Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll

Finally she said, "Oh, I've wanted to tell somebody. I just couldn't. Not the counselors or friends, my aunt…" More sobbing. Collapsed chest, chin down, hands in her lap when not mopping her face. The textbook kinesic signs that Theresa Croyton had moved into the acceptance stage of emotional response. The terrible burden of what she'd been living with was finally going to come out. She was confessing.

"It's my fault. It's all my fault they're dead!"

Now she pressed her head back against the couch. Her face was red, tendons rose, tears stained the front of her sweater.

"Brenda and Steve and Mom and Dad…all because of me!"

"Because you got sick?"

"No! Because I pretended to be sick!"

"Tell me."

"I didn't want to go to the boardwalk. I couldn't stand going, I hated it! All I could think of was to pretend to be sick. I remembered about these models who put their fingers down their throats so they throw up and don't get fat. When we were in the car on the highway I did that when nobody was looking. I threw up in the backseat and said I had the flu. It was all gross, and everybody was mad and Dad turned around and drove back home."

So that was it. The poor girl was convinced it was her fault her family'd been slaughtered because of the lie she told. She'd lived with this terrible burden for eight years.

One truth had been excavated. But at least one more remained. And Kathryn Dance wanted to unearth this one as well.

"Tell me, Tare. Why didn't you want to go to the pier?"

"I just didn't. It wasn't fun."

Confessing one lie doesn't lead automatically to confessing them all. The girl had now slipped into denial once again.

"Why? You can tell me. Go on."

"I don't know. It just wasn't fun."

"Why not?"

"Well, Dad was always busy. So he'd give us money and tell us he'd pick us up later and he'd go off and make phone calls and things. It was boring."

Her feet tapped again and she squeezed the right-side earrings in a compulsive pattern: top, bottom, then the middle. The stress was eating her up.

Yet it wasn't only the kinesics that were sending significant deception signals to Kathryn Dance. Children-even a seventeen-year-old high school student-are often hard to analyze kinesically. Most interviewers of youngsters perform a content-based analysis, judging their truth or deception by what they say, not how they say it.

What Theresa was telling Dance didn't make sense-both in terms of the story she was offering, and in terms of Dance's knowledge of children and the place in question. Wes and Maggie, for instance, loved the Santa Cruz boardwalk, and would have leapt at the chance to spend hours there unsupervised with a pocketful of money. There were hundreds of things for children to do, carnival rides, food, music, games.

And another contradiction Dance noted: Why hadn't Theresa simply said she wanted to stay home with her mother before they left that Friday and let her father and siblings go without her? It was as if she didn't want them to go to Santa Cruz either.

Dance considered this for a moment.

A to B …

"Tare, you were saying your father worked and made phone calls when you and your brother and sister went on the rides?"

She looked down. "Yeah, I guess."

"Where would he go to make the calls?"

"I don't know. He had a cell phone. Not a lot of people had them then. But he did."

"Did he ever meet anybody there?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Tare, who were these other people? The ones he'd be with?"

She shrugged.

"Were they other women?"

"No."

"You sure?"

Theresa was silent, looking everywhere but at Dance. Finally she said, "Maybe. Some, yeah."

"And you think they might've been girlfriends of his?"

A nod. Tears again. Through clenched teeth she began, "And…"

"What, Tare?"

"He said when we got home, if Mom asked, we were supposed to say he was with us." Her face was flushed now.

Dance recalled that Reynolds hinted Croyton was a womanizer.

A bitter laugh escaped the girl's trembling lips. "I saw him. Brenda and me, we were supposed to stay on the boardwalk but we went to an ice cream place across Beach Street. And I saw him. There was this woman getting into his car and he was kissing her. And she wasn't the only one. I saw him later, with somebody else, going into her apartment or house by the beach. That's why I didn't want him to go there. I wanted him to go back home and be with Mommy and us. I didn't want him to be with anybody else." She wiped her face. "And so I lied," she said simply. "I pretended I was sick."

So he'd meet his mistresses in Santa Cruz-and take his own children with him to allay his wife's suspicion, abandoning them till he and his lover were finished.

"And my family got killed. And it was my fault."

Dance leaned forward and said, "No, no, Tare. It's not your fault at all. We're pretty sure Daniel Pell intended to kill your father. It wasn't random. If he'd come by that night and you weren't there, he would've left and come back when your dad was home."

She grew quiet. "Yeah?"

Dance wasn't sure about this at all. But she absolutely couldn't let the girl live with the terrible burden of her guilt. "Yeah."

Theresa calmed at this tentative comfort. "Stupid." She was embarrassed. "It's all so stupid. I wanted to come help you catch him. And I haven't done anything except act like a baby."

"Oh, we're doing fine," Dance said with significance, reflecting some intriguing thoughts she'd just had.

"We are?"

"Yep…In fact, I've just thought of some more questions. I hope you're up for them." Dance's stomach gave a peculiar, and opportune, growl just at that moment. They both laughed, and the agent added, "Provided there're two Frappuccinos and a cookie or two in the near future."

Theresa wiped her eyes. "I could go for that, yeah."

Dance called Rey Carraneo and set him on the mission of collaring some sustenance from Starbucks. She then made another call. This one was to TJ, telling him to remain in the office; she believed there'd be a change of plans.

A to B to X …

Parked up the road from the Point Lobos Inn, out of sight of the guards, Daniel Pell continued to stare at a space between the cypress trees. "Come on," he muttered.

And then, just a few seconds later, there she was, Rebecca, hurrying through the bushes with her backpack. She climbed into the car and kissed him firmly.

She sat back. "Shitty weather," she said, grinned and kissed him again. "Sorry I'm late."

"Nobody saw you?"

A laugh. "Climbed out the window. They think I went to bed early."

He put the car in gear and they started up the highway.

This was Daniel Pell's last night in the Monterey Peninsula-and, in a way, his last night on earth. Later, they'd steal another car-an SUV or truck-and head north, winding along the increasingly narrow and rugged roads of Northern California until they came to Pell's mountain property. He'd be king of the mountain, king of a new Family, not answering to anybody, no one to interfere. No one to challenge him. A dozen young people, two dozen, seduced by the Pied Piper.

Heaven…

But first his mission here. He had to make certain his future was guaranteed.

Pell handed her the map of Monterey County. She opened a slip of paper and read the street and number as she studied the map. "It's not too far. Shouldn't take us more than fifteen minutes."

Edie Dance glanced out the window of the front of her house and observed the police car.

It certainly made her feel comfortable, with an escaped killer somewhere in the area, and she appreciated the fact that Katie was looking out for them.