Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll

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.

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.