Jeffery Deaver - Roadside Crosses

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

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

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

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

More typing.

Nothing.

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

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

Ten more minutes.

Give up?

No way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

http://www.thechiltonreport.com

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

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

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

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

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

"Roger that, Al."

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

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

"Why us?" Hawken asked. "We didn't do anything to him. We didn't post. We don't even know him."

Dance explained about the boy's expanding his targets.

"You mean, anybody even mentioned in the blog's at risk?"

"Seems that way."

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

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

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

About to stoke the panic in town that much hotter.

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

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

Lily replied, "It's on the market. Hasn't sold yet."

"I'd like you to go back there."

"Well," he said, "there's no furniture. It's in storage."

"You have people you can stay with?"

"My parents. Donald's children are staying with them now."

"Then go back there until we find Travis."

"I guess we could," Lily said.

"You go," Hawken said to her. "I'm not leaving Jim."

"There's nothing you can do to help him," Dance said.

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

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

"You might catch him in a half hour."

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

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

"I'm sorry."

The dismissive shrug that Dance knew oh so well.

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

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

She understood Donald Hawken's loyalty.

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