Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4)

"Islands?"

"That's the way I thought of it. Islands--of times when you're content, you don't think about the loss. Now it's like your world's underwater. All of it. But the water goes down and the islands come up. The water'll be there always but you'll find dry land again. That helped me get through it. A friend told me that." Martine Christiansen.

"I should go. He'll be back soon."

She rose and turned away. Dance did too. Then in an instant the girl turned and threw her arms around the agent, crying again. "Islands," she whispered. "Thank you...Islands."

Chapter 29

Hello?"

Arthur K. Meddle turned from surveying the placement of chairs at the Bay View Center to see a man in the doorway.

"Help you? Hold on." He turned away and shouted, "Charlie, add another row. Come on. Four hundred. Got to be four hundred. Sorry. Help you?"

The man stepped closer. He seemed bored. "Yessir. I'm a Monterey County fire inspector."

Meddle gave a fast glance at the ID. "Officer Dunn. Or Inspector?"

"Officer."

"Sure. What can I do for you?"

"You the manager?"

"That's right."

The well-dressed polite fellow looked around the interior of the center, with furrowed brows, then his eyes came back to Meddle. "You may've heard, sir, about the incident at Solitude Creek? The club?"

"Oh, yeah. Terrible."

"We're thinking it was done intentionally."

"I heard that on the news." Meddle didn't know this guy so he didn't add what he wanted to: What kind of crazy shit would do that?

"The county board of supervisors and the sheriff's office--the Bureau of Investigation too--they're thinking that he may try another attack."

"No! Hell, is it really a terrorist? That's what Fox was saying. Was it O'Reilly? I don't remember."

"Oh, I don't know. Between you and me, I'd think if it was terrorists, somebody would've taken credit for it. They do that."

"True."

"Anyway, sir, the county supervisors've issued a reg that requires any venues with events of over a hundred people to postpone or pass a special inspection."

"Postpone?"

"Or pass the inspection. We're making sure that what happened at Solitude Creek won't happen again. I mean they could catch the perp first. That's a possibility."

"We can't very well cancel. Tonight? It's bringing in seven thousand dollars. It's a book signing. The author's publisher's paying for it. You know the economy out here. We can't afford to shut down."

"Like I said, your choice."

"What's this inspection? I've got a current occupancy cert."

"No, this is different. We have to make sure the fire doors can't be blocked. You need to remove all the locks from the emergency exit doors, or tape the latches down and chain off the area around them from the outside, so nobody can block them."

"Like that guy did at the roadhouse, with the truck."