Jeffery Deaver - Roadside Crosses

After she disconnected, Dance noticed O'Neil, his face still, looking into the distance.

She walked up to him. "Michael, what is it?"

"Got to get back to the office. Something urgent on another case."

"The Homeland Security thing?" she asked, referring to the Indonesian container case.

He nodded. "I've got to get in right away. I'll call you as soon as I know more." His face was grave.

"Okay. Good luck."

He grimaced, then turned quickly and walked to his car.

Dance felt concern-and emptiness-watching him go. What was so urgent? And why, she thought bitterly, had it struck now, just when she needed him with her?

She called Rey Carraneo. "Thanks for the work with Jon Boling. What did you find at the Game Shed?"

"Well, he wasn't there last night. He lied about that, like you were saying. But as for friends…he doesn't really hang out with people there. He'd just go, play games and then leave."

"Anybody covering for him?"

"That's not my impression."

Dance then told the young agent to meet her at Kelley Morgan's house.

"Sure."

"Oh, and Rey, one thing?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"I need you to pick up something from the supply room at HQ."

"Sure. What?"

"Body armor. For both of us."

APPROACHING THE BRIGHAM house, Carraneo beside her, Kathryn Dance wiped her palm on her dark slacks. Touched the grip of her Glock.

I don't want to use it, she thought. Not on a boy.

It wasn't likely that Travis was here; MCSO had been running surveillance on the place since the boy had vanished from the bagel shop. Still, he could have snuck back in. And, Dance was reflecting, if it came to a firefight, she'd shoot if she had to. The rationale was simple. She'd kill another human being for the sake of her own children. She wouldn't let them grow up without any parent at all.

The body armor chafed but gave her some confidence. She forced herself to stop patting the Velcro tabs.

With two county deputies behind them, they stepped onto the spongy front porch, keeping as far from the windows as possible. The family car was in the driveway. The landscape service truck too, a pickup with hollies and rose bushes in the bed.

In a whisper, she briefed Carraneo and the other officers about the younger brother, Sammy. "He's big and he'll seem unstable, but he probably isn't dangerous. Use nonlethal if it comes down to it."

"Yes, ma'am."

Carraneo was wary but calm.

She sent the deputies to the back of the property, and the CBI agents flanked the front door. "Let's do it." She banged on the rotting wood. "Bureau of Investigation. We have a warrant. Open the door, please."

Another pounding. "Bureau of Investigation. Open up!"

Hands near their weapons.

An interminable moment later, as she was about to knock again, the door opened and Sonia Brigham stood there staring with eyes wide. She'd been crying.

"Mrs. Brigham, is Travis here?"

"I…"

"Please. Is Travis home? It's important that you tell us."

"No. Really."

"We have a warrant to collect his belongings." Handing her the blue-backed document, Dance entered, Carraneo behind her. The living room was empty. She noticed both boys' doors were open. She saw no sign of Sammy and glanced into his room, noting elaborate charts, filled with hand-drawn pictures. She wondered if he was trying to write his own comic or Japanese manga.

"Is your other son here? Sammy?"

"He's out playing. Down by the pond. Please, do you know anything about Travis? Has anybody seen him?"

A creak from the kitchen. Her hand dropped to her gun.

Bob Brigham appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was holding a can of beer. "Back again," he muttered. "With…" His voice faded as he snatched the warrant away from his wife and made a pretense of reading it.

He looked at Rey Carraneo as if he were a busboy.

Dance asked, "Have you heard from Travis?" Eyes swiveling around the house.

"Nope. But you can't be blaming us for what he's up to."

Sonia snapped, "He didn't do anything!"

Dance said, "I'm afraid that the girl today who was attacked identified him."

Sonia began to protest but fell silent and futilely fought tears.

Dance and Carraneo searched the house carefully. It didn't take long. No sign the boy had been here recently.

"We know you own a pistol, Mr. Brigham. Could you check to see if it's missing?"

His eyes narrowed as if he were considering the implications of this. "It's in my glove compartment. In a lockbox."

Which California law required in a household where children under eighteen lived.

"Loaded?"

"Uh-huh." He looked defensive. "We do a lot of landscaping in Salinas. The gangs, you know."

"Could you see if it's still there?"

"He's not going to take my gun. He wouldn't dare. He'd get a whipping like he wouldn't believe."

"Could you check, please?"

The man gave her a look of disbelief. Then he stepped outside. Dance motioned Carraneo to follow him.

Dance looked at the wall and noticed a few pictures of the family. She was struck by a much happier-looking, and much younger, Sonia Brigham, standing behind the counter at a booth at the Monterey County Fair-grounds. She was thin and pretty. Maybe she'd run the concession before she'd gotten married. Maybe that's where she and Brigham had met.

The woman asked, "Is the girl all right? The one who got attacked?"

"We don't know."

Tears dotted her eyes. "He's got problems. He gets mad some. But…this has to be a terrible mistake. I know it!"

Denial was the most intractable of emotional responses to hardship. Tough as a walnut shell.

Travis's father, accompanied by the young agent, returned to the living room. Bob Brigham's ruddy face was troubled. "It's gone."

Dance sighed. "And you wouldn't have it anyplace else?"

He shook his head, avoided Sonia's face.

Timidly she said, "What good comes of a gun?"

He ignored her.

Dance asked, "When Travis was younger, were there places he'd go?"

"No," the father said. "He was always disappearing. But who knows where he went?"

"How about his friends?"

Brigham snapped, "Doesn't have any. He's always online. With that computer of his…"

"All the time," echoed his wife softly. "All the time."

"Call us if he contacts you. Don't try to get him to surrender, don't take the gun away. Just call us. It's for his own good."

"Sure," she said. "We will."

"He'll do what I say. Exactly what I say."

"Bob…"

"Shhhh."

"We're going through his room now," Dance said.

"Is that all right?" Sonia was nodding at the warrant.

"They can take whatever the fuck they want. Anything that'll help find him before he gets us into more trouble." Brigham lit a cigarette and dropped the match into the ashtray, a smoking arc. Sonia's face sank as she realized she'd become her son's sole advocate.

Dance pulled her radio off her hip, called the deputies outside. One of them radioed back that he'd found something. The young officer arrived. He held up a lockbox in a latex-gloved hand. It had been smashed open. "Was in some bushes behind the house. And this too." An empty box of Remington.38 Special rounds.

"That's it," the father muttered. "Mine."

The house was eerily quiet.

The agents walked into Travis's room. Pulling on her gloves, Dance said to Carraneo, "I want to see if we can find anything about friends, addresses, places he might like to hang out."

They searched through the effluence of a teenager's room-clothes, comics, DVDs, manga, anime, games, computer parts, notebooks, sketchpads. She noticed there was little music and nothing at all about sports.

Dance blinked as she looked through a notebook. The boy had done a drawing of a mask identical to the one outside Kelley Morgan's window.