Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll

She didn't think it was lame at all.

Down more corridors.

"How'd you get into this line?" he asked.

Dance gave him a brief version of the story. She'd been a crime reporter for a few years-she'd met her husband while covering a criminal trial (he gave her an exclusive interview in exchange for a date). After she grew tired of reporting, she went back to school and got degrees in psychology and communications, improving her natural gift of observation and an ability to intuit what people were thinking and feeling. She became a jury consultant. But nagging dissatisfaction with that job and a sense that her talents would be more worthwhile in law enforcement had led her to the CBI.

"And your husband was like me, a feebie?"

"Been doing your homework?" Her late husband, William Swenson, had been a dependable career special agent for the FBI, but he was just like tens of thousands of others. There was no reason for a specialist like Kellogg to have heard of him, unless he'd gone to some trouble to check.

A bashful grin. "I like to know where I'm going on assignments. And who I'm going to meet when I get there. Hope you're not offended."

"Not at all. When I interview a subject I like to know everything about his terrarium." Not sharing with Kellogg that she'd had TJ scope out the agent through his friend in the Chico resident agency.

A moment passed and he asked, "Can I ask what happened to your husband? Line of duty?"

The thud in her belly generated by that question had become less pronounced over the years. "It was a traffic accident."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you… Now, welcome to Chez CBI." Dance waved him into the lunchroom.

They poured coffee and sat at one of the cheap tables.

Her cell chirped. It was TJ.

"Bad news. My bar-hopping days are over. Just as I got started. I found out where the Pemberton woman was before she was killed."

"And?"

"With some Latino guy in the bar at the Doubletree. A business meeting, some event he wanted her to handle, the waiter thinks. They left about six thirty."

"You get a credit-card receipt?"

"Yep, but she paid. Business expense. Hey, boss, I think we should start doing that."

"Anything else about him?"

"Zip. Her picture'll be on the news so he might see it and come forward."

"Susan's phone logs?"

"About forty calls yesterday. I'll check them out when I'm back in the office. Oh, and statewide real estate tax records? Nope, Pell don't own no mountaintops or anything else. I checked Utah too. Nothing there either."

"Good. I forgot about that."

"Or Oregon, Nevada, Arizona. I wasn't being diligent. I was just trying to prolong my bar time as much as I could."

After they hung up she relayed the information to Kellogg, who grimaced. "A witness, hm? Who'll see her picture on the tube and decide this is a real nice time to take that vacation to Alaska."

"And I can hardly blame him."

Then the FBI agent smiled as he looked over Dance's shoulder. She glanced back. Her mother and children were walking into the lunchroom.

"Hi, honey," she said to Maggie, then hugged her son. There'd be a day, pretty soon, when public hugs would be verboten and she was storing up for the drought. He tolerated the gesture well enough today.

Edie Dance and her daughter cast glances each other's way, acknowledging Millar's death but not specifically referring to the tragedy. Edie and Kellogg greeted each other, and exchanged a similar look.

"Mom, Carly moved Mr. Bledsoe's wastebasket!" Maggie told her breathlessly. "And every time he threw something out it went on the floor."

"Did you keep from giggling?"

"For a while. But then Brendon did and we couldn't stop."

"Say hello to Agent Kellogg."

Maggie did. But Wes only nodded. His eyes shifted away. Dance saw the aversion immediately.

"You guys want hot chocolate?" she asked.

"Yay!" Maggie cried. Wes said he would too.

Dance patted her jacket pockets. Coffee was gratis but anything fancier took cash, and she'd left all of hers in her purse in her office; Edie had no change.

"I'll treat," Kellogg said, digging into his pocket.

Wes said quickly, "Mom, I want coffee instead."

The boy had sipped coffee once or twice in his life and hated it.

Maggie said, "I want coffee too."

"No coffee. It's hot chocolate or soda." Dance supposed that Wes didn't want something that the FBI agent paid for. What was going on here? Then she remembered how his eyes had scanned Kellogg on the Deck the other night. She thought he'd been looking for his weapon; now she understood he'd been sizing up the man Mom had brought to his grandfather's party. Was Winston Kellogg the new Brian, in his eyes?

"Okay," her daughter said, "chocolate."

Wes muttered, "That's okay. I don't want anything."

"Come on, I'll loan it to your mom," Kellogg said, dispensing the coins.

The children took them, Wes reluctantly and only after his sister did.

"Thanks," Wes said.

"Thank you very much," Maggie offered.

Edie poured coffee. They sat at the unsteady table. Kellogg thanked Dance's mother again for the dinner the previous night and asked about Stuart. Then he turned to the children and wondered aloud if they liked to fish.

Maggie said sort of. She didn't.

Wes loved to but responded, "Not really. You know, it's boring."

Dance knew the agent had no motive but breaking the ice, his question probably inspired by his conversation with her father at the party about fishing in Monterey Bay. She noted some stress reactions-he was trying too hard to make a good impression, she guessed.

Wes fell silent and sipped his chocolate while Maggie inundated the adults with the morning's events at music camp, including a rerun, in detail, of the trash can caper.

The agent found herself irritated that the problem with Wes had reared its head yet again…and for no good reason. She wasn't even dating Kellogg.

But Dance knew the tricks of parenting and in a few minutes had Wes talking enthusiastically about his tennis match that morning. Kellogg's posture changed once or twice and the body language told Dance that he too was a tennis player and wanted to contribute. But he'd caught on that Wes was ambivalent about him and he smiled as he listened, but didn't add anything.

Finally Dance told them she needed to get back to work, she'd walk them out. Kellogg told her he was going to check in with the San Francisco field office.

"Good seeing you all." He waved.

Edie and Maggie said good-bye to him. After a moment Wes did too-only so he wouldn't be outdone by his sister, Dance sensed.

The agent wandered off up the hallway toward his temporary office.

"Are you coming to Grandma's for dinner?" Maggie asked.

"I'm going to try, Mags." Never promise if there's a chance you can't deliver.

"But if she can't," Edie said, "what're you in the mood for?"

"Pizza," Maggie said fast. "With garlic bread. And mint chocolate chip for dessert."

"And I want a pair of Ferragamos," Dance said.

"What're those?"

"Shoes. But what we want and what we get are sometimes two different things."

Her mother put another offer on the table. "How's a big salad? With blackened shrimp?"

"Sure."

Wes said, "That'll be great." The children were infinitely polite with their grandparents.

"But I think garlic bread can be arranged," Edie added, which finally pried a smile from him.

Outside the CBI office, one of the administrative clerks was on his way to deliver documents to the Monterey County Sheriff's Office in Salinas.

He noticed a dark car pulling into the lot. The driver, a young woman wearing sunglasses despite the fog, scanned the parking lot. She's uneasy about something, the clerk thought. But, of course, you got that a lot here: people who'd come in voluntarily as suspects or reluctant complaining witnesses. The woman looked at herself in the mirror, pulled on a cap and climbed out. She didn't go to the front door. Instead she approached him.