Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel (36 page)

Dance, Carraneo, Stemple and the MCSO deputy had arrived ten minutes ago. As they’d been meeting with likely targets, an idea had occurred to Dance. She thought about Jon Boling’s theory: that, expanding his targets, Travis might include people merely mentioned favorably in the blog, even if they hadn’t posted.

Dance had gone to the site once again and read through the blog’s homepage.

Http://www.thechiltonreport.com

One name that stood out was Donald Hawken, an old friend of James Chilton’s, who was mentioned in the “On the Home Front” section. Hawken might be the victim for whom Travis had left the cross on the windswept stretch of Highway 1.

So they’d driven to the man’s house, their purpose to get Hawken and his wife out of danger and set up surveillance at the house.

But upon arriving, Dance had seen a figure in a hood, possibly holding a gun, lurking in the bushes to the side of the ranch. She’d sent Albert Stemple and the MCSO deputy after the intruder, and Rey Carraneo, with Dance behind him, barged into the house, guns drawn, to protect Hawken and his wife.

They were still badly shaken; they’d assumed Carraneo was the killer when the plainclothes agent had burst through the door, his weapon high.

Dance’s Motorola crackled and she answered. It was Stemple again. “I’m in the backyard. Got a cross carved into this patch of dirt and rose petals scattered around it.”

“Roger that, Al.”

Lily closed her eyes, lowered her head to her husband’s shoulder.

Four or five minutes, Dance was thinking. If we’d gotten here just that much later, the couple would be dead.

“Why us?” Hawken asked. “We didn’t do anything
to him. We didn’t post. We don’t even know him.”

Dance explained about the boy’s expanding his targets.

“You mean, anybody even mentioned in the blog’s at risk?”

“Seems that way.”

Dozens of police had descended on the area within minutes, but the calls coming in made clear that Travis was nowhere to be found.

How the hell does a kid on a bicycle get away? Dance thought, frustrated. He just vanishes. Where? Somebody’s basement? An abandoned construction site?

Outside, the first of the press cars were beginning to arrive, the vans with the dishes atop, the cameramen prodding their equipment to life.

About to stoke the panic in town that much hotter.

More police showed up too, including several bicycle patrol officers.

Dance now asked Hawken, “You still have your house in the San Diego area?”

Lily replied, “It’s on the market. Hasn’t sold yet.”

“I’d like you to go back there.”

“Well,” he said, “there’s no furniture. It’s in storage.”

“You have people you can stay with?”

“My parents. Donald’s children are staying with them now.”

“Then go back there until we find Travis.”

“I guess we could,” Lily said.

“You go,” Hawken said to her. “I’m not leaving Jim.”

“There’s nothing you can do to help him,” Dance said.

“There sure is. I can give him moral support. This is a terrible time. He needs friends.”

Dance continued, “I’m sure he appreciates your loyalty, but look at what just happened. That boy knows where you live and he obviously wants to hurt you.”

“You might catch him in a half hour.”

“We might not. I really have to insist, Mr. Hawken.”

The man showed a bit of businessman’s steel. “I won’t leave him.” Then the edge left his voice as he added, “I have to explain something.” The smallest of glances at his wife. A pause, then: “My first wife, Sarah, died a couple of years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

The dismissive shrug that Dance knew oh so well.

“Jim dropped everything; he was at my door within the hour. He stayed by me and the children for a week. Helped us and Sarah’s family with everything. Food, the funeral arrangements. He even took turns with the housework and laundry. I was paralyzed. I just couldn’t do anything. I think he might’ve saved my life back then. He certainly saved my sanity.”

Again Dance couldn’t suppress the memories of the months after her own spouse’s death—when Martine Christensen, much like Chilton, had been there for her. Dance would never have hurt herself, not with the children, but there were plenty of times when, yes, she thought she might go mad.

She understood Donald Hawken’s loyalty.

“I’m not leaving,” the man repeated firmly.
“There’s no point in asking.” Then he hugged his wife. “But you go back. I want you to leave.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Lily said, “No, I’m staying with you.”

Dance noted the look. Adoration, contentment, resolve . . . Her own heart flipped as she thought,
He
lost his first spouse, recovered and found love again.

It can happen, Dance thought. See?

Then she closed the door on her own life.

“All right,” she agreed reluctantly. “But you’re leaving here right now. Find a hotel and stay there, stay out of sight. And we’re going to put a guard on you.”

“That’s fine.”

It was then that a car screeched to a stop in front of the house, a voice shouting in alarm. She and Carraneo stepped out onto the porch.

“S’okay,” Albert Stemple said, his voice a lazy drawl, minus the Southern accent. “Only Chilton.”

The blogger had apparently heard the news and hurried over. He raced up the steps. “What happened?” Dance was surprised to hear panic in his voice. She’d detected anger, pettiness, arrogance earlier, but never this sound. “Are they all right?”

“Fine,” she said. “Travis was here, but Donald’s fine. His wife too.”

“What happened?” The collar of the blogger’s jacket was askew.

Hawken and Lily stepped outside. “Jim!”

Chilton ran forward and embraced his friend. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes. The police got here in time.”

“Did you catch him?” Chilton asked.

“No,” Dance said, expecting Chilton to launch into
criticism for their not capturing the boy. But he took her hand firmly and gripped it. “Thank you, thank you. You saved them. Thank you.”

She nodded awkwardly and released his hand. Then Chilton turned to Lily with a smile of curiosity.

Dance deduced that they’d never met before, not in person. Hawken introduced them now and Chilton gave Lily a warm embrace. “I’m so sorry about this. I never, not in a million years, thought it would affect you.”

“Who would have?” Hawken asked.

With a rueful smile, Chilton said to his friend, “With an introduction to the Monterey Peninsula like this, she’s not going to want to stay. She’s going to move back tomorrow.”

Lily finally cracked a fragile smile. “I would. Except we’ve already bought the drapes.” A nod at the house.

Chilton laughed. “She’s funny, Don. Why doesn’t she stay and
you
go back to San Diego?”

“Afraid you’re stuck with both of us.”

Chilton then grew serious. “You have to leave until this is over.”

Dance said, “I’ve been trying to talk them into that.”

“We’re not leaving.”

“Don—” Chilton began.

But Hawken laughed, nodding at Dance. “I have police permission. She agreed. We’re going to hide out in a hotel. Like Bonnie and Clyde.”

“But—”

“No buts, buddy. We’re here. You can’t get rid of us now.”

Chilton opened his mouth to object, but then noted Lily’s wry grin. She said, “You don’t want to be telling this girl what to do, Jim.”

The blogger gave another laugh and said, “Fair enough. Thank you. Get to a hotel. Stay there. In a day or two this’ll all be over with. Things’ll get back to normal.”

Hawken said, “I haven’t seen Pat and the boys since I left. Over three years.”

Dance eyed the blogger. Something else about him was different. Her impression was that she was seeing for the first time his human side, as if this near-tragedy had pulled him yet further from the synth world into the real.

The crusader was, at least temporarily, absent.

She left them to their reminiscences and walked around back. A voice from the bushes startled her. “Hello.”

She looked behind her to see the young deputy who’d been helping them out, David Reinhold.

“Deputy.”

He grinned. “Call me David. I heard he was here. You almost nailed him.”

“Close. Not close enough.”

He was carrying several battered metal suitcases, stenciled with
MCSO—CSU
on the side. “Sorry I couldn’t tell anything for certain about those branches in your backyard—that cross.”

“I couldn’t tell either. Probably it was just a fluke. If I trimmed the trees like I should, it never would’ve happened.”

His bright eyes glanced her way. “You have a nice house.”

“Thanks. Despite the messy backyard.”

“No. It’s real comfortable-looking.”

She asked the deputy, “And how ’bout you, David? You live in Monterey?”

“I did. Had a roommate, but he left, so I had to move to Marina.”

“Well, appreciate your efforts. I’ll put in a good word with Michael O’Neil.”

“Really, Kathryn? That’d be great.” He glowed.

Reinhold turned away and began cordoning off the backyard. Dance stared at what was in the center of the yellow tape trapezoid: the cross etched into the dirt and the sprinkling of petals.

From there, her eyes rose and took in the sweeping decline from the heights of Monterey down to the bay, where a sliver of water could be seen.

It was a panoramic view, beautiful.

But today it seemed as disturbing as the terrible mask of Qetzal, the demon in
DimensionQuest.

You’re out there somewhere, Travis.

Where, where?

PLAYING COP.

Tracking down Travis the way Jack Bauer chased terrorists.

Jon Boling had a lead: the possible location from which Travis had sent the blog posting of the mask drawing and the horrific stabbing of the woman who looked a bit like Kathryn Dance. The place where the boy would be playing his precious
DimensionQuest.

The “hours of operation” he’d found in the ghostly corridors of Travis’s computer referred to Lighthouse Arcade, a video and computer gaming center in New Monterey.

The boy would be taking a risk going out in public, of course, considering the manhunt. But if he picked his routes carefully, wore sunglasses and a cap and something other than the hoodie the TV reports were depicting him in, well, he could probably move around with some freedom.

Besides, when it came to online gaming and Morpegs, an addict had no choice but to risk detection.

Boling piloted his Audi off the highway and onto Del Monte then Lighthouse and headed into the neighborhood where the arcade was located.

He was enjoying a certain exhilaration. Here he was, a forty-one-year-old professor, who lived largely by his brain. He’d never thought of himself as suffering from an absence of bravery. He’d done some rock climbing, scuba diving, downhill skiing. Then too, the world of ideas carried risk of harm—to careers and reputations and contentment. He’d battled it out with fellow professors. He also had been a victim of vicious online attacks, much like those against Travis, though with better spelling, grammar and punctuation. Most recently he’d been attacked for taking a stand against file sharing of copyrighted material.

He hadn’t expected the viciousness of the attacks. He was trounced . . . called a “fucking capitalist,” a “bitch whore of big business.” Boling particularly liked “professor of mass destruction.”

Some colleagues actually stopped talking to him.

But the harm he’d experienced, of course, was nothing compared with what Kathryn Dance and her fellow officers risked day after day.

And which he himself was now risking, he reflected.

Playing cop . . .

Boling realized that he’d been helpful to Kathryn and the others. He was pleased about that and pleased at their recognition of his contribution. But being so close to the action, hearing the phone calls, watching Kathryn’s face as she took down information about the crimes, seeing her hand absently stroke the black gun on her hip . . . he felt a longing to participate.

And anything else, Jon? he wryly asked himself.

Well, okay, maybe he was trying to impress her.

Absurd, but he’d felt a bit of jealousy seeing her and Michael O’Neil connect.

You’re acting like a goddamn teenager.

Still, something about her lit the fuse. Boling had never been able to explain it—who could, really?—when that connection occurred. And it happened fast or never. Dance was single, he was too. He’d gotten over Cassie (okay, pretty much over); was Kathryn getting close to dating again? He believed he’d gotten a few signals from her. But what did he know? He had none of her skill—body language.

More to the point, he was a man, a species genetically fitted with persistent oblivion.

Boling now parked his gray A4 near Lighthouse Arcade, on a side street in that netherworld north of Pacific Grove. He remembered when this strip of small businesses and smaller apartments, dubbed New Monterey, had been a mini–Haight Ashbury, tucked between a brawling army town and a religious retreat. (Pacific Grove’s Lovers Point was named for lovers of
Jesus,
not one another.) Now the area was as bland as a strip mall in Omaha or Seattle.

The Lighthouse Arcade was dim and shabby and smelled, well, gamy—a pun he couldn’t wait to share with her.

He surveyed the surreal place. The players—most of them boys—sat at terminals, staring at the screens, teasing joysticks and pounding on keyboards. The playing stations had high, curving walls covered with black sound-dampening material, and the chairs were comfortable, high-backed leather models.

Everything a young man would need for a digital experience was here. In addition to the computers
and keyboards there were noise-cancelling headsets, microphones, touch pads, input devices like car steering wheels and airplane yokes, three-D glasses, and banks of sockets for power, USB, Firewire, audiovisual and more obscure connections. Some had Wii devices.

Boling had written about the latest trend in gaming: total immersion pods, which had originated in Japan, where kids would sit for hours and hours in a dark, private space, completely sealed off from the real world, to play computer games. This was a logical development in a country known for
hikikomori,
or “withdrawal,” an increasingly common lifestyle in which young people, boys and men mostly, became recluses, never leaving their rooms for months or years at a time, living exclusively through their computers.