The Sleeping Doll (Kathryn Dance 1)

" 'Afterward' has a nice ring to it. Real nice."

*

A half-hour later Dance was parking in front of her house.

She went through the standard routine: a check of security, a glass of Pinot Grigio, two pieces of cold flank steak left over from last night and a handful of mixed nuts enjoyed to the sound track of phone messages. Then came canine feeding and their backyard tasks and stowing her Glock--without the kids home she kept the lockbox open, though she still stashed the gun inside, since imprinted memory would guide her hand there automatically no matter how deep a sleep she awoke from. Alarms on.

She opened the window to the guards--about six inches--to let in the cool, fragrant night air. Shower, a clean T-shirt and shorts. She dropped into bed, protecting herself from the mad world by an inch-thick down comforter.

Thinking: Golly damn, girl, making out in a car--with a bench front seat, no buckets, just made for reclining with the man of the hour. She recalled mint, recalled his hands, the flop of hair, the absence of aftershave.

She also heard her son's voice and saw his eyes earlier that day. Wary, jealous. Dance thought of Linda's comments earlier.

There's something terrifying about the idea of being kicked out of your family. . . .

Which was ultimately Wes's fear. The concern was unreasonable, of course, but that didn't matter. It was real to him. She'd be more careful this time. Keep Wes and Kellogg separate, not mention the word "date," sell the idea that, like him, she had friends who were both male and female. Your children are like suspects in an interrogation: It's not smart to lie but you don't need to tell them everything.

A lot of work, a lot of juggling.

Time and effort . . .

Or, she wondered, her thoughts spinning fast, was it better just to forget about Kellogg, wait a year or two before she dated? Age thirteen or fourteen is hugely different from twelve. Wes would be better then.

Yet Dance didn't want to. She couldn't forget the complicated memories of his taste and touch. She thought too of his tentativeness about children, the stress he exhibited. She wondered if it was because he was uneasy around youngsters and was now forming a connection with a woman who came with a pair of them. How would he deal with that? Maybe--

But, hold on here, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

You were making out. You enjoyed it. Don't call the caterer yet.

For a long time she lay in bed, listening to the sounds of nature. You were never very far from them around here--throaty sea animals, temperamental birds and the settling bed sheet of surf. Often, loneliness sprang into Kathryn Dance's life, a striking snake, and it was at moments like this--in bed, late, hearing the sound track of night--that she was most vulnerable to it. How nice it was to feel your lover's thigh next to yours, to hear the adagio of shallow breath, to awake at dawn to the thumps and rustling of someone's rising: sounds, otherwise insignificant, that were the comforting heartbeats of a life together.

Kathryn Dance supposed longing for these small things revealed weakness, a sign of dependency. But what was so wrong with that? My God, look at us fragile creatures. We have to depend. So why not fill that dependency with somebody whose company we enjoy, whose body we can gladly press against late at night, who makes us laugh? . . . Why not just hold on and hope for the best?

Ah, Bill. . . . She thought to her late husband. Bill. . . .

Distant memories tugged.

But so did fresh ones, with nearly equal gravitation.

. . . afterward. How does that sound?

THURSDAY

Chapter 39

In her backyard again.

Her Shire, her Narnia, her Hogwarts, her Secret Garden.

Seventeen-year-old Theresa Croyton Bolling sat in the gray teak Smith & Hawken glider and read the slim volume in her hand, flipping pages slowly. It was a magnificent day. The air was as sweet as the perfume department at Macy's, and the nearby hills of Napa were as peaceful as ever, covered with a mat of clover and grass, verdant grapevines and pine and gnarly cypr

ess.

Theresa was thinking lyrically because of what she was reading--beautifully crafted, heartfelt, insightful. . . .

And totally boring poetry.

She sighed loudly, wishing her aunt were around to hear her. The paperback drooped in her hand and she gazed over the backyard once more. A place where she seemed to spend half her life, the green prison, she sometimes called it.