The boy's attitude was hard for Dance, who'd been a widow for two years, and at times felt a terrible longing for a romantic companion. She wanted to date, she wanted to meet somebody and knew it would be good for the children. But whenever she went out, Wes became sullen and moody. She'd spent hours reassuring him that he and his sister came first. She planned out tactics to ease the boy comfortably into meeting her dates. And sometimes simply laid down the law and told him she wouldn't tolerate any attitude. Nothing had worked very well; and it didn't help that his hostility toward her most recent potential partner had turned out to be far more insightful than her own judgment. She resolved after that to listen to what her children had to say and watch how they reacted.
She motioned him over. He joined them. "This is Mr. Boling."
"Hi, Wes."
"Hi." They shook hands, Wes a bit shy, as always.
Dance was about to add quickly that she knew Boling through work, to reassure Wes and defuse any potential awkwardness. But before she could say anything, Wes's eyes flashed as he gazed at the computer screen. "Sweet. DQ!"
She regarded the splashy graphics of the DimensionQuest computer game homepage, which Boling had apparently extracted from Travis's computer.
"Are you guys playing?" The boy seemed astonished.
"No, no. I just wanted to show your mother something. You know Morpegs, Wes?"
"Like, definitely."
"Wes," Dance murmured.
"I mean, sure. She doesn't like me to say 'like.' "
Smiling, Boling asked, "You play DQ? I don't know it so well."
"Naw, it's kind of wizardy, you know. I'm more into Trinity."
"Oh, man," Boling said with some boyish, and genuine, reverence in his voice. "The graphics kick butt." He turned to Dance and said, "It's S-F."
But that wasn't much of an explanation. "What?"
"Mom, science fiction."
"Sci-fi."
"No, no, you can't say that. It's S-F." Eyes rolling broadly ceilingward.
"I stand corrected."
Wes's face scrunched up. "But with Trinity, you definitely need two gig of RAM and at least two on your video card. Otherwise it's, like . . ." He winced. "Otherwise it's so slow. I mean, you've got your beams ready to shoot . . . and the screen hangs. It's the worst."
"RAM on the desktop I hacked together at work?" Boling asked coyly.
"Three?" Wes asked.
"Five. And four on the video card."
Wes mimicked a brief faint. "Nooooo! That is sooo sweet. How much storage?"
"Two T."
"No way! Two tera bytes?"
Dance laughed, feeling huge relief that there wasn't any tension between them. But she said, "Wes, I've never seen you play Trinity. We don't have it loaded on our computer here, do we?" She was very restrictive about what the children played on their computers and the websites they visited. But she couldn't oversee them 100 percent of the time.
"No, you don't let me," he said without any added meaning or resentment. "I play at Martine's."
"With the twins?" Dance was shocked. The children of Martine Christensen and Steven Cahill were younger than Wes and Maggie.
Wes laughed. "Mom!" Exasperated. "No, with Steve. He's got all the patches and codes."
That made sense; Steve, who described himself as a green geek, ran the technical side of American Tunes.
"Is it violent?" Dance asked Boling, not Wes.
The professor and the boy shared a conspiratorial look.
"Well?" she persisted.
"Not really," Wes said.
"What does that mean exactly?" asked the law enforcement agent.
"Okay, you can sort of blow up spaceships and planets," Boling said.
Wes added, "But not like violent-violent, you know."
"Right," the professor assured her. "Nothing like Resident Evil or Manhunt."
"Or Gears of War," Wes added. "I mean, there you can chainsaw people."
"What?" Dance was appalled. "Have you ever played it?"
"No!" he protested, right on the edge of credibility. "Billy Sojack at school has it. He told us about it."
"Make sure you don't."
"All right. I won't. Anyway," the boy added, with another glance at Boling, "you don't have to use a chain saw."
"I never want you to play that game. Or the others that Mr. Boling mentioned." She said this in her best mother voice.
"Okay. Geez, Mom."
"Promise?"
"Yeah." The look at Boling said, She just gets this way sometimes.
The two males then launched into a discussion of other games and technical issues whose meaning Dance couldn't even guess at. But she was happy to see this. Boling, of course, was no romantic interest, but it was such a relief that she didn't have to worry about conflicts, especially tonight--the evening would be stressful enough. Boling didn't talk down to the boy, nor did he try to impress him. They seemed like peers of different ages, having fun talking.
Feeling neglected, Maggie barged in with, "Mr. Boling, do you have kids?"
"Mags," Dance interjected, "don't ask personal questions when you've just met somebody."
"That's all right. No, I don't, Maggie."
She nodded, taking in the information. The issue, Dance understood, wasn't about possible playmates. She was really inquiring about his marital status. The girl was ready to marry off her mother faster than Maryellen Kresbach from the office (provided Maggie was "best woman"--no retro "maid of honor" for Dance's independent daughter).
It was then that voices sounded from the kitchen. Edie and Stuart had arrived. They walked inside and joined Dance and the children.
"Grams!" Maggie called and charged toward her. "How are you?"
Edie's face blossomed into a genuine smile--or nearly so, Dance assessed. Wes, his face glowing with relief too, ran to her as well. Though stingy with hugs for Mom lately, the boy wrapped his arms around his grandmother and squeezed tight. Of the two children, he'd taken the arrest incident at the hospital closer to heart.
"Katie," Stuart said, "chasing down crazed felons and you still had time to cook."
"Well, somebody had time to cook," she replied with a smile and a glance at the Safeway shopping bags, hiding near the trash can.
Ecstatic to see her mother, Dance embraced her. "How are you?"
"Fine, dear."
Dear . . . Not a good sign. But she was here, at least. That's what counted.
Edie turned back to the children and was enthusiastically telling them about a TV show she'd just seen on extreme home makeovers. Dance's mother was brilliant at dispensing comfort and rather than talk directly about what happened at the hospital--which would only trouble them more--she reassured the kids by saying nothing about the incident and chatting away about inconsequential things.
Dance introduced her parents to Jon Boling.
"I'm a hired gun," he said. "Kathryn made the mistake of asking my advice, and she's stuck with me now."
They talked about where in Santa Cruz he lived, how long he'd been in the area and the colleges he'd taught at. Boling was interested to learn that Stuart still worked part-time at the famous Monterey Bay aquarium; the professor went often and had just taken his niece and nephew there.
"I did some teaching too," Stuart Dance offered, when he learned Boling's career. "I was pretty comfortable in academia; I'd done a lot of research into sharks."
Boling laughed hard.
Wine was dispensed--Boling's Conundrum white blend first.
But then Boling must've sensed a wind shift and he excused himself to head back to the computer. "I don't get to eat unless I finish my homework. I'll see you in a bit."
"Why don't you go out back," Dance told him, pointing to the deck. "I'll join you in a minute."
After he'd collected the computer and wandered outside, Edie said, "Nice young man."
"Very helpful. Thanks to him we saved one of the victims." Dance stepped to the refrigerator to put the wine away.
As she did, emotion took the reins and she blurted softly to her mother, "I'm sorry I had to leave the courtroom so fast, Mom. They found another roadside cross. There was a witness I had to interview."
Her mother's voice revealed no trace of sarcasm when she said, "That's all right, Katie. I'm sure it was important. And that poor man today. Lyndon Strickland, the lawyer. He was well known."
"Yes, he was." Dance noted the shift of subject.
"Sued the state, I think. Consumer advocate."
"Mom, what've you heard from Sheedy?"
Edie Dance blinked. "Not tonight, Katie. We won't talk about it tonight."
"Sure." Dance felt like a chastised child. "Whatever you want."
"Will Michael be here?"
"He's going to try. Anne's in San Francisco, so he's juggling kids. And working on another big case."
"Oh. Well, hope he can make it. And how is Anne?" Edie asked coolly. She believed that O'Neil's wife's mothering skills left a lot to be desired. And any failures there were a class-A misdemeanor to Edie Dance, bordering on felony.
"Fine, I imagine. Haven't seen her for a while."
Dance wondered again if in fact Michael would show up.
"You talked to Betsey?" she asked her mother.
"Yes, she's coming up this weekend."
"She can stay with me."
"If it's not inconvenient," Edie offered.
"Why would it be inconvenient?"
Her mother replied, "You might be busy. With this case of yours. That's your priority. Now, Katie, you go visit with your friend. Maggie and I'll get things started. Mags, come on and help me in the kitchen."
"Yea, Grandma!"
"And Stu brought a DVD he thinks Wes would like. Sports bloopers. You boys go put that on."
Her husband took the cue and wandered to the flat-screen TV, calling Wes over.
Dance stood helplessly for a moment, hands at her sides, watching her mother retreat as she chatted happily with her granddaughter. Then Dance stepped outside.
She found Boling at an unsteady table on the deck, near the back door, under an amber light. He was looking around. "This is pretty nice."
"I call it the Deck," she laughed. "Capital D."
It was here that Kathryn Dance spent much of her time--by herself and with the children, dogs and those connected to her through blood or through friendship.
The gray, pressure-treated structure, twenty by thirty feet, and eight feet above the backyard, extended along the back of the house. It was filled with unsteady lawn chairs, loungers and tables. Illumination came from tiny Christmas lights, wall lamps, some amber globes. A sink, tables and a large refrigerator sat on the uneven planks. Anemic plants in chipped pots, bird feeders and weathered metal and ceramic hangings from the garden departments of chain stores made up the eclectic decorations.
Dance would often come home to find colleagues from the CBI or MCSO or Highway Patrol sitting on the Deck, enjoying beverages from the battered fridge. It didn't matter if she was home or not, provided the rules were observed: Never disrupt the kids' studying or the family's sleep, keep the crudeness down and stay out of the house itself, unless invited.
Dance loved the Deck, which was a site for breakfasts, dinner parties and more formal occasions. She'd been married here.
And she'd hosted the memorial service for her husband on the gray, warped timbers.
Dance now sat on the wicker love seat beside Boling, who was hunched forward over the large laptop. He looked around and said, "I've got a deck too. But if we were talking constellations, yours'd be Deck Major. Mine'd be Deck Minor."
She laughed.
Boling nodded at the computer. "There was very little I found about the local area or Travis's friends. Much less than you'd normally see in a teen's computer. The real world doesn't figure much in Travis's life. He spends most of his time in the synth, on websites and blogs and bulletin boards and, of course, playing his Morpegs."
Dance was disappointed. All the effort to hack into the computer and it wasn't going to be as helpful as she'd hoped.
"And as for his time in the synth world, most of that is in DimensionQuest." He nodded at the screen. "I did some research. It's the biggest online role-playing game in the world. There are about twelve million subscribers to that one."
"Bigger than the population of New York City."
Boling described it as a combination of Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Second Life--the social interaction site where you create imaginary lives for yourself. "As near as I can tell he was on DQ between four and ten hours a day."
"A day?"
"Oh, that's typical for a Morpeg player." He chuckled. "Some are even worse. There's a DimensionQuest twelve-step program in the real world to help people get over their addiction to the game."
"Seriously?"
"Oh, yes." He sat forward. "Now, there's nothing in his computer about places he'd go or his friends, but I've found something that might be helpful."
"What's that?"
"Him."
"Who?"
"Well, Travis himself."
Chapter 23
DANCE BLINKED, WAITING for a punch line.
But Jon Boling was serious.
"You found him? Where?"
"In Aetheria, the fictional land in DimensionQuest."
"He's online?"
"Not now, but he has been. Recently."
"Can you find out where he is in real life from that?"
"There's no way of knowing. We can't trace him. I called the gaming company--they're in England--and talked to some executives. DimensionQuest's servers are in India and at any given moment there are a million people online."
"And since we have his computer, that means he's using a friend's," Dance said.
"Or he's at a public terminal or he's borrowed or stolen a computer and is logging on through a Wi-Fi spot."
"But whenever he's online we know he's standing still and we have a chance to find him."
"In theory, yes," Boling agreed.
"Why is he still playing? He must know we're looking for him."
"Like I was saying, he's addicted."
A nod at the computer: "Are you sure it's Travis?"
"Has to be. I got into his folders in the game and found a list of avatars he's created to represent himself. Then I had a few of my students go online and look for those names. He's been logging on and off today. The character's name is Stryker--with a y. He's in the category of Thunderer, which makes him a warrior. A killer, basically. One of my students--a girl who's played DimensionQuest for a few years--found him about an hour ago. He was roaming around the countryside just killing people. She watched him slaughter a whole family. Men, women and children. And then he corpse camped."
"What's that?"
"In these games, when you kill another character they lose power, points and whatever they're carrying with them. But they're not permanently dead. Avatars come to life again after a few minutes. But they're in a weakened state until they can start to regain power. Corpse camping is when you kill a victim and just wait nearby for them to come back to life. Then you kill them again, when they have no defenses. It's very bad form, and most players don't do it. It's like killing a wounded soldier on the battlefield. But Travis apparently does it regularly."
Dance stared at the homepage of DimensionQuest, an elaborate graphic of foggy glens, towering mountains, fantastical cities, turbulent oceans. And mythical creatures, warriors, heroes, wizards. Villains too, including Qetzal, the spiky demon with the sewn-shut mouth, wide eyes chillingly staring at her.
A bit of that nightmare world had coalesced here on earth, smack within her jurisdiction.
Boling tapped his cell phone, on his belt. "Irv's monitoring the game. He wrote a bot--an automated computer program--that'll tell him when Stryker's online. He'll call or IM me the instant Travis logs on."
Dance glanced into the kitchen and saw her mother staring out the window. Her palms were clenched.
&
nbsp; "Now, what I was thinking," Boling continued, "tracing is out, but if we can find him online and watch him, maybe we can learn something about him. Where he is, who he knows."
"How?"
"Watching his instant messages. That's how players communicate in DQ. But there's nothing we can do until he logs on again."
He sat back. They sipped wine in silence.
Which was suddenly broken as Wes called, "Mom!" from the doorway.
Dance jumped and found herself easing away from Boling as she turned toward her son.
"When do we eat?"
"As soon as Martine and Steve get here."
The boy retreated to the TV. And Dance and Boling walked inside, carting wine and the computer. The professor replaced the unit in his bag and then snagged a bowl of pretzels from the island in the kitchen.
He headed into the living room and offered the bowl to Wes and Stu. "Emergency rations to keep our strength up."
"Yea!" the boy cried, grabbing a handful. Then said, "Grand pa, go back to that fumble so Mr. Boling can see it."
DANCE HELPED HER mother and daughter finish setting out the food, buffet style, on the island in the kitchen.
She and Edie talked about the weather, about the dogs, about the children, about Stuart. Which led to the aquarium, which led to a water referendum, which led to a half dozen other trivial subjects, all of which had one thing in common: They were as far away from the subject of the arrest of Edie Dance as could be.
She watched Wes, Jon Boling and her father sitting together in the living room, with the sports show on the screen. They all laughed hard when a receiver crashed into a Gatorade tank and drenched a cameraman, and were digging into the pretzels and dip as if dinner were an empty promise. Dance had to smile at the homey, comforting scene.
Then she glanced down at her cell phone, disappointed that Michael O'Neil hadn't called.
As she was setting the table on the Deck, the other guests arrived: Martine Christensen and her husband, Steven Cahill, climbed the stairs, their nine-year-old twin boys in tow. Delighting Wes and Maggie, they also brought with them a long-haired tawny puppy, a briard named Raye.
The couple greeted Edie Dance warmly, avoiding any mention of the cases; either the Roadside Cross attacks or the one involving Edie.