Dance thought of a comeback line but kept quiet. The bantering was making her more nervous.
She paused beside a palm tree with leaves like sharp weapons. "Where are we?"
The deputy looked at a slip of paper, oriented himself and pointed to one of the buildings in the back. "There."
O'Neil and Dance paused outside the door. He exhaled and lifted an eyebrow. "Guess this is it."
Dance laughed. "I feel like a teenager."
The deputy knocked.
After a short pause the door opened, revealing a narrow man, hovering near fifty, wearing dark slacks and a white shirt and striped tie.
"Michael, Kathryn. Right on time. Come on in."
*
Ernest Seybold, a career district attorney for Los Angeles County, nodded them into the room. Inside, a court reporter sat beside her three-legged dictation machine. Another young woman rose and greeted the new arrivals. She was, Seybold said, his assistant from L.A.
Earlier this month, Dance and O'Neil had run a case in Monterey--Daniel Pell, a cult leader and killer, had escaped from prison and remained on the Peninsula, targeting more victims. One of the people involved in the case had turned out to be somebody very different from the person Dance and her fellow officers had believed him to be. The consequences of that involved yet another murder.
Dance adamantly wanted to pursue the case against the perp. But there was much pressure not to follow up--from some very powerful organizations. Dance wouldn't take no for an answer, though, and while the Monterey prosecutor had declined to handle the case, she and O'Neil learned that the perp had killed earlier--in Los Angeles. District Attorney Seybold, who'd worked regularly with Dance's organization, the California Bureau of Investigation, and was a friend of Dance's, agreed to bring charges down in L.A.
Several witnesses, though, were in the Monterey area, including Dance and O'Neil, and so Seybold had come here for the day to take their statements. The clandestine nature of the get-together was due to the perp's connections and reputation. In fact, for the time being they weren't even using the killer's real name. The case was known internally as The People v. J. Doe.
As they sat, Seybold said, "We might have a problem, I have to tell you."
The butterflies that Dance had felt earlier--that something would go wrong and the case would derail--returned.
The prosecutor continued, "The defense's made a motion to dismiss based on immunity. I honestly can't tell you what the odds are it'll succeed. The hearing's scheduled for day after tomorrow."
Dance closed her eyes. "No . . ." Beside her O'Neil exhaled in anger.
All this work.
If he gets away, Dance thought . . . but then realized she had nothing to add to that, except: If he gets away, I lose.
She felt her jaw trembling.
But Seybold said, "I've got a team putting together the response. They're good. The best in the office."
"Whatever it takes, Ernie," Dance said. "I want him. I want him real bad."
"A lot of people do, Kathryn. We'll do everything we can."
If he gets away . . .
"But I want to proceed as if we're going to win." He said this confidently, which reassured Dance somewhat. They got started, Seybold asking dozens of questions about the crime--what Dance and O'Neil had witnessed and the evidence in the case.
Seybold was a seasoned prosecutor and knew what he was doing. After an hour of interviewing them both, the wiry man sat back and said he had enough from them for the time being. He was expecting another witness momentarily--a state trooper--who had also agreed to testify.
They thanked the prosecutor, who agreed to call them the instant the judge ruled in the immunity hearing.
As Dance and O'Neil walked back to the lobby, he slowed, a frown on his face.
"What?" she asked.
"Let's play hooky."
"What do you mean?"
He nodded at the beautiful garden restaurant, overlooking a canyon with the sea beyond. "It's early. When was the last time anybody in a white uniform brought you eggs Benedict?"
Dance considered. "What year is it again?"
He smiled. "Come on. We won't be that late."
A glance at her watch. "I don't know." Kathryn Dance hadn't played hooky in school, much less as a senior agent with the CBI.
Then she said to herself: Why're you hesitating? You love Michael's company, you get to spend hardly any downtime with him.
"You bet." Feeling like a teenager again, though now in a good way.
They were seated beside each other at a banquette near the edge of the deck, overlooking the hills. The early sun was out and it was a clear, crisp June morning.
The waiter--not fully uniformed, but in a suitably starched white shirt--brought them menus and poured coffee. Dance's eyes strayed to the page on which the restaurant bragged of their famous mimosas. No way, she thought, and glanced up to see O'Neil looking at exactly the same item.
They laughed.
"When we get down to L.A. for the grand jury, or the trial," he said, "champagne then."
"Fair enough."
It was then that O'Neil's phone trilled. He glanced at caller ID. Dance was immediately aware of his body language changing--shoulders slightly higher, arms closer to his body, eyes focused just past the screen.
She knew whom the call was from, even before he said a cheerful, "Hi, dear."
Dance deduced from his conversation with his wife, Anne, a professional photographer, that a business trip had come up unexpectedly soon and she was checking with her husband about his schedule.
Finally O'Neil disconnected and they sat in silence for a moment while the atmosphere righted itself and they consulted their menus.
"Yep," he announced, "eggs Benedict."
She was going to have the same and glanced up for the waiter. But then her phone vibrated. She glanced at the text message, frowned, then read it again, aware that her own body orientation was changing fast. Heart rate revving, shoulders lifted, foot tapping on the floor.
Dance sighed, and her gesture to the waiter changed from a polite beckon to one of mimicking signing the check.
(c) CHARLES HARRIS/CORBIS
JEFFERY DEAVER is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-four suspense novels, and the originator of the acclaimed detective hero Lincoln Rhyme, featured in the bestsellers The Broken Window, The Cold Moon, The Twelfth Card, The Vanished Man, The Stone Monkey, The Empty Chair, The Coffin Dancer, and The Bone Collector. As William Jefferies, he is the author of Shallow Graves, Bloody River Blues, and Hell's Kitchen. His short fiction is anthologized in two acclaimed collections from Pocket Books: Twisted and More Twisted.
He's been nominated for six Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony Award, and a Gumshoe Award, and was recently short-listed for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best International Author. He is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. He has also won a Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year for Garden of Beasts and a Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association. His thriller The Cold Moon won a Grand Prix from the Japanese Adventure Fiction Association and was named Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers Association of Japan. His novel The Bone Collector became a Universal Pictures feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. A former attorney, Deaver has been hailed as "the best psychological thriller writer around" (The Times, London).
Visit his website at www.jefferydeaver.com
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ALSO BY JEFFERY DEAVER
Carte Blanche
Edge
The Burning Wire*
Best American Mystery Stories 2009 (Editor) The Watch List (The Copper Bracelet and The Chopin Manuscript) (Contributor) Roadside Crosses**
The Bodies Lef
t Behind The Broken Window*
The Sleeping Doll**
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two The Cold Moon*/**
The Twelfth Card*
Garden of Beasts
Twisted: Collected Stories The Vanished Man*
The Stone Monkey*
The Blue Nowhere
The Empty Chair*
Speaking in Tongues
The Devil's Teardrop
The Coffin Dancer*
The Bone Collector*
A Maiden's Grave
Praying for Sleep
The Lesson of Her Death Mistress of Justice
Hard News
Death of a Blue Movie Star Manhattan Is My Beat
Hell's Kitchen
Bloody River Blues
Shallow Graves
A Century of Great Suspense Stories (Editor) A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Introduction) *Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs **Featuring Kathryn Dance
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright (c) 2008 by Jeffery Deaver All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster paperback edition May 2009
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Cover design by Jackie Seow Cover photo (c) Penny Adams/Superstock ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-4998-7
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-7959-5 (eBook) ISBN-10: 1-4165-4998-6
Jeffery Deaver, The Broken Window
(Series: Lincoln Rhyme # 8)
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