything goes bad, anything at all—good people get burned, bad guys get away—the fuckup’s on your shoulders, even if you do everything right. Flaherty’s protected and IAD’s smelling like roses. On the other hand, you get righteous collars, they take over and suddenly everybody forgets your name.”

“You’re saying I got set up?” Sachs shook her head. “But Flaherty didn’t want me to take the case. She was going to hand it off.”

“Amelia, come on. End of a date, a guy says, ‘Hey, had a great time but it’s probably better if I don’t ask you upstairs.’ What’s the first thing the girl says?”

“ ‘Let’s go upstairs.’ What he had in mind all along. You’re saying Flaherty was playing me?”

“All I’m saying is she didn’t take the case away from you, right? Which she could’ve done in, like, five seconds.”

Sachs’s nail dug absently into her scalp. Her gut twisted at the idea of department politics at this high level—largely uncharted territory for her.

“Now, my point is, I wish you weren’t lead on a case like this, not now in your career. But you are. So you have to remember—keep your head down. I mean stay fucking invisible.”

“I—”

“Lemme finish. Invisible for two reasons. One, people find out you’re after bad cops, rumors’re going start—about this shield taking cash or that shield losing evidence, whatever. Fact they’re not doesn’t mean shit. Rumors’re like the flu. You can’t wish ’em away. They run their course and they take people’s careers with ’em.”

She nodded. “What’s the second reason?”

“Just because you got a shield, don’t think you’re immune. A bad uniform in the One One Eight, yeah, he’s not going to clip you. That doesn’t happen. But the civilians he’s dealing with won’t want to hear his opinion. They won’t think twice about tossing your body into the trunk of a car at JFK long-term parking. . . . God bless you, kid. Go get ’em. But be careful. I don’t want to have to go breaking any bad news to Lincoln. He’d never forgive me.”

Ron Pulaski returned to Rhyme’s, and Sachs met him in the front hallway, as she stood, looking into the kitchen, and thinking about what Sellitto had told her.

She briefed him about the latest in the Watchmaker case then asked, “What’s the Sarkowski situation?”

He flipped through his notes. “I located his spouse and proceeded to interview her. Now, the decedent was a fifty-seven-year-old white male who owned a business in Manhattan. He had no criminal record. He was murdered on November four of this year and was survived by said wife and two teenage children, one male, one female. Death occurred by gunshot. He—”

“Ron?” she asked in a certain tone.

He winced. “Oh, sorry. Streamline, sure.”

His copspeak was a habit Sachs was determined to break.

Relaxing, the rookie continued. “He was the owner of a building on the West Side, Manhattan. Lived there too. He also owned a company that did maintenance and trash disposal work for big companies and utilities around the city.” His business had a clean record—federal, city and state. No organized crime connections, no investigations ongoing. He himself had no warrants or arrests, except a speeding ticket last year.”

“Any suspects in his death?”

“No.”

“What house ran the case?”

“The One Three One.”

“He was in Queens when he died, not Manhattan?”

“That’s right.”

“What happened?”

“The perp got his wallet and cash then shot him three times in the chest.”

“The St. James? Did she ever hear him say anything about it?”

“Nope.”

“Did he know Creeley?”

“The wife wasn’t sure, didn’t think so. I showed her the picture and she didn’t recognize him.” He grew quiet for a moment and then added, “One thing. I think I saw it again, the Mercedes.”

“You did?”

“After you dropped me off I crossed the street fast to beat a light and I looked behind me to see if there was traffic. I couldn’t get a good look but I thought I saw the Merc. Couldn’t see the tag. Just thought I’d mention it.”

Sachs shook her head. “I had a visitor too.” She told him about the break-in to her car. And added that she believed she’d seen the Mercedes as well. “That driver’s been a busy boy.” She then looked at his hands, which held only his thick notebook. “Where’s the Sarkowski file?”

“Okay, that’s the problem. No file, no evidence. I went through the entire evidence locker in the One Three One. Nothing.”

“Okay, this’s getting funky. No evidence?”

“Missing.”

“The file was checked out?”

“Might’ve been but it’s not in the computer log. It should’ve been there if somebody took it or it got sent somewhere. But I got the name of the case detective. He lives in Queens. Just retired. Art Snyder.” Pulaski handed her a sheet of paper with the man’s name and address on it. “You want me to talk to him?”

“No, I’ll go see him. I want you to stay here and write up our notes on a whiteboard. I want to see the big picture. But don’t do it in the lab. There’s too much traffic.” Crime scene and other officers routinely made deliveries to Rhyme’s. With a case involving crooked cops, she didn’t want anyone to see what they’d learned. She nodded toward Rhyme’s exercise room, where his ergometer and treadmill were located. “We’ll keep it in there.”

“Sure. But that won’t take long. When I’m done, you want me to meet you at Snyder’s?”

Sachs thought again about the Mercedes. And she heard Sellitto’s words looping through her head: . . . The trunk of a car at JFK long-term parking . . .

“Naw, when you’re through, just stay here and help out Lincoln.” She laughed. “Maybe it’ll improve his mood.”

THE WATCHMAKER

CRIME SCENE ONE

Location:

• Repair pier in Hudson River, 22nd Street.

Victim:

• Identity unknown.

• Male.

• Possibly middle-aged or older, and may have coronary condition (presence of anticoagulants in blood).

• No other drugs, infection or disease in blood.

• Coast Guard and ESU divers checking for body and evidence in New York Harbor.

• Checking missing persons reports.

Perp:

• See below.

M.O.:

• Perp forced victim to hold on to deck, over water, cut fingers or wrists until he fell.

• Time of attack: Between 6 P.M. Monday and 6 A.M. Tuesday.

Evidence:

• Blood type AB positive.

• Fingernail torn, unpolished, wide.

• Portion of chain-link fence cut with common wire cutters, untraceable.

• Clock. See below.

• Poem. See below.

• Fingernail markings on deck.

• No discernible trace, no fingerprints, no footprints, no tire tread marks.

CRIME SCENE TWO

Location:

• Alley off Cedar Street, near Broadway, behind three commercial buildings (back doors closed at 8:30 to 10 P.M.) and one government administration building (back door closed at 6 P.M.).

• Alley is a cul-de-sac. Fifteen feet wide by one hundred and four feet long, surfaced in cobblestones, body was fifteen feet from Cedar Street.

Victim:

• Theodore Adams.

• Lived in Battery Park.

• Freelance copywriter.

• No known enemies.

• No warrants, state or federal.

• Checking for a connection with buildings around alley. None found.

Perp:

• The Watchmaker.

• Male.

• No database entries for the Watchmaker.

M.O.:

• Dragged from vehicle to alley, where iron bar was suspended over him. Eventually crushed throat.

• Awaiting medical examiner’s report to confirm.

• No evidence of sexual activity.

• Time of death: Approximately 10:15 P.M. to 11 P.M. Monday night. Medical examiner to confirm.

Evidence:

• Clock.

• No explosives, chemical- or bioagents.

• Identical to clock at pier.

• No fingerprints, minimal trace.

• Arnold Products, Framingham, MA.

• Sold by Hallerstein’s Timepieces, Manhattan.

• Poem left by perp at both scenes.

• Computer printer, generic paper, HP LaserJet ink.

• Text:

The full Cold Moon is in the sky,

shining on the corpse of earth,

signifying the hour to die

and end the journey begun at birth.

—The Watchmaker

• Not in any poetry databases; probably his own.

• Cold Moon is lunar month, the month of death.

• $60 in pocket, no serial number leads; prints negative.

• Fine sand used as “obscuring agent.” Sand was generic. Because he’s returning to the scene?

• Metal bar, 81 pounds, is needle-eye span. Not being used in construction across from the alleyway. No other source found.

• Duct tape, generic, but cut precisely, unusual. Exactly the same lengths.

• Thallium sulfate (rodent poison) found in sand.

• Soil containing fish protein—from perp, not victim.

• Very little trace found.

• Brown fibers, probably automotive carpeting.

Other:

• Vehicle.

• Probably Ford Explorer, about three years old. Brown carpet.

• Review of license tags of cars in area Tuesday morning reveals no warrants. No tickets issued Monday night.

• Checking with Vice about prostitutes, re: witness.

• No leads.

INTERVIEW WITH HALLERSTEIN

Perp:

• EFIT composite picture of the Watchmaker—late forties, early fifties, round face, double chin, thick nose, unusually light blue eyes. Over 6 feet tall, lean, hair black, medium length, no jewelry, dark clothes. No name.

• Knows great deal about clocks and watches and which timepieces had been sold at recent auctions and were at current horologic exhibits in the city.

• Threatened dealer to keep quiet.

• Bought 10 clocks. For 10 victims?

• Paid cash.

• Wanted moon face on clock, wanted loud tick.

Evidence:

• Source of clocks was Hallerstein’s Timepieces, Flatiron District.

• No prints on cash paid for clocks, no serial number hits. No trace on money.

• Called from pay phones.

CRIME SCENE THREE

Location:

• 481 Spring Street.

Victim:

• Joanne Harper.

• No apparent motive.

• Didn’t know second victim, Adams.

Perp:

• Watchmaker.

• Assistant.

• Probably man spotted earlier by victim, at her shop.

• White, heavyset, in sunglasses, cream-colored parka and cap. Was driving the SUV.

M.O.:

• Picked locks to get inside.

• Intended method of attack unknown. Possibly planning to use florist’s wire.

Evidence:

• Fish protein came from Joanne’s (orchid fertilizer).

• Thallium sulfate nearby.

• Florist’s wire, cut in precise lengths. (To use as murder weapon?)

• Clock.

• Same as others. No nitrates.

• No trace.

• No note or poem.

• No footprints, fingerprints, weapons or anything else left behind.

• Black flakes—roofing tar.

• Checking ASTER thermal images of New York for possible sources.

Other:

• Perp was checking out victim earlier than attack. Targeting her for a purpose. What?

• Have police scanner. Changing frequency.

• Vehicle.

• Tan SUV.

• No tag number.

• Putting out Emergency Vehicle Locator.

• 423 owners of tan Explorers in area. Cross-reference against criminal warrants. Two found. One owner too old; other is in jail on drug charges.

BENJAMIN CREELEY HOMICIDE

• 56-year-old Creeley, apparently suicide by hanging. Clothesline. But had broken thumb, couldn’t tie noose.

• Computer-written suicide note about depression. But appeared not to be sucidally depressed, no history of mental/emotional problems.

• Around Thanksgiving two men broke into his house and possibly burned evidence. White men, but faces not observed. One bigger than other. They were inside for about an hour.

• Evidence in Westchester house:

• Broke through lock; skillful job.

• Leather texture marks on fireplace tools and Creeley’s desk.

• Soil in front of fireplace has higher acid content than soil around house and contains pollutants. From industrial site?

• Traces of burned cocaine in fireplace.

• Ash in fireplace.

• Financial records, spreadsheet, references to millions of dollars.

• Checking logo on documents, sending entries to forensic accountant.

• Diary re: getting oil changed, haircut appointment and going to St. James Tavern.

• St. James Tavern

• Creeley came here several times.

• Apparently didn’t use drugs while here.

• Not sure whom he met with, but maybe cops from the nearby 118th Precinct of the NYPD.

• Last time he was here—just before his death—he got into an argument with persons unknown.

• Checked money from officers at St. James—serial numbers are clean, but found coke and heroin. Stolen from precinct?

• Not much drugs missing, only 6 or 7 oz. of pot, 4 of coke.

• Unusually few organized crime cases at the 118th Precinct but no evidence of intentional stalling by officers.

• Two gangs in the East Village possible but not likely suspects.

• Interview with Jordan Kessler, Creeley’s partner, and follow-up with wife.

• Confirmed no obvious drug use.

• Didn’t appear to associate with criminals.

• Drinking more than usual, taken up gambling; trips to Vegas and Atlantic City. Losses were large, but not significant to Creeley.

• Not clear why he was depressed.

• Kessler didn’t recognize burned records.

• Awaiting list of clients.

• Kessler doesn’t appear to gain by Creeley’s death.

• Sachs and Pulaski followed by AMG Mercedes.

FRANK SARKOWSKI HOMICIDE

• Sarkowski was 57 years old, no police record, murdered on November 4 of this year, survived by wife and two teenage children.

• Victim owned building and business in Manhattan. Business was doing maintenance for other companies and utilities.

• Art Snyder was case detective.

• No suspects.

• Murder/robbery?

• Business deal went bad?

• Killed in Queens—not sure why he was there.

• File and evidence missing.

• No known connection with Creeley.

• No criminal record—Sarkowski or company.

Chapter 15

The bungalow was in Long Island City, that portion of Queens just over the East River from Manhattan and Roosevelt Island.

Christmas decorations—plenty of them—were perfectly arranged in the yard, the sidewalk perfectly cleared of ice and snow, the Camry in the driveway perfectly clean, despite the recent snow. Window frames were being scraped for a new coat of paint, and a stack of bricks sat destined for a new path or patio.

This was the house of a man with newly acquired free time.

Amelia Sachs hit the doorbell.

The front door opened a few seconds later and a solid man in his late fifties squinted up at her. He was in a green velour running suit.

“Detective Snyder?” Sachs was careful to use his former title. Being polite gets you further than a gun, her father used to say.

“Yeah, come on in. You’re Amelia, right?”

Last name versus first name. You always choose which battles you want to fight. She smiled, shook his hand and followed him inside. Cold streetlight bled inside and the living room was unfriendly and chill. Sachs smelled damp smoke from the fireplace, as well as the scent of cat. She pulled off her jacket and sat on a wheezing sofa. It was clear that the Barcalounger, beside which were three remote controls, was the king’s throne.

“The wife’s out,” he announced. A squint. “You Herman Sachs’s girl?”

Girl . . .

“That’s right. Did you work with him?”

“Some, yeah. BK and a couple assignments in Manhattan. Good guy. Heard the retirement party was a blast. Went on all night. You want a soda or water or anything? No booze, sorry.” He said this with a certain tone in his voice, which—along with the cluster of veins in his nose—told her that, like a lot of cops of a certain age, he’d had a problem with the bottle. And was now in recovery. Good for him.

“Nothing for me, thanks . . . just have a few questions. You were case detective on a robbery/homicide just before you retired. Name was Frank Sarkowski.”

Eyes sweeping the carpet. “Yeah, remember him. Some businessman. Got shot in a mugging or something.”

“I wanted to see the file. But it’s gone. The evidence too.”

“No file?” Snyder shrugged, a little surprised. Not too much. “Records room at the house . . . always a mess.”

“I need to find out what happened.”

“Geez, I don’t remember much.” Snyder scratched the back of his muscular hand, flaking with eczema. “You know, one of those cases. No leads at all . . . I mean zip. After a week you kind of forget about ’em. You musta run some of those.”

The question was almost a taunt, a comment on the fact that she obviously hadn’t been a detective for long and probably hadn’t run many of those sorts of cases. Or any other, for that matter.

She didn’t respond. “Tell me what you remember.”

“Found him in this vacant lot, lying by his car. No money, no wallet. The piece was nearby.”

“What was it?”

“A cold Smittie knockoff. Was wiped clean—no prints.”

Interesting. Cold meant no serial numbers. The bad guys bought them on the street when they wanted an untraceable weapon. You could never completely obliterate the numbers of a stamped gun—which was a requirement for all U.S. manufacturers—but some foreign weapon companies didn’t put serial numbers on their products. They were what professional killers used and often left behind at crime scenes.

“Snitches hear anything afterward?”

Many homicides were solved because the killer made the mistake of bragging about his prowess at a robbery and exaggerating what he’d stolen. Word often got back to snitches, who’d dime the guy out for a favor from the cops.

“Nothing.”

“Where was the vacant lot?”

“By the canal. You know those big tanks?”

“The natural gas tanks?”

“Yeah.”

“What was he doing there?”

Snyder shrugged. “No idea. He had this maintenance company. I think one of his clients was out there, and he was checking on them or something.”

“Crime Scene find anything solid? Trace? Fingerprints? Footprints?”

“Nothing jumped out at us.” His rheumy eyes kept examining her. He seemed a little bewildered. He might be thinking, So this is the new generation NYPD. Glad I got out when I did.

“Were you convinced everything was what it seemed to be? A robbery that went bad.”

He hesitated. “Pretty convinced.”

“But not totally convinced?”

“I guess it coulda been a clip.”

“Pro?”

Snyder shrugged. “I mean, there’s nobody around. You’ve gotta walk a half mile just to get to a residential street. It’s all factories and things. Kids just don’t hang there. There’s no reason to. I was thinking the shooter took the wallet and money to make it look like a mugging. And leaving the gun behind—that smelled like a hit to me.”

“But no connection to the mob?”

“Not that I found. But one of his employees told me he’d just had some business deal fall through. Lost a lot of money. I followed up but it didn’t lead anywhere.”

So Sarkowski—maybe Creeley too—might’ve been working with some OC crew: drugs or money laundering. It went south and they killed him. That would explain the Mercedes tail—some capos or soldiers were checking up on her investigation—and the cops at the 118 were running interference for the crew.

“The name Benjamin Creeley come up in your investigation?”

He shook his head.

“Did you know that the vic—Sarkowski—used to hang at the St. James?”

“The St. James . . . Wait, that bar in Alphabet City? Around the corner from . . .” His voice faded.

“That’s right. The One One Eight.”

Snyder was troubled. “I didn’t know that. No.”

“Well, he did. Funny that a guy who lived on the West Side and worked in Midtown would hang out in a dive way over there. You know anything about that?”

“Naw. Not a single thing.” He looked around the room sullenly. “But if you’re asking me if anybody at the One One Eight came to me and said bury the Sarkowski case, they didn’t. We ran it by the book and got on to other shit.”

She looked him in the eye. “What do you know about the One One Eight?”

He picked up one of the remotes, played with it, put it back down.

“Did I mention something?” Sachs said.

“What?” he asked glumly. She noticed his eyes flick to an empty breakfront. She could see rings on the wood, where the bottles had been.

“I’ve got a shitty memory,” she told him.

“Memory?”

“I can hardly remember my name.”

Snyder was confused. “A kid like you?”

“Oh, you bet,” she said with a laugh. “The minute I walk out your front door I’ll forget I was even here. Forget your name, your face. Gone completely. Funny how that works.”

He got the message. Still, he shook his head. “Why’re you doing this?” he asked in a whisper. “You’re young. You gotta learn—about some things it’s better just to let sleeping dogs lie.”

“But what if they’re not sleeping?” she asked, leaning forward. “I got two widows and I got kids without their dads.”

“Two?”

“Creeley, that guy I mentioned. Went to the same bar as Sarkowski. Looks like they knew people from the One One Eight. And they’re both dead.”

Snyder stared at the flatscreen TV. It was impressive.

She asked, “So what do you hear?”

He was studying the floor, seemed to notice some stains. Maybe he’d add replacing the carpet to his list of household projects. Finally: “Rumors. But that’s it. I’m being straight with you. I don’t know names. I don’t know anything specific.”

Sachs nodded reassuringly. “Rumors’ll do.”

“Some scratch was floating around. That’s all.”

“Money? How much?”

“Could be tall paper. I mean, serious. Or could be walking-around change.”

“Go on.”

“I don’t know any details. It’s like you’re on the street doing your job and somebody says something to a guy you’re standing next to and it doesn’t quite, you know, register but then you get the idea.”

“You remember names?”

“No, no. This was a while ago. Just, there might be some money. I don’t know how it got paid. Or how much. Or to who. All’s I heard was the person putting it together, they had something to do with Maryland. That’s where all the money goes.”

“Anywhere specific? Baltimore? The Shore?”

“Nope.”

Sachs considered this, wondering what the scenario might’ve been. Did Creeley or Sarkowski have a house in Maryland, maybe on the water—Ocean City or Rehobeth? Did some of the cops at the One One Eight? Or was it the Baltimore syndicate? That made sense; it explained why they couldn’t find any leads to a Manhattan, Brooklyn or Jersey crew.

She asked, “I want to see the Sarkowski file. Can you point me in any direction?”

Snyder hesitated. “I’ll make some calls.”

“Thanks.”

Sachs rose.

“Wait,” Snyder said. “Lemme say one thing. I called you a kid. Okay, shouldn’t’ve said that. You got balls, you don’t back down, you’re smart. Anybody can see that. But you ain’t been around long in this business. You gotta understand that what you’re thinking about the One One Eight. They’re not going to be clipping anybody. And even if something is going down, it’s not going to be black-and-white. You gotta ask yourself, What the fuck difference does it make? A few dollars here or there? Sometimes a bad cop saves a baby’s life. And sometimes a good cop takes something he shouldn’t. That’s life on the streets.” He gave her a perplexed frown. “I mean, Christ, you of all people oughta know that.”

“Me?”

“Well, sure.” He looked her up and down. “The Sixteenth Avenue Club.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Oh, I’ll bet you do.”

And he told her all about it.

Dennis Baker was saying to Rhyme, “I hear she’s a great shot.”

The lab was male only at the moment; Kathryn Dance had returned to the hotel to check in once again and Amelia was out on the Other Case. Pulaski, Cooper and Sellitto were here, along with Jackson the dog.

Rhyme explained about Sachs’s pistol club and the competitions she was in. Proudly he told Baker that she was very close to being the top handgun shot in the metro league. She’d be competing soon and was hoping to make the number-one slot.

Baker nodded. “Looks like she’s in as good shape as most of the rookies just out of the academy.” He patted his belly. “I should be working out more myself.”

Ironically, wheelchair-bound Rhyme was himself doing more exercising now than before the accident. He used a powered bicycle—an ergometer—and a computerized treadmill daily. He also did aqua therapy several times a week. This regimen served two purposes. It was intended to keep his muscle mass solid for the day when, as he believed, he would walk again. The exercises were also moving him further toward that goal by improving the nerve function in the damaged parts of his body. In the past few years he’d regained functions that doctors had told him he’d never again have.

But Rhyme sensed that Baker wasn’t particularly interested in Sachs’s Bowflex routines—a deduction confirmed when the man asked his next question. “I heard that you guys’re . . . going out.”

Amelia Sachs was a lantern that attracted many moths and Rhyme wasn’t surprised that the detective was checking out the availability of the flame. He laughed at the detective’s quaint term. Going out. He said, “You could put it that way.”

“Must be tough.” Then Baker blinked. “Wait, I didn’t mean what you think.”

Rhyme, though, had a pretty good idea what the detective was saying. He wasn’t referring to a relationship between a crip and somebody who was mobile—Baker seemed hardly to notice Rhyme’s condition. No, he was referring to a very different potential conflict. “Two cops, you meant.”

The Other Case versus His Case.

Baker nodded. “Dated an FBI agent once. She and I had jurisdictional issues.”

Rhyme laughed. “That’s a good way to put it. Of course, my ex wasn’t a cop and we had a pretty rough time too. Blaine had a great fastball. I lost some nice lamps. And a Bausch & Lomb microscope. Probably shouldn’t’ve brought it home. . . . Well, having it at home was okay; I shouldn’t’ve had it on the nightstand in the bedroom.”

“I’m not gonna make jokes about microscopes in the bedroom,” Sellitto called from across the room.

“Sounds like you just did, if you ask me,” Rhyme replied.

Deflecting Baker’s small talk, Rhyme wheeled over to Pulaski and Cooper, who were trying to lift prints from the spool from the florist shop, on Rhyme’s hope that the Watchmaker couldn’t undo the green metallic wire with gloves on and had used his bare hands. But they were having no success.

Rhyme heard the door open and a moment later Sachs walked into the lab, pulled off her leather jacket and tossed it distractedly on a chair. She wasn’t smiling. She nodded a greeting to the team and then asked Rhyme, “Any breaks?”

“Nothing yet, no. Some more strikes on the EVL but they didn’t play out. No ASTER information either.”

Sachs stared at the chart. But it seemed to Rhyme that she was seeing none of the words. Turning to the rookie, she said, “Ron, the detective on the Sarkowski case told me he heard rumors about money going to our One One Eight friends at the St. James. He thinks there’s a Maryland connection. We find it, we find the money and probably the names of some people involved. I’m thinking it’s a Baltimore OC hook.”

“Organized crime?”

“Unless you went to a different academy than me, that’s what OC means.”

“Sorry.”

“Make some calls. Find out if anybody from a Baltimore crew’s been operating in New York. And find out if Creeley, Sarkowski or anybody from the One One Eight has a place there or does a lot of business in Maryland.”

“I’ll stop by the precinct and—”

“No, just call. Make it anonymous.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do it in person? I could—”

“The better thing,” Sachs said harshly, “is to do what I’m telling you.”

“Okay.” He raised his hands in surrender.

Sellitto said, “Hey, some of your good humor’s rubbing off on the troops, Linc.”

Sachs’s mouth tightened. Then she relented. “It’ll be safer that way, Ron.”

It was a Lincoln Rhyme apology, that is to say, not much of one at all, but Pulaski accepted it. “Sure.”

She looked away from the whiteboards. “Need to talk to you, Rhyme. Alone.” A glance at Baker. “You mind?”

He shook his head. “Not at all. I’ve got some other cases to check on.” He pulled on his coat. “I’ll be downtown if you need me.”

“So?” Rhyme asked her in a soft voice.

“Upstairs. Alone.”

Rhyme nodded. “All right.” What was going on here?

Sachs and Rhyme took the tiny elevator to the second floor and he wheeled into the bedroom, Sachs behind him.

Upstairs, she sat down at a computer terminal, began typing furiously.

“What’s up?” Rhyme asked.

“Give me a minute.” She was scrolling through documents.

Rhyme observed two things about her: Her hand had been digging into her scalp and her thumb was bloody from the wounding. The other was that he believed she’d been crying. Which had happened only two or three times in all the time they’d known each other.

She typed harder, pages rolled past, almost too fast to read.

He was impatient. He was concerned. Finally he had to say firmly, “Tell me, Sachs.”

She was staring at the screen, shaking her head. Then turned to him. “My father . . . he was crooked.” Her voice choked.

Rhyme wheeled closer, as her eyes returned to the documents on the screen. They were newspaper stories, he could see.

Her legs bounced with tension. “He was on the take,” she whispered.

“Impossible.” Rhyme hadn’t known Herman Sachs, who had died of cancer before he and Sachs met. He’d been a portable, a beat cop, all his life (a fact that had given Sachs her nickname when she was working in Patrol—“the Portable’s Daughter”). Herman had cop blood in his veins—his father, Heinrich Sachs, had come over from Germany in 1937, immigrating with his fiancée’s father, a Berlin police detective. After becoming a citizen, Heinrich joined the NYPD.

The thought that anyone in the Sachs line could be corrupt was unthinkable to Rhyme.

“I just talked to a detective on the St. James case. He worked with Dad. There was a scandal in the late seventies. Extortion, bribes, even some assaults. A dozen or so uniforms and detectives got collared. They were known as the Sixteenth Avenue Club.”

“Sure. I read about it.”

“I was a baby then.” Her voice quaked. “I never heard about it, even after I joined the force. Mother and Pop never mentioned it. But he was with them.”

“Sachs, I just can’t believe it. You ask your mother?”

The detective nodded. “She said it was nothing. Some of the uniforms who got busted just started to name names to cut deals with the prosecutor.”

“That happens in IAD situations. All the time. Everybody dimes out everybody else, even innocents. Then it gets sorted out. That’s all there was to it.”

“No, Rhyme. That isn’t all. I stopped at the Internal Affairs records room and tracked down the file. Pop was guilty. Two of the cops who were part of the scam swore out affidavits about seeing him put the finger on shopkeepers and protecting numbers runners, even losing files and evidence in some big cases against the Brooklyn crews.”

“Hearsay.”

“Evidence,” she snapped. “They had evidence. His prints on the buy money. And on some unregistered guns he was hiding in his garage.” She whispered, “Ballistics traced one to an attempted hit a year before. My dad was stashing a hot weapon, Rhyme. It’s all in the file. I saw the print examiner’s report. I saw the prints.”

Rhyme fell silent. Finally he asked, “Then how’d he get off?”

She gave a bitter laugh. “Here’s the joke, Rhyme. Crime Scene fucked up the search. The chain-of-custody cards weren’t filled out right, and his lawyer at the hearing excluded the evidence.”

Chain-of-custody cards exist so that evidence can’t be doctored or unintentionally altered to increase the chances a suspect will be convicted. But there was no way that tampering had occurred in Herman Sachs’s case; it’s virtually impossible to get fingerprints on evidence unless the suspect himself actually touches it. Still, the rules have to be applied evenly and if the COC cards aren’t filled out or are wrong, the evidence will almost always be excluded.

“Then . . . there were pictures of him with Tony Gallante.”

A senior organized crime capo from Bay Ridge.

“Your father and Gallante?”

“They were having dinner together, Rhyme. I called a cop that Pop used to work with, Joe Knox—he was in the Sixteenth Avenue Club too. Got busted. I asked him about Dad, point-blank. He didn’t want to say anything at first. He was pretty shaken up I’d called but finally he admitted it was true. Dad and Knox and a couple others put the finger on store owners and contractors for over a year. They ditched evidence, they even threatened to beat up people who complained.

“They thought Pop was going down big-time but, with the screwup, he got off. They called him the ‘fish that got away.’”

Wiping tears, she continued to scroll through the computer files. She was reviewing official documents too—archives in the NYPD that Rhyme had access to because of the work he did for the department. He wheeled close, so close he could smell her scented soap. She said, “Twelve officers in the Sixteenth Avenue Club were indicted. Internal Affairs knew about three others but they couldn’t make the case because of evidence problems. He was one of those three,” Sachs said. “Jesus. The fish that got away . . .”

She slumped in a chair, her finger disappearing into her hair and scraping. She realized she was doing it and dropped her hand into her lap. There was fresh blood on the nail.

“When that thing with Nick happened,” Sachs began. Another deep breath. “When that happened, all I could think was, there’s nothing worse than a crooked cop. Nothing. . . . And now I find out my father was one.”

“Sachs . . . “Rhyme felt painful frustration at not being able to lift his arm and place his hand on hers, to try to take some of the terrible sting away. He felt a burst of anger at this impotence.

“They took bribes to destroy evidence, Rhyme. You know what that means. How many perps ended up going free because of what they did?” She turned back to the computer. “How many shooters got off? How many innocent people’re dead because of my father? How many?”

Chapter 16

Vincent’s hunger was returning, as thick and heavy as a tide, and he couldn’t stop staring at the women on the street.

His mental violations made him even hungrier.

Here was a blonde with short hair, carrying a shopping bag. Vincent could imagine his hands cupping her head as he lay on top of her.

And here was a brunette, her hair long like Sally Anne’s, dangling from underneath her stocking cap. He could almost feel the quivering of her muscles as his hand pressed into the small of her back.

Here, another blonde, in a suit, carrying a briefcase. He wondered if she’d scream or cry. He bet she was a screamer.

Gerald Duncan was now driving the Band-Aid-mobile, maneuvering it down an alley and then back to a main street, heading north.

“No more transmissions.” The killer nodded at the police scanner, from which was clattering only routine calls and more traffic information. “They’ve changed the frequency.”

“Should I try to find the new one?”

“They’ll be scrambling it. I’m surprised they weren’t from the beginning.”

Vincent saw another brunette—oh, she’s nice—walking out of a Starbucks. She was wearing boots. Vincent liked boots.

How long could he wait? he wondered.

Not very long. Maybe until tonight, maybe until tomorrow. When he’d met Duncan, the killer told him he’d have to give up having his heart-to-hearts until they started on their “project.” Vincent had agreed—why not? The Watchmaker told him there would be five women among his victims. Two were older, middle-aged, but he could have them too if he was interested (it’s a chore but somebody’s got to do it, Clever Vincent quipped to himself).

So he’d been abstaining.

Duncan shook his head. “I’ve been trying to figure out how they knew it was we.”

We? He did talk funny sometimes.

“You have any idea?”

“Nope,” Vincent offered.

Duncan still wasn’t angry, which surprised Vincent. Vincent’s stepfather had screamed and shouted when he was mad, like after the Sally Anne incident. And Vincent himself would grow enraged when one of his ladies fought back and hurt him. But not Duncan. He said anger was inefficient. You had to look at the great scheme of things, he’d say. There was always a grand plan, and little setbacks were insignificant, not worth wasting your energy on. “It’s like time. The centuries and millennia are what matter. With humans, it’s the same thing. A single life is nothing. It’s the generations that count.”

Vincent supposed he agreed, though as far as he was concerned, every heart-to-heart was important; he didn’t want to miss a chance for a single one. And so he asked, “Are we going to try again? With Joanne?”

“Not now,” the killer replied. “They might have a guard with her. And even if we’re able to get to her they’d realize I wanted her dead for a reason. It’s important that they think these are just random victims. What we’ll do now is—”

He stopped talking. He was looking in the rearview mirror.

“What?”

“Cops. A police car came out of a side street. It started to turn one way but then turned toward us.”

Vincent looked over his shoulder. He could see the white car with a light bar on top about a block behind them. It seemed to be accelerating quickly.

“I think he’s after us.”

Duncan turned quickly down a narrow street and sped up. At the next intersection he turned south. “What do you see?”

“I don’t think. . . . Wait. There he is. He’s after us. Definitely.”

“That street there—up a block. On the right. You know it? Does it go through to the West Side Highway?”

“Yeah. Take it.” Vincent felt his palms sweating.

Duncan turned and sped down the one-way street, then turned left onto the highway, heading south.

“In front of us? What’s that? Flashing lights?”

“Yep.” Vincent could clearly see them. Heading their way. His voice rose. “What’re we going to do?”

“Whatever we have to,” Duncan said, calmly turning the wheel precisely and making an impossible turn seem effortless.

Lincoln Rhyme struggled to tune out the droning of Sellitto on his cell phone. He also tuned out the rookie, Ron Pulaski, making calls about Baltimore mobsters.

Tuning it all out so he could let something else into his thoughts.

He wasn’t sure what. A vague memory kept nagging.

A person’s name, an incident, a place. He couldn’t say. But it was something he knew was important, vital.

What?

He closed his eyes and swerved close to the thought. But it got away.

Ephemeral, like the puff balls he would chase when he was a boy in the Midwest, outside of Chicago, running through fields, running, running. Lincoln Rhyme had loved to run, loved to catch puff balls and the whirlygig seeds that spiraled from trees like descending helicopters. Loved to chase dragonflies and moths and bees.

To study them, to learn about them. Lincoln Rhyme was born with a fierce curiosity, a scientist even then.

Running . . . breathless.

And now the immobilized man was also running, trying to grasp a different sort of elusive seed. And even though the pursuit was in his mind only, it was no less strenuous and intense than the footraces of his youth.

There . . . there . . .

Almost have it.

No, not quite.

Hell.

Don’t think, don’t force. Let it in.

His mind sped through memories whole and memories fragmented, the way his feet would pound over fragrant grass and hot earth, through rustling reeds and cornfields, under massive thunderheads boiling up miles high and white in the blue sky.

A thousand images from homicides, and kidnappings and larcenies, crime scene photos, department memos and reports, evidence inventories, the art captured in microscope eyepieces, the mountain peaks and valleys on the screen of a gas chromatograph. Like so many whirlygigs and puff balls and grasshoppers and katydids and robin feathers.

Okay, close . . . close . . .

Then his eyes opened.

“Luponte,” he whispered.

Satisfaction filled the body that could feel no sensation.

Rhyme wasn’t sure but he believed there was something significant about the name Luponte.

“I need a file.” Rhyme glanced at Sellitto, who was now sitting at a computer monitor, examining the screen. “A file!”

The big detective looked over at him. “Are you talking to me?”

“Yes, I’m talking to you.”

Sellitto chuckled. “A file? Do I have it?”

“No. I need you to find it.”

“About what? A case?”

“I think so. I don’t know when. All I know is the name Luponte figures.” He spelled it. “Was a while ago.”

“The perp?”

“Maybe. Or maybe a witness, maybe an arresting or a supervisor. Or even brass. I don’t know.”

Luponte . . .

Sellitto said, “You’re looking like the cat that got the cream.”

Rhyme frowned. “Is that an expression?”

“I don’t know. I just like the sound of it. Okay, the Luponte file. I’ll make some calls. Is it important?”

“With a psychotic killer out there, Lon, do you think I’m going to have you waste time finding me something that’s not important?”

A fax arrived.

“Our ASTER thermal images?” Rhyme asked eagerly.

“No. It’s for Amelia,” Cooper said. “Where is she?”

“Upstairs.”

Rhyme was about to call her but just then she walked into the lab. Her face was dry and no longer red, her eyes clear. She rarely wore makeup but he wondered if she’d made an exception to hide the fact she’d been crying.

“For you,” Cooper told her, looking over the fax. “Secondary analysis of the ash from what’s-his-name’s place.”

“Creeley.”

The tech said, “The lab finally imaged the logo that was on the spreadsheet. It’s from software that’s used in corporate accounting. Nothing unusual. It’s sold to thousands of CPAs around the country.”

She shrugged, taking the sheet and reading. “And Queens had a forensic accountant look over the recovered entries. It’s just standard payroll and compensation figures for executives in some company. Nothing unusual about it.” She shook her head. “Doesn’t seem important. I’m guessing whoever broke in just burned whatever they could find to make sure they destroyed everything connecting them to Creeley.”

Rhyme looked at her troubled eyes. He said, “It’s also common practice to burn materials that have nothing to do with the case just to lead investigators off.”

Sachs nodded. “Yeah, sure. Good point, Rhyme. Thanks.”

Her phone rang.

The policewoman listened, frowning. “Where?” she asked. “Okay.” She jotted some notes. “I’ll be right there.” She said to Pulaski, “May have a lead to the Sarkowski file. I’ll check it out.”

Uneasily he asked, “You want me to go with you?”

Calmer now, she smiled, though Rhyme could see it was forced. “No, you stay here, Ron. Thanks.”

She grabbed her jacket and, without saying anything else, hurried out.

As the front door clicked shut behind her, Sellitto’s phone rang. He tensed as he listened. Then he looked up, announced, “Get this. There was a hit on the EVL. Tan Explorer, two white males inside. Evading an RMP. They’re in pursuit.” He listened some more. “Got it.” He hung up. “They followed it to that big garage on the river at Houston by the West Side Highway. Exits’re sealed. This could be it.”

Rhyme ordered his radio to pick up the scrambled transmissions, and everyone in the lab stared at the small black plastic speakers. Two patrol officers reported that the Explorer had been spotted on the second floor but was abandoned. There was no sign of the men who’d been inside.

“I know the garage,” Sellitto said. “It’s a sieve. They could’ve gotten out anywhere.”

Bo Haumann and a lieutenant reported that they had squads combing the streets around the garage, but there was no sign yet of the Watchmaker or his partner.

Sellitto shook his head in frustration. “At least we’ve got their wheels. It’ll tell us plenty. We should get Amelia back to run the scene.”

Rhyme debated. He’d been anticipating that the conflict between the two cases might come to a head, though he’d never thought it would happen this fast.

Sure, they should get her back.

But the criminalist decided not to. He knew her perhaps even better than he knew himself and he understood that she needed to run with the St. James case.

There’s nothing worse than a crooked cop. . . .

He’d do this for her.

“No. Let her go.”

“But, Linc—”

“We’ll find somebody else.”

The tense silence, which seemed to go on forever, was broken with: “I’ll do it, sir.”

Rhyme glanced to his right.

“You, Ron?”

“Yessir. I can handle it.”

“I don’t think so.”

The rookie looked him in the eye and recited, “‘It’s important to note that the location where the victim’s corpse is actually found is often the least important of the many crime scenes created when a homicide occurs—since it is there that conscientious perpetrators will cleanse the scene of trace and plant false evidence to lead off investigators. The more important—’”

“That’s—”

“Your textbook, sir. I’ve read it. A couple of times, actually.”

“You memorized it?”

“Just the important parts.”

“What’s not important?”

“I meant I memorized the specific rules.”

Rhyme debated. He was young, inexperienced. But he at least knew the players and he had a sharp eye. “All right, Ron. But you don’t take a single step into the scene unless we’re online with each other.”

“That’s fine, sir.”

“Oh, it’s fine?” Rhyme asked wryly. “Thanks for your approval, rookie. Now, get going.”

They were out of breath from the run.

Duncan and Vincent, both carrying large canvas bags containing the contents of the Band-Aid-mobile, slowed to a walk at a park near the Hudson River. They were two blocks from the garage where they’d abandoned the SUV in their flight from the cops.

So wearing the gloves—which Vincent had first thought of as way too paranoid—had paid off after all.

Vincent looked back. “They’re not following. They didn’t see us.”

Duncan leaned against a sapling, hawked and spit into the grass. Vincent pressed his chest, which ached from the run. Steam flowed from their mouths and noses. The killer still wasn’t angry but was even more curious than before. “The Explorer too. They knew about the car. I don’t understand it. How did they know? And who’s after us? . . . That red-haired policewoman I saw on Cedar Street—maybe it’s she.”

She . . .

Then Duncan looked down at his side and frowned. The canvas bag was open. “Oh, no,” he whispered.

“What?”

The killer dropped to his knees and began to rummage through it. “Some things’re missing. The book and ammunition are still in the car.”

“Nothing with our names on it. Or fingerprints, right?”

“No. They won’t identify us.” He glanced at Vincent. “All your food wrappers and the cans? You wore gloves, right?”

Vincent lived in terror of disappointing his friend and was always careful. He nodded.

Duncan looked back at the garage. “But still . . . every bit of evidence they get is like finding another gear from a watch. With enough of them, if you’re smart, you can understand how it works. You can even figure out who made it.” He pulled his jacket off, handed it to Vincent. He wore a gray sweatshirt underneath. He took a baseball cap out of the bag and pulled it on.

“Meet me back at the church. Go straight there. Don’t stop for anything.”

Vincent whispered, “What’re you going to do?”

“The garage’s dark and it’s big. They won’t have enough cops to cover it all. And that side door we used, it’s almost impossible to see from outside. They might not have anybody stationed there. . . . If we’re lucky they might not’ve found the Explorer yet. I’ll get the things we left.”

He took out the box cutter and slipped it into his sock. Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out his small pistol and checked to make sure it was loaded. He replaced it.

Vincent asked, “But what if they have? Found it, I mean.”

In his calm voice Duncan answered, “Depending, I may try to get them anyway.”

Chapter 17

Ron Pulaski didn’t believe he’d ever felt pressure like this, standing in the freezing-cold garage, staring at the tan Explorer, brilliantly lit by spotlights.

He was alone. Lon Sellitto and Bo Haumann—two legends in the NYPD—were at the command post, downstairs from this level. Two crime scene techs had set up the lights, thrust suitcases into his hands and left, wishing him good luck in what seemed like a pretty ominous tone of voice.

He was dressed in a Tyvek suit, without a jacket, and he was shivering.

Come on, Jenny, he said silently to his wife, as he often did in moments of stress, think good thoughts for me. He added, though speaking only to himself, Let me not fuck this up, which is what he’d share with his brother.

Headsets sat on his ears and he was told he was being patched into a secure frequency directly to Lincoln Rhyme, though so far he’d heard nothing but static.

Then abruptly: “So what’ve you got?” Lincoln Rhyme’s voice snapped through the headsets.

Pulaski jumped. He turned the volume down. “Well, sir, there’s the SUV in front of me. Approximately twenty feet away. It’s parked in a pretty deserted part of the—”

“Pretty deserted. That’s like being fairly unique or kind of pregnant. Are there cars nearby or not?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“Six, sir. They range from ten to twenty feet away from the subject vehicle.”

“Don’t need the ‘sir.’ Save your breath for the important things.”

“Right.”

“Are the cars empty? Anybody hiding in them?”

“ESU cleared them.”

“Are the hoods hot?”

“Uhm, I don’t know. I’ll check.” Should’ve thought of that.

He touched them all—with the back of his hand, in case fingerprints might become an issue. “No. They’re all cold. Been here for a while.”

“Okay, so no witnesses. Any sign of recent tread marks heading toward the exit?”

“Nothing looks fresh, no. Other than the Explorer’s.”

Rhyme said, “So they probably didn’t have backup wheels. Which means they took off on foot. That’s better for us. . . . Now, Ron, take in the totality of the scene.”

“Chapter Three.”

“I wrote the fucking book. I don’t need to hear it again.”

“Okay, the totality—the car’s parked carelessly, across two lines.”

“They bailed out fast, of course,” Rhyme said. “They knew they were being followed. Any obvious footprints?”

“No. The floor’s dry.”

“Where’s the closest door?”

“A stairwell exit, twenty-five feet away.”

“Which’s been cleared by ESU?”

“That’s right.”

“What else about the totality?”

Pulaski stared, looking around him, three-sixty. It’s a garage. That’s all it is. . . . He squinted, willing himself to see something helpful. But there was nothing. Reluctantly he said, “I don’t know.”

“We never know in this business,” Rhyme said in an even voice, momentarily a gentle professor. “It’s all about the odds. What strikes you? Impressions. Just throw some out.”

Pulaski could think of nothing for a moment. But then something occurred to him. “Why’d they park here?”

“What?”

“You asked what struck me. Well, it’s weird they parked here, this far from the exit. Why not drive right to it? And why not try to hide the Explorer better?”

“Good point, Ron. I should’ve asked the question myself. What do you think? Why would they park there?”

“Maybe he panicked.”

“Could be. Good for us—nothing like fear to make somebody careless. We’ll think about it. Okay, now walk the grid to and from the exit and then around the car. Look underneath and on the roof. You know the grid?”

“Yes.” Swallowing the “sir.”

For the next twenty minutes Pulaski walked back and forth, examining the garage floor and ceiling around the car. He didn’t miss a millimeter. He smelled the air—and drew no conclusion from the exhaust/oil/disinfectant aroma of the garage. Troubled again, he told Rhyme that he hadn’t found anything. The criminalist gave no reaction and told Pulaski to search the Explorer itself.

They’d run the VIN and the tag numbers on the SUV and found that it actually had belonged to one of the men Sellitto had identified earlier but who’d been dismissed as a suspect because he was serving a year on Rikers Island for possession of cocaine. The Explorer had been confiscated because of the drugs, which meant that the Watchmaker had stolen it from a lot where it was awaiting sheriff’s auction—a clever idea, Rhyme reflected, since it often took weeks to log seizures into DMV and several months before vehicles actually went up for sale. The license plates themselves had been stolen from another tan Explorer parked at Newark Airport.

Now, with a curious, low tone in his voice, Rhyme said, “I love cars, Ron. They tell us so much. They’re like books.”

Pulaski remembered the pages of Rhyme’s text that echoed his comments. He didn’t quote them but said, “Sure, the VIN, the tags, bumper stickers, dealer stickers, inspection—”

A laugh. “If the owner’s the perp. But ours was stolen, so the Jiffy Lube location where he changed the oil or the fact he has an honor student at John Adams Middle School aren’t really helpful, now, are they?”

“Guess not.”

“Guess not,” Rhyme repeated. “What information can a stolen car tell us?”

“Well, fingerprints.”

“Very good. There’re so many things to touch in a car—the steering wheel, gearshift, heater, radio, hand grips, hundreds of them. And they’re such shiny surfaces. Thank you, Detroit. . . . Well, Tokyo or Hamburg or wherever. And another point: Most people consider cars their attaché cases and utility drawers—you know, those kitchen drawers that you throw everything into? Effluvia of personal effects. Almost like a diary where no one thinks to lie. Search for that first. The PE.”

Physical evidence, Pulaski recalled.

As the young cop bent forward he heard a scrape of metal from somewhere behind him. He jumped back and looked around, into the gloom of the garage. He knew Rhyme’s rule about searching crime scenes alone and so he’d sent all the backup away. The noise was just from a rat, maybe. Ice melting and falling. Then he heard a click. It reminded him of a ticking clock.

Get on with it, Pulaski told himself. Probably just the hot spotlights. Don’t be such a wuss. You wanted the job, remember?

He studied the front seats. “We’ve got crumbs. Lots of them.”

“Crumbs?”

“Junk food, mostly, I’d guess. Look like cookie crumbs, corn chips, potato chips, bits of chocolate. Some sticky stains. Soda, I’d say. Oh, wait, here’s something, under the backseat. . . . This’s good. A box of bullets.”

“What kind?”

“Remington. Thirty-two caliber.”

“What’s inside the box?”

“Uhm, well, bullets?”

“You sure?”

“I didn’t open it. Should I?”

The silence said yes.

“Yep. Bullets. Thirty-twos. But it’s not full.”

“How many’re missing?”

“Seven.”

“Ah. That’s helpful.”

“Why?”

“Later.”

“And get this—”

“Get what?” Rhyme snapped.

“Sorry. Something else. A book on interrogation. But it looks more like it’s about torture.”

“Torture?”

“That’s right.”

“Purchased? Library?”

“No sticker on it, no receipt inside, no library marks. And whosever it is, he’s been reading it a lot.”

“Well said, Ron. You’re not assuming it’s the perps’. Keep an open mind. Always keep an open mind.”

It wasn’t much praise but the young man enjoyed it.

Pulaski then rolled up trace from the floor and vacuumed it out from the space between and underneath the seats.

“I think I’ve got everything.”

“Glove compartment.”

“Checked it. Empty.”

“Pedals?”

“Scraped them. Not much trace.”

Rhyme asked, “Headrests?”

“Oh, didn’t get those.”

“Could be hair or lotion transfer.”

“People wear hats,” Pulaski pointed out.

Rhyme shot back, “On the remote chance that the Watchmaker isn’t a Sikh, nun, astronaut, sponge diver or somebody else with a head completely covered, humor me and check the headrests.”

“Will do.”

A moment later Pulaski found himself looking at a strand of gray-and-black hair. He confessed this to Rhyme. The criminalist didn’t play I-told-you-so. “Good,” he said. “Seal it in plastic. Now fingerprints. I’m dying to find out who our Watchmaker really is.”

Pulaski, sweating even in the freezing, damp air, labored for ten minutes with a Magna Brush, powders and sprays, alternative light sources and goggles.

When Rhyme asked impatiently, “How’s it going?” the rookie had to admit, “Actually, there are none.”

“You mean no whole prints. That’s okay. Partials’ll do.”

“No, I mean there’re none, sir. Anywhere. In the entire car.”

“Impossible.”

From Rhyme’s book Pulaski remembered that there were three types of prints—plastic, which are three-dimensional impressions, such as those in mud or clay; visible, which you can see with the naked eye; and latent, visible only with special equipment. You rarely find plastic prints, and visible are rare, but latents are common everywhere.

Except in the Watchmaker’s Explorer.

“Smears?”

“No.”

“This is crazy. They wouldn’t’ve had time to clean-wipe an entire car in five minutes. Do the outside, everything. Especially near the doors and the gas tank lid.”

With unsteady hands, Pulaski kept searching. Had he handled the Magna Brush clumsily? Had he sprayed the chemicals on the wrong way? Was he wearing the wrong goggles?

The terrible head injury he’d suffered not long ago was having lingering effects, including post-traumatic stress and panic attacks. He also suffered from a condition he’d explained to Jenny as “this real complicated, technical medical thing—fuzzy thinking.” It haunted him that, after the accident, he just wasn’t the same, that he was somehow damaged goods, no longer as smart as his brother, though they’d once had the same IQ. He particularly worried that he wasn’t as smart as the perps he was going up against in his jobs for Lincoln Rhyme.

But then he thought to himself: Time-out. You’re thinking it’s your screwup. Goddamn, you were top 5 percent at the academy. You know what you’re doing. You work twice as hard as most cops. He said, “I’m positive, Detective. Somehow they’ve managed not to leave any prints. . . . Wait, hold on.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Ron.”

Pulaski put on magnifying goggles. “Okay, got something. I’m looking at cotton fibers. Beige ones. Sort of flesh-colored.”

“Sort of,” Rhyme chided.

“Flesh-colored. From gloves, I’m betting.”

“So he and his assistant are careful and smart.” There was an uneasiness in Rhyme’s voice that troubled Pulaski. He didn’t like the idea that Lincoln Rhyme was uncomfortable. A chill trickled down his spine. He remembered the scraping sound. The clicking.

Tick, tock . . .

“Anything in the tire treads and the grille? On the sideview mirror?”

He searched there. “Mostly slush and soil.”

“Take samples.”

After he’d done this, Pulaski said, “Finished.”

“Snapshots and video—you know how?”

He did. Pulaski had been the photographer at his brother’s wedding.

“Then process the probable escape routes.”

Pulaski looked around him again. Was that another scraping, a footstep? Water was dripping. It too sounded like the ticking of a clock, which set him even more on edge. He started on the grid again, back and forth as he made his way toward the exit, looking up as well as down, the way Rhyme had written in his book.

A crime scene is three-dimensional. . . .

“Nothing so far.”

Another grunt from Rhyme.

Pulaski heard what sounded like a footstep.

His hand strayed to his hip. It was then that he realized his Glock was inside his Tyvek overalls, out of reach. Stupid. Should he unzip and strap it around the outside of the suit?

But if he did that, it could contaminate the scene.

Ron Pulaski decided to leave the gun where it was.

It’s just an old garage; of course there’re going to be noises. Relax.

The inscrutable moon faces on the front of the Watchmaker’s calling cards stared at Lincoln Rhyme.

The eerie eyes, giving nothing away.

The ticking was all that he heard; from the radio there was only silence. Then some curious sounds. Scrapes, a clatter. Or was it just static?

“Ron? You copy?”

Nothing but the tick . . . tick . . . tick.

“Ron?”

Then a crash, loud. Metal.

Rhyme’s head tilted. “Ron? What’s going on?”

Still no response.

He was about to order the unit to change frequency to tell Haumann to check on the rookie when the radio finally crackled to life.

He heard Ron Pulaski’s panicked voice. “ . . . needs assistance! Ten-thirteen, ten . . . I—”

A 10-13 was the most urgent of all radio codes, an officer in distress call.

Rhyme, shouting, “Answer me, Ron! Are you there?”

“I can’t—”

A grunt.

The radio went dead.

Jesus.

“Mel, call Haumann for me!”

The tech hit some buttons. “You’re on,” Cooper shouted, pointed to Rhyme’s headset.

“Bo, Rhyme. Pulaski’s in trouble. Called in a ten-thirteen on my line. Did you hear?”

“Negative. But we’ll move on it.”

“He was going to run the stairwell closest to the Explorer.”

“Roger.”

Now that he was on the main frequency, Rhyme could hear all the transmissions. Haumann was directing several tactical support teams and calling for a medical unit. He ordered his men to spread out in the garage and cover the exits.

Rhyme pressed his head back into the headrest of his chair, furious.

He was mad at Sachs for abandoning His Case for the Other Case and forcing Pulaski to take the assignment. He was mad at himself for letting an inexperienced rookie search a potentially hot scene alone.

“Linc, we’re on the way. We can’t see him.” It was Sellitto’s voice.

“Well, don’t goddamn tell me what you haven’t found.”

More voices.

“Nothing on this level.”

“There’s the SUV.”

“Where is he?”

“Somebody over there, our nine o’clock?”

“Negative. That’s a friendly.”

“More lights! We need more lights!”

Moment of silence passed. Hours, it felt.

What was going on?

Goddamn it, somebody let me know!

But there was no response to this tacit demand. He went back to Pulaski’s frequency.

“Ron?”

All he heard was a series of clicks, as if somebody whose throat had been cut was trying to communicate, though he no longer had a voice.

Chapter 18

“Hey, Amie. Gotta talk.”

“Sure.”

Sachs was driving to Hell’s Kitchen in Midtown Manhattan, on her quest for the Frank Sarkowski homicide file. But she wasn’t thinking about that. She was thinking of the clocks at the crime scenes. Thinking of time moving forward and time standing still. Thinking of the periods when we want time to race ahead and save us from the pain we’re experiencing. But it never does. It’s at these moments that time slows interminably, sometimes even stops like the heart of a death-row prisoner at the moment of execution.

“Gotta talk.”

Amelia Sachs was recalling a conversation from years earlier.

Nick says, “It’s pretty serious.” The two lovers are in Sachs’s Brooklyn apartment. She’s a rookie, in her uniform, her shoes polished to black mirrors. (Her father’s advice: “Shined shoes get you more respect than an ironed uniform, honey. Remember that.” And she had.)

Dark-haired, handsome, bulging-muscle Nick (he too could’ve been a model) is also a cop. More senior. Even more of a cowboy than Sachs is now. She sits on the coffee table, a nice one, teak, bought a year ago with the last of the fashion modeling money.

Nick was on an undercover assignment tonight. He’s in a sleeveless T-shirt and jeans and wearing his little gun—a revolver—on his hip. He needs a shave, though Sachs likes him scruffy. The plans for this evening were: He’d come home and they’d have a late supper. She’s got wine, candles, salad and salmon, all laid out, all homey.

On the other hand, Nick hasn’t been home nights for a while. So maybe they’ll eat dinner later.

Maybe they won’t eat at all.

But now something’s wrong. Something pretty serious.

Well, he’s standing in front of her, he’s not dead or wounded, shot down on an undercover set—the most dangerous assignment in copdom. He was going after crews jacking trucks. A lot of money was involved and that meant a lot of guns. Three of Nick’s close buddies have been with him tonight. She wonders, her heart sinking, if one of them was killed. She knows them all.

Or is it something else?

Is he breaking up with me?

Lousy, lousy . . . but at least it’s better than somebody getting capped in a shootout with a crew from East New York.

“Go on,” she says.

“Look, Amie.” It’s her father’s nickname for her. They are the only two men in the world she lets call her by the name. “The thing is—”

“Just tell me,” she says. Amelia Sachs delivers news straight. She expects the same.

“You’re going to hear it soon. I wanted to tell you first. I’m in trouble.”

She believes she understands. Nick’s a cowboy, always ready to pull out his MP-5 machine gun and exchange lead with a perp. Sachs, a better shot, at least with a pistol, is slow to squeeze the trigger. (Her father again: “You can’t take back bullets.”) She supposes that there’s been a firefight and that Nick has killed someone—maybe even an innocent. Okay. He’ll be suspended until the shooting review board meets to decide if it was justifiable.

Her heart goes out to him and she’s about to say that she’d be there for him, no matter what, we’ll get through it, when he adds, “I got busted.”

“You—”

“Sammy and me . . . Frank R too . . . the heists—the truck-jackings. We got nailed. In a big way.” His voice is shaking. She’s never known him to cry but it sounds like he’s a few seconds away from bawling his eyes out.

“You’re on the bag?” she gasps.

He stares at her green carpet. Finally a whisper: “Yeah . . .” Though now he’s started the confession, he doesn’t need to pull back. “But it’s worse.”

Worse? What could possibly be worse?

“We were the doers. We jacked the trucks ourselves.”

“You mean, tonight, you . . .” Her voice has stopped working.

“Oh, Amie, not just tonight. For a year. The whole fucking year. We had guys in warehouses tell us about shipments. We’d pull the trucks over and . . . Well, you get it. You don’t need to know the details.” He rubs his haggard face. “We just heard—they’ve issued warrants for us. Somebody dimed us out. They got us cold. Oh, man, did they get us.”

She’s thinking back to the nights he was out on a set, working undercover to collar hijackers. At least once a week.

“I got sucked in. I didn’t have any choice. . . .”

She doesn’t need to respond to this, to say, yes, yes, yes, my God, we always have choices. Amelia Sachs doesn’t offer excuses herself and she’s deaf to them from others. He understands this about her, of course, it’s part of their love.

It was part of their love.

And he stops trying. “I fucked up, Amie. I fucked up. I just came by to tell you.”

“You going to surrender?”

“I guess. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Fuck.”

Numb, there’s nothing she can think of to say, not a single thing. She’s thinking of their times together—the hours on the range, wasting pounds of ammo; in bars on Broadway, slogging down frozen daiquiris; lying in front of the old fireplace in her Brooklyn apartment.

“They’ll look into my life with a microscope, Amie. I’ll tell ’em you’re clean. I’ll try to keep you out of it. But they’ll ask you a lot of questions.”

She wants to ask why he did it. What reason could he possibly have? Nick’d grown up in Brooklyn, a typical good-looking, street-smart neighborhood kid. He’d run with a bad crowd for a while but had some sense smacked into him by his father and gave that up. Why had he slipped back? Was it the thrill? Was it the money? (That was something else he’d hidden from her, she realized now; where’d he been socking it away?)

Why?

But she doesn’t have the chance.

“I’ve got to go now. I’ll call you later. I love you.”

He kissed the top of her motionless head. Then out the door.

Thinking back to those endless moments, the endless night, time stopped, as she sat staring at the candles burning down to pools of maroon wax.

I’ll call you later. . . .

But no call ever came.

The double hit—his crime and the death of their relationship—took its toll; she decided to quit Patrol completely. Give it up for a desk job. It was only the chance meeting with Lincoln Rhyme that pulled her back from that decision and kept her in uniform. But the incident sealed within her an abiding repulsion for crooked police. It was something that was more horrific to her than lying politicians and cheating spouses and ruthless perps.

This was why nothing would stop her from finding out if the St. James crew was in fact a circle of bad cops from the 118th Precinct. And if so, nothing would stop her from bringing down the crooked officers and the OC crews working with them.

Her Camaro now skidded to the curb. Sachs tossed the NYPD parking identification card onto the Chevy’s dash and climbed out, slamming the door fiercely as if she were trying to close a hole that had opened between the present and this hard, hard past.

“Hell, that’s gross.”

In the upper floor of the parking garage where the Watchmaker’s SUV was found, the patrol officer who made this comment to his colleagues was looking down at the figure, lying on his belly.

“Man, you got that one right,” one of his buddies replied. “Jesus.”

Another offered the uncoplike declaration, “Yuck.”

Sellitto and Bo Haumann jogged up to the scene.

“Are you all right? Are you all right?” Sellitto shouted.

He was speaking to Ron Pulaski, who stood over the man on the ground, who was covered with pungent trash. The rookie, decorated with garbage himself, was gasping. Pulaski nodded. “Scared the hell out of me. But I’m fine. Man, he was pretty strong for a homeless guy.”

A medic ran up and rolled the attacker over on his back. Pulaski’d cuffed him and the metal bracelets jingled on his wrists. His eyes danced madly and his clothing was torn and filthy. The body stench was overwhelming. He’d recently urinated in his pants. (Hence, “gross” and “yuck.”)

“What happened?” Haumann asked Pulaski.

“I was searching the scene.” He pointed out the stairwell landing. “It appeared that the perpetrators made their exit through this locale. . . .”

Stop it, he reminded himself.

He tried again. “The perps ran up those stairs, I’m pretty sure, and I was searching up here, looking for footprints. Then I heard something and turned around. This guy was coming for me.” He pointed to a pipe the homeless guy had been carrying. “I couldn’t get my weapon out in time but I threw that trash can at him. We fought for a minute or two and I finally got him in a chokehold.”

“We don’t use those,” Haumann reminded.

“I meant to say I was successfully able to restrain him through self-defense methods.”

The tactical chief nodded. “Right.”

Pulaski found the headset and plugged it back in. He winced as a voice blasted into his ears: “For Christ’s sake, are you alive or dead? What’s going on?”

“Sorry, Detective Rhyme.”

Pulaski explained what had happened.

“You’re all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Good,” the criminalist said. “Now, tell me why the fuck your weapon was inside your overalls.”

“An oversight, sir. Won’t happen again, sir.”

“Oh, it better not. What’s the number-one rule on a hot scene?”

“A hot—”

“A hot scene—where the perp might still be around. The rule is: Search well but watch your back. Got it?”

“Yessir.”

“So the escape route’s contaminated,” Rhyme grumbled.

“Well, it’s just covered with garbage.”

“Garbage,” was Rhyme’s exasperated response. “Then I guess you better start cleaning it up. I want all the evidence here in twenty minutes. Every bit. You think you can do that?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll—”

Rhyme disconnected abruptly.

As two ESU officers pulled on latex gloves and carted off the homeless guy, Pulaski bent down and started to remove the trash. He was trying to recall what there was about Rhyme’s tone that sounded familiar. Finally it occurred to him. It was the very same mix of anger and relief when Pulaski’s father had a “discussion” with his twin sons after he’d caught them having a footrace on the elevated train tracks near their home.

Like a spy.

Standing on a street corner in Hell’s Kitchen, retired detective Art Snyder was in a trench coat and old alpine hat with a small feather in it, looking like a has-been foreign agent from a John le Carré novel.

Amelia Sachs walked up to him.

Snyder acknowledged her with only a brief glance and, after looking around the streets, turned and started walking west, away from bustling Times Square.

“Thanks for the call.”

Snyder shrugged.

“Where’re we going?” she asked.

“I’m meeting a buddy of mine. We play pool up the street here every week. I didn’t want to talk on the phone.”

Spies . . .

An emaciated man with slicked-back yellow hair—not blond, but yellow—hit them up for some change. Snyder looked at him closely and then handed over a dollar. The man walked on, saying thanks, but grudgingly, as if he’d been expecting a five.

They were walking through a dim part of the street when Sachs felt something brush her thigh, twice, and she wondered for a moment if the retiree was coming on to her. Glancing down, though, she saw a folded piece of paper that he was subtly passing to her.

She took it and when they were under a streetlight, she looked it over.

The sheet was a photocopy of a page from a binder or book.

Snyder leaned close, whispered, “This’s a page from the file log. At the One Three One.”

She looked it over. In the middle was an entry:

File Number: 3453496, Sarkowski, Frank

Subject: Homicide

Sent to: 158 Precinct.

Requested by:

Date Sent: November 28.

Date Returned:

“The patrolman I’m working with,” Sachs said, “said there was no reference in the log to it’s being checked out.”

“He must’ve only looked in the computer. I looked there too. It probably was entered but then it got erased. This is the manual backup.”

“Why’d it go to the One Five Eight?”

“Don’t know. There’s no reason for it to’ve.”

“Where’d you get this?”

“A friend found it. Cop I worked with. Stand-up guy. Already forgot I asked.”

“Where would it’ve gone in the One Five Eight? The file room?”

Snyder shrugged. “No idea.”

“I’ll check it out.”

He clapped his hands together. “Fucking cold.” He looked behind them. Sachs did too. Was that a black car pausing at the intersection?

Snyder stopped walking. He nodded toward a run-down storefront. Flannagan’s Pool and Billiards. Est. 1954. “Where I’m going.”

“Thanks again,” she told him.

Snyder looked inside then glanced at his watch. He said to Sachs, “Not many of these old places left in Times Square. . . . I used to work the Deuce. You know—”

“Forty-second Street. I walked it too.” She looked back again toward Eighth Avenue. The black car was gone.

He was staring into the pool hall, speaking softly. “I remember the summers most. Some of those August days. Even the gangbangers and chain snatchers were home, it was so hot. I remember the restaurants and bars and movie theaters. Some of ’em had these signs up, I guess from the forties or fifties, saying they were air conditioned. Funny, a place that advertised they had air-conditioning to get people inside. Pretty different nowadays, huh? . . . Times sure change.” Snyder pulled open the door and stepped into the smoky room. “Times sure as hell change.”

Chapter 19

Their new car was a Buick LeSabre.

“Where’d you get it?” Vincent asked Duncan as he climbed into the passenger seat. The car sat idling at the curb in front of the church.

“The Lower East Side.” Duncan glanced at him.

“Nobody saw you?”

“The owner did. Briefly. But he’s not going to be saying anything.” He tapped his pocket, where the pistol rested. Duncan nodded toward the corner where he’d slashed the student to death earlier. “Any police around?”

“No. I mean, I didn’t see any.”

“Good. Sanitation probably picked up the Dumpster and the body’s halfway out to sea on a barge.”

Slash their eyes . . .

“What happened at the garage?” Vincent asked.

Duncan gave a slight grimace. “I couldn’t get close to the Explorer. There weren’t that many cops, but some homeless man was there. He was making a lot of noise and then I heard shouting and cops started running into the place. I had to leave.”

They pulled away from the curb. Vincent had no idea where they were going. The Buick was old and smelled of cigarette smoke. He didn’t know what to call it. It was dark blue but “Blue-mobile” wasn’t funny. Clever Vincent wasn’t feeling very witty at the moment. After a few minutes of silence he asked, “What’s your favorite food?”

“My—?”

“Food. What do you like to eat?”

Duncan squinted slightly. He did this a lot, considered questions seriously and then recited the answers he’d planned out. But this one flummoxed him. He gave a faint laugh. “You know, I don’t eat that much.”

“But you must have some favorite.”

“I’ve never thought about it. Why’re you asking?”

“Oh, just, I was thinking I could make us dinner sometime. I can cook a lot of different things. Pasta—you know, spaghetti. Do you like spaghetti? I make it with meatballs. I can make a cream sauce. They call that Alfredo. Or with tomato.”

The man said, “Well, I guess tomato. That’s what I’d order in a restaurant.”

“Then I’ll make that for you. Maybe if my sister’s in town, I’ll have a dinner party. Well, not a party. Just the three of us.”

“That’s . . .” Duncan shook his head. He seemed moved. “Nobody’s made me dinner since . . . Well, nobody’s made me dinner for a long time.”

“Next month, maybe.”

“Next month could work. What’s your sister like?”

“She’s a couple years younger than me. Works in a bank. She’s skinny too. I don’t mean you’re skinny. Just, you know, in good shape.”

“She married, have kids?”

“Oh, no. She’s really busy at her job. She’s good at it.”

Duncan nodded. “Next month. Sure, I’ll come back to town. We could have dinner. I couldn’t help you. I don’t cook.”

“Oh, I’d do the cooking. I like to cook. I watch the Food Channel.”

“But I could bring some dessert. Something already made. I know you like your sweets.”

“That’d be great,” said an excited Vincent. He looked around the cold, dark streets. “Where’re we going?”

Duncan was silent for a moment. He eased the car to a stoplight, the front wheels precisely on the dirty, white stop line. He said, “Let me tell you a story.”

Vincent looked over at his friend.

“In seventeen fourteen the British Parliament offered twenty thousand pounds to anyone who could invent a portable clock accurate enough to be used at sea.”

“That was a lot of money then, right?”

“Huge amount of money. They needed a clock for their ships because every year thousands of sailors died from navigational errors. See, to plot a course you need both longitude and latitude. You can determine latitude astronomically. But longitude needs accurate time. A British clockmaker named John Harrison decided to go for the prize. He started working on the project in seventeen thirty-five and finally created a small clock that you could use on a ship and that lost only a few seconds over the course of an entire transatlantic voyage. When did he finish? In seventeen sixty-one.”

“Took him that long?”

“He had to cope with politics, competition, conniving businessmen and members of Parliament and, of course, the mechanical difficulties—almost impossibilities—of creating the clock. But he never stopped. Twenty-six years.”

The light changed to green and Duncan accelerated slowly. “In answer to your question, we’re going to see about the next girl on our list. We had a setback. But nothing’s going to stop us. It’s not a big deal—”

“In the great scheme of things.”

A brief smile crossed the killer’s face.

“First of all, they have security cameras in the garage?” Rhyme asked.

Sellitto’s laugh meant “in your dreams.”

He, Pulaski and Baker were back in Rhyme’s town house, going over what the rookie had collected in the garage. The homeless man who’d attacked Pulaski was in Bellevue. He had no connection to the case and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic off his meds.

“Wrong time, wrong place,” Pulaski had muttered.

“You or him?” Rhyme’d responded. He now asked, “Security cameras at the impound where he boosted the SUV?”

Another laugh.

A sigh. “Let’s see what Ron found. First, the bullets?”

Cooper brought the box to Rhyme and opened it for him.

A .32-caliber ACP bullet is an uncommon round. The semiautomatic pistol bullet has more range than the smaller .22 but not much stopping power, like the more powerful .38 or 9-millimeter. Thirty-twos have traditionally been called ladies’ guns. The market is somewhat limited but is still quite large. Finding a compatible .32 in the possession of a suspect could be circumstantial evidence that he was the Watchmaker but Cooper couldn’t just ring up local gun stores and get a short list of who’d been buying these rounds lately.

Since seven were missing from the box, and the Autauga MkII pistol holds seven in a full clip, that was Rhyme’s best guess for the weapon, but the Beretta Tomcat, the North American Guardian and the LWS-32 were also chambered for those slugs. The killer could be carrying any of them. (If he was armed at all. Bullets, Rhyme pointed out, suggest but don’t guarantee that the suspect carried or owned a gun.)

Rhyme noted that the slug was a 71-grain, big enough to do very serious damage if it was fired at close range.

“On the board, rookie,” Rhyme commanded. Pulaski wrote as dictated.

The book he’d found in the Explorer was entitled Extreme Interrogation Techniques and had been published by a small company in Utah. The paper, printing job and typography—not to mention the style of writing—were third-rate.

Written by an anonymous author who claimed he’d been a Special Forces soldier, the book described using torture techniques that would ultimately result in death if the subject didn’t confess—drowning, strangulation, suffocation, freezing in cold water and others. One involved suspending a weight above a subject’s throat. Another, cutting his wrists and letting him bleed until he confessed.

“Christ,” Dennis Baker said, wincing. “It’s his blueprint. . . . He’s going to kill ten victims like that? Sick.”

“Trace?” Rhyme asked, concerned more about the forensic implications of the book than the psychological makeup of its purchaser.

Holding the book over a large sheet of clean newsprint, Cooper opened every page and dusted each one to dislodge trace. Nothing fell out.

No fingerprints either, of course.

Cooper learned that the book wasn’t sold through the major Web-based or retail bookstore chains—they refused to carry it. But it was readily available through online auction companies and a number of right-wing, paramilitary organizations, which sold everything you needed to protect yourself from the scourge of minorities, the foreign-born and the U.S. government itself. (In recent years Rhyme had consulted on a number of terrorist investigations; many had been linked to al-Qaeda and other fundamentalist Islamic groups but just as many had involved domestic terrorism—a threat he himself felt was being largely ignored by authorities in this country.)

A call to the publisher resulted in no cooperation, which didn’t surprise Rhyme. He was told they didn’t sell the book directly to readers and if Rhyme wanted to find out what retail outlets bought the book in quantity a court order would be necessary. It would take weeks to get one.

“Do you understand,” Dennis Baker snapped into the speakerphone, “that somebody’s using this as a guidebook to torture and kill people?”

“Well, that’s sort of what it’s for, you know.” The head of the company hung up.

“Goddamn.”

Continuing to look over the evidence, they learned that the grit and leaves and cinders that Pulaski had extracted from the grille, the tire treads and sideview mirrors were not distinctive. The trace in the back bed of the SUV revealed sand that matched what the prep had used as the obscuring agent in the Cedar Street alleyway.

The crumbs were from corn chips, potato chips, pretzels and chocolate candy. Bits of peanut butter crackers too, as well as stains from soda—sugared, not diet. None of this would lead them to a suspect, of course, but it could be another plank in the bridge connecting a perp to the Explorer if they found one.

The short cotton fibers—flesh-colored—were, as Pulaski suggested, similar to those shed by a generic brand of work gloves sold in thousands of drugstores, garden shops and grocery stores. Apparently they’d meticulously wiped the Explorer after they’d stolen it and worn gloves every time they were inside the vehicle.

This was a first. And a reminder of the Watchmaker’s deadly brilliance.

The hair from the headrest was nine inches long and was black with some gray in it. Hair is good evidence since it’s always falling out or is being pulled out in struggles. Generally it offers only class characteristics, though, meaning that a hair found at a scene will provide a circumstantial connection to a suspect who has similar hair, based on the color, texture, length or presence of dye or other chemicals. But hair generally can’t be individuated: that is, it can’t be linked conclusively to the suspect unless the follicle’s attached, allowing for a DNA profile. The hair that Pulaski found, though, had no follicle.

Rhyme knew it was too long to be the Watchmaker’s—the EFIT picture, according to Hallerstein, depicted medium length. It might have been from a wig—the Watchmaker could be using disguises—but Cooper could find no adhesive on the end. His assistant had worn a cap and it could have come from him. Rhyme decided, though, that the hair had probably come from someone else—a passenger riding in the SUV before the Watchmaker stole it. A nine-inch hair could be a man’s or a woman’s, of course, but Rhyme felt that it was probably a woman’s. The gray suggested middle age and nine inches was an odd length for a man of that age to wear his hair—shoulder length or much shorter would be more likely. “The Watchmaker or his assistant may have a girlfriend or another partner but that doesn’t seem likely. . . . Well, put it on the board anyway,” Rhyme ordered.

“Because,” Pulaski said, as if reciting something he’d heard, “you just never know, right?”

Rhyme lifted an eyebrow. Then he asked, “Shoes?”

The only footprint Pulaski had found was from a smooth-soled, size-thirteen shoe. It was just past a pool of water the wearer had stepped in; he’d left a half dozen prints on the way to the exit before they faded. Pulaski was pretty sure it was the Watchmaker’s or his partner’s, since it was on the most logical route from the Explorer to the nearest exit. He’d also noted that there was some distance between the prints and only a few of them displayed the heel. “Means he was running,” Pulaski said. “That wasn’t in your book. But it made sense.”

It was hard to dislike this kid, Rhyme reflected.

But the print was only marginally helpful. There was no way to determine the brand because the leather had no distinctive tread marks. Nor were there any unusual wear patterns, which might indicate podiatric or orthopedic characteristics.

“At least we know he’s got big feet,” Pulaski said.

Rhyme muttered, “I missed that statute where it says someone with size-eight feet is prohibited from wearing size-thirteen shoes.”

The rookie nodded. “Oops.”

Live and learn, thought Rhyme. He looked over the evidence again. “That’s it?”

Pulaski nodded. “I did the best I could.”

Rhyme grunted. “You did fine.”

Probably not very enthusiastic. He wondered if the results would’ve been different if Sachs had been walking the grid. He couldn’t help but think they would be.

The criminalist turned to Sellitto. “What about the Luponte file?”

“Nothing yet. If you knew more it’d be easier to find.”

“If I knew more, I could find it myself.”

The rookie was staring at the evidence boards. “All this . . . and it comes down to we hardly know anything about him.”

Not exactly true, Rhyme thought. We know he’s one goddamn smart perp.

THE WATCHMAKER

CRIME SCENE ONE

Location:

• Repair pier in Hudson River, 22nd Street.

Victim:

• Identity unknown.

• Male.

• Possibly middle-aged or older, and may have coronary condition (presence of anticoagulants in blood).

• No other drugs, infection or disease in blood.

• Coast Guard and ESU divers checking for body and evidence in New York Harbor.

• Checking missing persons reports.

Perp:

• See below.

M.O.:

• Perp forced victim to hold on to deck, over water, cut fingers or wrists until he fell.

• Time of attack: between 6 P.M. Monday and 6 A.M. Tuesday.

Evidence:

• Blood type AB positive.

• Fingernail torn, unpolished, wide.

• Portion of chain-link fence cut with common wire cutters, untraceable.

• Clock. See below.

• Poem. See below.

• Fingernail markings on deck.

• No discernible trace, no fingerprints, no footprints, no tire tread marks.

CRIME SCENE TWO

Location:

• Alley off Cedar Street, near Broadway, behind three commercial buildings (back doors closed at 8:30 to 10 P.M.) and one government administration building (back door closed at 6 P.M.).

• Alley is a cul-de-sac. Fifteen feet wide by one hundred and four feet long, surfaced in cobblestones, body was fifteen feet from Cedar Street.

Victim:

• Theodore Adams.

• Lived in Battery Park.

• Freelance copywriter.

• No known enemies.

• No warrants, state or federal.

• Checking for a connection with buildings around alley. None found.

Perp:

• The Watchmaker.

• Male.

• No database entries for the Watchmaker.

M.O.:

• Dragged from vehicle to alley, where iron bar was suspended over him. Eventually crushed throat.

• Awaiting medical examiner’s report to confirm.

• No evidence of sexual activity.

• Time of death: approximately 10:15 P.M. to 11 P.M. Monday night. Medical examiner to confirm.

Evidence:

• Clock.

• No explosives, chemical- or bioagents.

• Identical to clock at pier.

• No fingerprints, minimal trace.

• Arnold Products, Framingham, MA.

• Sold by Hallerstein’s Timepieces, Manhattan.

• Poem left by perp at both scenes.

• Computer printer, generic paper, HP LaserJet ink.

• Text:

The full Cold Moon is in the sky,

shining on the corpse of earth,

signifying the hour to die

and end the journey begun at birth.

—The Watchmaker

• Not in any poetry databases; probably his own.

• Cold Moon is lunar month, the month of death.

• $60 in pocket, no serial number leads; prints negative.

• Fine sand used as “obscuring agent.” Sand was generic. Because he’s returning to the scene?

• Metal bar, 81 pounds, is needle-eye span. Not being used in construction across from the alleyway. No other source found.

• Duct tape, generic, but cut precisely, unusual. Exactly the same lengths.

• Thallium sulfate (rodent poison) found in sand.

• Soil containing fish protein—from perp, not victim.

• Very little trace found.

• Brown fibers, probably automotive carpeting.

Other:

• Vehicle.

• Ford Explorer, about three years old. Brown carpet. Tan.

• Review of license tags of cars in area Tuesday morning reveals no warrants. No tickets issued Monday night.

• Checking with Vice about prostitutes, re: witness.

• No leads.

INTERVIEW WITH HALLERSTEIN

Perp:

• EFIT composite picture of the Watchmaker—late forties, early fifties, round face, double chin, thick nose, unusually light blue eyes. Over 6 feet tall, lean, hair black, medium length, no jewelry, dark clothes. No name.

• Knows great deal about clocks and watches and which timepieces had been sold at recent auctions and were at current horologic exhibits in the city.

• Threatened dealer to keep quiet.

• Bought 10 clocks. For 10 victims?

• Paid cash.

• Wanted moon face on clock, wanted loud tick.

Evidence:

• Source of clocks was Hallerstein’s Timepieces, Flatiron District.

• No prints on cash paid for clocks, no serial number hits. No trace on money.

• Called from pay phones.

CRIME SCENE THREE

Location:

• 481 Spring Street.

Victim:

• Joanne Harper.

• No apparent motive.

• Didn’t know second victim, Adams.

Perp:

• Watchmaker.

• Assistant.

• Probably man spotted earlier by victim, at her shop.

• White, heavyset, in sunglasses, cream-colored parka and cap. Was driving the SUV.

M.O.:

• Picked locks to get inside.

• Intended method of attack unknown. Possibly planning to use florist’s wire.

Evidence:

• Fish protein came from Joanne’s (orchid fertilizer).

• Thallium sulfate nearby.

• Florist’s wire, cut in precise lengths. (To use as murder weapon?)

• Clock.

• Same as others. No nitrates.

• No trace.

• No note or poem.

• No footprints, fingerprints, weapons or anything else left behind.

• Black flakes—roofing tar.

• Checking ASTER thermal images of New York for possible sources.

Other:

• Perp was checking out victim earlier than attack. Targeting her for purpose. What?

• Have police scanner. Changing frequency.

• Vehicle.

• Tan.

• No tag number.

• Putting out Emergency Vehicle Locator.

• 423 owners of tan Explorers in area. Cross-reference against criminal warrants. Two found. One owner too old; other is in jail on drug charges.

• Owned by the man in jail.

WATCHMAKER’S EXPLORER

Location:

• Found in garage, Hudson River and Houston Street.

Evidence:

• Explorer owned by man in jail. Had been confiscated, and stolen from lot, awaiting auction.

• Parked in open. Not near exit.

• Crumbs from corn chips, potato chips, pretzels, chocolate candy. Bits of peanut butter crackers. Stains from soda, regular, not diet.

• Box of Remington .32-caliber auto pistol ammo, seven rounds missing. Gun is possible Autauga Mk II.

• Book—Extreme Interrogation Techniques. Blueprint for his murder methods? No helpful information from publisher.

• Strand of gray-and-black hair, probably woman’s.

• No prints at all, throughout entire vehicle.

• Beige cotton fibers from gloves.

• Sand matching that used in alleyway.

• Smooth-soled size-13 shoe print.

Chapter 20

“I need a case file.”

“Yeah.” The woman was chewing gum. Loudly.

Snap.

Amelia Sachs was in the file room at the 158th Precinct in Lower Manhattan, not far from the 118th. She gave the night-duty file clerk at the gray desk the number of the Sarkowski file. The woman typed on a computer keyboard, a staccato sound. A glance at the screen. “Don’t have it.”

“You sure?”

“Don’t have it.”

“Hm.” Sachs gave a laugh. “Where do we think it’s run off to?”

“Run off to?”

“It came here on the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth of November from the One Three One house. It looked like it was requested from somebody here.”

Snap.

“Well, it’s, like not logged in. You sure it came here?”

“No, not one thousand percent. But—”

“One thousand?” the woman asked, chewing away. A pack of cigarettes sat next to her, ready to be scooped up in a hurry when she fled downstairs on her break or left for the night.

“Is there any scenario where it wouldn’t’ve been logged?”

“Scenario?”

“Would a file always be logged in?”

“If it’s for a specific detective it’d go directly to his office and he’d log it. You’ve gotta log it. It’s a rule.”

“If there was no recipient name on the request?”

“Then it’d come here.” She nodded at a large basket holding a card that said Pending. “And whoever wanted it’d have to come down and pick it up. Then he’d log it in. Has to be logged in.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“Has to be. Because otherwise, how do we know where it is?” She pointed to another sign. Log it!

Sachs prowled through the large basket.

“Like, you’re not supposed to do that.”

“But see my problem?”

A blink. The gum snapped.

“It came here. But you can’t find it. So what do I do about that?”

“Submit a request. Somebody’ll look for it.”

“Is that really going to happen? Because I’m not sure it would.” Sachs looked toward the file room. “I’ll just take a look, you don’t mind.”

“Really, you can’t.”

“Just take a few minutes.”

“You can’t—”

Sachs walked past her and plunged into the stacks of files. The clerk muttered something Sachs couldn’t hear.

All the files were organized by number and color-coded to indicate that they were open or closed or trial pending. Major Cases files had a special border on them. Red. Sachs found the recent files and, going through the numbers one by one, sure enough—the Sarkowski file wasn’t there.

She paused, looking up the stacks, hands on her hips.

“Hi,” a man’s voice said.

She turned and found herself looking at a tall, gray-haired man in a white shirt and navy slacks. He had a military bearing about him and he was smiling. “You’re—?”

“Detective Sachs.”

“I’m DI Jefferies.” A deputy inspector generally ran the precinct. She’d heard the name but knew nothing about him. Except that he was obviously a hard worker, since he was here, still on the job at this late hour.

“What can we do you for, Detective?”

“There was a file delivered here from the One Three One. About two weeks ago. I need it as part of an investigation.”

He glanced at the file clerk who’d just dimed her out. She was standing in the hallway. “We don’t have it, sir. I told her that.”

“Are you sure it was sent here?”

Sachs said, “The log at the transferring house said it was.”

“Was it logged?” Jefferies asked the clerk.

“No.”

“Well, is it in the pending basket?”

“No.”

“Come on into my office, Detective. I’ll see what we can do.”

Sachs ignored the clerk. She didn’t want to give her the satisfaction.

Through the nondescript halls, turning corners here and there, not saying a word. Sachs struggling on her arthritic legs to keep up with the man’s energetic pace.

Inspector Jefferies strode into his corner office, nodded at the chair across from his desk and closed the door, which had a large brass plaque on it. Halston P. Jefferies.

Sachs sat.

Jefferies suddenly leaned down, his face inches from hers. He slammed his fist onto the desk. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

Sachs reared back, feeling his hot, garlicky breath wash over her face: “I . . . What do you mean?” She swallowed the “sir” she’d nearly appended to the sentence.

“Where are you out of?”

“Where?”

“You fucking rookie, what’s your house?”

Sachs couldn’t speak for a moment, she was so shocked by the man’s fury. “Technically I’m working Major Cases—”

“What the hell does ‘technically’ mean? Who’re you working for?”

“I’m lead detective on this case. I’m supervised by Lon Sellitto. In MC. I—”

“You haven’t been a detective—”

“I—”

“Don’t you ever interrupt a superior officer. Ever. You understand me?”

Sachs bristled. She said nothing.

“Do you understand me?” he shouted.

“Perfectly.”

“You haven’t been a detective very long, have you?”

“No.”

“I know that, because a real detective would’ve followed protocol. She would’ve come to the dep inspector and introduced herself and asked if it was all right to review a file. What you did . . . Were you about to interrupt me again?”

She had been. She said, “No.”

“What you did was a personal insult to me.” A fleck of spittle arced between them like a mortar round.

He paused. Would it be an interruption to talk now? She didn’t care. “I had no intention of insulting you. I’m just running an investigation. I needed a file that’s turned up missing.”

“‘Turned up missing.’ What kind of thing is that to say? Either it’s turned up or it’s missing. If you’re as sloppy with your investigating as you are with your language, I’m wondering if you didn’t lose the file yourself and’re trying to cover your ass by blaming us.”

“The file was checked out of the One Three One and routed here.”

“By who?” he snapped.

“That’s the problem. That part of the log was blank.”

“Were there any other files checked out that came here?” He sat on the edge of his desk and stared down at her.

Sachs frowned.

He continued. “Any files from anywhere else?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Do you know what I do here?”

“I’m sorry?”

“What’s my job at the One Five Eight?”

“Well, you’re in charge of the precinct, I assume.”

“You assume,” he mocked. “I’ve known officers dead in the streets because they assumed. Shot down dead.”

This was getting tedious. Sachs’s eyes went cold and locked onto his. She had no trouble maintaining the gaze.

Jefferies hardly noticed. He snapped, “In addition to running the precinct—your brilliant deduction—I’m in charge of the manpower allocation committee for the entire department. I review thousands of files a year, I see what the trends are, determine what shifts we need to make in personnel to cover work load. I work hand in glove with the city and state to make sure we get what we need. You probably think that’s a waste of time, don’t you?”

“I don’t—”

“Well, it’s not, young lady. Those files are reviewed by me and they’re returned. . . . Now, what’s this particular report you’re so goddamn interested in?”

Suddenly she didn’t want him to know. This whole scene was off. Logically, if he had something to hide, it was unlikely that he’d behave like such a prick. But, on the other hand, he might be acting this way to divert suspicion. She thought back. She’d given the clerk only the file number, not the name Sarkowski. Most likely the scatterbrain wouldn’t remember the lengthy digit.

Sachs said calmly, “I’d prefer not to say.”

He blinked. “You—?”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

Jefferies nodded. He seemed calm. Then he leaned forward and slammed his hand down on the desk again. “You fucking have to tell me. I want the case name and I want it now.”

“No.”

“I’ll see you’re suspended for insubordination.”

“You do what you have to, Inspector.”

“You will tell me the name of the file. And you will tell me now.”

“No, I won’t.”

“I’ll call your supervisor.” His voice was cracking. He was getting hysterical. Sachs actually wondered if he’d physically hurt her.

“He doesn’t know about it.”

“You’re all the same,” Jefferies said, a searing voice. “You think you get a gold shield, you know everything there is to know about being a cop. You’re a kid, you’re just a kid—and a wiseass one. You come to my precinct, accuse me of stealing files—”

“I didn’t—”

“Insubordination—you insult me, you interrupt me. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be a cop.”

Sachs gazed at him placidly. She’d slipped into a different place—her personal cyclone cellar. She knew that there might be disastrous implications from this confrontation but at the moment he couldn’t touch her. “I’m leaving now.”

“You’re in deep trouble, young lady. I remember your shield. Five eight eight five. Think I didn’t? I’ll see you busted down to Warrants. How’d you like to shuffle paper all day long? You do not come into a man’s precinct and insult him!”

Sachs strode past him, flung the door open and hurried up the hall. Her hands started shaking, her breath was coming fast.

His voice, nearly a scream, followed her down the hall. “I’ll remember your shield. I’ll make some calls. If you ever come back to my precinct again, you will regret it. Young lady, did you hear me?”

U.S. Army Sergeant Lucy Richter locked the door of her old Greenwich Village co-op and headed into the bedroom, where she stripped off her dark green uniform, bristling with perfectly aligned bars and campaign ribbons. She wanted to toss the garment on the bed but, of course, she hung it carefully in the closet, the blouse too, and tucked her ID and security badges carefully in the breast pocket, where she always kept them. She then cleaned and polished her shoes before setting them carefully in a rack on the closet door.

A fast shower, then, wrapped in an old pink robe, she curled up on the shag rug on the bedroom floor and gazed out the window. Her eyes took in the buildings across Barrow Street, the lights flickering between the windblown trees and the moon, white in the black sky, above lower Manhattan. This was a familiar sight to her, comforting. She used to sit here, just like this, when she was a little girl.

Lucy had been out of the country for some time and was back home on leave. She’d finally gotten over the jet lag and the grogginess from a marathon sleepfest. Now, with her husband still at work, she was content to sit, look out the window and to think about the distant past, and the recent.

The future, too, of course. The hours we have yet to spend seem to obsess us far more than those we’ve already experienced, Lucy reflected.

She grew up in this very co-op, here in the most congenial of Manhattan neighborhoods. She loved the Village. And when her parents moved across town and became snowbirds they transferred the place to their twenty-two-year-old daughter. Three years later, the night her boyfriend had proposed to her, she’d said yes but with a qualification: They had to live here. He, of course, agreed.

She enjoyed her life in the neighborhood, hanging out with friends, working food service and office jobs (a college dropout, she was nonetheless always the sharpest and hardest worker among her peers). She liked the culture and the quirkiness of the city. Lucy would sit right here, looking out the window, south, at the imposing landscape of this imposing city, think about what she wanted to do with her life or think about nothing at all.

But then came that September day and she watched it all, the flames, the smoke, then the horrible absence.

Lucy continued her routine, more or less content, and waited for the anger and hurt to go away, the emptiness to fill. But they never did. And so the skinny girl who was a Democrat and liked Seinfeld and baked her own bread with organic flour walked out the front door of this co-op, took the Broadway train uptown to Times Square and enlisted in the army.

Something, she’d explained to her husband, Bob, she had to do. He’d kissed her forehead, held her hard and didn’t try to talk her out of it. (For two reasons. First, a former Navy SEAL, he thought the military experience was important for everyone. And second, he believed Lucy had an unerring sense of doing the right thing.)

Basic training in dusty Texas, then she shipped out and went overseas—Bob went with her for some of the time, his boss at the delivery company being particularly patriotic—while they rented out the co-op for a year. She learned German, how to drive every type of truck that existed, and a fact about herself: that she had an innate gift for organization. She was given the job of managing fuelers, the men and women who got petroleum products and other vital supplies where they were needed.

Gasoline and diesel fuel win wars; empty tanks lose them. That’s been the rule of warfare for one hundred years.

Then one day her lieutenant came to her and told her two things. One, she was being promoted from corporal to sergeant. Two, she was being sent to school to learn Arabic.

Bob returned to the States and Lucy lugged her gear to a C130 and flew off to the land of bitter fog.

Be careful what you ask for. . . .

Lucy Richter had gone from America—a country with a changed landscape—to a place with none. Her life became desert vistas, searing heat from a hovering sun and a dozen different kinds of sand—some of it abrasive grit that scarred your skin, some fine as talcum that worked its way into every square inch of existence. Her job took on a new gravity. If a truck runs out of fuel on a trip from Berlin to Cologne, you ring up a supply vehicle. If it happens in a combat zone, people die.

And she made sure it never happened.

Hours and hours of juggling tankers and ammunition trucks and the occasional oddity—like playing cowgirl to wrangle sheep into transport trucks, part of an impromptu, voluntary mission to get food to a small village that had been without supplies for weeks.

Sheep . . . What a hoot!

And now she was back in a land with a skyline, no livestock outside of delis or Food Emporium counters, no sand, no burning sun . . . no bitter fog.

Very different from her life overseas.

Lucy Richter, though, was hardly a woman at peace. Which is why she was now staring south, looking for answers in the Great Emptiness of the changed landscape.

Yes or no . . .

The phone rang. She jumped at the sound. She’d been doing this a lot lately—at every sudden noise. Phone, slamming door, backfire.

Chill . . . She picked up the handset. “Hello?”

“Hey, girl.” It was a good friend of hers from the neighborhood.

“Claire.”

“What’s happening?”

“Just chilling.”

“Hey, what time zone’re you in?”

“God only knows.”

“Bob home?”

“Nope. Working late.”

“Good, meet me for cheesecake.”

“Only cheesecake?” Lucy asked pointedly.

“White Russians?”

“You’re in the ballpark. Let’s do it.”

They picked a late-night restaurant nearby and hung up.

With a last look at the black empty southern sky, Lucy rose, pulled on sweats, a ski jacket and hat and left the co-op. She clopped down the dim stairway to the first floor.

She stopped, blinking in surprise as a figure startled her.

“Hey, Lucy,” the man said. Smelling of camphor and cigarettes, the superintendent—he’d been old when she grew up here—was carrying bound newspapers out to the sidewalk. Outweighing him by thirty pounds and six inches taller, Lucy grabbed two of the bundles from him.

“No,” he protested.

“Mr. Giradello, I have to stay in shape.”

“Ah, in shape? You’re stronger than my son.”

Outside, the cold stung her nose and mouth. She loved the sensation.

“I saw you in your uniform tonight. You get that award?”

“This Thursday. It was just the rehearsal today. And it’s not an award. A commendation.”

“’S the difference?”

“Good question. I don’t really know. I think you win an award. A commendation they give you instead of a pay hike.” She piled the trash at the curb.

“Your parents’re proud.” A statement, not a question.

“They sure are.”

“Say hi for me.”

“I will. Okay, I’m freezing, Mr. Giradello. Gotta go. You take care.”

“Night.”

Lucy started up the sidewalk. She noticed a dark blue Buick parked across the street. Two men were inside. The one in the passenger seat glanced at her and then down. He lifted and drank a soda thirstily. Lucy thought: Who’d be having a cold drink in weather like this? She herself was looking forward to an Irish coffee, boiling hot and with a double dose of Bushmills. Whipped cream too, of course.

She then glanced down at the sidewalk, stopped suddenly and changed course. Amused, Lucy Richter reflected that patches of slick ice were probably the only danger she hadn’t been exposed to in the past eighteen months.

Chapter 21

Kathryn Dance was alone with Rhyme in his town house. Well, Jackson, the Havanese, was present too. Dance was holding the dog.

“That was wonderful,” she told Thom. The three of them had just finished a dinner of the aide’s beef bourguignon, rice, salad and a Caymus Cabernet. “I’d ask for the recipe but I’d never do it justice.”

“Ah, an appreciative audience,” he said, glancing at Rhyme.

“I’m appreciative. Just not excessively.”

Thom nodded at the bowl that had held the main course. “To him it’s ‘stew.’ He doesn’t even try the French. Tell her what you think of food, Lincoln.”

The criminalist shrugged. “I’m not fussy about what I eat. That’s all.”

“He calls it ‘fuel,’” the aide said and carted the dishes to the kitchen.

“You have dogs at home?” Rhyme asked Dance, nodding at Jackson.

“Two. They’re a lot bigger than this guy. The kids and I take ’em to the beach a couple times a week. They chase seagulls and we chase them. Exercise all around. And if that sounds too healthy, don’t worry. Afterward we go for waffles at First Watch in Monterey and replace any calories we’ve lost.”

Rhyme glanced into the kitchen, where Thom was washing dishes and pans. He lowered his voice and asked if she’d engage in bit of subterfuge.

She frowned.

“I wouldn’t mind if a bit of that”—he nodded toward a bottle of old Glenmorangie scotch—“ended up in there.” The nod shifted toward his tumbler. “You might want to keep it quiet, though.”

“Thom?”

A nod. “He enacts Prohibition from time to time. It’s rather irritating.”

Kathryn Dance knew the value of indulging. (Okay, maybe she’d gained six pounds in Tijuana; that had been a long, long week.) She set the dog down and poured him a good healthy dose. She fit the cup into the holder of his wheelchair, arranging the straw near his mouth.

“Thanks.” He took a long sip. “Whatever you’re billing the city for your time, I’ll authorize double pay. And help yourself. Thom won’t give you any grief.”

“Maybe some caffeine.” She poured a black coffee and allowed herself one of the oatmeal cookies that the aide had set out. He’d baked them himself.

Dance glanced at her watch. Three hours earlier in California. “Excuse me for a minute. Check in at home.”

“Go right ahead.”

She made a call on her mobile. Maggie answered.

“Hey, sweets.”

“Mommy.”

The girl was a talker and Dance got a ten-minute account of a Christmas shopping trip with her nana. Maggie concluded with: “And then we came back here and I read Harry Potter.”

“The new one?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How many times is that?”

“Six.”

“Wouldn’t you like to read something different? Expand your horizons?”

Maggie replied, “Gee, Mom, like, how many times’ve you listened to Bob Dylan? That Blonde on Blonde album. Or U2?”

Unassailable logic. “You got me there, sweets, only don’t say like.”

“Mom. When’re you coming home?”

“Tomorrow probably. Love you. Put your brother on.”

Wes came on the phone and they too chatted for a while, the conversation more halting and more serious in tone. He’d been dropping hints about taking karate lessons and now he asked her point-blank if he could. Dance, though, preferred he take up something less combative if he wanted a sport other than soccer and baseball. His muscular body would be perfect for tennis or gymnastics, she thought, but those didn’t have much appeal to him.

As an interrogator, Kathryn Dance knew a great deal about the subject of anger; she saw it in the suspects as well as the victims she interviewed following crimes. She believed that Wes’s recent interest in martial arts came from the occasional anger that settled like a cloud over him after his father’s death. Competition was fine but she didn’t think it would be healthy for him to engage in a fighting sport, not at this point in his life. Sanctioned fury can be a very dangerous thing, especially with youngsters.

She talked to him about the decision for some time.

Working on the Watchmaker case with Rhyme and Sachs had made Kathryn Dance very aware of time. She realized how much she used it in her work—and with her children. The passage of time, for instance, diffuses anger quickly (outbursts can rarely be sustained longer than three minutes) and weakens resistance to opposing positions—better than strident argument in most cases. Dance didn’t now say no to karate but got him to agree to try a few tennis lessons. (She’d once overheard him say to a friend, “Yeah, it sucks when your mom’s a cop.” Dance had laughed hard to herself at that.)

Then his mood changed abruptly and he was talking happily about a movie he’d seen on HBO. Then his phone was beeping with a text message from a friend. He had to go, bye, Mom, love you, see you soon.

Click.

The millisecond of spontaneous “love you” made the whole negotiation worth it.

She hung up and glanced at Rhyme. “Kids?”

“Me? No. I don’t know that they’d be my strong suit.”

“They’re nobody’s strong suit until you have them.”

He was looking at her ubiquitous iPod earphones, which dangled around her neck like a stethoscope on a doctor. “You like music, I gather. . . . How’s that for a clever deduction?”

Dance said, “It’s my hobby.”

“Really? You play?”

“I sing some. I used to be a folkie. But now, if I take time off, I throw the kids and the dogs into the back of a camper and go track down songs.”

Rhyme frowned. “I’ve heard of that. It’s called—”

“Song catching is the popular phrase.”

“Sure. That’s it.”

This was a passion for Kathryn Dance. She was part of a long tradition of folklorists, people who would travel to out-of-the-way places to field-record traditional music. Alan Lomax was perhaps the most famous of these, hiking throughout the U.S. and Europe to capture old-time songs. Dance went to the East Coast from time to time but those tunes had been well documented, so most of her recent trips were to inner cities, Nova Scotia, Western Canada, the bayou and places with large Latino populations, like Southern and Central California. She’d record and catalog the songs.

She told this to Rhyme and explained too about a website she and a friend maintained with information on the musicians, the songs and the music itself. They helped the musicians copyright their original songs and distributed to them any fees listeners paid for downloads of the music. Several musicians had been contacted by record companies, which had bought their music for sound tracks of independent films.

Kathryn Dance didn’t tell Rhyme, though, that there was more to her relationship with music.

Dance often found herself overloaded. To do her job well, she needed to hard-wire herself to the witnesses and criminals she interviewed. Sitting three feet from a psychotic killer, jousting with him for hours or days or weeks, was an exhilarating process, but exhausting and debilitating too. Dance was so empathic and so closely connected to her subjects that she felt their emotions long after the sessions ended. She heard their voices in her mind, endlessly looping through her thoughts.

Sí, sí, okay, sí, I kill her. I cut her throat. . . . Well, her son too, that boy. He there. He see me. I have to kill him, I mean, who wouldn’t? But she deserve it, the way she look at me. It no my fault. Can I have that cigarette you talking about?

The music was a miracle cure. If Kathryn Dance was listening to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee or U2 or Dylan or David Byrne, she wasn’t replaying the memory of an indignant Carlos Allende complaining that the victim’s engagement ring cut his palm while he was slitting her throat.

It hurt, what I’m saying. Bad. That bitch . . .

Lincoln Rhyme asked, “You ever perform professionally?”

She had, some. But those years, in Boston and then Berkeley and North Beach in San Francisco, had left her empty. Performance seems personal but she’d found that it’s really about you and the music, not you and the listener. Kathryn Dance was much more curious about what other people had to say—and to sing—about themselves, about life and love. She realized that with music, as with her job, she preferred the role of professional audience.

She told Rhyme, “Tried it. But in the end I just thought it was better to keep music as a friend.”

“So you became a cop instead. About a hundred-and-eighty-degree change.”

“Go figure.”

“How’d that happen?”

Dance debated. Normally reluctant to talk about herself (listen first, talk last), she nonetheless felt a connection to Rhyme. They were rivals, in a way—forensics versus kinesics—yet ones who shared a common purpose. Also, his drive and his stubbornness reminded her of herself. His clear love of the hunt, as well.

So she said, “Jonny Ray Hanson . . . Jonny without an h.”

“A perp?”

She nodded and told him the story. Six years ago Dance had been hired by prosecutors as a consultant to help pick jurors in the case of the State of California v. Hanson.

A thirty-five-year-old insurance agent, Hanson lived in Contra Costa County, north of Oakland, a half hour from the home of his ex-wife, who had a restraining order against him. One night someone had tried to break into her house. The woman wasn’t home and some county sheriff’s deputies, who regularly patrolled past her house, spotted and chased him, though the perp got away.

“Doesn’t seem all that serious . . . but there was more to it. The sheriff’s department was concerned because Hanson kept up the threats and had assaulted her twice. So they picked him up and talked to him for a while. He denied it and they let him go. But finally they thought they could make a case and arrested him.”

Because of the prior offenses, Dance explained, a B-and-E charge would put him away for at least five years—and give his ex-wife and college-age daughter a respite from his harassment.

“I spent some time with them at the prosecutor’s office. I felt so bad for them. They’d been living in absolute terror. Hanson would mail them blank sheets of paper, he’d leave weird messages on their phone. He’d stand exactly one block away—that was okay under the restraining order—and stare at them. He’d have food delivered to their house. Nothing illegal but the message was clear: I’ll always be watching you.”

To go shopping, mother and daughter had been forced to sneak out of their neighborhood in disguise and go to malls ten or fifteen miles from where they lived.

Dance had picked what she thought was a good jury, stacking it with single women and professional men (liberal but not too liberal), who’d be sympathetic to the victims’ situation. As she often did, Dance stayed through trial to give the prosecution team advice—and to critique her choices, as well.

“I watched Hanson in court carefully and I was convinced he was guilty.”

“But something went wrong?”

Dance nodded. “Witnesses couldn’t be located or their testimony fell apart, physical evidence either disappeared or was contaminated, Hanson had a series of alibis that the prosecution couldn’t shake: Every key point in the DA’s case was countered by the defense; it was as if they’d bugged the prosecutor’s office. He was acquitted.”

“That’s tough.” Rhyme looked her over. “But there’s more to the story, I sense.”

“I’m afraid there is. Two days after the trial, Hanson tracked down his wife and daughter in a shopping center parking garage and knifed them to death. The daughter’s boyfriend was with them. Hanson killed him too. He fled the area and was finally caught—a year later.”

Dance sipped her coffee. “After the murders, the prosecutor was trying to figure out what went wrong at trial. He asked me to look over the transcript of the initial interview at the sheriff’s office.” She gave a bitter laugh. “When I reviewed it I was floored. Hanson was brilliant—and the sheriff’s department deputy who interviewed him was either totally inexperienced or lazy. Hanson played him like a fish. He ended up learning enough about the prosecution’s case to completely undermine it—which witnesses to intimidate, what evidence he should dispose of, what kind of alibis he should come up with.”

“And I’m assuming he got one other bit of information,” Rhyme said, shaking his head.

“Oh, yes. The deputy asked if he’d ever been to Mill Valley. And later he asked if he ever frequented shopping centers in Marin County. That gave Hanson enough information to know where his ex and their daughter sometimes shopped. He basically just camped out around the Mill Valley mall until they showed up. That’s where he killed them—and they didn’t have any police protection there since it was a different county.

“That night I drove back home along Route One—the Pacific Coast Highway—instead of taking the One Oh One, the big freeway. I was thinking, Here I am being paid a hundred and fifty bucks an hour to anybody who needs a jury consultant. That’s all fine, nothing immoral about that—it’s the way the system works. But I couldn’t help but think that if I’d conducted that interview myself, Hanson would’ve gone to jail and three people wouldn’t have died.

“Two days later I signed up for the academy, and the rest, as they say, is history. Now, what’s the scoop with you?”

“How’d I decide to become a cop?” He shrugged. “Nothing quite so dramatic. Boring, actually . . . just kind of fell into it.”

“Really?”

Rhyme laughed.

Dance frowned.

“You don’t believe me.”

“Sorry, was I studying you? I try not to. My daughter says I look at her like she’s a lab rat sometimes.”

Rhyme sipped more scotch and said with a coy smile, “So?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “So?”

“I’m a tough nut for a kinesics expert, somebody like me. You can’t really read me, can you?”

She laughed. “Oh, I can read you just fine. Body language seeks its own level. You give just as much away with your face and eyes and head as somebody who’s got the use of his whole body.”

“Really?”

“That’s the way it works. It’s actually easier—the messages are more concentrated.”

“I’m an open book, hm?”

“Nobody’s an open book. But some books are easier to read than others.”

“I remember you were talking about the response states when you interrogate somebody. Anger, depression, denial, bargaining . . . After the accident I had plenty of therapy. Didn’t want to, but when you’re flat on your back, what can you do? The shrinks told me about the stages of grief. They’re pretty much the same.”

Kathryn Dance knew the stages of grief very well. But, once again, this was not a subject for today. “Fascinating how the mind deals with adversity—whether it’s physical trauma or emotional stress.”

Rhyme looked off. “I fight with the anger a lot.”

Dance kept her deep green eyes on Rhyme and shook her head. “Oh, you’re not nearly as angry as you make out you are.”

“I’m a crip,” he said stridently. “Of course I’m angry.”

“And I’m a woman cop. So we both have a right to get pissed off sometimes. And depressed for all sorts of reasons and we deny things. But anger? No, not you. You’ve moved on. You’re in acceptance.”

“When I’m not tracking down killers”—a nod at the evidence board—“I’m doing physical therapy. A lot more than I ought to be doing, Thom tells me. Ad nauseam, by the way. That’s hardly accepting things.”

“That’s not what acceptance is. You accept the condition and you fight back. You’re not sitting around all day. Oh, sorry, I guess you are.”

The sorry was not an apology. Rhyme couldn’t help but laugh hard and Dance saw that she scored big points with the joke. She’d assessed that Rhyme was a man with no respect for delicacy and political correctness.

“You accept reality. You’re trying to change it but you’re not lying to yourself. It’s a challenge, it’s tough, but it doesn’t anger you.”

“I think you’re wrong.”

“Ah, you just blinked twice. Kinesic stress response. You don’t believe what you’re saying.”

“You’re a tough woman to argue with.” He drained the glass.

“Ah, Lincoln, I’ve got your baseline down. You can’t fool me. But don’t worry. Your secret’s safe.”

The front door opened. Amelia Sachs walked into the room. She tossed off her jacket and the women greeted each other. It was obvious from her posture and her eyes that something was troubling her. She went to the front window and looked out, then pulled the shade down.

“What’s the matter?” Rhyme asked.

“I just got a call from a neighbor. She said that somebody was at my building today, asking about me. He gave the name Joey Treffano. I used to work with Joey in Patrol. He wanted to know what I was up to, asked a lot of questions, looked over the building. My neighbor thought it seemed funny and gave me a call.”

“And you think somebody was pretending to be Joey? It wasn’t him?”

“Positive. He left the force last year and moved to Montana.”

“Maybe he came back to visit, wanted to look you up.”

“If he did, it was his ghost. He was killed in a motorcycle accident last spring. . . . And both Ron and I’ve been tailed. And earlier today somebody went through my purse. It was in my car, locked up. They broke in.”

“Where?”

“At the scene on Spring Street, near the florist’s shop.”

It was then that something in the back of Kathryn Dance’s mind began to nag. She finally seized the memory. “There’s one thing I ought to say. . . . Might be nothing but it’s worth mentioning.”

The hour was late but Rhyme had called everyone together. Sellitto, Cooper, Pulaski and Baker.

Amelia Sachs was now looking them over.

She said, “We have a problem I want you to know about. Somebody’s been tailing me and Ron. And Kathryn just told me that she thought she’d seen someone too.”

The kinesics expert nodded.

Sachs then glanced at Pulaski. “You told me you thought you’d seen that Mercedes. Have you seen it again?”

“Nope. Not since this afternoon.”

“How about you, Mel? Anything unusual?”

“I don’t think so.” The slim man pushed his glasses higher on his nose. “But I never pay attention. Lab techs aren’t used to being tailed.”

Sellitto said he thought he might’ve seen someone but wasn’t sure.

“When you were in Brooklyn today, Dennis,” Sachs asked Baker, “you get the feeling that somebody was watching you?”

He paused. “Me? I wasn’t in Brooklyn.”

She frowned. “But . . . you weren’t?”

Baker shook his head. “No.”

Sachs turned to Dance, who’d been studying Baker. The California agent nodded.

Sachs’s hand strayed to her Glock and she turned toward Baker. “Dennis, keep your hands where we can see them.”

His eyes went wide. “What?”

“We need to have a little talk.”

None of the others in the room—who’d been briefed beforehand—gave any reaction, though Pulaski kept his hand near his own piece. Lon Sellitto stepped behind Baker.

“Hey, hey, hey,” the man said, frowning and looking over his shoulder at the heavyset detective. “What is this?”

Rhyme said, “We want to ask you a few questions, Dennis.”

What Kathryn Dance had felt worth mentioning was something very subtle and it wasn’t that somebody’d been following her; Sachs had simply said that to keep Dennis Baker at ease. Dance recalled that earlier, when Baker had mentioned that he’d been at the scene in front of the florist’s workshop, she’d observed him crossing his legs, avoiding eye contact and sitting in a position that suggested possible deception. His exact comment at that moment was that he’d just left the scene and couldn’t recall if Spring Street had been reopened or not. Since he’d have no reason to lie about where he was, she didn’t think anything of it at the time.

But when Sachs mentioned that somebody had broken into her car at the scene—where Baker had been—she remembered the lieutenant’s possibly deceptive behavior. Sachs had called Nancy Simpson, who’d been at the scene, and asked her what time Baker had left.

“Right after you, Detective,” the officer had said.

But Baker had said he’d stayed for almost an hour.

Simpson added that she believed Baker had gone to Brooklyn. Sachs had asked him about being in the borough now to see if Dance could pick up signs of possible deception.

“You broke into my car and went through my purse,” she said. Her voice was harsh. “And you asked a neighbor about me—pretending to be a cop I’d worked with.”

Would he deny it? This could blow up in their faces if Dance and Sachs were wrong.

But Baker looked down at the floor. “Look, this’s all a misunderstanding.”

“You talked to my neighbor?” she asked angrily.

“Yes.”

She eased closer to him. They were about the same height but Sachs, in her anger, seemed to tower over him. “You drive a black Mercedes?”

He frowned. “On a cop’s salary?” This answer seemed genuine.

Rhyme glanced at Cooper, who went to the DMV database. The tech shook his head. “Not his wheels.”

Well, they got one wrong. But Baker’d clearly been nabbed at something.

“So, what’s the story?” Rhyme asked.

Baker looked at Sachs. “Amelia, I really wanted you on the case. You and Lincoln together, you’re an A team. And frankly, you guys get good press. And I wanted to be associated with you. But after I convinced the top floor to bring you on board, I heard there was a problem.”

“What?” she asked firmly.

“In my briefcase, there’s a sheet of paper.” He nodded to Pulaski, who was standing beside the battered attaché case. “It’s folded up. In the top right-hand side.”

The rookie opened the case and found it.

“It’s an email,” Baker continued.

Sachs took it from Pulaski. She read it once, frowning. She was motionless for a moment. Then she stepped closer to Rhyme and set it on the wide arm of his wheelchair. He read the brief, confidential note. It was from a senior inspector at Police Plaza. It said that a few years earlier Sachs had been involved with an NYPD detective, Nicholas Carelli, who’d been convicted of various charges, including hijackings, bribes and assault.

Sachs had not been implicated in the incidents but Carelli had been released not long ago and the brass were concerned that she might have had some contact with him. They didn’t think she’d done anything illegal but if she was seen with him now, it could be, the email said, “embarrassing.”

Sachs cleared her throat and said nothing. Rhyme had known all about Nick and Sachs—how they’d talked about getting married, how close they’d been, how shattered she’d been by his secret life as a criminal.

Baker shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to handle it. I was told to give them a complete report. Details of where I’d observed you, things I learned about you. On the job and off. Any connection with this Carelli or any of his friends.”

“That’s why you were pumping me for information about her,” Rhyme said angrily. “This’s bullshit.”

“All respect, Lincoln, I’m putting myself on the line here. They wanted to pull her anyway. They didn’t want her on a high-profile case, not with that history. But I said no.”

“I haven’t seen Nick in years. I didn’t even know he was out.”

“And that’s what I’m going to tell them.” He nodded toward his briefcase again. “My notes’re in there.” Pulaski found some more sheets of paper. He gave them to Sachs and she read through then laid them out for Rhyme to read. They were jottings about the times he’d observed her and questions he’d asked, what he’d seen in her calendar and address book, what people had said about her.

“You broke and entered,” Sellitto said.

“Conceded. Over the line. Sorry.”

“Why the fuck didn’t you come to me?” Rhyme snapped.

“Or any of us,” Sellitto said.

“This came from high up. I was told to keep it quiet.” Baker turned to Sachs. “You’re upset. I’m sorry about that. But I really wanted you on the case. It was the only way I could think of. I’ve already told them my conclusions. The whole thing’s gone away. Look, please, can we put this behind us and get on with our job?”

Rhyme glanced at Sachs, and what hurt him the most was to see her reaction to the incident: She wasn’t angry any longer. She seemed embarrassed to have been the cause of this controversy and trouble to her fellow officers, distracting them from their mission. It was so unusual—and therefore so hard—to see Amelia Sachs pained and vulnerable.

She handed the email back to Baker. Without a word to anyone she grabbed her jacket and walked calmly out the doorway, pulling her car keys from her pocket.

Chapter 22

Vincent Reynolds was studying the woman in the restaurant, a slim brunette, about thirty, in sweats. Her short hair was pulled back and stuck in place with bobby pins. They’d followed her from her old apartment in Greenwich Village, first to a local tavern and now here, a coffeehouse a few blocks away. She and her friend, a blonde in her twenties, were having a great time, laughing and talking nonstop.

Lucy Richter was enjoying her last brief moments on earth.

Duncan was listening to classical music on the Buick’s sound system. He was his typically thoughtful, calm self. Sometimes you just couldn’t tell what was going on in his mind.

Vincent, on the other hand, felt the hunger unraveling within him. He ate a candy bar, then another.

Fuck the great scheme of things. I need a girl. . . .

Duncan took out his gold pocket watch and looked at it, gently wound the stem.

Vincent had seen the watch a few times but he was always impressed with the piece. Duncan had explained that it was made by Breguet, a French watchmaker who lived a long time ago (“in my opinion the finest who ever lived”).

The watch was simple. It had a white face, Roman numerals and some small dials that showed the phases of the moon and was a perpetual calendar. It also had a “parachute,” an antishock system in it, Duncan explained. Breguet’s own invention.

Vincent now asked him, “How old is it, your watch?”

“It was made in the year twelve.”

“Twelve? Like in Roman times?”

Duncan smiled. “No, sorry. That’s the date on the original bill of sale, so that’s what I think of as the year of manufacture. I mean the year twelve in the French revolutionary calendar. After the monarchy fell, the republic declared a new calendar, starting in seventeen ninety-two. It was a curious concept. The weeks had ten days, and each month had thirty. Every six years was a leap year devoted exclusively to sports. For some reason, the government thought the calendar would be more egalitarian than the traditional one. But it was too unwieldy. It only lasted fourteen years. Like a lot of revolutionary ideas—they seem good on paper but they’re not very practical.”

Duncan studied the golden disk with affection. “I like watches from that era. Back then a watch was power. Not many people could afford one. The owner of a watch was a man who controlled time. You came to him and you waited until the time he’d set for the meeting. Chains and fobs were invented so that even when a man carried a watch in his pocket, you still could see he owned one. Watchmakers were gods in those days.” Duncan paused. “I was speaking figuratively, but in a way it’s true.”

Vincent cocked an eyebrow.

“There was a philosophical movement in the eighteenth century that used the watch as a metaphor. It held that God created the mechanism of the universe, then wound it up and started it running. Sort of a perpetual clock. God was called the ‘Great Watchmaker.’ Whether you believe it or not, the philosophy had a lot of followers. It gave watchmakers an almost priestlike status.”

Another glance at the Breguet. He put it away. “We should go,” Duncan said, nodding at the women. “They’ll be leaving soon.”

He put the car in gear, signaled and pulled into the street, leaving behind their victim, about to lose her life to one man and, soon after, her dignity to another. They couldn’t take her tonight, though, because Duncan had learned that she had a husband who worked odd hours and could be home at any moment.

Vincent was breathing deeply, trying to keep the hunger at bay. He ate a pack of chips. He asked, “How are you going to do it? Kill her, I mean.”

Duncan was silent for a few moments. “You asked me a question earlier. About how long it took the first two victims to die.”

Vincent nodded.

“Well, it’s going to take Lucy a long time.” Although they’d lost the book on torture, Duncan had apparently memorized much of it. He now described the technique he’d use to murder her. It was called water boarding. You suspend the victim on her back with her feet up. Then you tape her mouth shut and pour water up her nose. You can take as long as you like to kill the person if you give her air from time to time.

“I’m going to try to keep her going for a half hour. Or forty minutes, if I can.”

“She deserves it, hm?” Vincent asked.

Duncan paused. “The question you’re really asking is why am I killing these particular people.”

“Well . . .” It was true.

“I’ve never told you.”

“No, you haven’t.”

Trust is nearly as precious as time. . . .

Duncan glanced at Vincent then back to the street. “You know, we’re all on earth for a certain period of time. Maybe only days or months. Many years, we hope.”

“Right.”

“It’s as if God—or whatever you believe in—has a huge list of everybody on earth. When the hands of His clock hit a certain time, that’s it. They’re gone. . . . Well, I have my own list.”

“Ten people.”

“Ten people. . . . The difference is that God doesn’t have any good reason for killing them. I do.”

Vincent was quiet. For a moment he wasn’t clever and he wasn’t hungry. He was just regular Vincent, listening to a friend sharing something that was important.

“I’m finally comfortable enough telling you what that reason is.”

And he proceeded to do just that.

The moon was a band of white light on the hood of the car, reflecting into her eyes.

Amelia Sachs was now speeding along the East River, the emergency flasher sitting cockeyed on the dash.

She felt a weight crushing her, the consequences from all the events of the past few days: The likelihood that corrupt officers were involved with killers who’d murdered Ben Creeley and Frank Sarkowski. The risk that Inspector Flaherty might take the case away from her at any minute. Dennis Baker’s espionage and the vote of no confidence from the brass about Nick. Deputy Inspector Jefferies’s tantrum.

And, most of all, the terrible news about her father.

Thinking: What hope is there in doing your job, working hard, giving up your peace of mind, risking your life, if the business of being a cop ultimately spoils the decent core within you?

She slammed the shifter into fourth, nudging the car to seventy. The engine howled like a wolf at midnight.

No cop was better than her father, more solid, more conscientious. And yet look at what had happened to him. . . . But then she realized that no, no, she couldn’t think of it that way. Nothing had happened to him. Turning bad was his own decision.

She remembered Herman Sachs as a calm, humorous man, who enjoyed his afternoons with friends, watching car races, roaming with his daughter through Nassau County junkyards in treasure hunts for elusive carburetors or gaskets or tailpipes. But now she knew that that persona was merely the facade, beneath which was a much darker person, someone she hadn’t known at all.

Within Amelia Sachs’s soul was an edgy force, something that made her doubt and made her question and compelled her to take risks, however great. She suffered for this. But the reward was the exhilaration when an innocent life was saved or a dangerous perp collared.

That fire drove her in one direction; it had apparently pushed her father in another.

The Chevy fishtailed. She easily brought the skid under control.

Over the Brooklyn Bridge, a skidding turn off the highway. A dozen more turns, this way, that way, heading south.

Finally she found the pier she was looking for and hit the brakes, coming to a stop at the end of ten-foot skid marks. She got out of the car, slamming the door hard. Making her way through a small park, over a concrete barricade. Sachs ignored the warning sign and walked out onto the pier, through a steady, hissing wind.

Man, it was cold.

She stopped at a low wooden railing, gripped it in her gloved hands. Memories assaulted her:

At age ten, a warm summer night, her father boosting her up onto the pylon halfway out on the pier—it was still there—holding her tight. She wasn’t afraid because he’d taught her to swim at the community pool and, even if a gust of wind had blown them off the pier into the East River, they’d simply swim back to the ladder, laughing and racing, climb back up—and maybe they’d even jump off again together, holding hands as they plummeted ten feet into the murky, warm water.

At age fourteen, her father with his coffee and she with a soda, looking at the water as he spoke about Rose. “Your mother, she has her moods, Amie. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. Remember that. She’s just that way. But she’s proud of you. Know what she just told me the other day?”

And later, after she’d become a cop, standing here, beside the very same Camaro she’d driven tonight (though painted yellow at the time, a beautiful shade for a muscle car). Sachs in her uniform, Herman in his tweed jacket and cords.

“I’ve got a problem, Amie.”

“Problem?”

“Sort of a physical thing.”

She’d waited, feeling her fingernail dig into her thumb.

“It’s a bit of cancer. Nothing serious. I’ll be going through the treatment.” He gave her the details—he’d always talked straight to his daughter—and then he grew uncharacteristically grave, shaking his head. “But the big problem . . . I just paid five bucks for a haircut and now I’m going to lose it all.” Rubbing his scalp. “Wish I’d saved the money.”

The tears now rolled down her cheeks. “Goddamn it,” Sachs muttered to herself. Stop.

But she couldn’t. The tears continued and the icy moisture stung her face.

Returning to the car, she fired up the big engine and returned to Rhyme’s. When she got home he was upstairs in bed, asleep.

Sachs stepped into the exercise room, where Pulaski had written up the evidence charts on the Creeley/Sarkowski cases. She couldn’t help but smile. The diligent rookie had not only stashed the whiteboard here but he’d covered it with a sheet. She pulled the cloth off and looked over his careful writing then added a few notations of her own.

BENJAMIN CREELEY HOMICIDE

• 56-year-old Creeley, apparently suicide by hanging. Clothesline. But had broken thumb, couldn’t tie noose.

• Computer-written suicide note about depression. But appeared not to be suicidally depressed, no history of mental/emotional problems.

• Around Thanksgiving two men broke into his house and possibly burned evidence. White men, but faces not observed. One bigger than other. They were inside for about an hour.

• Evidence in Westchester house:

• Broke through lock; skillful job.

• Leather texture marks on fireplace tools and Creeley’s desk.

• Soil in front of fireplace has higher acid content than soil around house and contains pollutants. From industrial site?

• Traces of burned cocaine in fireplace.

• Ash in fireplace.

• Financial records, spreadsheet, references to millions of dollars.

• Checking logo on documents, sending entries to forensic accountant.

• Diary re: getting oil changed, haircut appointment and going to St. James Tavern.

• Analysis of ash from Queens CS lab:

• Logo of software used in corporate accounting.

• Forensic accountant: standard executive compensation figures.

• Burned because of what they revealed, or to lead investigators off?

• St. James Tavern

• Creeley came here several times.

• Apparently didn’t use drugs while here.

• Not sure whom he met with, but maybe cops from the nearby 118th Precinct of the NYPD.

• Last time he was here—just before his death—he got into an argument with persons unknown.

• Checked money from officers at St. James—serial numbers are clean, but found coke and heroin. Stolen from precinct?

• Not much drugs missing, only 6 or 7 oz. of pot, 4 of coke.

• Unusually few organized crime cases at the 118th Precinct but no evidence of intentional stalling by officers.

• Two gangs in the East Village possible but not likely suspects.

• Interview with Jordan Kessler, Creeley’s partner, and follow-up with wife.

• Confirmed no obvious drug use.

• Didn’t appear to associate with criminals.

• Drinking more than usual, taken up gambling; trips to Vegas and Atlantic City. Losses were large, but not significant to Creeley.

• Not clear why he was depressed.

• Kessler didn’t recognize burned records.

• Awaiting list of clients.

• Kessler doesn’t appear to gain by Creeley’s death.

• Sachs and Pulaski followed by AMG Mercedes.

FRANK SARKOWSKI HOMICIDE

• Sarkowski was 57 years old, no police record, murdered on November 4 of this year, survived by wife and two teenage children.

• Victim owned building and business in Manhattan. Business was doing maintenance for other companies and utilities.

• Art Snyder was case detective.

• No suspects.

• Murder/robbery?

• Was shot to death as part of apparent robbery. Weapon recovered on scene—Smith & Wesson knockoff, .38 Special, no prints, cold gun. Case detective believes it could have been a professional hit.

• Business deal went bad?

• Killed in Queens—not sure why he was there.

• Deserted part of borough, near natural gas tanks.

• File and evidence missing.

• File went to 158th Precinct on/around November 28. Never returned. No indication of requesting officer.

• No indication where it went in the 158th.

• DI Jefferies not cooperative.

• No known connection with Creeley.

• No criminal record—Sarkowski or company.

• Rumors—money going to cops at the 118th Precinct. Ended up someplace/someone with a Maryland connection. Baltimore mob involved?

• No leads.

Sachs stared at the chart for a half hour until her head began to nod. She returned upstairs, stripped, stepped into the shower and let the hot water pulse down on her, hard, stinging, for a long time. She dried off, pulled on a T-shirt and silk boxers, and returned to the bedroom.

She climbed into bed beside Rhyme and rested her head on his chest.

“You all right?” he asked groggily.

She said nothing but reached up and kissed his cheek. Then she lay back and stared at the bedside clock as the digital numbers flipped forward. The minutes passed slowly, slowly, each one an entire long day passing, until finally, close to 3 A.M., she slept.

II

9:02 A.M. WEDNESDAY

Time is the fire in which we burn.

—DELMORE SCHWARTZ

Chapter 23

Lincoln Rhyme had been awake for more than an hour. A young officer from the Coast Guard had delivered a jacket found floating in New York Harbor, a man’s size 44. It was, the captain of the boat deduced, probably the missing victim’s; both sleeves were covered in blood, the cuffs slashed.

The jacket was a Macy’s house brand and contained no other trace or evidence that could lead back to the owner.

He was now alone in the bedroom with Thom, who’d just finished Rhyme’s morning routine—his physical therapy exercises and what the aide delicately called “hygienic duties.” (Rhyme referred to them as the “piss ’n’ shit detail,” though usually only when easy-to-shock visitors were present.)

Amelia Sachs now walked up the stairs and joined him. She dropped her jacket in a chair, walked past him, opened the curtains. She looked out the window, into Central Park.

The slim young man sensed immediately that something was up. “I’ll go make coffee. Or toast. Or something.” He vanished, closing the door behind him.

So what was this? Rhyme wondered unhappily. He’d had more than enough personal issues recently than he wanted to deal with.

Her eyes were still looking over the painful brightness of the park. He asked, “So what was this errand that was so important?”

“I stopped by Argyle Security.”

Rhyme blinked and looked at her face closely. “They’re the ones that called after you got written up in the Times, when we closed that case about the illusionist.”

“Right.”

Argyle was an international company that specialized in safeguarding corporate executives and negotiating the release of kidnapped employees—a popular crime in some foreign countries. They’d offered Sachs a job making twice what she did as a cop. And promised her a carry permit—a license for a concealed weapon—in most jurisdictions, unusual for security companies. That and the promise to send her to exotic and dangerous locations caught her interest, though she’d turned them down immediately.

“What’s this all about?”

“I’m quitting, Rhyme.”

“Quitting the force? Are you serious?”

She nodded. “I’ve pretty much decided. I want to go in a different direction. I can do good things there too. Protecting families, guarding kids. They do a lot of antiterrorist work.”

Now he too stared out the window at the stark, bald trees of Central Park. He thought about his conversation with Kathryn Dance the previous day, about his early days of therapy. One doctor, a sharp, young man with the NYPD, Terry Dobyns, had told him, “Nothing lasts forever.” He’d meant this about the depression he’d been experiencing.

Now the sentence meant something very different and he couldn’t get the words out of his mind.

Nothing lasts forever. . . .

“Ah.”

“I think I have to, Rhyme. I have to.”

“Because of your father?”

She nodded, dug her finger into her hair, scratched. Winced at that pain, or at some other.

“This’s crazy, Sachs.”

“I don’t think I can do it anymore. Be a cop.”

“It’s pretty fast, don’t you think?”

“I’ve thought about it all night. I’ve never thought about anything so much in my life.”

“Well, keep thinking. You can’t make decisions like this after you get some bad news.”

“Bad news? Everything I thought about Dad was a lie.”

“Not everything,” Rhyme countered. “One part of his life.”

“But the most important part. That’s who he was first, Rhyme. A cop.”

“It was a long time ago. The Sixteenth Avenue Club was closed up when you were a baby.”

“That makes him less corrupt?”

Rhyme said nothing.

“You want me to explain it, Rhyme? Like evidence? Add a few drops of reagent and look at the results? I can’t. All I know is I have a really bad taste in my mouth. This’s affected how I look at the whole job.”

He said kindly, “It’s gotta be tough. But whatever happened to him doesn’t touch you. All that matters is you’re a good cop, and a lot fewer cases’ll be closed if you leave.”

“I’ll only close cases if my heart’s in it. And it’s not. Something’s gone.” She added, “Pulaski’s coming along great. He’s better now than I was when I started working with you.”

“He’s better because you’ve been training him.”

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Butter me up, drop those little comments. That’s what my mother used to do with my father. You don’t want me to leave, I understand, but don’t play that kind of card.”

But he had to play the card. And any other he could think of. After the accident Rhyme had wrestled with suicide on a number of occasions. And though he’d come close he always rejected the choice. What Amelia Sachs was now considering was psychic suicide. If she quit the force he knew that she’d be killing her soul.

“But Argyle? It’s not for you.” He shook his head. “Nobody takes corporate security seriously, even—especially—the clients.”

“No, their assignments’re good. And they send you back to school. You learn foreign languages. . . . They even have a forensics department. And the money’s good.”

He laughed. “Since when has this ever been about money? . . . Give it some time, Sachs. What’s the hurry?”

She shook her head. “I’m going to close the St. James case. And I’ll do whatever you need to nail the Watchmaker. But after that . . .”

“You know, if you quit, a lot of buttons get pushed. It’ll affect you for a long time, if you ever wanted to come back.” He looked away, blood pounding in his temple.

“Rhyme.” She pulled a chair up, sat and closed her hand around his—the right one, the fingers of which had some sensation and movement. She squeezed. “Whatever I do, it won’t affect us, our life.” She smiled.

You and me, Rhyme . . .

You and me, Sachs . . .

He looked off. Lincoln Rhyme was a scientist, a man of the brain, not the heart. Some years ago Rhyme and Sachs had met on a hard case—a series of kidnappings by a killer obsessed with human bones. No one could stop him, except these two misfits—Rhyme, the quadriplegic in retirement, and Sachs, the disillusioned rookie betrayed by her cop lover. Yet, somehow, together, they had forged a wholeness, filling the ragged gaps within each of them, and they’d stopped the killer.

Deny it as much as he wanted to, those words, you and me, had been his compass in the precarious world they’d created together. He wasn’t at all convinced that she was right that they wouldn’t be altered by her decision. Would removing their common purpose change them?

Was he witnessing the transition from Before to After?

“Have you already quit?”

“No.” She pulled a white envelope from her jacket pocket. “I wrote the resignation letter. But I wanted to tell you first.”

“Give it a couple of days before you decide. You don’t owe it to me. But I’m asking. A couple of days.”

She stared at the envelope for a long moment. Finally she said, “Okay.”

Rhyme was thinking: Here we are working on a case involving a man obsessed with clocks and watches, and the most important thing to me at this moment is buying a little time from Sachs. “Thanks.” Then: “Now, let’s get to work.”

“I want you to understand. . . .”

“There’s nothing to understand,” he said with what he felt was miraculous detachment. “There’s a killer to catch. That’s all we should be thinking about.”

He left her alone in the bedroom and took the tiny elevator downstairs to the lab, where Mel Cooper was at work.

“Blood on the jacket’s AB positive. Matches what was on the pier.”

Rhyme nodded. Then he had the tech call the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab about the ASTER information—the thermal scans to find possible locations of roof tarring.

It was early in California but the tech managed to track down somebody and put some pressure on him to find and upload the images. The pictures arrived soon after. They were striking but not particularly helpful. There were, as Sellitto had suggested, hundreds, possibly thousands of buildings that showed indications of elevated heat, and the system couldn’t discriminate between locations that were being reroofed, under construction, being heated with Consolidated Edison steam or simply had particularly hot chimneys.

All Rhyme could think to do was tell Central that any assaults or break-ins in or near a building having roofing work done should be patched through to them immediately.

The dispatcher hesitated and said she’d put the notice on the main computer.

The tone of her voice suggested that he was grasping at straws.

What could he say? She was right.

Lucy Richter closed the door to her co-op and flipped the locks.

She hung up her coat and hooded sweatshirt, printed on the front with 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, and on the back the division’s slogan: Steadfast and loyal.

Her muscles ached. At the gym, she’d done five miles, at a good pace and 9-percent incline, on the treadmill, then a half hour of push-ups and crunches. That was something else military service had done: taught her to appreciate muscle. You can put down physical fitness if you want, make fun of it as vanity and a waste of time but, fact is, it’s empowering.

She filled the kettle for tea and pulled a sugared doughnut out of the fridge, thinking about today. There were plenty of things that needed to be done: phone calls to return, emails, baking cookies and making her signature cheesecake for the reception on Thursday. Or maybe she’d just go shopping with friends and buy dessert at a bakery. Or have lunch with her mother.

Or lie in bed and watch the soaps. Pamper herself.

It was the start of heaven—her two weeks away from the land of the bitter fog—and she was going to enjoy every minute of it.

Bitter fog . . .

This was an expression she’d heard from a local policeman outside Baghdad, referring to fumes and smoke following the detonation of an IED—improvised explosive device.

Explosions in movies were just big flares of flaming gasoline. And then were gone, nothing left, except the reaction shot on the characters’ faces. In reality what remained after an IED was a thick bluish haze that stank and stung your eyes and burned your lungs. Part dust, part chemical smoke, part vaporized hair and skin, it remained at the scene for hours.

The bitter fog was a symbol of the horror of this new type of war. There were no trusted allies except your fellow soldiers. There were no battle lines. There were no fronts. And you had no clue who the enemy was. It might be your interpreter, a cook, a passerby, a local businessman, a teenager, an old man. Or somebody five klicks away. And the weapons? Not howitzers and tanks but the tiny parcels that produced the bitter fog, the packet of TNT or C4 or C3 or the shaped charge stolen from your own armory, hidden so inconspicuously that you never saw it until . . . well, the fact was you never saw it.

Lucy now rummaged in a cabinet for the tea.

Bitter fog . . .

Then she paused. What was that sound?

Lucy cocked her head and listened.

What was that?

A ticking. She felt her stomach twist at the sound. She and Bob had no wind-up clocks. But that’s what it sounded like.

What the hell is it?

She stepped into the small bedroom, which they used mostly as a closet. The light was out. She flicked it on. No, the sound wasn’t coming from there.

Her palms sweating, breath coming fast, heart pounding.

I’m imagining the sound. . . . I’m going crazy. IED’s don’t tick. Even timed devices have electronic detonators.

Besides, was she actually thinking that somebody had left a bomb in her co-op in New York City?

Girl, you need some serious help.

Lucy walked to the master bedroom doorway. The closet door was open, blocking her view of the dresser. Maybe it was . . . She stepped forward. But then paused. The ticking was coming from someplace else, not in here. She went up the hall to the dining room and looked inside. Nothing.

She then continued on to the bathroom. She gave a laugh.

Sitting on the vanity, next to the tub, was a clock. It looked like an old one. It was black and on the face was a window with a full moon staring at her. Where had it come from? Had her aunt been cleaning out her basement again? Had Bob bought it when she was away and set it out this morning after she’d left for the health club?

But why the bathroom?

The freaky moon face looked at her with its curious gaze, almost malevolent. It reminded her of the faces of the children along the roadside, their mouths curved into an expression that wasn’t quite a smile; you had no idea what was going on in their heads. When they looked at you, were they seeing their saviors? Their enemy? Or creatures from another planet?

Lucy decided she’d call Bob or her mother and ask about the clock. She went into the kitchen. She made the tea and carried the mug into the bathroom, the phone too, and ran water into the tub.

Wondering if her first bubble bath in months would do anything to wash away the bitter fog.

On the street in front of Lucy’s apartment Vincent Reynolds watched two schoolgirls walk past.

He glanced at them but felt no deepening of the hunger already ravaging his body. They were high school kids and too young for him. (Sally Anne had been a teenager, true, but so had he, which made it okay.)

Through his cell phone, Vincent heard Duncan’s whispered voice. “I’m in her bedroom. She’s in the bathroom, running a bath. . . . That’s helpful.”

Water boarding . . .

Because the building had a lot of tenants, and he could easily be spotted picking the lock, Duncan had climbed to the top of a building several doors down and made his way over the roofs to Lucy’s, then down the fire escape and into her bedroom. He was real athletic (another difference between the friends).

“Okay, I’m going to do it now.”

Thank you . . .

But then he heard, “Hold on.”

“What?” Vincent asked. “Is something wrong?”

“She’s on the phone. We’ll have to wait.”

Hungry Vincent was sitting forward. Waiting was not something he did well.

A minute passed, two, five.

“What’s going on?” Vincent whispered.

“She’s still on the phone.”

Vincent was furious.

Goddamn her . . . He wished he could be there with Duncan to help kill her. What the hell was she doing making phone calls now? He wolfed down some food.

Finally the Watchmaker said, “I’m going to try to get her off the phone. I’ll go back up to the roof and come down the stairs into the hallway. I’ll get her to open the door.” Vincent heard some rare emotion in the man’s next comment. “I can’t wait any longer.”

You don’t know the half of it, thought Clever Vincent, who surfaced momentarily before being sent away by his starving other half.

Stripping for her bath, Lucy Richter heard another sound. Not the ticking of the moon clock. From somewhere nearby. Inside? The hallway? The alley?

A click. Metallic.

What was it?

The life of the soldier is the sound of metal on metal. Slipping the long rounds of rifle ammo, fragrant with oil, into the clips, loading and locking the Colts, vehicle door latches, fueler’s belt buckles and vests clinking. The ring of a slug from an AK-47, dancing off a Bradley or Humvee.

The noise again, click, click.

Then silence.

She felt chill air, as if a window was open. Where? The bedroom, she decided. Half naked, she walked to the bedroom doorway and glanced in. Yes, the window was open. But when she’d glanced in earlier, hearing the ticking, hadn’t it been closed? She wasn’t sure.

The Lucy commanded: Don’t be so damn paranoid, soldier. Getting pretty tired of this. There’re no IED’s, no suicide bombers here, no bitter fog.

Get a grip.

One arm covering her breasts—there were apartments across the alley—she closed and locked the window. Looked down into the alley. Saw nothing.

It was then that somebody began pounding on the front door. Lucy spun around, gasping. She pulled on a bathrobe and hurried to the dark foyer. “Who’s there?”

There was a pause, then a man’s voice called, “I’m a police officer. Are you all right?”

She called, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s an emergency. Please open the door. Are you okay?”

Alarmed, she pulled the robe belt tight and undid the deadbolts, thinking of the bedroom window and wondering if somebody’d been trying to break it. She unhooked the chain.

Lucy twisted the lock, reflecting only after the door began to push open toward her that she probably should’ve asked to see an ID or a badge before she unhooked the chain. She’d been caught up in a very different world for so long that she’d forgotten there were still plenty of bad people stateside.

Amelia Sachs and Lon Sellitto arrived at the old apartment building in Greenwich Village, nestled on quaint Barrow Street.

“That’s it?”

“Uh-huh,” Sellitto said. His fingers were blue. His ears, red.

They looked into the alley beside the building. Sachs surveyed it carefully.

“What’s her name?” she asked.

“Richter. Lucy I think’s her first name.”

“Which window’s hers?”

“Third floor.”

She glanced up at the fire escape.

They continued on to the front stairs of the apartment building. A crowd of people were watching. Sachs scanned their faces, still convinced that the Watchmaker had swept up at the first scene because he intended to return. Which meant he might have remained here too. But she saw no one that resembled him or his partner.

“We’re sure it was the Watchmaker?” Sachs asked Frank Rettig and Nancy Simpson, cold and huddling next to the Crime Scene rapid response van, parked cockeyed in the middle of Barrow.

“Yep, he left one of those clocks,” Rettig explained. “With the moon faces.”

Sachs and Sellitto started up the stairs.

“One thing,” Nancy Simpson said.

The detectives stopped and turned.

The officer nodded at the building, grimacing. “It won’t be pretty.”

Chapter 24

Sachs and Sellitto ascended the stairs slowly. The air in the dim stairwell smelled of pine cleanser and oil furnace heat.

“How’d he get in?” Sachs mused.

“This guy’s a ghost. He gets in however he fucking wants to.”

She looked up the stairwell. They paused outside the door. A nameplate said, Richter/Dobbs.

It won’t be pretty. . . .

“Let’s do it.”

Sachs opened the door and walked into Lucy Richter’s apartment.

Where they were met by a muscular young woman in sweats, hair pinned up. She turned away from the uniformed officer she’d been talking to. Her face darkened as she glanced at Sachs and Sellitto and noticed the gold badges around their necks.

“You’re in charge?” asked Lucy Richter angrily, stepping forward, right in Lon Sellitto’s face.

“I’m one of the detectives on the case.” He identified himself. Sachs did too.

Lucy Richter put her hands on her hips. “What the hell do you people think you’re doing?” the soldier barked. “You know there’s some psycho leaving these goddamn clocks when he kills people. And you don’t tell anybody? I didn’t survive all these months of combat in the goddamn desert just to come home and get killed by some motherfucker because you don’t bother to share that information with the public.”

It took some time to calm her down.

“Ma’am,” Sachs explained, “his M.O. isn’t that he’s delivering these clocks ahead of time to let people know he’s on his way. He was here. In your apartment. You were lucky.”

Lucy Richter was indeed fortunate.

About a half hour ago a passerby happened to see a man climb onto her fire escape and head for the roof. He’d called 911 to report it. The Watchmaker had apparently glanced down, realized he’d been spotted and fled.

A search of the neighborhood could find no trace of him and no witnesses had seen anyone matching the Watchmaker’s image on the computer composite.

Sachs glanced toward Sellitto, who said, “We’re very sorry for the incident, Ms. Richter.”

“Sorry,” she scoffed. “You need to go public with it.”

The detectives glanced at each other. Sellitto nodded. “We will. I’ll have Public Affairs make an announcement on the local news.”

Sachs said, “I’d like to search your apartment for evidence he might’ve left. And ask you a few questions about what happened.”

“In a minute. I have to make some calls. My family’ll hear about this on the news. I don’t want them to worry.”

“This is pretty important,” Sellitto said.

The soldier opened her cell phone. In a firm voice she added, “Like I said, in a minute.”

“Rhyme, you there?”

“Go ahead, Sachs.” The criminalist was in his laboratory, connected to Sachs via radio. He recalled that in the next month or so they’d planned to try a high-definition video camera mounted to her head or shoulder, broadcasting to Rhyme’s lab, which would let him see everything that she saw. They’d joked and called it a James Bond toy. He felt a pang that it would not be Sachs inaugurating this device with him.

Then he forced the sentiment away. What he often told those working for him he now told himself: There’s a perp out there; nothing matters but catching him and you can’t do that if you’re not concentrating 100 percent.

“We showed Lucy the composite of the Watchmaker. She didn’t recognize him.”

“How’d he get inside today?”

“Not sure. If he’s sticking to his M.O. he picked the front door lock. But then I think he went up to the roof and climbed down the fire escape to the vic’s window. He got inside, left the clock and was waiting for her. But for some reason he climbed back outside. That’s when the wit outside saw him and the Watchmaker booked on out of here. Went back up the fire escape.”

“Where was he inside her apartment?”

“He left the clock in the bathroom. The fire escape is off the master bedroom so he was in there too.” She paused. Then came on a moment later. “They’ve been canvassing for witnesses but nobody saw him or his car. Maybe he and his partner are on foot since we’ve got his SUV.” A half dozen different subway lines serve Greenwich Village and they could easily have escaped via any of them.

“I don’t think so.” Rhyme explained that he felt the Watchmaker and his assistant would prefer wheels. The choice of using vehicles or not when committing a crime is a consistent pattern in a criminal’s M.O. It rarely changes.

Sachs searched the bedroom, the fire escape, the bathroom and the routes he would’ve taken to get to those places. She checked the roof too. It had not been recently tarred, she reported.

“Nothing, Rhyme. It’s like he’s wearing a Tyvek suit of his own. He’s just not leaving anything behind.”

Edmond Locard, the famed French criminalist, developed what he called the exchange principle, which stated that whenever a physical crime occurs, there is some transfer of evidence between the criminal and the location. He leaves something of himself at the scene and he takes some of the scene with him when he departs. The principle is deceptively optimistic, though, because sometimes the trace is so minuscule it’s missed and sometimes it’s easily located but provides no helpful leads for investigators. Still Locard’s principle holds that there would be some transfer of materials.

Rhyme often wondered, though, if there existed the rare criminal who was as smart as, or smarter than, Rhyme himself and if such a person could learn enough about forensic science to commit a crime and yet flaunt Locard’s principle—leave behind no evidence and pick up none himself. Was the Watchmaker such a person?

“Think, Sachs. . . . There’s got to be more. Something we’re missing. What does the vic say?”

“She’s pretty shaken up. Not really concentrating.”

After a pause Rhyme said, “I’m sending down our secret weapon.”

Kathryn Dance sat across from Lucy Richter in the living room of her apartment.

The soldier was beneath a Jimi Hendrix poster and a wedding photo of Lucy and her husband, a round-faced, cheerful man in a dress military uniform.

Dance noted the woman was pretty calm, considering the circumstances, though, as Amelia Sachs had said, something was clearly troubling her. Dance had the impression that it was partly something other than the attack. She didn’t exhibit the post-traumatic stress reactions of a near miss; she was troubled in a more fundamental way.

“If you don’t mind, could you go through the details again?”

“If it’ll help catch that son of a bitch, anything.” Lucy explained that she’d gone to the gym to work out that morning. When she returned she found the clock.

“I was upset. The ticking . . .” Her face now revealed a subtle fear reaction. Fight-or-flight. At Dance’s prompting she explained about the bombs overseas. “I guessed it was a present or something but it kind of freaked me out. Then I felt a breeze and went to look. I found the bedroom window open. That’s when the police showed up.”

“Nothing else unusual?”

“No. Not that I can remember.”

Danced asked her a number of other questions. Lucy Richter didn’t know Theodore Adams or Joanne Harper. She couldn’t think of anyone who’d want to hurt her. She’d been trying to recall something else that could help the police but was drawing a blank.

The woman was outwardly brave (“that son of a bitch”) but Dance believed that something in Lucy’s mind was preventing her, subconsciously, from focusing on what had just happened. The classic defensive crossing of her arms and legs was a sign, indicating not deception but a barrier against whatever was threatening her.

The agent needed a different approach. She put her notebook down.

“What are you doing in town?” she asked conversationally.

Lucy explained that she was here on leave from her duty in the Middle East. Normally she’d have met her husband, Bob, in Germany, where they had friends, but she was getting a commendation on Thursday.

“Oh, part of that parade, supporting the troops?”

“Right afterward.”

“Congratulations.”

Her smile fluttered. Dance noticed the minuscule reaction.

And she noted one in herself, as well; Kathryn Dance’s husband had been recognized for bravery under fire by the Bureau four days before he’d died. But that was a crackle of static that Dance immediately tuned out.

Shaking her head, the agent continued. “You come back to the States and look what happens—you run into this guy. That’s pretty shitty. Especially after being overseas.”

“It’s not that bad over there. Sounds worse on the news.”

“Still . . . But it looks like you’re coping pretty well.”

Her body was telling a very different story.

“Oh, yeah. You do what you have to. No big deal.” Her fingers were-entwined.

“What do you do there?”

“I manage fuelers. Basically it’s running supply trucks.”

“Important job.”

A shrug. “I guess.”

“Good to be here on leave, I’ll bet.”

“You ever in the service?”

“No,” Dance answered.

“Well, in the army, remember rule number one: Never pass up R and R. Even if it’s just drinking punch with the brass and collecting a wall decoration.”

Dance kept drawing her out. “How many other soldiers’ll be at the ceremony?”

“Eighteen.”

Lucy wasn’t comfortable at all. Dance wondered if her underlying uneasiness was because she might have to say a few words in front of the crowd. Public speaking was higher on the fear scale than skydiving. “And how big’s the event going to be?”

“I don’t know. A hundred. Maybe two.”

“Is your family going?”

“Oh, yeah. Everybody. We’re going to have a reception here afterward.”

“As my daughter says,” Dance offered, “parties rock. What’s on the menu?”

“Forgeddabout it,” Lucy joked. “We’re in the Village. It’ll be Italian. Baked ziti, scampi, sausage. My mother and aunt’re cooking. I’m making dessert.”

“My downfall,” Dance said. “Sweets . . . I’m getting hungry.” Then she said, “Sorry, I got distracted.” Leaving the notebook closed, she looked into the woman’s eyes. “Back to your visitor. You were saying, you made your tea. Running the bath. You feel a breeze. You go into the bedroom. The window’s open. What was I asking? Oh, was there anything else you saw that was out of the ordinary?”

“Not really.” She said this quickly, as before, but then she squinted. “Wait. You know . . . there was one thing.”

“Really?”

Dance had done what’s known as “flooding.” She’d decided that it wasn’t only the Watchmaker that was bothering Lucy but rather her duty overseas, as well as the upcoming awards ceremony, for some reason. Dance had gone back to the topics and kept bombarding her with questions, in hopes of numbing her and letting the other memories break through.

Lucy rose and walked to the bedroom. Saying nothing, Dance followed her. Amelia Sachs joined them.

The soldier looked around the room.

Careful, Dance told herself. Lucy was onto something. Dance kept silent. Too many interviewers ruin a session by pouncing. The rule with vague memories is that you can let them surface but you can rarely reel them in.

Watching and listening are the two most important parts of the interview. Talking comes last.

“There was something that bothered me, something other than the window being open. . . . Oh, you know what? I’ve got it. When I walked to the bedroom earlier, to see about the ticking, something was different—I couldn’t see the dresser.”

“Why was that unusual?”

“Because when I left to go to the health club I glanced at it to see if my sunglasses were there. They were and I picked them up. But then when I looked into the room later, when I heard the ticking, I couldn’t see the dresser—because the closet door was partly open.”

Dance said, “So after the man left the clock he was probably hiding in the closet or behind the door.”

“Makes sense,” Lucy said.

Dance turned to Sachs, who nodded with a smile and said, “Good. I better get to work.” And she pulled open the closet door with her latex-gloved hand.

A second time they’d failed.

Duncan was driving even more carefully, meticulously, than he usually did.

He was silent and completely calm. Which bothered Vincent even more. If Duncan slammed down his fist and screamed, like his stepfather, Vincent would have felt better. (“You did what?” the man had raged, referring to the rape of Sally Anne. “You fat pervert!”) He was worried that Duncan had had enough and was going to give up the whole thing.

Vincent didn’t want his friend to go away.

Duncan merely drove slowly, stayed in his lane, didn’t speed, didn’t try to beat yellow lights.

And didn’t say a word for a long time.

Finally he explained to Vincent what had happened: As he’d started to climb to the roof—planning to get into the building, knock on Lucy’s door and get her to hang up the phone, he’d glanced down and seen a man in the alley, staring at him, pulling his cell phone from his pocket, shouting for Duncan to stop. The killer had hurried to the roof, run west several buildings then rapelled into the alley. He’d then sprinted to the Buick.

Duncan was driving meticulously, yes, but without any obvious destination. At first Vincent wondered if this was to lose the police but there didn’t seem to be any risk of pursuit. Then he decided that Duncan was on automatic pilot, driving in large circles.

Like the hands of a clock.

Once again the shock of a narrow escape faded and Vincent felt the hunger growing again, hurting his jaw, hurting his head, hurting his groin.

If we don’t eat, we die.

He wanted to be back in Michigan, hanging out with his sister, having dinner with her, watching TV. But his sister wasn’t here, she was miles and miles away, maybe thinking of him right now—but that didn’t give him any comfort. . . . The hunger was too intense. Nothing was working out! He felt like screaming. Vincent had better luck cruising strip malls in New Jersey or waiting for a college coed or receptionist jogging through a deserted park. What was the point of—

In his quiet voice Duncan said, “I’m sorry.”

“You . . . ?”

“I’m sorry.”

Vincent was disarmed. His anger diminished and he wasn’t sure what to say.

“You’ve been helping me, working hard. And look what’s happened. I’ve let you down.”

Here was Vincent’s mother, explaining to him, when he was ten, that she’d let him down with Gus, then with her second husband, then with Bart, then with Rachel the experiment, then with her third husband.

And every time, young Vincent had said just what he said now. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not . . . I talk about the great scheme of things. But that doesn’t minimize our disappointments. I owe you. And I’ll make it up to you.”

Which is something his mother never said, much less did, leaving Vincent to find what comfort he could in food, TV shows, spying on girls and having his heart-to-hearts.

No, it was clear that his friend, Duncan, meant what he was saying. He was genuinely remorseful that Vincent hadn’t been able to have Lucy. Vincent still felt the urge to cry but now for a different reason. Not from the hunger, not from frustration. He felt filled with an odd sensation. People hardly ever said nice things to him like this. People hardly ever worried about him.

“Look,” Duncan said, “the one I’m going to do next. You’re not going to want her.”

“Is she ugly?”

“Not really. It’s just the way she’s going to die . . . I’m going to burn her.”

“Oh.”

“In the book, remember the alcohol torture?”

“Not really.”

The pictures in the book were of men being tortured; they hadn’t interested Vincent.

“You pour alcohol on the lower half of someone’s body and set fire to it. You can put out an alcohol fire quickly if they confess. Of course, I’m not going to be putting it out.”

True, Vincent agreed, he wouldn’t want her after that.

“But I have another idea.”

Duncan then explained what he had in mind, Vincent’s spirits improving with every word. Duncan asked, “Don’t you think it’ll work out for everybody?”

Well, not quite everybody, thought Clever Vincent, who was back and in a pretty good mood, all things considered.

Sitting in front of the evidence charts, Rhyme heard Sachs come back on the line.

“Okay, Rhyme. We’ve found he was hiding in the closet.”

“Which one?”

“In Lucy’s bedroom.”

Rhyme closed his eyes. “Describe it to me.”

Sachs gave him the whole scene—the hallway leading to the bedroom, the layout of the bedroom itself then the furniture, pictures on the wall, the Watchmaker’s entrance and exit route and other details. Everything was described in precise, objective detail. Her training and experience shone as sharply as her red hair. If she left the force he wondered how long it would take another cop to walk the grid as well as she did.

Forever, he thought cynically.

Anger flared for a moment. Then he forced the emotion away and concentrated again on her words.

Sachs described the closet. “Six feet four inches wide. Filled with clothes. Men’s on the left, women’s on the right, half and half. Shoes on the floor. Fourteen pair. Four men’s, ten women’s.”

A typical ratio, Rhyme reflected, for a married couple, thinking of his own closet from years ago. “When he was hiding, was he lying on the floor?”

“No. Too many boxes.”

He heard her ask a question. Then she came back on the line. “The clothes’re ordered now but he must’ve moved them. I can see some boxes moved on the floor and a few bits of that roofing tar we found earlier.”

“What were the clothes he was hiding between?”

“A suit. And Lucy’s army uniform.”

“Good.” Certain garments, like uniforms, are particularly good at collecting evidence, thanks to their prominent epaulettes, buttons and decorations. “Was he against the front or back?”

“Front.”

“Perfect. Go over every button, medal, bar, decoration.”

“Okay. Give me a few minutes.”

Then silence.

His impatience, laced with anger, was back. He stared at the whiteboards.

Finally she said, “I found two hairs and some fibers.”

He was about to tell her to check the hairs against samples in the apartment. But of course he didn’t need to do this. “I compared the hairs to hers. They don’t match.” He began to tell her to find a sample of the woman’s husband’s hair when Sachs said, “But I found her husband’s brush. I’m ninety-nine percent sure they’re his.”

Good, Sachs. Good.

“But the fibers . . . they don’t seem to match anything else here.” Sachs paused. “They look like wool, light-colored. Maybe a sweater . . . but they were caught on a pocket button at about shoulder level for a man of the Watchmaker’s height. Could be a shearling collar.”

A reasonable deduction, though they’d have to examine the fibers more carefully in the lab.

After a few minutes she said, “That’s about it, Rhyme. Not much but it’s something.”

“Okay, bring everything in. We’ll go over it here.” He disconnected the line.

Thom wrote down the information Sachs gave them. After the aide left the room Lincoln Rhyme stared again at the charts. He wondered if the notes he was looking at weren’t simply clues in a homicide case, but evidence of a different sort of murder: the corpse of the last crime scene he and Amelia Sachs would ever work together.

Lon Sellitto was gone and, inside Lucy Richter’s apartment, Sachs was just finishing packing up the evidence. She turned to Kathryn Dance and thanked her.

“Hope it’s helpful.”

“That’s the thing about crime scene work. Only a couple of fibers, but they could be enough for a conviction. We’ll just have to see.” Sachs added, “I’m heading back to Rhyme’s. Listen, I don’t know if you’d be willing but could you do some canvassing in the neighborhood? You’ve sure got the touch when it comes to wits.”

“You bet.”

Sachs gave her some printouts with the Watchmaker’s composite picture and left, to head back to Rhyme’s.

Dance nodded at Lucy Richter. “You’re doing okay?”

“Fine,” the solider replied and offered a stoic smile. She walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. “You want some tea? Or coffee?”

“No. I’m going to be outside looking for witnesses.”

Lucy was staring down at the floor, a good semaphore signal to a kinesics expert. Dance said nothing.

The soldier said, “You said you were from California. You going back soon?”

“Tomorrow, probably.”

“Just wondering if you’d have time for coffee or something.” Lucy played with a potholder. On it were the words 4th Infantry Division. Steadfast and Loyal.

“Sure. We’ll work it out.” Dance found a card in her purse and wrote her hotel name on it, then circled her mobile on the front.

Lucy took it.

“Call me,” Dance said.

“I will.”

“Everything okay?”

“Oh, sure. Just fine.”

Dance shook the woman’s hand, then left the apartment, reminding herself of an important rule in kinesic analysis: Sometimes you don’t need to uncover the truth behind every deception you’re told.

Chapter 25

Amelia Sachs returned to Rhyme’s with a small carton of evidence.

“What do we have?” he asked.

Sachs went over again what she’d found at the scene, then added details on the boards.

According to the NYPD crime scene database on fibers, what Sachs had discovered on Lucy’s uniform was from a shearling coat, the sort of collar found on leather jackets that used to be worn by pilots—bomber jackets. Sachs had field-tested the clock for nitrates—this one wasn’t explosive either—and it was identical to the other three, yielding no trace except a recent stain of what turned out to be wood alcohol, the sort used as an antiseptic and for cleaning. As with the florist, the Watchmaker hadn’t had time to leave another poem or had chosen not to.

Rhyme agreed to go public with the announcement about the calling card of the clock, though he predicted that all the announcement would do would be to guarantee that the killer didn’t leave a clock until he was sure the victim was unable to call for help.

The trace that Sachs had found along the route where the killer had most likely escaped revealed nothing helpful.

“There wasn’t anything else,” she explained.

“Nothing?” Rhyme asked. He shook his head.

Locard’s principle . . .

Ron Pulaski arrived, pulling off his coat and hanging it up. Rhyme noticed that Sachs’s eyes turned at once to the rookie.

The Other Case . . .

Sachs asked, “Any luck with the Maryland connection?”

The rookie replied, “Three ongoing federal investigations into corruption at the Baltimore waterfront. One of them has a link to the New York metro area but it was only the Jersey docks. And it’s not about drugs. They’re looking into kickbacks and falsified shipping documents. I’m waiting to hear back from Baltimore PD about state investigations. Neither Creeley or Sarkowski had any property in Maryland and neither of them ever went there on business that I could find. The closest Creeley got was regular business meetings in Pennsylvania to meet some client. And Sarkowski didn’t travel at all. Oh, and still no client list from Jordan Kessler. I left a message again but he hasn’t returned the call.”

He continued. “I found a couple of people assigned to the One One Eight who were born in Maryland but they don’t have any connection there now. I ran a roster of names of everybody who’s assigned to the house against property tax databases in Maryland—”

“Wait,” Sachs said. “You did that?”

“Was that wrong?”

“Uhm, no, Ron. It was right. Good thinking.” Sachs shared a smile with Rhyme. He lifted an eyebrow, impressed.

“Maybe. But nothing panned out.”

“Well, keep digging.”

“Sure thing.”

Sachs then walked over to Sellitto and asked, “Got a question. You know Halston Jefferies?”

“Dep inspector at the One Five Eight?”

“Right. What’s with him? Got a real short fuse.”

Sellitto laughed. “Yeah, yeah, he’s a rageaholic.”

“So I’m not the only one he acts that way with?”

“Nup. Reams you out for no reason. How’d you cross paths?” He glanced at Rhyme.

“Nope,” the criminalist replied cheerfully. “That’d have to be her case. Not my case.”

Her exasperated look didn’t faze him. Pettiness could, in some circumstances, be quite exhilarating, Rhyme reflected.

“I needed a file and I went to the source. He thought I should’ve gotten his okay.”

“But you needed to keep the brass in the dark about what’s going on at the One One Eight.”

“Exactly.”

“It’s just the way he is. Had some problems in the past. His wife was a socialite—”

“That’s a great word,” Pulaski interrupted, “ ‘socialite,’ like ‘socialist.’ Only they’re opposites. In a way.”

When Sellitto shot him a cool look the rookie fell silent.

The detective continued. “I heard they lost some serious money, Jefferies and his wife. I mean big money. Money you and me, we can’t even find where the decimal point goes. Some business thing his wife was into. He was hoping to run for office—Albany, I think. But you can’t go there without big bucks. And she left him after the business fell through. Though with a temper like that, he had to’ve had issues beforehand.”

She was nodding at this information when her phone rang. She answered. “That’s right, that’s me. . . . Oh, no. Where? . . . I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

Her face pale and grave, she hurried out the door, saying, “Problem. I’ll be back in a half-hour.”

“Sachs,” Rhyme began. But he heard only the slamming front door in response.

The Camaro eased up over the curb on West Forty-fourth Street, not far from the West Side Highway.

A big man in an overcoat and a fur hat squinted at Sachs as she climbed out of the car. She didn’t know him, or he her, but the all-business parking job and the NYPD placard on the dash made it clear she was the one he was waiting for.

The young man’s ears and nose were bright red and steam curled from his nose. He stamped his feet to keep the circulation going. “Whoa, this’s cold. I’m sicka winter already. You Detective Sachs?”

“Yeah. You’re Coyle?”

They shook hands. He had a powerful grip.

“What’s the story?” she asked.

“Come on. I’ll show you.”

“Where?”

“The van. In the lot up the street.”

As they walked, briskly in the cold, Sachs asked, “What house you from?” Coyle had identified himself as a cop when he called.

The traffic was loud. He didn’t hear.

She repeated her question. “What house you from? Midtown South?”

He blinked at her. “Yeah.” Then blew his nose.

“I was there for a while,” Sachs told him.

“Hmm.” Coyle said nothing else. He directed her through the large parking lot. At the far end Coyle stopped, next to a Windstar van, the windows dark, the motor running.

He glanced around. Then opened the door.

Canvassing apartments and stores in Greenwich Village, near Lucy Richter’s, Kathryn Dance was reflecting on the symbiotic relationship between kinesic and forensic sciences.

A practitioner of kinesics requires a human being—a witness, a suspect—the same way a forensic scientist requires evidence. Yet this case was distinguished by a surprising absence of both people and physical clues.

It frustrated her. She’d never been involved in an investigation quite like this one.

Excuse me, sir, madam, hey there, young man, there was some police activity near here earlier today, did you hear about it, ah, good, I wonder if you happened to see anyone in that area, leaving quickly. Or did you see anything suspicious, anything out of the ordinary? Take a look at this picture. . . .

But, nothing.

Dance didn’t even recognize chronic witnessitis, the malady where people clearly know something but claim they don’t, out of fear for themselves or their families. No, after forty freezing minutes on the street, she’d found the problem was simply that nobody’d seen squat.

Excuse me, sir, yes, it’s a California ID but I’m working with the New York Police Department, you can call this number to verify that, now have you seen . . .

Zero.

Dance was taken aback once, shocked actually, when she approached a man coming out of an apartment. She’d blinked and her thoughts froze as she stared up at him—he was identical to her late husband. She’d controlled herself and run through her litany. He’d sensed something was up, though, and frowned, asking if she was all right.

How unprofessional can we be? Dance thought angrily. “Fine,” she’d said with a fake smile.

Like his neighbors, though, the businessman hadn’t seen anything unusual and headed up the street. With a long look back at him, Dance continued her search.

She wanted a lead, wanted to help nail this perp. Like any cop, of course, she wanted to take a sick, dangerous man off the streets. But she also wanted to spend time interviewing him after he’d been collared. The Watchmaker was different from any other perp she’d ever come up against. Kathryn Dance wanted badly to find out what made him tick—and laughed to herself at the unintended choice of words.

She continued stopping people for another block but found no one who could help.

Until she met the shopper.

On the sidewalk a block from Lucy’s apartment she stopped a man wheeling a handcart filled with groceries. He glanced at the composite picture of the Watchmaker and said impulsively, “Oh, yeah, I think I saw somebody who looked like him. . . .” Then he hesitated. “But I didn’t really pay any attention.” He started to leave.

Kathryn Dance, though, knew instantly he’d seen more.

Witnessitis.

“This’s really important.”

“All I saw was somebody running up the street. That’s it.”

“Listen, got an idea. Anything perishable in there?” She nodded at the grocery cart.

He hesitated again, trying to anticipate her. “Not really.”

“How ’bout if we get some coffee and I ask you a few more questions. You mind?”

She could tell he did mind but just then a blast of icy wind rocked them and he looked like he wouldn’t mind getting out of the cold. “I guess. But I really can’t tell you anything else.”

Oh, we’ll see about that.

Amelia Sachs sat in the back of the van.

With Coyle’s help, she was struggling to get retired detective Art Snyder into a sitting position on the backseat of the van. He was half conscious, muttering words she couldn’t hear.

When Coyle had first opened the door, Snyder had been sprawled out, head back, unconscious, and she thought—to her horror—that he’d killed himself. She soon learned that he was simply drunk, though extremely so. She’d shaken him gently. “Art?” He’d opened his eyes, frowning and disoriented.

Now, the two officers got him on a seat.

“No, just wanna sleep. Leave me alone. Wanna sleep.”

“This’s his van?”

“Yeah,” Coyle answered.

“What happened? How’d he get here?”

“He was up the street at Harry’s. They wouldn’t serve him—he was drunk already—and he wandered outside. I came in to buy some ciggies just after. The bartender knew I was a cop and told me about him. Didn’t want him to drive off and kill himself or somebody else. I found him here, halfway inside. Your card was in his pocket.”

Art Snyder shifted groggily. “Leave me alone.” His eyes closed.

She glanced at Coyle. “I’ll take over from here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Only, could you flag down a cab, send it over here?”

“Sure.”

The cop climbed out of the van and walked away. Sachs crouched down, touched his arm. “Art?”

He opened his eyes, squinting as he recognized her. “You . . .”

“Art, we’re going to get you home.”

“Leave me alone. Leave me the fuck alone.”

There was a cut on his forehead and his sleeve was torn from a fall. He’d vomited not long ago.

He snapped, “Haven’t you done enough? Haven’t you fucking done enough to me?” His eyes bulged. “Go away. I want to be alone. Leave me alone!” He rolled to his knees, tried crawling to the driver’s seat. “Go . . . away!”

Sachs pulled him back. He wasn’t a small man but the alcohol had weakened him. He tried to stand but fell back on the seat.

“You were doing great.” She nodded at a pint bottle on the floor. It was empty.

“What’s it to you? What the fuck is it to you?”

“What happened?” she persisted.

“Don’t you get it? You happened. You.”

“Me?”

“Why did I think it’d keep quiet? There’re no fucking secrets in the department. I ask a few questions for you, where’s the fucking file, what happened to it . . . next thing, my buddy I was meeting to play pool I told you about? He never shows. And doesn’t return my calls . . .” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Then I get a call—this guy was my partner for three years, him and me and our wives were going on a cruise. Guess who can’t fucking make it? . . . All because I was asking questions. A retired cop asking questions . . . I should’ve told you to go fuck yourself the minute you walked through the door.”

“Art, I—”

“Oh, don’t worry, lady. I didn’t mention your name. Didn’t mention anything.” He groped for the bottle. He saw it was empty. And flung it to the floor.

“Look, I know a good counselor. You can—”

“Counselor? What’s he gonna counsel me on? How I fucked up my life?”

She glanced toward the bottle. “You stumbled. Everybody stumbles.”

“Not what I’m talking about. This’s because I fucked everything up.”

“What do you mean, Art?”

“Because I was a cop. I wasted everything. I wasted my life.”

She felt a chill; his words echoed her feelings. He was expressing exactly the reason she wanted to leave the force. She said, “Art, how ’bout we get you home?”

“I could’ve done a hundred other things. My brother’s a plumber. My sister went to grad school and works for an ad agency now. She did that butterfly commercial for those feminine things. She’s famous. I could’ve done something.”

“You’re just feeling—”

“Don’t,” he snapped, pointing a finger at her. “You don’t know me good enough to talk to me that way. You got no right.”

Sachs fell silent. True. She didn’t have the right.

“Whatever happens ’causa what you’re looking into, I’m fucked. Good or bad, I’m fucked.”

Her heart chilled to see his anger and pain; she put her arm around him, “Art, listen—”

“Get your hands off me.” His head lolled against the window.

Coyle walked up a moment later, directing a Yellow Cab toward the van. Together Coyle and Sachs helped Snyder to the cab and got him inside. She gave the driver Snyder’s address, then emptied her wallet, handing him close to fifty dollars and the detective’s car keys. “I’ll call his wife, let her know he’s coming,” she told the cabbie. The taxi eased into thick Midtown traffic.

“Thanks,” she said to Coyle, who nodded and walked off. She was grateful he didn’t ask any questions.

After he was gone, Sachs reached into her pocket and extracted Snyder’s pistol, which she’d lifted from his rear belt holster when she’d put her arm around him. Maybe he had another piece at home but at least he wouldn’t be using this one to kill himself. She unloaded it, kept the bullets and hid the weapon in the springs under the front passenger seat. She then locked the door and returned to her car.

Her index finger dug into her thumb. Her skin itched. Her anger steamed as she realized that apart from the extortion and the stolen evidence there was a broader crime that her father—and all crooked cops—committed. Her simple effort to get to the truth had turned into something flinty and dangerous, affecting even the innocent. Snyder’s future life as a retiree, which he’d looked forward to for years, was dissolving. All because of whatever happened at the 118th Precinct.

Just like the families of the convicted cops in the Sixteenth Avenue Club had their lives changed forever by what her father and his buddies had done. Wives and children had been forced to give up their homes to banks and quit school to get jobs; they’d been ostracized, forever tainted by the scandal.

She still had time to get out—leave police work, and get out. Get into Argyle, get away from the bullshit and the politics, make a new life for herself. She still had time. But for Art Snyder, it was too late.

Why, Dad? Why’d you do it?

Amelia Sachs would never know.

Time had passed on and taken with it any chance she might find answers to that question.

All she could do was speculate, which does nothing but leave a wound in the soul that feels like it will never heal.

Turning back the clock was the only answer and that, of course, was no answer at all.

Tony Parsons was sitting across from Kathryn Dance in a coffee shop, his shopping cart of groceries beside them.

He squinted and shook his head. “I’ve been trying to remember but I really can’t think of anything else.” He grinned. “Think you wasted your money.” He lifted his coffee cup.

“Well, we’ll give it a shot.” Dance knew he had more information. Her guess was that he’d spoken without thinking—oh, how interrogators love impulsive subjects—and then realized that the man he’d seen might be a killer, maybe even the one who’d committed those horrible murders at the pier and in the alleyway the previous day. Dance knew that people who are happy to give statements about cheating neighbors and shoplifting teens grow forgetful when the crimes turn capital.

Maybe a tough nut, Dance reflected, but that didn’t bother her. She loved challenges (the exhilaration she often felt when a subject finally confessed was always dulled by the thought that the signature on his statement marked the end of another verbal battle).

She poured milk into her coffee and looked longingly at a piece of apple pie sitting in a display case at the counter. Four hundred and fifty calories. Oh, well. She turned back to Parsons.

He poured some extra sugar into his coffee and stirred it. “You know, maybe if we just talked about it for a bit I could remember something else.”

“That’s a great idea.”

He nodded. “Now, then, let’s have us a good old heart-to-heart.”

And gave her a big smile.

Chapter 26

She was his consolation prize.

She was his present from Gerald Duncan.

She was the killer’s way of saying he was sorry and meaning it, not like Vincent’s mother.

It was also a good way to slow down the police—raping and killing one of their own. Duncan had mentioned the redheaded policewoman working at the site of the second murder and suggested Vincent take her (oh, yes, please . . . red hair, like Sally Anne’s). But, watching the police at Lucy Richter’s apartment in Greenwich Village from the Buick, he and Duncan had realized there was no way to get to the redhead; she was never by herself. Yet the other woman, a plainclothed detective or something, started up the street by herself, looking for witnesses, it seemed.

Duncan and Vincent had gone into a discount store and bought the handcart, a new winter jacket, and fifty dollars’ worth of soap, junk food and soda to fill the cart with. (Somebody wheeling around groceries isn’t suspicious—his friend, always, always thinking.) The plan was for Vincent to start trolling the streets of Greenwich Village until he found the second cop, or she found him, then he’d lead her to an abandoned building a block from Lucy Richter’s place.

Vincent would take her to the basement and he could have her for as long as he wanted, while Duncan would take care of the next victim.

Duncan had then studied Vincent’s face. “Would you have a problem killing her, the policewoman?”

Afraid he’d disappoint his friend, who was doing him such a wonderful favor, Vincent had said, “No.”

But Duncan obviously knew it wasn’t true. “Tell you what—just leave her in the basement. Tie her up. After I’m through in Midtown, I’ll drive down there and take care of her myself.”

Vincent had felt a lot better, hearing that.

The hunger raged through him now as he looked over Kathryn Dance, sitting only a few feet from him. Her braid, her smooth throat, her long fingers. She wasn’t heavy but she had a good figure, not like those skinny model sorts you saw a lot of in the city. Who’d want somebody like that?

Her figure made him hungry.

Her green eyes made him hungry.

Even her name, Kathryn, made him hungry. For some reason it seemed to fall into the same category of name as Sally Anne. He couldn’t say why. Maybe it was old-fashioned. Also, he liked the way she looked hungrily at the desserts. She’s just like me! He could hardly wait to get her facedown in the building up the street.

He sipped the coffee. “So, you were saying you’re from California?” Vincent—well, Helpful Tony Parsons—asked.

“That’s right.”

“Pretty, I’ll bet.”

“Is, yes. Parts of it. Now think back to what you saw exactly. That man running? Tell me about him.”

Vincent knew he’d have to stay focused—at least until they were alone at the abandoned building. “Be careful,” the killer had said, briefing him. “Be coy. Pretend that you know something about me but you don’t want to talk. Be hesitant. That’s how a real witness would be.”

Now he told her—coyly and hesitantly—a few more things about the man running up the street and added to the vague description of Gerald Duncan, though it was pretty much what the police knew anyway, since they had that computer picture of him (he’d have to tell Duncan about that). She jotted some notes.

“Any unusual characteristics?”

“Hmm. Don’t remember any. Like I said, I wasn’t very close.”

“Any weapons?”

“Don’t think so. What exactly did he do?”

“There was an attempted assault.”

“Oh, no. Anybody hurt?”

“No, fortunately.”

Or un-, thought Clever Vincent/Tony.

“Was he carrying anything?” Agent Dance asked.

Keep it simple, he reminded himself. Don’t let her trip you up.

He frowned thoughtfully and hesitated. Then he said, “You know, he might’ve been. Carrying something, I mean. A bag, I think. I couldn’t really see. He was going pretty fast. . . .” He stopped speaking.

Kathryn cocked her head. “You were going to say something else?”

“I’m sorry I’m not more help. I know it’s important.”

“That’s okay,” the woman said reassuringly, and for a moment Vincent had a pang of guilt about what was going to happen to her in a few minutes.

Then the hunger told him not to feel guilty. It was normal to have the urge.

If we don’t eat, we die. . . .

Don’t you agree, Agent Dance?

They sipped coffee. Vincent told her a few other tidbits about the suspect.

She was chatting like a friend. Finally he decided the time was right. He said, “Look, there is something else. . . . I was kind of scared before. You know, I’m around here every day. What if he comes back? He might figure out I said something about him.”

“We can keep it anonymous. And we’ll protect you. I promise.”

A clever hesitation. “Really?”

“You bet. We’ll have a policeman guarding you.”

Now, there’s an interesting idea. Can I have the redhead?

He said to Dance, “Okay, I saw where he ran to. It was the back door of a building up the street. He ran inside.”

“The door was unlocked? Or did he have a key?”

“Unlocked, I think. I’ll show you if you want.”

“That’d be very helpful. Are you through?” She nodded at the cup.

He drained the coffee. “Am now.”

She flipped closed her notebook, which he’d have to remember to get from her after he was finished.

“Thanks, Agent Dance.”

“You’re very welcome.”

As he wheeled the groceries outside, the agent paid the check. She joined him and they started up the sidewalk where he directed.

“Is it always this cold in New York in December?”

“A lot of times, yep.”

“I’m freezing.”

Really? You look plenty hot to me.

“Where are we going?” she asked, slowing down and looking at the street signs. She squinted against the glare. She paused and jotted in her notebook, reciting as she wrote. “The perp was recently in this location, Sherman Street in Greenwich Village.” She looked around. “Went up alley between Sherman and Barrow. . . .” A glance at Vincent. “What side of the street’s the alley on? North, south? I need to be accurate.”

Ah, she’s meticulous too.

He thought for a moment, disoriented by the hunger more than the bitter cold. “That’d be southeast.”

She looked at her notebook, laughing. “Can hardly read it—the shivering. This cold is too much. I can’t wait to get back to California.”

And you’ll be waiting a purty long time, missy . . .

They resumed walking.

“You have a family?” she asked.

“Yep. A wife and two kids.”

“I have two children. Son and daughter.”

Vincent nodded, wondering: How old is the daughter?

“So this’s the alley?” she asked.

“Yep. There’s where he ran to.” Pulling the grocery cart behind him, he started into the alley that would lead to their love nest, the abandoned building. He felt a painful erection.

Vincent reached into his pocket and gripped the handle of his knife. No, he couldn’t kill her. But if she fought back, he’d have to protect himself.

Slash the eyes . . .

It’d be gross but her bloody face wouldn’t be a problem for Vincent; he preferred them on their bellies anyway.

They were walking deeper into the passageway now. Vincent looked around and saw the building, forty or fifty feet away.

Dance paused again, opened the notebook. She recited what she wrote: “The alley runs behind six, no, seven residential buildings. There are four Dumpsters here. The surface of the alley is asphalt. The perpetrator ran this way, going south.” Gloves back on, over her quivering fingers, which ended in deliciously red nails.

The hunger was consuming Vincent. He felt himself withering away. He gripped the knife in a tense hand, breathing quickly.

She paused once more.

Now! Take her.

He started to pull the knife from his pocket.

But the bark of a siren cut through the air, coming from the other end of the alley. He glanced at it in shock.

And then he felt the gun muzzle touch the back of his head.

Agent Dance was shouting, “Raise your hands. Now!” Gripping his shoulder.

“But—”

“Now.”

She shoved the gun harder into his skull.

No, no, no! He let go of the knife and lifted his arms.

What was going on?

The police car skidded to a stop in front of them, another right behind it. Four huge cops jumped out.

No . . . Oh, no . . .

“On your face,” one of them ordered. “Do it!”

But he couldn’t move, he was so shocked.

Then Dance was stepping back as police officers surrounded him, pulling him to the ground.

“I didn’t do anything! I didn’t!”

“You!” one of the men cried. “On your belly—now.”

“But it’s cold, it’s dirty! And I haven’t done anything!”

They flung him to the hard ground. He grunted as the breath was knocked from his body.

It was just like with Sally Anne, all over again.

You, fat boy, don’t fucking move! Pervert! . . .

No, no, no!

Hands were all over him, grappling. He felt the pain as his arms were pulled taut behind him and cuffs were ratcheted on. He was searched, pockets turned inside out.

“Got an ID, got a knife.”

It was now, it was thirteen years ago, Vincent could hardly tell.

“I didn’t do anything! What’s this all about?”

One of the officers said to Agent Dance, “We heard you loud and clear. You didn’t need to go into the alley with him.”

“I was afraid he’d bolt. I wanted to stay with him as long as I could.”

What was going on? Vincent wondered. What did she mean?

Agent Dance glanced at the officer and nodded toward Vincent. “He was doing a good job until we got into the diner. Once we sat down I knew he was faking.”

“No, you’re crazy. I—”

She turned to Vincent. “Your accent and expressions were inconsistent and your body language told me you weren’t really having a conversation with me at all. You had another agenda, trying to manipulate me for some reason. . . . Which turned out to be getting me alone in the alley.”

She explained that when she’d paid the check she’d slipped her phone out of her pocket and hit REDIAL, calling an NYPD detective she’d been working with. She’d whispered briefly what she’d concluded and had him send officers to the area. She’d kept the phone line open, hidden under her notebook.

That’s why she was reciting the names of the streets out loud; she was giving them directions.

Vincent then looked at her hands. She caught his eye. And held up the pen she’d been writing with. “Yep. That’s my gun.”

He looked back at the other cops. “I don’t know what’s going on here. This is bullshit.”

One of them said, “Listen, why don’t you save your breath. Just before she called we got a report that the getaway driver in the attack earlier was back in the neighborhood with a cart of groceries. He was a fat, white guy.”

Her name’s Sally Anne, fat boy. She escaped and called the police and told us all about you. . . .

“That’s not me! I haven’t done anything. You’re wrong. You’re so wrong.”

“Yeah,” one of the uniformed cops said with an amused expression, “we hear that a lot. Let’s go.”

They gripped him by the upper arms and hauled him roughly to the squad car. He heard Gerald Duncan’s voice in his mind.

I’m sorry. I’ve let you down. I’ll make it up to you. . . .

And something hardened within pudgy Vincent Reynolds. He decided that nothing they could do to him would ever make him betray his friend.

The large, pear-shaped man sat next to the front window of Lincoln Rhyme’s laboratory, hands cuffed behind him.

His driver’s license and DMV records revealed that he wasn’t Tony Parsons but Vincent Reynolds, a twenty-eight-year-old word-processing operator who lived in New Jersey and worked for a half dozen temp agencies, none of which knew much about him, other than what the basic employment checks and résumé verification had revealed; he was a model, if unmemorable, employee.

With a mix of anger and uneasiness, Vincent alternated glances between the floor and the officers around him—Rhyme, Sachs, Dance, Baker and Sellitto.

There were no priors or warrants out on him and a search of his shabby apartment in New Jersey revealed no obvious connection to the Watchmaker. Nor evidence of a lover, close friends or parents. The officers found a letter he was writing to his sister in Detroit. Sellitto got her number from Michigan State Police and called. He left a message for her to call them.

He was working Monday night, at the time of the pier and Cedar Street killings, but he’d taken time off since then.

Mel Cooper had emailed a digital picture of him to Joanne Harper at the florist shop. The woman reported that he did resemble the man staring in her window, but she couldn’t be certain, because of the glare, the dirty glass in the front windows of her workshop and his sunglasses.

Though they suspected him of being the Watchmaker’s accomplice, the evidence linking him to the scenes was sketchy. The shoe print from the garage where the SUV had been abandoned was the same size as his shoes, thirteen, but there were no distinguishing marks to make a clear match. Among the groceries—which Rhyme suspected he’d bought as a cover to get close to Dance or another investigator—were chips, cookies and other junk food. But these packages were unopened and a search of his clothes revealed no crumbs that might specifically match what had been recovered in the SUV.

They were holding him only for possession of an illegal knife and interfering with a police operation—the usual charge when a phony witness comes forward.

Still, a good portion of City Hall and Police Plaza wanted to pull an Abu Ghraib on Vincent and browbeat or threaten him until he squealed. This was Dennis Baker’s preference; the lieutenant had been getting pressure from City Hall to find the perp.

But Kathryn Dance said, “Doesn’t work. They curl up like rolly bugs and give you garbage.” She added, “For the record, torture’s very inefficient at getting accurate information.”

And so Rhyme and Baker had asked her to handle Vincent’s interview. They needed to find the Watchmaker as fast as possible and, if rubber hoses were out, they wanted an expert.

The California special agent now drew the curtains closed and sat down across from Vincent, nothing between them. She scooted the chair forward until she was about three feet away. Rhyme supposed this was to get into his space and help break down his resistance. But he also realized that if Vincent flipped out he could lunge forward and injure her severely with his head or teeth.

She was undoubtedly aware of this too but gave no indication of feeling in danger. She offered a reserved smile and said calmly, “Hello, Vincent. I know you’ve been informed of your rights and you’ve agreed to talk to us. We appreciate that.”

“Absolutely. Anything I can do. This is a big . . .” he shrugged . . . “misunderstanding, you know.”

“Then we’ll get everything straightened out. I just need some basic information first.” She asked his full name, address, age, where he worked, if he’d ever been arrested.

He frowned. “I already told him this.” A look at Sellitto.

“I’m sorry. Left hand, right hand, you know. If you wouldn’t mind going over it again.”

“Oh, all right.”

Rhyme figured that since he was giving her verified facts, she’d be creating a baseline kinesic reading. Now that Kathryn Dance had altered the criminalist’s opinion about interviewing and witnesses, he was intrigued by the process.

Dance nodded pleasantly as she jotted down Vincent’s responses and thanked him from time to time for his cooperation. Her politeness confused Rhyme. He himself would be a hell of a lot tougher.

Vincent grimaced. “Look, I can, you know, talk to you for as long as you want. But I hope you sent somebody to look for that man I saw. You don’t want him to get away. I’m worried about that. I try to help, and look what happens—this’s the story of my life.”

Though what he’d told Dance and the officers on the scene about the suspect wasn’t helpful. The building he claimed the killer disappeared into showed no signs that anyone had been inside recently.

“Now if you could go through the facts once more. Tell me what happened. Only, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to tell it to me in reverse order.”

“What?”

“Reverse chronological order. It’s a good way to jump-start memories. Start with the last event first and go back in time from there. The suspect—he’s going through the doorway of that old building in the alley. . . . Let’s begin with some specifics. The color of the door.”

Vincent shifted in his chair, frowned. After a moment he gave his account, starting with the man pushing through the doorway (he couldn’t remember the color). Vincent then explained what happened just before that—the man running down the alley. Then entering it. And before that he was running down the street. Finally Vincent told them about spotting a man on Barrow, looking around uneasily, then breaking into a run.

“Okay,” Dance said, jotting notes. “Thank you, Vincent.” She gave a faint frown. “But why did you tell me your name was Tony Parsons?”

“Because I was scared. I did a good deed, I told you what I saw, but I was afraid the killer would murder me if he found out my name.” His jaw trembled. “I wished I hadn’t said anything about what I’d seen. But I did and got scared. I told you I was afraid.”

The man’s whining irritated Rhyme. Grill him, he silently urged Kathryn Dance.

But she asked pleasantly, “Tell me about the knife.”

“Okay, I shouldn’t’ve had it. But I was mugged a few years ago. It was terrible. I’m so stupid. I should’ve just left it at home. I usually do that. I just don’t think. And then it gets me in trouble.”

Then she slipped her jacket off and set it on the chair next to her.

He continued. “Everybody else is smart enough not to get involved. I say something and look what happens.” Gazing at the floor, disgust twitching at the corners of his mouth.

Dance asked details of how he learned about the Watchmaker’s killings and where he was at the times of the other attacks.

The questions were curious to Rhyme. Superficial. She wasn’t probing the way he would have, demanding alibis and pulling apart his story. What seemed to be some good leads, she let drop. Dance never once asked if there was another reason he’d been leading her into the alley, which they all suspected was to murder her—perhaps even to torture her into telling what the police might know about the Watchmaker.

The agent gave no reaction to his answers but merely jotted notes. Finally the agent looked behind Vincent at Sachs. “Amelia, could you do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Could you show Vincent the footprint we found?”

Sachs rose and got the electrostatic image. She held it up for Vincent to look at.

“What about it?” he asked.

“That’s your size shoe, isn’t it?”

“About.”

She continued to stare at him, saying nothing. Rhyme sensed she was setting up a brilliant trap. He watched them both closely. . . .

“Thanks,” Dance said to Sachs, who sat down again.

The agent eased forward, slightly more into the suspect’s personal space. “Vincent, I’m curious. Where’d you get the groceries?”

A brief hesitation. “Well, at the Food Emporium.”

Rhyme finally understood. She was going to draw him out about the groceries and then ask him why he’d bought them in Manhattan if he lived in New Jersey—since everything in the cart would be available closer to home and probably cheaper. She leaned forward, pulling off her glasses.

Now—she was going to snare him.

Kathryn Dance smiled and said, “Thank you, Vincent. I think that’ll be it. Hey, you thirsty?” the agent added. “Want a soda?”

Vincent nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”

Dance glanced at Rhyme. “Could we get him something?”

Rhyme blinked and shot a perplexed look at Sachs, who was frowning. What the hell was Dance thinking? She hadn’t gotten a single bit of information out of him. The criminalist was thinking, A waste of time. That’s all she’s going to ask him? And now she’s playing hostess? Reluctantly Rhyme called Thom, who brought Dance a Coke.

Dance put a straw in and held it up for the handcuffed man to drink from. He drained the glass in seconds.

“Vincent, just give us a few minutes alone, if you don’t mind, and I think we’ll get this all straightened out.”

“Okay. Sure.”

The patrol officers escorted him out. Dance shut the door behind him.

Dennis Baker shook his head, staring unhappily at the agent. Sellitto muttered, “Worthless.”

Dance frowned. “No, no, we’re doing fine.”

“We are?” Rhyme asked.

“Right on track . . . Now, here’s the situation. I got his baseline readings and then asked him about the reverse order of events—it’s a good way to catch up deceptive subjects who’ve been improvising. People can describe an actual series of past events in any order—from start to finish or backward—without a problem. But people fabricate events in only one direction, start to finish. When they try to reconstruct it backward, they don’t have the cues that they used in creating the scenario and they trip up. So, I learned right up front that he’s the Watchmaker’s assistant.”

“You did?” Sellitto laughed.

“Oh, that was obvious. His recognition responses were off the charts. And he’s not afraid for his personal safety, like he claimed. No, he knows the Watchmaker and he’s been involved in the crimes but in a way that I can’t figure out. More than just a getaway driver.”

“But you didn’t ask him about any of that,” Baker pointed out. “Shouldn’t we be picking apart where he said he was at the times of the attacks at the florist shop and the apartment in Greenwich Village?”

Rhyme’s observation, too.

“Oh, no. Worst thing to do. If I did, those are the subjects he’d stonewall on instantly.” She continued. “He’s a complicated person, there’s a lot of conflict going on inside him, and my feeling is that he’s in the second state of stress response, depression. That’s essentially anger turned inward. And it’s very difficult to break through. Given his personality type, I’d need to create a sympathetic bond between us and it would take days, maybe weeks, to get to the truth with traditional interrogation methods. But we don’t have days. Our only chance is to try something radical.”

“What?”

Dance nodded at the straw Vincent had used. “Can you order a DNA test?” she asked Rhyme.

“Yes. But it’ll take some time.”

“That’s okay, as long as we can say truthfully it’s been ordered.” She smiled. “Never lie. But you don’t have to tell a suspect everything.”

Rhyme wheeled around to the main portion of the lab, where Mel Cooper and Pulaski were still working on the evidence. He explained what they needed and Cooper packaged the straw in plastic and filled out a DNA analysis request. “There. Technically it’s been ordered. The lab just doesn’t know it yet.” He laughed.

Dance explained: “There’s something big he’s keeping from me. He’s very nervous about it. His response to my question about being arrested was deceptive but it’s also very rehearsed. I think he was collared but it was a while ago. There’re no prints on file so he fell through the cracks—maybe a lab screwup, maybe he was a juvenile. But I know he’s run into the law before. And I finally got a sense of what it might be. That’s why I took my jacket off and had Amelia walk around in front of him. He’s eating up the two of us with his eyes. Trying not to but he can’t help it. That makes me think there’s a sexual assault or two in his past. I want to bluff and use that against him.

“The problem is,” she continued, “that he could call me on it. Then we lose our bargaining power and it’ll take a long time to grind him down and get anything helpful.”

Sellitto said to Rhyme, “I know where you come down on it.”

Hell, yes, Rhyme thought. “Take the chance.”

Sellitto asked, “And you, Dennis?”

“I oughta call downtown. But we’d be kicking ourselves if they say no. Go ahead and do it.”

The agent said, “One other thing I need to do. I have to take myself out of the equation. Whatever he had planned with me in the alley, we have to let it go. If I bring it up it’ll move the relationship to a different place and he’s going to stop talking to me; we’ll have to start over again.”

“But you know what he was going to do to you?” Sachs asked.

“Oh, I know exactly what he had in mind. But we have to stay focused on our goal—finding the Watchmaker. Sometimes you just have to let other things slide.”

Sellitto looked at Baker and nodded.

The agent walked to the closest computer and typed some commands, then a user name and pass code. She squinted when the website appeared and typed in some more commands. A page of some suspect’s DNA rolled onto the screen.

Dance opened her purse and replaced the sheep glasses with the wolf ones. “Now it’s time for the fun part.” She walked to the door and opened it, asked that Vincent be brought back.

The big man, sweat stains under his arms, lumbered back into the room and sat down in the chair, which groaned under his weight. He was cautious.

Dance broke the silence with, “I’m afraid we’ve got a problem, Vincent.”

His eyes narrowed.

Dance held up the plastic evidence bag containing the straw he’d drunk from. “You know about DNA, don’t you?”

“What’re you talking about?”

Rhyme wondered, Is it going to work? Will he fall for it?

Was Vincent going to end the interview, clam up and insist on an attorney? He had every right to do that. The bluff would end in disaster and they might never get any information from him until after the Watchmaker had killed his next victim.

Calmly Dance asked, “You ever seen your DNA analysis, Vincent?”

Dance turned the computer monitor toward Vincent. “I don’t know if you’re aware of the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. We call it CODIS. Whenever there’s a rape or sexual assault and the perp isn’t caught, his fluids, skin and hair are collected. Even with a condom, there’s usually some material left on or near the victim with DNA in it. The profile is stored and when police get a suspect, his profile is matched against what’s in the forensic index. Take a look.”

Beneath the heading CODIS were dozens of lines of numbers, letters, grids and fuzzy bars virtually incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with the system.

The man was completely still, though his breathing was heavy. His eyes, to Rhyme, seemed defiant. “This’s bullshit.”

“You know, Vincent, that nobody ever beats a case built on solid DNA. And we’ve gotten convictions years after the assaults.”

“You can’t. . . . I didn’t say it was okay to do that.” He stared at the bagged straw.

“Vincent,” Kathryn Dance said softly, “you’re in trouble.”

Technically true, Rhyme reflected. He was in possession of a deadly weapon.

Never lie . . .

“But you’ve got something we want.” A pause, then Dance continued. “I don’t know about New York procedures but in California our district attorneys have a lot of latitude to work with cooperative suspects.”

She looked at Sellitto, who took over. “Yeah, Vincent, same thing here. The DA’ll listen to our recommendations.”

Lost in the bars on the computer screen, his teeth set, Vincent said nothing.

Baker continued. “Here’s the deal: If you help us get the Watchmaker and if you confess to the prior sexual assaults, we’ll get you immunity on the murder and assault counts for the two victims the other day. We’ll make sure you have access to a treatment center. And you’ll be isolated from the general population.”

Dance said firmly, “But you have to help us. Right now, Vincent. What do you say?”

The man glanced at the screen that contained a DNA analysis that had nothing whatsoever to do with him. His leg was bouncing slightly—a sign that a debate was raging within him.

He turned his defiant eyes to Kathryn Dance.

Yes or no? What would it be?

A full minute passed. Rhyme heard only the ticking of the Watchmaker’s clocks.

Vincent grimaced. He looked up at them with cold eyes. “He’s a businessman from the Midwest. His name’s Gerald Duncan. He’s staying in a church in Manhattan. Can I have another Coke?”

Chapter 27

“Where is he now?” Dennis Baker barked.

“There was somebody else he was going to . . .” Vincent’s voice faded.

“Kill?”

The suspect nodded.

“Where?”

“I don’t know exactly. He said Midtown, I think. He didn’t tell me. Really.”

They glanced at Kathryn Dance, who apparently sensed no deception and nodded.

“I don’t know whether he’s there now or the church.”

He gave the address.

Sachs said, “I know it. Closed a while ago.”

Sellitto called ESU and had Haumann put together some tactical teams.

“He was going to meet me back in the Village in an hour or so. Near that building in the alley.”

Where, Rhyme reflected, Vincent had been going to kill and rape Kathryn Dance. Sellitto ordered unmarked cars stationed near the building.

“Who’s the next victim?” Baker asked.

“I don’t know. I really don’t. He didn’t tell me anything about her because . . .”

“Why?” Dance asked.

“I wasn’t going to have anything to do with her.”

Do with her . . .

Rhyme understood. “So you were helping him out and in exchange he’d let you have the victims.”

“Only the women,” Vincent said quickly, shaking his head in disgust. “Not men. I’m not weird or anything. . . . And only after they were dead, so it wasn’t really rape. It’s not. Gerald told me that. He looked it up.”

Dance and Sellitto seemed unmoved by this but Baker blinked. Sachs was trying to control her temper.

Baker asked, “Why weren’t you going to do anything with the next one?”

“Because . . . he was going to burn her to death.”

“Jesus,” Baker muttered.

“Is he armed?” Rhyme asked.

Vincent nodded. “He’s got a gun. A pistol.”

“A thirty-two?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s he driving?” Sellitto asked.

“It’s a dark blue Buiek. It’s stolen. A couple years old.”

“License plates?”

“I don’t know. Really. He just stole it.”

“Put out an EVL,” Rhyme ordered. Sellitto called it in.

Dance leapt in with, “And what else?” She sensed something.

“What do you mean?”

“What about the car upsets you?”

He looked down. “I think he killed the owner. I didn’t know he was going to. I really didn’t.”

“Where?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

Cooper sent out a request for any reports of recent carjackings, homicides or missing persons.

“And . . .” Vincent swallowed. His leg was bouncing faintly again.

“What?” Baker asked.

“He killed somebody else too. This college student, I think, a kid. In an alley around the corner from the church, near Tenth Avenue.”

“Why?”

“He saw us coming out of the church. Duncan stabbed him and put the body in a Dumpster.”

Cooper phoned the local precinct house to check this out.

“Let’s have him call Duncan,” Sellitto said, nodding at Vincent. “We could trace his mobile.”

“His phone won’t work. He takes the battery and SIM chip out when we’re not actually . . . you know, working.”

Working . . .

“He said you can’t trace it that way.”

“Is the phone in his name?”

“No. It’s one of those prepaid ones. He buys a new one every few days and throws out the old one.”

“Get the number,” Rhyme ordered. “Run it with the service providers.”

Mel Cooper called the major mobile companies in the area and had several brief conversations. He hung up and reported, “East Coast Communications. Prepaid, like he said. Cash purchase. No way to trace it if the battery’s out.”

“Hell,” Rhyme muttered.

Sellitto’s phone rang. Bo Haumann’s Emergency Service Unit teams were on their way. They’d be at the church in a few minutes.

“Sounds like that’s our only hope,” Baker said.

He, Sachs and Pulaski hurried out the door to join the tactical operation.

Rhyme, Dance and Sellitto remained in his lab, to try to learn more about Gerald Duncan from Vincent, while Cooper searched databases for any information on him.

“What’s his interest in clocks and time and the lunar calendar?” Rhyme asked.

“He collects old clocks and watches. He really was a watchmaker—a hobby, you know. It’s not like he has a shop or anything.”

Rhyme said, “But he might’ve worked for one at some point. Find out the professional organization of watchmakers. Collectors too.”

Cooper typed on his keyboard. He asked, “America only?”

Dance asked Vincent, “What’s his nationality?”

“He’s American, I guess. He doesn’t have an accent or anything.”

After browsing a number of websites Cooper shook his head. “It’s a popular business. The big groups seem to be the Geneva Association of Watchmakers, Jewelers and Goldsmiths, the Association Interprofessionnelle de la Haute Horlogerie in Switzerland; the American Watchmakers Institute; the Swiss Association of Watch and Jewelry Retailers, also in Switzerland; the British Association of Watch and Clock Collectors; the British Horological Institute; the Employers’ Association of the Swiss Watch Industry; and the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industries . . . but there’re dozens more.”

“Send them emails,” Sellitto said. “Ask about Duncan. As a watchmaker or collector.”

“And Interpol,” Rhyme said. Then to Vincent: “How did you meet?”

The man gave a rambling account about a coincidental, innocent meeting. Kathryn Dance listened and in her calm voice asked a few questions and announced that he was being deceptive. “The deal is you play straight with us,” she said, leaning forward. Her gaze was cool through her predator glasses.

“Okay, I was just, like, summarizing, you know.”

“We don’t want summaries,” Rhyme growled. “We want to know how the fuck you met him.”

The rapist admitted while it was a coincidence, the meeting wasn’t so innocent. He gave the details of their initial contact at a restaurant near where Vincent worked. Duncan was checking out one of the men who’d been killed the previous day and Vincent had his eye on a waitress.

What a pair, these two, Rhyme reflected.

Mel Cooper looked up from the computer screen. “Getting some hits here . . . We’ve got sixty-eight Gerald Duncans in fifteen midwestern states. I’m running warrants and VICAP first then cross-referencing approximate ages and professions. You can’t narrow down the location any more?”

“I would if I could. He never talked about himself.”

Dance nodded. She believed him.

Lon Sellitto asked the question that Rhyme had been about to. “We know he’s targeting specific victims, checking ’em out ahead of time. Why? What’s he up to?”

The rapist answered, “His wife.”

“He’s married?”

“Was.”

“Tell us.”

“His wife and him came to New York on vacation a couple years ago. He was at a business dinner somewhere and his wife went to a concert by herself. She was walking back to the hotel on this deserted street and she got hit by a car or truck. The driver took off. She screamed for help but nobody came to save her, nobody even called the police or fire department. The doctor said that she probably lived for ten, fifteen minutes after she was hit. And even somebody who wasn’t a doctor could’ve stopped the bleeding, he said. Just a pressure point or something like that. But nobody helped.”

“Run all the hospitals for admissions under the name Duncan, eighteen to thirty-six months ago,” Rhyme ordered.

But Vincent said, “Don’t bother. Last year he broke into the hospital and stole her chart. The police report too. Bribed a clerk or something. He’s been planning this ever since.”

“But why’s he picking these victims?”

“When the police investigated they got the names of ten people who were nearby when she died. Whether they could have saved her or not, I don’t know. But Gerald, he convinced himself they could have. He’s spent the past year finding out where they live and what their schedules are. He needed to get them alone so they could die slowly. That’s the important thing to him. Like his wife died slowly.”

“The man on the pier Tuesday? Is he dead?”

“He’s gotta be. Duncan made him hold on and then cut his arms and just stood there watching him until he fell into the river. He said he tried to swim for a while but then he just stopped moving and floated under the pier.”

“What was his name?”

“I don’t remember. Walter somebody. I didn’t help him with the first two. I didn’t, really.” He glanced at Dance with fear in his eyes.

“What else do you know about Duncan?” she asked.

“That’s about it. The only thing he really liked to talk about was time.”

“Time? What about it?”

“Anything, everything. The history of time, how clocks work, about calendars, how people sense time differently. He’d tell me, like, the term ‘speed up’ comes from pendulum clocks. You’d move the weight up on the pendulum to make the clock run faster. ‘Slow down’—you moved the weight down to slow it. . . . With anybody else it would’ve been just boring. But the way he talked about it, well, you kind of got caught up in what he was saying.”

Cooper looked up from his computer screen. “We’ve got a couple of replies from the watchmaker associations. No record of a Gerald Duncan . . . Wait, here’s Interpol . . . Nothing there either. And I can’t find anything in VICAP.”

Sellitto’s phone rang. He took the call and spoke for a few minutes. He eyed the rapist coolly as he talked. Then he disconnected.

“That was your sister’s husband,” he said to Vincent.

The man frowned. “Who?”

“Your sister’s husband.”

Vincent shook his head. “No, you must’ve talked to the wrong person. My sister’s not married.”

“Yes, she is.”

The rapist’s eyes were wide. “Sally Anne’s married?”

With a disgusted glance at Vincent, Sellitto said to Rhyme and Dance, “She was too upset to return the call herself. Her husband did. Thirteen years ago he locked her in the basement of their house for a week while their mother and stepfather were on their honeymoon. His own sister. . . . He tied her down and sexually assaulted her repeatedly. He was fifteen, she was thirteen. He did juvie time and was released after counseling. Records were sealed. That’s why we had no hits on IAFIS.”

“Married,” Vincent whispered, ashen-faced.

“She’s been treated for depression and eating disorders ever since. He was caught stalking her a dozen times, so she got a restraining order. The only contact between them in the past three years is letters he’s been sending.”

“He’s been threatening her?” Dance asked.

Sellitto muttered, “Nope. They’re love letters. He wanted her to move here and live with him.”

“Oh, man,” muttered the unflappable Mel Cooper.

“Sometimes he’d write recipes in the margins. Sometimes he’d draw porn cartoons. The brother-in-law said if there’s anything they can do to make sure he stays in jail forever, they’ll do it.” Sellitto looked at the two patrol officers standing behind Vincent. “Get him out of here.”

The officers helped the big man to his feet and they started out the door. Vincent Reynolds could hardly walk, he was so shaken. “How could Sally Anne get married? How could she do this to me? We were going to be together forever. . . . How could she?”

Chapter 28

Like assaulting a medieval castle.

Sachs, Baker and Pulaski joined Bo Haumann around the corner from the church in the nondescript Chelsea section of town. The ESU troops had deployed quietly up and down the streets surrounding the place, keeping a low profile.

The church had only enough doors to satisfy the fire code, and steel bars on most of the windows. This would make it difficult for Gerald Duncan to escape, of course, but it also meant that ESU had few options for access. That, in turn, increased the likelihood that the killer had booby-trapped the entrances or would wait for them with a weapon. And the stone walls, two feet thick, also made the risk greater than it might otherwise have been because the Search and Surveillance team’s thermal- and sound-sensing equipment was largely useless; they simply couldn’t tell if he was inside.

“What’s the plan?” asked Amelia Sachs, standing next to Bo Haumann in the alley behind the church. Dennis Baker was beside her, his hand close to his pistol. His eyes danced around the streets and sidewalk, which told Sachs that he hadn’t been on a tactical entry for a long time—if ever. She was still pissed about the spying; she wasn’t very sympathetic that he was sweating.

Ron Pulaski was nearby, his hand resting on the grip of his Glock. He too rocked nervously on his feet as he gazed at the imposing, sooty structure.

Haumann explained that the teams would do a simple dynamic entry through all doors, after taking them out with explosive charges. There was no choice—the doors were too thick for a battering ram—but charges would clearly announce their presence and give Duncan a chance to prepare at least some defense within the building. What would he do when he heard the explosions and the footsteps of the cops charging inside?

Give up?

A lot of perps do.

But some don’t. They either panic or cling to some crazy idea that they can fight their way though a dozen armed officers. Rhyme had told her about Duncan’s mission of revenge; she didn’t figure somebody that obsessed would be the surrendering type.

Sachs took her position with a side-door entry team while Baker and Pulaski remained at the command post with Haumann.

Through her headset she heard the ESU commander say, “Entry devices are armed. . . . Teams, report, K.”

The A, B and C teams called in that they were ready.

In his raspy voice, Haumann called, “On my count . . . Five, four, three, two, one.”

Three sharp cracks resounded as the doors blew open simultaneously, setting off car alarms and shaking nearby windows. Officers poured inside.

It turned out that their concern about fortified positions and booby traps had been unfounded. The bad news, though, was that a search of the place made it clear that the Watchmaker was either one of the luckiest men on earth or had anticipated them yet again. He wasn’t here.

“Check this out, Ron.”

Amelia Sachs stood in a doorway of a small, upstairs storeroom in the church.

“Freaky,” the young officer offered.

That worked.

They were looking at a number of moon-faced clocks stacked against a stone wall. The faces stared out with their cryptic look, not quite a smile, not quite a leer, as if they knew exactly how much time was allotted for your life and were pleased to be counting down to the final second.

All of them were ticking, a sound that Sachs found unnerving.

She counted five of them. Which meant he had one with him.

Burn her to death . . .

Pulaski was zipping up his Tyvek crime scene suit and strapping his Glock outside the overalls. Sachs told him that she’d walk the grid up here, where Vincent had said the men had been staying. The rookie would take the ground floor of the church.

He nodded, looking uneasily at the dark corridors, the shadows. The blow to his skull the previous year had been severe and a supervisor had wanted to sideline him, put him behind a desk. He’d struggled to come back from the head injury and simply would not let the brass take him off the street. She knew he got spooked sometimes. She could see in his eyes that he was constantly making the decision whether or not to step up to the task in front of him. Even though he always chose to do so, there were some cops, she knew, who wouldn’t want to work with him because of this. Sachs, though, would far rather work with somebody who confronted his ghosts every time he went out on the street. That was guts.

She’d never hesitate to have him as a partner.

Then she realized what she’d thought and qualified it: If I were going to stay on the force.

Pulaski wiped his palms, which Sachs could see were sweaty, despite the chill, and pulled on latex gloves.

As they divided up the evidence collection equipment she said, “Hey, heard you got jumped in the garage, running the Explorer scene.”

“Yeah.”

“Hate it when that happens.”

He gave a laugh that meant he understood this was her way of saying it’s okay to be nervous. He started for the door.

“Hey, Ron.”

He stopped.

“By the way, Rhyme said you did a great job.”

“He did?”

Not in so many words. But that was Rhyme. Sachs said, “He sure did. Now, go search the shit out of that scene. I want to nail this bastard.”

He gave a grin. “You bet.”

Sachs said, “It’s not a Christmas present. It’s a job.”

And nodded him downstairs.

She found nothing that suggested who the next victim was but at least there was a significant amount of evidence in the church.

From Vincent Reynolds’s room Sachs recovered samples of a dozen different junk foods and sodas, as well as proof of his darker appetites: condoms, duct tape and rags, presumably to use as gags. The place was a mess. It smelled of unwashed clothes.

In Duncan’s room Sachs found horological magazines (without subscription labels), watchmaker’s and other tools (including the wire cutters that were probably used to cut the chain link fence at the first scene) and clothes. Unlike Vincent’s this room was eerily pristine and ordered. The bed was so tautly made that a drill instructor would have approved. The clothes hung perfectly in the closet (all the labels removed, she noticed), the space between the hangers exactly the same. Items on the desk were aligned at exact angles to one another. He was careful to leave next to nothing about himself personally; two museum programs, from Boston and Tampa, were hidden up under a trash container, but while they suggested he’d been to those cities, they weren’t, of course, where Vincent said he lived, the Midwest. There was also a pet hair roller.

It’s like he’s wearing a Tyvek suit of his own. . . .

She also found some clues that were possibly from the prior crime scenes—a roll of duct tape that would probably match the tape at the alley and that, presumably, was used to gag the victim on the pier. She found an old broom with dirt, fine sand and bits of salt on it. She guessed it was what he’d used to sweep the scene around where Teddy Adams had been killed.

There was also evidence that she hoped might reveal his present location or that related in some way to the next victims. In a small plastic Tupperware container were some coins, three Bic pens, receipts from a parking garage downtown and a drugstore on the Upper West Side, and a book of matches (missing three of them) from a restaurant on the Upper East Side. There were no fingerprints on any of these items. She also found a pair of shoes whose treads were dotted with gaudy green paint, and an empty gallon jug that had contained wood alcohol.

There were no fingerprints but she did find plenty of cotton fibers the same color of those in the Explorer. She then found a plastic bag containing a dozen pairs of the gloves themselves, no store labels or receipts. The bag had no prints on it.

In his search downstairs Ron Pulaski didn’t find much but he made a curious discovery: a coating of white powder in a toilet. Tests would tell for certain but he believed it was from a fire extinguisher since he also found a trash bag near the back door, inside of which was the empty carton an extinguisher had been sold in. The rookie had looked over the box carefully but there were no store labels to indicate where it had been purchased.

Why the extinguisher had been discharged was unclear. There was no evidence that anything in the bathroom had been burning.

She had a call patched through to Vincent Reynolds, in the lockup, and he told her that Duncan had recently bought a fire extinguisher. He didn’t know why it had been discharged.

After chain-of-custody cards were filled out, Sachs and Pulaski joined Baker, Haumann and the others just inside the front door of the church, where they’d been waiting while the two officers walked the grid. Sachs called Rhyme on the radio and told him and Sellitto what they’d found.

As she recited the evidence, she could hear Rhyme instructing Thom to include it on the charts.

“Boston and Tampa?” the criminalist asked, referring to the museum programs. “Vincent might be wrong. Hold on.” He had Cooper check with Vital Statistics and DMV for any Gerald Duncans in those cities but, while there were residents with that name, their ages didn’t match the perp’s.

The criminalist was silent for a moment. Then he said, “The fire extinguisher . . . I’m betting he made an incendiary device out of it. He used alcohol as the accelerant. There was some on the clock at Lucy Richter’s apartment too. That’s how he’s going to burn the next victim to death. And what’s the one thing about fire extinguishers?”

“Give up,” Sachs replied.

“They’re invisible. One could be sitting right next to somebody and they’d never think twice about it.”

Baker said, “I say we take whatever clues we’ve found here and divide them up, hope one of them leads us to the next victim. We’ve got receipts, those matches, the shoes.”

Rhyme’s voice crackled over the radio, “Whatever you do, make it fast. According to Vincent, if he’s not at the church, he’s on his way to the next victim. He might already be there by now.”

THE WATCHMAKER

CRIME SCENE ONE

Location:

• Repair pier in Hudson River, 22nd Street.

Victim:

• Identity unknown.

• Male.

• Possibly middle-aged or older, and may have coronary condition (presence of anticoagulants in blood).

• No other drugs, infection or disease in blood.

• Coast Guard and ESU divers checking for body and evidence in New York Harbor.

• Checking missing persons reports.

• Recovered jacket in New York Harbor. Bloody sleeves. Macy’s, size 44. No other clues, no sign of body.

Perp:

• See below.

M.O.:

• Perp forced victim to hold on to deck, over water, cut fingers or wrists until he fell.

• Time of attack: between 6 P.M. Monday and 6 A.M. Tuesday.

Evidence:

• Blood type AB positive.

• Fingernail torn, unpolished, wide.

• Portion of chain link fence cut with common wire cutters, untraceable.

• Clock. See below.

• Poem. See below.

• Fingernail markings on deck.

• No discernible trace, no fingerprints, no footprints, no tire tread marks.

CRIME SCENE TWO

Location:

• Alley off Cedar Street, near Broadway, behind three commercial buildings (back doors closed at 8:30 to 10 P.M.) and one government administration building (back door closed at 6 P.M.).

• Alley is a cul-de-sac. Fifteen feet wide by one hundred and four feet long, surfaced in cobblestones, body was fifteen feet from Cedar Street.

Victim:

• Theodore Adams.

• Lived in Battery Park.

• Freelance copywriter.

• No known enemies.

• No warrants, state or federal.

• Checking for a connection with buildings around alley. None found.

Perp:

• The Watchmaker.

• Male.

• No database entries for the Watchmaker.

M.O.:

• Dragged from vehicle to alley, where iron bar was suspended over him. Eventually crushed throat.

• Awaiting medical examiner’s report to confirm.

• No evidence of sexual activity.

• Time of death: approximately 10:15 P.M. to 11 P.M. Monday night. Medical examiner to confirm.

Evidence:

• Clock.

• No explosives, chemical- or bioagents.

• Identical to clock at pier.

• No fingerprints, minimal trace.

• Arnold Products, Framingham, MA.

• Sold by Hallerstein’s Timepieces, Manhattan.

• Poem left by perp at both scenes.

• Computer printer, generic paper, HP LaserJet ink.

• Text:

The full Cold Moon is in the sky,

shining on the corpse of earth,

signifying the hour to die

and end the journey begun at birth.

—The Watchmaker

• Not in any poetry databases; probably his own.

• Cold Moon is lunar month, the month of death.

• $60 in pocket, no serial number leads; prints negative.

• Fine sand used as “obscuring agent.” Sand was generic. Because he’s returning to the scene?

• Metal bar, 81 pounds, is needle-eye span. Not being used in construction across from the alleyway. No other source found.

• Duct tape, generic, but cut precisely, unusual. Exactly the same lengths.

• Thallium sulfate (rodent poison) found in sand.

• Soil containing fish protein—from perp, not victim.

• Very little trace found.

• Brown fibers, probably automotive carpeting.

Other:

• Vehicle.

• Ford Explorer, about three years old. Brown carpet. Tan.

• Review of license tags of cars in area Tuesday morning reveals no warrants. No tickets issued Monday night.

• Checking with Vice about prostitutes, re: witness.

• No leads.

INTERVIEW WITH HALLERSTEIN

Perp:

• EFIT composite picture of the Watchmaker—late forties, early fifties, round face, double chin, thick nose, unusually light blue eyes. Over 6 feet tall, lean, hair black, medium length, no jewelry, dark clothes. No name.

• Knows great deal about clocks and watches and which timepieces had been sold at recent auctions and were at current horologic exhibits in the city.

• Threatened dealer to keep quiet.

• Bought 10 clocks. For 10 victims?

• Paid cash.

• Wanted moon face on clock, wanted loud tick.

Evidence:

• Source of clocks was Hallerstein’s Timepieces, Flatiron District.

• No prints on cash paid for clocks, no serial number hits. No trace on money.

• Called from pay phones.

CRIME SCENE THREE

Location:

• 481 Spring Street.

Victim:

• Joanne Harper.

• No apparent motive.

• Didn’t know second victim, Adams.

Perp:

• Watchmaker.

• Assistant.

• Probably man spotted earlier by victim, at her shop.

• White, heavyset, in sunglasses, cream-colored parka and cap. Was driving the SUV.

M.O.:

• Picked locks to get inside.

• Intended method of attack unknown. Possibly planning to use florist’s wire.

Evidence:

• Fish protein came from Joanne’s (orchid fertilizer).

• Thallium sulfate nearby.

• Florist’s wire, cut in precise lengths. (To use as murder weapon?)

• Clock.

• Same as others. No nitrates.

• No trace.

• No note or poem.

• No footprints, fingerprints, weapons or anything else left behind.

• Black flakes—roofing tar.

• Checking ASTER thermal images of New York for possible sources.

• Results inconclusive.

Other:

• Perp was checking out victim earlier than attack. Targeting her for a purpose. What?

• Have police scanner. Changing frequency.

• Vehicle.

• Tan.

• No tag number.

• Putting out Emergency Vehicle Locator.

• 423 owners of tan Explorers in area. Cross-reference against criminal warrants. Two found. One owner too old; other is in jail on drug charges.

• Owned by man in jail.

WATCHMAKER’S EXPLORER

Location:

• Found in garage, Hudson River and Houston Street.

Evidence:

• Explorer owned by man in jail. Had been confiscated, and stolen from lot, awaiting auction.

• Parked in open. Not near exit.

• Crumbs from corn chips, potato chips, pretzels, chocolate candy. Bits of peanut butter crackers. Stains from soda, regular, not diet.

• Box of Remington .32-caliber auto pistol ammo, seven rounds missing. Gun is possible Autauga Mk II.

• Book—Extreme Interrogation Techniques. Blueprint for his murder methods? No helpful information from publisher.

• Strand of gray-and-black hair, probably woman’s.

• No prints at all, throughout entire vehicle.

• Beige cotton fibers from gloves.

• Sand matching that used in alleyway.

• Smooth-soled size-13 shoe print.

CRIME SCENE FOUR

Location:

• Barrow Street, Greenwich Village.

Victim:

• Lucy Richter.

Perp:

• Watchmaker.

• Assistant.

M.O.:

• Planned means of death unknown.

• Entry/exit routes not determined.

Evidence:

• Clock.

• Same as others.

• Left in bathroom.

• No explosives.

• Wood alcohol stain, no other trace.

• No note or poem.

• No recent roof tarring.

• No fingerprints or shoe prints.

• No distinctive trace.

• Wool fibers from shearling jacket or coat.

INTERVIEW WITH VINCENT REYNOLDS AND SEARCH OF CHURCH

Location:

• 10th Avenue and 24th Street.

Perp:

• Watchmaker:

• Name is Gerald Duncan.

• Businessman from “the Midwest,” specifics unknown.

• Wife died in NY; he’s murdering for revenge.

• Armed with pistol and box cutter.

• His phone can’t be traced.

• Collects old clocks and watches.

• Searching watchmakers and horologic organizations.

• No immediate hits.

• No info from Interpol or criminal information databases.

• Assistant:

• Vincent Reynolds.

• Temp employee.

• Lives in New Jersey.

• History of sexual assaults.

Evidence:

• Five additional clocks, identical to others. One missing.

• In Vincent’s room:

• Junk food, sodas.

• Condoms.

• Duct tape.

• Rags (gags?).

• In Duncan’s room:

• Horological magazines.

• Tools.

• Clothes.

• Programs from Tampa and Boston art museums.

• Additional duct tape.

• Old broom with dirt, sand and salt.

• Three Bic pens.

• Coins.

• Receipt from parking garage, downtown.

• Receipt from drugstore on Upper West Side.

• Book of matches from restaurant on Upper East Side.

• Shoes with bright green paint.

• Empty gallon jug of alcohol.

• Pet hair roller.

• Beige gloves.

• No fingerprints.

• Fire extinguisher residue.

• Empty box that contained fire extinguisher.

• Extinguisher to be alcohol incendiary device?

Other:

• Murdered a student near the church, was a witness.

• Local precinct is checking.

• Vehicle is a stolen, dark blue Buick.

• Murdered driver.

• Searching—carjackings, homicides, missing persons.

• Emergency Vehicle Locator ordered; no hits yet.

Sarah Stanton walked quickly over the frozen sidewalk back to the Midtown office building where she worked, clutching her Starbucks latte and a chocolate chip cookie—a guilty pleasure, but a reward for what would be a long day at the office.

Not that she needed a tasty incentive to get back to her workstation; she loved her job. Sarah was an estimator for a large flooring and interior design company. The mother of an eight-year-old, she’d gone back to work a few years earlier than planned, thanks to a tough divorce. She’d started as a receptionist and moved her way up quickly to become the head estimator for the company.

The work was demanding, a lot of numbers—but the company was good and she liked the people she worked with (well, most of them). And she had flexibility with her hours, since she was in the field a lot, meeting with clients. This was important because she had to get her son dressed and ready for school, then escort him all the way to Ninety-fifth Street by 9 A.M. and then head back to Midtown for her job, the timetable subject always to the whims of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Today she would work more than ten hours; tomorrow, she was taking off entirely to go Christmas shopping with her boy.

Sarah swiped her entry card and pushed through the back door of the building, then performed her afternoon workout routine—walking up the stairs to her office rather than use the elevator. The company took up all of the third floor but her workstation was in a smaller office, which occupied only a portion of the second floor. This office was quiet, housing only four employees, but Sarah preferred that. The bosses rarely came down here and she could get her work done without interruption.

She climbed to the landing and paused. She reached for the door handle, thinking as she nearly always did: Why did these doors open without any kind of lock from the stairwell side? It’d be pretty easy for somebody—

She jumped, hearing a faint tap of metal. Spinning around, Sarah saw no one.

And . . . was that the sound of breathing?

Was somebody hurt?

Should she go see? Or call security?

“Is anyone there? Hello?”

Only silence.

Probably nothing, she thought. And stepped into the corridor that led to the back door of her office. Sarah unlocked the door and walked down the long corridor of the company.

Shedding her coat and setting the coffee and cookie on her desk, she sat down at her workstation, glancing at her computer.

Odd, she thought. On the screen was the window that read, “Date and Time Properties.”

This was the utility in the Windows XP operating system that you used to set the date and time and time zone of your computer. It showed a calendar with the day’s date indicated and, to the right, both an analog clock with sweep hands and below it a digital clock, both ticking off the seconds.

The screen hadn’t been there before she’d made the run to Starbucks.

Had it popped up by itself? she wondered. Why? Maybe somebody’d used her computer while she was away, though she had no idea who it might be or why.

No matter. She closed the window on the screen and scooted forward.

She glanced down. What was that?

Sarah saw a fire extinguisher under her desk. It hadn’t been there earlier either. The company was always doing weird things like this. Putting in new lighting, coming up with evacuation plans, rearranging furniture, for no apparent reason.

Now, fire extinguishers.

Probably something else we have the terrorists to thank for.

Taking a fast look at her son’s picture, feeling comfort in seeing his smile, she set her purse under her desk and unwrapped her cookie.

Lieutenant Dennis Baker walked slowly down the deserted street. He was south of Hell’s Kitchen in a largely industrial area on the west side.

As he’d suggested, the officers had divided up the clues found at the church in their hunt for the Watchmaker. He’d told Sachs and Haumann that he’d remembered a warehouse that was being painted with that same shade of sickly green paint found on the shoes in the Watchmaker’s room. While the rest of the team were tracking down other leads, he’d come here.

The massive building stretched along the street, dark, abandoned, bleak even in the sharp sunlight. The lower six or seven feet of the grimy brick walls were covered with graffiti and half the windows were broken—some even shot out, it seemed. On the roof was a faded sign, Preston Moving and Storage, in an old-style typeface.

The front doors, painted that green color, were locked and chained shut but Baker found a side entrance, half hidden behind a Dumpster. It was open. He looked up and down the street then pulled the door open and stepped inside. Baker started through the dim place, lit only by slanting shafts of light. The smell was of rotting cardboard and mildew and heating oil. He drew his pistol. It felt awkward in his hand. He’d never fired a single shot in the line of duty.

Walking silently along the corridor, Baker approached the facility’s main storage area, a massive open space whose floor was dotted with pools of greasy standing water and trash. Plenty of condoms too, he noticed in disgust. This was probably the least romantic site for a liaison you could imagine.

A flash of light from the offices lining the wall caught his attention. His eyes were growing accustomed to the dimness and as he walked closer he noticed a burning desk lamp inside a small room. There was one other thing he could see, as well.

One of the black, moon-faced clocks—the Watchmaker’s calling cards.

Baker started forward.

Which is when he stepped on a large patch of grease he hadn’t been able to see in the darkness and went down hard on his side, gasping. He dropped his pistol, which slid away across the filthy concrete floor. He winced in pain.

It was at this moment that a man jogged up fast behind him from one of the side corridors.

Baker glanced up into the eyes of Gerald Duncan, the Watchmaker.

The killer bent down.

And he offered his hand, helping Baker up. “You all right?”

“Just got the wind knocked out of me. Careless. Thanks, Gerry.”

Duncan stepped away, retrieved Baker’s pistol and handed it to him. “You didn’t really need that.” He laughed.

Baker put the gun back in his holster. “Wasn’t sure who else I might run into, other than you. Spooky place.”

The Watchmaker gestured toward the office. “Come on inside. I’ll tell you exactly what’s going to happen to her.”

What was going to happen meant how the men were going to commit murder.

And the “her” he was referring to was an NYPD detective named Amelia Sachs.

Chapter 29

Sitting on one of the chairs in the warehouse office, Dennis Baker brushed at his slacks, now stained from the fall.

Italian, expensive. Shit.

He said to Duncan, “We’ve got Vincent Reynolds in custody and we took the church.”

Duncan would know this, of course, since he himself had made the call alerting the police that the Watchmaker’s partner was wheeling a grocery cart around the West Village (Baker had been surprised, and impressed, that Kathryn Dance had tipped to Vincent even before Duncan dimed out his supposed partner).

And Duncan had known too that the rapist would give up the church under pressure.

“Took a little longer than I thought,” said Baker, “but he caved.”

“Of course he did,” Duncan said. “He’s a worm.”

Duncan had planned the sick fuck’s capture all long; it was necessary to feed the cops the information to make them believe that the Watchmaker was a vengeful psychopath, not the hired murderer he actually was. And Vincent was key to pointing the police in the right direction for the completion of Duncan’s plan.

And that plan was as elaborate and elegant as the finest timepiece. Its purpose was to halt Amelia Sachs’s investigation threatening to unearth an extortion ring that Baker had been running from the 118th Precinct.

Dennis Baker came from a family of law enforcers. His father had been a transit cop, who retired early after he took a spill down a subway station stairwell. An older brother worked for the Department of Corrections and Baker’s uncle was a cop in a small town in Suffolk County, where the family was from. Initially he’d had no interest in the profession—the handsome, well-built young man wanted big bucks. But after losing every penny in a failed recycling business, Baker decided to join up. He moved from Long Island to New York City and tried to reinvent himself as a policeman.

But coming to the job later in life—and the cocky, TV-cop style he adopted—worked against him, alienating brass and fellow officers. Even his family history in law enforcement didn’t help (his relatives fell low in the blue hierarchy). Baker could make a living as a cop but he wasn’t destined for a corner office in the Big Building.

So he decided to go for the bucks after all. But not via business. He’d use his badge.

When he first started shaking down businessmen he wondered if he’d feel guilty about it.

Uh-uh. Not a bit.

The only problem was that to support his lifestyle—which included a taste for wine, food and beautiful women—he needed more than just a thousand or so a week from Korean wholesalers and fat men who owned pizza parlors in Queens. So Baker, a former partner and some cops from the 118th came up with a plan for a lucrative extortion ring. Baker’s cohorts would steal a small amount of drugs from the evidence lockers or would score some coke or smack on the street. They’d target the children of rich businessmen in Manhattan clubs and plant the drugs on them. Baker would talk to the parents, who’d be told that for a six-figure payment, the arrest reports would disappear. If they didn’t pay, the kids’d go to jail. He’d also occasionally plant drugs on businessmen themselves.

Rather than just taking the money, though, they’d arrange for the victims to lose it in sham business deals, like with Frank Sarkowski, or in fake poker games in Vegas or Atlantic City—the approach they took with Ben Creeley. This would provide the marks with a reasonable explanation as to why they were suddenly two or three hundred thousand dollars poorer.

But then Dennis Baker made a mistake. He got lazy. It wasn’t easy finding the right marks for the scam and he decided to go back to some of the earlier targets for a second installment of extortion money.

Some paid the second time. But two of them—Sarkowski and Creeley—were businessmen with pretty tough hides, and while they were willing to pay once to get Baker out of their hair, they drew the line at a second payment. One threatened to go to the police, and one to the press. In early November Baker and a cop from the 118th had kidnapped Sarkowski and driven him to an industrial section of Queens, near where a client of his company had a factory. He’d been shot, the crime staged to look like a mugging. Several weeks later Baker and the same cop had broken into Creeley’s high-rise, strung a rope around the businessman’s neck and tossed him off the balcony.

They’d stolen or destroyed the men’s personal files, books and diaries—anything that might’ve led back to Baker and his scam. As for the police reports, there was virtually nothing in Creeley’s that was incriminating but the Sarkowski file contained references to evidence that a sharp investigator might draw some troubling conclusions from. So one of the people involved in the plan had engineered its disappearance.

Baker thought the deaths would go unnoticed and they continued with their scam—until a young policewoman showed up. Detective Third-Grade Amelia Sachs didn’t believe that Benjamin Creeley had committed suicide and started looking into the death.

There was no stopping the woman. They had no choice but to kill her. With Sachs dead or incapacitated Baker doubted that anyone else would follow up on the cases as fervently as she was. The problem, of course, was that if she were to die, Lincoln Rhyme would deduce immediately that her death was related to the St. James investigation and then nothing would stop him and Sellitto from pursuing the killers.

So Baker needed Sachs to die for a reason unrelated to the 118th Precinct crimes.

Baker put some feelers out to a few organized crime wise guys he knew and soon he heard from Gerald Duncan, a professional killer who could manipulate crime scenes and set up fake motives to steer suspicion completely away from the man or woman hiring him to kill. “Motive is the one sure way to get yourself caught,” Duncan had explained. “Eliminate the motive, you eliminate suspicion.”

They’d agreed on a price—brother, the man wasn’t cheap—and Duncan had gone to work planning the job.

Duncan tracked down some loser he could use to feed information about the Watchmaker to the police. Vincent Reynolds turned out to be a perfect patsy, soaking up the story Duncan fed him—about going psycho because of a dead wife and killing apathetic citizens.

Then, the previous day, Duncan had put the plan into operation. The Watchmaker killed the first two of the victims, picked at random—some guy he’d kidnapped from West Street in the Village and murdered on the pier and the one in the alley a few hours later. Baker had made sure Sachs was assigned to the case. There were two more attempted murders by the killer—the fact they didn’t succeed was irrelevant; the Watchmaker was still one spooky doer, who needed to be stopped fast.

Then Duncan made his next moves: sending Vincent to attack Kathryn Dance, so that the police would believe that the Watchmaker was willing to kill police officers, and setting up Vincent to be captured and dime the Watchmaker out to the police.

It was now time for the final step: The Watchmaker would kill yet another cop, Amelia Sachs, her death entirely the work of a vengeful killer, unrelated to the 118th Precinct investigation.

Duncan now asked, “She found out you were spying on her?”

Baker nodded. “You called that right. She’s one smart bitch. But I did what you suggested.”

Duncan anticipated that she’d be suspicious of everyone except people she knew personally. He’d explained that when people suspect you, you have to give them another—harmless—reason for your behavior. You simply confess to the lesser crime, act contrite and they’re satisfied; you’re off the suspect list.

At Duncan’s suggestion, Baker asked some officers about Sachs. He heard rumors that she’d been involved with a crooked cop and he’d ginned up an email from someone in the Big Building and used that as a reason to be spying on her. She wasn’t happy, but she didn’t suspect him of anything worse.

“Here’s the plan,” Duncan now explained, showing him a diagram of an office building in Midtown. “This’s where the last victim works. Her name’s Sarah Stanton. She’s got a cubicle on the second floor. I picked the place because of the layout. It’ll be perfect. I couldn’t put one of the clocks there because the police announced the killer was using them—but I pulled up the time and date window on her computer.”

“Good touch.”

Duncan smiled. “I thought so.” The killer’s voice was soft, his words precise, but the tone was filled with the modest pleasure of an artisan showing off a finished piece of furniture or a musical instrument . . . or a watch, Baker reflected.

Duncan explained that he’d dressed like a workman, waited until Sarah went out then planted a fire extinguisher, filled with flammable alcohol. In a few minutes Baker was to call Rhyme or Sellitto and report that he’d found evidence of where the extinguisher bomb was planted. The ESU and bomb squad would then speed to the office, Amelia Sachs too.

“I set the device up so that if she moves the extinguisher a certain way, it’ll spray her with alcohol and ignite. Alcohol burns really fast. It’ll kill or injure her but won’t set fire to the whole office.” The police, he continued, might even disarm the device and save the woman. It wouldn’t matter; all that Duncan cared about was getting Amelia Sachs into the office to search the scene.

Sarah’s cubicle was at the end of a narrow corridor. Sachs would be searching it alone, as she always did. When she turned her back, Baker, waiting nearby, would shoot her and anybody else present. The weapon he’d use was Duncan’s .32 automatic, loaded with bullets from the same box he’d intentionally left in the SUV for the police to find. After shooting Sachs, Baker would break a nearby window, which was fifteen feet above an alleyway. He’d throw the gun out, making it seem as if the Watchmaker had leapt out the window and escaped, dropping the gun. The unusual murder weapon, linked to the rounds found in the Explorer, would leave no doubt that the Watchmaker was the killer.

Sachs would be dead and the investigation into the corruption at the 118th Precinct would grind to a halt.

Duncan said, “Let some other officers get to her body first but it’d be a nice touch if you pushed them aside and tried to resuscitate her.”

Baker said, “You think of everything, don’t you?”

“What’s so miraculous about timepieces,” Duncan said, gazing at the moon-faced clock, “is that none of them ever has more or fewer parts than is needed to do what the watchmaker intends. Nothing missing, but nothing superfluous.” He added in a soft voice, “It’s pure perfection, wouldn’t you say?”

Amelia Sachs and Ron Pulaski were slogging through the cold streets of lower Manhattan, and she was reflecting that sometimes the biggest hurdles in a case weren’t from the perps but from bystanders, witnesses and victims.

They were following up on one of the clues that had been uncovered in the church, receipts from a parking garage not far from the pier where the first victim had died. But the attendant was unhelpful. Lady, no, he no familiar. Nobody look like him I remember. Ahmed—maybe he saw him. . . . Oh, but he not here today. No, I don’t know his phone number. . . .

And so it went.

Frustrated, Sachs nodded toward a restaurant adjacent to the parking garage. She said, “Maybe he stopped in there. Let’s give it a try.”

Just then her radio crackled. She recognized Sellitto’s voice. “Amelia, you copy?”

She grabbed Pulaski’s arm and turned up the volume, so they both could hear. “Go ahead, K.”

“Where are you?”

“Downtown. The parking garage didn’t pan out. We’re going to canvass a couple of restaurants.”

“Forget it. Get up to Three Two Street and Seven Avenue. Fast. Dennis Baker’s found a lead. Looks like the next vic’s in an office building there.”

“Who is she?”

“We’re not sure exactly. We’ll probably have to sweep the whole place. We’ve got Arson and the bomb squad on the way—she’s the one he’s going to burn to death. Man, I hope we’re in time. Anyway, get up there now.”

“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

The fire department was sending two dozen men and women into the twenty-seven-story midtown building. And Bo Haumann was assembling five ESU entry teams—expanded ones, six cops each, rather than the typical four—to do a floor-by-floor search.

Sachs’s drive here had taken closer to a half hour, thanks to holiday traffic. Not a huge delay but the extra fifteen minutes made a big difference: She’d missed a spot on an entry team. Amelia Sachs was officially a crime scene detective but her heart was also with tactical teams, the ones who went through the perps’ doors first.

If they found the Watchmaker here, it would’ve been her last chance for a take-down before she quit the force. She supposed she’d see some excitement in her new job as security specialist at Argyle, but the local law enforcers would surely get most of the tactical fun.

Sachs and Pulaski now ran from the car to the command post at the back door of the office building.

“Any sign of him?” she asked Haumann.

The grizzled man shook his head. “Not yet. We had a sequence on a video camera in the lobby of somebody kind of looked like the composite, carrying a bag. But we don’t know if he left or not. There’re two back and two side door exits that aren’t alarmed and aren’t scanned by cameras.”

“You evacuating?” a man’s voice asked.

Sachs turned around. It was Detective Dennis Baker.

“Just started,” Haumann explained.

“How’d you find him?” Sachs asked.

Baker said, “That warehouse with the green paint—he used it as a staging area. I found some notes and a map of this building.”

The policewoman was still angry about Baker’s spying on her but solid police work deserves credit and she nodded to him and said, “Good job.”

“Nothing inspired,” he replied with a smile. “Just pounding the pavement. And a little bit of luck.” Baker’s eyes rose to the building as he pulled his gloves on.

Chapter 30

Sitting in her cubicle, Sarah Stanton heard another squawk over the building’s public address system above her head.

It was a running joke in the office that the company put some kind of filter on the speakers that made the transmissions completely unintelligible. She turned back to her computer, calling, “What’re they saying? I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

“Some announcement,” one of her coworkers called.

Duh.

“They keep doing that. Pisses me off. Is it a fire drill?”

“No idea.”

A moment later she heard the whoop of the fire alarm.

Guess it is.

After 9/11 the alarm had gone off every month or so. The first couple times she’d played along and trooped downstairs like everybody else. But today the temperature was in the low twenties and she had way too much work to do. Besides, if it really was a fire and the exits were blocked she could just jump out the window. Her office was only on the second floor.

She returned to her screen.

But then Sarah heard voices at the far end of the corridor that led to her cubicle. There was an urgency about the sound. And something else—the jangling of metal. Firemen’s equipment? she wondered.

Maybe something really was happening.

Heavy footsteps behind her, approaching. She turned around and saw policemen in dark outfits, with guns. Police? Oh, God, was it a terrorist attack? All she thought about was getting to her son’s school, picking him up.

“We’re evacuating the building,” the cop announced.

“Is it terrorists?” somebody called. “Has there been another attack?”

“No.” He didn’t explain further. “Everybody move out in an orderly fashion. Take your coats, leave everything else.”

Sarah relaxed. She wouldn’t have to worry about her son.

Another of the officers called, “We’re looking for fire extinguishers. Are there any in this area? Don’t touch them. Just let us know. I repeat, do not touch them!”

So there is a fire, she thought, pulling on her coat.

Then she reflected that it was curious that the fire department would use the company’s extinguishers on a fire. Didn’t they have their own? And why should they be so concerned that we’d use one? Not like you need special training.

I repeat, do not touch them! . . .

The policeman looked into an office near Sarah’s workstation.

“Oh, Officer? You want an extinguisher?” she asked. “I’ve got one right here.”

And she pulled the heavy red cylinder off the floor.

“No!” cried the man and he leaped toward her.

Sachs winced as the transmission crackled loudly through her earpiece.

“Fire and containment team, second floor, southeast corner office. K. Lanam Flooring and Interiors. Now! Move, move, move!”

A dozen firefighters and officers from the bomb squad shouldered their equipment and sprinted fast toward the rear door.

“Status?” Haumann shouted into his microphone.

All they could hear were harried voices over the raw howl of the fire alarm.

“Do you have detonation?” the head of ESU repeated urgently.

“I don’t see smoke,” Pulaski said.

Dennis Baker stared up at the second floor. He shook his head.

“If it’s alcohol,” one of the fire chiefs said, “there won’t be smoke until the secondary materials ignite.” He added evenly, “Or her hair and skin.”

Sachs continued to scan the windows, clenching her fists. Was the woman dying in agony now? With police officers or firemen alongside her?

“Come on,” Baker whispered.

Then a voice clattered through the radio: “We’ve got the device. . . . We’ve . . . Yeah, we’ve got it. It didn’t detonate.”

Sachs closed her eyes.

“Thank God,” Baker said.

People were streaming out of the office building now, under the gaze of ESU and patrol officers who were looking for Duncan, comparing the composite pictures with the faces of the workers.

An officer led a woman up to Sachs, Baker and Pulaski, just as Sellitto joined them.

The potential victim, Sarah Stanton, explained that she’d found a fire extinguisher under her desk; it hadn’t been there earlier and she hadn’t seen who’d left it. Somebody in the office remembered seeing a workman in a uniform nearby but couldn’t remember details and didn’t recognize the composite or recall where he’d gone.

“Status of the device?” Haumann called.

An officer radioed, “Didn’t see a timer but the pressure gauge on the top was blank. That could be the detonator. And I can smell alcohol. Bomb squad’s got it in a containment vessel. They’re taking it up to Rodman’s Neck. We’re still sweeping for the perp.”

“Any sign of him?” Baker asked.

“Negative. There’re two fire stairwells and the elevators. He could’ve gotten out that way. And we’ve got four or five other companies on that floor. He might’ve gotten into one of them. We’ll search ’em in a minute or two, as soon as we get an all-clear for devices.”

Ten minutes later officers reported that there were no other bombs in the building.

Sachs interviewed Sarah, then called Rhyme and told him the status of the case so far. The woman didn’t know the other victims and had never heard of Gerald Duncan. She was very upset that the man’s wife might’ve been killed outside her apartment, though she remembered nothing of any fatal accidents in the area.

Finally Haumann told them that all of his officers had finished the sweep; the Watchmaker had escaped.

“Hell,” Dennis Baker muttered. “We were so close.”

Discouraged, Rhyme said, “Well, walk the grid and tell me what you find.”

They signed off. Haumann sent two teams to stake out the warehouse that Duncan had used as a staging site in case the killer returned there and Sachs dressed in the white Tyvek bodysuit and grabbed a metal suitcase containing basic evidence collection and preservation equipment.

“I’ll help,” Pulaski said, also dressing in the white overalls.

She handed him the suitcase and she picked up another one.

On the second floor, she paused and surveyed the hallway. After photographing it Sachs entered Lanam Flooring and proceeded to Sarah Stanton’s workstation.

She and Pulaski set up the suitcases and extracted the basic evidence collection equipment: bags, tubes, swabs, adhesive rollers for trace, electrostatic footprint sheets and latent-print chemicals and equipment.

“What can I do?” Pulaski asked. “You want me to search the stairwells?”

She debated. They’d have to be searched eventually but she decided that it would be better to run them herself; they were the most logical entry and exit routes for the Watchmaker and she wanted to make certain that no evidence was missed. Sachs surveyed the layout of Sarah’s cubicle and then noticed an empty workstation next to it. It was possible that the Watchmaker had waited there until he had a chance to plant the bomb. Sachs told the rookie, “Run that cubicle.”

“You got it.” He stepped into the cubicle, pulled out his flashlight and began walking a perfect grid. She caught him sniffing the air too, another of Lincoln Rhyme’s dictates for crime scene officers searching. This boy was going to go places, she reflected.

Sachs stepped into the cubicle where they’d found the device. She heard a noise and glanced back. It was only Dennis Baker. He came up the corridor and stopped about twenty feet from the cubicles, far enough away so there was no risk of contaminating the scene.

She wasn’t sure exactly why he was here but, since they still weren’t sure where the Watchmaker was, she was grateful for his presence.

Search well but watch your back. . . .

This was the difference:

Detective Dennis Baker—along with a cop from the 118th—had murdered Benjamin Creeley and Frank Sarkowski. It had been tough but they’d done it without hesitation. And he was prepared to kill any other civilians who threatened their extortion scheme. No problem at all. Five million dollars in cash—their haul to date—buries a lot of guilt.

But Baker had never killed a fellow cop.

Frowning, fidgeting, he was watching Amelia Sachs and the kid, Pulaski, who also presented an easy target.

A big difference.

This was killing family members, fellow officers.

But the sad truth was that Sachs and, by association, Pulaski, could destroy his life.

And so there was no debate.

He now studied the scene. Yes, Duncan had it planned perfectly. There was the window. He glanced out. The alley, fifteen feet below, was deserted. And next to him was the gray metal chair the killer had told him about, the one he’d pitch through the window after killing the officers. There was the large air-conditioning intake vent, whose grate he’d remove after the shots, to make it appear that the Watchmaker had been hiding inside.

A deep breath.

Okay, it’s time. He had to act fast, before anyone else came onto the scene. Amelia Sachs had sent the other officers into the main hallway but someone could return here at any minute.

He took the .32 and quietly pulled back the slide to make certain a bullet was in the chamber. Holding the gun behind his back, he eased closer. He was staring at Sachs, who moved around the crime scene almost like a dancer. Precise, fluid, lost in concentration, as she searched. It was beautiful to watch.

Baker tore himself out of this reverie.

Who first? he debated.

Pulaski was ten feet from him, Sachs twenty, both facing away.

Logically, Pulaski should be the first one, being closer. But Baker had learned from Lincoln Rhyme about Sachs’s skill as a marksman. She could draw and fire in seconds. The kid had probably never even fired his weapon in combat. He might get his hand on his pistol after Baker killed Sachs, but the rookie would die before he could draw.

A few breaths.

Amelia Sachs unwittingly cooperated. She stood up from where she’d been crouching. Her back presented a perfect target. Baker pointed his gun high on her spine and squeezed the trigger.

Chapter 31

To most people the sound would be a simple metallic click, lost in the dozen other ambient noises of a big-city office building.

To Amelia Sachs, though, it was clearly the spring-activated firing pin of an automatic weapon striking the primer cap of a malfunctioning bullet, or someone dry-firing a gun. She’d heard the distinctive sound a hundred times—from her own pistols and her fellow officers’.

This click was followed with what usually came next—the shooter working the slide to eject the bad round and chamber the next one in the clip. In many cases—like now—the maneuver was particularly frantic, the shooter needed to clear the weapon instantly and get a new bullet ready fast. It could be a matter of life and death.

This all registered in a fraction of a second. Sachs dropped the roller she was using to collect trace. Her right hand slammed to her hip—she always knew the exact place where her holster rested—and an instant later she spun around, hunched in a combat shooting position, her Glock in her hand, facing where the sound had come from.

She saw in her periphery, to her right, Ron Pulaski, standing up in the next office, looking at her weapon, alarmed, wondering what she was doing.

Twenty feet away was Dennis Baker, his eyes wide. In his gloved hand was a tiny pistol, a .32, she thought, pointed her way, as he worked the slide. She noted that it was an Autauga MKII, the type of gun that Rhyme speculated the Watchmaker might have.

Baker blinked. Couldn’t speak for a moment. “I heard something,” he said quickly. “I thought he’d come back, the Watchmaker.”

“You pulled the trigger.”

“No, I was just chambering a round.”

She glanced at the floor, where the bum shell lay. The only reason for it to be there was if he’d tried to shoot, then ejected the defective bullet.

Taking the tiny .32 in his left hand, Baker lowered his right. It strayed to his side. “We have to be careful. I think he’s back.”

Sachs centered the sights directly on Baker’s chest.

“Don’t do it, Dennis,” she said, nodding toward his hip, where his regulation pistol rested. “I will fire. I’m assuming you’ve got armor under your suit. My first slug’ll be on your chest but two and three’ll go higher. It won’t be nice.”

“I . . . You don’t understand.” His eyes were wide, panicked. “You have to believe me.”

Wasn’t that one of the key phrases that signaled deception, according to Kathryn Dance?

“What’s going on?” Pulaski asked.

“Stay there, Ron,” Sachs ordered. “Don’t pay attention to a thing he says. Draw your weapon.”

“Pulaski,” Baker said, “she’s going nuts. Something’s wrong.”

But from the corner of her eye she saw the rookie pull his weapon and aim it in Baker’s direction.

“Dennis, set the thirty-two on the table. Then with your left hand take your service piece by the grip—thumb and index finger only. Set it down too then move back five steps. Lie facedown. Okay. You clear on that?”

“You don’t understand.”

She said calmly, “I don’t need to understand. I need you to do what I’m telling you.”

“But—”

“And I need you to do it now.”

“You’re crazy,” Baker snapped. “You’ve had it in for me ever since you found out I was checking into you and your old boyfriend. You’re trying to discredit me. . . . Pulaski, she’s going to kill me. She’s gone rogue. Don’t let her bring you down too.”

Pulaski said, “You’ve been apprised of Detective Sachs’s instructions. I’ll disarm you if it’s necessary. Now, sir, what’s it going to be?”

Several seconds passed. It seemed like hours. Nobody moved.

“Fuck.” Baker set the pistols where he’d been told and lowered himself to the floor. “You’re both in deep shit.”

“Cuff him,” Sachs told Pulaski.

She covered Baker while the bewildered rookie got the man’s hands behind him and ratcheted on the cuffs.

“Search him.”

Sachs grabbed her Motorola. “Detective Five Eight Eight Five to Haumann. Respond, K.”

“Go ahead, K.”

“We’ve got a new development here. I’ve got somebody in cuffs I need escorted downstairs.”

“What’s going on?” the ESU head asked. “Is it the perp?”

“That’s a good question,” she replied, holstering her pistol.

With this latest twist in the case, a new person was present in front of the Midtown office building where Detective Dennis Baker had apparently just attempted to kill Amelia Sachs and Ron Pulaski.

Using the touch-pad controller, Lincoln Rhyme maneuvered the red Storm Arrow wheelchair along the sidewalk to the building’s entrance. Baker sat in the back of a nearby squad car, cuffed and shackled. His face was white. He stared straight ahead.

At first he’d claimed that Sachs was targeting him because of the Nick Carelli situation. Then Rhyme decided to check with the brass. He asked the senior NYPD official who’d sent the email about it. It turned out that it was Baker who’d brought up a concern about Sachs’s possible connection with a crooked cop and the brass had never sent the email at all; Baker’d written it himself. He’d created the whole thing as cover in case Sachs caught him following or checking up on her.

Using the touch pad, Rhyme eased closer to the building, where Sellitto and Haumann had set up their command post. He parked and Sellitto explained what had happened upstairs. But added, “I don’t get it. Just don’t get it.” The heavy detective rubbed his bare hands together. He glanced up at the clear, windy sky as if he’d just realized it was one of the chilliest months on record. When he was on a case, hot and cold didn’t really register.

“You find anything on him?” Rhyme asked.

“Just the thirty-two and latex gloves,” Pulaski said. “And some personal effects.”

A moment later Amelia Sachs joined them, holding a carton containing a dozen plastic evidence bags. She’d been searching Baker’s car. “It’s getting better by the minute, Rhyme. Check this out.” She showed Rhyme and Sellitto the bags one by one. They contained cocaine, fifty thousand in cash, some old clothing, receipts from clubs and bars in Manhattan, including the St. James. She lifted one bag that seemed to contain nothing. On closer examination, though, he could see fine fibers.

“Carpeting?” he asked.

“Yep. Brown.”

“Bet they match the Explorer’s.”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

Another link to the Watchmaker.

Rhyme nodded, staring at the plastic bag, which rippled in the chill wind. He felt that burst of satisfaction that occurred when the pieces of the puzzle started to come together. He turned to the squad car where Baker sat and called through the half-open window. “When were you assigned to the One One Eight?”

The man stared back at the criminalist. “Fuck you. You think I’m saying anything to you pricks? This is bullshit. Somebody planted all that on me.”

Rhyme said to Sellitto, “Call Personnel. I want to know his prior assignments.”

Sellitto did and, after a brief conversation, looked up and said, “Bingo. He was at the One One Eight for two years. Narcotics and Homicide. Promoted out to the Big Building three years ago.”

“How did you meet Duncan?”

Baker hunkered down in the backseat and returned to his job of staring straight ahead.

“Well, isn’t this a tidy little confluence of our cases,” Rhyme said, in good humor.

“A what?” Sellitto barked.

“Confluence. A coming together, Lon. A merger. Don’t you do crosswords?”

Sellitto grunted. “What cases?”

“Obviously, Sachs’s case at the One One Eight and the Watchmaker situation. They weren’t separate at all. Opposite sides of the same knife blade, you could say.” He was pleased with the metaphor.

His Case and the Other Case . . .

“You want to explain?”

Did he really need to?

Amelia Sachs said, “Baker was a player in the corruption at the One One Eight. He hired the Watchmaker—well, Duncan—to take me out ’cause I was getting close to him.”

“Which pretty much proves there is indeed something rotten in Denmark.”

Now it was Pulaski’s chance not to get it. “Denmark? The one in Europe?”

“The one in Shakespeare, Ron,” the criminalist said impatiently. And when the young officer grinned blankly Rhyme gave up.

Sachs took over again. “He means it’s proof there was major corruption at the One One Eight. Obviously they’re doing more than just sitting on investigations for some crew out of Baltimore or Bay Ridge.”

Looking up absently at the office building, Rhyme nodded, oblivious to the cold and the wind. There were some unanswered questions, of course. For instance, Rhyme wasn’t sure if Vincent Reynolds really was a partner or was just being set up.

Then there was the matter of where the extortion money was, and Rhyme now asked, “Who’s the one in Maryland? Who’re you working with? Was it OC or something else?”

“Are you deaf?” Baker snapped. “Not a fucking word.”

“Take him to CB,” Sellitto said to the patrol officers standing beside the car. “Book him on assault with intent for the time being. We’ll add some other ornaments later.” As they watched the RMP drive away, Sellitto shook his head. “Jesus,” the detective muttered. “Were we lucky.”

“Lucky?” Rhyme grumbled, recalling that he’d said something similar earlier.

“Yeah, that Duncan didn’t kill any more vics. And here too—Amelia was a sitting duck. If that piece hadn’t misfired . . .” His voice faded before he described the tragedy that had nearly occurred.

Lincoln Rhyme believed in luck about as much as he believed in ghosts and flying saucers. He started to ask what the hell did luck have to do with anything, but the words never came out of his mouth.

Luck . . .

Suddenly a dozen thoughts, like bees escaping from a jostled hive, zipped around him. He was frowning. “That’s odd. . . .” His voice faded. Finally he whispered, “Duncan.”

“Something wrong, Linc? You okay?”

“Rhyme?” Sachs asked.

“Shhhhh.”

Using the touch-pad controller he turned slowly in a circle, glanced in a nearby alleyway, then at the bags and boxes of evidence Sachs had collected. He gave a faint laugh. He ordered, “I want Baker’s gun.”

“His service piece?” Pulaski asked.

“Of course not. The other one. The thirty-two. Where is it? Now, hurry!”

Pulaski found the weapon in a plastic bag. He returned with it.

“Field-strip it.”

“Me?” the rookie asked.

“Her.” Rhyme nodded at Sachs.

Sachs spread out a piece of plastic on the sidewalk, replaced her leather gloves with latex ones and in a few seconds had the gun dismantled, the parts laid out on the ground.

“Hold up the pieces one by one.”

Sachs did this. Their eyes met. She said, “Interesting.”

“Okay. Rookie?”

“Yessir?”

“I’ve got to talk to the medical examiner. Track him down for me.”

“Well, sure. I should call?”

Rhyme’s sigh was accompanied by a stream of breath flowing from his mouth. “You could try a telegram, you could go knock, knock, knockin’ on his door. But I’ll bet the best approach is to use . . . your . . . phone. And don’t take no for an answer. I need him.”

The young man gripped his cell phone and started punching numbers into the keypad.

“Linc,” Sellitto said, “what’s this—”

“And I need you to do something too, Lon.”

“Yeah, what?”

“There’s a man across the street watching us. In the mouth of the alley.”

Sellitto turned. “Got him.” The guy was lean, wearing sunglasses despite the dusk, a hat and jeans and a leather jacket. “Looks familiar.”

“Invite him to come over here. I’d like to ask him a few questions.”

Sellitto laughed. “Kathryn Dance’s really having an effect on you, Linc. I thought you didn’t trust witnesses.”

“Oh, I think in this case it’d be good to make an exception.”

Shrugging, the big detective asked, “Who is he?”

“I could be wrong,” Rhyme said with the tone of a man who believed he rarely was, “but I have a feeling he’s the Watchmaker.”

Chapter 32

Gerald Duncan sat on the curb, beside Sachs and Sellitto. He was handcuffed, stripped of his hat, sunglasses, several pairs of beige gloves, wallet and a bloody box cutter.

Unlike Dennis Baker’s, his attitude was pleasant and cooperative—despite his being pulled to the ground, frisked and cuffed by three officers, Sachs among them, a woman not noted for her delicate touch on takedowns, particularly when it came to perps like this one.

His Missouri driver’s license confirmed his identity and showed an address in St. Louis.

“Christ,” Sellitto said, “how the hell’d you spot him?”

Rhyme’s conclusion about the onlooker’s identity wasn’t as miraculous as it seemed. His belief that the Watchmaker might not have fled the scene arose before he’d noticed the man in the alley.

Pulaski said, “I’ve got him. The ME.”

Rhyme leaned toward the phone that the rookie held out in a gloved hand and had a brief conversation with the doctor. The medical examiner delivered some very interesting information. Rhyme thanked him and nodded; Pulaski disconnected. The criminalist maneuvered the Storm Arrow wheelchair closer to Duncan.

“You’re Lincoln Rhyme,” the prisoner said, as if he was honored to meet the criminalist.

“That’s right. And you’re the quote Watchmaker.”

The man gave a knowing laugh.

Rhyme looked him over. He appeared tired but gave off a sense of satisfaction—even peace.

With a rare smile Rhyme asked the suspect, “So. Who was he really? The victim in the alleyway. We can search public records for Theodore Adams, but that’d be a waste of time, wouldn’t it?”

Duncan tipped his head. “You figured that out too?”

“What about Adams?” Sellitto asked. Then realized that there were broader questions that should be asked. “What’s going on here, Linc?”

“I’m asking our suspect about the man we found in the alley yesterday morning, with his neck crushed. I want to know who he was and how he died.”

“This asshole murdered him,” Sellitto said.

“No, he didn’t. I just talked to the medical examiner. He hadn’t gotten back to us with the final autopsy but he just gave me the preliminary. The victim died about five or six P.M. on Monday, not at eleven. And he died instantly of massive internal injuries consistent with an automobile accident or fall. The crushed throat had nothing to do with it. The body was frozen solid when we found it the next morning, so the tour doc couldn’t do an accurate field test for cause or time of death.” Rhyme cocked his eyebrow. “So, Mr. Duncan. Who and how?”

Duncan explained, “Just some poor guy killed in a car crash up in Westchester. His name’s James Pickering.”

Rhyme urged, “Keep going. And remember, we’re eager for answers.”

“I heard about the accident on a police scanner. The ambulance took the body to the morgue in the county hospital. I stole the corpse from there.”

Rhyme said to Sachs, “Call the hospital.”

She did. After a brief conversation she reported, “A thirty-one-year-old male ran off the Bronx River Parkway about five Monday night. Lost control on a patch of ice. Died instantly, internal injuries. Name of James Pickering. The body went to the hospital but then it disappeared. They thought it might’ve been transferred to another hospital by mistake but they couldn’t find it. The next of kin aren’t taking it too well, as you can imagine.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Duncan said, and he did look troubled. “But I didn’t have any choice. I have all his personal effects and I’ll return them. And I’ll pay for the funeral expenses myself.”

“The ID and things in the wallet that we found on the body?” Sachs asked.

“Forgeries.” Duncan nodded. “Wouldn’t pass close scrutiny but I just needed people fooled for a few days.”

“You stole the body, drove him to the alley and set him up with an iron bar on his neck to make it look liked he’d died slowly.”

A nod.

“Then you left the clock and note too.”

“That’s right.”

Lon Sellitto asked, “But the pier, at Twenty-second Street? What about the guy you killed there?”

Rhyme glanced at Duncan. “Is your blood type AB positive?”

Duncan laughed. “You’re good.”

“There never was a victim on the pier, Lon. It was his own blood.” Looking over the suspect, Rhyme said, “You set the note and clock on the pier, and poured your blood around it and on the jacket—which you tossed into the river. You made the fingernail scrapings yourself. Where’d you get your blood? You collect it yourself?”

“No, I got it at a hospital in New Jersey. I told them I wanted to stockpile it before some surgery I was planning.”

“That’s why the anticoagulants.” Stored blood usually has a thinning agent included to prevent it from clotting.

Duncan nodded. “I wondered if you’d check for that.”

Rhyme asked, “And the fingernail?”

Duncan held up his ring finger. The end of the nail was missing. He himself had torn it off. He added, “And I’m sure Vincent told you about a young man I supposedly killed near the church. I never touched him. The blood on the box cutter and on some newspaper in the trash nearby—if it’s still there—is mine.”

“How did that happen?” Rhyme asked.

“It was an awkward moment. Vincent thought the kid saw his knife. So I had to pretend that I killed him. Otherwise Vincent might suspect me. I followed him around the corner, then ducked into an alley, cut my own arm with the knife and smeared some of my own blood on the box cutter.” He showed a recent wound on his forearm. “You can do a DNA test.”

“Oh, don’t worry. We will. . . .” Another thought. “And the carjacking—you never killed anybody to steal the Buick, did you?” They’d had no reports either of missing students in Chelsea or of drivers murdered during the commission of a carjacking anywhere in the city.

Lon Sellitto was compelled to chime in again with, “What the hell’s going on?”

“He’s not a serial killer,” Rhyme said. “He’s not any kind of killer. He set this whole thing up to make it look like he was.”

Sellitto asked, “No wife killed in an accident?”

“Never been married.”

“How’d you figure it out?” Pulaski asked Rhyme.

“Because of something Lon said.”

“Me?”

“For one thing, you mentioned his name, Duncan.”

“So? We knew it.”

“Exactly. Because Vincent Reynolds told us. But Mr. Duncan is someone who wears gloves twenty-four/seven so he won’t leave prints. He’s way too careful to give his name to a person like Vincent—unless he didn’t care if we found out who he was.

“Then you said it was lucky he didn’t kill the recent victims and Amelia. Pissed me off at first, hearing that. But I got to thinking about it. You were right. We didn’t really save any victims at all. The florist? Joanne? I figured out he was targeting her, sure, but she’s the one who called nine-one-one after she heard a noise in the workshop—a noise he probably made intentionally.”

“That’s right,” Duncan agreed. “And I left a spool of wire on the floor to warn her that somebody’d broken in.”

Sachs said, “Lucy, the soldier in Greenwich Village—we got an anonymous phone call from a witness about a break-in. But it wasn’t a witness at all, right? It was you making that call.”

“I told Vincent that somebody in the street called nine-one-one. But, no, I called from a pay phone and reported myself.”

Rhyme nodded at the office building behind them. “And here—the fire extinguisher was a dud, I assume.”

“Harmless. I poured a little alcohol on the outside but it’s filled with water.”

Sellitto was on the phone, calling the Sixth Precinct, the NYPD Bomb Squad headquarters. A moment later he hung up. “Tap water.”

“Just like the gun you gave Baker, the one he was going to use to kill Sachs here.” Rhyme glanced at the dismantled .32. “I just checked it out—the firing pin’s been broken off.”

Duncan said to Sachs, “I plugged the barrel too. You can check. And I knew he couldn’t use his own gun to shoot you because that would tie him to your death.”

“Okay,” Sellitto barked. “That’s it. Somebody, talk to me.”

Rhyme shrugged. “All I can do is get us to this station, Lon. It’s up to Mr. Duncan to complete the train ride. I suspect he’s planned to enlighten us all along. Which is why he was enjoying the show from the grandstand across the street.”

Duncan nodded and said to Rhyme, “You hit it on the head, Detective Rhyme.”

“I’m decommissioned,” the criminalist corrected.

“The whole point of what I’ve done is what just happened—and, yes, I was enjoying it very much: watching that son of a bitch Dennis Baker get arrested and dragged off to jail.”

“Keep going.”

Duncan’s face grew still. “A year ago I came here on business—I own a company that does lease financing of industrial equipment. I was working with a friend—my best friend. He saved my life when we were in the army twenty years ago. We were working all day drafting documents then went back to our hotels to clean up before dinner. But he never showed. I found out he’d been shot to death. The police said it was a mugging. But something didn’t seem right. I mean, how often do muggers shoot their victims point-blank in the forehead—twice?”

“Oh, shooting fatalities during the commission of robberies are extremely rare, according to recent . . .” Pulaski’s voice trailed off, under Rhyme’s cool glance.

Duncan continued. “Now, the last time I saw him my friend told me something odd. He said that the night before, he’d been in a club downtown. When he came out, two policemen pulled him aside and said they’d seen him buying drugs. Which was bullshit. He didn’t do drugs. I know that for a fact. He knew he was being shaken down and demanded to see a police supervisor. He was going to call somebody at headquarters and complain. But just then some people came out of the club and the police let him go. The next day he was shot and killed.

“Too much of a coincidence. I kept going back to the club and asking questions. Cost me five thousand bucks but finally I found somebody willing to tell me that Dennis Baker and some of his fellow cops ran shakedown scams in the city.”

Duncan explained about a scheme of planting drugs on businessmen or their children and then dropping the charges for huge extortion payments.

“The missing drugs from the One One Eight,” Pulaski said.

Sachs nodded. “Not enough to sell but enough to plant as evidence, sure.”

Duncan added, “They were based out of some bar in lower Manhattan, I heard.”

“The St. James?”

“That’s it. They’d all meet there after their shifts at the station house were over.”

Rhyme asked, “Your friend. The one who was killed. What was his name?”

Duncan gave them the name and Sellitto called Homicide. It was true. The man had been shot during an apparent mugging and no perp was ever collared.

“I used my connection I’d made at the club—paid him a lot of money—to get introduced to some people who knew Baker. I pretended I was a professional killer and offered my services. I didn’t hear anything for a while. I thought he’d gotten busted or gone straight and I’d never hear from him. It was frustrating. But finally Baker called me and we met. It turns out he’d been checking me out to see if I was trustworthy. Apparently he was satisfied. He wouldn’t give me too many details but said he had a business arrangement that was in jeopardy. He and another cop had taken care of some ‘problems’ they’d been having.”

Sachs asked, “Creeley or Sarkowski? Did he mention them?”

“He didn’t give me any names but it was obvious that he was talking about killing people.”

Sachs shook her head, eyes troubled. “I was upset enough thinking that some of the cops from the One One Eight were taking kickbacks from mobsters. And all along they were the actual killers.”

Rhyme glanced at her. He knew she’d be thinking of Nick Carelli. Thinking of her father too.

Duncan continued. “Then Baker said there was a new problem. He needed someone else eliminated, a woman detective. But they couldn’t kill her themselves—if she died everyone’d know it was because of her investigation and they’d follow up on the case even more intensely. I came up with this idea of pretending to be a serial killer. And I made up a name—the Watchmaker.”

Sellitto said, “That’s why there were no hits in the watchmaker trade associations.” They’d all come back negative on a Gerald Duncan.

“Right. The character was all a creation of mine. And I needed someone to feed you information and make you think there really was a psycho, so I found Vincent Reynolds. Then we started the supposed attacks. The first two I faked, when Vincent wasn’t around. The others—when he was with me—I bungled them on purpose.

“I had to make sure you found the box of bullets that’d connect the Watchmaker to Baker. I was going to drop them somewhere so you’d find them. But”—Duncan gave a laugh—“as it turned out, I didn’t have to. You found out about the SUV and nearly got us.”

“So that’s why you left the ammunition inside.”

“Yep. The book too.”

Another thought occurred to Rhyme. “And the officer who searched the garage said it was curious you parked out in the open, not at the doorway. That was because you had to make sure we found the Explorer.”

“Exactly. And all the other supposed crimes were just leading up to this one—so you could catch Baker in the act of trying to kill her. That’d give you probable cause, I figured, to search his car and house and find evidence to put him away.”

“What about the poem? ‘The full Cold Moon . . . ’”

“I wrote it myself.” Duncan smiled. “I’m a better businessman than a poet. But it seemed sufficiently scary to suit my needs.”

“Why’d you pick these particular people as victims?”

“I didn’t. I picked the locations because they’d allow us to get away quickly. This last one, the woman here, was because I needed a good layout to flush out Baker.”

“Revenge for your friend?” Sachs asked. “A lot of other people would just’ve had him killed outright.”

Duncan said sincerely, “I’d never hurt anybody. I couldn’t do that. I might bend the law a bit—I admit I committed some crimes here. But they were victimless. I didn’t even steal the cars; Baker got them himself—from a police pound.”

“The woman who was the first victim’s supposed sister?” Sachs asked. “Who was she?”

“A friend I asked to help. I lent her a lot of money a few years ago but there was no way she could repay it. So she agreed to help me out.”

“And the girl in the car with her?” Sachs asked.

“Her real daughter.”

“What’s the woman’s name?”

A rueful smile. “I’ll keep that to myself. Promised her I would. Just like the guy in the club who set me up with Baker. That was part of the deal and I’m sticking to it.”

“Who else is involved in the shakedowns at the One One Eight, other than Baker?”

Duncan shook his head regretfully. “I wish I could tell you. I want them put away as much as Baker. I tried to find out. He wouldn’t talk about his scheme. But I got the impression there’s somebody involved other than the officers from the precinct.”

“Somebody else?”

“That’s right. High up.”

“From Maryland or with a place there?” Sachs asked.

“I never heard him mention that. He trusted me but only up to a point. I don’t think he was worried about my turning him in; it seemed like he was afraid I’d get greedy and go after the money myself. It sounded like there was a lot of it.”

A dark-colored city car pulled up to the police tape and a slim, balding man in a thin overcoat climbed out. He joined Rhyme and the others. He was a senior assistant district attorney. Rhyme had testified at several of the trials the man had prosecuted. The criminalist nodded a greeting and Sellitto explained the latest developments.

The prosecutor listened to the bizarre turn the case had taken. Most of the perps he put away were stupid Tony Soprano sorts or even more stupid crackheads and punks. He seemed amused to find himself with a brilliant criminal—whose crimes, as it turned out, were not nearly as serious as it seemed. What excited him far more than a serial killer was the career-making prosecution of a deadly corruption scam in the police department.

“Any of this going through IAD?” he asked Sachs.

“No. I’ve been running it myself.”

“Who cleared that?”

“Flaherty.”

“The inspector? Running Op Div?”

“Right.”

He began asking questions and jotting notes. After doing so, in precise handwriting, for five minutes he paused. “Okay, we’ve got B and E, criminal trespass . . . but no burglary.”

Burglary is breaking and entering for the purpose of committing a felony, like larceny or murder. Duncan had no purpose other than trespassing.

The prosecutor continued. “Theft of human remains—”

“Borrowing. I never intended to keep the corpse,” Duncan reminded him.

“Well, it’s up to Westchester to decide that one. But here we’ve also got obstruction of justice, interference with police procedures—”

Duncan frowned. “Though you could say that since there were no murders in the first place, the police procedures weren’t necessary, so interference with them is moot.”

Rhyme chuckled.

The assistant district attorney, however, ignored the comment. “Possession of a firearm—”

“Barrel was plugged,” Duncan countered. “It was inoperable.”

“What about the stolen motor vehicles? Where’d they come from?”

Duncan explained about Baker’s theft from the police impound lot in Queens. He nodded to the pile of his personal effects, which included a set of car keys. “The Buick’s parked up the street. On Thirty-first. Baker got it from the same place as the SUV.”

“How’d you take delivery of the cars? Anybody else involved?”

“Baker and I went together to pick them up. They were parked in a restaurant lot. Baker knew some of the people there, he said.”

“You get their names?”

“No.”

“What was the restaurant?”

“Some Greek diner. I don’t remember the name. We took the four-ninety-five to get out there. I don’t remember the exit but we were only on the freeway for about ten minutes after we got out of the Midtown Tunnel and turned left at the exit.”

“North,” Sellitto said. “We’ll have somebody check it out. Maybe Baker’s been dealing in confiscated wheels too.”

The prosecutor shook his head. “I hope you understand the consequences of this. Not just the crimes—you’ll have civil fines for the diversion of emergency vehicles and city employees. I’m talking tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“I have no problem with that. I checked the laws and sentencing guidelines before I started this. I decided the risk of a prison sentence was worth exposing Baker. But I wouldn’t have done this if there was any chance somebody innocent would get hurt.”

“You still put people at risk,” Sellitto muttered. “Pulaski was attacked in the parking garage where you left the SUV. He could’ve been killed.”

Duncan laughed. “No, no, I’m the one who saved him. After we abandoned the Explorer and were running out of the garage I spotted that homeless guy. I didn’t like the looks of him. He had a club or tire iron or something in his hand. After Vincent and I split up, I went back to the garage to make sure he didn’t hurt anybody. When he started toward you”—Duncan glanced at Pulaski—“I found a wheel cover in the trash and pitched it into the wall so you’d turn around and see him coming.”

The rookie nodded. “That’s what happened. I thought the guy stumbled and made the noise himself. But whatever, I was ready for him when he came at me. And there was a wheel cover nearby.”

“And Vincent?” Duncan continued. “I made sure he never got close enough to any women to hurt them. I’m the one who turned him in. I called nine-one-one and reported him. I can prove it.” He gave details about where and when the rapist was caught—which confirmed that he’d been the one who called the police.

The prosecutor looked like he needed a time-out. He glanced at his notes, then at Duncan, and rubbed his shiny head. His ears were bright red from the cold. “I’ve gotta talk to the district attorney about this one.” He turned to two detectives from Police Plaza who’d met him here. The prosecutor nodded at Duncan and said, “Take him downtown. And keep somebody on him close—remember, he’s diming out crooked cops. People could be gunning for him.”

Duncan was helped to his feet.

Amelia Sachs asked, “Why didn’t you just come to us and tell us what happened? Or make a tape of Baker admitting what he’d done? You could’ve avoided this whole charade.”

Duncan gave a harsh laugh. “And who could I trust? Who could I send a tape to? How did I know who was honest and who was working with Baker? . . . It’s a fact of life, you know.”

“What’s that?”

“Corrupt cops.”

Rhyme noticed Sachs gave absolutely no reaction to this comment, as two uniformed officers led their perp, such as he was, to a squad car.

They were, at least temporarily, once again a team.

You and me, Sachs . . .

Lincoln Rhyme’s case had become Amelia Sachs’s and if the Watchmaker had turned out to be toothless there was still a lot of work left to do. The corruption scandal at the 118th house was now “front-burnered,” as Sellitto said (prompting Rhyme’s sardonic comment, “Now there’s a verb you don’t hear every day”). Benjamin Creeley’s and Frank Sarkowski’s killer or killers had yet to be identified specifically from among the cops who were suspected of complicity. And the case against Baker had to be cobbled together and the Maryland connection—and the extortion money—unearthed.

Kathryn Dance volunteered to interview Baker but he was refusing to say a word so the team had to rely on traditional crime scene and investigative work.

On Rhyme’s instruction, Pulaski was cross-referencing Baker’s phone calls and poring over his records and Palm Pilot, trying to find out whom he spent the most time with at the 118th and elsewhere but wasn’t coming up with anything helpful. Mel Cooper and Sachs were analyzing evidence from Baker’s car, house on Long Island and office at One Police Plaza, as well as the houses or apartments of several girlfriends he’d been dating recently (none of whom knew about the others, it turned out). Sachs had searched with her typical diligence and had returned to Rhyme’s with cartons of clothes, tools, checkbooks, documents, photos, weapons and trace from his tire treads.

After an hour of looking over all of this, Cooper announced, “Ah. Got something.”

“What?” Rhyme asked.

Sachs told him, “Found some ash in the clothes that were in the trunk of Baker’s car.”

“And?” Sellitto asked.

Cooper added, “Identical to the ash found in the fireplace at Creeley’s. Places him at that scene.”

They also found a fiber from Baker’s garage that matched the rope used in Benjamin Creeley’s “suicide.”

“I want to link Baker to Sarkowski’s death too,” Rhyme said. “Get Nancy Simpson and Frank Rettig out to Queens, that place where his body was found. Take some soil samples. We might be able to place Baker or one of his buddies there too.”

“The soil I found at Creeley’s, in front of the fireplace,” Sachs pointed out, “had chemicals in it—like from a factory site. It might match.”

“Good.”

Sellitto called Crime Scene in Queens and ordered the collection.

Sachs and Cooper also found samples of sand and some vegetation that turned out to be seaweed. These substances were found in Baker’s car. And there were similar samples in his garage at home.

“Sand and seaweed,” Rhyme commented. “Could be a summer house—Maryland, again. Maybe Baker’s got one, or a girlfriend of his.”

But a check of the real estate databases showed that this wasn’t the case.

Sachs wheeled in the other whiteboard from Rhyme’s exercise room and she jotted the latest evidence. Clearly frustrated, she stood back and stared at the notations.

“The Maryland connection,” she said. “We’ve got to find it. If they killed two people, and nearly Ron and me, they’re willing to kill more. They know we’re closing them up and they won’t want any witnesses. And they’re probably destroying evidence right now.”

Sachs was silent. She looked flustered.

It’s hard when your lover is also your professional partner. But Lincoln Rhyme couldn’t hold back, even—especially—with Amelia Sachs. He said in a low, even voice, “This’s your case, Sachs. You’ve been living it. I haven’t. Where does it all point?”

“I don’t know.” She dug a thumbnail into her finger. Her mouth tight, she shook her head, staring at the evidence chart. Loose ends. “There’s not enough evidence.”

“There’s never enough evidence,” Rhyme reminded. “But that’s not an excuse. That’s what we’re here for, Sachs. We’re the ones who examine a few dirty bricks and figure out what the entire castle looked like.”

“I don’t know.”

“I can’t help you, Sachs. You’ve got to figure this one out on your own. Think about what you’ve got. Somebody with a connection to Maryland . . . somebody following you in a Mercedes . . . saltwater and seaweed . . . cash, a lot of cash. Crooked cops.”

“I don’t know,” she repeated stridently.

But he wasn’t giving an inch. “That’s not an option. You have to know.”

She glared at him—and at the hard message beneath the words, which was: You can walk out that door tomorrow and throw away your career if you want. But for now you’re still a cop with a job to do.

Her fingernails worried her scalp.

“There’s something more, something you’re missing,” Rhyme muttered as he too gazed at the evidence charts.

“So, you’re saying we have to think outside the box,” said Ron Pulaski.

“Ah, clichés,” Rhyme snapped. “Well, okay, if you’re in a box, maybe you’re there for a reason. I say don’t think outside it; I say look more closely at what’s inside with you. . . . So, Sachs, what do you see in there?”

She stared at the charts for some moments.

Then she smiled and whispered, “Maryland.”

BENJAMIN CREELEY HOMICIDE

• 56-year-old Creeley, apparently suicide by hanging. Clothesline. But had broken thumb, couldn’t tie noose.

• Computer-written suicide note about depression. But appeared not to be suicidally depressed, no history of mental/emotional problems.

• Around Thanksgiving two men broke into his house and possibly burned evidence. White men, but faces not observed. One bigger than other. They were inside for about an hour.

• Evidence in Westchester house:

• Broke through lock; skillful job.

• Leather texture marks on fireplace tools and Creeley’s desk.

• Soil in front of fireplace has higher acid content than soil around house and contains pollutants. From industrial site?

• Traces of burned cocaine in fireplace.

• Ash in fireplace.

• Financial records, spreadsheet, references to millions of dollars.

• Checking logo on documents, sending entries to forensic accountant.

• Diary re: getting oil changed, haircut appointment and going to St. James Tavern.

• Analysis of ash from Queens CS lab:

• Logo of software used in corporate accounting.

• Forensic accountant: standard executive compensation figures.

• Burned because of what they revealed, or to lead investigators off?

• St. James Tavern

• Creeley came here several times.

• Apparently didn’t use drugs while here.

• Not sure whom he met with, but maybe cops from the nearby 118th Precinct of the NYPD.

• Last time he was here—just before his death—he got into an argument with persons unknown.

• Checked money from officers at St. James—serial numbers are clean, but found coke and heroin. Stolen from precinct?

• Not much drugs missing, only 6 or 7 oz. of pot, 4 of coke.

• Unusually few organized crime cases at the 118th Precinct but no evidence of intentional stalling by officers.

• Two gangs in the East Village possible but not likely suspects.

• Interview with Jordan Kessler, Creeley’s partner, and follow-up with wife.

• Confirmed no obvious drug use.

• Didn’t appear to associate with criminals.

• Drinking more than usual, taken up gambling; trips to Vegas and Atlantic City. Losses were large, but not significant to Creeley.

• Not clear why he was depressed.

• Kessler didn’t recognize burned records.

• Awaiting list of clients.

• Kessler doesn’t appear to gain by Creeley’s death.

• Sachs and Pulaski followed by AMG Mercedes.

FRANK SARKOWSKI HOMICIDE

• Sarkowski was 57 years old, owned business in Manhattan, no police record, murdered on November 4 of this year, survived by wife and two teenage children.

• Victim owned building and business in Manhattan. Business was doing maintenance for other companies and utilities.

• Art Snyder was case detective.

• No suspects.

• Murder/robbery?

• Was shot to death as part of apparent robbery. Weapon recovered on scene—Smith & Wesson knockoff, .38 Special, no prints, cold gun. Case detective believes it could have been a professional hit.

• Business deal went bad?

• Killed in Queens—not sure why he was there.

• Deserted part of borough, near natural gas tanks.

• File and evidence missing.

• File went to 158th Precinct on/around November 28. Never returned. No indication of requesting officer.

• No indication where it went in the 158th.

• DI Jefferies not cooperative.

• No known connection with Creeley.

• No criminal record—Sarkowski or company.

• Rumors—money going to cops at the 118th Precinct. Ended up someplace/someone with a Maryland connection. Baltimore mob involved?

• No leads.

• No indications of mob involvement.

• No other Maryland connections found.

THE WATCHMAKER

CRIME SCENE FIVE

Location:

• Office building, Thirty-second Street and Seventh Ave.

Victims:

• Amelia Sachs/Ron Pulaski.

Perp:

• Dennis Baker, NYPD

M.O.:

• Gunshot (attempt).

Evidence:

• .32 Autauga Mk II pistol.

• Latex gloves.

• Recovered from Baker’s car, home, office:

• Cocaine.

• $50,000 cash.

• Clothing.

• Receipts from clubs and bars, incl. the St. James.

• Carpeting fibers from Explorer.

• Fiber that matched the rope used in Creeley’s death.

• Ash found at Baker’s same as ash in Creeley’s fireplace.

• Presently taking soil samples from site where Sarkowski was murdered.

• Sand and seaweed. Oceanfront Maryland connection?

Other:

• Gerald Duncan set up entire scheme to implicate Dennis Baker and others who killed Duncan’s friend. Eight or ten other officers from the 118th are involved, not sure who. Someone else, other than cops from the 118th, is involved. Duncan no longer homicide suspect.

Chapter 33

Amelia Sachs walked into a tiny, deserted grocery store in Little Italy, south of Greenwich Village. The windows were painted over and a single bare bulb burned inside. The door to the darkened back room was ajar, revealing a large heap of trash, old shelves and dusty cans of tomato sauce.

The place resembled a former social club of a smalltime organized crime crew, which in fact it had been until it was raided and closed up a year ago. The landlord was temporarily the city, which was trying to dump the place, but so far, no takers. Sellitto had said it’d be a good, secure place for a sensitive meeting of this sort.

Seated at a rickety table were Deputy Mayor Robert Wallace and a clean-cut young cop, an Internal Affairs detective. The IAD officer, Toby Henson, greeted Sachs with a firm handshake and a look in his eyes that suggested if she offered any positive response to an invitation to go out with him, he’d give her the evening of her life.

She nodded grimly, focused only on doing the hard job that lay ahead. Her rethinking of the facts, looking within the box, as Rhyme urged, had produced results, which turned out to be extremely unpleasant.

“You said there was a situation?” Wallace asked. “You didn’t want to talk about it over the phone.”

She briefed the men about Gerald Duncan and Dennis Baker. Wallace had heard the basics but Henson laughed in surprise. “This Duncan, he was just a citizen? And he wanted to bring down a crooked cop? That’s why he did this?”

“Yep.”

“He have names?”

“Only Baker’s. There’re about eight or ten others from the One One Eight but there’s someone else, a main player.”

“Someone else?” Wallace asked.

“Yep. All along we were looking for somebody with a connection to Maryland. . . . Did we get that one wrong.”

“Maryland?” the IAD man asked.

Sachs gave a grim laugh. “You know that game of Telephone?”

“You mean at a kids’ party? You whisper something to the person next to you and by the time it goes around, it’s all different?”

“Yep. My source heard ‘Maryland.’ I think it was ‘Marilyn.’”

“A person’s name?” When she nodded, Wallace’s eyes narrowed. “Wait, you don’t mean. . . . ?”

“Inspector Marilyn Flaherty.”

“Impossible.”

Detective Henson shook his head. “No way.”

“I wish I was wrong. But we’ve got some evidence. We found sand and saltwater trace in Baker’s car. She’s got a house in Connecticut, near the beach. And I’ve been followed by somebody in a Mercedes AMG. At first I thought it was a crew from Jersey or Baltimore. But it turns out that that’s what Flaherty owns.”

“A cop owns an AMG?” the Internal Affairs officer asked in disbelief.

“Don’t forget Flaherty’s a cop making a couple hundred thousand a year illegally,” Sachs said stiffly. “And we found a black-and-gray hair about the length of hers in the Explorer that Baker had stolen from the pound. Oh, and remember: She definitely didn’t want IAD to handle the case.”

“Yeah, that was strange,” Wallace agreed.

“Because she was going to bury the whole thing. Give it to one of her people to ‘handle.’ But it would’ve disappeared.”

“Holy shit, an inspector,” whispered the IAD pretty boy.

“She’s in custody?” Wallace asked.

Sachs shook her head. “The problem is we can’t find the money. We don’t have probable cause to subpoena her bank records or get paper to search her house. That’s why I need you.”

Wallace said, “What can I do?”

“I’ve asked her to meet us here. I’m going to brief her on what happened—only a watered-down version. I want you to tell her that we’ve discovered Baker has a partner. The mayor’s called a special commission and he’s going to pull out all the stops to track them down. Tell her that Internal Affairs is totally on board.”

“You’re thinking she’ll panic, head for the money and you’ll nail her.”

“That’s what we hope. My partner’s going to put a tracker on her car while she’s in here tonight. After she leaves, we’re going to tail her. . . . Now, are you okay lying to her?”

“No, I’m not.” Wallace looked down at the rough tabletop, marred with graffiti. “But I’ll do it.”

Detective Toby Henson had apparently lost all interest in his romantic future with Sachs. He sighed and gave an assessment that she couldn’t help but agree with. “This’s going to be bad.”

Now, what’ve we learned?

Ron Pulaski, accustomed to thinking we because of the twin thing, asked himself this question.

Meaning: What’ve I learned in working on this case with Rhyme and Sachs?

He was determined to be the best cop he could and he spent a lot of time evaluating what he’d done right and what he’d done wrong on the job. Walking down the street now toward the old grocery store where Sachs was meeting with Wallace, he couldn’t really see that he’d messed up anything too bad on the case. Oh, sure, he could’ve run the Explorer scene better. And he was damn sure going to keep his weapon outside the Tyvek jumpsuit from now on—and not use choke holds, unless he really had to.

But on the whole? He’d done pretty good.

Still, he wasn’t satisfied. He supposed this feeling came from working for Detective Sachs. That woman set a high bar. There was always something else to check out, one more clue to find, another hour to spend on the scene.

Could drive you crazy.

Could also teach you to be one hell of a cop.

He’d really have to step up now, with her leaving. Pulaski’d heard that rumor, of course, and he wasn’t very happy about it. But he’d do what was necessary. He didn’t know, though, that he’d ever have her drive. After all, at the moment, hurrying down the freezing street, he was thinking of his family. He really wanted just to head home. Talk to Jenny about her day—not his, no, no—and then play with the kids. That was so fun, just watching the look in his boy’s eyes. It changed so fast and so completely—when his son noticed something he’d never seen before, when he made connections, when he laughed. He and Jenny would sit on the floor with Brad in between them, crawling back and forth, his tiny fingers gripping Pulaski’s thumb.

And their newborn daughter? She was round and wrinkled as an old grapefruit and she’d lie nearby in the SpongeBob bassinet and be happy and perfect.

But the pleasure of his family would have to wait. After what was about to happen, it was going to be a long night.

He checked street numbers. He was two blocks from the storefront where he’d be meeting Amelia Sachs. Thinking: What else’ve I learned?

One thing: You damn well better have learned to steer clear of alleys.

A year ago he’d nearly been beaten to death because he’d been walking too close to a wall, with a perp hiding around the corner of a building. The man had stepped out and walloped him in the head with a billy club.

Careless and stupid.

As Detective Sachs had said, “You didn’t know. Now you do.”

Approaching another alley now, Pulaski veered to the left to walk along the curb—in the unlikely event that somebody, a mugger or junkie, was hiding in the alley.

He turned and looked down it, saw the empty stretch of cobblestones. But at least he was being smart. That’s the way it was, being a cop, learning these small lessons and making them a part of—

The hand got him from behind.

“Jesus,” he gasped as he was pulled through the open door of the van at the curb, which he hadn’t seen because he was staring into the alley. He gasped and started to call out for help.

But his assailant—Deputy Inspector Halston Jefferies, his eyes cold as the moon overhead—slapped his hand over the rookie’s mouth. Somebody else grabbed Pulaski’s gun hand and in two seconds flat he’d disappeared into the back of the van.

The door slammed shut.

The front door of the old grocery store opened and Marilyn Flaherty walked inside, closed the door behind her and latched it.

Unsmiling, she looked around the bleak store, nodded at the other officers and Wallace. Sachs thought she looked even more tense than usual.

The deputy mayor, playing it cool, introduced her to the IAD detective. She shook his hand and sat at the battered table, next to Sachs.

“Top secret, hm?”

Sachs said, “This’s turned into a hornets’ nest.” She watched the woman’s face carefully as she laid out the details. The inspector kept up the great stone face, giving nothing away. Sachs wondered what Kathryn Dance would see in her stiff-backed posture, the tight lips, the quick, cold eyes. The woman was virtually motionless.

The detective told her about Baker’s partner. Then added, “I know how you feel about Internal Affairs but, with all respect, I’ve decided we need to bring them in.”

“I—”

“I’m sorry, Inspector.” Sachs turned toward Wallace.

But the deputy mayor said nothing. He simply shook his head, sighed, then glanced at the IAD man. The young officer pulled out his weapon.

Sachs blinked. “What . . . Hey, what’re you doing?”

He trained the gun on the space midway between her and Flaherty.

“What is this?” the inspector gasped.

“It’s a mess,” Wallace said, sounding almost regretful. “It’s a real mess. Both of you, keep your hands on the table.”

The deputy mayor looked them over, while Toby Henson handed his own gun to Wallace, who covered the women.

Henson wasn’t IAD at all; he was a detective out of the 118th, part of the inner circle of the extortion ring, and the man who’d helped Dennis Baker murder Sarkowski and Creeley. He now pulled on leather gloves and took Sachs’s Glock from her holster. He patted her down for a backup piece. There was none. He searched the inspector’s purse and removed her small service revolver.

“You called it right, Detective,” Wallace said to Sachs, who stared at him in shock. “We’ve got a situation . . . a situation.” He pulled out his cell phone and made a call to one of the officers in front, also part of the extortion scheme. “All clear?”

“Yep.”

Wallace disconnected the phone.

Sachs said, “You? It was you? But . . .” Her head swivelled toward Flaherty.

The inspector asked, “What’s this all about?”

The deputy mayor nodded at the inspector and said to Sachs, “Wrong in a big way. She had nothing to do with it. Dennis Baker and I were partners—but business partners. On Long Island. We grew up there. Had a recycling company together. It went bust and he went to the academy, became a cop. I got another business up and running. Then I got involved in city politics and we stayed in touch. I became police liaison and ombudsman and got a feel for what kind of scams worked and what didn’t. Dennis and I came up with one that did.”

“Robert!” Flaherty snapped. “No, no . . .”

“Ah, Marilyn . . .” was all the silver-haired man could muster.

“So,” Amelia Sachs said, her shoulders sagging, “what’s the scenario here?” She gave a grim laugh. “The inspector kills me and then kills herself. You plant some money in her house. And . . .”

“And Dennis Baker dies in jail—he messes with the wrong inmate, falls down the stairs, who knows? Too bad. But he should’ve been more careful. No witnesses, that’s the end of the case.”

“You think anybody’s going to buy it? Somebody at the One One Eight’ll turn. They’ll get you sooner or later.”

“Well, excuse me, Detective, but we have to put out the fires we’ve got, don’t you think? And you’re the biggest fucking fire I’ve got at the moment.”

“Listen, Robert,” Flaherty said, her voice brittle, “you’re in trouble but it’s not too late.”

Wallace pulled on gloves. “Check the street again, tell them to get the car ready.” The deputy mayor picked up Sachs’s Glock.

The man walked to the door.

Wallace’s eyes turned cold as he looked over Sachs and took a firm grip on the pistol.

Sachs stared into his eyes. “Wait.”

Wallace frowned.

She looked him over, eerily calm under the circumstances, he thought. Then she said, “ESU One, move in.”

Wallace blinked. “What?”

To the deputy mayor’s shock, a man’s voice shouted from the darkened back room, “Nobody move! Or I will fire!”

What was this?

Gasping, Wallace looked into the doorway, where an ESU officer was standing, his H&K machine gun’s muzzle moving from the politician to Henson at the front door.

Sachs reached down and grabbed something under the table. Her hand emerged with another Glock. She must’ve clipped it there earlier! She spun to the front door, training the pistol on Henson. “Drop the weapon! Get down on the floor!” The ESU officer shifted his gun back to the deputy mayor.

Wallace, thinking in panic: Oh, Christ, it’s a sting. . . . All a setup.

“Now!” Sachs shouted again.

Henson muttered, “Shit.” He did as he was told.

Wallace continued to grip Sachs’s Glock. He looked down at it.

Her eyes on Henson, Sachs turned slightly toward Wallace. “That piece you’re holding’s unloaded. You’d die for no reason.”

Disgusted, he dropped the gun on the table, held his hands up.

Mystified, Inspector Flaherty was scooting back in her chair, standing up.

Sachs said into her lapel, “Entry teams, go.”

The front door crashed open and a half dozen cops pushed inside—ESU officers. Following them were Deputy Inspector Halston Jefferies and the head of Internal Affairs Division, Captain Ron Scott. A young blond patrolman entered too.

The ESU officers muscled Wallace to the floor. He felt the pain in his hip and joints. Henson was cuffed as well. The deputy mayor looked outside and saw the two other officers from the One One Eight, the ones who’d been standing guard in front. They were lying on the cold sidewalk, in restraints.

“Hell of a way to find out,” Amelia Sachs said to no one as she reloaded her own Glock and slipped it back in her holster. “But it sure answers our question.”

The query she’d referred to wasn’t about Robert Wallace’s guilt—they’d learned beforehand that he was one of Baker’s partners; it was about whether Marilyn Flaherty had been involved too.

They’d set up the whole thing to find out, as well as get a taped admission from Wallace.

Lon Sellitto, Ron Scott and Halston Jefferies had established a command post in a van up the street and hidden the ESU sniper in the back room to make sure Wallace and the cop with him didn’t start shooting before Sachs had a chance to tape the conversation. Pulaski was supposed to take the front door with one team, and another one would take the back. But at the last minute they learned that Wallace had other officers with him, cops from the 118, who might or might not be crooked, so they’d had to change plans a bit.

Pulaski, in fact, nearly walked right into Wallace’s cops outside the storefront and ruined the whole thing.

The rookie said, “Inspector Jefferies pulled me into the command van just before those guys outside saw me.”

Jefferies snapped, “Walking down the street like a Boy Scout on a fucking hike. You want to stay alive on the streets, kid, keep your goddamn eyes open.” The inspector’s rage seemed tame in comparison with yesterday’s tantrum, Sachs noted. At least he wasn’t spitting.

“Yessir. I’ll be more careful in the future, sir.”

“Jesus Christ, they let anybody into the academy these days.”

Sachs tried to repress a smile. She turned to Flaherty. “Sorry, Inspector. We just had to make sure you weren’t a player.” She explained her suspicions and the clues that had led her to believe that the inspector might’ve been working with Baker.

“The Mercedes?” Flaherty asked. “Sure, it was mine. And, sure, you were being tailed. I had an officer from Op Div keeping an eye on you and Pulaski. You were both young, you were inexperienced and you might’ve been way out of your league. I gave him my own car to use because you would’ve noticed a pool vehicle right away.”

The expensive car had indeed thrown her off and actually started her thinking in another direction. If the mob wasn’t involved, she was beginning to wonder that maybe Pulaski had called it wrong about Creeley’s partner, Jordan Kessler, and that the businessman might somehow be involved in the deaths. Maybe, she’d speculated, Creeley and Sarkowski had gotten caught up in one of the Enron-style investigations currently under way and were killed because of something they’d learned about corporate fraud at a client’s company. Kessler seemed to be the only player in the game who could afford a vehicle like an AMG Merc.

But now she realized that the case was all about corrupt cops, and the ash in Creeley’s fireplace wasn’t from doctored accounting records but simply evidence that they’d burned to make sure they destroyed any records of the extortion money, as she’d originally speculated.

Now the inspector’s attention turned to Robert Wallace. She asked Sachs, “How’d you find him?”

“Tell him, Ron,” she instructed Pulaski.

The rookie began. “Detective Sachs here ascertained . . .” He paused. “Detective Sachs found a bunch of trace in Baker’s vehicle and house that gave us the idea, well, gave Detectives Sachs and Rhyme the idea that maybe the other person involved lived near a beach or marina.”

Sachs took it up. “I didn’t think that DI Jefferies was involved because he wouldn’t request a file sent to his own precinct if he wanted to destroy it. Somebody else had it routed there and intercepted it before it was logged in. I went back to him and asked if anybody had been in the file room lately, somebody who might have a connection to the case. Somebody had. You.” A glance at Wallace. “Then I asked the next logical question. Did you have a Maryland connection? And you sure did. Just not an obvious one.”

Thinking inside the box . . .

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “Baker told me you’d mentioned Maryland. But I never thought you’d find it.”

Ron Scott, the IAD head, said to Flaherty, “Wallace has a boat docked at his place on the South Shore of Long Island. Registered in New York but built in Annapolis. She’s The Maryland Monroe.” Scott looked him over and gave a cold laugh. “You boat people really love your puns.”

Sachs said, “The sand, seaweed and saltwater trace in Baker’s car and house match those at his marina. We got a warrant and searched the boat. Got some good evidence. Phone numbers, documents, trace. Over four million in cash—oh, and a lot of drugs too. Plenty of liquor, probably perped. But I’d say the booze’s the least of your problems.”

Ron Scott nodded to two ESU officers. “Get him downtown. Central Booking.”

As he was led out, Wallace called back, “I’m not saying anything. If you think I’m going to name names, you can forget about it. I’m not confessing.”

Flaherty gave the first laugh Sachs had ever heard from her. “Are you mad, Robert? Sounds like they’ve got enough evidence to put you away forever. You don’t need to say a word. Actually, I’d just as soon you didn’t open your goddamn mouth ever again.”

III

8:32 A.M. THURSDAY

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

—LOUIS-HECTOR BERLIOZ

Chapter 34

Alone now, Rhyme and Sachs looked over the tables containing the evidence that had been collected in both the St. James corruption scandal and the Watchmaker case.

Sachs was concentrating hard, but Rhyme knew she was distracted. They’d stayed up late and talked about what had happened. The corruption was bad enough but that officers themselves had actually tried to kill other cops shook her even more.

Sachs claimed she was still undecided about quitting the force but one look at her face told Rhyme that she was going to leave. He also knew she’d had a couple of phone calls with Argyle Security.

There was no doubt.

Rhyme now glanced at the small rectangle of white paper sitting in her briefcase open in his lab: the envelope containing Sachs’s letter of resignation. Like the glaring light of the full moon in a dark sky, the whiteness of the letter was blinding. It was hard to see it clearly, it was hard to see anything else.

He forced himself not to think about it and looked back at the evidence.

Gerald Duncan—dubbed “Perp Lite” by witty Thom—was awaiting arraignment on the infractions he had committed, all minor ones (the DNA analysis revealed that the blood on the box cutter, on the jacket fished out of the harbor and pooled on the pier was Duncan’s own, and the fingernail crescent was a perfect match).

The 118th Precinct corruption case was moving slowly.

There was sufficient evidence to indict Baker and Wallace, as well as Toby Henson. Soil at the Sarkowski crime scene and the samples Sachs had collected at Creeley’s Westchester house matched trace found in Baker’s and Henson’s homes. Of course, they had a rope fiber implicating Baker in Creeley’s death, but similar fibers were found on Wallace’s boat. Henson owned leather gloves whose texture patterns matched those found in Westchester.

But this trio wasn’t cooperating. They were rejecting any plea bargains, and no evidence implicated anyone else, including the two officers who’d been outside the East Village social club, who claimed they were innocent. Rhyme had tried to unleash Kathryn Dance on them but they were refusing to say anything.

Eventually, Rhyme was confident, he could find all the perps from the 118th and build cases against them. But he didn’t want eventually; he wanted now. As Sachs had pointed out, the other cops from the St. James might be planning to kill more witnesses—maybe even make another attempt on her or Pulaski. It was also possible that one or more of them were forcing Baker, Henson and Wallace to remain silent by threatening their families.

Besides, Rhyme was needed on other cases. Earlier he’d gotten a call about another incident—FBI Agent Fred Dellray (temporarily sprung from financial crimes hell) explained that there’d been a break-in and arson at the federal National Institute of Standards and Technology operation in Brooklyn. The damage was minor but the perp had breached a very sophisticated security system and, with terrorism on everyone’s mind, any burglary of a government facility got attention; the Feds wanted Rhyme to assist in the forensic side of the investigation. He wanted to help but he needed to get the Baker-Wallace extortion case wrapped up first.

A messenger arrived with the file on the murder of Duncan’s businessman friend, engineered by Baker when the man refused to be extorted. The case was still open—there’s no statute of limitations on murder—but there’d been no entries for a year. Rhyme was hoping to find some leads in the older case that might help them identify perps from the 118th Precinct.

Rhyme first went into the New York Times archive and read the short account of the death of the victim, Andrew Culbert. It reported nothing other than that he was a businessman from Duluth and had been killed during an apparent mugging in Midtown. No suspects were found. There was no follow-up to the story.

Rhyme had Thom mount the investigation report on his page-turning frame and the criminalist read through the sheets. As often, in a cold case, the notes were in several different handwritings, since the investigation had been passed on—with progressively less energy—as time passed. According to the crime scene report, there’d been little trace, no fingerprints or footprints, no shell casings (death was from two shots to the forehead, the slugs ubiquitous .38 Specials; a test of the weapons they’d collected from Baker and the other cops at the 118th revealed no ballistics matches).

“You have the crime scene inventory?” he asked Sachs.

“Let’s see. Right here,” she said, lifting the sheet. “I’ll read it.”

He closed his eyes so he’d have a better image of the items.

“Wallet,” Sachs read, “one hotel room key to the St. Regis, one minibar key, one Cross pen, one PDA, one packet of gum, a small pad of paper with the words ‘Men’s room’ on the top. The second sheet said ‘Chardonnay.’ That’s it. The lead detective from Homicide was John Repetti.”

Rhyme was looking off, his mind stuck on something. He looked at her. “What?”

“I was saying, Repetti, he ran the case out of Midtown North. You want me to call him?”

After a moment Lincoln Rhyme replied, “No, I need you to do something else.”

It’s possessed.

Listening to the scratchy recording of the bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson singing “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” through her iPod, Kathryn Dance stared at her suitcase, bulging open, refusing to close.

All I bought was two pairs of shoes, a few Christmas presents . . . okay, three pairs of shoes, but one was pumps. They don’t count. Oh, but then the sweater. The sweater was the problem.

She pulled it out. And tried again. The clasps got to within a few inches of each other and stopped.

Possessed . . .

I’ll go for the elegant look. She found the plastic valet laundry bag and offloaded jeans, a suit, hair curlers, stockings and the offending, and bulky, sweater. She tried the suitcase again.

Click.

No exorcist was necessary.

Her hotel room phone rang and the front desk announced she had a visitor.

Right on time.

“Send ’em up,” Dance said and five minutes later Lucy Richter was sitting on the small couch in Dance’s room.

“You want something to drink?”

“No, thanks. I can’t stay long.”

Dance nodded at a small fridge. “Whoever thought up minibars is evil. Candy bars and chips. My downfall. Well, everything’s pretty much my downfall. And to add insult to injury the salsa costs ten dollars.”

Lucy, who looked like she’d never had to count a calorie or gram of fat in her life, laughed. Then she said, “I heard they caught him. The officer guarding my house told me. But he didn’t have any details.”

The agent explained about Gerald Duncan, how he was innocent all along, and about the corruption scandal at an NYPD precinct.

Lucy shook her head at the news. Then she was looking around the small room. She made some pointless comments about framed prints and the view out the window. Soot, snow and an air shaft were the essential elements of the landscape. “I just came by to say thanks.”

No, you didn’t, thought Dance. But she said, “You don’t need to thank me. It’s our job.”

She observed that Lucy’s arms were uncrossed and the woman was sitting comfortably now, slightly back, shoulders relaxed, but not slumped. A confession, of some sort, was coming.

Dance let the silence unravel. Lucy said, “Are you a counselor?”

“No. Just a cop.”

During her interviews, though, it wasn’t unusual for suspects to keep right on going after the confession, sharing stories of other moral lapses, hated parents, jealousy of siblings, cheating wives and husbands, anger, joy, hopes. Confiding, seeking advice. No, she wasn’t a counselor. But she was a cop and a mother and a kinesics expert, and all three of those roles required her to be an expert at the largely forgotten art of listening.

“Well, you’re real easy to talk to. I thought maybe I could ask your opinion about something.”

“Go on,” Dance encouraged.

The soldier said, “I don’t know what to do. I’m getting this commendation today, the one I was telling you about. But there’s a problem.” She explained more about her job overseas, running fuel and supply trucks.

Dance opened the minibar, extracted two $6 bottles of Perrier. Lifted an eyebrow.

The soldier hesitated. “Oh, sure.”

She opened them and handed one to Lucy. Keeping hands busy frees up the mind to think and the voice to speak.

“Okay, this corporal was on my team, Pete. A reservist from South Dakota. Funny guy. Very funny. Coached soccer back home, worked in construction. He was a big help when I first got there. One day, about a month ago, he and I had to do an inventory of damaged vehicles. Some of them get shipped back to Fort Hood for repairs, some we can fix ourselves, some just are scrapped.

“I was in the office and he’d gone to the mess hall. I was going to pick him up at thirteen hundred hours and we were going to drive to the bone lot. I went to get him in a Humvee. I saw Petey there, waiting for me. Just then an IED went off. That’s a bomb.”

Dance knew this, of course.

“I was about thirty, forty feet away when it blew. Petey was waving and then there was this flash and the whole scene changed. It was like you blinked and the square became a different place.” She looked out the window. “The front of the mess hall was gone, palm trees—they just vanished. Some soldiers and a couple of civilians who’d been standing there . . . One instant there, then they were gone.”

Her voice was eerily calm. Dance recognized the tone; she heard it often in witnesses who’d lost loved ones in crimes. (The hardest interviews to do, worse than sitting across from the most amoral killer.)

“Petey’s body was shattered. That’s the only way to describe it.” Her voice caught. “He was all red and black, broken. . . . I’ve seen a lot over there. But this was so terrible.” She sipped the water and then clutched the bottle like a child with a doll.

Dance offered no words of sympathy—they’d be useless. She nodded for the woman to continue. A deep breath. Lucy’s fingers intertwined tightly. In her work, Dance characterized this gesture—a common one—of trying to strangle the unbearable tension arising from guilt or pain or shame.

“The thing is . . . I was late. I was in the office. I looked up at the clock. It was about twelve fifty-five but I had a half cup of soda left. I thought about throwing it out and leaving—it’d take five minutes to get to the mess hall—but I wanted to finish the soda. I just wanted to sit and finish it. I was late getting to the mess hall. If I’d been on time he wouldn’t’ve died. I would’ve picked him up and we’d have been a half mile away when the IED blew.”

“Were you injured?”

“A little.” She pulled up her sleeve and displayed a large leathery scar on her forearm. “Nothing serious.” She stared at the scar and then drank more water. Her eyes were hollow. “Even if I’d been just one minute late at least he’d’ve been in the vehicle. He probably would have survived. Sixty seconds . . . That would’ve made the difference between him living and dying. And all because of a soda. All I wanted was to finish my goddamn soda.” A sad laugh escaped her dry lips. “And then who shows up and tries to kill me? Somebody calling himself the Watchmaker, leaving a big-ass clock in my bathroom. For weeks all I can think about is how a single minute, one way or the other, makes the difference between life and death. And here’s this freak throwing it in my face.”

Dance asked, “What else? There’s something more, isn’t there?”

A faint laugh. “Yep, here’s the problem. See, my tour was scheduled to be up next month. But I felt so guilty about Pete that I told my CO I’d reenlist.”

Dance was nodding.

“That’s what this ceremony’s about. It’s not about getting wounded. We’re wounded every day. It’s about reenlisting. The army’s having a tough time getting new recruits. They’re going to use the reenlisters as poster children for the new army. We like it so much we want to go back. That sort of thing.”

“And you’re having second thoughts?”

She nodded. “It’s driving me crazy. I can’t sleep. I can’t make love to my husband. I can’t do anything. . . . I’m lonely, I’m afraid. I miss my family. But I also know we’re doing something important over there, something good for a lot of people. I can’t decide. I simply can’t decide.”

“What would happen if you told them you changed your mind?”

“I don’t know. They’d be pissed probably. But we’re not talking court-martial. It’s more my problem. I’d be disappointing people. I’d be backing down from something. Which I’ve never done in my life. I’d be breaking a promise.”

Dance thought for a moment, sipping the water. “I can’t tell you what to do. But I will say one thing: My job is finding the truth. Most everybody I deal with are perps—criminals. They know the truth and they’re lying to save their butts. But there’re also a lot of people I come across who lie to themselves. And usually they don’t even know it.

“But whether you’re deceptive to the cops or your mother or husband or friends or yourself, the symptoms’re always the same. You’re stressed, angry, depressed. Lies turn people ugly. The truth does the opposite. . . . Of course, sometimes it seems like the truth is the last thing we want. But I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten a suspect to confess and he gives me this look, it’s like pure relief in his face. The weirdest thing: Sometimes they even say thanks.”

“You’re saying I know the truth?”

“Oh, yeah. You do. It’s there. Covered up real good. And you might not like it when you find it. But it’s there.”

“How do I find it? Interrogate myself?”

“You know, that’s a great way to put it. Sure, what you do is look for the same things I look for: anger, depression, denial, excuses, rationalization. When do you feel that way and why? What’s behind this feeling or that one? And don’t let yourself get away with anything. Keep at it. You’ll find out what you really want.”

Lucy Richter leaned forward and hugged Dance—something very few subjects ever did.

The soldier smiled. “Hey, got an idea. Let’s write a self-help book. The Girl’s Guide to Self-Interrogation. It’ll be a best seller.”

“In all our free time.” Dance laughed.

They tapped the water bottles together with a ring.

Fifteen minutes later they were halfway through the blueberry muffins and coffee that they’d ordered from room service when the agent’s mobile phone chirped. She looked at the number on caller ID. Kathryn Dance shook her head and gave a laugh.

The doorbell of Rhyme’s town house rang. Thom arrived in the lab a moment later, accompanying Kathryn Dance. Her hair was loose, not in the taut braid of earlier, and the iPod headsets dangled around her neck. She took off a thin overcoat and greeted Sachs and Mel Cooper, who’d just arrived.

Dance bent down and petted Jackson, the dog.

Thom said, “Hmm, how’d you like a going-away present?” Nodding at the Havanese.

She laughed. “He’s adorable but I’m about at my livestock limit at home—both the two- and four-legged variety.”

It had been Rhyme on the phone, asking her, please, could she help them out once more?

“I promise it’s the last time,” he now said as she sat beside him.

She asked, “So what’s up?”

“There’s a glitch in the case. And I need your help.”

“What can I do?”

“I remember you told me about the Hanson case in California—looking over the transcript of his statement gave you some insights into what he was up to.”

She nodded.

“I’d like you to do the same thing for us.”

Rhyme now explained to her about the murder of Gerald Duncan’s friend, Andrew Culbert, which set Duncan on the path of bringing down Baker and Wallace.

“But we found some curious things in the file. Culbert had a PDA but no cell phone. That was odd. Everybody in business nowadays has a cell phone. And he had a pad of paper with two notes on it. One was ‘Chardonnay.’ Which might mean that he’d written it to remind himself to buy some wine. But the other was ‘Men’s room.’ Why would somebody write that? I thought about it for a bit and it occurred to me that it was the sort of thing that somebody’d write if they had a speech or hearing problem. Ordering wine in a restaurant, then asking where the rest rooms were. And no cell phone, either. I wondered if maybe he was deaf.”

“So,” Dance said, “Duncan’s friend was killed because the mugger lost his temper when the victim couldn’t understand him or didn’t hand over the wallet fast enough. He thought that Baker killed his friend but it was just a coincidence.”

Sachs said, “It gets trickier.”

Rhyme said, “I tracked down Culbert’s widow in Duluth. She told me he’d been deaf and mute since birth.”

Sachs added, “But Duncan said that Culbert had saved his life in the army. If he was deaf he wouldn’t’ve been in the service.”

Rhyme said, “I think Duncan just read about a mugging victim and claimed he was his friend—to give some credibility to his plan to implicate Baker.” The criminalist shrugged. “It might not be a problem. After all, we collared a corrupt cop. But it leaves a few questions. Can you look at Duncan’s interview tape and tell us what you think?”

“Of course.”

Cooper typed on his keyboard.

A moment later a wide-angle video of Gerald Duncan came on the monitor. He was sitting comfortably in an interview room downtown as Lon Sellitto’s voice was giving the details: who he was, the date and the case. Then the statement proper began. Duncan recited essentially the same facts that he’d told Rhyme while sitting on the curb outside the last “serial killer” scene.

Dance watched, nodding slowly as she listened to the details of his plan.

When it was finished Cooper hit PAUSE, freeze-framing Duncan’s face.

Dance turned to Rhyme. “That’s all of it?”

“Yes.” He noticed her face had gone still. The criminalist asked, “What do you think?”

She hesitated and then said, “I have to say . . . My feeling is that it’s not just the story about his friend getting killed that’s a problem. I think virtually everything he’s telling you on that tape is a complete lie.”

Silence in Rhyme’s town house.

Total silence.

Finally Rhyme looked up from the image of Gerald Duncan, motionless on the screen, and said, “Go on.”

“I got his baseline when he was mentioning the details of his plan to get Baker arrested. We know certain aspects of that are true. So when the stress levels change I assume he’s being deceptive. I saw major deviations when he’s talking about the supposed friend. And I don’t think his name’s Duncan. Or he lives in the Midwest. Oh, and he couldn’t care less about Dennis Baker. He has no emotional interest in the man’s arrest. And there’s something else.”

She glanced at the screen. “Can you cue to the middle? There’s a place where he touches his cheek.”

Cooper ran the video in reverse.

“There. Play that.”

“I’d never hurt anybody. I couldn’t do that. I might bend the law a bit. . . .”

Dance shook her head, frowning.

“What?” Sachs asked.

“His eyes . . .” Dance whispered. “Oh, this’s a problem.”

“Why?”

“I’m thinking he’s dangerous, very dangerous. I spent months studying the interview tapes of Ted Bundy, the serial killer. He was a pure sociopath, meaning he could deceive with virtually no outward signs whatsoever. But the one thing I could detect in Bundy was a faint reaction in his eyes when he claimed he’d never killed anyone. The reaction wasn’t a typical deception response; it revealed disappointment and betrayal. He was denying something central to his being.” She nodded to the screen. “Exactly what Duncan just did.”

“Are you sure?” Sachs asked.

“Not positive, no. But I think we’ve got to ask him some more questions.”

“Whatever he’s up to, we better have him moved to level-three detention until we can figure it out.”

Since he’d been arrested for only minor, nonviolent crimes Gerald Duncan would be in a low-security holding tank down on Centre Street. Escape from there was unlikely but not impossible. Rhyme ordered his phone to call the supervisor of Detention in downtown Manhattan.

He identified himself and gave instructions to move Duncan to a more secure cell.

The jailer said nothing. Rhyme assumed this was because he didn’t want to take orders from a civilian.

The tedium of politics . . .

He grimaced then glanced at Sachs, meaning that she should authorize the transfer. It was then that the real reason for the supervisor’s silence became clear. “Well, Detective Rhyme,” the man said uneasily, “he was only here for a few minutes. We never even booked him.”

“What?”

“The prosecutor, he cut some deal or another, and released Duncan last night. I thought you knew.”

Chapter 35

Lon Sellitto was back in Rhyme’s lab, pacing angrily.

Duncan’s lawyer, it seemed, had met with the assistant district attorney and in exchange for an affidavit admitting guilt, the payment of $100,000 for misuse of police and fire resources, and a written guarantee to testify against Baker, all the criminal charges were dropped, subject to being reinstated if he reneged on the appearance in court as a witness against Baker. He’d never even been printed or booked.

The big, rumpled detective stared at the speakerphone, glowering, hands on his hips, as if the unit itself were the incompetent fool who’d released a potential killer.

The defensiveness in the prosecutor’s voice was clear. “It was the only way he’d cooperate,” the man said. “He was represented by a lawyer from Reed, Prince. He surrendered his passport. It was all legit. He’s agreed not to leave the jurisdiction until Baker’s trial. I’ve got him in a hotel in the city, with an officer guarding him. He’s not going anywhere. What’s the big deal? I’ve done this a hundred times.”

“What about Westchester?” Rhyme called into the speakerphone. “The stolen corpse?”

“They agreed not to prosecute. I said we’d help them out on a few other cases they needed our cooperation for.”

The prosecutor would see this as a gold ring in his career; bringing down a gang of corrupt cops would catapult him to stardom.

Rhyme shook his head, livid. Incompetence and selfish ambition infuriated him. It’s hard enough to do this job without interference from politicians. Why the hell hadn’t anybody called him first, before releasing Duncan? Even before Kathryn Dance’s opinion about the interview tape, there were too many unanswered questions to release the man.

Sellitto barked, “Where is he?”

“Anyway, what proof—?”

“Where the fuck is he?” Sellitto raged.

The prosecutor hesitated and gave them the name of a hotel in Midtown and the mobile number of the officer guarding him.

“I’m on it.” Cooper dialed the number.

Sellitto continued. “And who was his lawyer?”

The assistant district attorney gave them this name too. The nervous voice said, “I really don’t see what all the fuss—”

Sellitto hung up. He looked at Dance. “I’m about to push some serious buttons. You know what I’m saying?”

She nodded. “We’ve got fan-hitting shit out in California too. But I’m comfortable with my opinion. Do whatever you can to find him. I mean, everything. I’ll give that same opinion to whoever you want me to. Chief of department, mayor, governor.”

Rhyme said to Sachs, “See what the lawyer knows about him.” She took the name, flipped open her phone. Rhyme knew of Reed, Prince, of course. It was a large, respected firm on lower Broadway. The attorneys there were known for handling high-profile, white-collar criminal defense.

In a grim voice Cooper said, “We’ve got a problem. That was the officer at the hotel suite, guarding Duncan. He just checked his room. He’s gone, Lincoln.”

“What?”

“The officer said he went to bed early last night, saying he wasn’t feeling well and he wanted to sleep in today. Looks like he picked the lock to the adjacent room. The officer has no idea when it happened. Could’ve been last night.”

Sachs pinched her phone closed. “Reed, Prince doesn’t have a lawyer on staff with the name he gave the prosecutor. And Duncan isn’t a client.”

“Oh, goddamn,” Rhyme snapped.

“All right,” Sellitto said, “time for the cavalry.” He called Bo Haumann at ESU and told them they needed to arrest their suspect yet again. “Only we aren’t exactly sure where he is.”

He gave the tactical officer the few details they had. Haumann’s reaction, which Rhyme didn’t hear, could nonetheless be inferred from Sellitto’s expression. “You don’t need to tell me, Bo.”

Sellitto left a message with the district attorney himself and then called the Big Building to inform the brass about the problem.

“I want more on him,” Rhyme said to Cooper. “We were too fucking complacent. We didn’t ask enough questions.” He glanced at Dance. “Kathryn, I really hate to ask this. . . .”

She was putting away her cell phone. “I’ve already canceled my flight.”

“I’m sorry. It’s not really your case.”

“It’s been my case since I interviewed Cobb on Tuesday,” Dance said, her green eyes cold, her lips drawn.

Cooper was scrolling through the information they’d learned about Gerald Duncan. He made a list of phone numbers and started calling. After several conversations he said, “Listen to this. He’s not Duncan. The Missouri State Police sent a car out to the address on the license. It’s owned by a Gerald Duncan, yeah, but not our Gerald Duncan. The guy who lived there was transferred to Anchorage for his job for six months. The house’s empty and up for rent. Here’s his picture.”

The image was a driver’s license shot of a man very different from the one they’d arrested yesterday.

Rhyme nodded. “Brilliant. He checked the paper for rental listings, found one that’d been on the market for a while and figured it wasn’t going to rent for the next few weeks because of Christmas. Same as the church. And he forged the driver’s license we saw. Passport too. We’ve been underestimating this guy from the beginning.”

Cooper, staring at his computer, called out, “The owner—the real Duncan—had some credit card problems. Identity theft.”

Lincoln Rhyme felt a chill in the center of his being, a place where in theory he could feel nothing. He had a sense that an unseen disaster was unfolding quickly.

Dance was staring at the still image of Duncan’s face as intently as Rhyme stared at his evidence charts. She mused, “What’s he really up to?”

A question they couldn’t begin to answer.

Riding the subway, Charles Vespasian Hale, the man who’d been masquerading as Gerald Duncan, the Watchmaker, checked his wristwatch (his Breguet pocket watch, which he’d grown fond of, wouldn’t fit the role he was about to assume).

Everything was right on schedule. He was taking the train from the Brooklyn neighborhood where he had his primary safe house, feeling anticipation and an edginess too, but nonetheless he was as close to harmony as he’d ever been in his life.

Very little of what he’d told Vincent Reynolds about his personal past had been true, of course. It couldn’t be. He planned a long career at his profession and he knew that the mealy rapist would spill everything to the cops at the first threat.

Born in Chicago, Hale was the son of a high school Latin teacher (hence the middle name, after a noble Roman emperor) and a woman who was the manager of the petites department at a suburban Sears store. The couple never talked much, didn’t do much. Every night after a quiet supper his father would gravitate to his books, his mother to her sewing machine. For familial activity they might settle in two separate chairs in front of the small television set and watch bad sitcoms and predictable cop dramas, which allowed them a unique medium of communication—by commenting on the shows, they expressed to each other the desires and resentments that they’d never have the courage to say directly.

Quiet . . .

The boy had been a loner for much of his life. He was a surprise child and his parents treated him with formal manners and apathy and a quizzical air, as if he were a species of plant whose watering and fertilizing schedule they were unsure of. The hours of boredom and solitude grew to be an open sore, and Charles felt a desperation to occupy his time, for fear the excruciating stillness in the household would strangle him.

He spent hours and hours outside—hiking and climbing trees. For some reason it was better to be alone when you were outside. There was always something to distract you, something you might find over the next hill, on the next branch up in the maple tree. He was in the field biology club at school. He went on Outward Bound expeditions and was always the first to cross the rope bridge, dive off the cliff, rappel down a mountainside.

If he was condemned to be inside, Charles developed a habit of filling his time by putting things in order. Arranging office supplies and books and toys could endlessly fill the painful hours. He wasn’t lonely when he did that, he didn’t ache with boredom, he wasn’t afraid of the silence.

Did you know, Vincent, that the word “meticulous” comes from the Latin meticulosus, meaning fearful?

When things weren’t precise and ordered, he’d grow frantic, even when the glitch was something as silly as a misaligned train track or a bent bicycle spoke. Anything not running smoothly would set him on edge the way a fingernail screech on a blackboard caused other people to cringe.

Like his parents’ marriage, for instance. After the divorce, he never spoke to either of them again. Life should be tidy and perfect. When it wasn’t, you should be free to eliminate the disorderly elements altogether. He didn’t pray (no empirical evidence that you could put your life in order or achieve your goals via divine communication) but if he had, Charles would have prayed for them to die.

Hale went into the army for two years, where he flourished in the atmosphere of order. He went to Officer Candidate School and caught the attention of his professors, who, after he was commissioned, tapped him to teach military history and tactical and strategic planning, at which he excelled.

After he was discharged he spent a year hiking and mountain climbing in Europe then he returned to America and went into business as an investment banker and venture capitalist, studying law at night.

He worked as an attorney for a time and was brilliant at structuring business deals. He made very good money but there was an underlying loneliness about his life. He shunned relationships because they required improvisation and were full of illogical behavior. More and more his passion for planning and order took on the role of lover. And like anyone who substitutes an obsession for a real relationship, Hale found himself looking for more intense ways to satisfy himself.

He found a perfect solution six years ago. He killed his first man.

Living in San Diego, Hale learned that a business associate had been badly injured. Some drunk driver had plowed into the man’s car. The accident shattered the businessman’s hip and snapped both legs—one of which had to be amputated. The driver expressed no remorse whatsoever and continued to deny he’d done anything wrong, even blaming the accident on the victim himself. The punk was convicted but, a first-time offender, he got off with a light sentence. Then he began harassing Hale’s associate for money.

Hale decided that enough was enough. He came up with an elaborate plan to terrify the kid into stopping. But as he looked over the scheme he realized it made him feel uncomfortable, edgy. There was something clumsy about it. The plan wasn’t as precisely ordered as he wanted. Finally he realized what the trouble was. His scheme left the victim scared but alive. If the kid died, then it would work perfectly and there’d be nothing to trace back to Hale or his injured associate.

But could he actually kill a human being? The idea sounded preposterous.

Yes or no?

On a rainy October night he made his decision.

The murder went perfectly and the police never suspected the man’s death was anything but an unfortunate home electrocution accident.

Hale was prepared to feel remorse. But there was none. Instead he was ecstatic. The plan had been so perfectly executed, the fact that he’d killed someone was irrelevant.

The addict wanted more of his drug.

A short time later Hale was involved in a joint venture in Mexico City—building a development of upscale haciendas. But a corrupt politician managed to throw up enough stumbling blocks so the deal was going to collapse. Hale’s Mexican counterpart explained that the petty politician had done this a number of times.

“It’s a shame he can’t be removed,” Hale had said coyly.

“Oh, he can never be removed,” the Mexican said. “He is, you would say, invulnerable.”

This caught Hale’s attention. “Why?”

The crooked Distrito Federal commissioner, the Mexican explained, was obsessed with security. He drove in a huge armored SUV, a Cadillac custom-made for him, and was always with armed guards. His security company constantly planned different routes for him to get to and from his homes and offices and meetings. He moved his family from house to house randomly and often didn’t even stay in houses that he owned, but in friends’ or rentals. And he often traveled with his young son—the rumors were that he kept the boy near as a shield. The commissioner also had the protection of a senior federal interior minister.

“So, you could say he’s invulnerable,” the Mexican explained, pouring two glasses of very expensive Patrón tequila.

“Invulnerable,” mused Charles Hale in a whisper. He nodded.

Not long after this meeting, five apparently unrelated articles appeared in the October 23 edition of El Heraldo de México.

• A fire in the office of Mexicana Seguridad Privado, a security services company, resulted in the evacuation of all employees. No injuries were reported and the damage was minor.

• A hacker shut down the main computer of a mobile phone provider, resulting in a disruption of service in a portion of Mexico City and its southern suburbs for about two hours.

• A truck caught fire in the middle of Highway 160, south of Mexico City, near Chalco, completely blocking northbound traffic.

• Henri Porfirio, the head of the Distrito Federal commercial real estate licensing commission, died when his SUV crashed through a one-lane bridge and plunged forty feet, struck a propane truck parked there and exploded. The incident occurred when drivers were following directions from a flagman to pull off the highway and take a side road to avoid a major traffic jam. Other vehicles had made it successfully over the bridge earlier but the commissioner’s vehicle, being armor plated, was too heavy for the old structure, despite a sign that stated it could support the SUV’s weight. Porfirio’s security chief knew about the traffic jam and had been trying to contact him about a safer route but was unable to because the commissioner’s mobile phone was not working. His was the only vehicle that fell.

Porfirio’s son was not in the SUV, which he otherwise would have been, because the child came down with a minor case of food poisoning the day before and remained at home with his mother.

• Erasmo Saleno, a senior interior official in the Mexican federal government, was arrested after a tip led police to his summer home, where they found a stash of weapons and cocaine (curiously reporters had been alerted too, including a photographer connected with the Los Angeles Times).

All in a day’s news.

A month later Hale’s real estate project broke ground and he received from his fellow investors in Mexico a bonus of $500,000 U.S. in cash.

He was pleased with the money. He was more pleased, though, with the connections he’d made through the Mexican businessman. It wasn’t long before the man put him in touch with someone in America who needed similar services.

Now, several times a year, between his business projects, he would take on an assignment like this. Usually it was murder, though he’d also engaged in financial scams, insurance fraud and elaborate thefts. Hale would work for anyone, whatever the motive, which was irrelevant to him. He had no interest in why somebody wanted a crime committed. Twice he’d murdered abusive husbands. He killed a child molester one week before he’d murdered a businesswoman who was a major contributor to the United Way.

Good and bad were words whose definitions were different for Charles Vespasian Hale. Good was mental stimulation. Bad was boredom. Good was an elegant plan well executed. Bad was either a sloppy plan or one carelessly carried out.

But his current plot—certainly his most elaborate and far-reaching—was humming along perfectly.

God created the complex mechanism of the universe, then wound it up and started it running. . . .

Hale got off the subway and climbed to the street, his nose stinging from the cold, his eyes watering, and started along the sidewalk. He was about to push the button that would set the hands of his real chronograph in motion.

Lon Sellitto’s phone rang and he took the call. Frowning, he had a brief conversation. “I’ll look into it.”

Rhyme glanced up expectantly.

“That was Haumann. He just got a call from the manager of a delivery service on the same floor as the company that the Watchmaker broke into in Midtown. He said a customer just called. A package they were supposed to deliver yesterday never showed up. Looks like somebody broke in and stole it around the time that we were sweeping the offices looking for the perp. The manager asked if we knew anything about it.”

Rhyme’s eyes slipped to the photographs that Sachs had taken of the hallway. Bless her, she’d taken pictures of the entire floor. Below the name of the delivery service were the words High Security—Valuable Deliveries Guaranteed. Licensed and Bonded.

Rhyme heard the white noise of people talking around him. But he didn’t hear the words themselves. He stared at the photograph and then at the other evidence.

“Access,” he whispered.

“What?” Sellitto asked, frowning.

“We were so focused on the Watchmaker and the fake killings—and then on his scheme to flush out Baker—we never looked at what else was going on.”

“Which was?” Sachs asked.

“Breaking and entering. The crime he actually committed was trespass. All of the offices on that floor were unguarded for a time. When they evacuated the building, they left the doors unlocked?”

“Well, yeah, I suppose,” the big detective said.

Sachs said, “So while we were focused on the flooring company the Watchmaker might’ve put on a uniform or just hung a badge over his neck then strolled right inside the delivery service and helped himself to that package.”

Access . . .

“Call the service. Find out what was in the package, who sent it and where it was going. Now.”

Chapter 36

A taxicab pulled up in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on Fifth Avenue. The huge building was decorated for Christmas, dolled up in the tasteful Victorian regalia that you’d expect on the Upper East Side. Subdued festive.

Out of this cab climbed Charles Vespasian Hale, who looked around carefully on the remote chance that the police were following him. It would have been exceedingly unlikely that he’d be under surveillance. Still, Hale took his time, looked everywhere for anyone showing him the least attention. He saw nothing troubling.

He leaned down to the open taxi window and paid the driver—tendering the cash in gloved hands—and, hooking a black canvas bag over his shoulder, he climbed the stairs into the large cathedral-like lobby, which echoed with the sound of voices, most of them young; the place was lousy with kids freed from school. Evergreens and gold and ornaments and tulle were everywhere. Bach two-part inventions plucked away cheerily on a recorded harpsichord, echoing in the cavernous entryway.

’Tis the season . . .

Hale left the black bag at the coat check, though he kept his coat and hat. The clerk looked inside the bag, noted the four art books, then zipped it back up and told Hale to have a nice day. He took the claim check and paid admission. He nodded a smile at the guards at the entrance and walked past them into the museum itself.

“The Delphic Mechanism?” Rhyme was talking to the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art via speakerphone. “It’s still on display there?”

“Yes, Detective,” the man replied uncertainly. “We’ve had it here for two weeks. It’s part of a multicity tour—”

“Fine, fine, fine. Is it guarded?”

“Yes, of course. I—”

“There’s a possibility that a thief’s trying to steal it.”

“Steal it? Are you sure? It’s a one-of-a-kind objet. Whoever took possession could never show it in public.”

“He doesn’t intend to sell it,” Rhyme said. “I think he wants it for himself.”

The criminalist explained: The package stolen from the delivery service in the building on Thirty-second Street was from a wealthy patron of the arts and was destined for the Metropolitan Museum. It contained a large portfolio of some antiques being offered to the museum’s furniture collection.

The Metropolitan Museum? Rhyme had wondered. He’d then recalled the museum programs found in the church. He’d asked Vincent Reynolds and the clock dealer, Victor Hallerstein, if Duncan had mentioned anything about the Met. He had, apparently—spending considerable time there—and he’d expressed particular interest in the Delphic Mechanism.

Rhyme now told the director, “We think he may have stolen the package to smuggle something into the museum. Maybe tools, maybe software to disable alarms. We don’t know. I can’t figure it out at this point. But I think we have to be cautious.”

“My God . . . All right. What do we do?”

Rhyme looked up at Cooper, who typed on his keyboard and gave a thumbs-up. Into the microphone the criminalist said, “We’ve just emailed you his picture. Could you print it out and get a copy to all the employees, the security surveillance room and the coat check? See if they recognize him.”

“I’ll do it right now. Can you hold for a few minutes?”

“Sure.”

Soon the director came on the line. “Detective Rhyme?” His voice was breathless. “He’s here! He checked a bag about ten minutes ago. The clerk recognized the picture.”

“The bag’s still there?”

“Yes. He hasn’t left.”

Rhyme nodded at Sellitto, who picked up the phone and called Bo Haumann at ESU, whose teams were on their way to the museum, and told him this latest news.

“The guard at the Mechanism,” Rhyme asked, “is he armed?”

“No. Do you think the thief is? We don’t have metal detectors at the entrance. He could’ve brought a gun in.”

“It’s possible.” Rhyme looked at Sellitto with a lifted eyebrow.

The detective asked, “Move a team in slow? Undercover?”

“He checked a bag . . . and he knows clocks.” He asked the museum director, “Did anybody look in the bag?”

“I’ll check. Hold on.” A moment later he came back. “Books. He has art books inside. But the coat-check clerk didn’t examine them.”

“Bomb for diversion?” Sellitto asked.

“Could be. Maybe it’s only smoke but even then people’ll panic. Could be fatalities either way.”

Haumann called in on his radio. His crackling voice: “Okay, we’ve got teams approaching all the entrances, public and service.”

Rhyme asked Dance, “You’re convinced he’s willing to take lives.”

“Yes.”

He was considering the man’s astonishing plot-making skills. Was there some other deadly plan he’d put into play if he realized he was about to be arrested at the museum? Rhyme made a decision. “Evacuate.”

Sellitto asked, “The entire museum?”

“I think we have to. First priority—save lives. Clear the coatroom and front lobby and then move everybody else out. Have Haumann’s men check out everybody who leaves. Make sure the teams have his picture.”

The museum director had heard. “You think that’s necessary?”

“Yes. Do it now.”

“Okay, but I just don’t see how anyone could steal it,” the director said. “The Mechanism’s behind inch-thick bullet-proof glass. And the case can’t be opened until the day the exhibit closes, next Tuesday.”

“What do you mean?” Rhyme asked.

“It’s in one of our special display cases.”

“But why won’t it open until Tuesday?”

“Because the case has a computerized time lock, with a satellite link to some government clock. They tell me nobody can break into it. We put the most valuable exhibits in there.”

The man continued speaking but Rhyme looked away. Something was nagging him. Then he recalled, “That arson earlier, the one that Fred Dellray wanted us to help out on. Where was it again?”

Sachs frowned. “A government office. The Institute of Standards and Technology or something like that. Why?”

“Look it up, Mel.”

The tech went online. Reading from the website, he said, “NIST is the new name for the National Bureau of Standards and—”

“Bureau of Standards?” Rhyme interrupted. “They maintain the country’s atomic clock. . . . Is that what he’s up to? The time lock at the Met has an uplink to the NIST. Somehow he’s going to change the time, convince the lock that it’s next Tuesday. The vault’ll open automatically.”

“Can he do that?” Dance asked.

“I don’t know. But if it’s possible, he’ll find a way. The fire at NIST was to cover up the break-in, I’ll bet. . . .” Then Rhyme stopped talking, as the full implications of the Watchmaker’s plan became clear. “Oh, no . . .”

“What?”

Rhyme was thinking about Kathryn Dance’s observation: That to the Watchmaker, human life was negligible. He said, “Time everywhere in the country is governed by the U.S. atomic clock. Airlines, trains, national defense, power grids, computers . . . everything. Do you have any idea what’s going to happen if he resets it?”

In a cheap Midtown hotel, a middle-aged man and woman sat on a small couch that smelled of mildew and old food. They were staring at a television set.

Charlotte Allerton was the stocky woman who’d pretended to be the sister of Theodore Adams, the first “victim” in the alley on Tuesday. The man beside her, Bud Allerton, her husband, was the man masquerading as the lawyer who’d secured Gerald Duncan’s release from jail by promising that his client would be a spectacular witness in the crooked cop scandal.

Bud really was a lawyer, though he hadn’t practiced for some years. He’d resurrected some of his old skills for the sake of Duncan’s plan, which called for Bud’s pretending to be a criminal attorney from the big, prestigious law firm of Reed, Prince. The assistant district attorney had bought the entire charade, not even bothering to call the firm to check up on the man. Gerald Duncan had believed, correctly, that the prosecutor would be so eager to make a name for himself on a police corruption case that he’d believe what he wanted to. Besides, who ever asks for a lawyer’s ID?

The Allertons’ attention was almost exclusively on the TV screen, showing local news. A program about Christmas tree safety. Yadda, yadda, yadda . . . For a moment Charlotte’s gaze slipped to the master bedroom in the suite, where her pretty, thin daughter sat reading a book. The girl looked through the doorway at her mother and stepfather with the same dark, sullen eyes that had typified her expression in recent months.

That girl . . .

Frowning, Charlotte looked back to the TV screen. “Isn’t it taking too long?”

Bud said nothing. His thick fingers were intertwined and he sat forward, hunched, elbows on knees. She wondered if he was praying.

A moment later the reporter whose mission was to save families from the scourge of burning Christmas trees disappeared and on the screen came the words Special News Bulletin.

Chapter 37

In doing his research into watchmaking, so that he could be a credible revenge killer, Charles Hale had learned of the concept of “complications.”

A complication is a function in a watch or clock other than telling the time of day. For instance, those small dials that dot the front of expensive timepieces, giving information like day of the week and date and time in different locations, and repeater functions (chimes sounding at certain intervals). Watchmakers have always enjoyed the challenge of getting as many complications into their watches as possible. A typical one is the Patek Philippe Star Calibre 2000, a watch featuring more than one thousand parts. Its complications offer the owner such information as the times of sunrise and sunset, a perpetual calendar, the day, date and month, the season, moon phases, lunar orbit and power reserve indicators for both the watch’s movement and the several chimes inside.

The trouble with complications, though, is that they’re just that. They tend to distract from the ultimate purpose of a watch: telling time. Breitling makes superb timepieces but some of the Professional and Navitimer models have so many dials, hands and side functions, like chronographs (the technical term for stopwatches) and logarithmic slide rules, that it’s easy to miss the big hand and the little hand.

But complications were exactly what Charles Hale needed for his plan here in New York City, distractions to lead the police away from what he was really about. Because there was a good chance that Lincoln Rhyme and his team would find out that he was no longer in custody and that he wasn’t really Gerald Duncan, they’d realize he had something else in mind other than getting even with a crooked cop.

So he needed yet another complication to keep the police focused elsewhere.

Hale’s cell phone vibrated. He glanced at the text message, which was from Charlotte Allerton. Special Report on TV: Museum closed. Police searching for you there.

He put the phone back in his pocket.

And enjoyed a moment of keen, almost sexual, satisfaction.

The message told him that while Rhyme had tipped to the fact that he wasn’t who he seemed to be, the police were still missing the time of day and focusing on the complication of the Metropolitan Museum. He was pointing the police toward what appeared to be a plan to steal the famous Delphic Mechanism. At the church he’d planted brochures on the horologic exhibits in Boston and Tampa. He’d rhapsodized on the device to Vincent Reynolds. He’d hinted to the antiques dealer about his obsession with old timepieces, mentioning the Mechanism specifically, and that he was aware of the exhibit at the Met. The small fire he’d set at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Brooklyn would make them think he was going to somehow reset the country’s cesium clock, disabling the Met’s time-security system, and steal the Mechanism.

A plot to steal the device seemed to be just the clever, subtle deduction for the cops to seize as Hale’s real motive. Officers would spend hours scouring the museum and nearby Central Park looking for him and examining the canvas bag he’d left. It contained four hollowed-out books, inside of which were two bags of baking soda, a small scanner and, of course, a clock—a cheap digital alarm. None of them meant anything but each was sure to keep the police busy for hours.

The complications in his plan were as elegant, if not as numerous, as those in what was reportedly the world’s most elaborate wristwatch, one made by Gerald Genta.

But at the moment Hale was nowhere near the museum, which he’d left a half hour ago. Not long after he’d entered and checked the bag, he’d walked into a restroom stall, then taken off his coat, revealing an army uniform, rank of major. He’d donned glasses and a military-style hat—hidden in a false pocket in his coat—and had left the museum quickly. He was presently in downtown Manhattan, slowly making his way through the security line leading into the New York office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

In a short time a number of soldiers and their families would attend a ceremony in their honor, hosted by the city and the U.S. Departments of Defense and State, in the HUD building. Officials would be greeting soldiers recently returned from foreign conflicts and their families, giving them letters of commendation for their service in recent world conflicts and thanking them for reenlisting. Following the ceremonies, and the requisite photo ops and trite statements to the press, the guests would leave and the generals and other government officials would reconvene to discuss future efforts to spread democracy to other places in the world.

These government officials, as well as the soldiers, their families and any members of the press who happened to be present, were the real point of Charles Hale’s mission in New York.

He had been hired for the simple purpose of killing as many of them as he could.

With husky, ever-smiling Bob driving, Lucy Richter sat in the car as they made their way past the reviewing stand outside the Housing and Urban Development building, where the parade was just winding down.

Her hand on her husband’s muscular thigh, Lucy was silent.

The Honda nosed through the heavy traffic, Bob making casual conversation, talking about the party tonight. Lucy responded halfheartedly. She’d grown troubled once again about the Big Conflict—what she’d confessed to Kathryn Dance. Should she go through with the reenlistment or not?

Self-interrogation . . .

When she’d agreed a month earlier; was she being honest or being deceptive with herself?

Looking for the things Agent Dance told her: anger, depression . . . Am I lying?

She tried to put the debate out of her head.

They were close to the HUD building now and across the street she saw protesters. They were against the various foreign conflicts America was involved in. Her friends and fellow soldiers overseas were pissed off at anybody who protested but, curiously, Lucy didn’t see it that way. She believed the very fact that these people were free to demonstrate and were not in jail validated what she was doing.

The couple drew closer to the checkpoint at the intersection near the HUD building. Two soldiers stepped forward to check their IDs and to look in the trunk.

Lucy stiffened.

“What?” her husband asked.

“Look,” she said.

He glanced down. Her right hand was on her hip, where she wore her sidearm when on duty.

“Going for the fast draw?” Bob joked.

“Instinct. At checkpoints.” She laughed. But it was a humorless sound.

Bitter fog . . .

Bob nodded at the soldiers and smiled to his wife. “I think we’re pretty safe. Not like we’re in Baghdad or Kabul.”

Lucy squeezed his hand and they proceeded to the parking lot reserved for the honorees.

Charles Hale was not completely apolitical. He had some general opinions about democracy versus theocracy versus communism versus fascism. But he knew his views amounted to the same pedestrian positions offered by listeners calling in to Rush Limbaugh or NPR radio, nothing particularly radical or articulate. So last October when Charlotte and Bud Allerton hired him for the job of “sending a message” about big government and wrong-minded American intervention in “heathen” foreign nations, Hale had yawned mentally.

But he was intrigued by the challenge.

“We’ve talked to six people and nobody’ll take the job,” Bud Allerton told him. “It’s next to impossible.”

Charles Vespasian Hale liked that word. One wasn’t bored when taking on the impossible. It was like “invulnerable.”

Charlotte and Bud—her second husband—were part of a right-wing militia fringe group that had been attacking federal government employees and buildings and UN facilities for years. They’d gone underground a while ago but recently, enraged at the government’s meddling forays into world affairs, she and the others in her nameless organization decided it was time to go after something big.

This attack would not only send their precious message but would cause some real harm to the enemy: killing generals and government officials who’d betrayed principles America was founded on and sent our boys and—God help us—girls to die on foreign soil for the benefit of people who were backward and cruel and non-Christian.

Hale had managed to extract himself from his rhetoric-addicted clients and got to work. On Halloween he’d come to New York, moved into the safe house in Brooklyn, and spent the next month and a half engrossed in the construction of his timepiece—acquiring supplies, finding unwitting associates to help him (Dennis Baker and Vincent Reynolds), learning everything he could about the Watchmaker’s supposed victims and surveilling the HUD building.

Which he was now approaching through the bitterly cold morning air.

This building had been chosen for the ceremonies and meetings not because of the department’s mission, which had nothing to do with the military, of course, but because it offered the best security of any federal building in lower Manhattan. The walls were thick limestone; if a terrorist were somehow to negotiate the barricades surrounding the place and detonate a car bomb, the resulting explosion would cause less damage than it would to a modern, glass-facaded structure. HUD was also lower than most offices downtown, which made it a difficult target for missiles or suicide airplanes. It had a limited number of entrances and exits, thus making access control easier, and the room where the awards ceremony and later the strategic meetings would take place faced the windowless wall of the building across the alleyway so no sniper could shoot into the room.

With another two dozen soldiers and police armed with automatic weapons on the surrounding streets and tops of buildings, HUD was virtually impregnable.

From the exterior, that is.

But no one realized that the threat wouldn’t be coming from outside.

Charles Hale displayed his three military-issue IDs, two of them unique to this event and delivered to attendees just two days ago. He was nodded through the metal detector, then physically patted down.

A final guard, a corporal, checked his IDs a second time then saluted him. Hale returned the gesture and stepped inside.

The HUD building was labyrinthine but Hale now made his way quickly to the basement. He knew the layout of the place perfectly because the fifth supposed victim of the psycho Watchmaker, Sarah Stanton, was the estimator of the flooring company that had supplied carpeting and linoleum tile to the building, a fact he’d learned from public filings regarding government contractors. In Sarah’s file cabinets he found precise drawings of every room and hallway in HUD. (The company was also across the hall from a delivery service—which he’d called earlier to complain about a package to the Metropolitan Museum that had never been delivered, lending credence to the apparent plot to steal the Delphic Mechanism.)

In fact, all of the Watchmaker’s “assaults” this week, with the exception of the attention-getting blood bath at the pier, were vital steps in his mission today: the flooring company, Lucy Richter’s apartment, the Cedar Street alleyway and the florist shop.

He’d broken into Lucy’s to photograph, and later forge, the special all-access passes that were required for soldiers attending the awards ceremony (he’d learned her name from a newspaper story about the event). He’d also copied and later memorized a classified Defense Department memo she’d been given about the event and security procedures that would be in effect at HUD today.

The apparent murder of the fictional Teddy Adams had served a purpose, as well. It was in the alley behind this very building that Hale had placed the body of the Westchester car wreck victim. When Charlotte Allerton—playing the man’s distraught sister—had arrived, the guards had let the hysterical woman through the back door of HUD and allowed her to use the restroom downstairs without searching her. Once inside, she’d planted what Hale was now retrieving from the bottom of the in-wall trash bin: a silenced .22-caliber pistol and two metal disks. There’d been no other way to get these items into a building protected by a series of metal detectors and pat-downs. He now hid these in his pockets and headed to the sixth-floor conference room.

Once there, Hale spotted what he thought of as the mainspring of his plan: the two large flower arrangements that Joanne Harper had created for the ceremony, one in the front of the room and one in the back. Hale had learned from the Government Service Administration vendor liaison office that she had the contract to supply flower arrangements and plants to the HUD facility. He’d broken into her Spring Street workshop to hide something in the vases, which would pass through security with, he hoped, only a brief look, since Joanne had been a trusted vendor for several years. When Hale had broken into her workshop he’d taken with him, in his shoulder bag, something in addition to the moon-faced clock and his tools: two jars of an explosive known as Astrolite. More powerful than TNT or nitroglycerin, Astrolite was a clear liquid that remained explosive even when absorbed into another substance. Hale found which arrangements were going to HUD and poured the Astrolite into the bottoms of the vases.

Hale, of course, might have simply broken into the four locations without the fiction of the Watchmaker, but if anyone had seen a burglar or noticed anything missing or out of order, the question would have arisen: What was he really up to? So he’d created layers of motives for the break-ins. His original plan was simply to pretend to be a serial killer to get access to the four locations he needed to, sacrificing his unfortunate assistant, Vincent Reynolds, in order to convince the police that the Watchmaker was just who he seemed to be. But then in mid November, an organized crime contact in the area called and told him that an NYPD cop named Dennis Baker was looking for a hit man to kill an NYPD detective. The mob wouldn’t touch killing a cop, but was Hale interested? He wasn’t but he immediately realized that he could use Baker as a second complication to the plan: a citizen getting revenge against a crooked cop. Finally, he added the wonderful flourish of the Delphic Mechanism theft.

Motive is the one sure way to get yourself caught. Eliminate the motive, you eliminate suspicion. . . .

Hale now stepped to the front flower arrangement in the conference room and adjusted it the way any diligent soldier would do—a soldier proud to be part of this important occasion. When no one was looking he pushed one of the metal disks he’d just retrieved from downstairs—computerized detonators—into the explosive, pushed the button to arm it and fluffed up the moss, obscuring the device. He did the same to the arrangement in the back, which would detonate via a radio signal from the first detonator.

These two lovely arrangements were now lethal bombs, containing enough explosive to obliterate the entire room.

The tone in Rhyme’s lab was electric.

Everyone, except Pulaski, on a mission at Rhyme’s request, was staring at the criminalist, who was in turn gazing at the evidence charts that surrounded him like battalions of soldiers awaiting his orders.

“There’re still too many questions,” Sellitto said. “You know what’s going to happen if we push that button.”

Rhyme glanced at Amelia Sachs. “What do you think?” he asked.

Her ample lips tightened. “I don’t think we have any choice. I say yes.”

“Oh, man,” Sellitto said.

Rhyme said to the rumpled lieutenant, “Make the call.”

Lon Sellitto dialed a little-known number that connected him immediately to the scrambled phone sitting on the desk of the mayor of New York City.

Standing in the conference room in HUD, which was filling up with soldiers and their guests, Charles Hale felt his phone vibrate. He pulled it from his pocket and glanced down at the text message, another one from Charlotte Allerton. FAA grounding all flights. Trains stopped. Special team at NIST office checking U.S. clock. It’s a go. God bless.

Perfect, Charles thought. The police believed the complication about the Delphic Mechanism and his apparent plan to hack into the computer controlling the nation’s cesium clock.

Hale stepped back, looked over the room and plastered a satisfied look on his face. He left and took the elevator down to the main lobby. He walked outside, where limos were arriving, under heavy security. He eased into the crowd that was gathered on the other side of the concrete barriers, some waving flags, some applauding.

He noted the protesters too, scruffy young people, aging hippies and activist professors and their spouses, he assessed. They carried placards and were chanting things that Hale couldn’t hear. The gist, though, was displeasure at U.S. foreign policy.

Hang around, he told them silently.

Sometimes you get what you ask for.

Chapter 38

Entering the sixth-floor conference room with seventeen other soldiers from all branches of the armed services, United States Army Sergeant Lucy Richter gave a brief smile to her husband. A wink too to her family—her parents and her aunt—who were sitting across the room.

The acknowledgment was perhaps a little abrupt, a little distant. But she was not here as Bob’s wife or as a daughter or niece. She was here as a decorated soldier, in the company of her superior officers and her fellow men and women at arms.

The soldiers had assembled downstairs in the building, while their families and friends had come to the conference room. Waiting for their grand entrance, Lucy had chatted with a young man, an air force corpsman from Texas who’d come back to the States for medical treatment (one of those fucking rocket-propelled grenades had ricocheted off his chest pack before exploding several yards away). He was eager to get back home, he’d said.

“Home?” she’d asked. “I thought we were reenlisting.”

He’d blinked. “I am. I mean my unit. That is home.”

Standing uneasily in front of her chair, she glanced at the reporters. The way they looked around them, searching hungrily for story opportunities like snipers seeking targets, made her nervous. Then she put them out of her mind and gazed at the pictures that had been mounted for the ceremony. Patriotic images. She was moved by the sight of the American flag, the photo of the Trade Center towers, the military banners and emblems, the officers with their decorations and rows of breast bars, revealing how long and where they’d served.

And all the while the debate raged. Thinking back to what Kathryn Dance had said, she asked herself: And what’s the truth for me?

Go back to the land of bitter fog?

Or stay here?

Yes, no?

The side doors opened and in walked two quick-eyed men—Secret Service—followed by a half dozen men and women in suits or uniforms with senior staff insignias and ribbons and medals covering their chests. Lucy recognized a few of the bigwigs from Washington and New York City, though she was more stirred by the presence of the brass from the Pentagon, since they’d come up through the world that she’d made a part of her life.

The wearisome debate continued within her.

Yes, no . . .

The truth . . . What’s the truth?

When the officials were seated, a general from New Jersey made a few comments and introduced a poised, handsome man in a dark blue uniform. General Roger Poulin, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rose and walked to the microphone.

Poulin nodded to his presenter and then to those in the room. In a deep voice he said, “Generals, distinguished officials from the Departments of Defense and State and the City of New York, fellow servicemen and -women and guests . . . I’m delighted to welcome you here today to this celebration honoring eighteen brave individuals, people who have risked their lives and displayed their willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice to preserve the freedom of our country and carry the cause of democracy throughout the globe.”

Applause erupted and the guests rose to their feet.

The noise died down and General Poulin began his speech. Lucy Richter listened at first but her attention soon faded. She was looking at the civilians in the room—the family members and guests of the soldiers. People like her father and mother and husband and aunt, the spouses, the children, the parents and grandparents, the friends.

These people would leave after the ceremony, go to their jobs or their homes. They’d get back to the simple business of making their way in the world one day, one hour, one minute at a time.

Her military demeanor would not, of course, let her smile but Lucy Richter could feel her face relaxing and the tension in her shoulders vanish like the bitter fog carried away on a hot wind. The anger, the depression, the denial—everything that Kathryn Dance had told her to look for—suddenly were gone.

She closed her eyes momentarily and then turned her attention back to the man who was, after the president of the United States, her senior commander, understanding clearly now that, whatever else happened in her life, her decision had been made and she was content.

Charles Hale was in the men’s room of a small coffee shop not far from the HUD building. In a filthy stall he extracted a trash bag from beneath his undershirt. He stripped off the military uniform and put on jeans, sweats, gloves and a jacket, which he’d just bought. He stuffed the uniform, coat and hat inside, keeping the gun. He took the battery and chip out of his phone and added them to the bag. Then, waiting until the restroom was empty, he stuffed it into the trash, left the coffee shop and walked outside.

On the street again, he bought a prepaid mobile phone with cash and wandered along the shadowy sidewalk until he was three blocks from HUD. From this vantage point he had a narrow view of the back of the building and the alley where the first “victim” of the Watchmaker had been found. He could just make out a sliver of the sixth-floor window of the conference room where the ceremonies were going on.

The jacket was thin and he supposed he should be cold, but in the excitement of the moment he felt no discomfort. He looked at his digital wristwatch, which was synchronized to the timers in the bomb detonators.

The time was 12:14:19. The ceremony had been under way since noon. With bombs, he’d learned in his exhaustive research, you always gave people the chance to settle in, for stragglers to arrive, for guards to grow lax.

12:14:29.

One nice aspect of these particular bombs, he reflected, something fortuitous, was that Joanne the florist had filled the vases with hundreds of tiny glass marbles. Anybody not killed or badly injured by the explosives themselves would be riddled with these pellets of glass.

12:14:44.

Hale found himself leaning forward, his weight on the balls of his feet. There was always the possibility that something would go wrong—that security would make a last-minute sweep for explosives or that somebody had seen him on the video camera entering the building then leaving suspiciously after a short period of time.

12:14:52.

Still, the risk of failure made the victory against boredom that much sweeter. His eyes were riveted on the alleyway behind the HUD building.

12:14:55.

12:14:56.

12:14:57.

12:14:58.

12:14:59.

12:15:00—

Silently a huge fist of flame and debris shot out of the conference room window. A half second later came the stunning sound of the explosion itself.

Voices around him. “Oh, my God. What—?”

Screams.

“Look, there! What’s that?”

“God, no!”

“Call nine-one-one! Somebody . . .”

Pedestrians were clustering on the sidewalk, staring.

“A bomb? An airplane?”

Concern on his face, Hale shook his head, lingering for a moment to savor the success. The explosion seemed bigger than he’d anticipated; the fatalities would be greater than Charlotte and Bud had hoped. It was hard to see how anybody could have survived.

He turned slowly and continued up the street, where he descended once more into the subway station and took the next train uptown. He emerged at the station and headed toward the Allertons’ hotel, where he’d pick up the rest of his payment.

Charles Hale was satisfied. He’d staved off boredom and had earned some good money.

Most important, though, was the breathtaking elegance of what he’d done. He’d created a plan that had worked perfectly—like clockwork, he thought, enjoying the self-conscious simile.

Chapter 39

“Oh, thank you,” Charlotte whispered, speaking both to Jesus and to the man who’d made their mission a success.

She was sitting forward, staring at the TV. The special news report about the evacuation of the Metropolitan Museum and the halting of public transportation in the area had been replaced by a different story—the bombing at the HUD building. Charlotte squeezed her husband’s hand. Bud leaned over and kissed her. He smiled like a young boy.

The news anchorwoman was grim—despite her restrained pleasure at being on duty when such a big story broke—as she gave what details there were: A bomb had gone off within the Housing and Urban Development building in lower Manhattan, where a number of senior government and military officials had been attending a ceremony. An undersecretary of state and the head of the Joint Chiefs were present. The cameras showed smoke pouring from the windows of a conference room. The important detail—the casualty count—had not come in yet, though at least fifty people were in the room where the bomb detonated.

A talking head popped up on the screen; his complete lack of knowledge of the event didn’t stop him from drawing the conclusion that this was the job of fundamentalist Islamic terrorists.

They’d soon know differently.

“Look, honey, we did it!” Charlotte called to her daughter, who had remained in the bedroom, lost in a book. (That satanic Harry Potter. Charlotte had thrown out two of them. Where on earth had the girl gotten another copy?)

The girl gave an exasperated sigh and returned to the book.

Charlotte was momentarily furious. She wanted to storm into the bedroom and slap the girl’s face as hard as she could. They’d just won a spectacular victory and the girl was showing nothing but disrespect. Bud had asked several times if he could take a hickory stick to the girl’s bare butt. Charlotte had demurred but she was now wondering if maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea.

Still, her anger faded when she thought of their victory today. She stood up. “We better leave.” She shut the TV off and continued packing a suitcase. Bud walked into the bedroom to do the same. They were going to drive to Philadelphia, where they’d get a plane back to St. Louis—Duncan had told them to avoid the New York airports afterward. They’d then return to the backwoods of Missouri and go underground again—waiting for the next opportunity to further their cause.

Gerald Duncan would be here soon. He’d collect the rest of his money and leave town too. She wondered if she could convert him to their cause. She’d spoken to him about the idea but he wasn’t interested, though he said he’d be more than happy to help them out again if they had any particularly difficult targets and if the money was right.

A knock on the door.

Duncan was right on time.

Laughing, Charlotte strode to the door and flung it open. “You did it! I—”

But her words stopped short, the smile vanished. The policeman, in black helmet and combat outfit, pushed inside. With him was Amelia Sachs, a large black pistol in her hand, her face furious, eyes squinting as she scanned the room.

A half dozen other cops streamed in behind them. “Police! Freeze, freeze!”

“No!” Charlotte wailed. She twisted away but got only one step before they tackled her hard.

In the bedroom, Bud Allerton gasped in shock as he heard his wife scream, the harsh voices and the stomping of feet. He slammed the door shut and pulled an automatic pistol from his suitcase, worked the slide to put a round in the chamber.

“No!” his stepdaughter cried, dropping her book and scrabbling for the door.

“Quiet,” he whispered viciously. He grabbed her by the arm. She screamed as he flung her onto the bed. Her head hit the wall and she lay stunned. Bud had never liked the girl, didn’t like her attitude, didn’t like her sarcasm and her rebelliousness. Children were put on earth to obey—girls especially—or suffer the consequences if they didn’t.

He listened at the door. It sounded like a dozen officers were in the living room of the suite. Bud didn’t have much time for a prayer but those through whom God speaks can be moved to communicate with Him as circumstances allow.

My dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, thank you for the glory you’ve bestowed upon us, the true believers. Please give me the strength to end my life and hasten my journey to you. And let me send to hell as many of those as I can who have come here to transgress against you.

There were fifteen bullets in the clip of his pistol. He could take plenty of the police with him, if he remained steady and if God gave him the strength to ignore the wounds he’d receive. But still they’d have a lot of firepower. He needed some advantage.

Bud turned toward his sobbing stepdaughter, who was clutching her bleeding head. He added a coda to the prayer, with a kindness that he thought was particularly generous under the circumstances.

And when you receive this child into heaven, please forgive her her sins against you. She knew not what she did.

He rose, walked over to his stepdaughter and grabbed her by the hair.

“Is Allerton in there?” Amelia Sachs shouted to Charlotte, nodding at the closed bedroom door.

She said nothing.

“The girl?”

Downstairs, the desk manager explained what suite Charlotte and Bud Allerton, along with their daughter, were staying in and the layout of the place. He was pretty sure they were upstairs now. The clerk recognized the picture of the Watchmaker and said that the man had been here several times but hadn’t been back today, as far as he knew.

“Where’s Allerton?” Sachs now snapped. She wanted to grab the woman and shake her.

Charlotte remained silent, glaring up at the detective.

“Bathroom clear,” one ESU officer called.

“Second bedroom clear.”

“Closet clear,” called Ron Pulaski, the slim officer looking nearly comical in the bulky flak jacket and helmet.

Only the bedroom with the closed door remained. Sachs approached it, stood to the side and motioned the other officers out of the line of fire. “You, inside the bedroom, listen! I’m a police officer. Open the door!”

No response.

Sachs tested the knob. The door was unlocked. A deep breath, gun up.

She opened the door fast and dropped into a combat shooting position. Sachs saw the girl—the same one who’d been in Charlotte’s car at the Watchmaker’s first crime scene. The girl’s hands were tied together and adhesive tape was over her mouth and nose. Her skin was blue and she thrashed on the bed, desperate for oxygen. It was a matter of seconds until she suffocated.

Ron Pulaski shouted, “Look, the window’s open.” Nodding toward the bedroom window. “Guy’s getting away.”

He started forward.

Sachs grabbed him by the flak jacket.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s not secure yet,” she snapped. She nodded to the living room. “Check the fire escape from there. See if he’s outside. And be careful. He might be targeting the window.”

The rookie ran to the front of the room and looked out fast. He called, “Nope. Might’ve gotten away.” He radioed ESU outside to check the alley behind the hotel.

Sachs debated. But she couldn’t wait any longer. She had to save the girl. She started forward.

But then stopped fast. Despite the horrifying suffocation, Charlotte’s daughter was sending her a message. She was shaking her head no, which Sachs took to mean that this was an ambush. The daughter looked to her right, indicating where Allerton, or somebody, was hiding, probably waiting to shoot.

Sachs dropped into a crouch. “Whoever’s in the bedroom, drop your weapon! Lie down, face forward in the middle of the room! Now.”

Silence.

The poor girl thrashed, eyes bulging.

“Drop the weapon now!”

Nothing.

Several ESU officers had come up. One hefted a flashbang grenade, designed to disorient attackers. But people can still shoot if they’re deafened and blinded. Sachs was worried that he’d hit the girl if he started pumping bullets indiscriminately. She shook her head to the ESU officer and aimed into the bedroom through the door. She had to get him and now; the child had no time left.

But the girl was shaking her head again. She struggled to control the convulsions and looked to Sachs’s right, then down.

Even though she was dying, she was directing Sachs’s fire.

Sachs adjusted her aim—it was much farther to the right than she would have guessed. If she’d fired at the place she’d been inclined to, a shooter would’ve known her position and possibly hit her with return fire.

The girl nodded.

Still, Sachs hesitated. Was the girl really sending her this message? The child was revealing discipline that few adults could muster, and Sachs didn’t dare misinterpret it; the risk of hurting an innocent was too great.

But then she recalled the look in the girl’s eyes the first time she’d seen her, in the car near the alley by Cedar Street. There, she’d seen hope. Here, she saw courage.

Sachs gripped her pistol firmly and fired six rounds in a circular pattern where the girl was indicating. Without waiting to see what she’d hit she leapt into the room, ESU officers behind her.

“Get the girl!” she shouted, sweeping the area to her right—the bathroom and closet—with her Glock. One ESU trooper covered the room with his MP-5 machine gun as the other officers pulled the girl to safety on the floor and ripped the tape off her face. Sachs heard the rasp of her desperate inhalation, then sobbing.

Sachs flung open the closet door and stepped aside as the man’s corpse—hit four times—tumbled out. She kicked aside his weapon and cleared the closet and the bathroom, then—not taking any chances—the shower stall, the space under the bed and the fire escape too.

A minute later the entire suite was clear. Charlotte, red-faced with fury and sobbing, was sitting handcuffed on the couch and the girl was in the hallway being given oxygen by medics; she’d suffered no serious injuries, they reported.

Charlotte would say nothing about the Watchmaker, and a preliminary search of the rooms gave no indication where he might be. Sachs found an envelope containing $250,000 cash, which suggested that he’d be coming here to collect a fee. She radioed Sellitto downstairs and had him clear the street of all emergency vehicles and set up hidden takedown teams.

Rhyme was on his way in his van and Sachs called to tell him to take the back entrance. She then went into the hallway to check on the girl.

“How you doing?”

“Okay, I guess. My face hurts.”

“They took the tape off pretty fast, I’ll bet.”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Thanks for what you did. You saved lives. You saved my life.” The girl gazed at Sachs with a curious look then glanced down. The detective handed her the Harry Potter book she’d found in the bedroom and Sachs asked if the girl knew anything about the man calling himself Gerald Duncan.

“He was creepy. Like, way weird. He’d just look at you like you were a rock or a car or a table. Not a person.”

“You have any idea where he is?”

She shook her head. “All I know is I heard Mom say he was renting a place in Brooklyn somewhere. I don’t know where. He wouldn’t say. But he’s coming by later to pick up some money.”

Sachs pulled Pulaski aside and asked him to check all the calls to and from Charlotte’s and Bud’s mobile phones, as well as the calls from the hotel room phone.

“How ’bout the lobby phone too? The pay phone, I mean. And the ones on the street nearby.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Good idea.”

The rookie headed off on his mission. Sachs got a soda and gave it to the girl. She opened the can and drank down half of it fast. She was looking at Sachs in a strange way. Then she gave a laugh.

Sachs asked, “What?”

“You really don’t remember me, do you? I met you before.”

“Near the alley on Tuesday. Sure.”

“No, no. Like, a long time before that.”

Sachs squinted. She recalled that she had felt some sense of familiarity when she’d seen the girl in the car at the first crime scene in the alley. And she felt it even more strongly now. But she couldn’t place where she might’ve seen the girl prior to Tuesday. “I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

“You saved my life. I was a little girl.”

“A long time . . .” Then Amelia Sachs squinted, turned toward the mother and studied Charlotte more closely. “Oh, my God,” she gasped.

Chapter 40

Inside the shabby hotel room, Lincoln Rhyme shook his head in disbelief as Sachs told him what she’d just learned: that they had known Charlotte some years ago when she’d come to New York using the pseudonym Carol Ganz. She and her daughter, whose name was Pammy, had been victims in the first case Sachs and Rhyme had worked together—the very one he’d been thinking of earlier, the kidnapper obsessed with human bones, a perp as clever and ruthless as the Watchmaker.

To pursue him, Rhyme had recruited Sachs to be his eyes and ears and legs at the crime scenes and together they’d managed to rescue both the woman and her daughter—only to learn that Carol was really Charlotte Willoughby. She was part of a right-wing militia movement, which abhorred the federal government and its involvement in world affairs. After their rescue and reunion, the woman managed to slip a bomb into the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan. The explosion killed six people.

Rhyme and Sachs had taken up the case but Charlotte and the girl disappeared into the movement’s underground, probably in the Midwest or West, and eventually the trail went cold.

From time to time they would check out FBI, VICAP and local police reports with a militia or right-wing political angle but no leads to Charlotte or Pammy panned out. Sachs’s concern for the little girl never diminished, though, and sometimes, lying in bed with Rhyme at night, she’d wonder out loud how the girl was doing, if it was too late to save her. Sachs, who’d always wanted children, was horrified at the kind of life her mother was presumably forcing the girl to live—hiding out, having few friends her age, never going to a regular school—all in the name of some hateful cause.

And now Charlotte—with her new husband, Bud Allerton—had returned to the city on yet another mission of terrorism, and Rhyme and Sachs had become entwined in their lives once again.

Charlotte now glared at Rhyme, her eyes filled with both tears and hatred. “You murdered Bud! You goddamn fascists! You killed him.” The prisoner then gave a cold laugh. “But we won! How many did we kill tonight? Fifty people. Seventy-five? And how many senior people in the Pentagon?”

Sachs leaned close to her face. “Did you know there’d be children in that conference room? Husbands and wives of the soldiers? Their parents? Grandparents? Did you know that?”

“Of course we knew it,” Charlotte said.

“They were just sacrifices too, is that right?”

“For the greater good,” Charlotte replied.

Which was maybe a slogan she and her group recited at the beginning of their rallies, or whatever meetings they had.

Rhyme caught Sachs’s eye. He said, “Maybe we should show her the carnage.”

Sachs nodded and clicked on the TV.

An anchorwoman was on the screen. “ . . . one minor injury. A bomb squad officer who was driving a remote-control robot in an attempt to defuse the bombs was wounded slightly by shrapnel. He’s been treated and released. Property damage was estimated at five hundred thousand dollars. Despite initial reports, neither al-Qaeda nor any other Islamic terrorist group has been implicated in the bombing. According to a New York Police Department spokeswoman, a domestic terrorist organization was responsible. Again, if you’re just joining us, two bombs exploded around noon today in the office of Housing and Urban Development in lower Manhattan but there were no fatalities and only one minor injury. An undersecretary of state and the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were among the intended victims. . . .”

Sachs muted the volume and turned a smug gaze toward Charlotte.

“No,” the woman gasped. “Oh, no . . . What—?”

Rhyme said, “Obviously—we figured it out before the bomb went off and evacuated the room.”

Charlotte was appalled. “But . . . impossible. No . . . The airports were shut down, the trains—”

“Oh, that,” Rhyme said dismissively. “We just needed to buy some time. At first, sure, I thought he was stealing the Delphic Mechanism but then I decided it was just a feint. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t done something to the NIST clock. So while we were figuring out what he was really up to, we called the mayor and had him order flights and public transportation in the area suspended.”

You know what’s going to happen if we push that button. . . .

She glanced into the bedroom where her husband had died such a pointless death. Then the ideologue within her kicked in and she said in a flat voice, “You’ll never beat us. You may win a battle or two. But we’ll take our country back. We’ll—”

“Yo, hold that rhetoric, wouldja?” The speaker was a tall, lanky black man, stepping into the room. This was FBI Special Agent Fred Dellray. When he’d heard about the domestic terrorist angle he’d handed off the accounting fraud case that he’d been assisting on (“Was a yawner anyway”) and announced that that he was going to be the federal liaison on the HUD bombing.

Dellray was wearing a powder blue suit and a shocking green shirt underneath a brown herringbone overcoat, circa 1975; the agent’s taste in couture was as brash as his manner. He looked Charlotte over. “Well, well, well, lookit what we caught ou’selves.” The woman gazed back defiantly. He laughed. “A shame you’re going to jail for . . . well, forever, and you didn’t even do whatcha’ll had your heart set on. How’s it feel t’be swimmin’ laps in the loser pool?”

Dellray’s approach to interviewing suspects was a lot different from Kathryn Dance’s; Rhyme suspected she wouldn’t approve.

Charlotte had been arrested by Sachs on state charges and it was now Dellray’s turn to arrest her for the federal crimes—both for this incident and for the UN bombing years ago, her involvement in a federal courthouse shooting in San Francisco and some miscellaneous charges.

Charlotte said she understood her rights and then started another lecture.

Dellray wagged a finger at her. “Gimme a minute, sweetheart.” The lean man turned to Rhyme. “So how’d you figure this one out, Lincoln? We heard X, we heard Y, all ’bout some boys in blue taking money they shouldn’ta been doin’ and then some bizarre fella leavin’ clocks as callin’ cards—then next thing we know the airports’re closed and there’s a priority-one security alert at HUD innerupting my nap.”

Rhyme detailed the frantic process of kinesic and forensic work that led them to figure out the Watchmaker’s real plan. Kathryn Dance had suggested that he was lying about his mission in New York. So they’d looked into the evidence again. Some of it pointed to the possible theft of a rare artifact in the Metropolitan Museum.

But the more he thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Rhyme figured Duncan had made up the story about the undelivered package to the Met just to get them focused on the museum. Somebody as careful as the Watchmaker wouldn’t leave the trail he did. He turned in Vincent, knowing the rapist would give up the church, where he’d left other museum brochures referring to the Mechanism. He mentioned it to Hallerstein and to Vincent as well. No, he was up to something else. But what? Kathryn Dance reviewed the interview tape again, several times, and decided that he might have been lying when he said he picked the supposed victims simply because their locations meant easy getaways.

“Which meant,” Rhyme told Dellray, “that he picked them for some other purpose. So, did they have anything in common?”

Rhyme had remembered something Dance learned about the first crime scene. Ari Cobb had said that the SUV was originally parked in the back of the alley but then the Watchmaker returned to the front to leave the body. “Why? One reason was that he needed to put the victim in a particular place. What was it near? The back door to the Housing and Urban Development building.”

Rhyme had then gotten the client list from the flooring company where he’d planted the fake fire extinguisher bomb and learned that they’d provided carpeting and tile for the HUD offices.

“I sent our rookie downtown to look around. He found a building across Cedar Street that was being renovated. The crews had tarred the roof a week ago, just before the cold spell. Flakes of tar matched those found on our perp’s shoes. The roof was a perfect place to check out HUD.”

This also explained why he’d poured sand on the ground at the crime scene and swept it up—to make absolutely certain they didn’t find trace that’d help anyone identify him later when he came back to assemble and arm the bombs.

Rhyme also found that the other victims had a connection to the building. Lucy Richter was being recognized there today, and she’d had the specially issued passes and IDs to get into all parts of the building. She also had a classified memo on security and evacuation procedures.

As for Joanne Harper, it turned out that she’d done the flower arrangements for the ceremony—a good way to smuggle something into the building.

“A bomb, I guessed. We got the mayor involved and he called the press, had them hold off on the story that we were evacuating HUD so the perps wouldn’t rabbit. But the device blew before the bomb squad could disarm it.” Rhyme shook his head. “Just hate it when good evidence blows up. You know how hard it is to lift prints off pieces of metal that’ve been flying through the air at thirty thousand feet a second?”

“How’dja get Miss Congeniality here?” Dellray asked, nodding at Charlotte.

Rhyme said dismissively, “That was easy. She was careless. If Duncan was fake, then the woman helping him at the first scene in the alley had to be fake too. Our rookie got all the tag numbers of cars in the vicinity of the alley off Cedar. The car the supposed sister was driving was an Avis, rented to Charlotte Allerton. We checked all the hotels in the city until we found her.”

Dellray shook his head. “An’ what about yo’ perp? Mr. Clockmaker?”

“It’s ‘Watchmaker,’” the criminalist grumbled. “And that’s a different story.” He explained that Charlotte’s daughter, Pam, had heard that he had a place in Brooklyn but she didn’t know where it was. “No other leads.”

Dellray bent down. “Where in Brooklyn? Need to know. And now.”

Charlotte replied defiantly, “You’re pathetic! All of you! You’re just lackeys for the bureaucracy in Washington. You’re selling out the heart of our country and—”

Dellray leaned forward, right into her face. He clicked his tongue. “Uh-uh. No politics, no philosophy . . . All we want’re answers to the questions. We all together on that?”

“Fuck you” was Charlotte’s response.

Dellray blew air through his cheeks like a trumpet player. He moaned, “I am no match for this intellect.”

Rhyme wished Kathryn Dance was here to interrogate the woman, though he guessed it would take a long time to pry information from her. He eased forward in the wheelchair and said in a whisper, so Pam couldn’t hear, “If you help us out I can make sure you see your daughter from time to time when you’re in prison. If you don’t cooperate, I will guarantee that you never see her again as long as you live.”

Charlotte glanced into the hallway, where Pam sat on a chair, defiantly clutching her Harry Potter. The dark-haired girl was pretty, with fragile features, but very slim. She wore faded jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt. The skin around her eyes was dark. She clicked her fingernails together compulsively. The girl seemed needy in a hundred different ways.

Charlotte turned back to Rhyme. “Then I’ll never see her again,” she said calmly.

Dellray blinked at this, his usually unrevealing face tightening in revulsion.

Rhyme himself could think of nothing more to say to the woman.

It was then that Ron Pulaski came running into the room. He paused to catch his breath.

“What?” Rhyme asked.

It took a moment for him to be able to answer. Finally, he said, “The phones . . . The Watchmaker . . .”

“Out with it, Ron.”

“Sorry . . .” A deep breath. “We couldn’t trace his mobile but a hotel clerk saw her, Charlotte, making calls around midnight every night over the past four or five days. I called the phone company. I got the number she called. They traced it. It’s to a pay phone in Brooklyn. At this intersection.” He handed the slip of paper to Sellitto, who relayed it to Bo Haumann and ESU.

“Good job,” Sellitto said to Pulaski. He called the deputy inspector of the precinct where the phone was located. Officers would start a canvass of the neighborhood as soon as Mel Cooper emailed pictures of the composite to the DI.

Rhyme supposed that the Watchmaker might not live near the phone—it wouldn’t have surprised the criminalist—but a mere thirty minutes later they had a positive identification from a patrol officer, who found several neighbors who recognized the man.

Sellitto took the number and alerted Bo Haumann.

Sachs announced, “I’ll call in from the scene.”

“Hold on,” Rhyme said, glancing at her. “Why don’t you sit this one out. Let Bo handle it.”

“What?”

“They’ll have a full tactical force.”

Rhyme was thinking of the superstition that cops on short time were more likely to get killed or injured than others. Rhyme didn’t believe in superstitions. That didn’t matter. He didn’t want her to go.

Amelia Sachs would be thinking the same thing, perhaps; she was debating, it seemed. Then he saw her looking into the hallway at Pam Willoughby. She turned back to the criminalist. Their eyes met. He gave a faint smile and nodded.

She grabbed her leather jacket and headed for the door.

In a quiet neighborhood in Brooklyn a dozen tactical officers moved slowly along the sidewalk, another six creeping through an alley behind a shabby detached house.

This was a neighborhood of modest houses in small yards, presently filled with Christmas decorations. The minuscule size of the lots had no effect on the owners’ ability to populate the land with as many Santas, reindeer and elves as possible.

Sachs was walking down the sidewalk slowly at the head of the takedown team. She was on the radio with Rhyme. “We’re here,” she said softly.

“What’s the story?”

“We’ve cleared the houses on either side and behind. There’s nobody opposite.” A community vegetable garden was across the street. A ragged scarecrow sat in the middle of the tiny lot. Across his chest was a swirl of graffiti.

“Pretty good site for a takedown. We’re—hold on, Rhyme.” A light had gone on in one of the front rooms. The cops around her stopped and crouched. She whispered, “He’s still here. . . . I’m signing off.”

“Go get him, Sachs.” She heard an unusual determination in his voice. She knew he was upset that the man had escaped. Saving the people at the HUD building and capturing Charlotte were fine. But Rhyme wasn’t happy unless all the perps ended up in cuffs.

But he wasn’t as determined as Amelia Sachs. She wanted to give Rhyme the Watchmaker—as a present to mark their last case together.

She changed radio frequencies and said into her stalk mike, “Detective Five Eight Eight Five to ESU One.”

Bo Haumann, at a staging area a block away, came on the radio. “Go ahead, K.”

“He’s here. Just saw a light go on in the front room.”

“Roger, B Team, you copy?”

These were the officers behind the bungalow. “B Team leader to ESU One. Roger that. We’re—hold on. Okay, he’s upstairs now. Just saw the light go on up there. Looks like the back bedroom.”

“Don’t assume he’s alone,” Sachs said. “There could be somebody else from Charlotte’s outfit with him. Or he might’ve picked up another partner.”

“Roger that, Detective,” Haumann said in his gravelly voice. “S and S, what can you tell us?”

The Search and Surveillance teams were just getting into position on the roof of the apartment building behind and in the garden across the street from the Watchmaker’s safe house, on which they were training their instruments.

“S and S One to ESU One. All the shades’re drawn. Can’t get a look at all. We’ve got heat in the back of the house. But he’s not walking around. There’s a light on in the attic but we can’t see in—no windows, just louvers, K.”

“Same here—S and S Two. No visual. Heat upstairs, nothing on the ground floor. Heard a click or two a second ago, K.”

“Weapon?”

“Could be. Or maybe just appliances or the furnace, K.”

The ESU officer next to Sachs deployed his officers with hand signals. He, Sachs and two others clustered at the front door, another team of four right behind them. One held the battering ram. The other three covered the windows on the ground and the second floors.

“B Team to One. We’re in position. Got a ladder next to the lit room in the back, K.”

“A Team, in position,” another ESU officer radioed in a whisper.

“We’re no-knock,” Haumann told the teams. “On my count of three, flashbangs into the rooms that have the lights on. Throw ’em hard to get through the shades. On one, simultaneous dynamic entry front and back. B Team, split up, cover the ground floor and basement. A Team, go straight upstairs. Remember, this guy knows how to make IEDs. Look for devices.”

“B Team, copy.”

“A, copy.”

Despite the freezing air Sachs’s palms were sweating inside the tight Nomex gloves. She pulled the right one away and blew into it. Did the same with the left. Then she cinched up the body armor and unsnapped the cover of her spare ammo clip carrier. The other officers had machine guns but Sachs never went for that. She preferred the elegance of a single well-placed round to a spray of lead.

Sachs and the three officers on the primary entry team nodded at one another.

Haumann’s raspy voice began the count. “Six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . .”

The sound of breaking glass filled the crisp air as officers flung the grenades through the windows.

Haumann, continuing calmly: “Two . . . one.”

The sharp crack of the flashbangs shook the windows and bursts of white light filled the house momentarily. The burly officer with the battering ram slammed it into the front door. It crashed open without resistance and in a few seconds the officers were spreading out in the sparsely furnished house.

Flashlight in one hand, gun in the other, Sachs stayed with her team as they worked their way up the stairs.

She began hearing the voices of the other officers calling in as they cleared the basement and the rooms on the ground floor.

One upstairs bedroom was empty, the second, as well.

Then all the rooms were declared clear.

“Where the hell is he?” Sachs muttered.

“Always an adventure, huh?” somebody asked.

“Invisible fucking perp,” came another voice.

Then in her earpiece she heard: “S and S One. Light in the attic just went out. He’s up there.”

In the small bedroom toward the back they found a trapdoor in the ceiling, a thick string hanging from it. A pull-down stair. An officer shut out the light in this room so it would be harder to target them. They stood back and pointed their guns at the door as Sachs gripped the string and pulled hard. It creaked downward, revealing a folding ladder.

The team leader shouted, “You, in the attic. Come down now. . . . Do you hear me? This is your last chance.”

Nothing.

He said, “Flashbang.”

An officer pulled one off his belt and nodded.

The team leader put his hand on the ladder but Sachs shook her head. “I’ll take him.”

“Are you sure you want to?”

Sachs nodded. “Only, let me borrow a helmet.”

She took one and strapped it on.

“We’re set, Detective.”

“Let’s do it.” Sachs climbed up near the top—then took the flashbang. She pulled the pin and closed her eyes so the flash from the grenade wouldn’t blind her and also to acclimate her eyes to the darkness of the attic.

Okay, here we go.

She pitched the grenade into the attic and lowered her head.

Three seconds later it detonated and Sachs, opening her eyes, charged the rest of the way up the ladder into the small area, filled with a haze of smoke and the smell of explosive residue from the flashbang. She rolled away from the opening, clicking on her flashlight and sweeping it in a circle as she moved to a post, the only cover she could find.

Nothing to the right, nothing center, nothing—

It was then that she fell off the face of the earth.

The floor wasn’t wood at all, like it seemed, but cardboard over insulating crud. Her right leg crashed through the Sheetrock of the bedroom ceiling, gripping her, immobile. She cried out in pain.

“Detective!” somebody called.

Sachs lifted the light and the gun in the only direction she could see—straight in front of her. The killer wasn’t there.

Which meant he was behind her.

It was at that moment that the overhead light clicked on, almost directly above her, making her a perfect target.

She struggled to turn around, awaiting the sharp crack of a gun, the numb slam of the bullet into her head or neck or back.

Sachs thought of her father.

She thought of Lincoln Rhyme.

You and me, Sachs . . .

Then she decided no way was she going out without getting a piece of him. She took the pistol in her teeth and used both hands to wrench herself around and find a target.

She heard boots on the ladder as an ESU officer charged up to help her. Of course, that’s what the Watchmaker was waiting for—a chance to kill more of the officers. He was using her as bait to draw other cops to their deaths and hoped to escape in the chaos.

“Look out!” she called, gripping her pistol in her hand. “He’s—”

“Where is he?” the A Team leader asked. The man was crouching at the top of the stairs. He hadn’t heard her—or hadn’t listened—and had sped up the ladder, followed by two other officers. They were scanning the room—including the area behind Sachs.

Her heart pounding furiously, she struggled to look over her shoulder. She asked, “You don’t see him? He’s gotta be there.”

“Zip.”

He and another officer bent down, gripped her body armor and pulled her out of the Sheetrock. Crouching, she spun around.

The room was empty.

“How’d he get out?” the ESU officer muttered. “No doors or windows.”

Sachs noticed something across the room. She gave a sour laugh. “He was never here at all. Not up here, not downstairs. He probably took off hours ago.”

“But the lights. Somebody was turning them on and off.”

“Nope. Take a look.” She pointed to a small beige box connected to the fusebox. “He wanted to make us think he was still here. Give him a better chance to get away.”

“What is it?”

“What else? It’s a timer.”

Chapter 41

Sachs finished searching the scene at the house in Brooklyn and sent what little evidence she could find to Rhyme’s.

She stripped off her Tyvek outfit and pulled her jacket on, then hurried through the cutting chill to Sellitto’s car. In the back sat Pam Willoughby, clutching her Harry Potter book and sipping hot chocolate, which the big detective had scrounged for her. He was still in the perp’s safe house, finishing up the paperwork. Sachs climbed in, sat beside her. At Kathryn Dance’s suggestion, they’d brought the girl here to examine the place and the Watchmaker’s possessions in hopes that something might trigger a memory. But the man hadn’t left much behind and in any event nothing Pammy saw gave her any more insights about him.

Smiling, Sachs looked the girl over, remembering that strange expression of hope when she’d seen her in the rental car at the first scene. The policewoman said, “I’ve thought about you a lot over the years.”

“Me too,” the girl said, looking down into her cup.

“Where did you go after New York?”

“We went back to Missouri and hid out in the woods. Mom left me with other people a lot. Mostly I just stayed by myself and read. I didn’t get along very good with anybody. They were crappy to me. If you didn’t think the way they did—which was pretty messed up—they totally dissed you.

“A lot of them were home-schooling people. But I really wanted to go to public school and I made a big deal out of it. Bud didn’t want me to but Mom finally agreed. But she said if I told anybody about her, what she’d done, I’d go to jail too as an assistant . . . no, an accomplice. And men would do stuff to me there. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Oh, honey.” Sachs squeezed her hand. Amelia Sachs wanted children badly and knew that, one way or another, they were in her future. She was appalled that a mother had put her child through this.

“And sometimes, when it got real bad, I’d think about you and pretend you were my mother. I didn’t know your name. Maybe I heard it back then but I couldn’t remember. So I gave you another one: Artemis. From this book I read about mythology. She was the goddess of the hunt. Because you killed that mad dog—the one that was attacking me.” She looked down. “It’s a stupid name.”

“No, no, it’s a wonderful name. I love it. . . . You recognized me in the alleyway Tuesday, didn’t you? When you were in the car?”

“Yeah. I think you were meant to be there—to save me again. Don’t you think things like that happen?”

No, Sachs didn’t. But she said, “Life works in funny ways sometimes.”

A city car pulled up and a social worker Sachs knew climbed out and joined them.

“Whoa.” The woman, a pretty African-American, rubbed her hands together in front of the heater vent. “It’s not even winter yet officially. This isn’t fair.” She’d been making arrangements for the girl and she now explained, “We’ve found a couple real nice foster families. There’s one in Riverdale I’ve known for years. You’ll stay there for the next few days while we see if we can track down some of your relatives.”

Pammy was frowning. “Can I get a new name?”

“A new—?”

“I don’t want to be me anymore. And I don’t want my mother to talk to me again. And I don’t want any of those people she’s with to find me.”

Sachs preempted whatever the social worker was going to say. “We’ll make sure nothing happens to you. That’s a promise.”

Pammy hugged her.

“So I can see you again?” Sachs asked.

Trying to contain her excitement at this, the girl said, “I guess. If you want.”

“How ’bout shopping tomorrow?”

“Okay. Sure.”

“Good. It’s a date.” Sachs had an idea. “Hey, you like dogs?”

“Yeah, some folks I stayed with in Missouri had one. I liked him better than the people.”

She called Thom at Rhyme’s town house. “Got a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Any takers on Jackson yet?”

“Nope. He’s still up for adoption.”

“Take him off the market,” Sachs said. She hung up and looked at Pam. “I’ve got an early Christmas present for you.”

Sometimes even the best-designed watches simply don’t work.

The devices really are quite fragile, when you think about it. Five hundred, a thousand minuscule moving parts, nearly microscopic screws and springs and jewels, all precisely assembled, dozens of separate movements working in unison. . . . A hundred things can go wrong. Sometimes the watchmaker miscalculates, sometimes a tiny piece of metal is defective, sometimes the owner winds the mechanism too tight. Sometimes he drops it. Moisture gets under the crystal.

Then again the watch might work perfectly in one environment but not in another. Even the famed Rolex Oyster Perpetual, revolutionary for being the first luxury divers’ watch, can’t withstand unlimited pressure underwater.

Now, near Central Park, Charles Vespasian Hale sat in his own car, which he’d driven here from San Diego—no trail at all, if you pay cash for gas and avoid toll roads—and wondered what had gone wrong with his plan.

He supposed the answer was the police, specifically Lincoln Rhyme. Hale had done everything he could think of to anticipate his moves. But the former cop managed to end up just a bit ahead of him. Rhyme had done exactly what Hale had been worried about—he’d looked at a few gears and levers and extrapolated from them how Hale’s entire timepiece had been constructed.

He’d have plenty of time to consider what went wrong and to try to avoid the same problems in the future. He’d be driving back to California, leaving immediately. He glanced at his face in the rearview mirror. He’d dyed his hair back to its natural color and the pale blue contact lenses were gone, but the collagen, which gave him the thick nose and puffy cheeks and double chin, hadn’t bled from his skin yet. And it would takes months before he regained the forty pounds he’d lost for the job and became himself again. He felt pasty and sluggish after all this time in the city and needed to get back to his wilderness and mountains once again.

Yes, he’d failed. But, as he told Vincent Reynolds, that wasn’t significant in the great scheme of things. He wasn’t concerned about the arrest of Charlotte Allerton. They knew nothing of his real identity (they’d believed all along his real name was Duncan) and their initial contacts had been through extremely discreet individuals.

Moreover, there was actually a positive side to the failure here—Hale had learned something that had changed his life. He’d created the persona of the Watchmaker simply because the character seemed spooky and would snag the attention of a populace and police turned on by made-for-TV criminals.

But as he got into the role, Hale found to his surprise that this character was the embodiment of his true personality. Playing the part was like coming home. He had indeed grown fascinated with watches and clocks and time. (He’d also developed an abiding interest in the Delphic Mechanism; stealing it at some point in the future was a distinct possibility.)

The Watchmaker . . .

Charles Hale was himself simply a timepiece. You could use a watch for something joyous like checking contractions for the birth of a baby. Or heinous: coordinating the time of a raid to slaughter women and children.

Time transcends morality.

He now looked down at what sat on the seat next to him, the gold Breguet pocket watch. In his gloved hands, he picked it up, wound it slowly—always better to underwind than over-—and carefully slipped it between the sheets of bubble wrap in a large white envelope.

Hale sealed the self-adhesive flap and started the car.

There were no clear leads.

Rhyme, Sellitto, Cooper and Pulaski were sitting in the lab on Central Park West, going over the few things found in the perp’s Brooklyn safe house.

Amelia Sachs was not present at the moment. She hadn’t announced where she was going. But she didn’t need to. She’d mentioned to Thom that she’d be nearby, if they needed her—at a meeting on Fifty-seventh and Sixth. Rhyme had checked the phone directory. That was the location of the Argyle Security headquarters.

Rhyme simply couldn’t think about that, and he was concentrating on how to continue the search for the Watchmaker, whoever he might be.

Working backward, Rhyme constructed a rough scenario of the events. The ceremony had been announced on October 15, so Carol and Bud had contacted the Watchmaker sometime around then. He’d come to New York around November 1, the date of the lease on the Brooklyn safe house. A few weeks later, Amelia Sachs had taken over the Creeley case and soon after, Baker and Wallace decided to have her killed.

“Then they hooked up with the Watchmaker. What’d he tell us, when we thought he was Duncan? About their meeting?”

Sellitto said, “Just that somebody at the club put them together—the club where Baker put the touch on his friend.”

“But he was lying. There was no club. . . .” Rhyme shook his head. “Somebody put them together, somebody who knows the Watchmaker—probably somebody in the area. If we can find them, there could be some solid leads. Is Baker talking?”

“Nope, not a word. Nobody is.”

The rookie was shaking his head. “That’s going to be a tough one. I mean, how many OC crews are there in the metro area? Take forever to track down the right one. Not like they’re going to be volunteering to help us out.”

The criminalist frowned. “What’re you talking about? What’s an organized crime posse got to do with anything?”

“Well, I just assumed somebody with an OC connection was the one who’d put them together.”

“Why?”

“Baker wants to have a cop killed, right? But he can’t do it in a way that’ll make him look suspicious so he has to hire somebody. He goes to some mob connection he has. The mob’s not going to clip a cop so he puts Baker in touch with somebody who might: the Watchmaker.”

When nobody said anything, Pulaski blushed and looked down. “I don’t know. Just a thought.”

“And a fucking good one, kid,” Sellitto said.

“Really?”

Rhyme nodded. “Not bad . . . Let’s call the OC task force downtown and see if their snitches can tell us anything. Call Dellray too . . . Now, let’s get back to the evidence.”

They’d located some friction ridges in the safe house in Brooklyn but none of the fingerprints came back positive from the Bureau’s IAFIS system and none matched prints from prior scenes. The lease for the house had been executed under yet another fake name and the man had given a phony prior address. It had been a cash transaction. An exhaustive search of Internet activity in the neighborhood revealed that the man had apparently logged on occasionally through several nearby wireless networks. There were no records of emails, only Web browsing. The site he’d visited most often was a bookstore that sold continuing-education course texts for certain medical specialties.

Sellitto said, “Shit, maybe somebody else’s hired him.”

You bet, Rhyme thought, nodding. “He’ll be targeting another victim—or victims. Probably coming up with his plan right now. Think of the damage he could do pretending to be a doctor.”

And I let him get away.

An examination of the trace evidence Sachs had collected revealed little more than shearling fibers and a few bits of a green vegetative material containing evaporated seawater—which didn’t, it turned out, match the seaweed and ocean water found around Robert Wallace’s boat on Long Island.

The deputy inspector at the Brooklyn precinct called to report that further canvassing of the neighborhood had been useless. A half dozen people remembered seeing the Watchmaker but nobody knew anything about him.

As for Charlotte and her late husband, Bud Allerton, the investigative efforts were much more successful. The couple had not been nearly as careful as the Watchmaker. Sachs had found a great deal of evidence about the underground militia groups they’d been harbored by, including a large one in Missouri and the infamous Patriot Assembly in upstate New York, which Rhyme and Sachs had tangled with in the past. Phone calls, fingerprints and emails would give the FBI and local police plenty of leads to pursue.

The doorbell rang and Thom left the room to answer it. A moment later he returned with a woman in a military uniform. This would be Lucy Richter, the Watchmaker’s fourth “victim.” Rhyme noted that she was more surprised at the forensic lab in his town house than his disability. Then it occurred to him that this was a woman involved in a type of combat where bombs were the weapon of choice; she’d undoubtedly seen missing limbs and para- and quadriplegia of all sorts. Rhyme’s condition didn’t faze her.

She explained that she’d called Kathryn Dance not long ago to say she wanted to speak to the investigators; the California detective had suggested she call or stop by Rhyme’s.

Thom zipped in and offered her coffee or tea. Normally piqued about visitors and reluctant to give anyone an incentive to linger, Rhyme now, to the contrary, glared at the aide. “She might be hungry, Thom. Or might want something more substantial. Scotch, for instance.”

“There’s just no figuring you out,” Thom said. “Didn’t know there was an armed forces hospitality rule in the Lincoln Rhyme edition of Emily Post.”

“Thanks, but nothing for me,” Lucy said. “I can’t stay long. First, I want to thank you. For saving my life—twice.”

“Actually,” Sellitto pointed out, “you weren’t in any danger the first time. He was never going to hurt you—or any of the victims. The second time? Well, okay, accepted—since he wanted to blow the conference room to smithereens.”

“My family was there too,” she said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Rhyme was, as always, uneasy with the gratitude, though he nodded with what he thought was an appropriate acknowledgment.

“The other reason is that I found out something that might be helpful. I’ve been talking to my neighbors about when he broke in. One man, he lives three buildings down the street, told me something. He said that yesterday he was getting a delivery at the back of the building and he found a rope dangling into the alley from the roof. You can get there from my roof pretty easily. I was thinking that maybe that was how he escaped.”

“Interesting,” Rhyme said.

“But there’s something else. My husband took a look. Bob was a Navy SEAL for two years—”

“Navy? And you’re army?” Pulaski asked, laughing.

She smiled. “We have some . . . interesting discussions from time to time. Especially during football season. Anyway, he looked at the rope and said whoever tied it knew what he was doing. It was a rare knot used in abseiling—you know, rappelling. It’s called a dead man’s knot. You don’t see it much in this country, mostly in Europe. He must’ve had some experience rock climbing or mountaineering overseas.”

“Ah, some hard information.” Rhyme glanced darkly at Pulaski. “A shame the victim had to find the evidence, don’t you think? That really is in our job description.” He turned toward Lucy. “The rope’s still there?”

“Yes.”

“Good . . . You in town for a while?” Rhyme asked. “If we catch him, we might need you to testify at his trial.”

“I’m going back overseas soon. But I’m sure I can come back for a trial. I could get a special leave for that.”

“How long will you be there?”

“I reenlisted for two years.”

“You did?” Sellitto asked.

“I wasn’t going to. It’s tough over there. But I decided to go back.”

“Because of the bomb at the ceremony?”

“No, it was just before that. I was looking at the families and the other soldiers there and thinking it’s funny how life puts you in places you never thought you’d be. But there you are and you’re doing something good and important and, basically, it just feels right. So.” She pulled on her jacket. “If you need me, I’ll get a leave home.”

They said good-bye and Thom saw her out the door.

When he returned Rhyme told the aide, “Add that to the profile. A rock climber or mountaineer, possibly European trained.” To Pulaski, Rhyme said, “And have somebody from the CS Unit go collect the rope that you missed in the first place—”

“Actually, I wasn’t really the one who searched—”

“—and then find a climbing expert. I want to know where he might’ve trained. And run the rope too. Where’d he buy it and when?”

“Yessir.”

Fifteen minutes later the doorbell rang again and Thom returned with Kathryn Dance. The white iPod earbuds dangling over her shoulders, she greeted everyone. She was holding a white, eight-and-a-half-by-eleven envelope.

“Hi,” said Pulaski.

Rhyme lifted an eyebrow in greeting.

“I’m on my way to the airport,” Dance explained. “Just wanted to say good-bye. Oh, this was on the doorstep.”

She handed the envelope to Thom.

The aide glanced at it. “No return address.” Frowning.

“Let’s be safe,” Rhyme said. “The basket.”

Sellitto took the envelope and walked to a large bin that was made out of woven steel strips—like a wicker laundry hamper. He set the envelope inside and clamped the lid shut. As a matter of course, any unidentified packages went into the bomb basket, which was designed to diffuse the force of a small-to-medium-sized improvised explosive device. It contained sensors that would pick up any trace of nitrates and other common explosives.

The computer sniffed the vapors emanating from the envelope and reported that it wasn’t a bomb.

Wearing latex gloves, Cooper retrieved and examined it. The envelope bore a computer-generated label, reading only, Lincoln Rhyme.

“Self-sticking,” the tech added with a resigned grimace. Criminalists preferred old-style envelopes that perps had to lick; the adhesive was a good source of DNA. Cooper added that he was familiar with the brand of envelope; it was sold in stores all over the country and virtually untraceable.

Rhyme wheeled closer and, with Dance beside him, watched the tech extract a pocket watch and a note, also the product of a computer printer. “It’s from him,” Cooper announced.

The envelope had been there for no more than a quarter of an hour—the time between Lucy Richter’s departure and Dance’s arrival. Sellitto called Central to have some cars from the nearby Twentieth Precinct sweep the neighborhood. Cooper emailed the Watchmaker’s composite to the house.

The timepiece was ticking and showed the accurate time. It was gold and there were several small dials set in the face.

“Heavy,” Cooper said. He pulled on magnifying goggles and examined it closely. “Looks old, signs of wear . . . no personalized engravings.” He took a camel hair brush and dusted the watch over a piece of newsprint. The envelope too. No trace was dislodged.

“Here’s the note, Lincoln.” He mounted it on an overhead projector.

Dear Mr. Rhyme:

I will be gone by the time you receive this. I have by now, of course, learned that none of the attendees at the conference was injured. I concluded you had anticipated my plans. I then anticipated yours and delayed my trip to Charlotte’s hotel, which gave me the chance to spot your officers. I assume you saved her daughter. I am pleased about that. She deserves better than that pair.

So congratulations. I thought the plan was perfect. But I was apparently wrong.

The pocket watch is a Breguet. It is the favorite of the many timepieces I have come across. It was made in the early 1800s and features a ruby cylinder escapement, perpetual calendar and parachute antishock device. I hope you appreciate the phases-of-the-moon window, in light of our recent adventures. There are few specimens like this watch in the world. I give it to you as a present, out of respect. No one has ever stopped me from finishing a job; you’re as good as they get. (I would say you’re as good as I, but that is not quite true. You did not, after all, catch me.) Keep the Breguet wound (but gently); it will be counting the time until we meet again.

Some advice: If I were you, I would make every one of those seconds count.

—The Watchmaker

Sellitto grimaced.

“What?” Rhyme asked.

“You get classier threats than me, Linc. Usually my perps just say, ‘I’m gonna kill you.’ And what the hell is that?” He pointed to the note. “A semicolon? He’s threatening you and he’s using semicolons. That’s fucked up.”

Rhyme didn’t laugh. He was still furious about the man’s escape—and furious too that he apparently had no desire to retire. “When you get tired of making bad jokes, Lon, you might want to notice that his grammar and syntax are perfect. That tells us something else about him. Good education. Private school? Classically trained? Scholarships? Valedictorian? Put those on the chart, Thom.”

Sellitto was unfazed. “Fucking semicolons.”

“Got something here,” Cooper said, looking up from the computer. “The green material from his place in Brooklyn? I’m pretty sure it’s Caulerpa taxifolia. A noxious weed.”

“A what?”

“It’s a seaweed that spreads uncontrollably. Causes all kinds of problems. It’s been banned in the U.S.”

“And presumably, if it spreads, you can find it everywhere,” Rhyme said sourly. “Useless as evidence.”

“Actually, no,” Cooper explained. “So far, it’s been found only on the Pacific Coast of North America.”

“Mexico to Canada?”

“Pretty much.”

Rhyme added sarcastically, “That’s virtually a street address. Call out the SWAT team.”

It was then that Kathryn Dance frowned. “The West Coast?” She considered something for a moment. Then she asked, “Where’s the interview with him?”

Mel Cooper found the file. He hit PLAY and for the dozenth time they watched the killer look into the camera and lie to them all. Dance leaned forward intently. She reminded Rhyme of himself gazing at evidence.

He’d been through the interview so often he was numb to the words; it provided nothing helpful now that he could tell. But Dance gave a sudden laugh. “Got a thought.”

“What?”

“Well, I can’t give you an address but I can give you a state. My guess is that he comes from California. Or lived there for some time.”

“Why do you think that?”

She backed up with the rewind command. Then played part of the interview again, the portion where he talked about driving to Long Island to take delivery of the confiscated SUV.

Dance stopped the tape and said, “I’ve studied regional expressions. People in California usually refer to their interstate highways with the article ‘the.’ The four-oh-five in L.A., for instance. In the interview he referred to ‘the four ninety-five’ here in New York. And did you hear him say freeway? That’s common in California too, more so than expressway or interstate. Which is what you hear on the East Coast.”

Possibly helpful, Rhyme thought. Another brick in the wall of evidence. “On the chart,” he said.

“When I get back I’ll open a formal investigation in my office,” she said. “I’ll put out everything we’ve got statewide. We’ll see what happens. Okay, I better be going. . . . Oh, I’ll be expecting you both out in California sometime soon.”

The aide glanced at Rhyme. “He needs to travel more. He pretends he doesn’t like to but the fact is, once he gets someplace he enjoys it. As long as there’s scotch and some good crime to keep him interested.”

“It’s Northern California,” Dance said. “Wine country, mostly, but not to worry, we have plenty of crime.”

“We’ll see,” Rhyme said noncommittally. Then he added, “But one thing—do me a favor?”

“Sure.

“Shut your cell phone off. I’ll probably be tempted to call you again on the way to the airport if something else comes up.”

“If I didn’t have the children to get back to I might just pick up.”

Sellitto thanked her again and Thom saw her out the door.

Rhyme said, “Ron, make yourself useful.”

The rookie looked at the evidence tables. “I already called about the rope, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Rhyme muttered. “I said useful.” He nodded at the bottle of scotch sitting on a shelf across the room.

“Oh, sure.”

“Make it two,” Sellitto grumbled. “And don’t be stingy.”

Pulaski poured the whiskey and handed out two glasses—Cooper declined. Rhyme said to the rookie, “Don’t neglect yourself.”

“Oh, I’m in uniform.”

Sellitto choked a laugh.

“Okay. Maybe just a little.” He poured and then sipped the potent—and extremely expensive—liquor. “I like it,” he said, though his eyes were telling a different story. “Say, you ever mix in a little ginger ale or Sprite?”

Chapter 42

Before and After.

People move on.

For one reason or another, they move on, and Before becomes After.

Lincoln Rhyme heard these words floating through his head, over and over. Broken record. People move on.

He’d actually used the phrase himself—when he’d told his wife he wanted a divorce, not long after his accident. Their relationship had been rocky for some time and he had decided that whether or not he survived the broken neck, he was going to go forward on his own and not tie her down to the difficult life of a gimp’s wife.

But back then “moving on” meant something very different from what Rhyme was facing now. The life he’d constructed over the past few years, a precarious life, was about to change in a big way. The problem, of course, was that by going to Argyle Security, Sachs wasn’t really moving on. She was moving back.

Sellitto and Cooper were gone and Rhyme and Pulaski were alone in the downstairs lab, parked in front of an examination table, organizing evidence in the 118th Precinct scandal cases. Finally confronted with the evidence—and the fact they’d unwittingly hired a domestic terrorist—Baker, Wallace and Henson copped pleas and were diming out everybody involved at the 118th. (Though nobody would say a word about who’d hooked the Watchmaker up with Baker. Understandable. You simply don’t give up the name of a senior member of an OC crew when you’re headed off to the same prison he might end up in, thanks to your testimony.)

Preparing himself for Sachs’s departure, Rhyme had concluded that Ron Pulaski would eventually be a fine crime scene cop. He had ingenuity and intelligence and was as dogged as Lon Sellitto. Rhyme could wear the rough edges off him in eight months or a year. Together, he and the rookie would run scenes, analyze evidence and find perps, who’d go to jail or die trying not to. The system would keep going. The process of policing was bigger than just one man or woman; it had to be.

Yes, the system would keep going. . . . But it was impossibly hard to imagine that system without Amelia Sachs.

Well, fuck the goddamn sentiment, Rhyme said to himself, and get back to work. He glanced at the evidence board. The Watchmaker’s out there somewhere; I’m going to find him. He is . . . not . . . getting . . . away.

“What?” Pulaski asked.

“I didn’t say anything,” Rhyme snapped.

“Yeah, you did. I just . . . “He fell silent under Rhyme’s withering glare.

Returning to his tasks, Pulaski asked, “The notes I found in Baker’s office? They’re on cheap paper. Should I use ninhydrin to raise the latents?”

Rhyme started to respond.

A woman’s voice said, “No. First you try iodine fuming. Then ninhydrin, then silver nitrate. You have to do it in that order.”

Rhyme looked up to see Sachs in the doorway. He slapped a benign look on his face. Putting on a good front, he praised himself. Being generous. Being mature.

She continued, “If not, the chemicals can react and you can ruin the prints.”

Well, this is awkward, the criminalist thought angrily. He stared at the evidence boards as the silence between them roared like the December wind outside.

She said, “I’m sorry.”

Unusual to hear those words from her; the woman apologized about as often as Lincoln Rhyme did. Which was close to never.

Rhyme didn’t respond. He kept his eyes on the charts.

“Really, I’m sorry.”

Irritated at the greeting card sentiment, he glanced sideways, frowning, barely able to control his anger.

But he saw that she wasn’t speaking to him.

Her eyes were fixed on Pulaski. “I’ll make it up to you somehow. You can run the next scene. I’ll be copilot. Or the next couple of scenes.”

“How’s that?” the rookie asked.

“I know you heard I was leaving.”

He nodded.

“But I’ve changed my mind.”

“You’re not quitting?” Pulaski asked.

“No.”

“Hey, not a problem,” Pulaski said. “Wouldn’t mind sharing the job for a little while more, you know.” His relief at not being the only ant under Lincoln Rhyme’s magnifying glass clearly outweighed any disappointment at getting busted back down to assistant.

Sachs tugged a chair around to face Rhyme.

He said, “I thought you were at Argyle.”

“I was. To turn them down.”

“Can I ask why?”

“I got a call. From Suzanne Creeley. Ben Creeley’s wife. She thanked me for believing her, for finding out who’d really killed her husband. She was crying. She told me that she just couldn’t bear the thought that her husband had killed himself. Murder was terrible but a suicide—that would’ve undermined everything they’d had together over the years.”

Sachs shook her head. “A knot in a rope and a broken thumb . . . I realized that that’s what this job is all about, Rhyme. Not the crap I got caught up in, the politics, my father, Baker and Wallace . . . You can’t make it too complicated. Being a cop is about finding the truth behind a knot and a broken thumb. Nothing more than that.”

You and me, Sachs . . .

“So,” she asked, matter-of-fact, as she nodded toward the boards, “our bad boy—anything new on him?”

Rhyme told her about his present, the Breguet, then summarized: “A rock or mountain climber, possibly trained in Europe. He’s spent time in California, near the shore. And he’s been there recently. May live there now. Good education. Uses proper grammar, syntax and punctuation. And I want to go over every gear in the watch again. He’s a watchmaker, right? That means he’s probably taken the back off to poke around inside. If there’s a molecule of trace, I want it.” Rhyme nodded at the man’s note and added, “He admits he was watching Charlotte’s hotel around the time we collared her. I want every vantage point where he might’ve been standing searched. You’re recruited for that one, Ron.”

“Got it.”

“And don’t forget what we know about him. Maybe he’s gone and maybe he isn’t. Make sure your weapon’s in reach. Outside the Tyvek. Remember—”

“Search well but watch my back?” Pulaski asked.

“An A for retention,” the criminalist said. “Now get to work.”

IV

12:48 P.M. MONDAY

What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.

—SAINT AUGUSTINE

Chapter 43

The December day wasn’t particularly cold but the ancient furnace in Rhyme’s town house was on the fritz and everyone in his ground floor lab huddled in thick jackets. Clouds of steam blew from their mouths with every exhalation, and extremities were bright red. Amelia Sachs wore two sweaters and Pulaski was in a padded green jacket from which dangled Killington ski lift tickets like a veteran soldier’s campaign medals.

A skier cop, Rhyme reflected. That seemed odd, though he couldn’t say why exactly. Maybe something about the dangers of hurtling down a mountain with a hair-trigger 9-millimeter pistol under your bunny suit.

“Where’s the furnace repair guy?” Rhyme snapped to his aide.

“He said he’ll be here between one and five.” Thom was wearing a tweed jacket, which Rhyme had given him last Christmas, and a dark purple cashmere scarf, which had been one of Sachs’s presents.

“Ah, between one and five. One and five. Tell you what. Call him back and—”

“That’s what he told—”

“No, listen. Call him back and tell him we got a report there’s a crazed killer loose in his neighborhood and we’ll be there to catch him between one and five. See how he likes them apples.”

“Lincoln,” the patient aide said. “I don’t—”

“Does he know what we do here? Does he know that we serve and protect? Call him and tell him that.”

Pulaski noted that Thom wasn’t reaching for the phone. He asked, “Uhm, you want me to? Call, I mean?”

Ah, the sincerity of youth . . .

Thom replied to the young officer, “Don’t pay him any attention. He’s like a dog jumping up on you. Ignore him and he’ll stop.”

“A dog?” Rhyme asked. “I’m a dog. That’s a bit ironic, isn’t it, Thom? Since here you are biting the hand that feeds you.” Pleased with the retort, he added, “Tell the repairman I think I’m suffering from hypothermia. I really think I am, by the way.”

“So you can feel—” the rookie asked, his question braking to a halt.

“Yes, I goddamn well can feel uncomfortable, Pulaski.”

“Sorry, wasn’t thinking.”

“Hey,” Thom said, laughing. “Congratulations!”

“What’s that?” the rookie asked.

“You’ve graduated to last-name basis. He’s beginning to think of you as a step above a slug. . . . That’s how he refers to the people he really likes. I, for instance, am merely Thom. Forever Thom.”

“But,” Sachs said to the rookie, “tell him you’re sorry again and you’ll be demoted.”

The doorbell sounded a moment later and first-name Thom went to answer it.

Rhyme glanced at the clock. The time was 1:02. Could it be that a repairman was actually prompt?

But, of course, this wasn’t the case. It was Lon Sellitto, who walked inside, started to take his coat off, then changed his mind. He glanced at his breath billowing from his mouth. “Jesus, Linc, with what the city coughs up for you, you can afford to pay your heating bill, you know. Is that coffee? Is it hot?”

Thom poured him a cup and Sellitto clutched it in one hand as he opened his briefcase with the other. “Finally got it.” He nodded at what he now extracted, an old Redweld folder disfigured with faded ink and pencil notations, many of the entries crossed out, evidence of years of frugal municipal government reuse.

“The Luponte file?” Rhyme asked.

“That’s it.”

“I wanted it last week,” the criminalist grumbled, the inside of his nose stinging from the cold. Maybe he’d tell the repairman he’d pay the bill in one to five months. He glanced at the folder. “I’d almost given up. I know how much you love clichés, Lon. Does the phrase ‘day late and a dollar short’ come to mind?”

“Naw,” the detective said amiably, “the one I’m thinking of is ‘If you do somebody a favor and they complain, then fuck ’em.’”

“That’s a good one,” conceded Lincoln Rhyme.

“Anyway, you didn’t tell me how classified it was. I had to find that out on my own, and I needed Ron Scott to track it down.”

Rhyme was staring at the detective as he opened the file and browsed through it. He felt an acute sense of uneasiness, wondering what he would find inside. Could be good, could be devastating. “There should be an official report. Find it.”

Sellitto dug through the folder. He held up the document. On the cover was an old typewritten label that read Anthony C. Luponte, Deputy Commissioner. The folder was sealed with a fading piece of red tape that said, Classified.

“Should I open it?” he asked.

Rhyme rolled his eyes.

“Linc, tell me when the good mood’s going to kick in, will you?”

“Put it on the turning frame. Please and thank you.”

Sellitto ripped open the tape and handed the booklet to Thom.

The aide mounted the report in a device like a cookbook holder, to which was attached a rubber armature that turned the pages when instructed by a tiny movement from Rhyme’s finger on his ECU touch pad. He now began to flip through the document, reading and trying to quell the tension within him.

“Luponte?” Sachs looked up from an evidence table.

Another page turned. “That’s it.”

He kept reading paragraph after paragraph of dense city government talk.

Oh, come on, he thought angrily. Get to the goddamn point. . . .

Would the message be good or bad?

“Something about the Watchmaker?” Sachs asked.

So far, there’d been no leads to the man, either in New York or in California, where Kathryn Dance had started her own investigation.

Rhyme said, “It doesn’t have anything to do with him.”

Sachs shook her head. “But that’s why you wanted it.”

“No, you assumed that’s why I wanted it.”

“What’s it about then, one of the other cases?” she asked. Her eyes went to the evidence boards, which revealed the progress of several cold cases they’d been investigating.

“Not those.”

“Then what?”

“I could tell you a lot sooner if I wasn’t interrupted so much.”

Sachs sighed.

At last he came to the section he sought. He paused, looked out the window at the stark brown branches populating Central Park. He believed in his heart that the report would tell him what he wanted to hear but Lincoln Rhyme was a scientist before all else and distrusted the heart.

Truth is the only goal. . . .

What truths would the words reveal to him?

He looked back at the frame and read the passage quickly. Then again.

After a moment he said to Sachs, “I want to read you something.”

“Okay. I’m listening.”

His right finger moved on the touch pad and the pages flipped back. “This is from the first page. Listening?”

“I said I was.”

“Good. ‘This proceeding is and shall be kept secret. From June eighteenth to June twenty-ninth, ninety seventy-four, a dozen New York City police officers were indicted by a grand jury for extorting money from shopkeepers and businessmen in Manhattan and Brooklyn and accepting bribes to fail to pursue criminal investigations. Additionally, four officers were indicted for assault pursuant to these acts of extortion. Those twelve officers were members of what was known as the Sixteenth Avenue Club, a name that has become synonymous with the heinous crime of police corruption.’”

Rhyme heard Sachs take a fast breath. He looked up and found her staring at the file the way a child stares at a snake in the backyard.

He continued reading. “ ‘There is no trust greater than that between the citizens of these United States and the law enforcement officers who are charged with protecting them. The officers of the Sixteenth Avenue Club committed an inexcusable breach of this sacred trust and not only perpetuated the crimes they were meant to prevent but brought inestimable shame upon their courageous and self-sacrificing brothers and sisters in uniform.

“ ‘Accordingly, I, the Mayor of the City of New York, hereby bestow upon the following officers the Medal for Valor for their efforts in bringing these criminals to justice: Patrolman Vincent Pazzini, Patrolman Herman Sachs and Detective Third-Grade Lawrence Koepel.’”

“What?” Sachs whispered.

Rhyme continued reading. “Each of these officers risked his life on a number of occasions by working undercover to provide information instrumental in identifying the perpetrators and gathering evidence to be used in their trials. Because of the dangerous nature of this assignment, these commendations are being presented in a closed proceeding, and this record will be sealed, for the safety of these three courageous officers and their families. But they should rest assured that, although the praises for their efforts are not being sung in public, the gratitude of the city is no less.’”

Amelia Sachs was staring at him. “He—?”

Rhyme nodded at the file. “Your father was one of the good guys, Sachs. He was one of the three who got away. Only they weren’t perps; they were working for Internal Affairs. He was to the Sixteenth Avenue Club just what you were to the St. James crew, only he was undercover.”

“How did you know?”

“I didn’t know. I remembered something about the Luponte report and the corruption trials but I didn’t know your father was involved. That’s why I wanted to see it.”

“How ’bout that,” Sellitto said through a mouthful of coffee cake.

“Keep looking, Lon. There’s something else.”

The detective dug through the folder and found a certificate and a medal. It was an NYPD Medal for Valor, one of the highest commendations given by the department. Sellitto handed it to Sachs. Her full lips parted, eyes squinting, as she read the unframed parchment document, which bore her father’s name. The decoration swung from her unsteady fingers.

“Hey, that’s sweet,” said Pulaski, pointing at the certificate. “Look at all those scrolls and things.”

Rhyme nodded toward the folder on the turning frame. “It’s all in there, Sachs. His handler at Internal Affairs had to make sure that the other cops believed him. He gave your dad a couple thousand a month to spread around, make it seem like he was on the take too. He had to be credible—if anybody thought he was an informant, he could’ve been killed, especially with Tony Gallante involved. IAD started a fake investigation on him so it’d look believable. That’s the case they dropped for insufficient evidence. They worked out a deal with Crime Scene so that the chain-of-custody cards were lost.”

Sachs lowered her head. Then she gave a soft laugh. “Dad was always the modest one. It was just like him—the highest commendation he ever got was secret. He never said a thing about it.”

“You can read all the details. Your father said he’d wear a wire, he’d give all the information they needed about Gallante and the other capos involved. But he’d never testify in open court. He wasn’t going to jeopardize you and your mother.”

She was staring at the medal, which swung back and forth—like a pendulum of a clock, Rhyme thought wryly.

Finally Lon Sellitto rubbed his hands together. “Listen, glad for the happy news,” he grumbled. “But how ’bout we get the hell out of here and go over to Manny’s. I could use some lunch. And, guess what? I’ll bet they pay their heating bill.”

“I’d love to,” Rhyme said, with a sincerity that he believed masked his absolute lack of desire to be outside, negotiating the icy streets in his wheelchair. “But I’m writing an op ed piece for the Times.” He nodded at his computer. “Besides, I have to wait here for the repairman.” He shook his head. “One to five.”

Thom started to say something—undoubtedly to urge Rhyme to go anyway—but it was Sachs who said, “Sorry. Other plans.”

Rhyme said, “If it involves ice and snow, I’m not interested.” He supposed she and the girl, Pammy Willoughby, were planning another outing with the girl’s adoptee, Jackson the Havanese.

But Amelia Sachs apparently had a different agenda. “It does,” she said. “Involve snow and ice, I mean.” She laughed and kissed him on the mouth. “But what it doesn’t involve is you.”

“Thank God,” Lincoln Rhyme said, blowing a stream of wispy breath toward the ceiling and turning back to the computer screen.

“You.”

“Hey, Detective, how you doing?” Amelia Sachs asked.

Art Snyder gazed at her from the doorway of his bungalow. He looked better than when she’d seen him last—when he was lying in the backseat of his van. He wasn’t any less angry, though. His red eyes were fixed on hers.

But when your profession involves getting shot at from time to time, a few glares mean nothing. Sachs gave a smile. “I just came by to say thanks.”

“Yeah, for what?” He held a coffee mug that clearly didn’t contain coffee. She saw that a number of bottles had reappeared on the sideboard. She noted too that none of the Home Depot projects had progressed.

“We closed the St. James case.”

“Yeah, I heard.”

“Kind of cold out here, Detective,” she said.

“Honey?” A stocky woman with short brown hair and a cheerful, resilient face called from the kitchen doorway.

“Just somebody from department.”

“Well, invite her in. I’ll make coffee.”

“She’s a busy lady,” Snyder said sourly. “Running all over town, doing all kinds of things, asking questions. She probably can’t stay.”

“I’m freezing my ass off out here.”

“Art! Let her in.”

He sighed, turned and walked inside, leaving Sachs to follow him and close the door herself. She dropped her coat on a chair.

Snyder’s wife joined them. The women shook hands. “Give her the comfy chair, Art,” she scolded.

Sachs sat in the well-worn Barcalounger, Snyder on the couch, which sighed under his weight. He left the volume up on the TV, which displayed a frantic, high-definition basketball game.

His wife brought two cups of coffee.

“None for me,” Snyder said, looking at the mug.

“I’ve already poured it. You want me to throw it out? Waste good coffee?” She left it on the table beside him and returned to the kitchen, where garlic was frying.

Sachs sipped the strong coffee in silence, Snyder staring at ESPN. His eyes followed a basketball from its launchpad outside the three-point line; his fist clenched minutely when it swished in.

A commercial came on. He changed channels to celebrity poker.

Sachs remembered that Kathryn Dance had mentioned the power of silence in getting somebody to talk. She sat, sipping, looking at him, not saying a word.

Finally, irritated, Snyder asked, “The St. James thing?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I read it was Dennis Baker behind it. And the deputy mayor.”

“Yep.”

“I met Baker a few times. Seemed okay. Him being on the bag surprised me.” Concern crossed Snyder’s face. “Homicides too? Sarkowski and that other guy?”

She nodded. “And an attempt.” She didn’t share that she herself had been the potential victim.

He shook his head. “Money’s one thing. But offing people . . . that’s a whole different ball game.”

Amen.

Snyder asked, “Was one of perps that guy I told you about? Had a place in Maryland or something?”

She figured that he deserved some credit. “That was Wallace. But it wasn’t a place. It was a thing.” Sachs explained about Wallace’s boat.

He gave a sour laugh. “No kidding. The Maryland Monroe? That’s a pisser.”

Sachs said, “Might not’ve broken the case if you hadn’t helped.”

Snyder had a millisecond of satisfaction. Then he remembered he was mad. He made a point of rising, with a sigh, and filling his mug with more whiskey. He sat down again. His coffee remained untouched. He channel-surfed some more.

“Can I ask you something?”

“I can stop you?” he muttered.

“You said you knew my father. Not many people’re still around who did. I just wanted to ask you about him.”

“The Sixteenth Avenue Club?”

“Nope. Don’t want to know about that.”

Snyder said, “He was lucky he got away.”

“Sometimes you dodge the bullet.”

“At least he cleaned up his act later. Heard he never got into any trouble after that.”

“You said you worked with him. He didn’t talk much about his job. I always wondered what it was like back then. Thought I’d write down a few things.”

“For his grandkids?”

“Something like that.”

Reluctantly Snyder said, “We never were partners.”

“But you knew him.”

A hesitation. “Yeah.”

“Just tell me: What was the story on that commander . . . the crazy one? I always wanted to know the scoop.”

“Which crazy one?” Snyder scoffed. “There were plenty.”

“The one who sent the tactical team to the wrong apartment?”

“Oh. Caruthers?”

“I think that was him. Dad was one of the portables holding off the hostage-taker until ESU found the right place.”

“Yeah, yeah. I was on that. What an asshole, Caruthers. The putz . . . Thank God nobody was hurt. Oh, and that was the same day he forgot the batteries in his bullhorn. . . . One other thing about him: He’d send his boots out to be polished. He’d have the rookies do it, you know. And he’d tip ’em, like, a nickel. I mean, tipping uniforms is weird to start. But then five goddamn cents?”

The TV volume came down a few bars. Snyder laughed. “Hey, you wanta hear one story?”

“You bet.”

“Well, your dad and me and a bunch of us, off duty, were going to the Garden, see a fight or game or something. And this kid comes up with a zip gun—you know what that is?”

She did. She said she didn’t.

“Like a homemade gun. Holds a single twenty-two shell. And this poor fuck mugs us, you can believe it. He sticks us up right in the middle of Three-four Street. We’re handing over wallets. Then your dad drops his billfold, accidental on purpose, you know what I’m saying? And the kid bends down to pick it up. When he stands up he shits—he’s staring right into the muzzles of our pieces, four Smitties, cocked and ready to unload. The look on that kid’s face . . . He said, ‘Guess it ain’t my day.’ Is that classic or what? ‘Guess it ain’t my day.’ Man, we laughed all night about that. . . .” His face broke into a smile. “Oh, and one other thing . . .”

As he talked, Sachs nodded and encouraged him. In reality she knew many of these stories. Herman Sachs wasn’t the least reluctant to talk to his daughter about his job. They’d spend hours in the garage, working on a transmission or fuel pump, while stories of a cop’s life on the streets reeled past—planting the seeds for her own future.

But of course she wasn’t here to learn family history. No, this was simply an officer-needs-assistance call, a 10-13 of the heart. Sachs had decided that former detective Art Snyder wasn’t going down. If his supposed friends didn’t want to see him because he’d helped nail the St. James crew, then she’d set him up with plenty of cops who would: herself, Sellitto, Rhyme and Ron Pulaski, Fred Dellray, Roland Bell, Nancy Simpson, Frank Rettig, a dozen others.

She asked him more questions and he replied—sometimes eagerly, sometimes with irritation, sometimes distracted, but always giving her something. A couple of times Snyder rose and refilled his mug with liquor and frequently he’d glance at his watch and then at her, his meaning clear: Don’t you have someplace else to be?

But she just sat back comfortably in the Barcalounger, asked her questions and even told a few war stories of her own. Amelia Sachs wasn’t going anywhere; she had all the time in the world.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Authors are only as good as the friends and fellow professionals around them, and I’m extremely fortunate to be surrounded by a truly wonderful ensemble: Will and Tina Anderson, Alex Bonham, Louise Burke, Robby Burroughs, Britt Carlson, Jane Davis, Julie Reece Deaver, John Gilstrap, Cathy Gleason, Jamie Hodder-Williams, Kate Howard, Emma Longhurst, Diana Mackay, Joshua Martino, Carolyn Mays, Tara Parsons, Seba Pezzani, Carolyn Reidy, Ornella Robbiati, David Rosenthal, Marysue Rucci, Deborah Schneider, Vivienne Schuster, Brigitte Smith, Kevin Smith and Alexis Taines.

Special gratitude, as always, to Madelyn Warcholik.

Those interested in the subject of watchmaking and watch collecting will enjoy Michael Korda’s compact and lyrical Marking Time.

Turn the page for an excerpt from

XO

Featuring body language expert Agent Kathryn Dance, the star of four novels by internationally bestselling Master of the Mind Game Jeffery Deaver

Available June 2012 as an e-book from Simon & Schuster

Subject: Re: You’re the Best!!!

From: noreply@kayleightownemusic.com

To: EdwinSharp18474@anon.com

2 January 10:32 a.m.

Hey there,

Edwin—

Thanks for your email! I’m so glad you liked my latest album! Your support means the world to me. Be sure you go to my website and sign up to get my newsletter and learn about new releases and upcoming concerts, and don’t forget to follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

And keep an eye out for the mail. I sent you that autographed photo you requested!

XO,

Kayleigh

* * *

Subject: Unbelievable!!!!!

From: EdwinSharp26535@anon.com

To: ktowne7788@compserve.com

3 September 5:10 a.m.

Hi, Kayleigh:

I am totally blown away. I’m rendered speechless. And, you know me pretty good by now—for me to be speechless, that’s something!! Anyway, here’s the story: I downloaded your new album last night and listened to “Your Shadow.” Whoahhh! It’s without doubt the best song I have ever heard. I mean of anything ever written. I even like it better than “It’s Going to Be Different This Time.” I’ve told you nobody’s ever expressed how I feel about loneliness and life and well everything better than you. And that song does that totally. But more important I can see what you’re saying, your plea for help. It’s all clear now. Don’t worry. You’re not alone, Kayleigh!!

I’ll be your shadow. Forever.

XO, Edwin

* * *

Subject: Fwd: Unbelievable!!!!!

From: Samuel.King@CrowellSmithWendall.com

To: EdwinSharp26535@anon.com

3 September 10:34 a.m.

Mr. Sharp:

Ms. Alicia Sessions, personal assistant to our clients Kayleigh Towne and her father, Bishop Towne, forwarded us your email of this morning. You have sent more than 50 emails and letters since we contacted you two months ago, urging you not to have any contact with Ms. Towne or any of her friends and family. We are extremely troubled that you have found her private email address (which has been changed, I should tell you), and are looking into possible violations of state and federal laws regarding how you obtained such address.

Once again, we must tell you that we feel your behavior is completely inappropriate and possibly actionable. We urge you in the strongest terms possible to heed this warning. As we’ve said repeatedly, Ms. Towne’s security staff and local law enforcement officials have been notified of your repeated, intrusive attempts to contact her and we are fully prepared to take whatever steps are necessary to put an end to this alarming behavior.

Samuel King, Esq.

Crowell, Smith & Wendall, Attorneys-at-Law

* * *

Subject: See you soon!!!

From: EdwinSharp26535@anon.com

To: KST33486@westerninternet.com

5 September 11:43 p.m.

Hi, Kayleigh—

Got your new email address. I know what they’re up to but DON’T worry, it’ll be all right.

I’m lying in bed, listening to you right now. I feel like I’m literally your shadow. . . And you’re mine. You are so wonderful!

I don’t know if you had a chance to think about it—you’re sooooo busy, I know!—but I’ll ask again—if you wanted to send me some of your hair that’d be so cool. I know you haven’t cut it for ten years and four months (it’s one of those things that makes you so beautiful!!!) but maybe there’s one from your brush. Or better yet your pillow. I’ll treasure it forever.

Can’t WAIT for the concert next Friday. C U soon.

Yours forever,

XO, Edwin

Chapter 1

THE HEART OF a concert hall is people.

And when the vast space is dim and empty, as this one was at the moment, a venue can bristle with impatience, indifference.

Even hostility.

Okay, rein in that imagination, Kayleigh Towne told herself. Stop acting like a kid. Standing on the wide, scuffed stage of the Fresno Conference Center’s main hall, she surveyed the place once more, bringing her typically hypercritical eye to the task of preparing for Friday’s concert, considering and reconsidering lighting and stage movements and where the members of the band should stand and sit. Where best to walk out near, though not into, the crowd and touch hands and blow kisses. Where best acoustically to place the foldback speakers—the monitors that were pointed toward the band so they could hear themselves without echoes or distortion. Many performers now used earbuds for this; Kayleigh liked the immediacy of traditional foldbacks.

There were a hundred other details to think about. She believed that every performance should be perfect, more than perfect. Every audience deserved the best. One hundred ten percent.

She had, after all, grown up in Bishop Towne’s shadow.

An unfortunate choice of word, Kayleigh now reflected.

I’ll be your shadow. Forever. . . .

Back to the planning. This show had to be different from the previous one here, about eight months ago. A retooled program was especially important since many of the fans would have regularly attended her hometown concerts and she wanted to make sure they got something unexpected. That was one thing about Kayleigh Towne’s music; her audiences weren’t as big as some but were loyal as golden retrievers. They knew her lyrics cold, knew her guitar licks, knew her moves onstage and laughed at her shtick before she finished the lines. They lived and breathed her performances, hung on her words, knew her bio and likes and dislikes.

And some wanted to know much more . . .

With that thought, her heart and gut clenched as if she’d stepped into Hensley Lake in January.

Thinking about him, of course.

Then she froze, gasping. Yes, someone was watching her from the far end of the hall! Where none of the crew would be.

Shadows were moving.

Or was it her imagination? Or maybe her eyesight? Kayleigh had been given perfect pitch and an angelic voice but God had decided enough was enough and skimped big-time on the vision. She squinted, adjusted her glasses. She was sure that someone was hiding, rocking back and forth in the doorway that led to the storage area for the concession stands.

Then the movement stopped.

She decided it wasn’t movement at all and never had been. Just a hint of light, a suggestion of shading.

Though still, she heard a series of troubling clicks and snaps and groans—from where, she couldn’t tell—and felt a chill of panic bubble up her spine.

Him . . .

The man who had written her hundreds of emails and letters, intimate, delusional, speaking of the life they could share together, asking for a strand of hair, a fingernail clipping. The man who had somehow gotten near enough at a dozen shows to take close-up pictures of Kayleigh, without anyone ever seeing him. The man who had possibly—though it had never been proven—slipped into the band buses or motor homes on the road and stolen articles of her clothing, underwear included.

The man who had sent her dozen of pictures of himself: shaggy hair, fat, in clothing that looked unwashed. Never obscene but, curiously, the images were all the more disturbing for their familiarity. They were the shots a boyfriend would text her from a trip.

Him . . .

Her father had recently hired a personal bodyguard, a huge man with a round, bullet-shaped head and an occasional curly wire sprouting from his ear to make clear what his job was. But Darthur Morgan was outside at the moment, making the rounds and checking cars. His security plan also included a nice touch: simply being visible so that potential stalkers would turn around and leave rather than risk a confrontation with a 250-pound man who looked like a rapper with an attitude (which, sure enough, he’d been in his teen years).

She scanned the recesses of the hall again—the best place he might stand and watch her. Then gritting her teeth in anger at her fear and mostly at her failure to tame the uneasiness and distraction, she thought, Get. Back. To. Work.

And what’re you worried about? You’re not alone. The band wasn’t in town yet—they were finishing some studio work in Nashville—but Bobby was at the huge Midas XL8 mixing console dominating the control deck in the back of the hall, two hundred feet away. Alicia was getting the rehearsal rooms in order. A couple of the beefy guys in Bobby’s road crew were unpacking the truck in the back, assembling and organizing the hundreds of cases and tools and props and plywood sheets and stands and wires and amps and instruments and computers and tuners—the tons of gear that even modest touring bands like Kayleigh’s needed.

She supposed one of them could get to her in a hurry if the source of the shadow had been him.

Dammit, quit making him more than he is! Him, him, him, like you’re even afraid to say his name. As if to utter it would conjure up his presence.

She’d had other obsessed fans, plenty of them—what gorgeous singer-songwriter with a voice from heaven wouldn’t collect a few inappropriate admirers? She’d had twelve marriage proposals from men she’d never met, three from women. A dozen couples wanted to adopt her, thirty or so teen girls wanted to be her best friend, a thousand men wanted to buy her a drink or dinner at Bob Evans or the Mandarin Oriental . . . and there’d been plenty of invitations to enjoy a wedding night without the inconvenience of a wedding. Hey Kayleigh think on it cause Ill show you a good time better than you ever had and by the by heres a picture of what you can expect yah its really me not bad huh???

(Very stupid idea to send a picture like that to a seventeen-year-old, Kayleigh’s age at the time. By the by.)

Usually she was cautiously amused by the attention. But not always and definitely not now. Kayleigh found herself snagging her denim jacket from a nearby chair and pulling it on to cover her T-shirt, providing another barrier to any prying eyes. This, despite the characteristic September heat in Fresno, which filled the murky venue like thin stew.

And more of those clicks and taps from nowhere.

“Kayleigh?”

She turned quickly, trying to hide her slight jump, even though she recognized the voice.

A solidly built woman of around thirty paused halfway across the stage. She had cropped red hair and some subdued inking on arms, shoulders and spine, partly visible thanks to her trim tank top and tight, hip-hugging black jeans. Fancy cowboy boots. “Didn’t mean to scare you. You okay?”

“You didn’t. What’s up?” she asked Alicia Sessions.

A nod toward the iPad she carried. “These just came in. Proofs for the new posters? If we get them to the printer today we’ll definitely have them by the show. They look okay to you?”

Kayleigh bent over the screen and examined them. Music nowadays is only partly about music, of course. Probably always has been, she supposed, but it seemed that as her popularity had grown, the business side of her career took up a lot more time than it used to. She didn’t have much interest in these matters but she generally didn’t need to. Her father was her manager, Alicia handled the day-to-day paperwork and scheduling, the lawyers read the contracts, the record company made arrangements with the recording studios and the CD production companies and the retail and download outlets; her longtime producer and friend at BHRC Records, Barry Zeigler, handled the technical side of arranging and production, and Bobby and the crew set up and ran the shows.

All so that Kayleigh Towne could do what she did best: write songs and sing them.

Still, one business matter of interest to her was making sure fans— many of them young or without much money—could buy cheap but decent memorabilia to make the night of the concert that much more special. Posters like this one, T-shirts, key chains, bracelets, charms, guitar chord books, headbands, backpacks . . . and mugs, for the moms and dads driving the youngsters to and from the shows and, of course, often buying the tickets, as well.

She studied the proofs. The image was of Kayleigh and her favorite Martin guitar—not a big dreadnought-size but a smaller, 000-18, ancient, with a crisp yellowing spruce top and a voice of its own. The photo was the inside picture from her latest album, Your Shadow.

Him . . .

No, don’t.

Eyes scanning the doors again.

“You sure you’re okay?” Alicia asked, voice buzzing with a faint Texas twang.

“Yeah.” Kayleigh returned to the poster proofs, which all featured the same photo though with different type, messages and background. Her picture was a straight-on shot, depicting her much as she saw herself: at five-two, shorter than she would have liked, her face a bit long, but with stunning blue eyes, lashes that wouldn’t quit and lips that had some reporters talking collagen. As if. . . Her trademark golden hair, four feet long—and no, not cut, only trimmed, in ten years and four months— flowed in the fake gentle breeze from the photographer’s electric fan. Designer jeans and high-collared dark-red blouse. A small diamond crucifix.

“You gotta give the fans the package,” Bishop Towne always said. “That’s visual too, I’m talking. And the standards’re different ’tween men and women. You get into trouble, you deny it.” He meant that in the country music world a man could get away with a look like Bishop’s own: jutting belly, cigarette, a lined, craggy face riddled with stubble, wrinkled shirt, scuffed boots and faded jeans. A woman singer, he lectured— though he really intended to say “girl”—had to be put together for date night. And in Kayleigh’s case that meant a church social, of course: the good girl next door was the image on which she’d built her career. Sure, the jeans could be a little tight, the blouses and sweaters could closely hug her round chest, but the necklines were high. The makeup was subtle and leaned toward pinks.

“Go with them.”

“Great.” Alicia shut off the device. A slight pause. “I haven’t gotten your father’s okay yet.”

“They’re good,” the singer reassured her, nodding at the iPad.

“Sure. I’ll just run it by him. You know.”

Now Kayleigh paused. Then: “Okay.”

“Acoustics good here?” asked Alicia, who had been a performer herself; she had quite a voice and a love of music, which was undoubtedly why she’d taken a job for someone like Kayleigh Towne, when the efficient, no-nonsense woman could have earned twice as much as a personal assistant for a corporate executive. She’d signed on last spring and had never heard the band perform here.

“Oh, the sound is great,” Kayleigh said enthusiastically, glancing at the ugly concrete walls. “You wouldn’t think it.” She explained how the designers of the venue, back in the 1960s, had done their homework; too many concert halls—even sophisticated ones intended for classical music—had been built by people without confidence in the natural ability of musical instruments and voices to reach the farthest seats with “direct volume,” that is, the sound emanating from the stage. Architects would add angular surfaces and free-standing shapes to boost the volume of the music, which did that but also sent the vibrations in a hundred different directions. This resulted in every performer’s acoustic nightmare, reverberation: in effect, echoes upon echoes that yielded muddy, sometimes even off-key, sounds.

Here, in modest Fresno, Kayleigh explained to Alicia, as her father had to her, the designers had trusted in the power and purity of the voice and drum skin and sounding board and reed and string. She was about to ask the assistant to join her in a chorus of one of her songs to prove her point—Alicia did great harmonies—when she noticed her looking toward the back of the hall. She assumed the woman was bored with the scientific discussion. But the frowning gaze suggested something else was on her mind.

“What?” Kayleigh asked.

“Isn’t it just us and Bobby?”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought I saw somebody.” She lifted a finger tipped in a black-painted nail. “That doorway. There.”

Just where Kayleigh herself had thought she’d seen the shadow ten minutes before.

Palms sweating, absently touching her phone, Kayleigh stared at the changing shapes in the back of the hall.

Yes . . . no. She just couldn’t tell.

Then shrugging her broad shoulders, one of them sporting a tattoo of a snake in red and green, Alicia said, “Hm. Guess not. Whatever it was it’s gone now. . . . Okay, see you later. The restaurant at one?”

“Yeah, sure.”

Kayleigh listened absently to the thumping of boots as she left and continued to stare at the black doorways.

Angrily, she suddenly whispered, “Edwin Sharp.”

There I’ve said his name.

“Edwin, Edwin, Edwin.”

Now that I’ve conjured you up, listen here: Get the hell out of my concert hall! I’ve got work to do.

And she turned away from the shadowy, gaping doorway from which, of course, no one was leering at her at all. She stepped to center stage, looking over the masking tape on the dusty wood, blocking out where she would stand at different points during the concert.

It was then that she heard a man’s voice crying from the back of the hall, “Kayleigh!” It was Bobby, now rising from behind the mixing console, knocking his chair over and ripping off his hard-shell earphones. He waved to her with one hand and pointed to a spot over her head with another. “Look out! . . . No, Kayleigh!”

She glanced up fast and saw one of the strip lights—a seven-foot Colortran unit—falling free of its mounting and swinging toward the stage by its thick electric cable.

Stepping back instinctively, she tripped over a guitar stand she hadn’t remembered was behind her.

Tumbling, arms flailing, gasping . . .

The young woman hit the stage hard, on her tailbone. The massive light plummeted toward her, a deadly pendulum, growing bigger and bigger. She tried desperately to rise but fell back, blinded as the searing beams from the thousand-watt bulbs turned her way.

Then everything went black.

JEFFERY DEAVER is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-six suspense novels, and the originator of the acclaimed detective hero Lincoln Rhyme, featured in the bestsellers The Broken Window, The Cold Moon, The Twelfth Card, The Vanished Man, The Stone Monkey, The Empty Chair, The Coffin Dancer, and The Bone Collector. In several recent novels, he introduced two new dynamic thriller stars: investigative agent Kathryn Dance headlines Roadside Crosses and The Sleeping Doll; sheriff’s deputy Brynn McKenzie debuted in The Bodies Left Behind, winner of the 2009 Best Novel of the Year Award from the International Thriller Writers organization. As William Jefferies, he is the author of Shallow Graves, Bloody River Blues, and Hell’s Kitchen. His short fiction is anthologized in two collections from Pocket Books: Twisted and More Twisted.

He’s been nominated for six Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony Award, and a Gumshoe Award, and was recently shortlisted for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best International Author. He is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. He has also won a Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year for Garden of Beasts and a Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers’ Association. His thriller The Cold Moon won a Grand Prix from the Japanese Adventure Fiction Association and was named Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers Association of Japan. His novel The Bone Collector became a Universal Pictures feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. A former attorney, Deaver has been hailed as “the best psychological thriller writer around” (The Times, London).

Visit his website at www.jefferydeaver.com.

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ALSO BY JEFFERY DEAVER

Carte Blanche

Edge

The Burning Wire*

Best American Mystery Stories 2009 (Editor)

The Watch List (The Copper Bracelet and

The Chopin Manuscript) (Contributor)

Roadside Crosses**

The Bodies Left Behind

The Broken Window*

The Sleeping Doll**

More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two

The Cold Moon*/**

The Twelfth Card*

Garden of Beasts

Twisted: Collected Stories

The Vanished Man*

The Stone Monkey*

The Blue Nowhere

The Empty Chair*

Speaking in Tongues

The Devil’s Teardrop

The Coffin Dancer*

The Bone Collector*

A Maiden’s Grave

Praying for Sleep

The Lesson of Her Death

Mistress of Justice

Hard News

Death of a Blue Movie Star

Manhattan Is My Beat

Hell’s Kitchen

Bloody River Blues

Shallow Graves

A Century of Great Suspense Stories (Editor)

A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor)

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Introduction)

*Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs

**Featuring Kathryn Dance

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ISBN 978-1-4165-5000-6

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Simon & Schuster

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2006 by Jeffery Deaver

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