Jeffery Deaver: The Sleeping Doll

"I'm on my way to the courthouse. What've we got, Kathryn?"

She brought him up to date, including the deaths and Millar's condition.

"Sorry to hear that… Any leads, anything we can tell them?"

"Tell who?"

"The press."

"I don't know, Charles. We don't have much information. He could be anywhere. I've ordered roadblocks and we're doing a room-by-room search."

"Nothing specific? Not even a direction?"

"No."

Overby sighed. "Okay. By the way, you're running the operation."

"What?"

"I want you in charge of the manhunt."

"Me?" She was surprised. CBI certainly had jurisdiction; it was the highest-ranking law-enforcement agency in the state, and Kathryn Dance was a senior agent; she was as competent as anyone to supervise the case. Still, the CBI was an investigative operation and didn't have a large staff. The California Highway Patrol and the Sheriff's Office would have to provide the manpower for the search.

"Why not somebody from CHP or MCSO?"

"I think we need central coordination on this one. Absolutely makes sense. Besides, it's a done deal. I've cleared it with everybody."

Already? She wondered if that was why he hadn't returned her call right away-he was roping down CBI's control of a big media case.

Well, his decision was fine with her. She had a personal stake in capturing Pell.

Seeing his bared teeth, hearing his eerie words.

Yeah, it's a tough life being a cop. The little ones spend a lot of time alone, don't they? They'd probably love some friends to play with…

"Okay, Charles. I'll take it. But I want Michael on board too."

Michael O'Neil was the MCSO detective Dance worked with most often. She and the soft-spoken officer, a life-long resident of Monterey, had worked together for years; in fact, he'd been a mentor when she'd joined the CBI.

"That's fine with me."

Good, Dance thought. Because she'd already called him.

"I'll be there soon. I want another briefing before the press conference." Overby disconnected.

Dance was heading toward the back of the courthouse when flashing lights caught her eye. She recognized one of the CBI's Tauruses, the grille pulsing red and blue.

Rey Carraneo, the most recent addition to the office, pulled up nearby and joined her. The slim man, with black eyes sunk beneath thick brows, had only two months on the job. He wasn't quite as unseasoned as he looked, though, and had been a cop in Reno for three years-a tough venue-before moving to the Peninsula so he and his wife could take care of his ill mother. There were rough edges to be worn off and experience to be tucked under his extremely narrow belt but he was a tireless, reliable law enforcer. And that counted for a lot.

Carraneo was only six or seven years younger than Dance but those were important years in the life of a cop and he couldn't bring himself to call her Kathryn, as she frequently offered. His usual greeting was a nod. He gave her a respectful one now.

"Come with me." Recalling the Herron evidence and the gas bomb, she added, "He's probably got an accomplice, and we know he's got a weapon. So, eyes open." They continued to the back of the courthouse, where arson investigators and Monterey County crime scene officers from the Enforcement Operations Bureau were looking over the carnage. It was like a scene from a war zone. Four cars had burned to the frames, the two others were half-gutted. The back of the building was black with soot, trash cans melted. A haze of blue-gray smoke hung over the area. The place stank of burning rubber-and an odor that was far more repulsive.

She studied the parking lot. Then her eyes slipped to the open back door.

"No way he got out there, " Carraneo said, echoing Dance's thought. From the destroyed cars and the scorch marks on the pavement, it was clear that the fire had surrounded the door; the flames were meant to be a diversion. But where had he gone?

"These cars all accounted for?" she asked a fireman.

"Yeah. They're all employees'."

"Hey, Kathryn, we have the device," a man in a uniform said to her. He was the county's chief fire marshal.

She nodded a greeting. "What was it?"

"Wheelie suitcase, big one, filled with plastic milk containers of gasoline. The doer planted it under that Saab there. Slow-burning fuse."

"A pro?"

"Probably not. We found the fuse residue. You can make 'em out of clothesline and chemicals. Got instructions from the Internet, I'd say. The sort of things kids make to blow stuff up with. Including themselves a lot of times."

"Can you trace anything?"

"Maybe. We'll have it sent to the MCSO lab and then we'll see."

"You know when it was left?"

He nodded toward the car the bomb had been planted under. "The driver got here about nine fifteen, so it'd be after that."

"Any hope for prints?"

"Doubt it."

Dance stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the battleground. Something felt wrong.

The dim corridor, blood on the concrete.

The open door.

Turning slowly, studying the area, Dance noticed behind the building something in a nearby pine and cypress grove: a tree from which dangled an orange ribbon-the sort used to mark shrubs and trees scheduled for cutting. Walking closer, she noticed that the mound of pine needles at the base was larger than those beneath the others. Dance dropped to her knees and dug into it. She unearthed a large scorched bag made of metallic cloth.

"Rey, need some gloves." She coughed from the smoke.

The young agent got a pair from an MCSO crime scene deputy and brought them to her. Inside the bag were Pell's orange prison uniform and a set of gray hooded overalls, which turned out to be some kind of fire suit. A label said the garment was made of PBI fibers and Kevlar and had an SFI rating of 3.2A/5. Dance had no idea what this meant-except that it was obviously protective enough to get Daniel Pell safely through the conflagration behind the courthouse.

Her shoulders slumped in disgust.

A fire suit? What're we up against here?

"I don't get it," Rey Carraneo said.

She explained that Pell's partner had probably set the bomb and left the fireproof bag outside the door; it had contained the fire suit and a knife. Maybe a universal cuff or shackle key too. After he'd disarmed Juan Millar, Pell had donned the garment and run through the flames to the tree marked with the orange tag, where the partner had hidden some civilian clothes. He'd changed and sprinted off.

She lifted the Motorola and reported what she'd found, then gestured an MCSO crime scene officer over and gave him the evidence.

Carraneo called her to a patch of earth not far away. "Footprints." Several impressions, about four feet apart-left by someone running. They were clearly Pell's; he'd left distinctive prints outside the fire door of the courthouse. The two CBI agents started jogging in the direction they led.

Pell's footsteps ended at a nearby street, San Benito Way, along which were vacant lots, a liquor store, a dingy taqueria, a quick-copy and shipping franchise, a pawnshop and a bar.

"So here's where the partner picked him up," Carraneo said, looking up and down San Benito.

"But there's another street on the other side of the courthouse. It's two hundred feet closer. Why here?"

"More traffic there?"

"Could be." Dance squinted as she scanned the area, coughing again. Finally she caught her breath and her eyes focused across the street. "Come on, let's move!"

The man, in his late twenties, wearing shorts and a Worldwide Express uniform shirt, drove his green panel truck through the streets of downtown Salinas. He was intensely aware of the gun barrel resting on his shoulder and he was crying. "Look, mister, I don't know what this is about, really, but we don't carry cash. I've got about fifty on me, personal money, and you're welcome-"