Jeffery Deaver - Roadside Crosses

"Yeah, boss. What's up?"

"I'm at that construction site off Harrison. I'm here with Deputy Reinhold from the sheriff's office."

"Did you find anything?" the young agent asked.

Dance felt her legs going weak, her heart pounding, now that the initial fright was over. "Not yet. I'll call you back."

"Got it, boss."

They disconnected.

Reinhold finally holstered his weapon. He inhaled slowly and puffed air out of his smooth cheeks. "That just about scared the you-know-what out of me."

Dance asked him, "What are you doing here?"

He explained that the MCSO had gotten a call an hour ago about "something" having to do with the case near the intersection of Pine Grove and Harrison.

The call that had spurred Dance to come here.

Since Reinhold had worked on the case, he explained, he'd volunteered to check it out. He'd been searching the construction site when he'd seen the beam of a flashlight and come closer to investigate. He hadn't recognized Dance in the fog and was worried that she might be a meth cooker or drug dealer.

"Did you find anything that suggests Travis is here?"

"Travis?" he asked slowly. "No. Why, Kathryn?"

"Just seems that this'd be a pretty good place to hide a kidnap victim."

"Well, I searched pretty carefully," the young deputy told her. "Didn't see a thing."

"Still," she said. "I want to be sure."

And called TJ back to arrange for a search party.

IN THE END they did learn what the anonymous caller had seen.

The discovery was made not by Dance or Reinhold, but by Rey Carraneo, who'd come here along with a half dozen other officers from the CHP, the MCSO and the CBI.

The "something" was a roadside cross. It had been planted on Pine Grove, not Harrison Road, about a hundred feet from the intersection.

But the memorial had nothing to do with Greg Schaeffer or Travis Brigham or the blog entries.

Dance sighed angrily.

This cross was fancier than the others, carefully made, and the flowers below it were daisies and tulips, not roses.

Another difference was that this one had a name on it. Two, in fact.

Juan Millar, R.I.P. Murdered by Edith Dance

Left by somebody from Life First-the anonymous caller, of course.

Angrily, she plucked it from the ground and flung it into the compound.

With nothing to search, and no evidence to examine, no witnesses to interview, Kathryn Dance trudged back to her car and returned home, wondering just how fitful her sleep would be.

If indeed she could sleep at all.

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.