Jeffery Deaver - Solitude Creek

And, bang, O’Neil announced his divorce. Not long after, he’d asked her out. By then she and Boling were tight, however, and she’d declined.

It was a classic ‘Send In The Clowns’ moment, the Sondheim song about two potential lovers for whom the timing just wasn’t cooperating.

O’Neil, gentleman that he was, accepted the situation. And they fell into ‘another time, another place’ mode. As for Boling — well, he’d said nothing about Dance’s connection to the detective but his body language left no doubt that he sensed the dynamic. She did her best to reassure him, without offering too much (she knew very well that the intensity of denial is often in direct proportion to the truth being refuted).

She now noted: O’Neil had his hands comfortably at his sides, not in his pockets, or clutching crossed arms, either of which would have been a defensive gesture that meant: ‘I just don’t want you here, Anne.’ Nor was he glancing involuntarily to his right or left, which was a manifestation of tension, discomfort and of a subconscious desire to flee from the person creating the stress.

No, they were, in fact, smiling. Something she said made him laugh.

Then Anne backed away, fishing keys from her purse, and O’Neil stepped closer and hugged her. No kiss, no fingers cupping her hair. Just a hug. Chaste as soccer players after scoring a goal.

Then he waved to the children and returned to the office. Anne fired up the SUV. She drove toward the exit.

And Dance suddenly recalled something else. The other night when she’d asked about O’Neil’s new babysitter, his body language had changed.

New sitter?

Sort of.

So that’s who it was. And the ‘friend’ at Maggie’s recital? Anne, of course.

Dance watched Anne pull out of the lot.

Then a brief honk from behind the Pathfinder. Dance started. She glanced into the rear-view mirror and waved at the driver she’d been blocking, whispering a ‘Sorry’ that he couldn’t hear. She headed to the CBI building, parked and climbed out.

Thinking of Anne and Michael, she found herself humming the song.

Let it go...

Inside Headquarters she found O’Neil in her office with TJ, poring over what turned out to be DMV records.

‘Five thousand, give or take, Honda sedans in the three-county area. Gray, white, beige, anything light-colored.’

‘Five thousand?’ Ouch. As she sat down beside O’Neil, she smelled his aftershave, as last night... but it was slightly different.

Mixed with perfume?

O’Neil added, ‘No reports of theft.’

TJ added, ‘And none of the other people at the club, the ones I’ve talked to, remember it. The wheelbase and the track, they’ll give us the model. Civic and Accord’re different. Might help.’

Narrow the number down to 2500, she thought wryly. If — big if — it was even the unsub’s vehicle.

‘Want to take a look?’ O’Neil asked. ‘At where it was parked?’

Dance checked the time. It was three twenty. ‘The kids are at Mom and Dad’s.’

‘Mine’re covered too.’

I know.

She said, ‘Let’s take a drive.’

‘For this, it’s not Serrano. You going to take a weapon?’

He knew the rules. Wondered why he’d asked. ‘I’m still Civ Div.’

A nod.

Dance told TJ to start canvassing the owners of light-colored Hondas.

In a half-hour she and O’Neil were at the roadhouse. The club was still closed and the trucking company, where she’d nearly received a concussion, was also dark. But there was some activity. A couple was laying flowers at the front entrance. Dance and O’Neil approached and she asked them if they’d been patrons the other night. They hadn’t: the husband’s cousin had died, and they were paying respects.

There also were some workers about two hundred feet from the club, in the direction of the path she’d taken the other day to the witness’s house. It was a team of surveyors, with their tripod and instruments set up. They were engrossed in the obscure art of reckoning longitudes and latitudes, or whatever it was surveyors did.

‘Maybe?’ O’Neil asked. His voice sounded optimistic.

‘Sure, let’s give it a try.’

They approached and identified themselves.

The crew leader, a slim man, long hair under a cap, nodded. ‘Oh. Hey. Terrible, what happened.’

Dance asked, ‘Were you working here the day of the incident?’

‘No, ma’am, we weren’t. Had another job.’

O’Neil: ‘Anytime before that?’

‘No, sir. We just got the contract the other day.’

‘Who’re you working for?’ Dance asked.

‘Anderson Construction.’

A big commercial real-estate operation, based in Monterey.

‘Know what the job is?’

‘No, sir.’

They thanked the crew and wandered back toward the driveway. She said, ‘We should talk to the company. They might’ve had other workers out on Tuesday. We’ll see if they saw the Honda or anybody checking out the trucks or the club.’ She called TJ Scanlon and put him on the assignment to find out who’d hired Anderson and see if either the developer or the construction company had had workers there the day of the incident or before.

‘Will do, boss.’

She slipped the phone away.

O’Neil nodded. They continued past the roadhouse and headed down the driveway to the field where Michelle and Trish had seen the Honda.

Dance had wondered if she’d have to risk a call to Trish and find out exactly where the Honda had been parked but there was no need. It was clear from the trampled grass where it had turned off the driveway and bounded over the field of short grass and flowers to a stand of trees. Drought-stricken in most of the region, the ground was soggy from the creek, and the Honda’s tires had left distinctive prints in the sandy mud. When the driver had reversed out, one had spun reaching for traction.

They stopped before they reached the tracks, however, and examined the ground carefully, then surveyed the surrounding area. Dance dug into her purse and pulled out elastic hair ties, four of them. She and O’Neil put them around their shoes — a trick she’d learned from her friends in New York, Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs. It would differentiate their shoeprints from those of the suspect when the forensics officers ran the scene.

‘There,’ O’Neil said, pointing into the trees. ‘He got out of the car and walked back and forth to find a good route to circle around to the trucking company.’

Several cars drove past on the highway. One turned in at the next driveway. O’Neil was distracted and followed it until the lights vanished.

‘What?’

‘Just keeping an eye out.’

Guard dog. Because I don’t have a weapon. Though the odds on their unsub charging out of the woods with blazing guns seemed rather narrow.

He turned back to the scene. They moved closer and Dance looked down, circling the area where the car had been, carefully so as not to disturb any evidence.

‘Michael. Look. He wasn’t alone.’

The solid detective crouched down and pulled out a small flashlight. He aimed it at what she’d seen. There were two sets of shoeprints, very different. One appeared to be running shoes, or boots, with complex treads. The other, longer, was smooth-soled.

O’Neil rose and, picking his steps carefully, walked around to the other side of where the car had been parked. Examined that area.

‘No. Just one. Nobody got out on the passenger side.’

‘Ah. Got it. He changed shoes. No, changed clothes altogether.’

‘Had to be. Just in case somebody saw him.’

‘We should get your CSU team here, search for trace, run the prints.’

The MCSO and the FBI had tread-mark databases for both tires and shoes. They might find the brand of shoe and narrow down the type of car, with some luck.