Solitude Creek (39 page)

‘I’ve heard back from Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado. No matches in driver’s-license-photo databases. But facial recognition equipment …’ He shrugged. ‘You know. Can be hit or miss. The pix’re on the missing-persons wires, state and fed. She’s young, has to have family’re worried about her.’

‘Not much more we can do.’

‘You staying?’ Rivera asked.

‘A while.’

‘Night, then.’

‘You too, Gabe.’

O’Neil stretched. He glanced down at a pink phone-message slip, a call he’d returned earlier that day.

Anne called.

He thought about his ex. Then about Maggie’s recital, soon to get under way. He was sorry to be absent. He hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed.

Jon will be there …

Though her boyfriend’s presence wasn’t the reason he couldn’t go. Not at all. He
did
have plans this evening. Just curious that Dance would mention Boling. O’Neil had assumed that he’d be in attendance.

Jon will be there …

Enough. Let it go.

Back to work.

The preliminary crime-scene report from the hospital was open on his desk and Michael O’Neil was reading through it. Eighty percent of a cop’s job is paper or bytes.

He took notes from the new report, then opened some of the earlier ones to compare data: from the Solitude Creek incident, the Bay View Center and Orange County.

… footprint seventeen inches from driver’s door of suspect’s vehicle revealed one partial three-quarter-inch front tread mark, not identifiable …

Reading, reading, reading.

And thinking: There probably was a time when it might’ve worked between us, Kathryn and me. But that’s over. Circumstances have changed.

Wait. No. That wasn’t right.

There’d been a time when it
would
have worked out. Not ‘might’.

But he was accurate when he’d said circumstances had changed. So what would have been – and what would have been good, really good – wasn’t going to happen now.

Circumstances. Changed.

That was life. Look at Anne, his ex. She’d definitely changed. He’d been surprised, nearly shocked, to get that phone call from her last week. She’d sounded like the person he remembered from when they’d met, years ago. She’d been reasonable and funny and generous.

He then reminded himself sternly he was not thinking about Kathryn Dance any more.

Get. Back. To. It.

… accelerant was diethyl ether, approximately 600 ml, ignited by a Diamond Strike Anywhere match, recovered from the site of the burn. Not traceable. Generic …

Kathryn was with Jon Boling.

So O’Neil would go in a different direction too.

Best for everybody. For his children, for Dance, for Boling. He was convinced this was the right thing to do.

… Statement by witness 43 at Bay View Center crime scene, James Kellogg: ‘I was, what it was I was standing near the street, the one that goes through Cannery Row. I’m not from here, so I don’t remember what it was. And I’m like what’s all this, all the police stuff going on? Was it terrorists? I’d heard shots or firecrackers earlier, like five minutes earlier but I didn’t know. I didn’t see anything – I looked around – but I didn’t see anything weird, you know. I mean, I did. But I thought it was a normal crime, not like the attack at the club.

‘This guy, he was tall, over six feet, wearing shorts, sunglasses and a hat – I think he was blond though, you could see that. He was looking around and he went to a car, this SUV, and looked in and opened the door. And I could see he was looking through a woman’s purse. I thought he was going to steal something. But he just put it back. So he wasn’t a thief.’

‘What kind of SUV was it?’

‘Oh, it was a Nissan Pathfinder. Gray. And the reason he didn’t steal anything was that it had to be a police car. It had flashing blue lights on the dashboard.’

O’Neil froze. He scooted back in his chair. No! Oh, hell. The unsub had been through Dance’s car. He’d gotten her ID, knew where she lived. Had followed her. And had seen her and Jon Boling together. That was how he’d known to target Boling, tamper with his bike. And—

Another thought hit him. Dance had told him she’d had flyers about the event in her vehicle. The unsub could easily have seen them.

A school auditorium. A perfect venue for an attack.

He grabbed his phone and called Central Dispatch.

‘Hello?’

‘Sharon. Michael O’Neil. There’s a possible two-four-five in progress at Pacific Hills Grade School. PG. Have units roll up silent. I’m going to get more info and I’ll advise through you.’

‘Roger. I’ll get ’em rolling. And await further.’

They disconnected.

How to handle it? If he ordered an evacuation and the unsub had locked the doors already, that might result in the very stampede and crush that O’Neil had to avoid.

Or was it even too late to do anything?

He’d call Dance and warn her. She could see if there was a way to get the parents and children out quietly before the unsub made a move.

O’Neil grabbed his mobile and hit speed-dial button one.

Wes and Jon Boling were chowing down on green-room goodies.

Not like at Madison Square Garden or MGM Grand where, Dance suspected, Dom Pérignon and caviar were the fare backstage. This was Ritz crackers, Doritos, juice boxes and milk (the school, like Dance’s house, was a soda-free zone).

Then the audience grew silent: the show was about to get under way. Boling whispered they were going to find their seats and he and Wes left.

Dance remained, looking over her daughter as they stood together, near the entrance to the stage. Maggie gazed out at the audience, probably two hundred people.

Her poor face was taut, unhappy.

Dance’s phone grew busy: it was on mute but she felt the vibration. She’d get it in a minute. She was now concentrating on her daughter. ‘Maggie?’

The child looked up. She seemed about to cry.

What on earth was going on? Weeks of angst about the performance. A roller-coaster of emotion.

And then Dance made a sudden shift. She moved from mom to law enforcer. That had been her mistake, looking at her daughter’s plight. Dance had been viewing the discomfort as a question of nerves, of typical pre-adolescent distress. In fact, she should have been looking at the whole matter as a crime. She should have been thinking of plots, motives,
modi operandi
.

A to B to Z …

She knew instantly what was going on. So clear. All the pieces were there. She just hadn’t thought to put them together. Now she understood the truth: her daughter was being extorted.

By Bethany and the Secrets Club …

Dance guessed that Bethany, so polite on the surface, was an expert at subtle bullying, using secrets as weapons. To join the club, you had to share a secret, something embarrassing: a wet bed, stolen money, a broken vase at home, a lie to a parent or teacher, something sexual. Then Bethany and her crew would have leverage to get the members of the club to do what they wanted.

Maggie’s reluctance to perform was obvious now. She wasn’t going to sing ‘Let It Go’ at all. The girls in the club had probably forced her to learn a very different song, maybe something off-color, embarrassing – maybe ridiculing Mrs Bendix, their teacher, a wonderful woman but heavyset, a careless dresser. An easy target for juvenile cruelty.

Dance recalled that when she’d agreed that Maggie didn’t have to appear at the show, her daughter had been so relieved: Mom would back her up against the club. But comfort hadn’t lasted long. The recent call from Bethany had been an ominous reminder that, whatever her mother had agreed to, Maggie was going to sing.

Or her secret would be revealed.

She was furious. Dance found her palms sweating. Those little bitches …

Her phone buzzed again. She ignored it once more.

She put her arm around Maggie’s shoulders. ‘Honey, let’s talk for a minute.’

‘I—’

‘Let’s talk.’ A smile.

They walked to the back of the green-room area. From there they could see one of Maggie’s classmates, Amy Grantham, performing a dance scene from
The
Nutcracker
. She was good. Dance looked out at the audience. She saw her parents, sitting in the center, with Wes and Boling now near them, a jacket draped over the chair reserved for her.

She turned back to her daughter.

Dance had decided. Maggie was
not
going perform. No question. Whatever the secret was, she’d have her tell her now. Revealing it would defuse their power over her.

Anyway, how terrible could a ten-year-old’s indiscretion possibly be?

Another tremble of her phone.

Three times. She’d ignored it long it enough. She tugged her phone from its holster. Not a call: it was a text. From Michael O’Neil.

She read it, noting that it was in all caps.

Well. Hmm.

‘What’s wrong, Mom?’

‘Just a second, honey.’

She hit speed-dial button number one.

Click.

‘Kathryn! You saw my text?’

‘I—’

‘The unsub went through your Pathfinder. At the Bay View Center. We’ve got to assume he knows about Maggie’s concert. I have a team on the way. We don’t know what he has planned but you have to evacuate the school. Only keep it quiet. Check all the exits – they’re probably wired shut or something.’ This was more than Michael O’Neil usually said in half an hour. ‘So, you’ve got to see if Maintenance has wire cutters. But it’s got to be subtle. If you can start getting people out—’

‘Michael.’

‘It’s seven twenty, so following his profile, he could attack at any time. He waits for the show to start and—’

‘It’s outside.’

‘I … What?’

‘The show? Maggie’s concert? We’re on the soccer field behind the school. We’re not in the gym or the assembly hall.’

‘Oh. Outside.’

‘No risk of confinement. Stampede.’

‘No.’

‘Even the green room – it’s just a curtained-off area outside.’

‘You’re outside,’ he repeated.

‘Right. But thanks.’

‘Well … Good.’ After a pause he said, ‘And tell Maggie good luck. I wish I could be there.’

‘Night, Michael.’

They disconnected.

Outside …

The relief in his voice had been so dramatic, it was nearly comical.

Then she turned her attention back to her daughter.

‘Honey, Mags … Listen. I need you to tell me something. Whatever it is, it’s fine.’

‘Huh?’

‘I know why you’re upset.’

‘I’m not upset.’ Maggie looked down at her crisp, shiny dress and smoothed it. One of her better kinesic tells.

‘I think you are. You’re not happy about performing.’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘There’s something else. Tell me.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Listen to me. We love each other and sometimes it’s not good enough for people who love each other to say that. They have to talk. Tell me the truth. Why don’t you want to sing?’

Maybe, Dance wondered, the Secrets Club and queen bitch Bethany were forcing her daughter to throw a pie at the teacher or a water balloon. Even worse? She thought of Stephen King’s
Carrie
, drenching the girl in blood onstage.

‘Honey?’ Dance said softly.

Maggie looked at her, then away and gasped, ‘It’s terrible.’

She burst into racking tears.

Kathryn Dance sat next to Jon Boling and her son in the third row, her parents nearby, watching the procession of performers in
Mrs Bendix’s Sixth Grade Class’s Got Talent!
.

‘How you doing there?’ Dance whispered to Boling. It was astonishing how many forgotten lines, missed dance steps and off-tone notes could be crammed into one hour.

‘Better than any reality show on TV,’ Boling responded.

True, Dance conceded. He’d managed, yet again, to bring a new perspective.

There’d been several scenes from plays, featuring three or four students together (the class numbered thirty-six), which cut the show’s running time down considerably. And solo performances were hardly full-length Rachmaninoff piano concerti. They tended to be Suzuki pieces or abbreviated Katy Perry hits.

‘The Cup Song’ had been performed six times.

It was close to eight thirty before Maggie’s turn came. Mrs Bendix announced her and, in her shimmering dress, she walked confidently from the wings.

Dance took a deep breath. She found her hand gripping Boling’s, the bandaged one. Hard. He adjusted it.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

He kissed her hair.

At the microphone, she looked over the audience. ‘I’m Maggie and I’m going to sing “Let It Go” from
Frozen
, which is a super movie, in my opinion better than
The
Lego Movie
and most of the Barbie ones. And if anybody here hasn’t seen it I think you should. Like, right away. I mean, right away.’

A glance at Mom, acknowledging the slip of lazy preposition.

Dance smiled and nodded.

Then Maggie grew quiet and lowered her head. She remembered: ‘Oh, and I want to thank Mrs Gallard for accompanying me.’

She nodded to her music teacher.

The piano began, the haunting minor-key intro to the beautiful song. Then the piano went quiet, a pause … and right on the beat, Maggie filled the silence with the first words of the lyrics. She sang slow and soft at first, just as in the movie, then growing in volume, her timbre firm, singing from her chest. Dance snuck a peek. Most of the audience was captivated, heads bobbing in time to the tune. And nearly every child was mouthing, if not singing, along.

When it came to the bridge, bordering on operatic recitative, Maggie nailed it perfectly. Then back to the final verse and the brilliant offhand dismissal about the cold never bothering her anyway.