Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

They’d been going out for a while now, ever since she’d hired him to assist on a case involving computers.

As he offloaded containers of moussaka, octopus, taramasalata and the rest, he noted her arm. ‘What happened there?’

She frowned and followed his gaze. ‘Oh.’ Her watch, crystal shattered. ‘The Serrano thing.’ She explained about the run-in at CBI, when the young man had fled after the interview.

‘You all right?’ His gentle eyes narrowed.

‘No danger. I just didn’t fall as elegantly as I should have.’

She grimaced as she examined the broken glass. The watch had been a Christmas present from friends in New York, the famed criminalist Lincoln Rhyme and his partner, Amelia Sachs. She’d helped them out on a case a few years ago, involving a brilliant for-hire criminal known as the Watchmaker. She undid the dark-green leather strap and set the damaged watch on the mantel. She’d look into getting it repaired soon.

Boling called, ‘Mags?’

Dance saw her daughter leap up and run to the doorway. The child wrinkled her brow. Then called, ‘ Geia! ’

Boling nodded. ‘ Kalos! ’

Dance laughed.

He said, ‘Thought we should learn a little Greek in honor of dinner. Where’s Wes?’

‘Outside with Donnie.’

Boling did a fair amount of baby-sitting too; his teaching load was light, and as a consultant he could work here, there, anywhere. He knew as much about the children’s schedule and friends as Dance did. ‘Seems like a nice boy, Donnie. Year older, right?’

‘Thirteen, yes.’

‘His parents picked him up once. Mother’s sweet. Dad doesn’t say much.’ Boling frowned. ‘Was wondering. Whatever happened to Rashiv? He and Wes seemed pretty tight for a while. He was brilliant. Math, phew.’

‘Don’t know. Kids move on.’ Wes, whom Dance had always thought mature for his age, had recently gravitated to Donnie and an older crowd. Rashiv, she recalled, was a year younger than her son. Maggie, who’d always been a bit of a loner, had started hanging out with a group of four girls in her grade school (to Dance’s further surprise, the popular ones, two contestants in National American Miss pageants, one a would-be cheerleader).

Boling opened some wine and passed out glasses to the adults.

The doorbell.

‘I’ll get it!’ Maggie charged forward.

‘Hold on, Mags.’ Boling knew that Dance was involved in several potentially dangerous cases and quickly walked there with the child. He peeked out, then let Maggie unlock the door.

The guests were dear family friends. Steven Cahill, about Boling’s age, was wearing a poncho. His salt-and-pepper ponytail dangled and he’d recently grown a David Crosby droopy moustache. Beside him was Martine Christensen. Despite the name she had no Scandinavian blood. She was dark-complexioned and voluptuous, descended in part from the original inhabitants of the area: Ohlone Indian, the loose affiliation of tribelets hunting and gathering from Big Sur to San Francisco Bay.

Steve and Martine’s children, twin boys a year younger than Maggie, followed them up the front steps, one toting his mother’s guitar case, the other a batch of brownies. Maggie shepherded the twins and the two dogs down to the backyard, below the Deck. Dance smiled, noting she had shot a fast aside to her brother, undoubtedly about how wrong male-exclusive games were. The older boys ignored her.

The younger children and the canines struck up an impromptu and chaotic game of Frisbee football.

The adults congregated around the large picnic table on the Deck.

This was the social center of the house — indeed, of the lives of many people Dance knew, family and friends. The twenty-by-thirty-foot expanse, extending from the kitchen into the backyard, was populated by mismatched lawn chairs, loungers and tables. Christmas lights, some amber globes, up-lights, a sink and a large refrigerator were the main decorations. Some planters, too, though the flowers struggled. Beneath, in the backyard, you could find scrub oak and maple trees, grasses, monkey flowers, asters, lupins, potato vines and clover. Some veggies tried to survive but the slugs were merciless.

The Deck had been the site of hundreds of parties, big ones and small ones, and quiet family meals or cocoa nights, just the four of them. Then, more recently, the three. Her husband had proposed to her there, and Dance had eulogized him in virtually the same spot.

The evening was dank so Dance cranked up the propane heater, which exhaled cozy air. The adults sat around the table and had wine, juice or water and talked about... well, everything. That was one enduring quality of the Deck. Any topic was fair game. And it was here that all of the town’s, state’s, country’s and world’s problems were solved, over and over.

Martine asked, lowering her voice, ‘You heard about Solitude Creek?’

‘I’m working it,’ Dance said.

‘No!’

‘Katie,’ her father said, ‘be careful.’ As parents would do.

Steve said, ‘The company’ll be out of business, the trucking company. And the driver, he should get jail time, don’t you think?’

Dance said, ‘It’s not for public consumption yet. Please don’t say anything.’ She didn’t bother to wait for nods of agreement. ‘It wasn’t the truck driver. And it wasn’t an accident.’

‘How do you mean?’ Martine asked.

‘We’re still looking into it, but somebody got into the truck and drove it against the doors to block them, then started a fire nearby to send everybody into a panic.’ A glance to make sure the children were out of hearing. ‘And everybody sure did. The injured and dead were trampled and crushed or suffocated. There was blood everywhere.’

‘What’s the motive?’ Boling asked.

‘That’s a mystery. We find that out and we can track suspects. But so far, nothing.’

‘Revenge?’ Steven speculated.

‘Always a good one. But no patrons, employees or competitors stand out.’

Martine said, ‘I’m claustrophobic. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be trapped in a crowd like that.’

Stuart Dance brushed a hand through his tempestuous hair. ‘I don’t think I ever told you, Katie, but I saw a stampede once. Human, I mean. It was terrible.’

‘What?’

‘You may have heard about it. Hillsborough, in Sheffield, England? Twenty-five years ago. I still have nightmares. Do you want to hear about it?’

Dance noted the children were out of earshot. ‘Go ahead, Dad.’

He was sure they’d die.

Some of them, at least.

Antioch March was on the turbulent shoreline in Pacific Grove, near Asilomar, the conference center. Off Sunset Drive.

He had been doing reconnaissance for tomorrow’s ‘event’ and was driving back to his room at the Cedar Hills Inn when he’d spotted them.

Ah, yes...

He’d pulled over.

And then wandered to an outcropping of rock, from which he would have a good view of the unfolding tragedy.

Now he was eyeing the cluster of people nearby, surrounded by spray flying over the rocks from the impact of the roiling water. The sun was low. That ‘special time’, he’d heard it called by photographers. When light became your friend, something to help out with the pictures, not fight against. March had studied photography, in addition to more esoteric intellectual topics, and he was good. Many of the pictures on the Hand to Heart website were his.

They’re dead, he reflected again.

The family he was watching was Asian. Chinese or Korean, probably. He knew the difference in facial structure — he’d been to both of those countries (Korea had been far more productive for his work). But here he was too far away to tell. And he certainly wasn’t going to get much closer.