Jeffery Deaver - Kathryn Dance 2 Roadside Crosses

B Y THE S AME A UTHOR

The Bodies Left Behind

The Broken Window*

The Chopin Manuscript (Audible.com) (Contributor)

The Sleeping Doll**

More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two

The Cold Moon*
**

The Twelfth Card*

Garden of Beasts

Twisted: Collected Stories

The Vanished Man*

The Stone Monkey*

The Blue Nowhere

The Empty Chair*

Speaking in Tongues

The Devils Teardrop

The Coffin Dancer*

The Bone Collector*

A Maidens Grave

Praying for Sleep

The Lesson of Her Death

Mistress of Justice

Hard News

Death of a Blue Movie Star

Manhattan Is My Beat

Hells Kitchen

Bloody River Blues

Shallow Graves

Best American Mysteries (Editor)

A Century of Great Suspense Stories (Editor)

A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor)

Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (Introduction)

Simon & Schuster
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New York, NY 10020

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2009 by Jeffrey Deaver

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Deaver, Jeffery.
Roadside crosses: a Kathryn Dance novel / Jeffery Deaver.
1st Simon & Schuster hardcover ed.
p. cm.
1. PolicewomenFiction. 2. Juvenile homicideFiction. 3. Internet and teenagersFiction. 4. Online social networksFiction. 5. Serial murderersFiction. 6. CaliforniaFiction. I. Title.
PS3554.E1755R63 2009
813'.54dc22
2009002284

ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-6602-4
ISBN-10: 1-4391-6602-1

Visit us on the Web:
http://www.SimonandSchuster.com [http://www.SimonandSchuster.com]

Authors Note

One theme of this novel is the blurring of the line between the synthetic worldthe online lifeand the real world. Accordingly, if you happen to come across a website address in the pages that follow, you might wish to type it into your browser and go where it takes you. You wont need whats in those websites to enjoy the novel, but you may just find a few extra clues that will help you unravel the mystery. You might also simply be interestedor disturbedby what you find there.[W]hat the Internet and its cult of anonymity do is to provide a blanket sort of immunity for anybody who wants to say anything about anybody else, and it would be difficult in this sense to think of a more morally deformed exploitation of the concept of free speech.

RICHARD BERNSTEIN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

Contents

MONDAY

Chapter 1

OUT OF PLACE.The California Highway Patrol trooper, young with bristly yellow hair beneath his crisp hat, squinted through the windshield of his Crown Victoria Police Interceptor as he cruised south along Highway 1 in Monterey. Dunes to the right, modest commercial sprawl to the left.Something was out of place. What?Heading home at 5:00 p.m. after his tour had ended, he surveyed the road. The trooper didnt write a lot of tickets here, leaving that to the county deputiesprofessional courtesybut he occasionally lit up somebody in a German or Italian car if he was in a mood, and this was the route he often took home at this time of day, so he knew the highway pretty well.Therethat was it. Something colorful, a quarter mile ahead, sat by the side of the road at the base of one of the hills of sand that cut off the view of Monterey Bay.What could it be?He hit his light barprotocoland pulled over onto the right shoulder. He parked with the hood of the Ford pointed leftward toward traffic, so a rear-ender would shove the car away from, not over, him, and climbed out. Stuck in the sand just beyond the shoulder was a crossa roadside memorial. It was about eighteen inches high and homemade, cobbled together out of dark, broken-off branches, bound with wire like florists use. Dark red roses lay in a splashy bouquet at the base. A cardboard disk was in the center, the date of the accident written on it in blue ink. There were no names on the front or back.Officially these memorials to traffic accident victims were discouraged, since people were occasionally injured, even killed, planting a cross or leaving flowers or stuffed animals.Usually the memorials were tasteful and poignant. This one was spooky.What was odd, though, was that he couldnt remember any accidents along here. In fact this was one of the safest stretches of Highway 1 in California. The roadway becomes an obstacle course south of Carmel, like that spot of a really sad accident several weeks ago: two girls killed coming back from a graduation party. But here, the highway was three lanes and mostly straight, with occasional lazy bends through the old Fort Ord grounds, now a college, and the shopping districts.The trooper thought about removing the cross, but the mourners might return to leave another one and endanger themselves again. Best just to leave it. Out of curiosity hed check with his sergeant in the morning and find out what had happened. He walked back to his car, tossed his hat on the seat and rubbed his crew cut. He pulled back into traffic, his mind no longer on roadside accidents. He was thinking about what his wife would be making for supper, about taking the kids to the pool afterward.And when was his brother coming to town? He looked at the date window on his watch. He frowned. Was that right? A glance at his cell phone confirmed that, yes, today was June 25.That was curious. Whoever had left the roadside cross had made a mistake. He remembered that the date crudely written on the cardboard disk was June 26, Tuesday, tomorrow.Maybe the poor mourners whod left the memorial had been so upset theyd jotted the date down wrong.Then the images of the eerie cross faded, though they didnt vanish completely and, as the officer headed down the highway home, he drove a bit more carefully.Next page