Roadside Crosses

and unsettled that she’d have to separate from O’Neil. She nodded toward the left.
    They began easing carefully down their respective routes.
    Dance was moving through the thickets, thinking how unsuited she was to this role. Her world was one of words and expressions and nuances of gesture. Not tactical work, like this.
    She knew how people got hurt, how they died, stepping out of the zones they were in harmony with. A sense of foreboding filled her.
    Stop, she told herself. Find Michael, go back to the car and wait for backup.
    Too late.
    Just then Dance heard a rustling at her feet, and glanced down to see that the boy, hiding in the bushes next to her, had flung a large branch in her way. It caught her foot as she tried to jump over it and she went down hard. Struggling to keep from falling, Dance rolled onto her side.
    Which had the effect of saving her wrist.
    And another consequence: the boxy, black Glock flew from her hand and vanished into the bushes.
    Only seconds later, Dance heard the rustle of bushes once more as the boy, apparently waiting to make certain she was alone, charged out of the bushes.
    CARELESS, MICHAEL O’NEIL thought angrily.
    He was running in the direction of Dance’s cry, but realized now he had no idea where she was.
    They should have stayed together. Careless to split up. Yes, it made sense—to cover as much ground as they could—but while he’d been in several firefights and a couple of street pursuits, Kathryn Dance had not.
    If anything happened to her . . .
    In the distance sirens sounded, growing louder. The backup was getting closer. O’Neil slowed to a walk, listening carefully. Maybe the rustle of bushes nearby. Maybe not.
    Careless too because Travis would know this area perfectly. It was, literally, his backyard. He’d know where to hide, what paths to escape down.
    The gun, weighing nothing in his large hand, swung ahead of O’Neil, as he looked for the attacker.
    Frantic.
    Pushing ahead another twenty feet. Finally he had to risk some noise. “Kathryn?” he called in a whisper.
    Nothing.
    Louder: “Kathryn?”
    The wind rustled brush and trees.
    Then: “Michael, here!” A choked sound. From nearby. He raced toward her words. Then he found her ahead of him on a path, on her hands and knees. Her head down. He heard gasping. Was she wounded? Had Travis struck her with a pipe? Stabbed her?
    O’Neil had to suppress his overwhelming urge to tend to her, see how badly hurt she was. He knew procedures.He ran closer, stood over her, his eyes scanning, swiveling around, looking for a target.
    At last, some distance away, he saw Travis’s back vanish.
    “He’s gone,” Dance said, pulling her weapon from a thicket of bushes and rising to her feet. “Headed that way.”
    “You hurt?”
    “Sore, that’s all.”
    She did seem to be unharmed, but she was dusting at her suit in a way that was troubling to him. She was uncharacteristically shaken, disoriented. He could hardly blame her. But Kathryn Dance had always been a bulwark he could count on, a standard he measured his own behavior against. Her gestures reminded him that they were out of their element here, that this case wasn’t a typical gangbanger hit or a weapons smuggling ring cruising up and down the 101.
    “What happened?” he asked.
    “Tripped me, then took off. Michael, it wasn’t Travis.”
    “What?”
    “I got a fast look at him. He was blond.” Dance grimaced at a tear in her skirt, then gave up on the clothing. She started scanning the ground. “He dropped something. . . . Okay, there.” She picked it up. A can of spray paint.
    “What’s this all about?” he wondered aloud.
    She tucked the gun away in her hip holster and turned back toward the house. “Let’s go find out.”
    THEY ARRIVED BACK at the Brigham house simultaneously with the backup—two Pacific Grove townpolice cars. A longtime resident, Dance knew the officers and waved hello.
    They joined her and O’Neil.
    “You all right, Kathryn?” one cop asked, noting her disheveled hair and dusty skirt.
    “Fine.” She filled them in on the attack and pursuit. One officer used his shoulder-mounted Motorola to report the incident.
    Dance and O’Neil had no sooner gotten to the house when a woman’s voice called out from behind the screen, “Did you get him?” The door opened and the speaker stepped out on the porch. In her forties, Dance guessed, she had a round figure and her face was moonish. She wore painfully