Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll

She was standing next to a grim-faced Michael O'Neil in the corridor of Monterey Bay Hospital, watching the woman do her best to reassure them and deflect their own words of sympathy.

Winston Kellogg arrived and walked up to the family, offered condolences, then shook O'Neil's hand, fingers on the detective's biceps, a gesture conveying sincerity among businessmen, politicians and mourners. "I'm so sorry."

They were outside the burn unit of the ICU. Through the window they could see the complicated bed and its surrounding spacecraft accoutrements: wires, valves, gauges, instrumentation. In the center was a still mound, covered by a green sheet.

The same color sheet had covered her husband's corpse. Dance recalled seeing it and thinking, frantically, But where did the life go, where did it go ?

At that moment she'd come to loathe this particular shade of green.

Dance stared at the body, hearing in her memory Edie Dance's whispered words.

He said, "Kill me." He said it twice. Then he closed his eyes…

Millar's father was inside the room itself, asking the doctor questions whose answers he probably wasn't digesting. Still, the role of parent who'd survived his son required this-and would require much more in the days ahead.

The mother chatted away and told them again that the death was for the best, there was no doubt, the years of treatment, the years of grafts…

"For the best, absolutely," she said, inadvertently offering Charles Overby's favorite adverbial crutch.

Edie Dance, working an unplanned late shift, now came down the hall, looking distraught but determined, a visage that her daughter recognized clearly. Sometimes feigned, sometimes genuine, the expression had served her well in the past. Today it would, of course, be a reflection of her true heart.

Edie moved straight to Millar's mother. She took the woman by the arm and, recognizing approaching hysteria, bestowed words on her-a few questions about her own state of mind, but mostly about her husband's and other children's, all aimed at diverting the woman's focus from this impossible tragedy. Edie Dance was a genius in the art of compassion. It was why she was such a popular nurse.

Rosa Millar began to calm and then cried, and Dance could see the staggering horror melting into manageable grief. Her husband joined them, and Edie handed his wife over to him like a trapeze artist transferring one acrobat to another in midair.

"Mrs. Millar," Dance said, "I'd just like to-"

Then found herself flying sideways, barking a scream, hands not dropping to her weapon but rising to keep her head from slamming into one of the carts parked here. Her first thought: How had Daniel Pell gotten into the hospital?

"No!" O'Neil shouted. Or Kellogg. Probably both. Dance caught herself as she went down on one knee, knocking coils of yellow tubing and plastic cups to the floor.

The doctor too leapt forward, but it was Winston Kellogg who got the enraged Julio Millar in a restraint hold, arm bent backward, and held him down easily by a twisted wrist. The maneuver was fast and effortless.

"No, son!" the father shouted, and the mother cried harder.

O'Neil helped Dance up. No injuries other than what would be bruises come morning, she guessed.

Julio tried to break away but Kellogg, apparently much stronger than he appeared, tugged the arm up slightly. "Take it easy, don't hurt yourself. Just take it easy."

"Bitch, you fucking bitch! You killed him! You killed my brother!"

O'Neil said, "Julio, listen. Your parents are upset enough. Don't make it worse."

"Worse? How could it be worse?" He tried to kick out.

Kellogg simply sidestepped him and lifted the wrist higher. The young man grimaced and groaned. "Relax. It won't hurt if you relax." The FBI agent looked at the parents, their hopeless eyes. "I'm sorry."

"Julio," his father said, "you hurt her. She's a policewoman. They'll put you in jail."

"They should put her in jail! She's the killer."

Millar senior shouted, "No, stop it! Your mother, think about your mother. Stop it!"

Smoothly, O'Neil had his cuffs out. He was hesitating. He glanced at Kellogg. The men were debating. Julio seemed to be relaxing.

"Okay, okay, get off me."

O'Neil said, "We'll have to cuff you if you can't control yourself. Understand?"

"Yeah, yeah, I understand."

Kellogg let go and helped him up.

Everyone's eyes were on Dance. But she wasn't going to take the matter to the magistrate. "It's all right. There's no problem."

Julio stared into Dance's eyes. "Oh, there's a problem. There's a big problem."

He stormed off.

"I'm sorry," Rosa Millar said through her tears.

Dance reassured her. "Does he live at home?"

"No, an apartment nearby."

"Have him stay with you tonight. Tell him you need his help. For the funeral, to take care of Juan's affairs, whatever you can think of. He's in as much pain as everybody. He just doesn't know what to do with it."

The mother had moved to the gurney where her son lay. She muttered something. Edie Dance walked up to her again and whispered into her ear, touching her arm. An intimate gesture between women who'd been complete strangers until a couple of days ago.

After a moment Edie returned to her daughter. "You want the kids to spend the night?"

"Thanks. It's probably best."

Dance said good-bye to the Millars and added, "Is there anything we can do? Anything at all?"

The father answered in a voice that seemed perplexed by the question. "No, no." Then he added softly, "What else is there to be done?"

The town of Vallejo Springs in Napa, California, has several claims to fame.

It's the site of a museum featuring many works of Eduard Muybridge, the nineteenth-century photographer credited with inventing moving pictures (and-a lot more interesting than his art-he was a man who murdered his wife's lover, admitted it in court and got off scot-free).

Another draw is the local vineyards, which produce a particularly fine strain of the Merlot grape-one of the three most famous used to make red wine. Contrary to a bad rap generated by a movie of a few years ago, Merlot isn't your Yugo of grapes. Just look at Pétrus, a wine from the Pomerol section of Bordeaux, made almost entirely from Merlot and perhaps the most consistently expensive wine in the world.

Morton Nagle was now crossing the town limits because of Vallejo Springs's third attraction, albeit one that was known to very few people.

Theresa Croyton, the Sleeping Doll, and her aunt and uncle lived here.

Nagle had done his homework. A month of tracking down twisty leads had turned up a reporter in Sonoma, who'd given him the name of a lawyer, who'd done some legal work for the girl's aunt. He'd been reluctant to give Nagle any information but did offer the opinion that the woman was over-bearing and obnoxious-and cheap. She'd dunned him on a bill. Once he was convinced that Nagle was a legitimate writer he gave up the town the family lived in and their new name on a guarantee of anonymity. ("Confidential source" is really just a synonym for spineless.)

Nagle had been to Vallejo Springs several times, meeting with the Sleeping Doll's aunt in an attempt to get an interview with the girl (the uncle didn't figure much in the equation, Nagle had learned). She was reluctant, but he believed that she would eventually agree.

Now, back in this picturesque town, he parked near the spacious house, waiting for the opportunity to talk to the woman alone. He could call, of course. But Nagle felt that phone calls-like email-were a very ineffective way of communicating. On a telephone people you're speaking to are your equals. You have much less control and power of persuasion than if you see them in person.