The Sleeping Doll (Kathryn Dance 1)

Still, he couldn't leave yet. He had one more mission on the Peninsula, the whole reason for his remaining here.

Pell made coffee and when he returned to the bed, carrying the two cups, he found Jennie looking at him.

Like

last night, her expression was different. She seemed more mature than when they'd first met.

"What, lovely?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"You're not coming with me to my house in Anaheim, are you?"

Her words hit him hard. He hesitated, not sure what to say, then asked, "Why do you think that?"

"I just feel it."

Pell set the coffee on the table. He started to lie--deception came so easily to him. And he could have gotten away with it. Instead he said, "I have other plans for us, lovely. I haven't told you yet."

"I know."

"You do?" He was surprised.

"I've known all along. Not exactly known. But I had a feeling."

"After we take care of a few things here, we're going somewhere else."

"Where?"

"A place I have. It's not near anything. There's no one around. It's wonderful, beautiful. We won't be bothered there. It's on a mountain. Do you like the mountains?"

"Sure, I guess."

That was good. Because Daniel Pell owned one.

Pell's aunt, in Bakersfield, was the only decent person in his family, as far as he was concerned. Aunt Barbara thought her brother, Pell's father, was mad, the chain-smoking failed minister obsessed with doing exactly what the Bible told him, terrified of God, terrified of making decisions on his own, as if that might offend Him. So the woman tried to divert the Pell boys as best she could. Richard would have nothing to do with her. But she and Daniel spent a lot of time together. She didn't corral him, didn't order him around. Didn't force him to be a housekeeper, and never even raised her voice to him, much less her hand. She let him come and go as he wished, spent money on him, asked about what he'd done during the days when he visited. She took him places. Pell remembered driving up into the hills for picnics, the zoo, movies--where he sat amid the smell of popcorn and her weighty perfume, mesmerized by the infallible assuredness of Hollywood villains and heroes up on the screen.

She also shared her views with him. One of which was her belief that there'd be a wildfire of a race war in the country at some point (her vote was the millennium--oops on that one), so she bought two hundred plus acres of forestland in Northern California, a mountaintop near Shasta. Daniel Pell had never been racist but neither was he stupid, and when the aunt ranted about the forthcoming Great War of Black and White, he was with her 100 percent.

She deeded over the land to her nephew so that he and other "decent, good, right-thinking people" (defined as "Caucasian") could escape to it when the shooting started.

Pell hadn't thought much about the place at the time, being young. But then he'd hitchhiked up there and knew instantly it was the place for him. He loved the view and the air, mostly loved the idea that it was so private; he'd be unreachable by the government and unwelcome neighbors. (It even had some large caves--and he often fantasized about what would go on in those, expanding the balloon within him nearly to the bursting point.) He did some clearing work himself and built a shack by hand. He knew that some day this would be his kingdom, the village the Pied Piper would lead his children to.

Pell had to make sure, though, that the property stayed invisible--not from the rampaging minorities but from law enforcers, given his history and proclivity toward crime. He bought books written by survivalists and the right-wing, antigovernment fringe about hiding ownership of property, which was surprisingly easy, provided you made sure the property taxes were paid (a trust and a savings account were all that it took). The arrangement was "self-perpetuating," a term that Daniel Pell loved; no dependency.

Pell's mountaintop.

Only one glitch had interfered with his plan. After he and a girl he'd met in San Francisco, Alison, had hitched up there, he happened to run into a guy who worked for the county assessor's office, Charles Pickering. He'd heard rumors of building supplies being delivered there. Did that mean improvements? Which in turn would mean a tax hike? That itself wouldn't've been a problem; Pell could have added money to the trust. But, the worst of all coincidences, Pickering had family in Marin County and recognized Pell from a story in the local paper about his arrest for a break-in.

Later that day the man tracked Pell down near his property. "Hey, I know you," the assessor said.

Which turned out to be his last words. Out came the knife and Pickering was dead thirty seconds after slumping to the ground in a bloody pile.

Nothing was going to jeopardize his enclave.

He'd escaped that one, though the police had held him for a time--long enough for Alison to decide it was over and head back south. (He'd been searching for her ever since; she'd have to die, of course, since she knew where his property was.)