But wasn't that just life?

  So, a lyrical comfort with Kathryn, a rapport with the children...and even the formidable Edie Dance liked him--enough. Stuart, of course, and Boling had become solid friends.

  But something wasn't quite right. Hence, the Kathryn Dance "situation."

  Suggesting issues requiring consideration. Formulation. Adjustment. Solution.

  Jon Boling hardly knew kinesics but he'd learned enough from Kathryn to be aware of tension. And when was it most in evidence? Not when she was entangled in a case. Not when one of the kids was sick. But when she and Boling and Michael O'Neil were in the same room together.

  Computer code, the language Jon Boling spoke most fluently, is written according to the laws of logic. The parameters are clear and allow for not a single misplaced character. He wished he could write out a program on the Kathryn Dance Situation, compile it and find the solution pulsing on a monitor in front of him.

 

 

 

 

The Kathryn Dance Situation

 

Love her.

 

Love the children.

 

It works, many, many ways.

  Jon Boling liked Michael O'Neil a great deal. He was a solid, decent man. A good father who'd kept his path during a divorce from a faithless and frivolous wife. And to hear Kathryn tell it he was one hell of a law enforcer. But there was another factor in the code Boling was now writing.

 

Michael O'Neil loves Kathryn.

  A stretch of flat surface and Boling pulled off to the sidewalk. He texted the college's computer science department, where Lily was hard at work on cracking the computer or phone.

  Lily, quite a beauty she was. Smart as could be.

  No success yet. But Boling had confidence she'd find the magic key: a pet cat's name plus five random numbers plus the bra size of a girlfriend, or the first sentence of A Tale of Two Cities.

  Back to the Situation. And the big question: Did Kathryn love Michael?

  He'd lain awake a number of nights wondering, tagging her words and looks and gestures with meaning, wondering, wondering...and replaying certain images and words over the past year. The radiance of her eyes, the lift of her lips when she smiled, characterized by faint, charming wrinkles.

 

What are Kathryn's true feelings?

  Boling recalled overhearing the fight she and O'Neil had had last night. Raw. Sharp words, back and forth. Then he pictured her returning to the house and her face changing, melting, relaxing, growing comfortable once more. Boling and Dance had laughed, had some turkey reinvented into something innovative, salad, wine. And the hard day in Orange County, the hard words fired by Michael O'Neil, fell away.

 

Do Kathryn and Jon have a future?

  He now eased to a stop outside the store he'd bicycled ten miles to come to. It was, like most stores and houses in Carmel, on the borderline between quaint and precious. The decor was Bavarian ski resort, not uncommon here, though Boling suspected the downtown saw snow once a decade at most.

  He unstrapped his almond-shaped helmet and slung it over the handlebars. He leaned the bike up against a nearby fence. Didn't bother with the lock. Nobody was going to steal a bike in daylight in downtown Carmel. That would be like trying to host a gun show in Berkeley.

  Jon Boling had done some research on By the Sea Jewelry, the store he was walking toward now. It was just what he needed. Glancing at the beautiful antique engagement and wedding rings in the window, Boling pushed inside. The door opened with a jingle from a cowbell, both incongruous and perfectly apt.

  Five minutes later he was outside once again.

 

Do Kathryn and Jon have a future?

  Boling opened the By the Sea Jewelry bag and peered into the box inside. Good. He slipped it into his jacket pocket. He found himself smiling.

  Helmet on. Time to head back to her house.

  There were several ways to get there. The shorter was to go back up Ocean Avenue. But that was a steep hill, made for the thighs of a twenty-year-old. The other option, longer, was to bike downhill toward the beach and then meander along Seventeen Mile Drive back to Pacific Grove.

  Pretty and, yes, far easier.

  A glance at his watch. He'd be back to Dance's in thirty minutes this way. He turned the bike down the steep hill and caught a glimpse of the ocean, beach, rocks, shrouded in mist, ahead of him in the distance.

  What a view.

  He pushed off, keeping tension on the rear brake mostly--the incline was so severe that hitting the front one alone would catapult him head over heels if he had to stop fast. It seemed to him that the rear responded slowly, wobbling with some vibration. It felt different from when he'd biked here, just minutes ago. But the sensation was simply a rough patch of asphalt, he was sure. Or maybe even his imagination. Now, no traffic in front, he let up on the brake handles. The speed increased and Boling enjoyed the wind streaming against his face, enjoyed the hum it made in his helmet. Thinking of the box inside his pocket.

 

The Kathryn Dance Situation has been resolved.

 

 

  Chapter 58

  Dance and her father were on the Deck this warm Sunday afternoon, pleasant, though under gray skies--overcast for a change, no fog. Natives knew the difference. As often on the Peninsula, the sky promised rain but deceived. The drought grew worse every year. Solitude Creek, for instance, had at one point been eight, nine feet deep, she'd learned. Now it was a quarter that. Less in some places.

  She thought again about the reeds and grass, the decaying buildings behind the parking lot on the shores of the creek.

  Annette, the sobbing witness.

  Trish, the motherless child.

  The bodies in the roadhouse, the blood. The stain in the shape of a heart.

  She was talented...

  Picturing Solitude Creek itself, the gray expanse of water, bordered by reeds and grasses.

  It was then that she had a thought. "Excuse me a sec," she said to Stuart.

  "Sure, honey."

  She pulled out her phone and texted Rey Carreneo with yet another assignment.

  He responded as crisply as his starched, highly ironed shirts.

  K, Kathryn. On it right now.

  She put her phone away.

  "When's brunch?" Maggie asked, poking her head out the door.

  "Jon'll be home anytime." She looked at her Timex. He was ten minutes late. It wasn't like him not to call.

  "K." The girl vanished.

  Her phone hummed.

  Maybe that's him. But no.

  "TJ."

  He and several MCSO deputies had been systematically contacting venues with public performances or large social events and asking them to cancel.

  "I think we've got most of the big ones. Concerts, church services, plays, sports events--praise the Lord it's not March Madness, or we'd have riots on our hands. By the way, boss, I am not the most popular man on the Peninsula--in the eyes of the Chamber of Commerce and assorted wedding parties, persona non grata. The Robertsons are not inviting me to the rescheduled reception."

  Dance thanked him and they disconnected.

  Stuart asked, "How's it going?"

  She shrugged. "Ruining people's Sunday."

  "So, Maggie's not singing in the talent show tonight?"

  "No, she didn't want to. I was going to push it but..." A shrug.

  Stuart smiled. "Sometimes, you let it go." He knew he'd made a pun on the song his granddaughter was going to have sung. Dance laughed, reflecting that the song title had become a theme of hers over the past few days.

  "When's brunch?" Wes called from the doorway, echoing his sister.

  Dance glanced at her phone. Still no word from Boling. "We'll get things started."

  She and Stuart walked into the kitchen. She Keuriged some coffee for them both and prowled through the fridge.

  She glanced toward her son.

  "No texting at the
table."

  "We're not eating yet."

  A look from Mom. The mobile disappeared into his back pocket.

  "So, what's on the wish list for brunch?"

  Maggie: "Waf--"

  "--cakes," her brother chimed in.

  "Wafcakes."

  Maggie poured an orange juice and sipped. "When are you going to get married?" Maggie asked, like a father to a pregnant daughter.

  Stuart chuckled.

  Dance froze. Then: "I'm too busy to be thinking about getting married."

  "Excuses, excuses, excuses... Are you marrying Jon or Michael?"

  "What? Maggie!"

  Then the phone was ringing. Wes was closest and he answered. "Hello?"

  They weren't supposed to answer with their name or "Dance residence." Security starts early in a law enforcement household.

  "Sure." He looked at his sister. "For you. Bethany."

  Maggie took the cordless phone, looked at it then wandered off. Dance checked her own cell for updates. Nothing from Jon. She called him and the line went right to voice mail.

  "Hey, it's me. You on your way? Just checking."

  Dance disconnected and happened to glance toward her daughter on the landline. Bethany Meyer, the future secretary of state, was a precocious eleven-year-old, polite enough, though Dance thought of her as over assembled. She believed kids that age should wear jeans or shorts and T-shirts most of the time, not dress up as if they were going for movie auditions every day. Her parents were well off, true, but they sank way too much money into the girl's clothes. And such fastidious makeup? On a girl her age? In a word, no.

  Suddenly she noticed Maggie's body language change abruptly. Her shoulders rose and her head drooped. One knee went forward--a sign of a subconscious, if not physical, desire to flee or fight. She was getting troubling news. The girl continued to talk a bit more and then she discriminated. She returned to the kitchen.

  "Mags, everything all right?"

  "Yeah, it's fine. Why not?" Jittery.

  Dance looked at her sternly.

  "Everything's, like, fine."

  "Watch the 'like.' What did Bethany have to say?"

  "Nothing. Just stuff."

  "Nothing?"

  "Uh-uh."

  Dance fired off the second Mom look of the morning, which was conspicuously ignored, and began to assemble the ingredients for the meal.

  "Blueberries?"

  Maggie didn't answer.

  Dance repeated the question.

  "Yeah, sure."

  Dance tried the proven tactic of diversion. "Hey, you all looking forward to the concert? Neil Hartman?"

  The new Dylan...

  The tickets that singer-songwriter Kayleigh Towne had sent Dance and the children.

  "I guess," Maggie said, less than enthusiastic.

  A glance at Wes, who was, in turn, sneaking a look at his phone. He put it away fast. "Yeah, yeah...can't wait." More enthusiastic, though more distracted.

  Dance herself was very much looking forward to the show. She reminded herself to check the tickets to see where the seats were. She'd left Kayleigh's envelope in the glove compartment of the Pathfinder.

  Five seconds later her son said, "Mom?"

  "Yes, darling."

  A grimace, if a playful one. "Can I go meet Donnie?"

  "What about brunch?"

  "Can I do Starbucks instead? Please, please?" He was cheerful, almost silly. She debated, extracted a ten from her purse and handed it over.

  "Thanks."

  "Can I go too?" Maggie asked.

  "No," Wes said.

  "Mom!"

  "Come on, honey," Stuart said. "I want to have brunch with you."

  Maggie glanced at her brother darkly then said, "Okay, Grandpa."

  "Bye, Mom," Wes said.

  "Wait!"

  The boy stopped and looked at her with small alarm in his face.

  "Helmet." She pointed.

  "Oh." He stared at it. "Well, we're walking. I've still got that flat."

  "All the way downtown?"

  "Yeah."

  "All right."

  "Yeah. Bye, Grandpa."

  Stuart said, "Don't get a double shot of espresso. Remember what happened last time."

  Dance hadn't heard about that incident. And didn't want to know.

  The door closed. Dance started to call Boling again when she noted that Maggie's face was still troubled.

  "You wouldn't've had any fun with them."

  "I know."

  Dance began to say something to the girl, make a joke, when her cell rang again. She answered. "Michael."

  "Listen. May have our Solitude Creek unsub. A PG patrolman spotted a silver Honda Accord at the Del Monte View Inn."

  Dance knew it, a big luxury nonchain hotel not far from where she lived.

  "It's parked right behind the building. The driver was tall. Sunglasses. Hat but maybe he has a shaved head. Worker's jacket. He's inside now."

  "Tag?"

  "Delaware. But how's this? It's registered to layers of shell corporations, including an offshore."

  "Really? Interesting."

  "I've got teams on the way there. Rolling up silent."

  "You know the place? There're two lots. Have them stage in the bottom one. Out of view from the hotel."

  "Already ordered it," he said.

  "I'm ten minutes, Michael. I'm moving."

  She turned to her father and daughter, to see Stuart already on his feet, reading the recipe on the back of the Bisquick box.

  She laughed. He looked as serious as an engineer about to power up a nuclear reactor. "Thanks, Dad. Love you both."

  Chapter 59

  As he walked to Starbucks to meet Wes, Donnie Verso was thinking about their friendship.

  The kid wasn't like Nathan or Lann or Vince or Peter. He wasn't that stand-up. And he wasn't quite thinking right, like mind-set, the way he ought to if he wanted to hang with the Defend and Respond crew. Not muting his phone and alerting the bitch cop just as Donnie was about to crack her skull open and get her gun. Your phone, dude? Seriously? (Though, afterward, he thought maybe that had worked out for the best.) Yeah, yeah, he was good backup, a good lookout--he'd saved Donnie's ass a couple of times, warning him that somebody was about to see him tagging a church or stealing a watch from Rite Aid.

  But Donnie just couldn't get Wes to go the extra step.

  Oh, he wanted to. That was obvious. Because Wes was mad. Oh, yeah. Totally mad. Wes was as pissed off at his father for being dead as Donnie was at his for being alive. That kind of anger usually pushed you dark really fast. But the dude was hanging back.

  He was sure the kid could do it, if he wanted to, even though they'd known each other only a month. Donnie would see the twelve-year-old around middle school from time to time, and didn't think anything of him. A church humper? Probably. Science club? Probably. Another time, Donnie might've whaled on him. (Or Donnie and Nathan together, since Wes wasn't small.) But there were other, easier targets at school.

  He was thinking of the first time they'd really spoken. One day after school Donnie and Nathan had gotten this pussy grade-schooler down by Asilomar and fucked him up a little, nothing bad. While they were doing it Donnie looked up and saw Wes standing there. Like he was curious was all.

  Wes had watched then pedaled off, not fast, not scared, like no worries.

  The next day at school, Donnie'd cornered Wes and said, "The fuck you were looking at yesterday?"

  And Wes said, "Nobody special."

  "Fuck you," Donnie'd said. Not being able to think of anything better. "You tell anybody what you saw and you're fucked."

  Wes said, "I coulda told somebody but I didn't. 'Cause, duh, you're here and not behind bars."

  "Fuck off."

  Wes just walked away slow, like he'd biked away the day before.

  No cares...

  Then a couple of days later Wes came up to Donnie in the hall and gave him a copy of Hitman, the video game wh
ere you could go around fucking people up, killing them for assignments and even strangling girls. He said, "My mom won't let me play. But it's a good game. You want it?"

  Then a week later, Wes was sitting outside and Donnie came by and said, "I couldn't play it, I don't have Xbox but I got Call of Duty. I traded it at Games Plus. You want to play sometime?"

  "My mom won't let me play that either. At your house, yeah."

  It took a couple of weeks of games and pizza and just hanging out before Wes said, "My father's dead."

  Donnie, who'd heard, said, "Yeah, I heard. Sucks."

  Nothing more for another week. Then Donnie sat down at the lunch table and they talked about shit for a while and asked, "Your dad. I heard he was FBI. Somebody killed him?"

  "Accident."

  "Like a car?"

  "A truck."

  Wes sounded as calm as Donnie's mother after she took her little white pills.

  "You want to fuck up the driver?"

  "Yeah but he's gone. Didn't even live here."

  "Wish somebody'd run into my father. Don't you want to fuck things up sometimes?"

  "Explode, yeah," Wes had said. "And my mom's going out with this guy. A computer guy. He's okay. He hacks code real good. But it's like my dad never even existed, you know. And I can't say anything."

  "'Cause you'll get the crap beat out of you."

  Wes had just repeated, "Explode."

  They hung out some more and finally Donnie let him into the Defend and Respond Expedition Service game. He needed a partner because Lann, fuck him, had moved.

  Donnie, who spent hours a day at video games, had made up the game himself. Defend and Respond Expedition Service. But they thought of it as what it really was: D.A.R.E.S. Well, dares.

  Donnie and now Wes were on one side, Vincent and Nathan on the second. One team dared the other to do something totally fucked-up: steal something, shoot pictures up a girl's skirt, piss on a teacher's lesson plan. You got a point if you met the challenge--and came back with proof. At the end of the month, whoever had the most points won. They wrote it up like a board game with fake countries and codes and names--Darth and Wolverine--so that any parents looking the game over would just think it was like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or whatever.

  Wes hadn't been sure about joining at first. Donnie's crew wasn't Wes's flavor. But Donnie could see he was interested and, after the first couple dares, even though he only watched Donnie's back, it was way clear that he got a high out of it. Like he'd almost smiled in Asilomar that time, watching Donnie and Nathan beat the crap out of the whiny little Lat.