He grabbed his phone and called central dispatch.
"Hello?"
"Sharon. Michael O'Neil. There's a possible two-four-five in progress at Pacific Heights Grade School. PG. Have units roll up silent. I'm going to get more info and I'll advise through you."
"Roger. I'll get 'em rolling. And await further."
They disconnected.
How to handle it? If he ordered an evacuation and the unsub had locked the doors already, that might result in the very stampede and crush that O'Neil had to avoid.
Or was it even too late to do anything?
He'd call Dance and warn her. She could see if there was a way to quietly get the parents and children out before the unsub made a move.
O'Neil grabbed his mobile and hit speed dial button one.
Chapter 71
Wes and Jon Boling were chowing down on green room goodies.
Not like at Madison Square Garden or MGM Grand, where, Dance suspected, Dom Perignon and caviar were the fare backstage. This was Ritz crackers, Doritos and juice boxes and milk (the school, like Dance's house, was a soda-free zone).
Then the audience grew silent; the show was about to get under way. Boling whispered they were going to find their seats and he and Wes left.
Dance remained, looking over her daughter as they stood together near the entrance to the stage. The girl gazed out at the audience, probably two hundred people.
Her poor face was taut, unhappy.
Dance's phone grew busy; it was on mute but she felt the vibration. She'd get it in a minute. She was now concentrating on her daughter.
"Maggie?"
The girl looked up. She seemed about to cry.
What on earth was going on? Weeks of angst about the performance. A roller coaster of emotion.
And then Dance made a sudden shift. She moved from mom to law enforcer. That had been her mistake, looking at her daughter's plight. Dance had been viewing the discomfort as a question of nerves, of typical preadolescent distress.
In fact, she should have been looking at the whole matter as a crime. She should have been thinking of plots, motives, modus operandi.
A to B to Z...
She knew instantly what was going on. So clear. All the pieces were there. She just hadn't thought to put them together. Now she understood the truth: Her daughter was being extorted.
By Bethany and the Secrets Club...
Dance guessed that the girl, so polite on the surface, was an expert at subtle bullying--using secrets as weapons. To join the club, you had to share a secret, something embarrassing: a wet bed, stolen money, a broken vase at home, a lie to a parent or teacher, something sexual. Then Bethany and her crew would have some leverage--to get the members of the club to do what they wanted.
Maggie's reluctance to perform was obvious now. She wasn't going to sing "Let It Go" at all. The girls in the club had probably forced her to learn a very different song, maybe something off-color, embarrassing--maybe ridiculing Mrs. Bendix, their teacher, a wonderful woman but heavyset, a careless dresser. An easy target for juvenile cruelty.
Dance recalled that when she agreed that Maggie didn't have to appear at the show, the girl was so relieved; Mom would back her up against the club. But comfort hadn't lasted long. The recent call from Bethany had been an ominous reminder that whatever her mother had agreed to, Maggie was going to sing.
Or the girl's secret would be revealed.
She was furious. Dance found her palms sweating. Those little bitches...
Her phone buzzed again. She ignored it once more.
She put her arm around Maggie's shoulders. "Honey, let's talk for a minute."
"I--"
"Let's talk." A smile.
They walked to the back of the green room area. From here they could see one of Maggie's classmates, Amy Grantham, performing a dance scene from the Nutcracker. She was good. Dance looked out at the audience. She saw her parents, sitting in the center, with Wes and Boling now near them, a jacket draped over the chair reserved for her.
She turned back to her daughter.
Dance had decided: Well, Maggie was not going to perform. No question. Whatever the secret was, she'd have the girl tell her now. Revealing it would defuse the girls' power over her.
Anyway, how terrible could a ten-year-old's indiscretion possibly be?
Another tremble of her phone.
Third time's the charm. She'd ignored it long enough. She tugged her phone from its holster. Not a call; it was a text. From Michael O'Neil.
She read it, noting that it was in all caps.
Well. Hmm.
"What's wrong, Mom?"
"Just a second, honey."
She hit speed dial button number one.
Click.
"Kathryn! You saw my text?"
"I--"
"The unsub went through your Pathfinder. At the Bay View Center. We've got to assume he knows about Maggie's concert. Remember those flyers you told me about? I have a team on the way. We don't know what he has planned but you have to evacuate the school. Only, keep it quiet. Check all the exits; they're probably wired shut or something." This was more than Michael O'Neil usually said in a half hour. "So, you've got to see if maintenance has wire cutters. But it's got to be subtle. If you can start getting people out--"
"Michael."
"It's seven twenty, so following his profile, he could attack at any time. He waits for the show to start and--"
"It's outside."
"I...what?"
"The show? Maggie's concert? We're on the soccer field behind the school. We're not in the gym or the assembly hall."
"Oh. Outside."
"No risk of confinement. Stampede."
"No."
"Even the green room--it's just a curtained-off area outside."
"You're outside," he repeated.
"Right. But thanks."
"Well... Good." After a pause he said, "And tell Maggie good luck. I wish I could be there."
"'Night, Michael."
They disconnected.
Outside...
The relief in his voice had been so dramatic, it was nearly comical.
Then she turned her attention back to her daughter.
"Honey, Mags... Listen. I need you to tell me something. Whatever it is, is fine."
"Huh?"
"I know why you're upset."
"I'm not upset." Maggie looked down at her crisp, shiny dress and smoothed it. One of her more common kinesic tells.
"I think you are. You're not happy about performing."
"Yes, I am."
"There's something else. Tell me."
"I don't want to talk about it."
"Listen to me. We love each other and sometimes it's not good enough for people who love each other to say that. They have to talk. Tell me the truth. Why don't you want to sing?"
Maybe, Dance wondered, the Secrets Club and queen bitch Bethany were forcing her daughter to throw a pie at the teacher or a water balloon. Even worse? She thought of Stephen King's Carrie, drenching the girl in blood onstage.
"Honey?" Dance said softly.
Maggie looked at her, then away and gasped, "Oh, Mommy! It's terrible."
The girl burst into racking tears.
Chapter 72
Kathryn Dance sat next to Jon Boling and her son in the third row, her parents nearby, watching the procession of performers in Mrs. Bendix's Sixth Grade Class's Got Talent!
"How you doing there?" Dance whispered to Boling. It was astonishing how many forgotten lines, missed dance steps and off-tone notes could be crammed into one hour.
"Better than any reality show on TV," Boling responded.
True, Dance conceded. He'd managed, yet again, to bring a new perspective to the table.
There'd been several scenes from plays, featuring three or four students together (the class numbered thirty-six), which cut the show's running time down considerably. And solo performances were hardly full-length Rachmaninoff piano concer
ti. They tended to be Suzuki pieces or abbreviated Katy Perry hits.
"The Cup Song" had been performed six times.
It was close to eight thirty when Maggie's turn came. Mrs. Bendix announced her and in her shimmering dress, the girl walked confidently from the wings.
Dance took a deep breath. She found her hand gripping Boling's, the bandaged one. Hard. He adjusted it.
"Sorry," she whispered.
He kissed her hair.
At the microphone, she looked over the audience. "I'm Maggie and I'm going to sing 'Let It Go,' from Frozen, which is a super movie, in my opinion better than The Lego Movie and most of the Barbie ones. And if anybody here hasn't seen it I think you should. Like, right away. I mean, right away."
A glance at Mom, acknowledging the slip of lazy preposition.
Dance smiled and nodded.
Then Maggie grew quiet and lowered her head. She remembered: "Oh, and I want to thank Mrs. Gallard for accompanying me."
The girl nodded formally to the music teacher.
The resonant piano notes began, the haunting minor-key intro to the beautiful song. Then the instrument went quiet, a pause...and right on the beat, Maggie filled the silence with the first words of the lyrics. She sang slow and soft at first, just as in the movie, then growing in volume, her timbre firm, singing from her chest. Dance snuck a peek. Most of the audience was smiling and nodding. And nearly every child was mouthing, if not singing, along.
When it came to the bridge, bordering on operatic recitative, Maggie nailed it perfectly. Then back to the final verse and the brilliant offhand dismissal about the cold never bothering her anyway.
The applause began, loud and genuine. Dance knew the audience was considering a standing ovation but since there'd been none earlier, there could be none now. Not that it mattered, Dance could see that the girl was ecstatic. She beamed and curtseyed, a maneuver she'd practiced almost as much as the song.
Dance blew her daughter a kiss. She set her head against Boling as he hugged her.
Wes said, "Wow. Jackie Evancho."
Not quite. But Dance decided to definitely add voice to the violin lessons this year.
She exhaled a laugh.
"What?" Edie Dance asked her daughter, upon hearing the sound.
"Just, she did a good job."
"She did."
Dance didn't tell her mother that the laugh wasn't from the girl's performance but from the discussion in the green room a half hour earlier.
"Honey?"
"Oh, Mommy! It's terrible."
When the tears had stopped, Dance had told Maggie, "I know what's going on, Mags. About the club."
"Club?"
Dance had explained she knew about the Secrets Club and their extortion.
Maggie had looked at her as if her mother had just said that Monterey Bay was filled with chocolate milk. "Mom, like no. Bethany's neat, no, she wouldn't do anything like that. I mean, sometimes she's all, I'm the leader, blah, blah, and everything. But that's okay. We voted her president."
"What did she say when she called this morning? You were upset."
She'd hesitated.
"Tell me, Mags."
"I'd told her you said I didn't have to sing but she said she'd talked to everybody in the club and they really, really wanted me to. I mean, everybody."
"Sing 'Let It Go'?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because, I mean, they were saying I was sort of the star of the club. They thought I was so good. They don't have a lot of things they can do, most of the girls. I mean, Leigh does batons. But Bethany and Cara? You saw them try to do that scene from Kung Fu Panda?"
"It was pretty bad."
"Uh-huh. I'm the only musical one. And they said nobody wants to hear a stupid violin thing. And they were, like, the club would look really bad if one of us didn't do something awesome at the show."
"So they weren't going to expose your secret or anything?"
"They wouldn't do that."
"Can you tell me yours?"
"I can't."
"Please. I won't tell a soul."
There'd been a moment's pause. Maggie'd looked around. "I guess. You won't tell anybody?"
"Promise."
Whispering: "I don't like Justin Bieber. He's not cute and I don't like what he does onstage."
Dance had waited. Then: "That's it? That's your secret?"
"Yeah."
"Then why don't you want to sing, honey?"
Her eyes had clouded with tears again. "Because I'm afraid this terrible thing's going to happen. It'll be, you know, the worst. I'll be up there in front of everybody."
"What?"
"You know, you were telling me about our bodies and when you get older things happen?"
My God, she was worried she'd get her period onstage. Dance was about to bring up the subject when Maggie said, "Billy Truesdale."
"Billy. He's in your class, right?"
A nod. "He's my age."
Dance recalled their birthdays were about the same time of year. She took out a tissue and dried her daughter's eyes.
"What about him?"
"Okay," the girl had said, sniffling. "He was singing last month, in assembly. He was really good and he was singing the national anthem. But then...but then when he sang a high note, something happened, and his voice got all weird and it, like, cracked. And he couldn't sing anymore. Everybody laughed at him. He ran out of the auditorium, crying, and afterward I heard somebody say it was because of his age. His voice was changing." She choked. "I'm, like, the same age. It's going to happen to me. I know it. I'll go out onstage and, you know that note in the song, the high note, I know it'll happen!"
Dance had clamped her teeth together and inhaled hard through her nose to keep the smile from blossoming on her face. And she'd reflected on one of the basic aspects of parenting: You think you've figured out every possible permutation and plan accordingly. And you still get slammed from out of the blue.
Dance had wiped the girl's tears once again, then hugged her daughter. "Mags, there's something I've got to tell you."
MONDAY, APRIL 10
The Blood of All
Chapter 73
Dance awoke early and surveyed the aftermath of the Secrets Club pajama party, which she'd hosted after the show.
The living room was not bad for a gaggle of ten-and eleven-year-old girls. Pizza crusts on most of the tables, popcorn on the floor, glitter from who knew what makeup experiment, some nail polish where it shouldn't be, clothes scattered everywhere from an impromptu fashion show.
Could've been a lot worse.
Arriving at the house last night, Maggie had been pure celeb, red-carpet celeb. Whatever other clubs were part of the social structure of Pacific Heights, the Secrets Sisters ruled.
And, Dance had been pleased to learn (one of the reasons for the pizza and pajama party at her place), the girls were all quite nice. Yes, Bethany would probably someday be an inside-the-Beltway force that no one would want to argue with from across the aisle. Heaven help Leigh's husband. And Cara could write code that impressed even Jon Boling. But the girls were uniformly polite, generous, funny.
Edie Dance had stayed the night too and would cater the breakfast--making her daughter's signature hybrids: panfles or wafcakes--then get the girls ready for pickup by their parents. Because of the show last night, the school had a delayed opening today.
Now, dressed for work, Dance said, "Thanks, Mom." She hugged her. "Don't you dare clean up. I'll do that when I'm home."
"Bye, dear."
As Dance was heading for the door, Bethany appeared, wearing Hello Kitty PJs. There was definitely an insidious aspect to the cartoon feline, Dance had decided long ago.
"Yes, Bethany?"
"Mrs. Dance, I have something to talk to you about." Dead serious.
Dance turned to her and nodded, concentrating. "What is it?"
"We all talked about it last night and we decided that you can be
in the Secrets Club."
"Really?"
"Yes, we like you. You're actually pretty cool. But you have to tell us a secret to get in. That's what, you know--"
"--makes it the Secrets Club."
"Uh-huh."
Dance played along. "An important secret?"
"Any secret."
Dance happened to be looking at a picture of her and Jon Boling, taken by the waiter at a wine tasting on a weekend away in Napa not long ago.
No.
A glance into the kitchen.
"Okay, I've got one."
"What is it?" The freckled girl's eyes went wide.
"When I was your age, at dinner, I'd put butter on the broccoli and feed it to our dog when my mother wasn't looking."
"Her?" Bethany glanced at Edie Dance, in the other room.
"Her. Now, I'm trusting you. You won't tell."
"No. I won't tell. I don't like broccoli either."
Dance said, "Pretty much sucks, doesn't it?"
The girl nodded as if considering a litigant's petition. Then passed judgment: "That's a good secret. We'll vote you in." She turned and trotted back to the den where the other girls were waking.
The official, and presumably only, adult member of the Pacific Heights Secrets Club now left the house. She nodded at the MCSO deputy keeping guard and smiled. He waved back. Then Dance jumped in her SUV and drove to headquarters. She'd no sooner walked into the lobby than Rey Carreneo spotted her and said, "Looked into it, the situation you asked me about." He handed her a file folder. "All in there."
"Thanks."
"Anything else, Kathryn?"
"Not yet. But stay close."
"Sure."
Dance flipped through the file folder, skimmed. She closed it and walked through the corridors to Overby's office. Her boss noted her and gestured her inside, dropping his landline phone into its cradle. "Sacramento." He said this with a grimace. An explanation would logically follow that but none was forthcoming and she didn't press it. She supposed he'd been dinged because of the latest incident on the Peninsula--the hospital attack--and the corollary: the tardiness of finding the Solitude Creek killer. Or the Oakland warehouse fire, which had damaged Operation Pipeline. Or the Serrano operation.
Or just because bureaucracy was bureaucracy.
As she sat down in one of the office chairs, Michael O'Neil stepped into the office too.
"Michael, greetings," Overby said.
"Charles." Then to Dance a nod. She thought he looked tired as he sat heavily beside her.
"What do you have?"
The deputy answered, "The preliminary report from the hospital. Not much, sorry to say. But not surprising. Given how smart this guy is."
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