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.