Roadside Crosses

Chapter 40

At 8:20 A.M., Dance steered the Ford Crown Vic into the parking lot of the Monterey County Courthouse.

She was eagerly anticipating the crime scene reports on Schaeffer and any other information TJ and the MCSO had found about where the killer was keeping Travis. But in fact her thoughts were largely elsewhere: she was wondering about the curious call she'd received early that morning-from Robert Harper, asking if she would stop by his office.

Apparently at his desk by 7:00, the special prosecutor had sounded uncharacteristically pleasant and Dance decided it was possible that he'd heard from Sheedy about the Julio Millar situation. Her thoughts actually extended to a dismissal of her mother's case, and lodging charges against Juan's brother. She had a feeling that Harper wanted to discuss some type of a face-saving arrangement. Maybe he'd drop the charges against Edie completely, and immediately, if Dance agreed not to go public with any criticism of his prosecution of the case.

She parked in the back of the courthouse, looking over the construction work around the parking lot; it had been here that the woman partner of the cult leader Daniel Pell had engineered the man's escape by starting the fire that had caused Juan Millar's terrible burns.

She nodded hello to several people she knew from the court and from the sheriff's office. Speaking to a guard, she learned where Robert Harper's office was. The second floor, near the law library.

A few minutes later she arrived-and was surprised to find the quarters quite austere. There was no secretary's anteroom; the special prosecutor's door opened directly onto the corridor across from a men's room. Harper was alone, sitting at a large desk, the room bare of decoration. There were two computers, rows of law books and dozens of neat stacks of papers on both a gray metal desk and a round table near the single window. The blinds were down, though he would have a striking view of lettuce fields and the mountains east.

Harper was in a pressed white shirt and narrow red tie. His slacks were dark and his suit jacket hung neatly on a hanger on a coatrack in the corner of the office.

"Agent Dance. Thanks for coming in." He subtly inverted the sheet of paper he'd been reading, and closed the lid of his attaché case. Inside, she'd caught a glimpse of an old law book.

Or maybe a Bible.

He rose briefly and shook her hand, again keeping his distance.

As she sat, his closely set eyes examined the table beside her to see if there was anything that she ought not to observe. He seemed satisfied that all secrets were safe. He took in, very briefly, her navy blue suit-tailored jacket and pleated skirt-and white blouse. She'd worn her interrogation clothes today. Her glasses were the black ones.

Predator specs.

She'd be happy to reach an accommodation if it got her mother off, but she wasn't going to be intimidated.

"You've spoken to Julio Millar?" she asked.

"Who?"

"Juan's brother."

"Oh. Well, I have, a while ago. Why are you asking?"

Dance felt her heart begin pounding faster. She noted a stress reaction-her leg moved slightly. Harper, on the other hand, was motionless. "I think Juan begged his brother to kill him. Julio faked a name on the hospital sign-in sheet, and did what his brother wanted. I thought that's what you wanted to talk to me about."

"Oh," Harper said, nodding. "George Sheedy called about that. Just a bit ago. I guess he didn't get a chance to call you and tell you."

"Tell me what?"

With a hand tipped in perfectly filed nails, Harper lifted a folder from the corner of his desk and opened it up. "On the night his brother died, Julio Millar was in the hospital. But I confirmed that he was meeting with two members of the MBH security staff in connection with a suit against the California Bureau of Investigation for negligence in sending his brother to guard a patient that you knew, or should have known, was too dangerous for a man of Juan's experience to handle. He was also considering suing you personally on a discrimination charge for singling out a minority officer for a dangerous assignment. And for exacerbating his brother's condition by interrogating him. At the exact time of Juan's death, Julio was in the presence of those guards. He put a fake name in the check-in log because he was afraid you'd find out about the suit and try to intimidate him and his family."

Dance's heart clenched to hear these words, delivered so evenly. Her breathing was rapid. Harper was as calm as if he were reading from a book of poetry.

"Julio Millar has been cleared, Agent Dance." The smallest of frowns. "He was one of my first suspects. Do you think I wouldn't have considered him?"

She fell silent and sat back. In an instant, all hope had been destroyed.

Then, to Harper, the matter was concluded. "No, why I asked you here…" He found another document. "Will you stipulate that this is an email you wrote? The addresses match, but there are no names on it. I can trace it back to you but it'll take some time. As a courtesy, could you tell me if it's yours?"

She glanced at the sheet. It was a photocopy of an email she'd written to her husband when he was away on a business trip at an FBI seminar in Los Angeles several years ago.

How's everything going down there? You get to Chinatown, like you were thinking?

Wes got a perfect on the English test. He wore the gold star on his forehead until it fell off and had to buy some more. Mags decided to donate all her Hello Kitty stuff to charity-yes, all of it (yea!!!!)

Sad news from Mom. Willy, their cat, finally had to be put down. Kidney failure. Mom wouldn't hear of the vet doing it. She did it herself, an injection. She seemed happier afterward. She hates suffering, would rather lose an animal than see it suffer. She told me how hard it was to see Uncle Joe at the end, with the cancer. Nobody should have to go through that, she said. A shame there was no assisted suicide law.

Well, on a happier note: Got the website back online and Martine and I uploaded a dozen songs from that Native American group down in Ynez. Go online if you can. They're great!

Oh and went shopping at Victoria's Secret. Think you'll like what I got. I'll do some modeling!! Come home soon!

Her face burned-in shock and rage. "Where did you get this?" she snapped.

"A computer at your mother's house. Under a warrant."

Dance recalled. "It was my old computer. I gave it to her."

"It was in her possession. Within the scope of the warrant."

"You can't introduce that." She waved at the email printout.

"Why not?" He frowned.

"It's irrelevant." Her mind jumped around. "And it's a privileged communication between husband and wife."

"Of course it's relevant. It goes to your mother's state of mind in committing mercy killing. And as for the privilege: Since neither you nor your husband are subjects of the prosecution, any communications should be fully admissible. In any case, the judge will decide." He seemed surprised she hadn't realized this. "Is it yours?"

"You'll have to depose me before I respond to anything you ask."

"All right." He seemed only faintly disappointed at her failure to cooperate. "Now, I should tell you that I consider it a conflict of interest for you to be involved in this investigation, and using Special Agent Consuela Ramirez to do legwork for you doesn't vitiate that conflict."

How had he found that out?

"This case emphatically does not fall within the jurisdiction of the CBI and if you continue to pursue it, I'll lodge an ethics complaint against you with the attorney general's office."

"She's my mother."

"I'm sure you're emotional about the situation. But it's an active investigation and soon to be an active prosecution. Any interference from you is unacceptable."

Shaking with rage, Dance rose and started for the door.

Harper seemed to have an afterthought. "One thing, Agent Dance. Before I move to admit that email of yours into evidence, I want you to know that I'll redact the information about buying that lingerie, or whatever it was, at Victoria's Secret. That I do consider irrelevant."

Then the prosecutor slid toward him the document he'd been reviewing when she arrived, turned it over and began reading once again.

IN HER OFFICE Kathryn Dance was staring at the entwined tree trunks outside her window, still angry with Harper. She was thinking again about what would happen if she was forced to testify against her mother. If she didn't, she'd be held in contempt. A crime. It could mean jail and the end of her career as a law enforcer.

She was drawn from this thought by TJ's appearance

He looked exhausted. He explained he'd spent much of the night working with Crime Scene to examine Greg Schaeffer's room at the Cyprus Grove Inn, his car and Chilton's house. He had the MCSO report.

"Excellent, TJ." She regarded his bleary, red eyes. "You get any sleep?"

"What's that again, boss? 'Sleep'?"

"Ha."

He handed her the crime scene report. "And I finally got more four-one-one on our friend."

"Which one?"

"Hamilton Royce."

Didn't matter now, she supposed, with the case closed, and apologies-such as they were-delivered. But she was curious. "Go on."

"His latest assignment was for the Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee. Until he got here he'd been billing the nukers sixty hours a week. And by the way, he's expensive. I think I need a raise, boss. Am I a six-figure kind of agent?"

Dance smiled. She was glad that his humor seemed to be returning. "You're worth seven figures in my book, TJ."

"I love you too, boss."

The implication of the information then struck her. She riffled through copies of The Chilton Report.

"That son of a bitch."

"What's that?"

"Royce was trying to get the blog shut down-for his client's sake. Look." She tapped the printout.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Posted by Chilton.

Rep. Brandon Klevinger…Ever heard of his name? Probably not. And the state representative looking after some fine folks in Northern California would rather keep a low profile. No such luck. Representative Klevinger is the head of the state's Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee, which means the bomb-oops, excuse me, the buck-stops with him on the issue of those little gadgets called reactors. And you want to know something interesting about them? No-go away, Greenies. Go whine elsewhere! I have no problem with nuclear energy; we need it to achieve energy independence (from certain interests overseas whom I've written about at great length). But what I do object to is this: Nuclear power loses its advantage if the price for the plants and the energy expended in the construction outweigh the advantages. I've learned that Rep. Klevinger just happens to have been on a couple of posh golfing trips to Hawaii and Mexico with his newfound "friend," Stephen Ralston. Well, guess what, boys and girls? Ralston happens to have put in bids for a proposed nuclear facility north of Mendocino. Mendocino…Lovely place. And very pricey to build in. Not to mention that it seems the cost of delivering the power to where it's needed will be huge. (Another developer has proposed a far cheaper and more efficient location about fifty miles south of Sacramento.) But a source has snuck me the Nuclear Committee's preliminary report and it reveals that Ralston's probably going to get the go-ahead to build in Mendocino. Has Klevinger done anything illegal or wrong? I'm not saying yes or no. I just ask the question.

"He was lying all along," TJ said.

"Sure was."

Still, she couldn't concentrate on Royce's duplicity just now. There was, after all, no need to blackmail him at this point, considering he was headed home in a day or two.

"Good work."

"Just dotting my i's."

As he left she hunched over the MCSO report. She was a little surprised that David Reinhold, the eager kid-the one she'd played cat-and-mouse with last night-hadn't brought it in person.

From: Dep. Peter Bennington, MCSO Crime Scene Unit

To: Kathryn Dance, Special Agent, California Bureau of

Investigation-Western Division.

Re: June 28 homicide at house of James Chilton, 2939 Pacific Heights

Court, Carmel, California.

Kathryn, here's the inventory.

Greg Schaeffer's body One Cross brand wallet, containing Calif. driver's license, credit cards, AAA membership card, all in name of Gregory Samuel Schaeffer $329.52 cash Two keys to Ford Taurus, California registration ZHG128 One motel key to Room 146, Cyprus Grove Inn One key to BMW 530, California registration DHY783, registered to Gregory S. Schaeffer, 20943 Hopkins Drive, Glendale, CA One claim ticket for car at LAX long-term parking, dated June 10 Miscellaneous restaurant and store receipts One cell phone. Only calls to local phone numbers: James Chilton, restaurants Trace on shoes, consistent with sandy dirt found at prior scenes of roadside crosses Fingernail trace inconclusive Room 146, Cypress Grove Inn, registered in name of Greg Schaeffer Miscellaneous clothing and toiletries One 1-liter bottle, Diet Coke Two bottles Robert Mondavi Central Coast Chardonnay wine Leftover Chinese food, three orders Miscellaneous groceries One Toshiba laptop computer and power pack (transferred to California Bureau of Investigation; see chain-of-custody record) One Hewlett-Packard DeskJet printer One box of 25-count Winchester.38 Special ammunition, containing 13 rounds Miscellaneous office supplies Printouts of The Chilton Report from March of this year to present Approximately 500 pages of documents relating to the Internet, blogs, RSS feeds

Items in Gregory Schaeffer's possession found at James Chilton's house One Sony digital camcorder One SteadyShot camera tripod Three USB cables One roll, Home Depot brand duct tape One Smith & Wesson revolver, loaded with 6 rounds of.38 Special ammunition One Baggie containing 6 extra rounds of ammunition Hertz Ford Taurus, California registration ZHG128, parked ½ block away from James Chilton's house One bottle orange-flavored Vitamin Water, half full One rental agreement, Hertz, naming Gregory Schaeffer as lessee One McDonald's Big Mac wrapper One map of Monterey County, provided by Hertz, no marked locations (infrared analysis negative) Five empty coffee cups, 7-Eleven. Only Schaeffer's fingerprints

Dance read the list twice. She couldn't be upset at the job Crime Scene had done. It was perfectly acceptable. Yet it offered no clues whatsoever as to where Travis Brigham was being held. Or where his body was buried.

Her eyes slipped out the window, and settled on the thick, barky knot, the point where two independent trees became one, then continued their separate journey toward the sky.

Oh, Travis, Kathryn Dance thought.

Unable to resist the thought that she'd let him down.

Unable, finally, to resist the tears.

Chapter 41

Travis Brigham woke up, peed in the bucket beside the bed and washed his hands with bottled water. He adjusted the chain connecting the shackle around his ankle to a heavy bolt in the wall.

Thought once again of that stupid movie, Saw, where two men had been chained to a wall, just like this, and could escape only by sawing their legs off.

He drank some Vitamin Water, ate some granola bars and returned to his mental investigation. Trying to piece together what had happened to him, why he'd ended up here.

And who was the man who'd done this terrible thing?

He recalled the other day, those police or agents at the house. His father being a dick, his mother being all weepy-eyed and weak. Travis had grabbed his uniform and his bike and headed for his sucky job. He'd wheeled the bike a short way into the woods behind his house and then just lost it. He'd dropped his bike and sat down beside the huge oak tree and started crying his head off.

Hopeless! Everybody hated him.

Then, wiping his nose as he sat beneath the oak, a favorite spot-it reminded him of a place in Aetheria-he'd heard footsteps behind him, moving fast.

Before he could turn toward the sound, his vision went all yellow and every muscle in his body contracted at once, from neck to toe. His breath went away and he passed out. And then he woke up here in the basement, with a headache that wouldn't stop. Somebody'd hit him with a Taser, he knew. He'd seen how they work on YouTube.

The Big Fear turned out to be a false alarm. Feeling carefully-down his pants, behind-he realized nobody'd done anything to him-not that way. Though it made him all the more uneasy. Rape would've made some sense. But this…just being kidnapped, held here like in some kind of Stephen King story? What the hell was going on?

Travis now sat up on the cheap folding bed that shook every time he moved. He looked around his prison once more, the filthy basement. The place stank of mold and oil. He surveyed the food and drink left for him: mostly chips and packaged crackers and Oscar Mayer snack boxes-ham or turkey. Red Bull and Vitamin Water and Coke to drink.

A nightmare. Everything about his life this month was an unbearable nightmare.

Starting with the graduation party at that house in the hills off Highway 1. He'd only gone because some of the girls said Caitlin was hoping he'd be there. No, she really, really is! So he'd hitched all the way down the highway, past Garrapata State Park.

Then he walked inside, and to his horror he'd seen only the kewl people, none of the slackers or gamers. The Miley Cyrus crowd.

And worse, Caitlin looked at him like she didn't even recognize him. The girls who'd told him to come were giggling, along with their jock boyfriends. And everybody else was staring at him, wondering what the hell a geek like Travis Brigham was doing there.

It was all a setup, just to make fun of him.

Pure fucking hell.

But he wouldn't turn around and run. No way. He'd hung around, looked over the million CDs the family had, flipped through some channels, ate kick-ass food. Finally, sad and embarrassed, he'd decided, it was time to head back, wondering if he'd get a ride that time of night, near midnight. He'd seen Caitlin, wasted on tequila, pissed about Mike D'Angelo and Bri leaving together. She was fumbling for her keys and muttering about following the two of them and…well, she didn't know what.

Travis had thought: Be a hero. Take the keys, get her home safe. She won't care you're not a jock. She won't care if your face is all red and bumpy.

She'll know who you are on the inside…she'll love you.

But Caitlin had jumped into the driver's seat, her friends in the back. Being all, "Girlfriend, girlfriend…" Travis hadn't let it go. He'd climbed right into the car beside her and tried to talk her out of driving.

Hero…

But Caitlin had sped off, plummeting down the driveway and onto Highway 1, ignoring his pleas to let him drive.

"Like, please, Caitlin, pull over!"

But she hadn't even heard him.

"Caitlin, come on! Please!"

And then…

The car flying off the road. The sound of metal on stone, the screams-Sounds louder than anything Travis had ever heard.

And still I had to be the goddamn hero.

"Caitlin, listen to me. Can you hear me? Tell them I was driving the car. I haven't had anything to drink. I'll tell them I lost control. It won't be a big deal. If they think you were driving, you'll go to jail."

"Trish, Van?…Why aren't they saying anything?"

"Do you hear me, Cait? Get into the passenger seat. Now! The cops'll be here any minute. I was driving! You hear me?"

"Oh, shit, shit, shit."

"Caitlin!"

"Yes, yes. You were driving… Oh, Travis. Thank you!"

As she threw her arms around him, he felt a sensation like none other he'd ever experienced.

She loves me, we'll be together!

But it didn't last.

Afterward, they'd talked some, they'd gone for coffee at Starbucks, lunch at Subway. But soon the times together grew awkward. Caitlin would fall silent and start looking away from him.

Eventually she stopped returning his calls.

Caitlin became even more distant than she'd been before his good deed.

And then look what happened. Everybody on the Peninsula-no, everybody in the world-started hating him.

H8 to break it to you but [the driver] is a total fr33k and a luser…

But even then Travis couldn't give up hope. The night Tammy Foster got attacked, Monday, he'd been thinking about Caitlin and couldn't sleep, so he went to her house. To see if she was all right, though mostly thinking, in his fantasy, maybe she'd be hanging out in the backyard or on her front porch. She'd see him and say, "Oh, Travis, I'm sorry I've been so distant. I'm just getting over Trish and Van. But I do love you!"

But the house had been dark. He'd bicycled back home at 2:00 a.m.

The next day the police had shown up and asked him where he'd been that night. He'd instinctively lied and said he was at the Game Shed. Which of course they'd found out he hadn't been. And now they'd definitely think he was the one behind the attack on Tammy.

Everybody hating me…

Travis now recalled waking up here after he'd been Tasered. The big man standing over him. Who was he? One of the fathers of the girls killed in the accident?

Travis had asked. But the man had only pointed out the bucket to use for a toilet, the food and water. And had warned, "My associates and I are going to be checking on you, Travis. You stay quiet at all times. If you don't…" He showed the boy a soldering iron. "Okay?"

Crying, Travis had blurted, "Who are you? What did I do?"

The man plugged the soldering iron into the wall socket.

"No! I'm sorry. I'll be quiet! I promise!"

The man unplugged the iron. And then clomped up the stairs. The basement door had closed. More footsteps and the front door had slammed. A car started. And Travis was left alone.

He remembered the following days as a blur, filled with increasing hallucinations or dreams. To stave off boredom-and madness-he played DimensionQuest in his mind.

Now, Travis gasped, hearing the front door opening upstairs. Thumps of footsteps.

His captor was back.

Travis hugged himself and tried not to cry. Be quiet. You know the rules. Thinking of the Taser. Thinking of the soldering iron.

He stared at the ceiling-his ceiling, his kidnapper's floor-as the man roamed through the house. Five minutes later, the steps moved in a certain pattern. Travis tensed; he knew what that sound meant. He was coming down here. And, yeah, a few seconds later the lock on the basement door snapped. Footsteps on the squeaky stairs, descending.

Travis now shrank back on the bed as he saw his captor come closer. The man normally would have with him an empty bucket and would take the full one upstairs. But today he carried only a paper bag.

This terrified Travis. What was inside?

The soldering iron?

Something worse?

Standing over him, he studied Travis closely. "How do you feel?"

Like shit, you asshole, what do you think?

But he said, "Okay."

"You're weak?"

"I guess."

"But you've been eating."

A nod. Don't ask him why he's doing this. You want to, but don't. It's like the biggest mosquito bite in the world. You have to scratch it; but don't. He's got the soldering iron.

"You can walk?"

"I guess."

"Good. Because I'm giving you a chance to leave."

"Leave? Yes, please! I want to go home." Tears popped into Travis's eyes.

"But you have to earn your freedom."

"Earn it? I'll do anything… What?"

"Don't answer too quickly," the man said ominously. "You might choose not to."

"No, I'll-"

"Shh. You can choose not to do what I'm going to ask. But if you don't, you'll stay here until you starve to death. And there'll be other consequences. Your parents and brother will die too. There's somebody outside their house right now."

"Is my brother okay?" Travis asked in a frantic whisper.

"He's fine. For now."

"Don't hurt them! You can't hurt them!"

"I can hurt them and I will. Oh, believe me, Travis. I will."

"What do you want me to do?"

The man looked him over carefully. "I want you to kill somebody."

A joke?

But the kidnapper wasn't smiling.

"What do you mean?" Travis whispered.

"Kill somebody, just like in that game you play. DimensionQuest."

"Why?"

"That doesn't matter, not to you. All you need to know is if you don't do what I'm asking, you'll starve to death here, and my associate will kill your family. Simple as that. Now's your chance. Yes or no?"

"But I don't know how to kill anybody."

The man reached into the paper bag and took out a pistol wrapped in a Baggie. He dropped it on the bed.

"Wait! That's my father's! Where did you get it?"

"From his truck."

"You said my family's fine."

"They are, Travis. I didn't hurt him. I stole it a couple of days ago, when they were asleep. Can you shoot it?"

He nodded. In fact, he'd never fired a real gun. But he'd played shooting games in arcades. And he watched TV. Anybody who watched The Wire or The Sopranos knew enough about guns to use one. He muttered, "But if I do what you want, you'll just kill me. And then my family."

"No, I won't. It's better for me if you're alive. You kill who I tell you to, drop the gun and run. Go wherever you want. Then I'll call my friend and tell him to leave your family alone."

There was a lot about this that didn't make sense. But Travis's mind was numb. He was afraid to say yes, he was afraid to say no.

Travis thought of his brother. Then his mother. An image of his father smiling even came to mind. Smiling when he looked at Sammy, never at Travis. But it was a smile nonetheless and seemed to make Sammy happy. That was the important thing.

Travis, did you bring me M's?

Sammy…

Travis Brigham blinked tears from his eyes and whispered, "Okay. I'll do it."

Chapter 42

Even without the benefit of excessive lunchtime Chardonnay, Donald Hawken was feeling maudlin.

But he didn't care.

He rose from the couch where he'd been sitting with Lily and embraced James Chilton, who was entering the living room of his vacation house in Hollister, carrying several more bottles of white wine.

Chilton gripped him back, only mildly embarrassed. Lily chided her husband, "Donald."

"Sorry, sorry, sorry." Hawken laughed. "But I can't help it. The nightmare's over. God, what you've been through."

"What we've all been through," Chilton said.

The story of the psycho was all over the news. How the Mask Killer wasn't the boy but was really some crazy man who'd been trying to avenge a posting that Chilton had put on his report several years ago.

"And he was actually going to shoot you on camera?"

Chilton lifted an eyebrow.

"Jesus our Lord," said Lily, looking pale-and surprising Hawken, since she was a professed agnostic. But Lily, like her husband, was a bit tipsy too.

"I'm sorry about that boy," Hawken said. "He was an innocent victim. Maybe the saddest victim of all."

"Do you think he's still alive?" Lily wondered.

"I doubt it," Chilton said grimly. "Schaeffer would have to kill him. Leave no traces. I'm heartsick about it."

Hawken was pleased he'd rejected the request-well, from that Agent Dance it had almost been an order-to go back to San Diego. No way. He thought back to those dismal days when Sarah had died and James Chilton had sped to his side.

This is what friends did.

Breaking the pall that had descended, Lily said, "I've got an idea. Let's plan a picnic for tomorrow. Pat and I can cook."

"Love it," Chilton said. "We know this beautiful park nearby."

But Hawken wasn't through being maudlin. He lifted his glass of Sonoma-Cutrer. "Here's to friends."

"To friends."

They sipped. Lily, her pretty face crowned with curly golden hair, asked, "When're they coming up? Pat and the kids?"

Chilton glanced at his watch. "She left about fifteen minutes ago. She'll pick the boys up from camp. Then head up here. Shouldn't be too long."

Hawken was amused. The Chiltons lived close to one of the most beautiful waterfronts in the world. And yet for their vacation house they'd chosen a rustic old place in the hills forty-five minutes inland, hills that were decidedly dusty and brown. Yet the place was quiet and peaceful.

Y ningunos turistas. A relief after summertime Carmel, filled to the gills with out-of-towners.

"Okay," Hawken announced. "I can't wait any longer."

"Can't wait?" Chilton asked, a perplexed smile on his face.

"What I told you I was bringing."

"Oh, the painting? Really, Don. You don't need to do that."

"It's not 'need.' It's something I want to do."

Hawken went into the guest bedroom where he and Lily were staying and returned with a small canvas, an impressionistic painting of a blue swan on a darker blue background. His late wife, Sarah, had bought it in San Diego or La Jolla. One day, while Jim Chilton was in Southern California to help after her death, Hawken had found the man staring at the painting admiringly.

Hawken had decided at that moment that someday he'd give the artwork to his friend, in gratitude for all he'd done during those terrible times.

Now, the three of them gazed at the bird taking off from the water.

"It's beautiful," Chilton said. He propped the painting up on the mantel. "Thank you."

Hawken, now a half glass of wine more maudlin yet, was lifting his glass to make a toast when a door squeaked in the kitchen.

"Oh," he said, smiling. "Is that Pat?"

But Chilton was frowning. "She couldn't be here that fast."

"But I heard something. Didn't you?"

The blogger nodded. "I did, yes."

Then, looking toward the doorway, Lily said, "There's somebody there. I'm sure." She was frowning. "I hear footsteps."

"Maybe-" Chilton began.

But his words were cut off as Lily screamed. Hawken spun around, dropping his wineglass, which shattered loudly.

A boy in his late teens, hair askew, face dotted with acne, stood in the doorway. He seemed stoned. He was blinking and looking around, disoriented. In his hand was a pistol. Shit, Hawken thought, they hadn't locked the back door when they'd arrived. This kid had wandered inside to rob them.

Gangs. Had to be gangs.

"What do you want?" Hawken whispered. "Money? We'll give you money!"

The boy continued to squint. His eyes settled on Jim Chilton and narrowed.

Then Donald Hawken gasped. "It's the boy from the blog! Travis Brigham!" Skinnier and paler than in the pictures on TV. But there was no doubt. He wasn't dead. What was this all about? But one thing he understood: The boy was here to shoot his friend Jim Chilton.

Lily grabbed her husband's arm.

"No! Don't hurt him, Travis," Hawken cried and felt an urge to step in front of Chilton, to protect him. Only his wife's grip kept him from doing so.

The boy took a step closer to Chilton. He blinked, then looked away-toward Hawken and Lily. He asked in a weak voice, "They're the ones you want me to kill?"

What did he mean?

And James Chilton whispered, "That's right, Travis. Go ahead and do what you agreed. Shoot."

SQUINTING AGAINST THE raw light that stung his eyes like salt, Travis Brigham stared at the couple-the people his captor had told him, in the basement a half hour ago, he had to kill: Donald and Lily. His kidnapper had explained that they'd be arriving soon and would be upstairs-in this house, the very one whose basement he'd spent the past three or four days in.

Travis couldn't understand why his kidnapper wanted them dead. But that didn't matter. All that mattered was keeping his family alive.

Travis, did you bring me M's?

He lifted the gun, aimed at them.

As the couple blurted words he hardly heard, he tried to hold the weapon steady. This took all his effort. After days of being chained to a bed, he was weak as a bird. Even the climb up the stairs had been a chore. The gun was weaving.

"No, please no!" someone cried, the man or the woman. He couldn't tell. He was confused, disoriented by the glaring light. It stung his eyes. Travis aimed at the man and woman, but still, he kept wondering: Who are they, Donald and Lily? In the basement the man had said, "Look at them like characters in that game you play. DimensionQuest. Donald and Lily're only avatars, nothing more than that."

But these people sobbing in front of him weren't avatars. They were real.

And they seemed to be his captor's friends-at least in their minds. "What's going on? Please, don't hurt us." From Lily. "James, please!"

But the man-James, it seemed-just kept his eyes, cool eyes, on Travis. "Go ahead. Shoot!"

"James, no! What are you saying?"

Travis steadied the gun, pointing it at Donald. He pulled back the hammer.

Lily screamed.

And then something in Travis's mind clicked.

James?

The boy from the blog.

Roadside Crosses.

Travis blinked. "James Chilton?" Was this the blogger?

"Travis," the captor said firmly, stepping behind him, pulling another gun from his back pocket. He touched it to Travis's head. "Go ahead and do it. I told you not to say anything, don't ask questions. Just shoot!"

Travis asked Donald, "He's James Chilton?"

"Yes," the man whispered.

What, Travis wondered, was going on here?

Chilton shoved the gun harder into Travis's skull. It hurt. "Do it. Do it, or you'll die. And your family will die."

The boy lowered the gun. He shook his head. "You don't have any friends at my house. You were lying to me. You're doing this alone."

"If you don't do it, I'll kill you and then go to their house and kill them. I swear I will."

Hawken cried, "Jim! Is this…for God's sake, what is this?"

Lily cried uncontrollably.

Travis Brigham understood now. Shoot them or not, he was dead. His family would be all right; Chilton had no interest in them. But he was dead. A faint laugh eased from his throat and he felt tears sting eyes already stinging from the sunlight.

He thought of Caitlin, her beautiful eyes and smile.

Thought of his mother.

Thought of Sammy.

And of all the terrible things that people had said about him in the blog.

Yet he'd done nothing wrong. His life was about nothing more than trying to get through school as best he could, to play a game that made him happy, to spend some time with his brother and look after the boy, to meet a girl who wouldn't mind that he was a geek with troubled skin. Travis had never in his life hurt anybody intentionally, never dissed anyone, never posted a bad word about them.

And the whole world had attacked him.

Who'd care if he killed himself?

Nobody.

So Travis did the only thing he could. He lifted the gun to his own chin.

Look at the luser, his life is epic FAIL!!!

Travis's finger slipped around the trigger of the gun. He began to squeeze.

The explosion was fiercely loud. Windows shook, acrid smoke filled the room, and a delicate porcelain cat tumbled from the mantelpiece and shattered on the hearth into dozens of pieces.

Chapter 43

Kathryn Dance's car turned onto the long dirt driveway that led to James Chilton's vacation house in Hollister.

She was reflecting on how wrong she'd been.

Greg Schaeffer wasn't the Roadside Cross killer.

Everyone else had been misled too but Dance took no solace from that. She'd been content to assume that Schaeffer was the guilty party and that he'd killed Travis Brigham. With the man dead, there'd be no more attacks.

Wrong…

Her phone rang. She wondered who was calling, but decided it was best not to look at Caller ID as she wove up the serpentine drive, with drop-offs on either side.

Another fifty yards.

She saw the home ahead of her, a rambling old farmhouse that would have looked in place in Kansas if not for the substantial hills surrounding it. The yard was scruffy, filled with untended patches of grass, gray broken branches, overgrown gardens. She would have thought that James Chilton would have a nicer vacation home, considering the inheritance from his father-in-law and his beautiful house in Carmel.

Even in the sun, the place exuded a sense of eeriness.

But that was, of course, because Dance knew what had happened inside.

How could I have read everything so wrong?

The road straightened and she continued on. She fished the phone off the seat and looked at the screen. Jonathan Boling had called. But the message flag wasn't up. She debated hitting "Last Received Call." But instead picked Michael O'Neil's speed-dial button. After four rings it went to voice mail.

Maybe he was on the Other Case.

Or maybe he was talking to his wife, Anne.

Dance tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

As she pulled close to the house, Dance counted a half dozen police cars. Two ambulances as well.

The San Benito County sheriff, whom she'd worked with regularly, saw her and motioned her forward. Several officers stepped aside, and she drove over the uneven grass to where the sheriff was standing.

She saw where Travis Brigham lay on a gurney, his face covered.

Dance slammed the gearshift into park and climbed out, then walked quickly toward the boy. She noted his bare feet, the welts on his ankle, his pale skin.

"Travis," she whispered.

The boy jerked, as if she'd awakened him from a deep sleep.

He lifted the damp cloth and ice pack off his bruised face. He blinked and focused his eyes on her. "Oh, uh, Officer…I, like, can't remember your name."

"Dance."

"Sorry." He sounded genuinely contrite at the social slip.

"Not a problem at all." Kathryn Dance hugged the boy hard.

THE BOY WOULD be fine, the medic explained.

His worst injury from the ordeal-in fact, the only serious one-was from hitting his forehead on the mantel in the living room of Chilton's house when the San Benito County SWAT team stormed the place.

They had been conducting furtive surveillance-as they awaited Dance's arrival-when the commander had seen through the window that the boy had entered the living room with a gun. James Chilton too had pulled a weapon. For some reason, it then appeared that Travis was going to take his own life.

The commander had ordered his officers in. They'd launched flash-bang grenades into the room, which detonated with stunning explosions, knocking Chilton to the floor and the boy into the mantelpiece. The officers raced inside and relieved them of their weapons. They'd cuffed Chilton and dragged him outside, then escorted Donald Hawken and his wife to safety and gotten Travis to the paramedics.

"Where's Chilton?" Dance asked.

"He's over there," the sheriff said, nodding to one of the county deputy's cars, in which the blogger sat, handcuffed, his head down.

She'd get to him later.

Dance glanced at Chilton's Nissan Quest. The doors and tailgate were open and Crime Scene had removed the contents: most notable were the last roadside cross and bouquet of red roses-now tinged with brown. Chilton would have been planning to leave them nearby, after he'd killed the Hawkens. Travis's bike also rested near the tailgate, and in a clear evidence bag was the gray hoodie that Chilton had stolen and worn to impersonate the boy and that he'd picked fibers off to leave at the scenes.

Dance asked the paramedic, "And the Hawkens? How're they?"

"Shaken up, as you can imagine, a bit bruised, hitting the deck when we moved in. But they'll be fine. They're on the porch."

"You doing okay?" Dance asked Travis.

"I guess," he answered.

She realized what a foolish question it was. Of course he wasn't okay. He'd been kidnapped by James Chilton and been ordered to murder Donald Hawken and his wife.

Apparently rather than going through with that task he'd chosen to die.

"Your parents will be here soon," she told him.

"Yeah?" The boy seemed cautious at this news.

"They were real worried about you."

He nodded, but she read skepticism in his face.

"Your mother was crying, she was so happy when I told her."

That was true. Dance had no idea what the father's reaction had been.

A deputy brought the boy a soft drink.

"Thank you." He drank the Coke thirstily. For his days in captivity, he wasn't doing too badly. A medic had looked over the raw chafing on his leg; it wouldn't need treatment other than a bandage and antibiotic cream. The injury was from the shackles, she realized, and a wave of fury coursed through her. She glared at Chilton, who was being transferred from the San Benito to a Monterey County car, but the blogger's eyes remained downcast.

"What's your sport?" the Coke-toting cop asked the boy, trying to make conversation and put Travis at ease.

"Like, I game, mostly."

"That's what I mean," the young crew-cut officer said, taking the skewed response to be a result of the boy's temporary hearing loss from the flash-bangs. More loudly he asked, "What's your fave? Soccer, football, basketball?"

The boy blinked at the young man in the blue outfit. "Yeah, I play all those some."

"Way to go."

The trooper didn't realize that the sports equipment involved only a Wii or game controller and that the playing field was eighteen inches diagonally.

"But start out slow. Bet your muscles've atrophied. Find a trainer."

"Okay."

A rattling old Nissan, the red finish baked matte, pulled up, rocking along the dirt driveway. It parked and the Brighams climbed out. Sonia, tearful, lumbered over the grass and hugged her son hard.

"Mom."

His father too approached. He stopped beside them, unsmiling, looking the boy up and down. "You're thin, pale, you know what I mean? You hurtin' anywhere?"

"He'll be okay," the paramedic said.

"How's Sammy?" Travis asked.

"He's at Gram's," Sonia said. "He's in a state, but all right."

"You found him, you saved him." The father, still unsmiling, was speaking to Dance.

"We all did, yes."

"He kept you down there, in that basement?" he said to his son.

The boy nodded, not looking at either of them. "Wasn't so bad. Got cold a lot."

His mother said, "Caitlin told everybody what happened."

"She did?"

As if he were unable to control himself the father muttered, "You shouldn'ta took the blame for-"

"Shhh," the mother hissed sharply. His brow furrowed but the man fell silent.

"What's going to happen to her?" Travis asked. "Caitlin?"

His mother said, "That's not our concern. We don't need to worry about that now." She looked at Dance. "Can we go home? Is it all right if we just go home?"

"We'll get a statement later. No need right now."

"Thank you," Travis said to Dance.

His father said the same and shook her hand.

"Oh, Travis. Here." Dance handed him a piece of paper.

"What's that?"

"It's somebody who wants you to call him."

"Who?"

"Jason Kepler.

"Who's that?…Oh, Stryker?" Travis blinked. "You know him?"

"He went looking for you, when you were missing. He helped us find you."

"He did?"

"He sure did. He said you'd never met him."

"Like, not in person, no."

"You only live five miles from each other."

"Yeah?" He gave a surprised smile.

"He wants to get together with you sometime."

He nodded with a curious expression on his face, as if the idea of meeting a synth world friend in the real was very strange indeed.

"Come on home, baby," his mother said. "I'll make a special dinner. Your brother can't wait to see you."

Sonia and Bob Brigham and their son walked back to the car. The father's arm rose and slipped around his son's shoulders. Briefly. Then it fell away. Kathryn Dance noted the tentative contact. She believed not in divine salvation but in the proposition that we poor mortals are fully capable of saving ourselves, if conditions and inclinations are right, and the evidence of this potential is found in the smallest of gestures, like the uncertain resting of a large hand on a bony shoulder.

Gestures, more honest than words.

"Travis?" she called.

He turned.

"Maybe I'll see you sometime…in Aetheria."

He held his arm over his chest, palm outward, which she supposed was a salute among the inhabitants of his guild. Kathryn Dance resisted the temptation to reciprocate.

Chapter 44

Dance walked across the yard to Donald and Lily Hawken, her Aldo shoes gathering dust and plant flecks. Crisp grasshoppers fled from her transit.

The couple sat on the front porch steps of Chilton's vacation house. Hawken's face was harrowing to see. The betrayal had clearly affected him to his core.

"Jim did this?" he whispered.

"I'm afraid so."

Another thought shook him. "My God, what if the children had been here? Would he have…?" He couldn't complete the sentence.

His wife stared at the dusty yard, wiping sweat off her brow. Hollister's a long way from the ocean, and summer air, trapped by the knobby hills, heated up fiercely by midday.

Dance said, "Actually, it was his second attempt to kill you."

"Second?" Lily whispered. "You mean at the house? When we were unpacking the other day?"

"That's right. That was Chilton too, wearing one of Travis's hoodies."

"But…is he insane?" Hawken asked, mystified. "Why would he want to kill us?"

Dance had learned that in her line of work nothing is gained by soft-pedaling. "I can't say for absolute certain, but I think James Chilton murdered your first wife."

A heartbreaking gasp. Eyes wide with disbelief. "What?"

Lily now lifted her head and turned to Dance. "But she died in an accident. Swimming near La Jolla. "

"I'm getting some details from San Diego and the Coast Guard to be sure. But it's pretty likely that I'm right."

"He couldn't have. Sarah and Jim were very…" Hawken's words dissolved.

"Close?" Dance asked.

He was shaking his head. "No. It's not possible." But then he blurted angrily, "Are you saying they were having an affair?"

A pause, then she said, "I think so, yes. I'll be getting some evidence in the next few days. Travel records. Phone calls."

Lily put her arm around her husband's shoulders. "Honey," she whispered.

Hawken said, "I remember that they'd always enjoy each other's company when we'd go out. And, with me, Sarah was a challenge. I was always traveling. Maybe two, three days a week. Not a lot. But she sometimes said I was neglecting her. Kind of joking-I didn't take it all that seriously. But maybe she meant it, and Jim stepped in to fill the gap. Sarah was always pretty demanding."

The tone of delivery suggested to Dance that the sentence could have ended with "in bed."

She added, "I'm guessing that Sarah wanted Chilton to leave Patrizia and marry her."

A bitter laugh. "And he said no?"

Dance shrugged. "That's what occurred to me."

Hawken considered this. He added in hollow tones, "It wasn't a good thing to say no to Sarah."

"I thought about the timing. You moved to San Diego about three years ago. It was around then that Patrizia's father died, and she inherited a lot of money. Which meant that Chilton could keep writing his blog-he started working on it full-time then. I think he was beginning to get a sense he was on a mission to save the world and Patrizia's money could let him do that. So he broke it off with your wife."

Hawken asked, "And Sarah threatened to expose him if he didn't leave Pat?"

"I think she was going to broadcast that James Chilton, the moral voice of the country, had been having an affair with his best friend's wife."

Dance believed that Chilton lied to Sarah, agreeing to get the divorce, and met her in San Diego. She could imagine his suggestion of a romantic picnic, at a deserted cove near La Jolla. A swim at the beautiful seashore preserve there. Then an accident-a blow to the head. Or maybe he just held her underwater.

"But why was he going to kill us?" Lily asked, with a troubled look back at the house.

Dance said to Donald Hawken, "You'd been out of touch for a while?"

"After Sarah died, I was so depressed I gave up on everything, stopped seeing all my old friends. Most of my time went to the children. I was a recluse…until I met Lily. Then I started to resurface."

"And you decided to move back."

"Right. Sell the company and come back." Hawken was understanding. "Sure, sure, Lily and I would get together with Jim and Patrizia, some of our old friends around here. At some point we'd have to reminisce. Jim used to come to Southern California a bit before Sarah died. He would've lied to Pat about it; it'd only be a matter of time before he'd get caught." Hawken's head swiveled to the house, his eyes wide. "The Blue Swan…Yes!"

Dance lifted an eyebrow.

"I told Jim I wanted to give him one of my late wife's favorite paintings. I remembered him staring at it when he stayed with me after Sarah died." A scoffing laugh. "I'll bet it was Jim's. He probably bought it years ago and one day when Sarah was over at his place she told him she wanted it. Maybe he told Patrizia he sold it to somebody. If she saw the painting now she'd wonder how Sarah had gotten it."

This would explain Chilton's desperation-why he'd take the risk of murdering. The righteous blogger lecturing the world on morality about to be exposed for having an affair-with a woman who'd died. Questions would be raised, an investigation started. And the most important thing in his life-his blog-would have been destroyed. He had to eliminate that threat.

The Report is too important to jeopardize…

Lily asked, "But that man at the house, Schaeffer? The statement that James was going to read-it mentioned Travis."

"I'm sure Schaeffer's plans didn't originally involve Travis. He'd wanted to kill Chilton for some time-probably since his brother's death. But when he heard about the Roadside Crosses attacks, he rewrote the statement to include Travis's name-so no one would suspect Schaeffer himself."

Hawken asked, "How did you figure out Jim was the one, not Schaeffer?"

Mostly, she explained, because of what wasn't in the crime scene reports TJ had just delivered to her.

"What wasn't there?" Hawken asked.

"First," she explained, "there wasn't any cross to announce the murder of Chilton. The killer had left crosses in public places before the other attacks. But nobody could find the last cross. Second, the perp had used Travis's bicycle, or his own, to leave tread marks to implicate the boy. But Schaeffer didn't have a bike anywhere. And then the gun he threatened Chilton with? It wasn't the Colt stolen from Travis's father. It was a Smith and Wesson. Finally, there were no flowers or florist's wire in his car or hotel room.

"So, I considered the possibility that Greg Schaeffer wasn't the Roadside Cross Killer. He just lucked into the case and decided to use it. But, if he wasn't leaving the crosses, who could it be?"

Dance had gone back through the list of suspects. She'd thought of the minister, Reverend Fisk, and his bodyguard, possibly CrimsoninChrist. They were certainly fanatics and had threatened Chilton directly in their postings on the blog. But TJ had gone to see Fisk, the minder and several other key members of the group. They all had alibis for the times of the attacks.

She'd also considered Hamilton Royce-the troubleshooter from Sacramento, being paid to shut down the blog because of what Chilton was posting about the Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee. It was a good theory, but the more she'd thought about it, the less likely it seemed. Royce was too obvious a suspect, since he'd already tried to get the blog closed down-and very publicly-by using the state police.

Clint Avery, the construction boss, was a possibility too. But she'd learned that Avery's mysterious meetings after Dance had left his company were with a lawyer specializing in equal employment law and two men who ran a day-labor service. In an area where most employers worried about hiring too many undocumented aliens, Avery was worried about getting sued for hiring too few minorities. He was uneasy with Dance, it seemed, because he was afraid she was really there investigating a civil rights complaint that he was discriminating against Latinos.

Dance had also fleetingly considered Travis's father as the perp, actually wondering if there was some psychological connection between the branches and roses and Bob Brigham's job as a landscaper. She'd even considered that the perp might be Sammy-troubled, but maybe a savant, cunning, and possibly filled with resentment against his older brother.

But even though the family had its problems, those were pretty much the same problems all families had. And both father and son were accounted for during some of the attacks.

With a shrug Dance said to the Hawkens, "Finally I ran out of suspects. And came to James Chilton himself."

"Why?" he asked.

A to B to X…

"I was thinking about something a consultant of ours told me about blogs-about how dangerous they were. And I asked myself: What if Chilton wanted to kill someone? What a great weapon The Report was. Start a rumor, then let the cybermob take over. Nobody would be surprised when the bullied victim snapped. There's your perpetrator."

Hawken pointed out, "But Jim didn't say anything about Travis in the blog."

"And that's what was so brilliant; it made Chilton seem completely innocent. But he didn't need to mention Travis. He knew how the Internet works. The merest hint he'd done something wrong and the Vengeful Angels would take over.

"If Chilton was the perp, I wondered then who was the intended victim. There was nothing about the two girls, Tammy or Kelley, to suggest he wanted to kill them. Or Lyndon Strickland or Mark Watson. You were the other potential victims, of course. I thought back to everything I'd learned about the case. I remembered something odd. You told me that Chilton had hurried to your house in San Diego to be with you and the children the day your wife died. He was there within the hour."

"Right. He'd been in L.A. at a meeting. He got the next commuter flight down."

Dance said, "But he'd told his wife he was in Seattle when he heard that Sarah had died."

"Seattle?" Hawken appeared confused.

"In a meeting at Microsoft headquarters. But, no, he was actually in San Diego. He'd been there all along. He never left town after drowning Sarah. He was waiting to hear from you and to get to your house. He needed to."

"Needed to? Why?"

"You said he stayed with you, even helped you with the cleaning?"

"That's right."

"I think he wanted to go through the house and destroy anything among Sarah's possessions that suggested they were having an affair."

"Jesus," Hawken muttered.

She explained a few of the other connections between Chilton and the crimes: He was a triathlon competitor, which meant he biked. Dance recalled seeing all the sports equipment in Chilton's garage, among them several bicycles.

"Then, the soil." She explained about finding the mismatched dirt near one of the roadside crosses. "Crime Scene found identical trace on Greg Schaeffer's shoes. But the ultimate source was the gardens in Chilton's front yard. That's where Schaeffer picked it up."

Dance reflected that she'd actually gazed right at the source of the dirt when she'd first been to the blogger's house, as she examined the landscaping.

"And then there was his van, the Nissan Quest." She told them about the witness Ken Pfister seeing the state vehicle near one of the crosses. Then she gave a wry smile. "But it was actually Chilton himself who was driving-after planting the second cross."

She pointed to the blogger's van, parked nearby. It bore the bumper sticker she remembered from the first day she'd been to his house: If you DESALINATE, you DEVASTATE.

It was the last syllable on that sticker that Ken Pfister had seen as the van drove past: STATE.

"I went to the magistrate with what I'd found and got a warrant. I sent officers to search Chilton's house in Carmel. He'd discarded most of the evidence, but they found a few red rose petals and a bit of cardboard similar to what was used on the crosses. I remembered that he said he was coming here with you. So I called San Benito County and told them to send a tactical team here. The only thing I didn't guess was that Chilton was going to force Travis himself to shoot you."

She interrupted the man's effusive thanks-he seemed about to cry-with a glance at her watch. "I have to leave now. You go home, get some rest."

Lily hugged Dance. Hawken shook her hand in both of his. "I don't know what to say."

Disengaging, she walked to the Monterey County Sheriff's Office squad car, where James Chilton sat. His thinning hair was plastered to the side of his head. He watched her approach with a hurt gaze on his face. Almost a pout.

She opened the back door, leaned down.

He hissed, "I don't need shackles on my feet. Look at this. It's degrading."

Dance noted the chains. Noted them with satisfaction.

He continued, "They put them on, some deputies did, and they were smiling! Because they claimed I kept the boy shackled. This's all bullshit. This is all a mistake. I've been framed."

Dance nearly laughed. Apart from all the other evidence, there were three eyewitnesses-Hawken, his wife and Travis-to his crimes.

She recited his Miranda rights.

"Somebody did that already."

"Just making sure you really understand them. Do you?"

"My rights? Yes. Listen, back there, yes, I had a gun. But people had been out to kill me. Of course I'm going to protect myself. Somebody's setting me up. Like you said, somebody I'd posted about in my blog. I saw Travis come into the living room and I pulled out my gun-I started carrying one when you said I was in danger."

Ignoring the rambling, she said, "We're going to take you to Monterey County and book you, James. You can call your wife or your attorney then."

"Do you hear what I'm saying? I've been framed. Whatever that boy's claiming, he's unstable. I was playing along with him, with his delusions. I was going to shoot him if he'd tried to hurt Don and Lily. Of course I was."

She leaned forward, controlling her emotions as best she could. Which wasn't easy. "Why'd you target Tammy and Kelley, James? Two teenage girls who never did anything to you."

"I'm innocent," he muttered.

She continued, as if he hadn't spoken. "Why them? Because you didn't like adolescent attitude? You didn't like them tainting your precious blog with their obscenities? You didn't like bad grammar?"

He said nothing, but Dance believed there was a flicker of acknowledgment in his eyes. She pushed ahead. "And why Lyndon Strickland? And Mark Watson? You killed them just because they posted under their real names and they were easy to find, right?"

Chilton was looking away now, as if he knew he was telegraphing the truth with his eyes.

"James, those pictures you uploaded to the blog, pretending to be Travis? You drew them yourself, didn't you? I remembered from your bio in The Report that you were a graphic designer and art director in college."

He said nothing.

The anger flared hotter. "Did you enjoy drawing the one of me getting stabbed?"

Again, silence.

She stood. "I'll be by at some point to interview you. You can have your attorney present if you like."

Then he turned to her, his face imploring. "One thing, Agent Dance? Please?"

She lifted an eyebrow.

"There's something I need. It's important."

"What's that, James?"

"A computer."

"What?"

"I need access to a computer. Soon. Today."

"You get phone calls from the lockup. No computer."

"But The Report…I've got to upload my stories."

Now she couldn't contain the laugh. He was not at all concerned about his wife or children, only about the precious blog. "No, James, that's not going to happen."

"But I have to. I have to!"

Hearing those words and seeing his frantic gaze, Kathryn Dance finally understood James Chilton. The readers were nothing to him. He'd easily murdered two of them and was fully prepared to kill more.

The truth was nothing to him. He'd lied over and over again.

No, the answer was simple: Like the players in DimensionQuest, like so many people lost in the synth world, James Chilton was an addict. Addicted to his messianic mission. Addicted to the seductive power of spreading the word-his word-to the minds and hearts of people throughout the world. The more who read his musings, his rants, his praise, the more exquisite the high.

She leaned down, close to his face. "James. I will do everything possible to make sure that whatever prison you go to, you will never be able to get online ever again. Never in your life."

His face turned livid and he began screaming, "You can't do that! You can't take my blog away. My readers need me. The country needs me! You can't!"

Dance closed the door and nodded to the deputy behind the wheel.

Chapter 45

The flashing lights-on personal business-were against regulations, but Dance didn't care. The emergency accessories were a wise idea, given that she was speeding at twice the limit down Highway 68 back to Salinas from Hollister. Edie Dance was being arraigned in twenty minutes, and she was going to be there, front and center.

She was wondering when her mother's trial would happen. Who would testify? What exactly would the evidence show?

Again she thought, dismayed: Will I be called to the stand?

And what would happen if Edie was convicted? Dance knew California prisons. The population was largely illiterate, violent, their minds ruined by drugs or alcohol or simply damaged from birth. Her mother's heart would wither in a place like that. The punishment would be the death penalty, after all-capital punishment for the soul.

And she was furious with herself for writing that email to Bill, the one commenting on her mother's decision to put down one of her ailing pets. Years ago, an offhand comment. Out of proportion to the devastating effect it could have on her mother's fate.

Which put her in mind of The Chilton Report. All of those postings about Travis Brigham. All wrong, completely wrong…yet they would be in existence, on servers and in the hearts of individual computers, forever. People might see them five or ten or twenty years from now. Or a hundred. And never know the truth.

Dance was shaken out of her troubling meditation by the buzz of her phone.

It was a text message from her father.

I'm at the hospital with your mother. Get here as soon as you can.

Dance gasped. What was this about? The arraignment was supposed to be starting in fifteen minutes. If Edie Dance was in the hospital it was only for one reason. She was ill or injured.

Dance immediately punched her father's mobile number, but it went right to voice mail. Of course, he'd shut it off in the hospital.

Had she been attacked?

Or had she tried to kill herself?

Dance shoved the accelerator down and drove faster. Her mind tumbling, out of control now. Thinking that if her mother had tried to kill herself, it was because she knew Robert Harper had a solid case against her, and that it would be futile to fight it.

So her mother had committed murder. Dance recalled the damning comment, revealing Edie's knowledge of the ICU corridors at the time Juan Millar died.

There were some nurses down on that wing. But that was all. His family was gone. And there were no visitors…

She sped past Salinas, Laguna Seca and the airport. Twenty minutes later she was pulling into the circular drive of the hospital. The car skidded to a violent stop, breaching the handicapped space. Dance leapt out and sprinted to the main entrance door and wedged through before the automatic panels had fully opened.

At the admissions station, an alarmed receptionist looked up and said, "Kathryn, are you-?"

"Where's my mother?" the agent gasped.

"She's downstairs and-"

Dance was already pushing through the doorway and downward. Downstairs meant only one thing: the intensive care unit. Ironically the very place where Juan Millar had died. If Edie was there, at least she was alive.

On the bottom floor she shoved through the door, hurrying toward ICU, when she happened to glance into the cafeteria.

Breathing hard, Dance pulled up fast, a stitch in her side. She looked through the open doorway and saw four people sitting at a table, coffee in front of them. They were the director of the hospital, the security chief Henry Bascomb, Dance's father and…Edie Dance. They were engaged in a discussion and were looking over documents on the table before them.

Stuart glanced up and smiled, gesturing with an index figure, meaning, Dance guessed, they'd only be a moment or two. Her mother glanced her way and then, expression neutral, returned her attention to the hospital director.

"Hi," a man's voice said from behind her.

She turned, blinking in surprise to see Michael O'Neil.

"Michael, what's going on?" Dance asked breathlessly.

With furrowed brows, he asked, "Didn't you get the message?"

"Just the text from Dad that they were here."

"I didn't want to bother you in the middle of an operation. I spoke to Overby and gave him the details. He was supposed to call when you were finished."

Oh. Well, this was one glitch she couldn't lay at the feet of her thoughtless boss; she'd been in such a hurry to get to the arraignment, she'd never told him they'd wrapped the Chilton take-down.

"I heard Hollister went okay."

"Yeah, everybody's fine. Chilton's in custody. Travis's got a banged head. That's it." But the Roadside Cross Case was far from her mind. She stared into the cafeteria. "What's going on, Michael?"

"The charges against your mother've been dropped," he said.

"What?"

O'Neil hesitated, looking almost sheepish, and then said, "I didn't tell you, Kathryn. I couldn't."

"Tell me what?"

"The case I've been working on?"

The Other Case…

"It had nothing to do with the container situation. That's still on hold. I took on your mother's case as an independent investigation. I told the sheriff I was going to do it. Pretty much insisted. He agreed. Stopping Harper now was our only chance. If he'd gotten a conviction…well, you know the odds of getting a verdict overturned on appeal."

"You never said anything."

"That was the plan. I could run it but I couldn't mention anything to you. I had to be able to testify that you knew nothing about what I was doing. Conflict of interest, otherwise. Even your parents didn't know. I talked to them about the case, but only informally. They never suspected."

"Michael." Dance again felt rare tears sting. She gripped his arm and their eyes met, brown on green.

He said, frowning, "I knew she wasn't guilty. Edie taking somebody's life? Crazy." He grinned. "You notice I've been talking to you in text messages a lot lately, emails?"

"Right."

"Because I couldn't lie to you in person. I knew you'd spot it in a minute."

She laughed, recalling how vague he'd been about the Container Case.

"But who killed Juan?"

"Daniel Pell."

"Pell?" she whispered in astonishment.

O'Neil explained, though, that it wasn't Pell himself who'd killed Juan Millar, but one of the women connected with him-the partner that Dance had been thinking of yesterday as she'd driven her children to see their grandparents.

"She knew the threat you presented, Kathryn. She wanted desperately to stop you."

"Why did you think of her?"

"Process of elimination," O'Neil explained. "I knew your mother couldn't've done it. I knew Julio Millar hadn't-he was accounted for the whole time. His parents weren't there, and there were no other fellow officers present. So I asked who'd have a motive to blame your mother for the death? Pell came to mind. You were running the manhunt to find him and getting closer. Your mother's arrest would distract you, if not force you off the case altogether. He couldn't do it himself, so he used his partner."

He explained that the woman had slipped into the hospital by pretending to be applying for a job as a nurse.

"The job applications," Dance said, nodding, recalling what Connie's investigation had found. "There wasn't any connection between them and Millar, though, so we didn't pay any attention."

"Witnesses said that she was wearing a nurse's uniform. As if she'd just gotten off a shift at another hospital and had come over to MBH to apply for a job." The deputy continued, "I had her computer examined and found that she'd searched for drug interactions on Google."

"The evidence in the garage?"

"She planted it. I had Pete Bennington take the garage apart. A CS team found some hairs-that Harper's people had missed, by the way. They were hers. DNA match. I'm sure she'll take a plea."

"I feel so bad, Michael. I almost believed she'd…" Dance couldn't even bring herself to say the words. "I mean, Mom looked so upset when she told me that Juan asked her to kill him. And then she claimed she wasn't on the ICU floor when Juan was killed, but she let slip that she knew the place was deserted except for some nurses."

"Oh, she'd talked to one of the ICU doctors and he commented to your mother that all the visitors had left. Edie was never on the wing at all."

A miscommunication and an assumption. Not much excuse for that in her line of work, she thought wryly. "And Harper? He's going forward with the case?"

"Nope. He's packing up and going home to Sacramento. He's handed off to Sandy."

"What?" Dance was shocked.

O'Neil laughed, noting her expression. "Yep. Not much interested in justice. Only interested in a high-profile conviction, the mother of a government agent."

"Oh, Michael." She squeezed his arm again. And he put his hand on hers, then was looking away. She was struck by his countenance. What was she seeing? A vulnerability, a hollowness?

O'Neil started to say something and then didn't.

Maybe to apologize for lying to her and withholding the truth about his investigation. He looked at his watch. "Got a few things to take care of."

"Hey, you okay?"

"Just tired."

Alarm bells sounded within Dance. Men are never "just tired." What they mean is, no, they're not okay at all but they don't want to talk.

He said, "Oh, almost forgot. I heard from Ernie, the L.A. case? The judge refused to push off the immunity hearing. It's starting in about a half hour."

Dance displayed crossed fingers. "Let's hope." She then hugged him, hard.

O'Neil fished his car keys out of his pocket and headed up the stairs, apparently in too much of a hurry to wait for the elevator.

Dance glanced into the cafeteria. She noted that her mother was no longer at the table. Her shoulders slumped. Damnit. She's gone.

But then she heard a woman's voice behind her. "Katie."

Edie Dance had come out the side door and presumably waited to join her daughter until O'Neil left.

"Michael told me, Mom."

"After the charges were dismissed, I came by here to see the people who supported me, to thank them."

The people who supported me…

There was silence for a moment. The PA system gave an incomprehensible announcement. Somewhere a baby cried. The sounds faded.

And from Edie's expression and words, Kathryn Dance knew the complete weave of what had happened between mother and daughter in the past few days. The difficulty had nothing to do with her leaving the courthouse early the other day. The issue was more fundamental. She blurted, "I didn't think you'd done it, Mom. Really."

Edie Dance smiled. "Ah, and coming from you, from a kinesics expert, Katie? Tell me what to look for to see if you're telling a fib."

"Mom-"

"Katie, you thought it was possible I'd killed that young man."

Dance sighed, wondered how big the vacuum in her soul was at the moment. The denial died in her mouth and she said in a shaky voice, "Maybe, Mom. Okay, maybe. I didn't think less of you. I still loved you. But, okay, I thought you might have."

"Your face, in the courtroom at the bail hearing. Just looking at your face, I knew you were considering it. I knew you were."

"I'm so sorry," Dance whispered.

Then Edie Dance did something completely uncharacteristic. She took her daughter by the shoulders, firmly, more firmly than Dance believed she'd ever been held by the woman, even as a child. "Don't you dare say that." Her words were harsh.

Dance blinked and began to speak.

"Shhhhh, Katie. Listen. I was up all night after the bail hearing. Thinking about what I'd seen in your eyes, what you suspected about me, let me finish. I was up all night, hurt, furious. But then, finally I understood something. And I felt so proud."

A warm smile softened the round contours of the woman's face. "So proud."

Dance was confused.

Her mother continued, "You know, Katie, a parent never knows if they get it right. I'm sure you've wrestled with that."

"Oh, only about ten times a day."

"You always hope, you pray, that you give your children the resources they need, the attitude, the courage. That's what it's all about, after all. Not fighting their battles, but getting them prepared to fight on their own. Teaching them to make judgments, to think for themselves."

The tears were streaming down Dance's cheeks.

"And when I saw you questioning what I might've done, looking at what had happened, I knew that I'd got it one hundred percent right. I raised you not to be blind. You know, prejudice blinds people, hate blinds people. But loyalty and love blind people too. You looked past everything, for the truth." Her mother laughed. "Of course, you got it wrong. But I can't fault you for that."

The women embraced and Edie Dance said, "Now, you're still on duty. Go on back to the office. I'm still mad at you. But I'll get over it in a day or two. We'll go shopping and then have dinner at Casanova. Oh, and Katie, you're picking up the check."

Chapter 46

Kathryn Dance returned to her office at CBI and wrote up the final disposition on the case.

She sipped the coffee that Maryellen Kresbach had brought her and looked over the pink phone message slips that the assistant had stacked beside a plate containing a very thick cookie.

She considered the messages at length and returned none of the calls but ate 100 percent of the cookie.

Her phone beeped. A text from Michael O'Neil:

K-judge has ruled in L.A. Will release decision in next few hours. Keep your fingers crossed. Lot going on today, but will talk to you soon.-M.

Please, please, please…

A final sip of coffee and Dance printed out the report for Overby and took it down to his office. "Here's the disposition, Charles."

"Ah. Good." The man added, "That was a surprise, the direction the case took." He read the report fast. She noticed a gym bag, tennis racket and small suitcase behind his desk. It was late afternoon on a summer Friday, and he was probably leaving directly from the office for his weekend place.

She detected a certain chilliness in his posture, attributable undoubtedly to her flying off the handle with Hamilton Royce.

And so she was looking forward to what was coming next. Sitting opposite her boss, she said, "There's one final thing, Charles. It's about Royce."

"What's that?" He looked up, began smoothing her memo, as if wiping off dust.

She explained what TJ had uncovered about Royce's mission-to stop the blog not to save victims, but to derail Chilton's exposé about the state representative's being wined and dined by the nuclear plant developer. "He used us, Charles."

"Ah." Overby continued to fiddle with some papers.

"He bills his time to the Nuclear Facilities Planning Committee-which is headed by the representative Chilton was writing about in the 'Power to the People' thread of the blog."

"I see. Royce, hmm."

"I want to send a memo to the AG. It's probably not a crime, what Royce did, but it's definitely unethical-using me, using us. It'll cost him his job."

More fiddling. Overby was considering this.

"Are you okay with my doing that?" She asked this because it was clear he wasn't.

"I'm not sure."

She laughed. "Why not? He went through my desk. Maryellen saw him. He used state police for his own agenda."

Overby's eyes dipped to the papers on his desk. They were as ordered as could be. "Well, it'll take up our time and resources. And it could be…awkward for us."

"Awkward?"

"Bring us into that interagency crap. I hate that."

This was hardly an argument. Life in state government is all about interagency crap.

At the end of a chewy silence, Overby seemed to come up with a thought. His eyebrow lifted a bit. "Besides, I think you might not have time to pursue it."

"I'll fit it in, Charles."

"Well, the thing is, there's this…" He found a file on his credenza and extracted a stapled document several pages long.

"What's that?"

"Matter of fact"-the second eyebrow joined in-"it's from the AG's office." He pushed the papers forward across the desk. "It seems there was a complaint made against you."

"Me?"

"Apparently you made racist remarks to a county employee."

"Charles, that's crazy."

"Ah, well, it went all the way to Sacramento."

"Who complained?"

"Sharanda Evans. County Social Services."

"I've never met her. It's a mistake."

"She was at Monterey Bay Hospital when your mother was arrested. She was looking after your children."

Oh, the woman who'd collected Wes and Maggie from the hospital play area.

"Charles, she wasn't 'looking after' them. She was taking them into custody. She didn't even try to call me."

"She claims you uttered racist comments."

"Jesus Christ, Charles, I said she was incompetent. That's all."

"She didn't interpret it that way. Now, since you generally have a good reputation and no history of problems in the past, the AG's not inclined to open a formal complaint. Still, it's got to be looked into."

He seemed torn about this dilemma.

But not that torn.

"He wanted some input from people on the ground about how to proceed."

From Overby himself, he meant. And she understood too exactly what was going on here: Dance had embarrassed Overby in front of Royce. Maybe the ombudsman had gotten the impression that the man couldn't control his employees. A CBI-instigated complaint against Royce would call Overby's leadership into question.

"Of course you're not racist. But the woman's pretty hot under the collar about it, this Ms. Evans." He stared at the inverted letter in front of Dance the way one would gaze at autopsy photos.

How long've you had this job?…Either not long enough, or way too long.

Kathryn Dance realized that her boss was negotiating: If she didn't go any further with the complaint about Royce's impropriety, Overby would tell the AG that the social worker's claim had been fully investigated and that there was no merit to it.

If Dance did pursue the Royce matter, she might lose her job.

This sat between them for a moment. Dance was surprised that Overby was showing no kinesic evidence that he was feeling stress. She, on the other hand, observed her foot bobbing like a piston.

I think I have the big picture, Dance thought cynically. She came close to saying it, but didn't.

Well, she had a decision to make.

Debating.

He tapped the complaint report with his fingers. "A shame when things like this happen. We have our core work, then other stuff intrudes."

After the Roadside Cross Case, after the roller-coaster with the J. Doe case in Los Angeles, after the harrowing days worrying about her mother, Dance decided she didn't have the heart for a fight, not over this.

"If you think a complaint against Royce would be too distracting, Charles, I'll respect that, of course."

"It's best probably. Let's get back to work-that's what we need to do. And this we'll just put away too." He took the complaint and slipped it into the file.

How blatant can we be, Charles?

He smiled. "No more distractions."

"Back to work," Dance echoed.

"Okay, I see it's late. Have a good weekend. And thanks for wrapping the case, Kathryn."

"Good night, Charles." Dance rose and left the office. She wondered if he felt as unclean as she did.

She doubted it very, very much.

Dance returned to the Gals' Wing and was just at her office door when a voice behind her called, "Kathryn?"

She turned to see somebody she didn't recognize at first. Then it struck her-it was David Reinhold, the young deputy from the sheriff's office. He wasn't in uniform, but was wearing jeans, a polo shirt and jacket. He smiled and glanced down. "Off duty." He approached her and stopped a few feet away. "Hey, I heard about the Roadside Cross Case."

"Kind of a surprise," she said."

His hands were jammed in his pockets. He seemed nervous. "I'll say. That boy'll be okay, though?"

"He'll be fine."

"And Chilton? Did he confess?"

"I bet he doesn't need to. We've got him on witnesses and PE. Cold."

She nodded toward her office, lifting an eyebrow, inviting him inside.

"I have some things to take care of… I stopped by earlier and you were out."

A curious thing to say. And she noted that he seemed even more nervous now. His body language was giving off high amperage of stress.

"I just wanted to say, I've really enjoyed working with you."

"Appreciate your help."

"You're a very special person," Reinhold stammered.

Uh-oh. Where was this going?

Reinhold was avoiding her eyes. He cleared his throat. "I know you don't really know me very well."

He's at least a decade younger than I am, she thought. He's a kid. Dance was struggling to keep from smiling or looking too maternal. She wondered where he was going to invite her on a date.

"Anyway, what I'm trying to say is…"

But he said nothing, just pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to her.

"What I'm trying to say is that I hope you'll consider my application to join the CBI." Reinhold added, "Most older people in police work aren't very good mentors. I know you'd be different. I'd appreciate the chance to learn from you."

Struggling not to laugh, Dance said, "Well, David, thanks. I don't think we're hiring right at the moment. But I promise you, when we do, I'll make sure to get this to the top of the list."

"Really?" He beamed.

"You bet. You have a good night now, David. And thanks again for your help."

"Thanks, Kathryn. You're the best."

For an older person…

Smiling, she walked into her office and dropped heavily into her chair. She sat, staring at the entwined tree trunks outside her window. Her cell phone chimed. Not much in the mood to talk to anybody, she looked down at the Caller ID window.

After three rings of debate she hit "Answer."

Chapter 47

A butterfly eased along the fence and vanished into the neighbor's yard. It wasn't the time of year for Monarchs, the migratory lepidoptera that gave Pacific Grove its subtitle of "Butterfly Town, U.S.A.," and Kathryn Dance wondered what kind it was.

She was sitting on the Deck, which was slick from the late-afternoon fog. It was quiet now, she was alone. The children and the dogs were at her parents'. She wore faded jeans, a green sweatshirt, stylish Wish shoes, from the Brown company's Fergie line-a treat she'd allowed herself after the conclusion of the case. She sipped white wine.

Her laptop was open in front of her. Dance had logged on as a temporary administrator to The Chilton Report after she'd found the access pass codes in one of James Chilton's files. She consulted the book she'd been reading from, finished typing the text and uploaded it.

http://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/final.html

Dance read the results. Gave a faint smile.

Then logged off.

She heard heavy footsteps on the stairs leading up from the side of the house and turned to see Michael O'Neil.

"Hey." He smiled.

She had been expecting a phone call about the magistrate's ruling in Los Angeles as to whether the J. Doe case would proceed; he'd seemed so preoccupied at the hospital, she hadn't expected him to show up here in person. No matter, Michael O'Neil was always welcome. She tried to read his expression. She was usually good at this-she knew him so well-but he still had on a poker face.

"Wine?"

"Sure."

She retrieved a second glass from the kitchen and poured him his favorite red.

"I can't stay long."

"Okay." Dance could barely control herself. "Well?"

The smile escaped. "We won. Got the word twenty minutes ago. The judge blew the defense out of the water."

"For real?" Dance asked, slipping into adolescent-speak.

"Yep."

She rose and hugged him hard. His arms slid around her back and pressed her to his solid chest.

They stepped apart and clinked glasses.

"Ernie presents to the grand jury in two weeks. There's no doubt they'll return a bill. They want us down there on Tuesday, nine a.m., to plan out the testimony. You up for a trip?"

"Oh, you bet I am."

O'Neil moved to the railing. He was gazing out into the backyard, staring at a wind chime that Dance had been meaning to pick up from the spot, where she'd dumped it on a windy-and sleepless-night some time ago. He fell silent.

Something was coming, Dance could tell.

She grew alarmed. What was the story? Illness?

Was he moving?

He continued, "I was wondering…"

She waited. Her breath was fast. The wine in her glass rocked like the turbulent Pacific.

"The meeting's on Tuesday and I was wondering if you wanted to stay down in L.A. a few extra days. We could see the sights. Get those eggs Benedict we were hoping for. Or maybe we could go out for sushi in West Hollywood and watch people trying to be cool. I could even buy a black shirt." He was rambling.

Which Michael O'Neil never did. Ever.

Dance blinked. Her heart thudded as fast as the wings of the hummingbird hovering over the crimson feeder nearby. "I…"

He laughed and his shoulders slumped. She couldn't imagine what her expression looked like. "Okay. There's something else I guess I ought to say."

"Sure."

"Anne's leaving."

"What?" She gasped.

Michael O'Neil's face was an amalgam of emotion: hope, uncertainty, pain. Perhaps the most obvious was bewilderment.

"She's moving to San Francisco."

A hundred questions filled her mind. She asked the first, "The children?"

"They'll be with me."

This news wasn't surprising. There was no better father than Michael O'Neil. And Dance had always had her doubts about Anne's skills at mothering, and about her desire to handle the job.

Of course, she realized. The split-up was the source of O'Neil's troubled look at the hospital. She remembered his eyes, how hollow they seemed.

He continued, speaking with the clipped tone of somebody who'd been doing a lot of rapid-fire-and not wholly realistic-planning. Men were guilty of this more often than women. He was telling her about the children's visiting their mother, about the reactions of his family and Anne's, about lawyers, about what Anne would be doing in San Francisco. Dance nodded, concentrating on his words, encouraging, mostly just letting him talk.

She picked up immediately on the references to "this gallery owner" and a "friend of Anne's in San Francisco" and "he." The deduction she made didn't truly surprise her, though she was furious with the woman for hurting O'Neil.

And hurt he was, devastated, though he didn't know it yet.

And me? Dance thought. How do I feel about this?

Then she promptly tucked that consideration away, refusing to examine it right now.

O'Neil stood like a schoolboy who'd asked a girl to the eighth-grade dance. She wouldn't have been surprised if he'd jammed his hands into his pockets and stared down at his shoe tips. "So I was just wondering, about next week. A few extra days?"

Where do we go from here? Dance thought. If she could hover over herself, looking down as a kinesic analyst, what was her body language saying? She was, on the one hand, deeply moved by the news. On the other, she was as cautious as a war-zone soldier approaching a roadside package.

The appeal of a trip with Michael O'Neil was almost overwhelming.

Yet the answer, of course, could not be yes. For one thing, O'Neil needed to be there for his children, completely there, one hundred percent there. They might not-should not-have been told about their parents' problems at this point. Yet they would know something. Children's intuition is a primary force of nature.

But there was another reason for Dance and O'Neil not to share personal time in Los Angeles.

And, coincidentally, it appeared just now.

"Hello?" called a man's voice from the side yard.

Dance held Michael O'Neil's eye, gave a tight smile and called, "Up here. In the back."

More footsteps on the stairs and Jonathan Boling joined them. He gave a smile to O'Neil and the two men shook hands. Like Dance, he was in jeans. His knit shirt was black, under a Lands' End windbreaker. He wore hiking boots.

"I'm a little early."

"Not a problem."

O'Neil was smart, and more, he was savvy. Dance could see that he understood instantly. His first reaction was dismay that he'd put her in a difficult position.

His eyes offered a sincere apology.

And hers insisted that none was necessary.

O'Neil was amused too and gave Dance a smile not unlike the one they'd shared when last year they'd heard on the car radio the Sondheim song "Send in the Clowns," about potential lovers who just can't seem to get together.

Timing, they both knew, was everything.

Dance said evenly, "Jonathan and I are going to Napa for the weekend."

"Just a little get-together at my parents' place. I always like to bring along somebody to run interference." Boling was downplaying the getaway. The professor was smart too-he'd seen Dance and O'Neil together-and understood that he'd walked into the middle of something now. "It's beautiful up there," O'Neil said.

Dance remembered that he and Anne had spent their honeymoon at an inn near the Cakebread Vineyard up in wine country.

Could we just shoot these ironies dead, please? Dance thought. And she realized that her face was burning with a girlish blush.

O'Neil asked, "Wes is at your mom and dad's?"

"Yep."

"I'll call him. I want to cast off at eight tomorrow."

She loved him for keeping the fishing date with the boy, even though Dance would be out of town and O'Neil had plenty to cope with. "Thanks. He's really looking forward to it."

"I'm getting a copy of the decision from L.A. I'll email it to you."

She said, "I want to talk, Michael. Call me."

"Sure."

O'Neil would understand that she meant talking about him and Anne and the impending separation, not the J. Doe case.

And Dance understood that he wouldn't call, not while she was away with Boling. He was that kind of person.

Dance felt a fast urge-a hungry urge-to hug the deputy again, put her arms around him, and she was about to. But for a man who remained unskilled at kinesic analysis, O'Neil instantly picked up on her intention. He turned and walked to the stairs. "Got to collect the kids. Pizza night. Bye, Jon. And, hey, thanks for all your help. We couldn't've done it without you."

"You owe me a tin badge," Boling said with a grin and asked Dance if he could carry anything out to the car. She pointed out the shopping bag full of soda, water, snacks and CDs for the drive north.

Dance found herself clutching her wineglass to her chest as she watched O'Neil start down the deck stairs. She wondered if he'd turn back.

He did, briefly. They shared yet another smile, and then he was gone.