"The traffic you waited for?" she asked Pfister. "Could the driver have seen anything?"
"I don't know. Maybe, if Travis was still there. They'd have a better view than me."
"You get a license number, make?"
"No, it was dark, a van or truck. But I remember it was official."
"Official?"
"Yeah, it said 'state' on the back."
"Which organization?"
"I didn't see. Honest."
That could be helpful. They'd contact all the California agencies that might've had vehicles in the area. "Good."
He seemed ecstatic at the faint praise.
"All right. You're free to go now, Ken. But remember there's still an open complaint against you."
"Yes, sure, absolutely. Look, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean anything bad." He scurried off.
As she crossed the road to join O'Neil and the team searching the woods, she watched the pathetic businessman climb into his dinged car.
The stories were in that blog. They have to be true, don't they?
SHE WANTED TO die.
Kelley Morgan was silently asking that her prayers be answered. The fumes were choking her. Her vision was going. Her lungs stung, eyes and nose were inflamed.
The pain . . .
But more horrifying than that was the thought of what was happening to her, the terrible changes to her skin and face from the chemicals.
Her thoughts were fuzzy. She had no memory of Travis dragging her down the stairs. She'd come back to consciousness here, in her father's darkened wine cellar in the basement, chained to a pipe. Her mouth taped, her neck aching from where he'd half strangled her.
And choking fiercely from whatever he'd poured onto the floor, the chemical now burning her eyes, her nose, her throat.
Choking, choking . . .
Kelley tried to scream. It was pointless, with the tape covering her face. Besides, there was nobody to hear. Her family was out, wouldn't be back till much later.
The pain . . .
Raging, she'd tried to kick the copper pipe away from the wall. But the metal wouldn't give.
Kill me!
Kelley understood what Travis Brigham was doing. He could've strangled her to death--just kept going another few minutes. Or shot her. But that wasn't good enough for him. No, the luser and perv was getting even by destroying her looks.
The fumes would eat away her eyelashes and brows, destroy her smooth skin, probably even make her hair fall out. He didn't want her to die; no, he wanted to turn her into a monster.
The geeky kid, face all broken out, the luser, the perv . . . He wanted to turn her into what he was.
Kill me, Travis. Why didn't you just kill me?
She thought of the mask. That's why he'd left it. It was a message about what she'd look like when the chemicals were done.
Her head drooped, her arms. She slumped against the wall.
I want to die.
She began to inhale deeply, through her stinging nose. Everything began to fade. The pain was going, her thoughts, the choking, the stinging in her eyes, the tears.
Drifting away. Light going dark.
Deeper, breathe deeper.
Breathe the poison in.
And, yeah, it was working!
Thank you.
The pain was growing less, the worry less.
Warm relief replaced vanishing consciousness, and her last thought before the darkness grew complete was that at last she was going to be safe from her fears forever.
AS SHE STOOD beside the roadside cross, staring down at the flowers, Dance was startled by her trilling phone--no cartoon music now; she'd put the ringer back on default. A glance at Caller ID.
"TJ."
"Boss. Another cross? I just heard."
"Yeah, today's date too."
"Oh, man. Today?"
"Yep. What'd you find?"
"I'm at Bagel Express. Weird, but nobody here really knows anything about Travis. They said he showed up for work, but kept to himself. Didn't socialize, didn't say much, just left. He talked to one kid here about online games some. But that's it. And nobody's got any idea where he might go. Oh, and his boss said that he was going to fire Travis anyway. Ever since the blog postings he's been getting threats himself. Business is down. Customers're afraid to come in."
"All right, get back to the office. I need you to call all the state agencies who might've had vehicles in the area this morning. No make or tag. Probably dark, but search for anything." She told him what Pfister had seen. "Check with Parks, Caltrans, Fisheries, Environment, everybody you can think of. And find out if Travis has a cell phone and who the provider is. See if they can trace it. I meant to do that earlier."
They disconnected. Dance called her mother. No answer. She tried her father and the man picked up on the second ring.
"Katie."
"She's okay?"
"Yes. We're at the house, but we're packing up."
"What?"
Stuart said, "The protesters from the hospital? They found out where we live. They're picketing outside."
"No!" Dance was furious.
He said grimly, "Interesting to watch your neighbors leave for work and find a dozen people with signs calling you a murderer. One of the posters was quite clever. It said, 'Dance of Death.' You have to give them credit."
"Oh, Dad."
"And somebody taped a poster of Jesus on the front door. He was being crucified. I think they're blaming Edie for that too."
"I can get you a room anonymously at the inn we use for witnesses."
"George Sheedy's already gotten us a room under a fake name," Stuart said. "I don't know how you feel about it, honey, but I think your mom'd love to see the kids. She's worried about how scared they got when the police came into the hospital."
"That's a great idea. I'll pick them up from Martine's and bring them to you. When're you checking in?"
"Twenty minutes." He gave her the address.
"Can I talk to her?"
"She's on the phone, honey, with Betsey. You can see her when you drop the kids off. Sheedy's coming over about the case."
They disconnected. O'Neil returned from the woods. She asked, "You find anything?"
"Some footprints that aren't helpful, a little bit of trace--a gray fiber, like the one we found earlier, and a shred of brown paper. An oat flake or grain of some kind. Could be from a bagel, I was thinking. Peter's waiting for it now. He'll get us the analysis as soon as he can."
"That's great for the case against him. But what we need now is something to tell us where he's hiding."
And the other question: Who's he about to attack next?
As Dance lifted her phone to call Jon Boling, the ring tone sounded. She gave a faint smile at the coincidence. His name showed in Caller ID.
"Jon," she answered.
As she listened to his words, her smile quickly faded.
Chapter 15
KATHRYN DANCE CLIMBED out of her Crown Vic in front of Kelley Morgan's house.
The Monterey County Crime Scene people were here, along with a dozen other state and town law enforcement officers.
Reporters too, plenty of them, most asking about the whereabouts of Travis Brigham. Why exactly hadn't the CBI or the MCSO or the Monterey city police or anybody arrested him yet? How hard could it be to find a seventeen-year-old who paraded around dressed like the Columbine and Virginia Tech killers? Who carried knives and machetes, sacrificed animals in bizarre rituals and left roadside crosses on public highways.
He's very active in computer games. Young people who are good at them learn very sophisticated combat and evasion techniques. . . .
Dance ignored them all and pushed on, under the police cordon. She arrived at one of the ambulances, the one nearest the house. A young, intense medic with slicked-back dark hair climbed out of the back door. He closed it and then pounded on the side.
The boxy vehicle, containing Kelley, her mother and brother, raced off to the
emergency room.
Dance joined Michael O'Neil and the tech. "How is she?"
"Still unconscious. We've got her on a portable ventilator." A shrug. "She's unresponsive. We'll just have to wait and see."
It was a near miracle that they'd saved Kelley at all.
And Jonathan Boling was to thank. At the news that a second cross had been located, the professor had gone into a frenzy of work to identify the posters critical of Travis in The Chilton Report, by correlating posting nics--nicknames--and information from social networking sites and other sources. He'd even compared grammar, word choice and spelling styles in the Report posts to those in networking sites and comments in high school yearbooks to identify anonymous posters. He'd enlisted his students too. They'd finally managed to find a dozen names of people in the area who'd posted the blog replies most critical of Travis.
His call a half hour ago was to give Dance their names. She'd immediately ordered TJ, Rey Carraneo and big Al Stemple to start calling and warning them they might be at risk. One of the posters, BellaKelley, the screen name for Kelley Morgan, was unaccounted for. Her mother said she was supposed to be meeting with friends, but hadn't shown up.
Stemple had led a tactical team to her house.
Dance glanced at him now, sitting on the front steps. The huge, shaved-headed man, hovering around forty, was the closest thing that the CBI had to a cowboy. He knew his weaponry, he loved tactical situations and he was pathologically quiet, except when it came to talking about fishing and hunting (accordingly he and Dance had had very few social conversations). Stemple's bulky frame was leaning against the banister of the front porch, as he breathed into an oxygen mask attached to a green tank.
The tech nodded Stemple's way. "He's okay. Did his good deed for the year. Travis had her chained to a water pipe. Al ripped the pipe out with his bare hands. Problem was, it took him ten minutes. He sucked in a lot of fumes."
"You okay, Al?" Dance called.
Stemple said something through the mask. Mostly he looked bored. Dance also read irritation in his eyes--probably that he hadn't gotten to shoot the perp.
The tech then said to O'Neil and Dance, "There's something you oughta know. Kelley was conscious for a minute or two when we got her out. She told me that Travis has a gun."
"Gun? He's armed?" Dance and O'Neil shared a troubled gaze.
"That's what she said. I lost her after that. Didn't say anything else."
Oh, no. An unstable adolescent with a firearm. Nothing was worse, in Dance's opinion.
O'Neil called in the information about the weapon to MCSO, who in turn would relay it to all the officers involved in the search for Travis.
"What was the gas?" Dance asked the tech as they walked to another ambulance.
"We aren't sure. It was definitely toxic."
The Crime Scene Unit was searching carefully for evidence while a team canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses. Everyone on the block was concerned, everyone was sympathetic. But they were also terrified; no accounts were forthcoming.
But perhaps there simply were no witnesses. Bike tread marks in the canyon behind the house suggested how the boy might have snuck up unnoticed to attack Kelley Morgan.
One Crime Scene officer arrived, carrying what turned out to be an eerie mask in a clear evidence bag.
"What the hell's that?" O'Neil asked.
"It was tied to a tree outside her bedroom window, pointing in."
It was hand-made from papier-mache, painted white and gray. Bony spikes, like horns, extended from the skull. The eyes were huge and black. The narrow lips were sewn shut, bloody.
"To freak her out, the poor thing. Imagine looking out your window and seeing that." Dance actually shivered.
As O'Neil took a call, Dance phoned Boling. "Jon."
"How is she?" the professor asked eagerly.
"In a coma. We don't know how she'll be. But at least we saved her life . . . you saved her life. Thank you."
"It was Rey too. And my students."
"Still, I mean it. We can't thank you enough."
"Any leads to Travis?"
"Some." She declined to tell him about the eerie mask. Her phone buzzed, call waiting. "I've got to go. Keep looking for names, Jon."
"I'm on the case," he said.
Smiling, she rang off the line with Boling and answered, "TJ."
"How's the girl doing?"
"We don't know. Not good. What'd you find?"
"No luck, boss. About eighteen vans, trucks, SUVs or cars registered to the state were in the area this morning. But the ones I've been able to track down, they weren't near where the cross was left. And Travis's phone? The cell provider says he's taken out the battery. Or destroyed it. They can't trace it."
"Thanks. I've got a couple more jobs. There's a mask the perp left here."
"Mask? Ski mask?"
"No. It's ritual, looks like. I'm going to have Crime Scene upload a picture of it before they take it to Salinas. See if you can source it. And get the word out to everybody: He's armed."
"Oh, man, boss. Keeps gettin' better and better."
"I want to know if there've been any reports of stolen weapons in the county. And find out if the father or any relatives have registered firearms. Check the database. Maybe we can ID the weapon."
"Sure . . . Oh, wanta say: Heard about your mother." The young man's voice had grown even more sober. "Anything I can do?"
"Thanks, TJ. Just find out about the mask and the gun."
After they hung up she examined the mask, thinking: Could the rumors have been true? Was Travis into some type of ritualistic practice? Here she'd been skeptical of the posters on the blog, but maybe she'd been making a mistake by not paying attention to them.
TJ called back within minutes. There'd been no stolen guns reported in the past two weeks. He'd also looked through the state's firearms database. California liberally allows the purchase of pistols, but all sales must be through a licensed dealer and recorded. Robert Brigham, Travis's father, owned a Colt revolver, .38 caliber.
After she disconnected, Dance noticed O'Neil, his face still, looking into the distance.
She walked up to him. "Michael, what is it?"
"Got to get back to the office. Something urgent on another case."
"The Homeland Security thing?" she asked, referring to the Indonesian container case.
He nodded. "I've got to get in right away. I'll call you as soon as I know more." His face was grave.
"Okay. Good luck."
He grimaced, then turned quickly and walked to his car.
Dance felt concern--and emptiness--watching him go. What was so urgent? And why, she thought bitterly, had it struck now, just when she needed him with her?
She called Rey Carraneo. "Thanks for the work with Jon Boling. What did you find at the Game Shed?"
"Well, he wasn't there last night. He lied about that, like you were saying. But as for friends . . . he doesn't really hang out with people there. He'd just go, play games and then leave."
"Anybody covering for him?"
"That's not my impression."
Dance then told the young agent to meet her at Kelley Morgan's house.
"Sure."
"Oh, and Rey, one thing?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"I need you to pick up something from the supply room at HQ."
"Sure. What?"
"Body armor. For both of us."
APPROACHING THE BRIGHAM house, Carraneo beside her, Kathryn Dance wiped her palm on her dark slacks. Touched the grip of her Glock.
I don't want to use it, she thought. Not on a boy.
It wasn't likely that Travis was here; MCSO had been running surveillance on the place since the boy had vanished from the bagel shop. Still, he could have snuck back in. And, Dance was reflecting, if it came to a firefight, she'd shoot if she had to. The rationale was simple. She'd kill another human being for the sake of her own children. She wouldn't let them grow up without any parent at all
.
The body armor chafed but gave her some confidence. She forced herself to stop patting the Velcro tabs.
With two county deputies behind them, they stepped onto the spongy front porch, keeping as far from the windows as possible. The family car was in the driveway. The landscape service truck too, a pickup with hollies and rose bushes in the bed.
In a whisper, she briefed Carraneo and the other officers about the younger brother, Sammy. "He's big and he'll seem unstable, but he probably isn't dangerous. Use nonlethal if it comes down to it."
"Yes, ma'am."
Carraneo was wary but calm.
She sent the deputies to the back of the property, and the CBI agents flanked the front door. "Let's do it." She banged on the rotting wood. "Bureau of Investigation. We have a warrant. Open the door, please."
Another pounding. "Bureau of Investigation. Open up!"
Hands near their weapons.
An interminable moment later, as she was about to knock again, the door opened and Sonia Brigham stood there staring with eyes wide. She'd been crying.
"Mrs. Brigham, is Travis here?"
"I . . ."
"Please. Is Travis home? It's important that you tell us."
"No. Really."
"We have a warrant to collect his belongings." Handing her the blue-backed document, Dance entered, Carraneo behind her. The living room was empty. She noticed both boys' doors were open. She saw no sign of Sammy and glanced into his room, noting elaborate charts, filled with hand-drawn pictures. She wondered if he was trying to write his own comic or Japanese manga.
"Is your other son here? Sammy?"
"He's out playing. Down by the pond. Please, do you know anything about Travis? Has anybody seen him?"
A creak from the kitchen. Her hand dropped to her gun.
Bob Brigham appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was holding a can of beer. "Back again," he muttered. "With . . ." His voice faded as he snatched the warrant away from his wife and made a pretense of reading it.
He looked at Rey Carraneo as if he were a busboy.
Dance asked, "Have you heard from Travis?" Eyes swiveling around the house.
"Nope. But you can't be blaming us for what he's up to."
Sonia snapped, "He didn't do anything!"
Dance said, "I'm afraid that the girl today who was attacked identified him."
Sonia began to protest but fell silent and futilely fought tears.