"You son of a bitch," TJ raged.
"And if you tell me the truth, your mom and pop and kiddies'll be fine. I was right about your brood, wasn't I? At our first get-together. And no husband. You, a poor widow, Rebecca tells me. Sorry about that. Anyway, I'll bet the kiddies're with the grandfolks right now."
At that moment Kathryn Dance came to a decision.
It was a gamble, and under other circumstances it would have been a difficult, if not impossible, choice. Now, although the consequences would probably be tragic, one way or the other, there was no option.
No weapons--except words, and her intuition. A to B to X . . .
They would have to do.
Dance shifted so she was facing Pell directly. "Aren't you curious why we're here?"
"That's a question. I didn't want a question. I wanted an answer."
Make sure he remains in charge--Daniel Pell's trademark. "Please, let me go on. I am answering your question. Please, let me."
Pell looked her over with a frown. He didn't object.
"Now think about it. Why would we come here in such a big hurry?"
Normally she would have used a subject's first name. But doing so could be interpreted as an attempt to dominate, and Daniel Pell needed to know he was in control.
He grimaced impatiently. "Get to the point."
Rebecca scowled. "She's stalling. Let's go, baby."
Dance said, "Because I had to warn Morton--"
Rebecca whispered, "Let's just finish up and get going. Jesus, we're wasting--"
"Quiet, lovely." Pell turned his bright blue eyes back to Dance, just as he'd done in Salinas during their interview on Monday. It seemed like years ago. "Yeah, you wanted to warn him about me. So?"
"No. I wanted to warn him about Rebecca."
"What're you talking about?"
Dance held Pell's eyes as she said, "I wanted to warn him that she was going to use you to kill him. Just like she used you at William Croyton's house eight years ago."
Chapter 50
Dance saw the flicker in Daniel Pell's otherworldly eyes.
She'd touched something close to the god of control.
She used you. . . .
"This is such bullshit," Rebecca snapped.
"Probably," Pell said.
Dance noted the conditional word, not an absolute one. The agent eased forward. We believe that those who are physically closer to us tell the truth more than those leaning away. "She set you up, Daniel. And you want to know why? To kill William Croyton's wife."
He was shaking his head, but he was listening to every word.
"Rebecca was Croyton's lover. And when his wife wouldn't give him a divorce she decided to use you and Jimmy Newberg to kill her."
Rebecca laughed harshly.
Dance said, "You remember the Sleeping Doll, Daniel? Theresa Croyton?"
Now she was using his first name. She'd established a bond--by suggesting a common enemy.
He said nothing. His eyes flicked to Rebecca, then back to Dance, who continued, "I just talked to the girl."
Rebecca was shocked. "You what?"
"We had a long conversation. It was quite revealing."
Rebecca tried to recover. "Daniel, she didn't talk to her at all. She's bluffing to save her ass."
But Dance asked, "Was Jeopardy! on the TV in the den the night you and Newberg broke into the Croytons'? She told me it was. Who else would have known that?"
What is Quebec? . . .
The killer blinked. Dance saw she had his complete attention. "Theresa told me that her father was having affairs. He'd drop the children off at the Santa Cruz boardwalk and then meet his lovers there. One night Croyton spotted Rebecca doing sketches and picked her up. They started an affair. She wanted him to get a divorce but he wouldn't, or couldn't, because of his wife. So Rebecca decided to kill her."
"Oh, this is ridiculous," Rebecca raged. "She doesn't know any of this."
But Dance could see it was posed. The woman was flushed and her hands and feet were flashing subtle but clear affect displays from the stress. There was now no doubt that Dance was on to something.
Dance looked at him with steady eyes. "The boardwalk . . . Rebecca would've heard about you there, wouldn't she, Daniel? That's where the Family went to sell things at flea markets and to steal and shoplift. Caused kind of a stir, this cult of criminals. Gypsies, they called you. It made the news. She needed a fall guy, a killer. Linda told me you two met on the boardwalk. You thought you seduced her? No, it was the other way around."
Rebecca's voice remained calm. "Shut up! She's lying, Dan--"
"Quiet!" Pell snapped.
"She joined your clan when? Not long before the Croyton murders. A few months?" Dance pressed forward relentlessly. "Rebecca talked her way into the Family. Didn't it seem a little sudden? Didn't you wonder why? She wasn't like the others. Linda and Samantha and Jimmy, they were children. They'd do what you wanted. But Rebecca was different. Independent, aggressive."
Dance recalled Winston Kellogg's comment about cult leaders.
. . . women can be just as effective and as ruthless as men. And often they're more devious. . . .
"Once she was in the Family she saw right away that she could use Jimmy Newberg too. She told him that Croyton had something valuable in his house and he suggested that the two of you break in and steal it. Right?"
Dance saw that she was. "But Rebecca had made other plans with Jimmy. Once you were in the Croytons' house, he was supposed to kill Croyton's wife, then kill you. With you gone, he and Rebecca could be in charge. Of course, her idea was to turn Jimmy in after the killings--or maybe even kill him herself. William Croyton would go through a suitable period of mourning and he'd marry her."
"Honey, no. This is--"
Pell lunged forward and grabbed Rebecca's short hair, pulled her close. "Don't say another word. Let her talk!"
Moaning in pain, cringing, she slipped to the floor.
With Pell's attention elsewhere, Dance caught TJ's eye. He nodded slowly.
She continued, "Rebecca thought only Croyton's wife would be home. But the whole family was there because Theresa said she was sick. Whatever happened that night--only you know that, Daniel--whatever happened, everybody ended up dead.
"And when you called the Family to tell them what happened, Rebecca did the only thing she could to save herself: She turned you in. She's the one who made the call that got you arrested."
"That's bullshit," Rebecca said. "I'm the one who got him out of jail now!"
Dance laughed coldly. She said to Pell, "Because she needed to use you again, Daniel. To kill Morton. A few months ago she got a call from him and he tells her about the book The Sleeping Doll, how he's going to write about the Croytons--their life before the murders and Theresa's life afterward. She knows he'd learn about the affairs Croyton had. It was just a matter of time before somebody put the pieces together--that she was behind a plot to murder Croyton's wife.
"So Rebecca came up with the plan to break you out of Capitola. . . . One thing I don't know," she added, "is what she said to you, Daniel, to convince you to murder him." She glanced angrily at Rebecca, as if she were offended by what the woman had done to her good friend Daniel Pell. "So what lies did you tell him?"
Pell shouted at Rebecca, "What you told me--is it true or not?" But before she could speak, Pell grabbed Nagle, who cringed. "That book you're writing! What were you going to say about me?"
"It wasn't about you. It was about Theresa and the Croytons and the girls in the Family. That's all. It was about your victims, not you."
Pell pushed the man to the floor. "No, no! You were going to write about my land!"
"Land?"
"Yes!"
"What're you talking about?"
"My land, my mountaintop. You found out where it was, you were going to write about it in your book!"
Ah, Dance finally understood. Pell's precious mountaintop. Rebecca had convinced him that the only way
to keep it secret was to kill Morton Nagle and destroy the notes.
"I don't know anything about that, I swear."
Pell looked him over closely. He believed the writer, Dance could see.
"As soon as you killed Nagle and his family, Daniel, you know what was coming next, don't you? Rebecca was going to murder you. Claim you kidnapped her from the inn."
Dance gave a sad laugh. "Daniel, you thought all along you were in charge. But, no, she was Svengali. She was the Pied Piper."
Pell blinked at her words, then rose and charged toward Rebecca, knocking a table over as he lifted the gun.
The woman cringed but suddenly she too leapt forward, swinging the knife madly, slicing into Pell's arm, grabbing at his gun. The weapon went off, the bullet digging a chunk of rosy brick out of the fireplace.
Instantly Dance and TJ were on their feet.
The young agent kicked Rebecca hard in the ribs and grabbed Pell's gun hand. They wrestled for control of the weapon, sliding to the floor.
"Call nine-one-one," Dance shouted to Nagle, who scrabbled for a phone.
She started for the guns on the table, recalling: Check your backdrop, aim, squeeze in bursts, count the rounds, at twelve drop the clip, reload. Check your backdrop . . .
Screaming from Nagle's wife, wailing from his daughter.
"Kathryn," TJ shouted breathlessly. She saw that Pell was twisting the gun toward her.
It fired.
The bullet streaked past her.
TJ was young and strong, but his wrists were still cuffed and Pell had desperation and adrenaline coursing through him. With his free hand he pounded at TJ's neck and head. Finally the killer broke away, holding the gun, as the young agent rolled desperately for cover under a table.
Dance struggled forward but knew she'd never make it to the weapons in time. TJ was dead. . . .
Then a huge explosion.
Another.
Dance dropped to her knees and looked behind her.
Morton Nagle had picked up one of their guns and was firing the weapon toward Pell. Clearly unfamiliar with guns, he jerked the trigger and the bullets were wide. Still he stood his ground and kept firing. "You son of a bitch!"
Crouching, hands up in a futile effort to protect himself, Pell cringed, hesitated a moment, fired one round into Rebecca's belly and then flung the door open and ran outside.
Dance took the gun from Nagle, grabbed TJ's as well and shoved it into his cuffed hands.
The agents got to the half-open door just as a round slammed into the jamb, peppering them with splinters. They jumped back, crouching. She fished the cuff keys from her jacket and undid the bracelets. TJ did the same.
Cautiously they glanced outside at the empty street. A moment later they heard the screech of an accelerating car.
Calling back to Nagle, "Keep Rebecca alive! We need her!" Dance ran to her car and grabbed the microphone off the dash. It slipped out of her shaking hands. She took a breath, controlled the tremors and called the Monterey Sheriff's Office.
Chapter 51
An angry man is a man out of control.
But Daniel Pell couldn't staunch the rage as he sped away from Monterey, replaying what had just happened. Kathryn Dance's voice, Rebecca's face.
Replaying the events of eight years ago too.
Jimmy Newberg, the goddamn computer freak, the doper, had said that he had inside information about William Croyton--thanks to a programmer who'd been fired six months earlier. He'd managed to find out Croyton's alarm code and had a key to the back door (though Pell now knew where he'd gotten those--from Rebecca, of course). Jimmy'd said too that the eccentric Croyton kept huge amounts of cash in the house.
Pell would never rob a bank or check-cashing operation, nothing big. But, still, he needed money to expand the Family and to move to his mountaintop. And here was a chance for a once-in-a-lifetime break-in. No one was going to be home, Jimmy said, so there'd be no risk of injuries. They'd walk away with a hundred thousand dollars, and Croyton would make a routine call to the police and the insurance company, then forget the matter.
Just what Kathryn Dance had figured.
The two men had snuck through the backyard and made their way to the house through the sumptuous landscaping. Pell had seen the lights on, but Jimmy told him they were on a timer for security. They slipped into the house through a side utility door.
But something wasn't right. The alarm was off. Pell turned to Jimmy to tell him that somebody must be home after all, but the young man was already hurrying into the kitchen.
Walking right up to the middle-aged woman cooking dinner, her back to him. No! Pell remembered thinking in shock. What was he doing?
Murdering her, it turned out.
Using a paper towel, Jimmy pulled a steak knife from his pocket--one from the Family's house, with Pell's fingerprints on it, he realized--and, gripping the woman around the mouth, stabbed her deeply. She slumped to the floor.
Enraged, Pell whispered, "What the hell are you doing?"
Newberg turned and hesitated, but his face was telegraphing what was coming. When he lunged, Pell was already leaping aside. He just managed to dodge the vicious blade. Pell swept up a frying pan, smashed it into Newberg's head. He crashed to the floor, and, with a butcher knife from the counter, Pell killed him.
A moment later William Croyton hurried into the kitchen, hearing the noise of the struggle. His two older children were behind him, screaming as they stared at their mother's body. Pell pulled his gun out and forced the hysterical family into the pantry. He finally calmed Croyton down enough to ask about the money, which the businessman said was in the desk in the ground-floor office.
Daniel Pell had found himself looking at the sobbing, terrified family as if he were looking at weeds in a garden or crows or insects. He'd had no intention of killing anyone that night, but to stay in control of his life he had no choice. In two minutes they were all dead; he used the knife so the neighbors would hear no gunshots.
Pell had then wiped what fingerprints he could, taken Jimmy's steak knife and all his ID, then run to the office, where he found, to his shock, that, yes, there was money in the desk, but only a thousand dollars. A fast search of the master bedroom downstairs revealed only pocket change and costume jewelry. He never even got upstairs, where that little girl was in bed, asleep. (He was now glad she'd been up there; ironically, if he'd killed her then, he never would've learned about Rebecca's betrayal.)
And, yes, to the sound track of Jeopardy! he'd run back to the kitchen, where he pocketed the dead man's wallet and his wife's diamond cocktail ring.
Then outside, to his car. And only a mile later he was pulled over by the police.
Rebecca . . .
Thinking back to meeting her for the first time--the "coincidental" meeting that she'd apparently engineered near the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.
Pell remembered how much he loved the boardwalk, all the rides. Amusement parks fascinated him, people giving up complete control to somebody else--either risking harm on the roller coasters and parachute drops or becoming mindless laboratory rats on rides like the boardwalk's famous hundred-year-old Looff carousel, round and round. . . .
Remembered too Rebecca eight years ago, near that very same merry-go-round, gesturing him over.
"Hey, how'd you like me to do your portrait?"
"I guess. How much?"
"You'll be able to afford it. Take a seat."
And then after five minutes, with only the basic features of his face sketched in, she'd lowered the charcoal stick, looked him over and asked, challenging, if there was someplace private to go. They'd walked to the van, Linda Whitfield watching them with a solemn, jealous face. Pell hardly noticed her.
And a few minutes later, after kissing frantically, his hands all over her, she'd eased back.
"Wait . . ."
What? he'd wondered. Clap, AIDS?
Breathless, she'd said, "I . . . have to say something." She'd paused, looking
down.
"Go on."
"You might not like this, and if not, okay, we'll just call it quits and you get a picture for free. But I feel this connection with you, even after just a little while, and I've got to say . . ."
"Tell me."
"When it comes to sex, I don't really enjoy it . . . unless you hurt me. I mean, really hurt me. A lot of men don't like that. And it's okay . . ."
His response was to roll her over on her taut little belly.
And pull off his belt.
He gave a grim laugh now. It was all bullshit, he realized. Somehow in that ten minutes on the beach and five minutes in the van she'd tipped to his fantasy and played it for all it was worth.
Svengali and Trilby . . .
He now continued driving until his right arm began to throb with pain from Rebecca's knife slash at Nagle's house. He pulled over, opened his shirt and looked at it. Not terrible--the bleeding was slowing. But, damn, it hurt.
Nothing like the slash of her betrayal, though.
He was at the edge of the quiet portion of town and would have to continue through populated areas, where the police would be looking for him everywhere.
He made a U-turn and drove through the streets until he found an Infiniti, pausing at a stoplight ahead of him. Only one person inside. No other cars were around. Pell slowed but didn't hit the brakes until he was right on top of the luxury car. The bumpers tapped with a resonant thud. The Infiniti rolled forward a few feet. The driver glared in his rearview mirror and got out.
Pell, shaking his head, climbed out too. He stood, studying the damage.
"Weren't you looking?" The driver of the Infiniti was a middle-aged Latino man. "I just bought it last month." He glanced up from the cars and frowned at the blood on Pell's arm. "Are you hurt?"
His eyes followed the stain down to Pell's hand, where he saw the gun.
But by then it was too late.
Chapter 52
The first thing Kathryn Dance had done at Nagle's house--while TJ called in the escape--was to phone the deputy guarding her parents and children and have him take them, under guard, to CBI headquarters. She doubted Pell would waste time at this point carrying out his threats, but she wasn't going to take any chances.
She now asked the writer and his wife if Pell had said anything about where he might be fleeing, especially his mountaintop. Nagle had been honest with Pell; he'd never heard anything about an enclave in the wilderness. He, his wife and children could add nothing more. Rebecca was badly wounded and unconscious. O'Neil had sent a deputy with her in the ambulance. The moment she was able to talk, he'd call the detective.