Roadside Crosses (Kathryn Dance 2)

IN HER SWEATS, the dogs nearby, Dance was sitting in the living room, all the lights off, though moonlight and a shaft of streetlight painted iridescent swatches of blue-white on the pine floor. Her Glock pressed against her spine, the heavy gun tugging down the limp elastic waistband of her sweats.

The computer finished its interminable loading of the software.

"Okay."

He said, "Look over the latest posting of the blog." He gave her the URL.

https://www.thechiltonreport.com/html/june 27update.html

She blinked in surprise. "What . . . ?"

Bolling told her, "Travis hacked The Report."

"How?"

The professor gave a cold laugh. "He's a teenager, that's how."

Dance shivered as she read. Travis had posted a message over the beginning of the June 27 blog. To the left was a crude drawing of the creature Qetzal from DimensionQuest. Around the eerie face, its lips sewn shut and bloody, were cryptic numbers and words. Beside it was a text posting in large, bold letters. It was even more troubling than the picture. Half English, half leetspeak.

I will OWN u all!

i = win, u = fail!!

u r d3ad

3v3ry 1 of u

--post3d by TravisDQ

She didn't need a translator for this one.

Below this was another picture. The awkward color rendering showed a teenage girl or woman lying on her back, mouth open in a scream, as a hand plunged a sword into her chest. Blood spurted skyward.

"That picture . . . it's disgusting, Jon."

After a pause: "Kathryn," he said in a soft voice. "Do you notice anything about it?"

As she studied the awkward drawing, Dance gave a gasp. The victim had brownish hair, pulled back in a ponytail, and was wearing a white blouse and black skirt. On her belt was a darkened area on the hip, which could have been a weapon holster. The outfit was similar to what Dance had been wearing when she'd met Travis yesterday.

"It's me?" she whispered to Boling.

The professor said nothing.

Was the picture old, maybe a fantasy about the death of a girl or woman who'd slighted Travis somehow in the past?

Or had he drawn it today, despite the fact he was on the run from the police?

Dance had a chilling image of the boy, hovering over the paper with pencil and crayon, creating this crude depiction of a synth world death he hoped to make real.

THE WIND IS a persistent aspect of the Monterey Peninsula. Usually bracing, sometimes weak or tentative but never absent. Day and night, it churns the blue-gray ocean, which false to its name is never calm.

One of the windiest places for miles around is China Cove, at the south end of Point Lobos State Park. The chill, steady breath from the ocean numbs the skin of hikers, and picnics are a dicey proposition if paper plates and cups figure as the dishware. Sea-birds here labor even to stay in place if they aim into the breeze.

Now, nearly midnight, the wind is fickle, surging and vanishing, and at its strongest, it kicks up towering gray spumes of seawater.

It rustles the scrub oak.

It bends the pine.