Xo

Office. The sheriff is Anita Gonzalez. The head detective is P. K. Madigan. Been on the force a long time, forever. Don’t know anything else about him.”
    “I’ll get over there now. You have anything on Sharp yet? The stalker?”
    “No warrants or court orders came up here. Nothing in California at all. Still waiting for the locals from Washington and Oregon. The phone number you gave me? That somebody called Kayleigh on? It was a prepaid, bought with cash, from a drugstore in Burlingame.”
    South of San Francisco, where the airport was located.
    “No video and no other record of the transaction. The clerks have no idea who it was. It was three days ago. No other details yet.”
    “Keep on it. Email Sharp’s full bio. Anything you can get.”
    “Your command is what I wish for, Boss.”
    They disconnected.
    What time was it? The room was still dark but light showed behind the drapes.
    Glasses on. Oh, eight-thirty. The crack of midmorning.
    She walked into the bathroom for a brief, hot shower. In twenty minutes she was dressed in black jeans, a black T-shirt and a silk business jacket, navy blue, conservative, matter-of-fact. The heat would be challenging with these clothes but the possibility of duty loomed. She’d learned long ago that a woman officer had to be a length ahead of men when it came to appearing professional. Sad but the way of the world.
    She took her laptop with her, just in case the intruder returned, if in fact she had been intruded upon yesterday.
    Then she was out the door, slipping the DO NOT DISTURB sign onto the L-shaped knob of the hotel room.
    Wondering briefly if the prohibition would have any effect.
    Outside, under an uncompromising sun, her temples, face and armpits bristled as sweat flowed. Dance fished for the Pathfinder key in her Coach purse and absently slapped her hip, where her Glock normally resided.
    A weapon that was, today, conspicuously absent.

 
     

Chapter 9
    HAD THERE REALLY been just one victim?
    Pulling into the convention center lot, aiming for the stage door, Dance noted more emergency and public safety personnel than seemed necessary. Two dozen, easily, walking slowly, speaking on phones or radios, carrying battered equipment, green and red and yellow—the colors of stoplights, colors of children’s toys.
    Four fire trucks, two ambulances, eight police cruisers and several unmarked.
    She wondered again if TJ’s information was flawed. Had others died?
    She drove forward to a Dodge, unmarked but obvious, parked and climbed out. A woman in a deputy’s uniform glanced Dance’s way, C. STANNING stamped on a plate above her taut breast. Her hair was equally tight and it ended in pert, incongruous pigtails, tipped in blue rubber bands.
    “Help you?”
    Dance displayed her CBI card and the woman didn’t seem to know what to make of it. “You … is Sacramento involved?”
    Dance nearly said she was just here on vacation and believed she knew the victim. But law enforcement is a world in which instinct counts—when dealing both with suspects and with allies. She said, “Not yet. I happened to be nearby.”
    Stanning juggled these words, perhaps factoring in her own instructions from on high, and said, “Okay.”
    Dance continued on toward the bland concrete convention center. A slash of glaring light hit her in the face brutally as she approached. She slipped into the shade but this route was just as unpleasant; the air between two tall walls leading to the front doors was dead and stifling.
    She stepped inside and in a half second the relief of the air-conditioning was utterly negated by the stench.
    Kathryn Dance had been a law enforcer for some years and had attended hundreds of crime scenes. Being an investigator with CBI, she was rarely a first responder and didn’t do forensics; much of the horror had been tamed by the time she arrived. Blood staunched, bodies covered with washable tarps, body parts recovered and cataloged.
    So the scent of burned flesh and hair was unexpected; it hit like a fist in her belly.
    She didn’t hesitate but she did steel herself and pushed past the assault, somehow keeping the nausea under control. She walked into the massive arena, which would hold thirty thousand, she guessed. All the overheads were on, revealing the tired and shabby décor. It was as if a play or concert had ended and the promoters were eager to prod the audience into the lobby to buy CDs and souvenirs.
    On the stage and main floor were a dozen