Jeffery Deaver - Roadside Crosses

Travis's avatar moved in fast. He swung his sword again and again, striking her. In the upper left-hand corner of the screen a box popped up showing two figures, solid white: the headings "Stryker" was above the one on the left, and "Greenleaf" on the right.

"No!" she whispered, as Travis slashed away.

The white filling the Greenleaf outline began to empty. Boling said, "That's your life force bleeding out. Fight back. You have a sword. There!" He tapped the screen. "Put the cursor on it and left click with the mouse."

Filled with unreasonable but feverish panic, she began clicking.

Stryker easily deflected her avatar's wild blows.

As Greenleaf's power slipped away on the gauge, the avatar dropped to her knees. Soon the sword fell to the ground. She was on her back, arms and legs splayed. Helpless.

Dance felt as vulnerable as she ever had in real life.

"You don't have much power left," Boling said. "There's nothing you can do." The gauge was nearly drained.

Stryker stopped hacking at Greenleaf's body. He moved closer and looked into the computer monitor.

"who r u?" came the words popping up in the instant message.

"i am greenleaf. Y did U kill me?"

"WHO R U?"

Boling said, "All caps. He's shouting. He's mad."

"pleez?" Dance's hands were shaking and her chest was constricted. It was as if these weren't bits of electronic data but real people; she'd plunged wholly into the synth world.

Travis then directed Stryker to step forward and drive his sword into Greenleaf's abdomen. Blood spurted, and the gauge in the upper left-hand corner was replaced with a message: "YOU ARE DEAD."

"Oh," Dance cried. Her sweaty hands quivered and her breath stuttered in and out, over her dry lips. Travis's avatar stared at the screen chillingly, then turned and began to run into the forest. Without a pause, he swiped his sword across the neck of an avatar whose back was turned and lopped off the creature's head.

He then vanished.

"He didn't wait to loot the corpse. He's escaping. He wants to get away fast. He thinks something's up." Boling moved closer to Dance-now it was their legs that brushed. "I want to see something." He began to type. Another box appeared. It said, "Stryker is not online."

Dance felt a painful chill rattling through her, ice along her spine.

Sitting back, her shoulder against Jon Boling's, she was thinking: if Travis had logged off, maybe he'd left the location where he'd been online.

And where was he going?

Into hiding?

Or was he intent on continuing his hunt in the real world?

LYING IN BED, the hour closing in on midnight.

Two sounds confused: the wind stroking the trees outside her bedroom window and surf on rocks a mile away at Asilomar and along the road to Lovers Point.

Beside her, she felt warmth against her leg, and exhaled breath, soft in sleep, tickled her neck.

She was unable to join in the bliss of unconsciousness, however. Kathryn Dance was as awake as if it were noon.

In her mind a series of thoughts spun past. One would rise to the top for a time, then roll on, like on Wheel of Fortune. The subject the clicker settled on most frequently was Travis Brigham of course. In her years of being a crime reporter and a jury consultant and a law enforcement agent, Dance had come to believe that the tendency toward evil could be found in the genes-like Daniel Pell, the cult leader and killer she'd pursued recently-or could be acquired: J. Doe in Los Angeles, for instance, whose murderous inclinations had come later in life.

Dance wondered where Travis fell on the spectrum.

He was a troubled, dangerous young man, but he was also someone else, a teenager yearning to be normal-to have clear skin, to have a popular girl like him. Was it inevitable from birth that he'd slip into this life of rage? Or had he begun like any other boy yet been so battered by circumstance-his abusive father, troubled brother, gawky physique, solitary nature, bad complexion-that his anger couldn't burn away as it did in most of us, like midmorning fog?

For a long, thick moment, pity and loathing were balanced within her.

Then she saw Travis's avatar staring her down and lifting his sword. like really w4nt to learn, what can u t33ch me?

2 die…

Next to her the warm body shifted slightly, and she wondered if she was giving off minuscule tensions that disturbed sleep. She was trying to remain motionless, but that, as a kinesics expert, she knew was impossible. Asleep or waking, if our brain functioned, our bodies moved.

The wheel spun on.

Her mother, and the euthanasia case, now paused at the top. Though she'd asked Edie to call when they got back to the inn, she hadn't. This hurt, but didn't surprise, Dance.

Then the wheel spun again and the J. Doe case in Los Angeles paused at the apogee. What would come of the immunity hearing? Would it be delayed again? And the ultimate outcome? Ernie Seybold was good. But was he good enough?

Dance honestly didn't know.

This musing in turn led to thoughts of Michael O'Neil. She understood there were reasons that he hadn't been able to be here tonight. But his not calling? That was unusual.

The Other Case…

Dance laughed at the jealousy.

She occasionally tried to picture herself and O'Neil together, had he not been married to svelte and exotic Anne. On the one hand, it was too easy. They'd spent days together on cases, and the hours moved by seamlessly. The conversation flowed, the humor. Yet they also disagreed, sometimes to the point of anger. But she believed their passionate disagreements only added to what they had together.

Whatever that was.

Her thoughts wheeled on, unstoppable.

Click, click, click…

At least until they stopped at Professor Jonathan Boling.

And beside her the soft breathing became a soft rattle.

"Okay, that's it," Dance said, rolling onto her other side. "Patsy!"

The flat-coat retriever stopped snoring as she awoke and lifted her head off the pillow.

"On the floor," Dance commanded.

The dog stood, assessed that no food or ball playing figured in the deal and leapt off the bed to join her companion, Dylan, on the shabby rug they used as a futon, leaving Dance once more alone in bed.

Jon Boling, she reflected. Then decided perhaps it was better not to spend much time on him.

Not just yet.

In any case, at that moment, her musings vanished as the mobile phone by the bed, sitting next to her weapon, trilled.

Instantly, she flipped the light on, shoved her glasses on her nose and laughed, seeing the Caller ID.

"Jon," she said.

"Kathryn," Boling said. "I'm sorry to call so late."

"It's okay. I wasn't asleep. What's up? Stryker?"

"No. But there's something you have to see. The blog- The Chilton Report. You better go online now."

IN HER SWEATS, the dogs nearby, Dance was sitting in the living room, all the lights off, though moonlight and a shaft of streetlight painted iridescent swatches of blue-white on the pine floor. Her Glock pressed against her spine, the heavy gun tugging down the limp elastic waistband of her sweats.

The computer finished its interminable loading of the software.

"Okay."

He said, "Look over the latest posting of the blog." He gave her the URL.

http://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/june27update.html

She blinked in surprise. "What…?"

Bolling told her, "Travis hacked The Report. "

"How?"

The professor gave a cold laugh. "He's a teenager, that's how."

Dance shivered as she read. Travis had posted a message over the beginning of the June 27 blog. To the left was a crude drawing of the creature Qetzal from DimensionQuest. Around the eerie face, its lips sewn shut and bloody, were cryptic numbers and words. Beside it was a text posting in large, bold letters. It was even more troubling than the picture. Half English, half leetspeak.