trap.
She spun around but saw no attacker. She dropped to her knees fast, remembering that his weapon of choice was a pistol, probably Gabe Fuentes’s stolen Glock. She wasn’t much of a target in the moonlight but you can spray ten or twelve rounds very quickly with a weapon like that and all you needed to do was point in the general direction of your victim.
Still no sign of him.
Where could he be?
Or had he lured her here to get into her room, steal her computer and notes?
No. He’d be coming after her.
She couldn’t wait any longer. She rose and turned, feeling a painful tickle of panic on her back, as if he were actually rubbing the muzzle of the gun along her spine.
But instead of returning in the same direction she’d come, she decided to head directly for the motel. This route was closer, though it required her to vault the six-foot fence. Still, she felt she had no choice, and she headed that way now, turning away from the lone cigarette and moving as fast as she could, keeping low, toward the road.
Thinking about getting across those four lanes, which would expose her to-
It was then that he sprang the trap.
Or rather she sprang it herself, tripping over the fishing line-or maybe guitar string-he’d strung across the route he’d anticipated she would take back. She fell hard, slamming into the packed dirt; there were none of the many pine needle beds here, which would have broken her fall. She lay gasping, breath knocked from her lungs.
Damn, oh, goddamn. That hurts! Can’t breathe…
She heard footsteps, not far away, moving in.
Closer, closer.
She desperately tried to scramble toward the road, where at least a car might be driving past, discouraging him from shooting.
But the asphalt was at least forty or fifty feet away, through the woods.
She tried to rise but couldn’t; there was no air in her chest.
Then through the still, humid night she heard behind her, the double snap of an automatic pistol’s slide, back and forward, chambering a round.
Chapter 45
KATHRYN DANCE TRIED once more to get to cover.
But there was no cover, nothing here but skinny pine trees and anemic brush.
Then a firm voice, a man’s from not far away, called in a sharp whisper, “Kathryn!”
She glanced about but could see no one.
Then the speaker called, “You, by the gym set. I have a weapon. I’m a county deputy. Do not move!”
Dance tried to see who this was. She couldn’t spot her attacker either.
There was an eternal pause and then from behind her she heard fleeing footsteps as the attacker escaped.
Then her rescuer was running too, in pursuit. Dance rose unsteadily, trying-still largely unsuccessfully-to breathe. Who was it? Harutyun?
She expected to hear gunshots but there was none, only the sounds of returning footfalls and a man saying in a whisper, “Kathryn, where are you?” The voice was familiar.
“Here.”
He approached. Finally she sucked in a solid breath and wiped tears of pain from her eyes. She blinked in surprise.
Walking through the woods, holstering his weapon, was Michael O’Neil.
She barked a laugh, which contained part relief, part joy and a dash of hysteria.
THEY SAT IN the bar, drinking Sonoma Cabernets.
Dance asked, “That was your car? That I saw pulling in fifteen minutes ago?”
“Yeah. I saw you crossing the street. You looked… furtive.”
“I was trying. Not furtive enough.”
“So I followed.”
She lowered her head to his broad shoulder. “Oh, Michael, I never thought it’d be a trap.”
“Who was it, Edwin?”
“Probably. Yes, no. We just don’t know. What did you see?”
“Nothing. A shadow.”
She gave a faint laugh at the word, sipped her wine. “That’s the theme of the case: shadows.”
“He’s still using that song you told me about?”
“Right.”
She gave him an update of what had happened so far, including how the information on the website he’d found from the file sharer’s partner in Salinas had let them save the life of Kayleigh’s stepmother.
“So he’s targeting family?” O’Neil, as a Major Crimes detective, had some experience with stalker cases too. “That’s rare.”
“Yes, it is.” She added, “There’s one verse of ‘Your Shadow’ left. But Kayleigh’s written a lot of songs. She’s convinced he’s using fire because of her hit ‘Fire and Flame.’ Who knows what else he could decide to do? Each verse in ‘Shadow’ has a theme but they’re also pretty vague so we can’t figure out just who he’s going to target next.”
“How does the last verse go?”
Dance recited it.
“Maybe it’s a love song but it’s plenty creepy to me. And, right, it doesn’t exactly give GPS coordinates about where he’s going to attack.”
“So,” Dance asked, looking him over, “you just jumped in the car and drove three and a half hours after supper?”
O’Neil was not big on eye contact even with those close to him and he examined the bar and the ruby-colored ellipse of the light refracted through his wineglass. “With that fellow in Salinas, there was a Monterey connection. It made sense I come on over here.”
She wondered if he’d have made the journey because he’d learned Jon Boling wasn’t here.
The detective continued, “And I figured I should bring you a present. The sort I couldn’t send FedEx. TJ said you came here unarmed. I checked out a Glock for you from CBI. Does Overby always insist on filling out so many forms?”
Yes, the head of her office would be worried that protocol involving firearms might end up with bad publicity for the Bureau. Well, for
“Charles is a triplicate kind of guy,” she said, smiling and adjusting her position on the seat as some pain from the tumble shot through her side.
He reached into his computer bag and handed her a black plastic gun case. “Fifty rounds. If you need more than that, well, we’re all in trouble.”
She took his arm, squeezed it. Wanted to rest her head against his shoulder again but refrained. “This was a vacation. That’s all it was.”
Just then Dennis Harutyun walked into the bar and Dance introduced them-though the local deputy remembered O’Neil from the Skype conference call. It was midnight but the detective looked as fresh as if it were the start of his daily tour, uniform shirt perfectly pressed. He said to Dance, “Charlie’s folks’ve been through the park. Nothing other than the cigarette and the fishing line used as a trip wire. We’ll send the cigarette in for DNA
