Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4)

She was furious. Dance found her palms sweating. Those little bitches...

Her phone buzzed again. She ignored it once more.

She put her arm around Maggie's shoulders. "Honey, let's talk for a minute."

"I--"

"Let's talk." A smile.

They walked to the back of the green room area. From here they could see one of Maggie's classmates, Amy Grantham, performing a dance scene from the Nutcracker. She was good. Dance looked out at the audience. She saw her parents, sitting in the center, with Wes and Boling now near them, a jacket draped over the chair reserved for her.

She turned back to her daughter.

Dance had decided: Well, Maggie was not going to perform. No question. Whatever the secret was, she'd have the girl tell her now. Revealing it would defuse the girls' power over her.

Anyway, how terrible could a ten-year-old's indiscretion possibly be?

Another tremble of her phone.

Third time's the charm. She'd ignored it long enough. She tugged her phone from its holster. Not a call; it was a text. From Michael O'Neil.

She read it, noting that it was in all caps.

Well. Hmm.

"What's wrong, Mom?"

"Just a second, honey."

She hit speed dial button number one.

Click.

"Kathryn! You saw my text?"

"I--"

"The unsub went through your Pathfinder. At the Bay View Center. We've got to assume he knows about Maggie's concert. Remember those flyers you told me about? I have a team on the way. We don't know what he has planned but you have to evacuate the school. Only, keep it quiet. Check all the exits; they're probably wired shut or something." This was more than Michael O'Neil usually said in a half hour. "So, you've got to see if maintenance has wire cutters. But it's got to be subtle. If you can start getting people out--"

"Michael."

"It's seven twenty, so following his profile, he could attack at any time. He waits for the show to start and--"

"It's outside."

"I...what?"

"The show? Maggie's concert? We're on the soccer field behind the school. We're not in the gym or the assembly hall."

"Oh. Outside."

"No risk of confinement. Stampede."

"No."

"Even the green room--it's just a curtained-off area outside."

"You're outside," he repeated.