The Sleeping Doll (Kathryn Dance 1)

"Quiet!" Pell snapped.

"She joined your clan when? Not long before the Croyton murders. A few months?" Dance pressed forward relentlessly. "Rebecca talked her way into the Family. Didn't it seem a little sudden? Didn't you wonder why? She wasn't like the others. Linda and Samantha and Jimmy, they were children. They'd do what you wanted. But Rebecca was different. Independent, aggressive."

Dance recalled Winston Kellogg's comment about cult leaders.

. . . women can be just as effective and as ruthless as men. And often they're more devious. . . .

"Once she was in the Family she saw right away that she could use Jimmy Newberg too. She told him that Croyton had something valuable in his house and he suggested that the two of you break in and steal it. Right?"

Dance saw that she was. "But Rebecca had made other plans with Jimmy. Once you were in the Croytons' house, he was supposed to kill Croyton's wife, then kill you. With you gone, he and Rebecca could be in charge. Of course, her idea was to turn Jimmy in after the killings--or maybe even kill him herself. William Croyton would go through a suitable period of mourning and he'd marry her."

"Honey, no. This is--"

Pell lunged forward and grabbed Rebecca's short hair, pulled her close. "Don't say another word. Let her talk!"

Moaning in pain, cringing, she slipped to the floor.

With Pell's attention elsewhere, Dance caught TJ's eye. He nodded slowly.

She continued, "Rebecca thought only Croyton's wife would be home. But the whole family was there because Theresa said she was sick. Whatever happened that night--only you know that, Daniel--whatever happened, everybody ended up dead.

"And when you called the Family to tell them what happened, Rebecca did the only thing she could to save herself: She turned you in. She's the one who made the call that got you arrested."

"That's bullshit," Rebecca said. "I'm the one who got him out of jail now!"

Dance laughed coldly. She said to Pell, "Because she needed to use you again, Daniel. To kill Morton. A few months ago she got a call from him and he tells her about the book The Sleeping Doll, how he's going to write about the Croytons--their life before the murders and Theresa's life afterward. She knows he'd learn about the affairs Croyton had. It was just a matter of time before somebody put the pieces together--that she was behind a plot to murder Croyton's wife.

"So Rebecca came up with the plan to break you out of Capitola. . . . One thing I don't know," she added, "is what she said to you, Daniel, to convince you to murder him." She glanced angrily at Rebecca, as if she were offended by what the woman had done to her good friend Daniel Pell. "So what lies did you tell him?"

Pell shouted at Rebecca, "What you told me--is it true or not?" But before she could speak, Pell grabbed Nagle, who cringed. "That book you're writing! What were you going to say about me?"

"It wasn't about you. It was about Theresa and the Croytons and the girls in the Family. That's all. It was about your victims, not you."

Pell pushed the man to the floor. "No, no! You were going to write about my land!"

"Land?"

"Yes!"

"What're you talking about?"

"My land, my mountaintop. You found out where it was, you were going to write about it in your book!"

Ah, Dance finally understood. Pell's precious mountaintop. Rebecca had convinced him that the only way

to keep it secret was to kill Morton Nagle and destroy the notes.

"I don't know anything about that, I swear."

Pell looked him over closely. He believed the writer, Dance could see.

"As soon as you killed Nagle and his family, Daniel, you know what was coming next, don't you? Rebecca was going to murder you. Claim you kidnapped her from the inn."

Dance gave a sad laugh. "Daniel, you thought all along you were in charge. But, no, she was Svengali. She was the Pied Piper."

Pell blinked at her words, then rose and charged toward Rebecca, knocking a table over as he lifted the gun.

The woman cringed but suddenly she too leapt forward, swinging the knife madly, slicing into Pell's arm, grabbing at his gun. The weapon went off, the bullet digging a chunk of rosy brick out of the fireplace.