The Sleeping Doll

learned.)
    “Nice. Oh, can I have the car keys?”
    She handed them over. “Here’s what else you wanted.” Jennie set two shopping bags on the bed. Pell looked through them and nodded approvingly.
    She got a soda from the minifridge. “Honey, can I ask you something?”
    His natural reluctance to answer questions—at least truthfully—surfaced again. But he smiled. “You can, anything.”
    “Last night, when you were sleeping, you said something. You were talking about God.”
    “God. What’d I say?”
    “I couldn’t tell. But it was definitely ‘God.’ ”
    Pell’s head turned slowly toward her. He noticed his heart rate increase. He found his foot tapping, which he stopped.
    “You were really freaking out. I was going to wake you up but that’s not good. I read that somewhere. Reader’s Digest . Or Health . I don’t know. When somebody’s having a bad dream, you should never wake them up. And you said, like, ‘Fuck no.’ ”
    “I said that?”
    Jennie nodded. “Which was weird. ’Cause you never swear.”
    That was true. People who used obscenities had much less power than people who didn’t.
    “What was your dream about?” she asked.
    “I don’t remember.”
    “Wonder why you were dreaming about God.”
    For a moment he felt a curious urge to tell her about his father. Then: What the hell’re you thinking of?
    “No clue.”
    “I’m kinda into religion,” she said uncertainly. “A little. More spiritual stuff than Jesus, you know.”
    “Well, about Jesus, I don’t think he was the son of God or anything, but I’ll tell you, I respect Him. He could get anybody to do whatever He wanted. I mean, even now, you just mention the name and, bang, people’ll hop to in a big way. That’s power. But all those religions, the organized ones, you give up too much to belong to them. You can’t think the way you want to. They control you.”
    Pell glanced at her blouse, the bra. . . . The swelling began again, the high-pressure center growing in his belly.
    He tried to ignore it and looked back at the notes he’d taken from his online searches and the map. Jennie clearly wanted to ask what he had in mind but couldn’t bring herself to. She’d be hoping he was looking for routes out of town, roads that would lead ultimately to Orange County.
    “I’ve got a few things to take care of, baby. I’ll need you to give me a ride.”
    “Sure, just say when.”
    He was studying the map carefully, and he looked up to see that she’d stepped away.
    Jennie returned a moment later, carrying a few things, which she’d gotten from a bag in the closet. She set these on the bed in front of him, then knelt on the floor. It was like a dog bringing her master a ball, ready to play.
    Pell hesitated. But then he reminded himself that it’s okay to give up a little control from time to time, depending on the circumstances.
    He reached for her but she lay down and rolled over on her belly all by herself.
    •    •    •
    There are two routes to San Jose from Monterey. You can take Highway 1, which winds along the coast through Santa Cruz, then cut over on vertigo-inducingHighway 17, through artsy Los Gatos, where you can buy crafts and crystals and incense and tie-dyed Janis Joplin dresses (and, okay, Roberto Cavalli and D&G).
    Or you can just take the Highway 156 cutoff to the 101 and, if you’ve got government tags, burn however much gas you want to get up to the city in an hour.
    Kathryn Dance chose the second.
    Gospel was gone and she was listening to Latin music—the Mexican singer Julieta Venegas. Her soulful “Verdad” was pounding from the speakers.
    The Taurus was doing ninety as she zipped through Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world. Not far away was Castroville (ditto, artichokes) and Watsonville, with its sweeping pelt of berry fields and mushroom farms. She liked these towns and had no patience for detractors who laughed at the idea of crowning an artichoke queen or standing in line for the petting tanks at Monterey’s own Squid Festival. After all, these chicer-than-thou urbanites were the ones who paid obscene prices for olive oil and balsamic vinegar to cook those very artichokes and calamari rings in.
    These burgs were homey and honest and filled with history. And they were also her turf, falling within the west-central region of the CBI.
    She saw a sign luring tourists to a vineyard in Morgan Hill, and had a thought.
    Dance called Michael