The Sleeping Doll (Kathryn Dance 1)

But even more seductive than the sex was his ability to get information, to find things about people. Pell had ignored the smut and been hard at work. First he'd read everything he could on Jennie--recipes, emails, her bookmarked pages, making sure she was essentially who she claimed to be (she was). Then he searched for some people from his past--important to find them--but he didn't have much luck. He then tried tax records, deeds offices, vital statistics. But you needed a credit card for almost everything, he learned. And credit cards, like cell phones, left obvious trails.

Then he had a brainstorm and searched through the archives of the local newspapers and TV stations. That proved much more helpful. He jotted information, a lot of it.

Among the names on his list was "Kathryn Dance."

He enjoyed doodling a funereal frame around it.

The search didn't give him all the information he needed, but it was a start.

Always aware of his surroundings, he noticed a black Toyota Camry pull into the lot and pause outside the window. He gripped the gun. Then he smiled as the car parked exactly seven spaces away.

She climbed out.

That's my girl.

Holding fast . . .

She walked inside.

"You did it, lovely." Pell glanced at the Camry. "Looks nice."

She kissed him fast. Her hands were shaking. And she couldn't control her excitement. "It went great! It really did, sweetie. At first he was kind of freaked and I didn't think he was going to do it. He didn't like the thing about the license plates but I did everything you told me and he agreed."

"Good for you, lovely."

Jennie had used some of her cash--she'd withdrawn $9,200 to pay for the escape and tide them over for the time being--to buy a car from a man who lived in Marina. It would be too risky to have it registered in her real name so she'd persuaded him to leave his own plates on it. She'd told him that her car had broken down in Modesto and she'd have the plates in a day or two. She'd swap them and mail his back. This was illegal and really stupid. No man would ever do that for some other guy, even one paying cash. But Pell had sent Jennie to handle it--a woman in tight jeans, a half-buttoned blouse and red bra on fine display. (Had it been a woman selling the car, Pell would have dressed her down, lost the makeup, given her four kids, a dead soldier for a husband and a pink breast cancer ribbon. You can never be too obvious, he'd learned.) "Nice. Oh, can I have the car keys?"

She handed them over. "Here's what else you wanted." Jennie set two shopping bags on the bed. Pell looked through them and nodded approvingly.

She got a soda from the minifridge. "Honey, can I ask you something?"

His natural reluctance to answer questions--at least truthfully--surfaced again. But he smiled. "You can, anything."

"Last night, when you were sleeping, you said something. You were talking about God."

"God. What'd I say?"

"I couldn't tell. But it was definitely 'God.' "

Pell's head turned slowly toward her. He noticed his heart rate increase. He found his foot tapping, which he stopped.

"You were really freaking out. I was going to wake you up but that's not good. I read that somewhere. Reader's Digest. Or Health. I don't know. When somebody's having a bad dream, you should never wake them up. And you said, like, 'Fuck no.' "

"I said that?"

Jennie nodded. "Which was weird. 'Cause you never swear."

That was true. People who used obscenities had much less power than people who didn't.

"What was your dream about?" she asked.

"I don't remember."

"Wonder why you were dreaming about God."

For a moment he felt a curious urge to tell her about his father. Then: What the hell're you thinking of?

"No clue."