More Twisted

to accept a plea bargain.
    She was wrong.
    Daniel Pell attacked her.
    His eyes snapped open and bore into hers with pure malevolence. He lunged forward as far as he could. Only the chains hooked to the metal chair, grounded with bolts to the tile floor, stopped him from sinking his teeth into her.
    She jerked back, gasping.
    “You goddamn bitch! You have no idea what it’s like to be set up! You’re part of it too! Oh, yeah, blame Daniel. It’s always my fault! I’m the easy target. And you come in here sounding like a friend, asking me a few questions. Jesus, you’re just like the rest of them!”
    Her heart was pounding furiously and she was afraid but noted quickly that the restraints were secure and he couldn’t reach her. She turned to the mirror behind which the officer manning the video camera was surely rising to his feet right now to help her. But she shook her head. It was important to see where this was going.
    Then suddenly the fury was replaced with a cold calm. He sat back, caught his breath, and looked her over again. “You’re in your thirties, Officer Dance. You’re somewhat pretty. You seem straight to me, so I guarantee there’s a man in your life. Or has been.” A third glance at the pearl ring.
    “If you don’t like my theory, Daniel, let’s come up with another one. About what really happened to Robert Herron.”
    As if she hadn’t even spoken. “And you’ve got children,right? Sure, you do. I can see that. Tell me all about them. Tell me about the little ones. Close in age, and not too old, I’ll bet.”
    This unnerved her and she involuntarily thought of Maggie and Wes. But she struggled not to react. He doesn’t know I have children, of course. He can’t. But he sure acts as if he’s certain. Was there something about my behavior he noted? Something that suggested to him that I’m a mother?
    They’re studying you as hard as you’re studying them . . . .
    “Listen to me, Daniel,” she said in a pond-calm voice. “An outburst isn’t going to help anything.”
    “I’ve got friends on the outside, you know. They owe me. They’d love to come visit you. Or hang with your husband and children. 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.”
    Dance returned the gaze, never flinching. She asked, “Could you tell me about your relationship with that prisoner in Capitola?”
    “Yes, I could. But I won’t.” His emotionless words mocking her, making clear that, for a professional interrogator, she’d phrased her question carelessly. In a soft voice he added, “I think it’s time to go back to my cell.”
    Chapter 2
    Alonzo “Sandy” Sandoval, the Monterey County prosecutor, was a handsome, round man with a thick head of black hair and an ample moustache. He sat behind a desk littered with files in his office, two flights above the lockup. “Hi, Kathryn. So, our boy . . . did he beat his breast and cry ‘mea culpa’?”
    “Not exactly.” Dance sat down, peered into the coffee cup she’d left on the desk forty-five minutes ago. Nondairy creamer scummed on the surface. “I rate it as, oh, one of the least successful interrogations of all time.”
    “You look shook, Boss,” said a short, wiry Anglo with curly red hair and wearing jeans, T-shirt and plaid sports coat. TJ’s outfit was unconventional for an investigative agent with the CBI—the most conservative law enforcement agency in the Great Bear State—but so was pretty much everything else about him. Around thirty and single, TJ lived in the hills of Carmel Valley, his house a ramshackle place that could have been a diorama in a counterculture museum depicting California life in the 1960s. TJ tended to work solo much of the time, surveillance and undercover, rather than pairing up with another CBI agent, which was standard procedure. But Dance’s regular partner was in Mexico on an extradition, and when the Pell case came up, TJ jumped at the chance to meet the Son of Manson.
    “No, just curious. ” She explained how the interview had been going fine, when—suddenly—Pell turned on her. Under TJ’s skeptical gaze, she conceded, “Okay, I’m a little shook. I’ve been threatened before. But his were the worst kind of threats.”
    “Worst?” asked Juan Millar, a tall, dark-complexioned young detective with the MSO—the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, which was headquartered not