Jeffery Deaver - Roadside Crosses

"All right," her mother ordered, "that's enough."

"Be quiet!" the girl yelled to her mother and started to sob. She turned to Dance. "Yes, I was driving!" The guilt had finally detonated within her.

Dance continued, "After the accident Travis pulled you into the passenger seat and he got in the driver's. He pretended he was driving. He did that to save you."

She thought back to the initial interview with Travis.

I didn't do anything wrong!

The boy's assertion had registered as deceptive to Dance. But she believed that he meant he was lying about the attack on Tammy; in fact what he'd done wrong was to lie about who was driving the car that night.

The idea had occurred to Dance when she was looking over the house of Travis-Medicus-and his family in Aetheria. The fact that the boy spent virtually every moment he could in the DimensionQuest game as a doctor and healer, not a killer like Stryker, made her begin to doubt the boy's tendency toward violence. And when she'd learned that his avatar had been willing to sacrifice his life for the Elvish queen, she realized that it was possible Travis had done the same in the real world-taking the blame for the car crash so that the girl he admired from afar wouldn't go to jail.

Caitlin, tears flowing from her closed eyes, pressed back into the couch, her body a knot of tension. "I just lost it. We got drunk and I wanted to go find Mike and tell him what a shit he was. Trish and Vanessa were more wasted than me so I was going to drive, but Travis followed me outside and kept trying to stop me. He tried to take the keys. But I wouldn't let him. I was so mad. Trish and Vanessa were in the backseat and Travis just jumped in the passenger seat and he was like, 'Pull over, Caitlin, come on, you can't drive.' But I was acting like an asshole.

"I just kept going, ignoring him. And then, I don't know what happened, we went off the road." Her voice faded and her expression was one of the most sorrowful and forlorn Kathryn Dance had ever seen, as she whispered, "And I killed my friends."

Caitlin's mother, her face white and bewildered, eased forward tentatively. She put her arm around her daughter's shoulders. The girl stiffened momentarily and then surrendered, sobbing and pressing her head against her mother's chest.

After a few minutes, the woman, crying herself, looked at Dance. "What's going to happen?"

"You and your husband should find a lawyer for Caitlin. Then call the police right away. She should surrender voluntarily. The sooner the better."

Caitlin wiped her face. "It's hurt so bad, lying. I was going to say something. I really, really was. But then people started to attack Travis-all those things they said-and I knew if I told the truth they'd attack me." She lowered her head. "I couldn't do it. All those things people'd say about me…they'd be up on their site forever."

More worried about her image than the deaths of her friends.

But Dance wasn't here to expiate the teenager's guilt. All she'd needed was confirmation of her theory that Travis had taken the fall for Caitlin. She rose and left the mother and daughter, offering the briefest of farewells.

Outside, jogging toward her car, she hit speed-dial button three-Michael O'Neil.

He answered on the second ring. Thank God the Other Case wasn't keeping him completely incommunicado.

"Hey." He sounded tired.

"Michael."

"What's wrong?" He'd grown alert; apparently her tone told stories too.

"I know you're swamped, but any chance I could come by? I need to brainstorm. I've found something."

"Sure. What?"

"Travis Brigham isn't the Roadside Cross Killer."

DANCE AND O'NEIL were in his office in the Monterey County Sheriff's Office in Salinas.

The windows looked out on the courthouse, in front of which were two dozen of the Life First protesters, along with the wattle-necked Reverend Fisk. Apparently bored with protesting in front of Stuart and Edie Dance's empty house, they'd moved to where they stood a chance of getting some publicity. Fisk was talking to the associate she'd seen earlier: the brawny redheaded bodyguard.

Dance turned away from the window and joined O'Neil at his unsteady conference table. The place was filled with ordered stacks of files. She wondered which were related to the Indonesian container case. O'Neil rocked back on two legs of a wooden chair. "So, let's hear it."

She explained quickly about how the investigation had led to Jason and then into the DimensionQuest game and ultimately to Caitlin Gardner and the confession that Travis had taken the fall for her.

"Infatuation?" he asked.

But Dance said, "Sure, that's part of it. But there's something else going on. She wants to go to medical school. That's important to Travis."

"Medical school?"

"Medicine, healing. In that game he plays, DimensionQuest, Travis is a famous healer. I'm thinking one of the reasons he protected her was because of that. His avatar is Medicus. A doctor. He feels a connection to her."

"That's a little farfetched, don't you think? After all, it's just a game."

"No, Michael, it's more than a game. The real world and the synth world are getting closer and closer, and people like Travis are living in both. If he's a respected healer in DimensionQuest he's not going to be a vindictive killer in the real world."

"So he takes the fall for Caitlin's crash, and whatever people say about him in the blog, the last thing in the world he wants is to draw attention to himself by attacking anybody."

"Exactly."

"But Kelley…before she passed out she told the medic that it was Travis who attacked her."

Dance shook her head. "I'm not sure she actually saw him. She assumed it was him, maybe because she knew she'd posted about him and the mask at her window was from the DimensionQuest game. And the rumors were he was behind the attacks. But I think the real killer was wearing a mask or got her from behind."

"How do you deal with the physical evidence? Planted?"

"Right. It'd be easy to read up online about Travis, to follow him, learn about his job at the bagel place, his bicycle, the fact that he plays DQ all the time. The killer could have made one of those masks, stolen the gun from Bob Brigham's truck, planted the trace evidence at the bagel shop and stolen the knife when the employees weren't looking. Oh, and something else: the M &M's? The flecks of wrapper at the crime scene?"

"Right."

"Had to be planted. Travis wouldn't eat chocolate. He bought packets for his brother. He was worried about his acne. He had books in his room about what foods to avoid. The real killer didn't know that. He must've seen Travis buy M &M's at some point and assumed they were a favorite candy, so he left some trace of the wrapper at the scene."

"And the sweatshirt fibers?"

"There was a posting in The Report about the Brigham family being so poor that they couldn't afford a washer and dryer. And it mentioned which laundromat they went to. I'm sure the real perp read that and staked the place out."

O'Neil nodded. "And stole a hooded sweatshirt when the mother was out or wasn't looking."

"Yep. And there were some pictures posted in the blog under Travis's name." O'Neil hadn't seen the drawings and she described them briefly, omitting the fact that the last one bore a resemblance to her. Dance continued, "They were crude, what an adult would think of a teenager's drawing. But I saw some pictures that Travis had done-of surgery. He's a great artist. Somebody else drew them."

"It would explain why nobody's been able to find the real killer, despite the manhunt. He pulls on a hoodie for the attack, then throws it and the bicycle in his trunk and drives off down the street like anybody else. Hell, he could be fifty years old. Or he could be a she, now that I think about it."