her.
‘Katie! You’re all right?’ she called, when she was still some distance away. Heads turned at the urgent words, as the stocky woman with short salt-and-pepper hair strode forward.
‘Sure. Fine.’ They hugged.
Edie Dance was a cardiac nurse here. She surveyed the elevator car. The blood, vomit, metal battered by fists. Edie shook her head, then hugged her daughter. ‘How horrible,’ she whispered. ‘Somebody did this on purpose?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are— Oh, your face.’
‘Nothing. Got scratched a little, getting into the car.’
‘I can’t imagine what it would be like to be trapped in there. How many people?’
‘About fifteen. Pregnant woman. She’ll be okay. Baby’s fine. One close call.’
‘No!’
‘He tried to kill himself. He couldn’t take the panic.’
Edie Dance looked around. ‘Is Michael here?’
‘He’s meeting with his crime-scene people. They’re running scenes in the basement and next door, at the inn.’
‘Ah.’ Edie’s eyes remained down the hall. ‘How’s he doing? Haven’t seen him for a while.’
‘Michael? Fine.’
Body-language skill is such a blessing … and a curse. Her mother had something to say, and Dance wondered if she was supposed to pry it out of her. That was often the case with Edie Dance.
But she didn’t have to.
Her mother said, ‘I saw Anne O’Neil the other day.’
‘You did?’
‘She was with the kids. At Whole Foods. Or does she go by her maiden name now?’
Dance touched her sore face. ‘No, she kept O’Neil.’
‘Thought she was living in San Francisco.’
‘Last I heard she was.’
‘So Michael hasn’t mentioned anything about it?’
‘No. But we haven’t had much of chance for personal conversation.’ She nodded at the elevator. ‘The case and all.’
‘I suppose not.’
Dance sometimes wondered where her mother’s loyalties lay. Recently Edie had been fast to tell her that Boling appeared to be moving away – without having mentioned anything to Dance. As it turned out, he only had a business trip and was planning to take Dance and the children with him for part of it – a mini-vacation in Southern California. True, Edie had her daughter’s and grandchildren’s interests at heart but Dance thought she’d been a bit too fast to relay what turned out to be a misunderstanding.
Now she was telling Dance that the man who’d once been a potential partner might not be as divorced as he seemed to be. But Edie was not a gossip or a sniper. So, Dance speculated, this would have to do with protecting her daughter’s heart, as any good parent would do. Though the information was irrelevant, of course. She was Jon Boling’s partner now.
Edie expected her to say something more on the topic, she sensed. But Dance chose to deflect: ‘Maggie’s going to sing in the show after all.’
‘Really? Wonderful. What changed her mind?’
‘I don’t know.’
Children were mysteries and you could go nuts trying to figure out patterns.
‘Your dad and I’ll be there. What time is it again?’
‘Seven.’
‘Dinner after?’
‘I think that should work.’
Her mother was looking at her critically. ‘And, Katie, I’d really get that face taken care of.’
‘A lift?’ Dance asked.
Mother and daughter smiled.
Her phone buzzed. Ah, at last.
‘Jon, where’ve you been? We—’
‘Is this Kathryn?’ A man’s voice. Not Boling’s.
Her heart went cold. ‘Yes. Who’s this?’
‘I’m Officer Taylor, Carmel Police. I found you on Mr Boling’s speed-dial list. You’re a friend, a co-worker?’
‘Yes. Friend. I’m Kathryn Dance. Special agent with the CBI.’
A pause. Then: ‘Oh. Agent Dance.’
‘What’s happened?’ Dance whispered. She was deluged with an ice-cold memory – of the trooper calling her after her husband had been killed.
‘I’m afraid I have to tell you that Mr Boling’s been in an accident.’
CHAPTER 66
Antioch March was back in his suite at the Cedar Hills Inn.
He’d finished the workout at the inn’s luxurious health club and was enjoying a pineapple juice in his room, watching the news reports of the event at the hospital.
Not a single fatality.
Antioch March was mildly disappointed but the Get was satisfied. For the time being. Always for the time being.
Somebody’s not happy …
His phone rang. Both caller and callee were on new burner phones. But he knew who it was: his boss. Christopher Jenkins ran the Hand to Heart website. He gave March his assignments to travel to non-profit humanitarian groups, who would then sign up for the site. Jenkins also arranged for March’s other jobs, which were the real moneymakers for the company.
‘Hi,’ he said.
No names, of course.
‘Just wanted to tell you, the client’s extremely satisfied.’
‘Good.’ What else was there to say? March had done what he’d been contracted to do in the Monterey area. He’d also eliminated evidence and witnesses and cut all ties that could potentially link the incident to the client, who was paying Jenkins a great deal of money for March’s services. The client wasn’t the nicest guy in the world – in fact, he could be quite a prick – but one thing about him: he paid well and on time.
‘He’s sent eighty percent. It’s gone through proper channels.’
Bitcoin and the other weird new payment systems were clever in theory as a mechanism to pay anonymously for the sort of work that March performed but they were coming under increasing scrutiny. So Jenkins – the businessman in the operation – had decided to resort to good old-fashioned cash. ‘Channels’ meant he’d received a FedEx box containing ‘documents’, which in a way it did, though each document would have a picture of Benjamin Franklin on it.