Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll

"Samantha McCoy?"

"Right. Have you called her?"

At that moment Dance happened to look across the parking lot.

She saw Michael O'Neil pausing, as a tall, attractive blonde approached him. The woman smiled at O'Neil, slipped her arms around him and kissed him. He kissed her back.

"Kathryn," Kellogg said. "You there?"

"What?"

"Samantha McCoy?"

"Sorry." Dance looked away from O'Neil and the blonde. "No. I'm driving up to San Jose now. If she's gone to this much trouble to keep her identity quiet I want to see her in person. I think it'll take more than a phone call to convince her to help us out."

She disconnected and walked up to O'Neil and the woman he was embracing.

"Kathryn."

"Anne, good to see you," Dance said to Michael O'Neil's wife. The women smiled, then asked about each other's children.

Anne O'Neil nodded toward the hospital. "I came to see Juan. Mike said he's not doing well."

"No. It's pretty bad. He's unconscious now. But his parents are there. They'd be glad for some company, I'm sure."

Anne had a small Leica camera slung over her shoulder. Thanks to the landscape photographer Ansel Adams and the f 64 Club, Northern and Central California made up one of the great photography meccas in the world. Anne ran a gallery in Carmel that sold collectible photographs, "collectible" generally defined as those taken by photographers no longer among the living: Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Anne was also a stringer for several newspapers, including big dailies in San Jose and San Francisco.

Dance said, "Michael told you about the party tonight? My father's birthday."

"He did. I think we can make it."

Anne kissed her husband again and headed into the hospital. "See you later, honey."

"'Bye, dear."

Dance nodded good-bye and climbed into her car, tossing the Coach purse onto the passenger seat. She stopped at Shell for gas, coffee and a cake doughnut and headed onto Highway 1 north, getting a beautiful view of Monterey Bay. She noted that she was driving past the campus of Cal State at Monterey Bay, on the site of the former Fort Ord (probably the only college in the country overlooking a restricted area filled with unexploded ordnance). A large banner announced what seemed to be a major computer conference this weekend. The school, she recalled, was the recipient of much of the hardware and software in William Croyton's estate. She reflected that if computer experts were still doing research based on the man's contributions from eight years ago, he must've been a true genius. The programs that Wes and Maggie used seemed to be outdated in a year or two tops. How many brilliant innovations had Daniel Pell denied the world by killing Croyton?

Dance flipped through her notebook and found the number of Samantha McCoy's employer, called and asked to be connected, ready to hang up if she answered. But the receptionist said she was working at home that day. Dance disconnected and had TJ text-message her Mapquest directions to the woman's house.

A few minutes later the phone rang, just as she hit play on the CD. She glanced at the screen.

Coincidentally, the Fairfield Four resumed their gospel singing as Dance said hello to Linda Whitfield, who was calling from her church office.

"Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…"

"Agent Dance-"

"Call me Kathryn. Please."

"…that saved a wretch like me…"

"I just wanted you to know. I'll be there in the morning to help you, if you still want me."

"Yes, I'd love for you to come. Somebody from my office will call about the arrangements. Thank you so much."

"…I once was lost, but now am found…"

A hesitation. Then she said in a formal voice, "You're welcome."

Two out of three. Dance wondered if the reunion might work after all.

Sitting in front of the open window of the Sea View Motel, Daniel Pell typed awkwardly on the computer keyboard.

He'd managed some access to computers at the Q and at Capitola, but he hadn't had time to sit down and really get to know how they worked. He'd been pounding away on Jennie's portable all morning. Ads, news, porn…it was astonishing.

But even more seductive than the sex was his ability to get information, to find things about people. Pell had ignored the smut and been hard at work. First he'd read everything he could on Jennie-recipes, emails, her bookmarked pages, making sure she was essentially who she claimed to be (she was). Then he searched for some people from his past-important to find them-but he didn't have much luck. He then tried tax records, deeds offices, vital statistics. But you needed a credit card for almost everything, he learned. And credit cards, like cell phones, left obvious trails.

Then he had a brainstorm and searched through the archives of the local newspapers and TV stations. That proved much more helpful. He jotted information, a lot of it.

Among the names on his list was "Kathryn Dance."

He enjoyed doodling a funereal frame around it.

The search didn't give him all the information he needed, but it was a start.

Always aware of his surroundings, he noticed a black Toyota Camry pull into the lot and pause outside the window. He gripped the gun. Then he smiled as the car parked exactly seven spaces away.

She climbed out.

That's my girl.

Holding fast…

She walked inside.

"You did it, lovely." Pell glanced at the Camry. "Looks nice."

She kissed him fast. Her hands were shaking. And she couldn't control her excitement. "It went great! It really did, sweetie. At first he was kind of freaked and I didn't think he was going to do it. He didn't like the thing about the license plates but I did everything you told me and he agreed."

"Good for you, lovely."

Jennie had used some of her cash-she'd withdrawn $9,200 to pay for the escape and tide them over for the time being-to buy a car from a man who lived in Marina. It would be too risky to have it registered in her real name so she'd persuaded him to leave his own plates on it. She'd told him that her car had broken down in Modesto and she'd have the plates in a day or two. She'd swap them and mail his back. This was illegal and really stupid. No man would ever do that for some other guy, even one paying cash. But Pell had sent Jennie to handle it-a woman in tight jeans, a half-buttoned blouse and red bra on fine display. (Had it been a woman selling the car, Pell would have dressed her down, lost the makeup, given her four kids, a dead soldier for a husband and a pink breast cancer ribbon. You can never be too obvious, he'd learned.)

"Nice. Oh, can I have the car keys?"

She handed them over. "Here's what else you wanted." Jennie set two shopping bags on the bed. Pell looked through them and nodded approvingly.

She got a soda from the minifridge. "Honey, can I ask you something?"

His natural reluctance to answer questions-at least truthfully-surfaced again. But he smiled. "You can, anything."

"Last night, when you were sleeping, you said something. You were talking about God."

"God. What'd I say?"

"I couldn't tell. But it was definitely 'God.'"

Pell's head turned slowly toward her. He noticed his heart rate increase. He found his foot tapping, which he stopped.

"You were really freaking out. I was going to wake you up but that's not good. I read that somewhere. Reader's Digest. Or Health. I don't know. When somebody's having a bad dream, you should never wake them up. And you said, like, 'Fuck no.'"

"I said that?"

Jennie nodded. "Which was weird. 'Cause you never swear."

That was true. People who used obscenities had much less power than people who didn't.