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"Even if she is deliberating it, she won't reveal her hand until she's good and ready."
"Plays her hand close to her vest?"
She shot him a smile. "In that way she's like me."
Walmart came into view. The massive parking lot was in a state of barely controlled pandemonium. A few sheriff's office and state trooper cars were there with their colored lights flashing. Dogs were running in circles, sniffing the ground near a row of garbage receptacles. Onlookers were being held back by uniformed officers of various agencies, including the Merritt city police.
And in the thick of it was Ski Nyland.
Dodge understood why the deputy's telephone summons had been so abrupt. Presently he and several other badges were clustered around a potbellied, middle-aged guy wearing a blue Walmart employee vest. When Ski spotted Dodge pulling into the parking lot, he left the group and jogged toward them.
Dodge said, "He wants to jump our daughter."
Caroline said, "If I'm reading the vibes right, the feeling is mutual."
The moment Ski reached them, he asked, "Where's Berry?"
"She went to the hospital to see Ben," Caroline told him. "I couldn't reach her on her cell."
"Try again. Get her over here." As an afterthought he added a "please," although Caroline seemed not to have noticed his brusqueness. Responding to his sense of urgency, she immediately had accessed her cell phone and was speed-dialing Berry.
Dodge got out of the car and lit a cigarette.
Ski bore down on him, growling angrily, "What the hell, Dodge?"
Dodge clicked his lighter closed and blew smoke toward the sky. The deputy's anger needed no explanation. "I had a hunch, I acted on it."
"You tampered with evidence."
"Sue me. And, by the way, I didn't tamper with anything. I know how to handle evidence."
"Where is it now?"
"Safely stored. So what do you want to do? Slug out our difference of opinion on protocol and chain of evidence in front of God and everybody? Or talk about the significance of those pictures?"
Ski removed his sunglasses and wiped his sweating forehead on his sleeve. He glanced into the car at Caroline, who was still talking on her cell phone. Coming back around to Dodge and keeping his voice low, he said, "Best I can tell, they were taken with a telephoto lens."
"But close enough to be scary."
Ski gave a solemn nod of agreement. "Close enough. They're a whole friggin' photographic study of Berry's life here. He got shots of the lake house from every angle. He's got her coming and going all over town."
"Wearing different clothes," Dodge said. "Which means he followed her on numerous occasions."
"He got up close and personal, too."
The deputy's square jaw hardened, and Dodge knew he was thinking about the series of shots taken of Berry through her bedroom window, and when she was sunbathing on the pier, blissfully unaware that a man who'd vowed to kill her was watching, perversely violating her in a way that made Dodge's blood boil.
"Careless of him to leave them in the motel room."
"He didn't," Ski said. "I found them in a trash barrel on the side of the road behind the motel, near where he'd hidden the car."
"So even after killing the kid, he had the presence of mind to take them with him and try to unload them."
"He didn't want to be caught with something that would implicate him."
"Careful bastard."
"Berry told me he works puzzles. He's methodical. He won't stop."
