Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll

Dance liked the idea, though it would mean a lot of work.

O'Neil said to Kellogg, "That'd have to come from you folks: FBI, Treasury, IRS or Homeland Security, I'd guess."

"It's a good idea. Just thinking out loud, though, I'd say we'd have a manpower problem." He echoed Dance's concern. "We're talking millions of customers. I know the L.A. bureau couldn't handle it, and Homeland'd laugh. And if she was smart she'd make small withdrawals over a period of time. Or cash third-party checks and stash the money."

"Oh, sure. Possibly. But it'd be great to ID his girlfriend. You know, 'A second suspect-'"

"-'logarithmically increases the chances for detection and arrest,'" Kellogg finished the quotation from an old textbook on law enforcement. Dance and O'Neil quoted it often.

Smiling, Kellogg held O'Neil's eye. "We Feds don't have quite the resources people think we do. I'm sure we couldn't come up with the bodies to man the phones. Be a huge job."

"I wonder. You'd think it'd be pretty easy to check databases, at least with the big chain banks." Michael O'Neil could be quite tenacious.

Dance asked, "Would you need a warrant?"

O'Neil said, "Probably to release the name you would. But if a bank wanted to cooperate they could run the numbers and tell us if there was a match. We could get a warrant for the name and address in a half-hour."

Kellogg sipped his wine. "The fact is, there's another problem. I'm worried if we go to the SAC or Homeland with something like that-too tenuous-we might lose support we'd need later for something more solid."

"Crying wolf, hm?" O'Neil nodded. "Guess you have to play more politics at that level than we do here."

"But let's think about it. I'll make some calls."

O'Neil looked past Dance's shoulder. "Hey, happy birthday, young man."

Stuart Dance, wearing a badge that said "Birthday Boy," handmade by Maggie and Wes, shook hands, refilled O'Neil's and Dance's wineglasses and said to Kellogg, "You're talking shop. Not allowed. I'm stealing you away from these children, come play with the adults."

Kellogg gave a shy laugh and followed the man to the candlelit table, where Martine had her battered Gibson guitar out of the case and was organizing a sing-along. Dance and O'Neil stood alone. She saw Wes looking up. He'd apparently been studying the adults. He turned away, back to the Star Wars improvisation.

"He seems good," O'Neil said, tilting his head toward Kellogg.

"Winston? Yes."

Typically, O'Neil carried no grudge about the rejection of his suggestions. He was the antithesis of pettiness.

"He take a hit recently?" O'Neil tapped his neck.

"How'd you know?" The bandage wasn't visible tonight.

"He was touching it the way you touch a wound."

She laughed. "Good kinesic analysis. Yeah, just happened. He was in Chicago. The perp got a round off first, I guess, and Win took him out. He didn't go into the details."

They fell silent, looking over the backyard, the children, the dogs, the lights glowing brighter in the encroaching dusk. "We'll get him."

"Will we?" she asked.

"Yep. He'll make a mistake. They always do."

"I don't know. He's something different. Don't you feel that?"

"No. He's not different. He's just more. " Michael O'Neil-the most widely read person she knew-had surprisingly simple philosophies of life. He didn't believe in evil or good, much less God or Satan. Those were all abstractions that deflected you from your job, which was to catch people who broke rules that humans had created for their own health and safety.

No good, no bad. Just destructive forces that had to be stopped.

To Michael O'Neil, Daniel Pell was a tsunami, an earthquake, a tornado.

He watched the children playing, then said, "I gather that guy you've been seeing…It's over with?"

Brian called…

"You caught that, hm? Busted by my own assistant."

"I'm sorry. Really."

"You know how it goes," Dance said, noting she'd spoken one of those sentences that were meaningless flotsam in a conversation.

"Sure."

Dance turned to see how her mother was coming with dinner. She saw O'Neil's wife looking at the two of them. Anne smiled.

Dance smiled back. She said to O'Neil, "So, let's go join the sing-along."

"Do I have to sing?"

"Absolutely not," she said quickly. He had a wonderful speaking voice, low with a natural vibrato. He couldn't stay on key under threat of torture.

After a half-hour of music, gossip and laughter, Edie Dance, her daughter and granddaughter set out Worcestershire-marinated flank steak, salad, asparagus and potatoes au gratin. Dance sat beside Winston Kellogg, who was holding his own very well among strangers. He even told a few jokes, with a deadpan delivery that reminded her of her late husband, who had shared not only Kellogg's career but his easy-going nature-at least once the federal ID card was tucked away.

The conversation ambled from music to Anne O'Neil's critique of San Francisco arts, to politics in the Middle East, Washington and Sacramento, to the far more important story of a sea otter pup born in captivity at the aquarium two days ago.

It was a comfortable gathering: friends, laughter, food, wine, music.

Though, of course, complete comfort eluded Kathryn Dance. Pervading the otherwise fine evening, like the moving bass line of Martine's old guitar, was the thought that Daniel Pell was still at large.

Kathryn Dance was sitting in a cabin at the Point Lobos Inn-the first time she'd ever been in the expensive place. It was an upscale lodge of private cabins on a quiet road off Highway 1, south of Carmel, abutting the rugged and beautiful state park after which the inn was named. The Tudor-style place was secluded-a long driveway separated it from the road-and the deputy in the Monterey Sheriff's Office car stationed in front had a perfect view of all approaches, which was why she'd picked it.

Dance checked in with O'Neil. At the moment he was following up on a missing person report in Monterey. Calls to TJ and Carraneo too. TJ had nothing to tell her, and the rookie agent said he was still having no luck finding a cheap motel or boardinghouse where Pell might be staying. "I've tried all the way up to Gilroy and-"

" Cheap hotels?"

A pause. "That's right, Agent Dance. I didn't bother with the expensive ones. Didn't think an escapee'd have much money to spend on them."

Dance recalled Pell's secret phone conversation in Capitola, the reference to $9,200. "Pell's probably thinking that's exactly what you 're thinking. Which means…" She let Carraneo pick up her thought.

"That it'd be smarter for him to stay in an expensive one. Hm. Okay. I'll get on it. Wait. Where are you right now, Agent Dance? Do you think he-?"

"I've already checked out everybody here," she assured him. She hung up, looked at her watch again and wondered: Is this harebrained scheme really going to do any good?

Five minutes later, a knock on the door. Dance opened it to see massive CBI Agent Albert Stemple towering over a woman in her late twenties. Stocky Linda Whitfield had a pretty face, untouched by makeup, and short red hair. Her clothes were a bit shabby: black stretch pants with shiny knees and a red sweater dangling threads; its V-neck framed a pewter cross. Dance detected no trace of perfume, and Linda's nails were unpolished and cut short.

The women shook hands. Linda's grip was firm.

Stemple's brow lifted. Meaning, Is there anything else?

Dance thanked him and the big agent set down Linda's suitcase and ambled off. Dance locked the door and the woman walked into the living room of the two-bedroom cabin. She looked at the elegant place as if she'd never stayed anywhere nicer than a Days Inn. "My."