The Sleeping Doll

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 sound-track 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 push-pins, 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 amp; 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 amp;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.