Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll

And the kinesics read almost as jealousy.

They fell silent. The detective lifted his hands and shrugged. This was an emblem gesture, which translated: I've said my piece. The tension in the room was as tight as that entwined pine knot, thin fibers woven together into steel.

They resumed their discussion of the next steps: checking with Orange County for more details about Jennie Marston, canvassing for witnesses and following up on the crime scene at the Sea View Motel. They sent Carraneo to the airport, bus station and rental-car offices armed with the woman's picture. They kicked around a few other ideas too, but the climate in the office had dropped significantly, summer to fall, and when Winston Kellogg came into the room, O'Neil retreated, explaining that he had to check in with his office and brief the sheriff. He said a perfunctory good-bye that was aimed at neither of them.

His hand throbbing from the cut sustained when he vaulted the Bollings' chain-link fence, Morton Nagle glanced at the guard outside the holding cell of Napa County Men's Detention.

The big Latino reciprocated with a cold gaze.

Apparently Nagle had committed the number-one offense in Vallejo Springs-not the technical infractions of trespass and assault (where the hell had they got that? ) but the far more troubling crime of upsetting their local daughter.

"I have a right to make a phone call."

No response.

He wanted to reassure his wife that he was okay. But mostly he wanted to get word to Kathryn Dance about where Theresa was. He'd changed his mind and given up on his book and journalistic ethics. Goddamn it, he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that Daniel Pell got caught and flung back into Capitola.

Not illuminating evil, but attacking it himself. Like a shark. Seeing Theresa in person was what had swayed him: a dear, attractive, vivacious girl who deserved to be leading the normal life of a teenager, and pure evil had destroyed the hope for that. Telling people her story wasn't enough; Morton Nagle personally wanted Pell's head.

But apparently they were going to keep him incommunicado for as long as they possibly could.

"I really would like to make a phone call."

The guard looked at him as if he'd been caught selling crack to kids outside Sunday school and said nothing.

He stood up and paced. The look from the guard said, Sit down. Nagle sat.

Ten long, long minutes later he heard a door open. Footsteps approached.

"Nagle."

He gazed at another guard. Bigger than the first one.

"Stand up." The guard pushed a button and the door opened. "Hold out your hands."

It sounded ridiculous, like someone offering a child some candy. He lifted them and watched the cuffs clatter around his wrists.

"This way." The man took him by the arm, strong fingers closing around his biceps. Nagle smelled garlic and cigarette smoke residue. He almost pulled away but didn't think it would be a smart idea. They walked like this, the chains clinking, for fifty feet down a dim corridor. They continued to interview room A.

The guard opened it and gestured Nagle inside.

He paused.

Theresa Croyton, the Sleeping Doll, sat at a table, looking up at him with dark eyes. The guard pushed him forward and he sat down across from her.

"Hello again," he said.

The girl looked over his arms and face and hands, as if searching for evidence of prisoner abuse. Or maybe hoping for it. She noticed the bandage on his hand, squinted and then must have remembered that he'd cut it vaulting the fence.

He knew she was only seventeen but there was nothing young about her, except the white delicacy of her skin. She didn't die in Daniel Pell's attack, Nagle thought. But her childhood did. His anger at the killer burned hotter yet.

The guard stepped back. But he remained close; Nagle could hear his large body absorbing sounds.

"You can leave us alone," Theresa said.

"I have to be here, Miss. Rules." He had a moveable smile. Polite to her, hostile to Nagle.

Theresa hesitated, then focused on the writer. "Tell me what you were going to say in my backyard. About Daniel Pell."

"He's staying in the Monterey area for some reason. The police can't figure out why."

"And he tried to kill the prosecutor who sent him to jail?"

"James Reynolds, that's right."

"He's okay?"

"Yes. The policewoman I was telling you about saved him."

"Who are you exactly?" she asked. Direct questions, unemotional.

"Your aunt didn't tell you anything?"

"No."

"I've been speaking to her for a month now about a book I wanted to write. About you."

"Me? Like, why would you want to write that? I'm nobody interesting."

"Oh, I think you are. I wanted to write about somebody who's been hurt by something bad. How they were beforehand, how they are after. How their life changes-and how things might've gone without the crime."

"No, my aunt didn't tell me any of that."

"Does she know you're here?"

"Yeah, I told her. She drove me here. She won't let me have a driver's license."

She glanced up at the guard, then back to Nagle. "They didn't want me to talk to you either, the police here. But there was nothing they could do about it."

"Why did you come to see me, Theresa?" he asked.

"That policewoman you mentioned?"

Nagle was astonished. "You mean, it's all right if she comes to see you?"

"No," the girl said adamantly, shaking her head.

Nagle couldn't blame her. "I understand. But-"

"I want to go see her. "

The writer wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "You want to what?"

"I want to go down to Monterey. Meet her in person."

"Oh, you don't have to do that."

She nodded firmly. "Like, yeah, I do."

"Why?"

"Because."

Which Nagle thought was as good a response as any.

"I'll have my aunt drive me down there now."

"She'll do that?"

"Or I'll take the bus. Or hitchhike. You can come with us."

"Well, there's one problem," Nagle said.

The girl frowned.

He chuckled. "I'm in jail."

She looked toward the guard, surprise in her eyes. "Didn't you tell him?"

The guard shook his head.

Theresa said, "I bailed you out."

"You?"

"My father was worth a lot of money." She now gave a laugh, a small one, but genuine and from her heart. "I'm a rich girl."

Footsteps approaching.

The gun was in Daniel Pell's hand instantly.

In the cheap hotel, its aroma air freshener and insecticide, he glanced outside, slipped the pistol back into his waistband, seeing that it was Jennie. He shut off the TV and opened the door. She stepped inside, carrying a heavy shopping bag. He took it from her and set it on the bedside table beside a clock alarm flashing 12:00 .

"How'd it go, lovely? See any police?"

"None." She pulled her cap off and rubbed her scalp. Pell kissed her head, smelled sweat and the sour scent of the dye.

Another glance out the window. After a long moment Daniel Pell came to a decision. "Let's get out of here for a bit, lovely."

"Outside? I thought you didn't think it was a good idea."

"Oh, I know a place. It'll be safe."

She kissed him. "Like we're going on a date."

"Like a date."

They put their caps on and walked to the door. Her smile gone, Jennie paused and looked him over. "You okay, sweetheart?"

Sweetheart.

"Sure am, lovely. Just that scare back at the motel. But everything's fine now. Fine as could be."

They drove along a complicated route of surface streets to a beach on the way to Big Sur, south of Carmel. Wooden walkways wound past rocks and dunes cordoned off with thin wires to protect the fragile environment. Sea otters and seals hovered in the raging surf and, at ebb, the tidal pools displayed whole universes in their saltwater prisms.