Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel (35 page)

“HOW’S HE HOLDING
up?” Lily Hawken asked her husband, Donald.

“James? He’s not saying much but it’s got to be tough on him. Patrizia too, I’m sure.”

They were in the den of their new house in Monterey.

Unpacking, unpacking, unpacking . . .

The petite blonde stood in the middle of the room, feet apart slightly, looking down at two plastic bags of drapes. “What do you think?”

Hawken was a bit overwhelmed at the moment and couldn’t care less about window treatments, but his wife of nine months and three days had taken on much of the burden of the move from San Diego and so he set down the tools he was using to assemble the coffee table and looked from the red to the rust and back again.

“The ones on the left.” Remaining ready to retreat at a moment’s notice if that was the wrong answer.

But it was apparently correct. “That’s where I was leaning,” she said. “And the police have a guard at his house? They think the boy is going to attack him?”

Hawken resumed assembling the table. Ikea.
Damn, they have some pretty clever designers. “
He
doesn’t think so. But you know Jim. Even if he did, he’s not the sort to head for the hills.”

Then he reflected that Lily didn’t really know James Chilton at all; she hadn’t even met him yet. It was only through what he’d told her that she had an understanding of his friend.

Just as he knew about many aspects of her life from conversation and hint and deduction. Such was life under these circumstances—second marriages for both of them; he, coming out of mourning, Lily, recovering from a tough divorce. They’d met through friends and had started dating. Wary at first, they’d realized almost simultaneously how starved for intimacy and affection they were. Hawken, a man who hadn’t believed that he would ever get married again, proposed after six months—on the gritty rooftop beach bar of the W hotel in downtown San Diego, because he couldn’t wait to plot out a more suitable setting.

Lily, though, had described the event as the most romantic thing she could think of. The large diamond ring on a white ribbon slipped over the neck of her Anchor Steam bottle helped.

And here they were starting a new life back in Monterey.

Donald Hawken assessed his situation and decided that he was happy. Boyishly happy. Friends had told him that a second marriage after losing a spouse was different. As a widower he would have changed fundamentally. He wouldn’t be capable of that adolescent feeling permeating every cell of his being. There’d be companionship, there’d be moments of passion. But
the relationship would essentially be a friendship.

Wrong.

It was adolescent and more.

He’d had an intense, consuming marriage to Sarah, who was sultry and beautiful and a woman one could be intensely in love with, as Hawken had been.

But his love for Lily was just as strong.

And, okay, he’d finally gotten to the point where he could admit that the sex was better with Lily—in the sense that it was far more comfortable. In bed Sarah had been, well, formidable, to put it mildly. (Hawken now nearly smiled at some memories.)

He wondered how Lily would feel about Jim and Pat Chilton. Hawken had told her how they’d been such close friends, the couples getting together frequently. Attending their kids’ school and sports events, parties, barbecues . . . He’d noticed Lily’s smile shift slightly when he’d told her about this past. But he’d reassured her that, in a way, Jim Chilton was a stranger to him too. Hawken had been so depressed after Sarah’s death that he’d lost contact with nearly all his friends.

But now he was returning to life. He and Lily would finish getting the house ready and then collect the children, who were staying with their grandparents in Encinitas. And his life would settle back into the pleasant routine on the Peninsula he remembered from years before. He’d reconnect with his best friend, Jim Chilton, rejoin the country club, see all his friends again.

Yes, this was the right move. But a cloud had appeared. Small, temporary, he was sure, but a blemish nonetheless.

By coming to the place that had been his and Sarah’s home, it was as if he’d resurrected a part of her. The memories popped like fireworks:

Here in Monterey, Sarah being the thoughtful hostess, the passionate art collector, the shrewd businesswoman.

Here, Sarah being the sultry, energetic and consuming lover.

Here, Sarah intrepidly donning a wetsuit and swimming in the harsh ocean, climbing out, chilled and exhilarated—unlike her last swim, near La Jolla, not climbing out of the water at all, but wafting into the shore, limp, eyes open and unseeing, her skin matching the water temperature degree for degree.

At this thought, Hawken’s heart now added an extra beat or two.

Then he took several deep breaths and slipped the memories away. “Want a hand?” He glanced at Lily and the drapes.

His wife paused, then set down her work. She approached, took his hand and put it on the V of skin below her throat. She kissed him hard.

They smiled at each other, and his wife returned to the windows.

Hawken finished the glass-and-chrome table and dragged it in front of the couch.

“Honey?” The tape measure was drooping in Lily’s hand and she was looking out the back window.

“What?”

“I think somebody’s out there.”

“Where, in the backyard?”

“I don’t know if it’s our property. It’s on the other side of the hedge.”

“Then it’s definitely somebody else’s yard.”

Your dollar doesn’t buy you much dirt here on the Central Coast of California.

“He’s just standing there, looking at the house.”

“Probably wondering if a rock-and-roll band or druggies are moving in.”

She climbed down a step. “Just standing there,” she repeated. “I don’t know, honey, it’s a little spooky.”

Hawken walked to the window and looked out. From this perspective he couldn’t see much, but it was clear that a figure was peering through the bushes. He wore a gray sweatshirt with the hood pulled up.

“Maybe the neighbor’s kid. They’re always curious about people moving in. Wondering if we have kids their age. I was.”

Lily wasn’t saying anything. He could sense her discomfort, as she stood with her narrow hips cocked, frowning eyes framed by blond hair flecked with moving-carton-cardboard dust.

Time for the chivalry part.

Hawken walked into the kitchen and pulled open the back door. The visitor was gone.

He stepped out farther, then heard his wife call, “Honey!”

Alarmed, Hawken turned and sped back inside.

Lily, still on the ladder, was pointing out another window. The visitor had moved into the side yard—definitely on their property now, though still obscured by plantings.

“Damnit. Who the hell is he?”

He glanced at the phone but decided not to call 911. What if it was the neighbor or the neighbor’s son?
That would pretty much ruin any chance for a friendship forever.

When he looked back the figure was gone.

Lily climbed off the ladder. “Where is he? He just vanished. Fast.”

“No idea.”

They gazed out the windows, scanning.

No sign of him.

This was far spookier,
not
being able to see him.

“I think we should—”

Hawken’s voice stopped with a gasp as Lily cried, “A gun—he’s got a gun, Don!” She was staring out a front window.

Her husband grabbed his phone, calling to his wife, “The door! Lock it.”

Lily lunged.

But she was too late.

The door was already swinging wide.

Lily screamed and Don Hawken pulled her to the floor beneath him, in a noble but, he understood, useless gesture to save the life of his bride.

OURS OF OPERA . . .

Sitting in Kathryn Dance’s office, alone now, Jonathan Boling was cruising through Travis Brigham’s computer, in a frantic pursuit of the meaning of the code.

ours of opera . . .

He was sitting forward, typing fast, thinking that if Dance had been here, the kinesics expert within her could have drawn some fast conclusions from his posture and the focus of his eyes: He was a dog scenting prey.

Jon Boling was on to something.

Dance and the others were out at the moment, setting up surveillance. Boling had remained in her office to prowl through the boy’s computer. He’d found a clue and was now trying to locate more data that would let him crack the code.

ours of opera . . .

What did it mean?

A curious aspect of computers is that these crazy plastic and metal boxes contain ghosts. A computer hard drive is like a network of secret passages and corridors, leading farther and farther into the architecture
of computer memory. It’s possible—with considerable difficulty—to exorcise these hallways and rid them of the ghosts of data past, but usually most bits of information we’ve created or acquired remain forever, invisible and fragmented.

Boling was now wandering these hallways, using a program one of his students had hacked together, reading the scraps of data lodged in obscure places, like the wisps of souls inhabiting a haunted house.

Thinking of ghosts put him in mind of the DVD Kathryn Dance’s son had lent him last night.
Ghost in the Shell.
He reflected on the nice time he’d had at her house, how much he’d enjoyed meeting her friends and family. The children especially. Maggie was adorable and funny and would, he knew without a doubt, become a woman every bit as formidable as her mother. Wes was more laid-back. He was easy to talk to and brilliant. Boling often speculated about what his own children would have been like if he’d settled down with Cassie.

He thought of her now, hoped she was enjoying her life in China.

Recalled the weeks prior to her leaving.

And withdrew his generous wishes about contentment in Asia.

Then Boling put thoughts of Cassandra aside, and concentrated on his ghost hunt in the computer. He was getting close to something important in that shred of binary code that translated into the English letters
ours of opera.

Boling’s puzzle-loving mind, which could often be counted on to come up with curious leaps of logic and insight, automatically concluded that those words
were fragments of “hours of operation.” Travis had looked at that phrase online just before he’d vanished. The implication of this was that perhaps, just perhaps, these words referred to a location the boy was interested in.

But computers don’t store related data in the same place. The code for “ours of opera” might be found in a spooky closet in the basement, while the name of whatever they referred to could be in a hallway in the attic. Part of the physical address in one place, the rest in another. The brain of a computer is constantly making decisions about breaking up the data and storing bits and pieces in places that make sense to it but are incomprehensible to a layperson.

And so Boling was following the trail, strolling through the dark corridors filled with spooks.

He didn’t think he’d been this engaged in a project for months, maybe years. Jonathan Boling enjoyed university work. He was curious by nature and he liked the challenge of research and writing, the stimulating conversations with fellow faculty members and with his students, getting young people excited about learning. Seeing the eyes of a student intensify suddenly when random facts coalesced into understanding was pure pleasure to him.

But at the moment, those satisfactions and victories seemed minor. Now, he was on a mission to save lives. And nothing else mattered to him but unlocking the code.

ours of opera . . .

He looked at another storeroom in the haunted house. Nothing but jumbled bits and bytes. Another false lead.

More typing.

Nothing.

Boling stretched and a joint popped loudly. Come on, Travis, why were you interested in this place? What appealed to you about it?

And do you still go there? Does a friend work there? Do you buy something from its shelves, display cases, aisles?

Ten more minutes.

Give up?

No way.

Then he strolled into a new part of the haunted house. He blinked and gave a laugh. Like joining pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the answer to the code “ours of opera” materialized.

As he gazed at the name of the place, its relationship to Travis Brigham was ridiculously obvious. The professor was angry at himself for not deducing it even without the digital clue. Looking up the address, he pulled his phone off his belt and called Kathryn Dance. It rang four times and went to voice mail.

He was about to leave a message, but then he looked at his notes. The place wasn’t far from where he was right now. No more than fifteen minutes.

He flipped the phone shut with a soft snap and stood, pulled on his jacket.

With an involuntary glance at the picture of Dance and her children, dogs front and center, he stepped out of her office and headed for the front door of the CBI.

Aware that what he was about to do was possibly a very bad idea, Jon Boling left the synth world to continue his quest in the real.

“IT’S CLEAR,” REY
Carraneo told Kathryn Dance as he returned to the living room where she stood over Donald and Lily Hawken. Dance’s pistol was in her hand as she was looking vigilantly out the windows and into the rooms of the small house.

The couple, shaken and unsmiling, sat on a new couch, the factory plastic wrap still covering it.

Dance replaced her Glock. She hadn’t expected the boy to be inside—he’d been hiding in the side yard and had appeared to flee when the police arrived—but Travis’s expertise at the game of
DimensionQuest,
his skill at combat, made her wonder if the teenager had somehow
seemed
to escape but had actually slipped inside.

The door opened and massive Albert Stemple stuck his head in. “Nup. He’s gone.” The man was wheezing—both from the pursuit and from the residual effects of the gas at Kelley Morgan’s house. “Got the deputy lookin’ up and down the streets. And we got a half dozen more cars on the way. Somebody saw somebody in a hooded sweatshirt on a bicycle heading through the alleys, making for downtown. I called it in. But . . .” He shrugged. Then the bulky agent vanished and his boots clomped down the steps as he went to join in the manhunt.