The Sleeping Doll

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 auntseemed 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