Solitude Creek

‘So he’s still walking around and probably still wearing the same clothes. The green jacket and all that. A thousand people could’ve seen him. Maybe the clerk in his hotel, or his dry cleaner, if he’s local. It’s standard operating procedure in my cases.’

Overby trod the tightrope. ‘Pluses and minuses on both sides.’

‘I’d vote no,’ Gomez said. Allerton nodded her agreement.

Dance turned to Overby. Her gaze lasered him briefly.

After a moment, eyes on the well-examined linoleum floor, he said, ‘We’ll keep it private for the time being. No releasing the details to the media.’

Well, score one for us, Dance thought, and made an effort not to reveal her surprise.

CHAPTER 15

‘Mom, Donnie’s got a, you know, a question.’

Dance, thinking: You know. But she rarely corrected the children in front of anyone. She’d chide them gently later. She cocked her head to her son, lean and fair-haired. Nearly as tall as she. ‘Sure. What?’

Donnie Verso, a dark-haired thirteen-year-old in Wes’s class, looked her in the eye. ‘Well, I’m not sure what to call you.’

Dusk was around the three of them as they stood on the expansive porch — known to friends and family as the ‘Deck’ — behind Dance’s Victorian-style house, which was dark green with weathered gray railings, shutters and trim, in the north-western Pacific Grove. You could, if you chose to risk a tumble off the porch, catch a glimpse of ocean, about a half-mile away.

Wes filled in: ‘He doesn’t know whether he should call you Mrs Dance or Agent Dance.’

‘Well, that’s very polite of you to ask, Donnie. But since you’re a friend of Wes’s, you can call me Kathryn.’

‘Oh, I’m not supposed to call people that. I mean adults. By their first name. My dad likes me to be respectful.’

‘I can talk to him.’

‘No, he just wouldn’t like it.’

‘Then call me Mrs Dance.’ Wes readily shared with his friends that his father had died but Dance had learned that children rarely registered the niceties of Mrs versus Miss versus Ms.

‘Cool.’ His face brightened. ‘Mrs Dance.’

With his curly hair and cherubic face, Donnie would be a girl magnet soon. Well, he probably already was, she thought. (And Wes? Handsome … and nice. A dangerous combination: already girls were starting to flutter. She was inclined to put the brakes on her own children’s growing up but knew it’d be easier to stop the surf crashing on the sand at Spanish Bay.) Donnie lived not far away, biking distance, which Dance was grateful for — as a single mother, even with a good support net like hers, anything that reduced the task of chauffeuring was a blessing. She thought Donnie’d look better not wearing hoodies and baggy jeans … but valedictorians of middle-school classes and Christian pop singers all dressed like gangstas nowadays, so who was she to judge?

Arriving from work just now, Dance had not come through the front door but through the side yard and gate — to make sure it was locked — then ascended the steps to the Deck. Which meant she hadn’t said hello to the four-legged residents of the household. They now came bounding forward for head rubs and, with any luck, a treat (alas, none today). Dylan, a German shepherd, named for the legendary singer-songwriter, and Patsy, a flat-coated retriever, in honor of Ms Cline, Dance’s favorite C&W singer.

‘Can Donnie stay for dinner?’ Wes asked.

‘If it’s okay, Mrs Dance.’

‘I’ll call your mother.’ Protocol.

‘Sure. Thanks.’

The boys returned to a board game and dropped to the redwood decking, crunching some chips and drinking Honest Tea. Soda was not to be found in the Dance household.

Dance found the boy’s home number and called. His mother said it was fine for him to stay for dinner but he should be home by nine.

She disconnected, then returned to the living room where her father, Stuart, and ten-year-old, Maggie, sat in front of the TV.

‘Mom! You came in the back door!’

She didn’t, of course, tell her that she’d been checking the perimeter and double-locking the gate. Two active cases, with a number of bad actors, who could, if they really wanted to, find her.

‘Give me a hug, honey.’

Maggie complied happily. ‘Wes and Donnie won’t let me play their game.’

‘It’s a boys’ game, I’m sure.’

A frown crossed Maggie’s heart-shaped face. ‘I don’t know what that is. I don’t think there should be boy games and girl games.’

Good point. If and when Dance ever remarried, Maggie had announced she was going to be ‘best woman’ — whatever her age. She had also learned of feminism in school and, returning home after social studies, had declared, to Dance’s delight, that she wasn’t a feminist. She was an equalist.

‘Hi, Dad,’ Dance said.