The Sleeping Doll

hurting people, giving up her house in Anaheim, never seeing the hummingbirds and wrens and sparrows in her backyard again.
    Now, it seemed perfectly natural. In fact, wonderful.
    Anything for you, Daniel. Anything.

Chapter 42
    “And how did he know you were there?” Overby asked, standing in Dance’s office. The man was jumpy. Not only had he engineered CBI’s taking over the manhunt, but he was now on record as supporting the bad tactical decision at the motel. Paranoid too. Dance could tell this from his body language and his verbal content as well: his use of “you,” whereas Dance or O’Neil would’ve said “we.”
    Stashing the blame  . . .
    “Must’ve sensed something about the hotel was different, maybe the staff were acting strange,” Kellogg replied. “Like in the restaurant at Moss Landing. He’s got the instincts of a cat.”
    Echoing Dance’s thoughts earlier.
    “And I thought your people heard him inside, Michael.”
    “Porn,” Dance said.
    The detective explained, “He had porn on pay-per-view. That was what surveillance heard.”
    The postmortem was discouraging, if not embarrassing. It turned out that the manager had, without knowing it, seen Pell and the woman leaving—pretending to be the two fishermen in the adjoining room—headed off for squid and salmon in Monterey Bay. The two men, bound and gagged in the next room, were reluctant to talk; Dance pried out of them that Pell had gotten their addresses and threatened to kill their families if they called for help.
    Patterns . . . goddamn patterns.
    Winston Kellogg was upset about the escape, but not apologetic. He’d made a judgment call, like Dance’s at Moss Landing. His plan could have worked, but fate had intervened, and she respected that he wasn’t bitter or whiny about the outcome; he was focused on the next steps.
    Overby’s assistant joined them. She told her boss he had a call from Sacramento, and SAC Amy Grabe, from the FBI, was holding on two. She wasn’t happy.
    An angry grunt. The CBI chief turned and followed her back to his office.
    Carraneo called to report that the canvass he and several other officers were conducting had so far yielded nothing. A cleaning woman thought she’d seen a dark car driving toward the back of the lot before the raid. No tag number. No one had seen anything else.
    Dark sedan. The same useless description they’d gotten at James Reynolds’s house. A Monterey Sheriff’s deputy arrived with a large packet. He handed it to O’Neil. “Crime scene, sir.” The detective set out photos and a list of the physical evidence. There was no doubt; the fingerprints revealed that the two occupants of the room were indeed Pell and his accomplice. Clothes, food wrappers, newspapers, personal hygiene items, some cosmetics. Also clothespins, what looked like a whip made out of a coat hanger, dotted with blood, panty hose that had been tied to the bedposts, dozens of condoms—new and used—and a large tube of K-Y lubricant.
    Kellogg said, “Typical of cult leaders. Jim Jones in Guyana? He had sex three or four times a day.”
    “Why is that?” Dance asked.
    “Because they can . They can do pretty much whatever they want.”
    O’Neil’s phone rang and he took the call. He listened for a few moments. “Good. Scan it and send it to Agent Dance’s computer. You have her email? . . . Thanks.”
    He looked at Dance. “Crime scene found an email in the pocket of the woman’s jeans.”
    A few minutes later Dance called up the message on the screen. She printed out the .pdf attachment.
    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    Re:
    Jennie, my lovely—
    Bargained my way into the office to write this. I had to. There’s something I want to say. I woke up thinking about you—our plans to go out to the beach, and the desert, and watching the fireworks every night in your backyard. I was thinking, you’re smart andbeautiful and romantic—who could ask for anything more in a girl? We’ve danced around it a lot and haven’t said it but I want to now. I love you. There’s no doubt in my mind, you’re unlike anybody I’ve ever met. So, there you have it. Have to go now. Hope these words of mine haven’t upset you or “freaked” you out .
    Soon, Daniel
    So Pell had sent emails from Capitola—though prior to Sunday, Dance noted, probably why the tech hadn’t found them.
    Dance noted that Jennie was her first name. Last or middle initial