Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel

by Jeffery Deaver

  Jason showed her how to dismount the horse. And, under her own controls, she navigated Greenleaf toward where Jason pointed, a cottage.

  “That’s the house. We all built it together.”

  Like a barn raising in the 1800s, Dance reflected.

  “But Travis earned all the money and the supplies. He paid for it. We hired trolls to do the heavy work,” he added without a bit of irony.

  When her avatar was at the door, Jason gave her a verbal password. She spoke it into the computer’s microphone and the door opened. They walked inside.

  Dance was shocked. It was a beautiful, spacious house, filled with bizarre but cozy furniture, out of a Dr. Seuss book. There were walkways and stairs that led to various rooms, windows of odd shapes, a huge, burning fireplace, a fountain and a large pool.

  A couple of pets—some goofy hybrid of a goat and salamander—walked around croaking.

  “It’s nice, Jason. Very nice.”

  “Yeah, well, we make cool homes in Aetheria ’cause where we live, I mean, in the real world, our places aren’t so nice, you know. Okay, like, here’s what I wanted to show you. Go there.” He directed her past a small pond populated with shimmery green fish. Her avatar stopped at a large metal door. It was barred with several locks. Jason gave her another pass code and the door slowly opened—accompanied by creaking sound effects. She sent Greenleaf through the doorway, down a flight of stairs and into what looked like a drugstore combined with an emergency room.

  Jason looked at Dance and noticed she was frowning.

  He said, “Understand?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “That’s what I meant about knowing Travis. He’s not about weapons and battle strategy or any of that. He’s about this. It’s his healing room.”

  “Healing room?” Dance asked.

  The boy explained, “Travis hated fighting. He created Stryker as a warrior when he first started playing, but he didn’t like that. That’s why he sold him to me. He’s a healer, not a fighter. And I mean a healer at the forty-ninth level. You know how good that makes him? He’s the best. He’s awesome.”

  “A healer?”

  “That’s his avatar’s name. Medicus—it’s some foreign language for ‘doctor.’”

  “Latin,” Boling said.

  “Ancient Rome?” Jason asked.

  “Right.”

  “Sweet. Anyway, Travis’s other professions are herb growing and potion making. This is where people come to be treated. It’s like a doctor’s office.”

  “Doctor?” Dance mused. She rose from her desk, found the stack of papers they’d taken from Travis’s room and flipped through them. Rey Carraneo had been right—the pictures were of cut-up bodies. But they weren’t the victims of crimes; they were of patients during surgery. They were very well done, technically accurate.

  Jason continued, “Characters from all over Aetheria would come to see him. Even the game designers know about him. They asked him for advice in creating NPCs. He’s a total legend. He’s made thousands of dollars by making these healing potions, buffers, life regenerators and power spells.”

  “In real money?”

  “Oh, yeah. He sells them on eBay. Like how I bought Stryker.”

  Dance recalled the strongbox they’d found under the boy’s bed. So this was how he’d made the cash.

  Jason tapped the screen. “Oh, and there?” He was indicating a glass case in which rested a crystal ball on the end of a gold stick. “That’s the scepter of healing. It took him, like, fifty quests to earn it. Nobody ever got one before, in the whole history of DQ.” Jason winced. “He almost lost it once. . . .” An awestruck expression washed over his face. “That was one messed-up night.”

  The boy sounded as if the event were a tragedy in real life.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Medicus and me and some of us in the family were on this quest in the Southern Mountains, which’re like three miles high and really dangerous places. We were looking for this magical tree. The Tree of Seeing, it’s called. And, this was sweet, we found the home of Ianna, the Elvish queen, who everybody’s heard of but never seen. She’s way famous.”

  “She’s an NPC, right?” Boling asked.

  “Yeah.”

  He reminded Dance, “A nonplayer character. One that’s created by the game itself.”

  Jason seemed offended at the characterization. “But the algorithm is awesome! She’s beyond any bot you’ve ever seen.”

  The professor nodded an apologetic concession.

  “So we’re there and just hanging and talking and she’s telling us about the Tree of Seeing and how we can find it, and all of a sudden we’re attacked by this raiding party from the Northern Forces. And everybody’s fighting, and this asshole shoots the queen with a special arrow. She’s going to die. Trav tries to save her but his healing isn’t working. So he decides to Shift. We’re like, no, man, don’t do it! But he did anyway.”

  The boy was speaking with such reverence that Dance found herself leaning forward, her leg bobbing with tension. Boling too was staring at him.

  “What’s that, Jason? Go on.”

  “Okay, what it is, sometimes, if somebody’s dying, you can submit your life to the Entities in the High Realm. It’s called Shifting. And the Entities start taking your life force and giving it to the person who’s dying. Maybe the person will come back before your life force is gone. But it might take all your life force and you’ll die, and they’ll die too. Only when you die because you’ve Shifted, you lose everything. I mean everything you’ve done and earned, all your points, all your Resources, all your Reputation, for as long as you’ve been playing the game. They all, like, just go away. If Travis’d died, he would’ve lost the scepter, his house, his gold, his flying horses. . . . He would have to start over like a newbie.”

  “He did that?”

  Jason nodded. “It was, like, way close. He was almost out of life force, but the queen revived. She kissed him. That was, like, epic! And then the elves and us got together and kicked some Northern Force ass. Man, that night rocked. It was epic win. Everybody who plays the game still talks about it.”

  Dance was nodding. “Okay, Jason, thanks. You can log off.”

  “Like, you don’t want to play anymore? You were kind of getting a feel for how to move.”

  “Maybe later.”

  The boy tapped the keys and the game closed.

  Dance glanced at her watch. “Jon, could you take Jason back home? There’s somebody I need to talk to.”

  A to B to X . . .

  Chapter 32

  “I’D LIKE TO see Caitlin, please.”

  “You’re . . . ?” asked Virginia Gardner, the mother of the girl who’d survived the June 9 car crash.

  Dance identified herself. “I spoke to your daughter the other day at summer school.”

  “Oh, you’re the policewoman. You arranged for the guard for Cait at the hospital the other day, and out in front of our house.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Have you found Travis?”

  “No, I—”

  “Is he nearby?” the woman asked breathlessly, looking around.

  “No, he’s not. I’d just like to ask your daughter a few more questions.”

  The woman invited Dance into the entryway of the huge contemporary house in Carmel. Dance recalled that Caitlin was headed for some nice undergrad and medical schools. Whatever Dad or Mom did, it seemed they could afford the tuition.

  Dance surveyed the massive living room. There were stark abstracts on the walls—two huge, spiky black-and-yellow paintings and one with bloody red splotches. She found them troubling to look at. She thought how different this was from the cozy feel of Travis’s and Jason’s house in the DimensionQuest game.

  Yeah, well, we make cool homes in Aetheria ’cause where we live, I mean, in the real world, our places aren’t so nice, you know. . . .

  The girl’s mother disappeared and a moment later ret
urned with Caitlin, in jeans and a lime green shell under a tight-fitting white sweater.

  “Hi,” the teenager said uneasily.

  “Hello, Caitlin. How you feeling?”

  “Okay.”

  “Hoping you’ll have a minute or two. I have a few follow-up questions.”

  “Sure, I guess.”

  “Can we sit down somewhere?”

  “We can go in the sunroom,” Mrs. Gardner said.

  They passed an office and Dance saw a University of California diploma on the wall. Medical school. Caitlin’s father.

  The mother and daughter on the couch, Dance in a straight-backed chair. She scooted it closer and said, “I wanted to give you an update. There was another killing today. Have you heard?”

  “Oh, no,” Caitlin’s mother whispered.

  The girl said nothing. She closed her eyes. Her face, framed by limp blond hair, seemed to grow paler.

  “Really,” the mother whispered angrily, “I’ll never see how you could go out with somebody like that.”

  “Mom,” Caitlin whined, “what do you mean, ‘go out’? Christ, I never went out with Travis. I never would. Somebody like him?”

  “I just mean he’s obviously dangerous.”

  “Caitlin,” Dance interrupted. “We’re really desperate to find him. We’re just not having any luck. I’m learning more about him from friends, but—”

  Her mother again: “Those Columbine kids.”

  “Please, Mrs. Gardner.”

  An affronted look, but she fell silent.

  “I told you everything I could think of the other day.”

  “Just a few more questions. I won’t be long.” She scooted the chair closer yet and pulled out a notebook. She opened it and flipped through the pages carefully, pausing once or twice.

  Caitlin was immobile as she stared at the notebook.

  Dance smiled, looking into the girl’s eyes. “Now, Caitlin, think back to the night of the party.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Something interesting’s come up. I interviewed Travis before he ran off. I took some notes.” A nod at the notebook resting on her lap.

  “You did? You talked to him?”

  “That’s right. I didn’t pay much attention until I’d spoken to you and some other people. But now I’m hoping to piece together some clues as to where he’s hiding.”

  “How hard could it be to find—” Caitlin’s mother began, as if she couldn’t stop herself. But she fell silent under Dance’s stern glance.

  The agent continued, “Now, you and Travis talked some, right? That night.”

  “Not really.”

  Dance was frowning slightly and flipping through her notes.

  The girl added, “Well, except when it was time to leave. I meant during the party he was hanging by himself mostly.”

  Dance said, “On the ride home you did, though.” Tapping the notebook.

  “Yeah, talked some. I don’t remember too much. It was all a blur, with the crash and all.”

  “I’m sure it was. But I’m going to read you a couple of statements and I’d like you to fill in the details. Tell me if anything jogs your memory about what Travis said on the drive home, before the accident.”

  “I guess.”

  Dance consulted her notebook. “Okay, here’s the first one: ‘The house was pretty sweet but the driveway freaked me out.’ ” She looked up. “I was thinking maybe that meant Travis had a fear of heights.”

  “Yeah, that’s what he was talking about. The driveway was on this hillside, and we were talking about it. Travis said he’d always had this fear of falling. He looked at the driveway and he said why didn’t they have a guardrail on it.”

  “Good. That’s helpful.” Another smile. Caitlin reciprocated. Dance returned to the notes. “And this one? ‘I think boats rule. I’ve always wanted one.’ ”

  “Oh, that? Yeah. We were talking about Fisherman’s Wharf. Travis really thought it’d be cool to sail to Santa Cruz.” She looked away. “I think he wanted to ask me to go with him, but he was too shy.”

  Dance smiled. “So he might be hiding out on a boat somewhere.”

  “Yeah, that could be it. I think he said something about how neat it would be to stow away on a boat.”

  “Good. . . . Here’s another one. ‘She has more friends than me. I only have one or two I could hang out with.’ ”

  “Yeah, I remember him saying that. I felt sorry for him, that he didn’t have many friends. He talked about it for a while.”

  “Did he mention names? Anybody he might be staying with? Think. It’s important.”

  The teenager squinted and her hand rubbed her knee. Then sighed. “Nope.”

  “That’s okay, Caitlin.”

  “I’m sorry.” A faint pout.

  Dance kept the smile on her face. She was steeling herself for what was coming next. It would be difficult—for the girl, for her mother, for Dance herself. But there was no choice.

  She leaned forward. “Caitlin, you’re not being honest with me.”

  The girl blinked. “What?”

  Virginia Gardner muttered, “You can’t say that to my daughter.”

  “Travis didn’t tell me any of those things,” Dance said, her voice neutral. “I made them up.”

  “You lied!” the mother snapped.

  No, she hadn’t, not technically. She’d crafted her words carefully and never said they were actual statements from Travis Brigham.

  The girl had gone pale.

  The mother grumbled, “What is this, some kind of trap?”

  Yes, that was exactly what it was. Dance had a theory and she needed to prove it true or false. Lives were at stake.

  Dance ignored the mother and said to Caitlin, “But you were playing along as if Travis had said all of those things to you in the car.”

  “I . . . I was just trying to be helpful. I felt bad I didn’t know more.”

  “No, Caitlin. You thought you might very well have talked with him about them in the car. But you couldn’t remember because you were intoxicated.”

  “No!”

  “I’m going to ask you to leave now,” the girl’s mother blurted.

  “I’m not through,” Dance growled, shutting up Virginia Gardner.

  The agent assessed: with her science background—and her survival skills in this household—Caitlin had a thinking and sensing personality type, according to the Myers-Briggs index. She struck Dance as probably more introverted than extraverted. And, though her liar’s personality would fluctuate, she was at the moment an adaptor.

  Lying for self-preservation.

  If Dance had had more time she might have drawn the truth out slowly and in more depth. But with the Myers-Briggs typing and Caitlin’s personality of adaptor, Dance assessed she could push and not have to coddle, the way she had with Tammy Foster.

  “You were drinking at the party.”

  “I—”

  “Caitlin, people saw you.”

  “I had a few drinks, sure.”

  “Before coming here I talked to several students who were there. They said that you, Vanessa and Trish drank almost a fifth of tequila after you saw Mike with Brianna.”

  “Well . . . okay, so what?”

  “You’re seventeen,” her mother raged, “that’s what!”

  Dance said evenly, “I’ve called an accident reconstruction service, Caitlin. They’re going to look over your car at the police impound lot. They measure things like seat and rearview mirror adjustment. They can tell the height of the driver.”

  The girl was completely still, though her jaw trembled.

  “Caitlin, it’s time to tell the truth. A lot depends on it. Other people’s lives are at stake.”

  “What truth?” her mother whispered.

  Dance kept her eyes on the girl. “Caitlin was driving the car that night. Not Travis.”

  “No!” Virginia Gardner wailed.

  “Weren’t you, Caitlin?”

  The teena
ger said nothing for a minute. Then her head dropped, her chest collapsed. Dance read pain and defeat through her body. Her kinesic message was: Yes.

  Her voice breaking, Caitlin said, “Mike left with that little slut hanging on him and her hand down the back of his jeans! I knew they went back to his place to fuck. I was going to drive there . . . I was going to . . .”

  “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.”