XO (43 page)

O’Neil added, “I’ll see you both Sunday. I’m bringing the kids over.” He glanced at Sachs. “You’re interested, we just got the new H&K MP7.”

“The little bullet.”

“Right. Smaller than a BB, seventeen-caliber. You want to come out to the range and put some holes in paper on Monday?”

“You bet I do,” Sachs said enthusiastically.

“Kathryn?” O’Neil asked.

“I’ll pass, I think. I’ll hang out with Lincoln and Thom.”

And with Jon Boling too? she wondered, then stepped on that thought.

The trio from New York headed out the door.

O’Neil too said good-bye to the locals, and Dance walked with him outside into the sultry air.

“You in a hurry to get back?” she found herself asking. Hadn’t planned it. She was thinking they might have dinner, just the two of them.

A pause. She could tell he too wanted to stay. But then he shook his head. “Thing is, Anne’s driving down from San Francisco, picking up some things. I ought to be there.” He looked away. “And the papers’ll be ready tomorrow, the settlement agreement.”

“So soon?”

“She didn’t want much.”

Also, a woman who cheats on her husband and abandons her children probably isn’t in much of a position to demand much, Dance reflected. “You doing okay?” One of those pointless questions that’s usually more about the asker than the askee.

“Relieved, sad, pissed off, worried about the kids.” As lengthy a discussion of his emotional health as she’d ever heard from Michael O’Neil.

Silence for a moment.

Then he gave a smile. “Okay, better go.”

But before he turned Dance found herself impulsively reaching up, one hand behind his neck, her arm around his back, and pulling him close. She kissed him hard on the mouth.

She thought, No, no, what the hell are you doing? Step back.

Yet by then his arms were enveloping her completely and he was kissing her back, just as firmly.

Then finally, he eased away. Came in for one more kiss and she gripped him even harder and then stood back.

She expected an oblique glance—his waiting state—but O’Neil stared easily into her eyes and she looked back just as comfortably. Their smiles matched.

Brother, what have I done now?

Kissed the man I truly love, she thought. And that unexpected thought was more stunning than the contact itself.

Then he was in the car. “I’ll call you when I get back. See you on Sunday.”

“Drive carefully,” she said. A phrase that had set her on edge when her parents would tell teenage Kathryn the same. As if, oh, right, I was going to drive off the road until you reminded me.

But as a woman who’d lost one husband to the highway, it was a sentence she could not stop herself from uttering occasionally. He closed the door, glanced at her again and lifted his left palm to the inside windshield and she pressed her right to the glass outside.

He put the car in gear and pulled out of the lot.

“IF THAT DON’T
beat all,” Bishop Towne said, sipping his milk.

“Right,” Dance said to him and his daughter, on the front porch of his house. “Edwin was innocent. Didn’t kill a soul. Totally set up.”

“He’s still a shit.”

“Daddy.”

“He’s a little fucking shit and I wouldn’t mind if he went to jail for something. But it’s good to know he’s not going to be a problem anymore.” The grizzled musician squinted at Dance. “He’s
not,
is he?”

“I don’t think so. He’s mostly sad that Kayleigh didn’t send him those personal emails and letters, the ones Simesky made up.”

“We should sue those bastards,” Bishop said. “The Keyholders? The fuck are they about?”

“Daddy, really. Come on.” Kayleigh nodded toward the kitchen, where Suellyn and Mary-Gordon were helping Sheri bake something fragrant with vanilla. But the man’s raspy voice probably hadn’t carried inside.

Kayleigh said, “I’m not going to sue anybody, Daddy. We don’t need that kind of publicity.”

“Well, we’re going to get publicity whether we want it or not. I’ll talk to Sher about spinning it.” Then he patted his daughter on the shoulder. “Hey, lookit the good news, KT The bad guys’re dead and Edwin’s out of the picture. So, no more talk about canceling any concerts. Speaking of that, I’ve been working on the song order again and I think we’ve got to move ‘Leaving Home.’ Everybody wants it. Encore’d be best. And I’d get the kids’ choir to sing the last part in Spanish.”

Dance was aware that Kayleigh’s shoulders had risen in tension at these comments. Clearly she herself still wasn’t so sure about the concert. Just because the killers had been stopped and Edwin absolved didn’t mean she was in the mental state necessary to put on a show in the shadow of the recent crimes.

And then Dance noticed the young woman’s posture collapse subtly. Which meant surrender.

“Sure, Daddy. Sure.”

The tone of the evening had changed quickly but, oblivious to it, Bishop Towne rose like a buffalo climbing out of a stream he’d just forded and ambled inside. “Hey, M-G, whatcha baking?”

Kayleigh looked after him, grim-faced. Dance used the opportunity to
fish into her purse and hand her the sealed envelope that contained Bobby’s in-the-event-of letter and a copy of the adoption papers. The singer weighed it in her hand. Dance said softly, “That turned up in the investigation. I’m the only one who knows. You handle it however you want.”

“What—?”

“You’ll see.”

The woman stared down at the slim envelope, clutching it as if it weighed ten pounds. Dance realized that she knew what it contained. “You have to understand. I just …”

Dance hugged her. “It’s not my business,” she whispered. “Now, I’m going to get back to the motel. I’ve got a report to dictate.”

Kayleigh slipped the envelope into her pocket, thanked Dance for all she’d done and went into the house.

Dance walked down to her SUV. She happened to glance back into the house and could see a bit of the kitchen, Suellyn and Sheri at the island, looking at a cookbook. Kayleigh scooted up onto a stool nearby, lifted Mary-Gordon to her lap. No kinesic analysis was necessary to tell from the girl’s amused squirming that the embrace was particularly strong.

Driving down the lengthy, dim driveway, Dance was thinking not of the Towne clan but of the potential train wreck her personal life might be headed for. She thought back to kissing O’Neil and felt a twisting in her belly—radiating a perfect balance of joy and alarm.

She scrolled through her iPod playlist on the SUV’s entertainment screen to find the song that had just come to mind, one of Kayleigh’s, not surprisingly. “Is It Love, Is It Less?” The lyrics rolled out through the Pathfinder’s resonant sound system.

Is it left, is it right? Is it east, is it west?

Is it day, is it night? Is it good or the best?

I’m looking for answers, I’m looking for clues.

There has to be something to tell me the truth.

I’m trying to know, but I can just guess,

Is it love between us?

Is it love, is it less?

“GRACIAS, SEÑORA DANCE.”

“De nada.”

In the garage of Jose Villalobos, Dance clicked off the digital recorder and began to pack away the cables and the microphones. She’d spent the day not as a law enforcement agent but as a recording engineer and producer, and Los Trabajadores had just finished the last tune—a
son huasteco,
in the traditional style of music from northeastern Mexico, featuring a resonant eight-stringed instrument like a guitar, a
jarana,
and a fiddle. The violinist, a wiry forty-year-old originally from Juarez, had played up a storm, even slipping into Stéphane Grappelli Hot Club de France improvs.

Dance had been delighted at the bizarre, captivating journey of the music and had to force herself to keep from clapping time to the speedy, infectious tunes.

Now, just after 5:00
P.M.
, she shared Tecates with the band and then wandered back to the Pathfinder. Her phone hummed and she saw Madigan’s text, asking if she would come in and review the transcript of her report about the Peter Simesky–Myra Babbage case, which she’d dictated last night.

She debated a moment—she was exhausted—but decided to get it over with. Scrolling through her iPhone she saw a missed call too.

Jon Boling.

She debated again about the “San Diego Situation,” as she’d taken to calling it. And the first thing in her thoughts was the kiss with Michael O’Neil.

I can’t call Jon, her mind told her.

As her finger hit
REDIAL.

A trill of numbers. Then … voicemail.

Disappointed, angry and relieved, she disconnected without leaving a message, thinking that would be a good title for a Kayleigh Towne song: “Straight to Voicemail.”

A half hour later she arrived at the sheriff’s office. She was now an official honorary deputy and she strode past the desk sergeant and security without any challenges. Several law enforcers she hadn’t met waved friendly greetings to her.

She stepped into Madigan’s office. The chief detective had been officially reinstated; Edwin had dropped the charges.

“Don’t you ever do sprinkles?” she asked, sitting down on the battered couch, eyeing the cardboard cup he was enthusiastically excavating.

“What?” Madigan asked.

“On your ice cream? Or whipped cream or syrup?”

“Naw, it’s a waste of taste. Calories too. Like cones. I’ll give you my theory of ice cream sometime. It’s philosophical. You ever make it?”

“Make ice cream?”

“Right.”

She said, “The world is divided into people who make ice cream and yogurt and pasta and bread. And those who buy it. I’m a buyer.”

“I’m with you there. This’s yours.”

He produced another cup. Chocolate chip. A metal spoon too.

“No, I—”

“You say no too quick, Deputy,” Madigan grumbled. “You want some ice cream. I know you do.”

True. She took it and ate several big mouthfuls. It was nice and melty. “Good.”

“Course it’s good. It’s ice cream. There’s the statement, you want to take a look-see and let me know what you think.” He slid the papers toward her and she read.

Crystal Stanning had transcribed it from Dance’s tape and it was pretty accurate. She expanded on a thought or two. Then slid it back.

Even at this hour the San Joaquin Valley heat permeated the building. Hell, I’m going to Macy’s, pick up a one-piece and float in the Mountain View pool until I wrinkle. Dance stretched and stood up, about to say good night to the detective when his desk phone rang and he hit
SPEAKER
. “Yeah?”

Dance finished the ice cream. Thought about asking for some more, but decided against it.

Course it’s good. It’s ice cream….

“Hey, Chief, it’s Miguel. Lopez.”

“You worked for me for four years. I know your voice,” the man snapped, examining the volcano core of his own cup, maybe tallying up how many bites he had left. “What?”

“Something kind of funny.”

“You gonna tell me what or just let that hang?”

“You listen to KDHT?”

“The radio? Sometimes. Get to the point. What’s your point?”

The deputy said, “Well, okay. I was listening on my way home and there’s a call-in show. ‘Bevo in the Evening.’”