Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance 2)

"And the bad news is it went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean?"

" 'Significant seawater damage,' " he quoted.

Dance was discouraged. "We'll have to send it to Sacramento or the FBI up in San Jose. It'll take weeks to get back."

They watched a hummingbird brave the crowds to hover for breakfast at a red hanging plant. O'Neil said, "Here's a thought. I was talking to a friend of mine in the Bureau up there. He'd just been to a presentation on computer crime. One of the speakers was local--a professor in Santa Cruz."

"UC?"

"Right."

One of Dance's alma maters.

"He said the guy was pretty sharp. And he volunteered to help if they ever needed him."

"What's his background?"

"All I know is he got out of Silicon Valley and started to teach."

"At least there're no bursting bubbles in education."

"You want me to see if I can get his name?"

"Sure."

O'Neil lifted a stack of business cards from his attache case, which was as neatly organized as his boat. He found one and made a call. In three minutes he'd tracked down his friend and had a brief conversation. The attack had already attracted the FBI's attention, Dance deduced. O'Neil jotted down a name and thanked the agent. Hanging up, he handed the slip to Dance. Dr. Jonathan Boling. Below it was a number.

"What can it hurt? . . . Who's got the laptop itself?"

"In our evidence locker. I'll call and tell them to release it."

Dance unholstered her cell phone and called Boling, got his voice mail and left a message.

She continued to tell O'Neil about Tammy, mentioning that much of the girl's emotional response was from her fear that the attacker would strike again--and maybe target others.

"Just what we were worried about," O'Neil said, running a thick hand through his salt-and-pepper hair.

"She also was giving off signals of guilt," Dance said.

"Because she might've been partly responsible for what happened?"

"That's what I'm thinking. In any case, I really want to get inside that computer." A glance at her watch. Unreasonably, she was irritated that this Jonathan Boling hadn't returned her call of three minutes before.

She asked O'Neil, "Any more leads on the evidence?"

"Nope." He told her what Peter Bennington had reported about the crime scene: that the wood in the cross was from oak trees, of which there were about a million or two on the Peninsula. The green florist wire binding the two branches was common and untraceable. The cardboard was cut from the back of a pad of cheap notebook paper sold in thousands of stores. The ink couldn't be sourced either. The roses couldn't be traced to a particular store or other location.

Dance told him the theory of the bicycle. O'Neil was one step ahead, though. He added that they'd reexamined the lot where the girl had been kidnapped and the beach where the car was left, and found more bicycle tread marks, none identifiable, but they were fresh, suggesting that this was the perp's likely means of transport. But the tread marks weren't distinctive enough to trace.

Dance's phone rang--the Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes theme, which her children had programmed in as a practical joke. O'Neil smiled.

Dance glanced at the Caller ID screen. It read J. Boling. She lifted an eyebrow, thinking--again unreasonably--it was about time.

Chapter 7

THE NOISE OUTSIDE, a snap from behind the house, brought back an old fear.

That she was being watched.