Roadside Crosses

"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 attaché 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, ru

"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 Be

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.

Not like at the mall or the beach. She wasn't afraid of leering kids or perverts. (That was irritating or flattering-depending, naturally, on the kid or the perv.) No, what terrified Kelley Morgan was some thing staring at her from outside the window of her bedroom.

Snap…

A second sound. Sitting at the desk in her room, Kelley felt a shivering so sudden and intense that her skin stung. Her fingers were frozen, pausing above the computer keyboard. Look, she told herself. Then: No, don't.

Finally: Jesus, you're seventeen. Get over it!

Kelley forced herself to turn around and risk a peek out the window. She saw gray sky above green and brown plants and rocks and sand. Nobody.

And no-thing.

Forget about it.

The girl, physique slim and brunette hair dense, would be a senior in high school next fall. She had a driver's license. She'd surfed Maverick Beach. She was going skydiving on her eighteenth birthday with her boyfriend.

No, Kelley Morgan didn't spook easily.

But she had one intense fear.

Windows.

The terror was from when she was a little girl, maybe nine or ten and living in this same house. Her mother read all these overpriced home design magazines and thought curtains were totally out and would mess up the clean lines of their modern house. Not a big deal, really, except that Kelley had seen some stupid TV show about the Abominable Snowman or some monster like that. It showed this CG animation of the creature as it walked up to a cabin and peered through the window, scaring the hell out of the people in bed.

Didn't matter that it was cheesy computer graphics, or that she knew there wasn't any such thing in real life. That was all it took, one TV show. For years afterward, Kelley would lie in bed, sweating, head covered by her blanket, afraid to look for fear of what she'd see. Afraid not to, for fear she'd have no warning of it-whatever it was-climbing through the window.

Ghosts, zombies, vampires and werewolves didn't exist, she told herself. But all she'd need to do was read a Stephenie Meyer's Twilight book and, bang, the fear would come back.

And Stephen King? Forget about it.

Now, older and not putting up with as much of her parents' weirdness as she used to, she'd gone to Home Depot and bought curtains for her room and installed them herself. Screw her mother's taste in décor. Kelley kept the curtains drawn at night. But they were open at the moment, it being daytime, with pale light and a cool summer breeze wafting in.

Then another snap outside. Was it closer?

That image of the effing creature from the TV show just never went away, and neither did the fear it injected into her veins. The yeti, the Abominable Snowman, at her window, staring, staring. A churning now gripped her in the belly, like the time she'd tried that liquid fast then gone back to solid foods.

Snap…

She risked another peek.

The blank window yawned at her.

Enough!

She returned to her computer, reading some comments on the OurWorld social networking site about that poor girl from Stevenson High, Tammy, who'd been attacked last night-Jesus, thrown into a trunk and left to drown. Raped or at least molested, everybody was saying.

Most of the postings were sympathetic. But some were cruel and those totally pissed Kelley off. She was staring at one now.

Okay Tammy's going to be all right and thank God. But I have to say one thing. IMHO, she brought it on herself. she has GOT to learn not to walk around like a slutcat from the eighties with the eyeliner and where does she get those dresses? she KNOWS what the guys are thinking, what did she expect????

– AnonGurl

Kelley banged out a response.

OMG, how can you say that? She was almost killed. And anybody who says a woman ASKS to be raped is a mindless l00ser. u should be ashamed!!! -BellaKelley

She wondered if the original poster would reply, hitting back.

Leaning toward the computer, Kelley heard yet another noise outside.

"That's it," she said aloud. She rose, but didn't go to the window. Instead she walked out of her room and into the kitchen, peeking outside. Didn't see anything…or did she? Was there a shadow in the canyon behind the shrubs at the back of the property.