The task of slowing down, if not stopping completely, his pursuers.
Well, one pursuer. Singular.
He smiled. Yes, truly singular.
What better word to describe Kathryn Dance, of whom he’d dreamed at glorious length last night?
CHAPTER 57
The Kathryn Dance Situation.
That’s how Jon Boling had come to think of it. The phrase could have a negative connotation but he didn’t mean it like that. Boling, a product of academia who made his living in the world of computers, was analytical by nature.
This drab, gray Sunday he was bicycling down Ocean Avenue in Carmel, the main shopping drag, while his partner at the college, Lily, chipped away at Stanley Prescott’s and his killer’s passcode. There was nothing more for him to do until she finished, so he’d taken a ride. Besides, he had an errand that needed attending to.
He was not paying much attention to the pretty scenery but was, instead, reflecting on the nature of the KD Situation.
Yes, he loved her. No question about that. The tug in his gut whenever he saw her. He could, always, call up the smell of her hair as they lay together. He could see the sparkle in her green eyes, hear her breezy laugh. They gave to each other, didn’t hesitate to speak about their vulnerabilities. He remembered feeling her pain when the worst – to her – happened: she’d fail to catch a perp. He’d wrap his arms around her at moments like that and she’d yield to the comfort. Not completely. But to a degree. This was love.
He continued downhill. Don’t fail me here, he thought to the brakes. It was a long, fast stretch straight down to the rocks and traffic at the beach. He eased to a stop at an intersection, then continued.
And the children, he loved them too. Wes and Maggie … He’d always wanted to be a father, but that hadn’t worked out. No dark angst there but it was a gap he was determined to fill and fill soon. Boling admitted he wasn’t a natural parent but he worked hard. And he could see that the effort had paid off. When he’d first met Kathryn, the children were moody, depressed from time to time, Wes more but Maggie too. After all, they hadn’t been without their father for all that long. They still grew morose or attitudinal at times.
But wasn’t that just life? Adolescents and adults.
So, a lyrical comfort with Kathryn, a rapport with the children … and even the formidable Edie Dance liked him – enough. Stuart, of course, and Boling had become solid friends.
But something wasn’t quite right. Hence, the ‘situation’.
Suggesting issues requiring consideration. Formulation. Adjustment. Solution.
Jon Boling hardly knew kinesics but he’d learned enough from Kathryn to be aware of tension. And when was it most in evidence? Not when she was entangled in a case. Not when one of the kids was sick. But when she and Boling and Michael O’Neil were in the same room together.
Computer code, the language Jon Boling spoke most fluently, is written according to the laws of logic. The parameters are clear and allow for not a single mis-spaced character. He wished he could write out a program on the Kathryn Dance Situation, compile it and have his answer pulsing on a monitor in front of him.
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<h1>The Kathryn Dance Situation</h1>
<p> Love her.</p>
<p>Love the children.</p>
<p>It works, many, many ways.</p>
Jon Boling liked Michael O’Neil a great deal. He was a solid, decent man. A good father, who’d kept his path during a divorce from a faithless and frivolous wife. And to hear Kathryn tell it, he was one hell of a law enforcer. But there was another factor in the code Boling was now writing.
<p>Michael O’Neil loves Kathryn.</p>
A stretch of flat surface, and Boling pulled off to the sidewalk. He texted the college’s computer-science department, where Lily was hard at work on cracking Stan Prescott’s computer and the unsub’s phone.
Lily, quite a beauty she was. Smart as could be.
There was no progress. But Boling had confidence she’d find the passwords.
Back to the Situation. And the big question: did Kathryn love Michael?
He’d lain awake a number of nights wondering, tagging her words and looks and gestures with meaning, wondering, wondering … and replaying certain images and words over the past year. The radiance of her eyes, the lift of her lips when she smiled, characterized by faint, charming wrinkles.
<p>What are Kathryn’s true feelings?</p>
Boling recalled overhearing the fight she and O’Neil had had last night. Raw. Sharp words, back and forth. Then he pictured her returning to the house and her face changing, melting, relaxing, growing comfortable once more. Boling and Dance had laughed, had some turkey reinvented into something innovative, salad, wine. And the hard day in Orange County, the hard words fired by Michael O’Neil fell away.
<p>Do Kathryn and Jon have a future?</p>
He now eased to a stop outside the store he’d bicycled ten miles to come to. It was, like most stores and houses in Carmel, on the borderline between quaint and precious. The décor was Bavarian ski resort, not uncommon here, though Boling suspected the downtown saw snow once a decade at most.
He unstrapped his almond-shaped helmet and slung it over the handlebars. He leaned the bike up against a nearby fence. Didn’t bother with the lock. Nobody was going to steal a bike in daylight in downtown Carmel. That would be like trying to run a gun show in Berkeley.
Jon Boling had done some research on By the Sea Jewelry, the store he was walking toward now. It was just what he needed. Glancing at the beautiful antique engagement and wedding rings in the window, he pushed inside. The door opened with a jingle from a cowbell, both incongruous and perfectly apt.
Five minutes later he was outside once again.
<p>Do Kathryn and Jon have a future?</p>
Boling opened the By the Sea Jewelry bag and peered into the box inside. Good. He slipped it into his jacket pocket. He found himself smiling.
Helmet on. Time to head back to her house.
There were several ways to get there. The shorter was to go back up Ocean Avenue. But that was a steep hill, made for the thighs of a twenty-year-old. The other option, longer, was to bike downhill toward the beach, then meander along Seventeen Mile Drive back to Pacific Grove.
Pretty and, yes, far easier.
A glance at his watch. He’d be back to Dance’s in thirty minutes this way. He turned the bike down the steep hill and caught a glimpse of the ocean, beach, rocks, shrouded in mist.
What a view.
He pushed off, keeping tension on the rear brake mostly – the incline was so severe that hitting the front one alone would catapult him head over heels if he had to stop fast. It seemed to him that the rear responded slowly, wobbling with some vibration. It felt different from when he’d biked there, just minutes ago. But the sensation was simply a rough patch of asphalt, he guessed. Or maybe even his imagination. Now, no traffic in front, he let up on the brake handles. The speed increased and Boling enjoyed the wind streaming against his face, enjoyed the hum it made in his helmet. Thinking of the bag inside his pocket.
<p>The Kathryn Dance Situation has been resolved. </p>
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CHAPTER 58
Dance and her father were on the Deck that warm Sunday afternoon, pleasant, though under gray skies – overcast for a change, no fog. Natives knew the difference. As often on the Peninsula, the sky promised rain but deceived. The drought grew worse every year. Solitude Creek, for instance, had at one point been eight, nine feet deep, she’d learned. Now it was a quarter that. Less in some places.