Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll

Pell pushed the man to the floor. "No, no! You were going to write about my land!"

"Land?"

"Yes!"

"What're you talking about?"

"My land, my mountaintop. You found out where it was, you were going to write about it in your book!"

Ah, Dance finally understood. Pell's precious mountaintop. Rebecca had convinced him that the only way to keep it secret was to kill Morton Nagle and destroy the notes.

"I don't know anything about that, I swear."

Pell looked him over closely. He believed the writer, Dance could see.

"As soon as you killed Nagle and his family, Daniel, you know what was coming next, don't you? Rebecca was going to murder you . Claim you kidnapped her from the inn."

Dance gave a sad laugh. "Daniel, you thought all along you were in charge. But, no, she was Svengali. She was the Pied Piper."

Pell blinked at her words, then rose and charged toward Rebecca, knocking a table over as he lifted the gun.

The woman cringed but suddenly she too leapt forward, swinging the knife madly, slicing into Pell's arm, grabbing at his gun. The weapon went off, the bullet digging a chunk of rosy brick out of the fireplace.

Instantly Dance and TJ were on their feet.

The young agent kicked Rebecca hard in the ribs and grabbed Pell's gun hand. They wrestled for control of the weapon, sliding to the floor.

"Call nine-one-one," Dance shouted to Nagle, who scrabbled for a phone.

She started for the guns on the table, recalling: Check your backdrop, aim, squeeze in bursts, count the rounds, at twelve drop the clip, reload. Check your backdrop…

Screaming from Nagle's wife, wailing from his daughter.

"Kathryn," TJ shouted breathlessly. She saw that Pell was twisting the gun toward her.

It fired.

The bullet streaked past her.

TJ was young and strong, but his wrists were still cuffed and Pell had desperation and adrenaline coursing through him. With his free hand he pounded at TJ's neck and head. Finally the killer broke away, holding the gun, as the young agent rolled desperately for cover under a table.

Dance struggled forward but knew she'd never make it to the weapons in time. TJ was dead…

Then a huge explosion.

Another.

Dance dropped to her knees and looked behind her.

Morton Nagle had picked up one of their guns and was firing the weapon toward Pell. Clearly unfamiliar with guns, he jerked the trigger and the bullets were wide. Still he stood his ground and kept firing. "You son of a bitch!"

Crouching, hands up in a futile effort to protect himself, Pell cringed, hesitated a moment, fired one round into Rebecca's belly and then flung the door open and ran outside.

Dance took the gun from Nagle, grabbed TJ's as well and shoved it into his cuffed hands.

The agents got to the half-open door just as a round slammed into the jamb, peppering them with splinters. They jumped back, crouching. She fished the cuff keys from her jacket and undid the bracelets. TJ did the same.

Cautiously they glanced outside at the empty street. A moment later they heard the screech of an accelerating car.

Calling back to Nagle, "Keep Rebecca alive! We need her!" Dance ran to her car and grabbed the microphone off the dash. It slipped out of her shaking hands. She took a breath, controlled the tremors and called the Monterey Sheriff's Office.

An angry man is a man out of control.

But Daniel Pell couldn't staunch the rage as he sped away from Monterey, replaying what had just happened. Kathryn Dance's voice, Rebecca's face.

Replaying the events of eight years ago too.

Jimmy Newberg, the goddamn computer freak, the doper, had said that he had inside information about William Croyton-thanks to a programmer who'd been fired six months earlier. He'd managed to find out Croyton's alarm code and had a key to the back door (though Pell now knew where he'd gotten those-from Rebecca, of course). Jimmy'd said too that the eccentric Croyton kept huge amounts of cash in the house.

Pell would never rob a bank or check-cashing operation, nothing big. But, still, he needed money to expand the Family and to move to his mountaintop. And here was a chance for a once-in-a-lifetime break-in. No one was going to be home, Jimmy said, so there'd be no risk of injuries. They'd walk away with a hundred thousand dollars, and Croyton would make a routine call to the police and the insurance company, then forget the matter.

Just what Kathryn Dance had figured.

The two men had snuck through the backyard and made their way to the house through the sumptuous landscaping. Pell had seen the lights on, but Jimmy told him they were on a timer for security. They slipped into the house through a side utility door.

But something wasn't right. The alarm was off. Pell turned to Jimmy to tell him that somebody must be home after all, but the young man was already hurrying into the kitchen.

Walking right up to the middle-aged woman cooking dinner, her back to him. No! Pell remembered thinking in shock. What was he doing?

Murdering her, it turned out.

Using a paper towel, Jimmy pulled a steak knife from his pocket-one from the Family's house, with Pell's fingerprints on it, he realized-and, gripping the woman around the mouth, stabbed her deeply. She slumped to the floor.

Enraged, Pell whispered, "What the hell are you doing?"

Newberg turned and hesitated, but his face was telegraphing what was coming. When he lunged, Pell was already leaping aside. He just managed to dodge the vicious blade. Pell swept up a frying pan, smashed it into Newberg's head. He crashed to the floor, and, with a butcher knife from the counter, Pell killed him.

A moment later William Croyton hurried into the kitchen, hearing the noise of the struggle. His two older children were behind him, screaming as they stared at their mother's body. Pell pulled his gun out and forced the hysterical family into the pantry. He finally calmed Croyton down enough to ask about the money, which the businessman said was in the desk in the ground-floor office.

Daniel Pell had found himself looking at the sobbing, terrified family as if he were looking at weeds in a garden or crows or insects. He'd had no intention of killing anyone that night, but to stay in control of his life he had no choice. In two minutes they were all dead; he used the knife so the neighbors would hear no gunshots.

Pell had then wiped what fingerprints he could, taken Jimmy's steak knife and all his ID, then run to the office, where he found, to his shock, that, yes, there was money in the desk, but only a thousand dollars. A fast search of the master bedroom downstairs revealed only pocket change and costume jewelry. He never even got upstairs, where that little girl was in bed, asleep. (He was now glad she'd been up there; ironically, if he'd killed her then, he never would've learned about Rebecca's betrayal.)

And, yes, to the sound track of Jeopardy! he'd run back to the kitchen, where he pocketed the dead man's wallet and his wife's diamond cocktail ring.

Then outside, to his car. And only a mile later he was pulled over by the police.

Rebecca…

Thinking back to meeting her for the first time-the "coincidental" meeting that she'd apparently engineered near the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

Pell remembered how much he loved the boardwalk, all the rides. Amusement parks fascinated him, people giving up complete control to somebody else-either risking harm on the roller coasters and parachute drops or becoming mindless laboratory rats on rides like the boardwalk's famous hundred-year-old Looff carousel, round and round…

Remembered too Rebecca eight years ago, near that very same merry-go-round, gesturing him over.

"Hey, how'd you like me to do your portrait?"