Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance 2)

He put his hand on his wife's knee and drove on toward the beach, not even minding that fog had suddenly turned the morning gray.

DRIVING ALONG 68, Holman Highway, Kathryn Dance called her children, whom her father, Stuart, was driving to their respective day camps. With the early-morning meeting at the hotel, Dance had arranged for Wes and Maggie--twelve and ten--to spend the night with their grandparents.

"Hey, Mom!" Maggie said. "Can we go to Rosie's for dinner tonight?"

"We'll have to see. I've got a big case."

"We made noodles for the spaghetti for dinner last night, Grandma and me. And we used flour and eggs and water. Grandpa said we were making them from scratch. What does 'from scratch' mean?"

"From all the ingredients. You don't buy them in a box."

"Like, I know that. I mean, what does 'scratch' mean?"

"Don't say 'like.' And I don't know. We'll look it up."

"Okay."

"I'll see you soon, sweetie. Love you. Put your brot

her on."

"Hey, Mom." Wes launched into a monologue about the tennis match planned for today.

Wes was, Dance suspected, just starting the downhill coast into adolescence. Sometimes he was her little boy, sometimes a distant teenager. His father had died two years ago, and only now was the boy sliding out from under the weight of that sorrow. Maggie, though younger, was more resilient.

"Is Michael still going out on his boat this weekend?"

"I'm sure he is."

"That rocks!" O'Neil had invited the boy to go fishing this Saturday, along with Michael's young son, Tyler. His wife, Anne, rarely went out on the boat and, though Dance did from time to time, seasickness made her a reluctant sailor.

She then spoke briefly to her father, thanking him for baby-sitting the children, and mentioned that the new case would be taking up a fair amount of time. Stuart Dance was the perfect grandfather--the semiretired marine biologist could make his own hours and truly loved spending time with the children. Nor did he mind playing chauffeur. He did, however, have a meeting today at the Monterey Bay aquarium but assured his daughter that he'd drop the children off with their grandmother after camp. Dance would pick them up from her later.

Every day Dance thanked fate or the gods that she had loving family nearby. Her heart went out to single mothers with little support.

She slowed, turned at the light and pulled into the parking lot of Monterey Bay Hospital, studying a crowd of people behind a row of blue sawhorse barriers.

More protesters than yesterday.

And yesterday had seen more than the day before.

MBH was a famed institution, one of the best medical centers in the region, and one of the most idyllic, set in a pine forest. Dance knew the place well. She'd given birth to her children here, sat with her father as he recovered from major surgery. She'd identified her husband's body in the hospital's morgue.

And she herself had recently been attacked here--an incident related to the protest Dance was now watching.

As part of the Daniel Pell case, Dance had sent a young Monterey County deputy to guard the prisoner in the county courthouse in Salinas. The convict had escaped and, in the process, had attacked and severely burned the deputy, Juan Millar, who'd been brought here to intensive care. That had been such a hard time--for his confused, sorrowful family, for Michael O'Neil, and for his fellow officers at the MCSO. For Dance too.

It was while she was visiting Juan that his distraught brother, Julio, had assaulted her, enraged that she was trying to take a statement from his semiconscious sibling. Dance had been more startled than hurt by the attack and had chosen not to pursue a case against the hysterical brother.

A few days after Juan was admitted, he'd died. At first, it seemed that the death was a result of the extensive burns. But then it was discovered that somebody had taken his life--a mercy killing.

Dance was saddened by the death, but Juan's injuries were so severe that his future would have been nothing but pain and medical procedures. Juan's condition had also troubled Dance's mother, Edie, a nurse at the hospital. Dance recalled standing in her kitchen, her mother nearby, gazing into the distance. Something was troubling her deeply, and she soon told Dance what: She'd been checking on Juan when the man had swum to consciousness and looked at her with imploring eyes.

He'd whispered, "Kill me."

Presumably he'd delivered this plea to anybody who'd come to visit or tend to him.

Soon after that, someone had fulfilled his wish.