Roadside Crosses

sides.
    Just what I need. If thoughts could sigh, hers would have been clearly audible.
    “Agent Dance. Can I join you?”
    She gestured to an empty chair, trying not to look too invitational. But she did pull out the ear buds.
    He sat, the chair squeaking, plastic and metal in tension under his frame, and leaned forward, elbows on the table, hands clasped in front of him. This position generally signifies directness. She noted his suit again. The blue didn’t work. Not dark enough. Or, alternatively, she thought unkindly, he should be wearing a sailor’s hat with a shiny brim.
    “I heard. The case is over, correct?”
    “We’ve got the perp. We’re still searching for the boy.”
    “For Travis?” Royce asked, surprised.
    “That’s right.”
    “But he’s dead, don’t you think?”
    “No.”
    “Oh.” A pause. “That’s the one thing I regret,” Royce said. “That’s the worst of it all. That innocent boy.”
    Dance noted that this reaction, at least, was honest.
    She said nothing more.
    Royce offered, “I’ll be headed back to Sacramento in a day or two. Look, I know we had some problems earlier. . . . Well, disagreements. I wanted to apologize.”
    Decent of him, though she remained skeptical. She said, “We saw things differently. I didn’t take any offense. Not personally.”
    But, professionally, she thought, I was totally pissed you tried to flank me.
    “There was a lot of pressure from Sacramento. I mean, a lot. I got carried away in the heat of the moment.” He looked away, partly embarrassed. And partly deceptive too; he didn’t feel that bad, Dance noticed. But she gave him credit for trying to make nice. He continued, “Not often that you’re in a situation like this, is it? Where you have to protect somebody as unpopular as Chilton.” He didn’t seem to expect an answer. He gave a hollow laugh. “You know something? In a funny way I’ve come to admire him.”
    “Chilton?”
    A nod. “I don’t agree with much of what he says.But he’s got moral character. And not a lot of people do nowadays. Even in the face of a murder threat, he stayed the course. And he’ll probably keep right on going. Don’t you think?”
    “I assume so.” She said nothing about the possible termination of The Chilton Report.
    That wasn’t her business, or Royce’s.
    “You know what I’d like to do? Apologize to him too.”
    “Would you?”
    “I tried his house. Nobody was answering. Do you know where he is?”
    “He and his family’re going to their vacation home in Hollister tomorrow. Tonight, they’re staying at a hotel. I don’t know where. Their house is a crime scene.”
    “Well, I suppose I could email him at his blog.”
    She was wondering if this would ever happen.
    Then, silence. Time for my exit, Dance thought. She snagged the last cookie, wrapped it in a napkin and headed for the lunchroom door. “Have a safe drive, Mr. Royce.”
    “Again, I’m truly sorry, Agent Dance. I look forward to working with you in the future.”
    Her kinesic skills easily fired off a message that his comment had contained two lies.

Chapter 38
    JONATHAN BOLING, LOOKING pleased, was walking up to Dance in the lobby of the CBI. She handed him a temporary pass.
    “Thanks for coming in.”
    “I was beginning to miss the place. I thought I’d been fired.”
    She smiled. When she’d called him in Santa Cruz she’d interrupted a paper-grading session for one of his summer school courses (she’d wondered if she would catch him prepping for a date) and Boling had been delighted to abandon the job and drive back to Monterey.
    In her office, she handed him his last assignment: Greg Schaeffer’s laptop. “I’m really desperate to find Travis, or his body. Can you go through it, look for any references to local locations, driving directions, maps . . . anything like that?”
    “Sure.” He indicated the Toshiba. “Passworded?”
    “Not this time.”
    “Good.”
    He opened the lid and began to type. “I’ll search for everything with a file access or creation date in the past two weeks. Does that sound good?”
    “Sure.”
    Dance tried not to smile once more, watching him lean forward enthusiastically. His fingers played over the keys like a concert pianist’s. After a few moments he sat back. “Well, it doesn’t look like he used it for much of his mission here, other than to research for blogs and RSS feeds, and emails to friends and business associates—and none of them have