Standing in the open doorway of the cabin at Point Lobos Inn, Rebecca Sheffield said to Dance, “Welcome back. We’ve been gossiping and spending your money on room service.” She nodded toward a bottle of Jordan Cabernet, which only she was drinking.
Rebecca glanced at Samantha and, not recognizing her, said, “Hello.” Probably thinking she was another officer involved in the case.
The women walked inside. Dance shut and double-locked the door.
Samantha looked from one woman to the other. It seemed as if she’d lost her voice, and for a moment Dance believed she’d turn and flee.
Rebecca did a double take and blinked. “Wait. Oh my God.”
Linda didn’t get it, her brows furrowed.
Rebecca said, “Don’t you recognize her?”
“What do you—? Wait. It’s you, Sam?”
“Hello.” The slim woman was racked with uneasiness. She couldn’t hold a gaze for more than a few seconds.
“Your face,” Linda said. “You’re so different. My.”
Samantha shrugged, blushing.
“Uh-huh, prettier. And you’ve got some meat on your bones. Finally. You were a scrawny little thing.”
Rebecca walked forward and firmly hugged Samantha. Then, hands on her shoulders, she leaned back.
“Great job…What’d they do?”
“Implants on my jaw and cheeks. Lips and eyes mostly. Nose, of course. And then…” She glanced at her round chest. A faint smile. “But I’d wanted to do that for years.”
Linda, crying, said, “I can’t believe it.” Another hug.
“What’s your new name?”
Not looking at either of them, she said, “I’d rather not say. And listen, both of you. Please. You can’t tell anybody about me. If they catch Daniel and you want to talk to reporters, please don’t mention me.”
“No problem with that.”
“Your husband doesn’t know?” Linda asked, glancing at Samantha’s engagement and wedding rings.
A shake of the head.
“How’d you pullthat one off?” Rebecca asked.
Samantha swallowed. “I lie. That’s how.”
Dance knew that married couples lie to each other with some frequency, though less often than romantic partners who aren’t married. But most lies are trivial; very few involve something as fundamental as Samantha’s.
“That’s gotta be a pain,” Rebecca said. “Need a good memory.”
“I don’t have any choice,” Samantha added. Dance recognized the kinesic attributes of defensiveness, body parts folding, stature shrinking, crossings, aversions. She was a volcano of stress.
Rebecca said, “But he has to know you did time?”
“Yes.”
“Then how—?”
“I told him it was a white-collar thing. I helped my boss embezzle some stocks because his wife needed an operation.”
“He believedthat ?”
Samantha gave a timid look to Rebecca. “He’s a good man. But he’d walk out the door if he knew the truth. That I was in a cult—”
“It wasn’t a cult,” Linda said quickly.
“Whatever it was, Daniel Pell was involved. That’s reason enough to leave me. And I wouldn’t blame him.”
Rebecca asked, “What about your parents? Do they know anything?”
“My mother’s dead, and my father’s as involved in my life as he always was. Which is not at all. But I’m sorry, I’d rather not talk about all this.”
“Sure, Sam,” Rebecca said.
The agent now returned to the specifics of the case. First, she gave them the details of the Pemberton killing, the theft of the company’s files.
“Are you sure he did it?” Linda asked.
“Yes. The prints are his.”
She closed her eyes and muttered a prayer. Rebecca’s face tightened angrily.
Neither of them had ever heard the name Pemberton, nor of the Brock Company. They couldn’t recall any events Pell might’ve gone to that had been catered.
“Wasn’t a black-tie kind of life back then,” Rebecca said.
Dance now asked Samantha about Pell’s accomplice, but, like the others, she had no idea who the woman might be. Nor did she recall any references to Charles Pickering in Redding. Dance told them about the email from Richard Pell and asked if they’d ever had any contact with him.
“Who?” Rebecca asked.
Dance explained.
“Anolder brother?” Linda interrupted. “No, Scotty was younger. And he died a year before I met Daniel.”
“He had abrother ?” Rebecca asked. “He said he was an only child.”
Dance told them the story about the crimes Pell had committed with his brother’s sister-in-law.
Linda shook her head. “No, no. You’re wrong. His brother’s name was Scott and he was mentally disabled. That’s one of the reasons we connected so well. My cousin’s got cerebral palsy.”
Rebecca said, “And he told me he was an only child, like me.” A laugh. “He was lying to get our sympathy. What’d he tellyou, Sam?”
She was reluctant to answer. Then she said, “Richard was older. He and Daniel didn’t get along at all.
Richard was a bully. Their mother was drunk all the time and she never cleaned up, so his father insisted the boys do it. But Richard would force Daniel to do all the work. He beat him up if he didn’t.”
“He toldyou the truth?” Linda asked stiffly.
“Well, he just mentioned it.”
“The Mouse scores.” Rebecca laughed.
Linda said, “He told me he didn’t want anybody else in the Family to know about his brother. He only trusted me.”
“And I wasn’t supposed to mention he was an only child,” Rebecca said.
Linda’s face was troubled. “We all tell fibs sometimes. I’ll bet the incident with the sister-in-law—what his brother told you about—didn’t happen at all, or it wasn’t so bad, and his brother used it as an excuse to cut things off.”
Rebecca was clearly not convinced of this.