The Sleeping Doll (Kathryn Dance 1)

They were in a meeting room up the hall from Sandoval's office. Now that Pell was clearly not near the courthouse, Dance wanted to return to CBI headquarters, but Charles Overby had told them to remain at the courthouse until he arrived.

"Think he wants to make sure no press conferences escape either," TJ said, to which Dance and O'Neil gave sour laughs. "Speaking of which," came TJ's whisper. "Incoming! . . . Hit the decks."

A figure stro

de confidently through the door. Charles Overby, a fifty-five-year-old career law enforcer.

Without any greetings, he asked Dance, "He wasn't in the truck?"

"No. Local gangbanger. Pell left the truck running. He knew somebody'd snatch it, and we'd focus on that. He took off in the delivery driver's own car."

"The driver?"

"No sign."

"Ouch." Brown-haired, sunburned Charles Overby was athletic in a pear-shaped way, a tennis and golf player. He was the newly appointed head of the CBI's west-central office. The agent in charge he replaced, Stan Fishburne, had taken early retirement on a medical, much to the CBI staff's collective dismay (because of the severe heart attack on Fishburne's account--and because of who had succeeded him on theirs).

O'Neil took a call and Dance updated Overby, adding the details of Pell's new wheels and their concern that the partner was still nearby.

"You think he's really planted another device?"

"Unlikely. But the accomplice staying around makes sense."

O'Neil hung up. "The roadblocks're all back in place."

"Who took them down?" Overby asked.

"We don't know."

"I'm sure it wasn't us or you, Michael, right?" Overby asked uneasily.

An awkward silence. Then O'Neil said, "No, Charles."

"Who was it?"

"We're not sure."

"We should find that out."

Recrimination was such a drain. O'Neil said he'd look into it. Dance knew he'd never do anything though, and with this comment to Overby the finger pointing came to a close.

The detective continued, "Nobody's spotted the Civic. But the timing was just wrong. He could've gotten through on Sixty-eight or the One-Oh-One. I don't think Sixty-eight though."

"No," Overby agreed. The smaller Highway 68 would take Pell back to heavily populated Monterey. The 101, wide as an interstate, could get him to every major expressway in the state.

"They're setting up new checkpoints in Gilroy. And about thirty miles south." O'Neil stuck monarch butterfly notes in the appropriate places.

"And you've got the bus terminals and airport secure?" Overby asked.

"That's right," Dance said.

"And San Jose and Oakland PD're in the loop?"

"Yep. And Santa Cruz, San Benito, Merced, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and San Mateo." The nearby counties.

Overby jotted a few notes. "Good." He glanced up and said, "Oh, I just talked to Amy."

"Grabe?"