The Sleeping Doll

by Jeffery Deaver

  They were on a promontory about fifty feet above the ocean. The crashing of the surf was nearly constant, a jet engine, not a pulse. Deafening too.

  The low sunlight hit them full on in a blinding, orange wash. Sam squinted and made out the ravine, very close now. They'd lie down in it, pull brush and leaves over themselves.

  "You're doing fine. A few more feet."

  Well, twenty.

  But then they closed the distance to ten.

  And finally they reached their sanctuary. It was deeper than Sam had thought and would be perfect cover.

  She began to ease Linda into it.

  Suddenly, with the sound of crackling underbrush, a figure pushed out of the woods, coming right at them.

  "No," Sam cried. Letting Linda slump toward the ground, she grabbed a small rock, a pathetic weapon.

  Then, gasping, she barked a hysterical laugh.

  Kathryn Dance, crouching, whispered, "Where is he?"

  Her heart slamming, Sam mouthed, "I don't know." Then repeated the words louder. "We saw him about fifty yards back that way. He's hurt. But I saw him walking."

  "He's armed?"

  A nod. "A gun. And a knife."

  Dance scanned the area around them, squinting into the sun. She then assessed Linda's condition. "Get her down there." Nodding at the ravine. "Press something on the wound."

  Together they eased the woman into the depression.

  "Please, stay with us," Sam whispered.

  "Don't worry," Dance said. "I'm not going anywhere."

  Chapter 55

  Winston Kellogg was somewhere to the south of them.

  After they'd left the Point Lobos Inn, they'd lost track of the footprints and blood near a fork in the nature trails. Arbitrarily Dance had gone right, Kellogg left.

  She'd moved silently through the brush--staying off the trail--until she saw motion by the edge of a cliff. She'd identified the women and approached them quickly.

  Now, she called the FBI agent from her mobile phone.

  "Win, I've got Sam and Linda."

  "Where are you?"

  "We're about a hundred yards from where we split up. I went due west. We're almost to the cliff. There's a round rock near us, about twenty feet high."

  "Do they know where Pell is?"

  "He was near here. Below us and to our left about fifty yards. And he's still armed. Pistol and knife."

  Then she tensed, looking down, saw a man's form on the sand. "Win, where are you? Are you on the beach?"

  "No. I'm on a path. The beach is below me, maybe two, three hundred feet away."

  "Okay, he's there! You see that small island? Seals all over it. And gulls."

  "Got it."

  "The beach in front of that."

  "I can't see it from here. But I'm moving that way."

  "No, Win. There's no cover for your approach. We need tactical. Wait."

  "We don't have time. He's gotten away too many times already. I'm not letting it happen again."

  The gunslinger attitude . . .

  It bothered her a lot. Suddenly she really didn't want anything to happen to Winston Kellogg.

  . . . afterward. How does that sound? . . .

  "Just . . . be careful. I lost sight of him. He was on the beach, but he's in the rocks now. There'd be perfect firing positions from there. He can cover all the approaches."

  Dance stood up, shielding her eyes as she scanned the beach. Where is he?

  She found out a second later.

  A bullet slammed into the rocks not far from her, and then she heard the crack of Pell's pistol.

  Samantha screamed and Dance dropped to cover in the recess, nicking her skin, furious that she'd presented a target.

  "Kathryn," Kellogg called on the radio, "are you firing?"

  "No, that was Pell."

  "You okay?"

  "We're fine."

  "Where did it come from?"

  "I couldn't see. Had to be the rocks near the beach."

  "You stay down. He's got your position now."

  She asked Samantha, "Does he know the park?"

  "The Family spent a lot of time here. He knows it pretty good, I'd guess."

  "Win, Pell knows Point Lobos. You could walk right into a trap. Really, why don't you wait?

  "Hold on." Kellogg's voice was a quiet rasp. "I think I see something. I'll call you back."

  "Wait. . . . Win. Are you there?"

  She changed position, moving some distance away so Pell wouldn't be looking for her. She glanced out fast between two rocks. Couldn't see a thing. Then she noticed Winston Kellogg making his way toward the beach. Against the massive rocks, gnarled trees, the expanse of ocean, he seemed so fragile.

  Please . . . Dance sent him a silent message to stop, to wait.

  But, of course, he kept on moving, her tacit plea as ineffectual as, she reflected, his would have been with her.

  *

  Daniel Pell knew more cops were on their way.

  But he was confident. He knew this area perfectly. He'd robbed plenty of tourists in Point Lobos--many of them stupid to the point of being co-conspirators. They'd leave their valuables in their cars and at the picnic grounds, never thinking that anybody would conceive of robbing fellow humans in such a spiritual setting.

  He and the Family had also spent plenty of time just relaxing here, camping out on the way back from Big Sur when they didn't feel like making the drive up to Seaside. He knew routes that would get him to the highway, or to the private residences nearby, invisible routes. He'd steal another car, head east into the back roads of the Central Valley, through Hollister, and work his way north.

  To the mountaintop.

  But now he had to deal with the immediate pursuers. There were just two or three, he believed. He hadn't seen them clearly. They must've stopped at the cabin, seen the dead deputies, then pursued him on their own. And it seemed that only one was actually nearby.

  He closed his eyes momentarily against the pain. He pressed the stab wound, which had opened in the fall down the rocks. His ear was throbbing from Sam's blow.

  Mouse . . .

  He rested his head and shoulder against a cold, wet rock. It seemed to lessen the agony.

  He wondered if one of the pursuers was Kathryn Dance. If so, he suspected that, no, it wasn't a coincidence she'd shown up at the cabin. She'd have guessed that he had stolen the Infiniti not to go north but to head here.

  Well, one way or the other, she wasn't going to be a threat much longer.

  But how to handle the immediate situation?

  The cop pursuing him was getting close. There were only two approaches to where he was at the moment. Whoever came after him would either have to climb down a twenty-foot-high rock face, completely exposed to Pell below, or--taking the path--would turn a sharp corner from the beach and be a perfect target.

  Pell knew that only a tactical officer would try the rock face and that his pursuer probably wouldn't be decked out in rappelling gear. They'd have to come from the beach. He hunkered down behind a cluster of rocks, hidden from above and from the beach, and waited for the officer to get close, resting the gun on a boulder.

  Hewouldn't shoot to kill. He'd wound. Maybe in the knee. And then, when he was down, Pell would blind him with the knife. He'd leave the radio nearby so the cop, racked by agony, would call for help, screaming and distracting the other officers. Pell could escape into a deserted area of the park.

  He now heard someone approaching, trying to be quiet. But Pell had hearing like a wild animal's. He curled his hand around his gun.

  The emotion was gone. Rebecca and Jennie and even the hateful Kathryn Dance were far, far from his thoughts.

  Daniel Pell was in perfect control.

  *

  Dance, in yet another spot on the ridge, hidden by thick pines, looked out fast.

  Winston Kellogg was on the beach now, close to where Pell must have been when he'd fired at her. The agent was moving slowly, looking around him, gun
in both hands. He looked up at a cliff and seemed to be debating climbing it. But the walls were steep and Kellogg was in street shoes, impractical for the slippery stone. Besides, he'd undoubtedly be an easy target climbing down the other side.

  Looking back to the path in front of him he seemed to notice marks in the sand, where she'd seen Pell. He crouched and moved closer to them. He paused at an outcropping.

  "What's going on?" Samantha asked.

  Dance shook her head.

  She looked down at Linda. The woman was half-conscious and paler than before. She'd lost a lot of blood. She'd need emergency treatment soon.

  Dance called MCSO central and asked for the status of the troops.

  "First tac responders in five minutes, boats in fifteen."

  Dance sighed. Why was it taking the cavalry so damn long? She gave them her approximate position and explained how the med techs should approach, to stay out of the line of fire. Dance glanced out again and saw Winston Kellogg ease around the rock, glistening burgundy in the low sun. The agent was heading directly toward the spot where she'd seen Pell vanish a few minutes earlier.

  A long minute passed. Two.

  Where was he? What--

  The boom of an explosion.

  What the hell was that?

  Then a series of gunshots from behind the outcropping, a pause, then several more pistol cracks.

  "What happened?" Samantha called.

  "I don't know." Dance pulled her radio out. "Win. Win! Are you there? Over."

  But the only sounds she heard over the rush of the waves were the edgy cries of the frightened, fleeing gulls.

  Chapter 56

  Kathryn Dance hurried along the beach, her Aldo shoes, among her favorites, ruined by the salt water.

  She didn't care.

  Behind her, back on the ridge, medical technicians were trundling Linda to the ambulance parked at the Point Lobos Inn, Samantha with her. She nodded to two MCSO officers ringing yellow tape from rock to rock, though the only intruder to trouble the crime scene would be the rising tide. Dance ducked under the plastic tape and turned the corner, continuing to the scene of the death.

  Dance paused. Then walked straight up to Winston Kellogg and hugged him. He seemed shaken and kept staring at what lay in front of them: the body of Daniel Pell.

  He was on his back, his sand-stained knees in the air, arms out to the sides. His pistol lay nearby where it had flown from his hand. Pell's eyes were partly open, intensely blue no longer, but hazy in death.

  Dance realized that her hand remained on Kellogg's back. She dropped it and stepped aside. "What happened?" she asked.

  "I nearly walked right into him. He was hiding there." He pointed out a stand of rocks. "But I saw him just in time. I got under cover. I had one of the flash-bangs left from the motel. I pitched it his way and it stunned him. He started shooting. But I was lucky. The sun was behind me. Blinded him, I guess. I returned fire. And . . ." He shrugged.

  "You're okay?"

  "Oh, sure. Little scraped up from the rocks. Not used to mountain climbing."

  Her phone rang. She answered, glancing at the screen. It was TJ.

  "Linda's going to be fine. Lost some blood, but the slug missed the important stuff. Oh, and Samantha's not hurt bad."

  "Samantha?" Dance hadn't noticed the woman was injured. "What happened?"

  "Cuts and bruises is all. Had a boxing match with the deceased, prior to his deceasing, of course. She's hurting but she'll be peachy."

  She'd fought with Pell?

  Mouse . . .

  Monterey County Sheriff's crime scene officers arrived and began working the site. Michael O'Neil, she noticed, wasn't here.

  One of the CS officers said to Kellogg, "Hey, congrats." He nodded at the body.

  The FBI agent smiled noncommitally.

  A smile, kinesics experts know, is the most elusive signal that the human face generates. A frown, a perplexed gaze or an amorous glance means only one thing. A smile, though, can telegraph hate, indifference, humor or love.

  Dance wasn't sure exactly what this smile meant. But she noticed that an instant later, as he stared at the man he'd just killed, the expression vanished, as if it had never existed.

  *

  Kathryn Dance and Samantha McCoy stopped by Monterey Bay Hospital to see Linda Whitfield, who was conscious and doing well. She'd spend the night in the hospital but the doctors said she could go home tomorrow.

  Samantha was chauffeured by Rey Carraneo back to a new cabin in the Point Lobos Inn, where she'd decided to spend the night, rather than returning home. Dance asked Samantha to join her for dinner, but the woman said she wanted some "downtime."

  And who could blame her?

  Dance left the hospital and returned to CBI, where she saw Theresa and her aunt, standing by their car, apparently awaiting her return to say good-bye. The girl's face brightened when she saw Dance. They greeted each other warmly.

  "We heard," the aunt said, unsmiling. "He's dead?" As if she couldn't have too much confirmation.

  "That's right."

  She gave them the details of the incident at Point Lobos. The aunt seemed impatient, though Theresa was eager to hear exactly what had happened. Dance didn't edit the account.

  Theresa nodded and took the news unemotionally.

  "We can't thank you enough," the agent said. "What you did saved lives."

  The subject didn't come up of what had actually happened on the night her family was killed, Theresa's feigned illness. Dance supposed that would remain a secret between herself and the girl forever. But why not? Sharing with one person was often as cathartic as sharing with the world.

  "You're driving back tonight?"

  "Yeah," the girl said with a glance at her aunt. "But we're making a stop first."

  Dance thinking: seafood dinner, shopping at the cute stores in Los Gatos?

  "I want to see the house. My old house."

  Where her parents and siblings had died.

  "We're going to meet Mr. Nagle. He talked to the family who lives there now and they've agreed to let me see it."

  "Did he suggest that?" Dance was ready to run interference for the girl and knew that Nagle would back down in an instant.

  "No, it was my idea," Theresa said. "I just, you know, want to. And he's going to come to Napa and interview me. For that book. The Sleeping Doll. That's the title. Isn't it weird having a book written about you?"

  Mary Bolling didn't say anything, though her body language--slightly lifted shoulders, a shift in the jaw--told Dance instantly that she didn't approve of the evening's detour and that there'd been an argument on the subject.

  As often, following significant life incidents--like the Family's reunion or Theresa's journey here to help catch her family's killer--there's a tendency to look for fundamental changes in the participants. But that didn't happen very often and Dance didn't think it had here. She found herself looking at the same two people they'd undoubtedly been for some time: a protective middle-aged woman, blunt but stepping up to the difficult task of becoming a substitute parent, and a typically attitudinal teenage girl who'd impulsively done a brave thing. They'd had a disagreement about how to spend the rest of the evening and, in this case, the girl had won, undoubtedly with concessions.

  Maybe, though, the very fact that the disagreement had occurred and been resolved was a step forward. This was, Dance supposed, how people change: incrementally.

  She hugged Theresa, shook her aunt's hand and wished them a safe trip.

  Five minutes later Dance was back in the GW side of CBI headquarters, accepting a cup of coffee and an oatmeal cookie from Maryellen Kresbach.

  Walking into her office, she kicked off the damaged Aldos and dug in her closet for a new pair: Joan and David sandals. Then she stretched and sat, sipping the strong coffee and searching through her desk for the remainder of a pack of M&Ms she'd stashed there a few days ago. She ate them quickly, stretched again and enjoyed looking at the pictures
of her children.

  Photos of her husband too.

  How she would have liked to lie in bed next to him tonight and talk about the Pell case.

  Ah, Bill . . .

  Her phone chirped.

  She glanced at the screen and her stomach did a small jump.

  "Hi," she said to Michael O'Neil.

  "Hey. Just got the news. You okay? Heard there were rounds exchanged."

  "Pell parked one near me. That's all."

  "How's Linda?"

  Dance gave him the details.

  "And Rebecca?"

  "ICU. She'll live. But she's not getting out any time soon."

  He, in turn, told her about the phony getaway car--Pell's favorite means of diversion and distraction. The Infiniti driver wasn't dead. He had been forced by Pell to call and report his own murder and carjacking. He'd then driven home, put the car in the garage and sat in a dark room until he'd heard the news of Pell's death.

  He added that he was sending her the crime scene reports from the Butterfly Inn, which Pell and Jennie had checked into after escaping from the Sea View and from Point Lobos.

  She'd been glad to hear O'Neil's voice. But something was off. There was still the matter-of-fact tone. He wasn't angry, but he wasn't overly pleased to be speaking to her. She thought his earlier remarks about Winston Kellogg were out of line but, while she didn't want an apology, she did wish that the rough seas between them would calm.

  She asked, "You all right?" With some people, you had to prime the pump.

  "Fine," he said.

  That goddamn word, which could mean everything from "wonderful" to "I hate you."

  She suggested he come by the Deck that night.

  "Can't, sorry. Anne and I have plans."

  Ah. Plans.

  That's one of those words too.

  "Better go. Just wanted to let you know about the Infiniti driver."

  "Sure, take care."

  Click. . . .

  Dance grimaced for the benefit of no one and turned back to a file.

  Ten minutes later Winston Kellogg's head appeared in the door. She gestured toward the chair and he dropped down into it. He hadn't changed; his clothes were still muddy and sandy. He saw her salt-stained shoes sitting by the door and gestured toward his own. Then laughed, pointing to a dozen pairs in her closet. "Probably nothing in there that'd work for me."

  "Sorry," she answered, deadpan. "They're all a size six."

  "Too bad, that lime-green number has a certain appeal."

  They discussed the reports that needed to be completed and the shooting review board that would have to issue a report on the incident. She'd wondered how long he'd be in the area and realized that whether or not he followed through on asking her out he'd have to stay for four or five days; a review board could take that long to convene, hear testimony and write the report.