But the boy seemed to be troubled. “You really don’t know very much about Travis, do you?”
Dance was about to say they knew all too much. But interviewers know when to let the subject take over. With a glance at Boling, she said, “No, I guess we don’t.”
“I want to show you something,” Jason said, standing up.
“Where?”
“In Aetheria.”
KATHRYN DANCE ONCE again assumed the identity of the avatar Greenleaf, who was fully resurrected.
As Jason typed, the character appeared on the screen in a forest clearing. As before, the scenery was beautiful, the graphics astonishingly clear. Dozens of people were wandering around, some armed, some carrying bags or packs, some leading animals.
“This is Otovius, where Travis and me hang out a lot. It’s a nice place. . . . You mind?”
He bent forward toward the keys.
“No,” Dance told him. “Go ahead.”
He typed, then received a message: “Kiaruya is not logged on.”
“Bummer.”
“Who’s that?” Boling asked.
“My wife.”
“Your what?” Dance asked the seventeen-year-old.
He blushed. “We got married a couple months ago.”
She laughed in astonishment.
“Last year I met this girl in the game. She’s totally cool. She’s been all the way through the Southern Mountains. By herself! She didn’t die once. And me and her hit it off. We went on some quests. I proposed. Well, sort of she did. But I wanted to too. And we got married.”
“Who is she really?”
“Some girl in Korea. But she got a bad grade in a couple of her classes—”
“In the real world?” Boling asked.
“Yeah. So her parents took away her account.”
“You’re divorced?”
“Naw, just on hold for a while. Till she gets her math scores up to a B again.” Jason added, “Funny. Most people who get married in DQ stay married. In the real world a lot of our parents’re divorced. I hope she gets back online soon. I miss her.” He jabbed a finger at the screen. “Anyway, let’s go to the house.”
Under Jason’s direction, Dance’s avatar maneuvered around the landscape, past dozens of people and creatures.
Jason led them to a cliff. “We could walk there, but that’d, you know, take a while. You can’t pay for a Pegasus ride because you haven’t earned any gold yet. But I can give you transport points.” He began to type. “It’s like my dad’s frequent flier thing.”
He keyboarded some more codes and then had the avatar climb on the winged horse and off they flew. The flight was breathtaking. They soared over the landscape, around thick clouds. Two suns burned in the azure sky and occasionally other flying creatures would cruise past, as did dirigibles and bizarre flying machines. Below, Dance saw cities and villages. And, in a few places, fires.
“Those’re battles,” Jason said. “Look pretty epic.” He sounded as if he regretted missing the chance to lop off some heads.
A minute later they arrived at a seashore—the ocean was bright green—and slowly eased in for a landing on a rolling hillside overlooking the turbulent water.
Dance remembered Caitlin saying that Travis liked the shoreline because it reminded him of some place in a game he played.
Jason showed her how to dismount the horse. And, under her own controls, she navigated Greenleaf toward where Jason pointed, a cottage.
“That’s the house. We all built it together.”
Like a barn raising in the 1800s, Dance reflected.
“But Travis earned all the money and the supplies. He paid for it. We hired trolls to do the heavy work,” he added without a bit of irony.
When her avatar was at the door, Jason gave her a verbal password. She spoke it into the computer’s microphone and the door opened. They walked inside.
Dance was shocked. It was a beautiful, spacious house, filled with bizarre but cozy furniture, out of a Dr. Seuss book. There were walkways and stairs that led to various rooms, windows of odd shapes, a huge, burning fireplace, a fountain and a large pool.
A couple of pets—some goofy hybrid of a goat and salamander—walked around croaking.
“It’s nice, Jason. Very nice.”
“Yeah, well, we make cool homes in Aetheria ’cause where we live, I mean, in the real world, our places aren’t so nice, you know. Okay, like, here’s what I wanted to show you. Go there.” He directed her past a small pond populated with shimmery green fish. Her avatar stopped at a large metal door. It was barred with several locks. Jason gave her another pass code and the door slowly opened—accompanied by creaking sound effects. She sent Greenleaf through the doorway, down a flight of stairs and into what looked like a drugstore combined with an emergency room.
Jason looked at Dance and noticed she was frowning.
He said, “Understand?”
“Not exactly.”
“That’s what I meant about knowing Travis. He’s not about weapons and battle strategy or any of that. He’s about this. It’s his healing room.”
“Healing room?” Dance asked.
The boy explained, “Travis hated fighting. He created Stryker as a warrior when he first started playing, but he didn’t like that. That’s why he sold him to me. He’s a healer, not a fighter. And I mean a healer at the forty-ninth level. You know how good that makes him? He’s the best. He’s awesome.”
“A healer?”
“That’s his avatar’s name. Medicus—it’s some foreign language for ‘doctor.’”
“Latin,” Boling said.
“Ancient Rome?” Jason asked.
“Right.”
“Sweet. Anyway, Travis’s other professions are herb growing and potion making. This is where people come to be treated. It’s like a doctor’s office.”
“Doctor?” Dance mused. She rose from her desk, found the stack of papers they’d taken from Travis’s room and flipped through them. Rey Carraneo had been right—the pictures were of cut-up bodies. But they weren’t the victims of crimes; they were of patients during surgery. They were very well done, technically accurate.
Jason continued, “Characters from all over Aetheria would come to see him. Even the game designers know about him. They asked him for advice in creating NPCs. He’s a total legend. He’s made thousands of dollars by making these healing potions, buffers, life regenerators and power spells.”
“In real money?”
“Oh, yeah. He sells them on eBay. Like how I bought Stryker.”
Dance recalled the strongbox they’d found under the boy’s bed. So this was how he’d made the cash.
Jason tapped the screen. “Oh, and there?” He was indicating a glass case in which rested a crystal ball on the end of a gold stick. “That’s the scepter of healing. It took him, like, fifty quests to earn it. Nobody ever got one before, in the whole history of DQ.” Jason winced. “He almost lost it once. . . .” An awestruck expression washed over his face. “That was one messed-up night.”
The boy sounded as if the event were a tragedy in real life.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Medicus and me and some of us in the family were on this quest in the Southern Mountains, which’re like three miles high and really dangerous places. We were looking for this magical tree. The Tree of Seeing, it’s called. And, this was sweet, we found the home of Ianna, the Elvish queen, who everybody’s heard of but never seen. She’s way famous.”
“She’s an NPC, right?” Boling asked.
“Yeah.”
He reminded Dance, “A nonplayer character. One that’s created by the game itself.”
Jason seemed offended at the characterization. “But the algorithm is awesome! She’s beyond any bot you’ve ever seen.”
The professor nodded an apologetic concession.
“So we’re there and just hanging and talking and she’s telling us about the Tree of Seeing and how we can find it, and all of a sudden we’re a
ttacked by this raiding party from the Northern Forces. And everybody’s fighting, and this asshole shoots the queen with a special arrow. She’s going to die. Trav tries to save her but his healing isn’t working. So he decides to Shift. We’re like, no, man, don’t do it! But he did anyway.”
The boy was speaking with such reverence that Dance found herself leaning forward, her leg bobbing with tension. Boling too was staring at him.
“What’s that, Jason? Go on.”
“Okay, what it is, sometimes, if somebody’s dying, you can submit your life to the Entities in the High Realm. It’s called Shifting. And the Entities start taking your life force and giving it to the person who’s dying. Maybe the person will come back before your life force is gone. But it might take all your life force and you’ll die, and they’ll die too. Only when you die because you’ve Shifted, you lose everything. I mean everything you’ve done and earned, all your points, all your Resources, all your Reputation, for as long as you’ve been playing the game. They all, like, just go away. If Travis’d died, he would’ve lost the scepter, his house, his gold, his flying horses. . . . He would have to start over like a newbie.”
“He did that?”
Jason nodded. “It was, like, way close. He was almost out of life force, but the queen revived. She kissed him. That was, like, epic! And then the elves and us got together and kicked some Northern Force ass. Man, that night rocked. It was epic win. Everybody who plays the game still talks about it.”
Dance was nodding. “Okay, Jason, thanks. You can log off.”
“Like, you don’t want to play anymore? You were kind of getting a feel for how to move.”
“Maybe later.”
The boy tapped the keys and the game closed.
Dance glanced at her watch. “Jon, could you take Jason back home? There’s somebody I need to talk to.”
A to B to X . . .
Chapter 32
“I’D LIKE TO see Caitlin, please.”
“You’re . . . ?” asked Virginia Gardner, the mother of the girl who’d survived the June 9 car crash.
Dance identified herself. “I spoke to your daughter the other day at summer school.”
“Oh, you’re the policewoman. You arranged for the guard for Cait at the hospital the other day, and out in front of our house.”
“That’s right.”
“Have you found Travis?”
“No, I—”
“Is he nearby?” the woman asked breathlessly, looking around.
“No, he’s not. I’d just like to ask your daughter a few more questions.”
The woman invited Dance into the entryway of the huge contemporary house in Carmel. Dance recalled that Caitlin was headed for some nice undergrad and medical schools. Whatever Dad or Mom did, it seemed they could afford the tuition.
Dance surveyed the massive living room. There were stark abstracts on the walls—two huge, spiky black-and-yellow paintings and one with bloody red splotches. She found them troubling to look at. She thought how different this was from the cozy feel of Travis’s and Jason’s house in the DimensionQuest game.
Yeah, well, we make cool homes in Aetheria ’cause where we live, I mean, in the real world, our places aren’t so nice, you know. . . .
The girl’s mother disappeared and a moment later returned with Caitlin, in jeans and a lime green shell under a tight-fitting white sweater.
“Hi,” the teenager said uneasily.
“Hello, Caitlin. How you feeling?”
“Okay.”
“Hoping you’ll have a minute or two. I have a few follow-up questions.”
“Sure, I guess.”
“Can we sit down somewhere?”
“We can go in the sunroom,” Mrs. Gardner said.
They passed an office and Dance saw a University of California diploma on the wall. Medical school. Caitlin’s father.
The mother and daughter on the couch, Dance in a straight-backed chair. She scooted it closer and said, “I wanted to give you an update. There was another killing today. Have you heard?”
“Oh, no,” Caitlin’s mother whispered.
The girl said nothing. She closed her eyes. Her face, framed by limp blond hair, seemed to grow paler.
“Really,” the mother whispered angrily, “I’ll never see how you could go out with somebody like that.”
“Mom,” Caitlin whined, “what do you mean, ‘go out’? Christ, I never went out with Travis. I never would. Somebody like him?”
“I just mean he’s obviously dangerous.”
“Caitlin,” Dance interrupted. “We’re really desperate to find him. We’re just not having any luck. I’m learning more about him from friends, but—”
Her mother again: “Those Columbine kids.”
“Please, Mrs. Gardner.”
An affronted look, but she fell silent.
“I told you everything I could think of the other day.”
“Just a few more questions. I won’t be long.” She scooted the chair closer yet and pulled out a notebook. She opened it and flipped through the pages carefully, pausing once or twice.
Caitlin was immobile as she stared at the notebook.
Dance smiled, looking into the girl’s eyes. “Now, Caitlin, think back to the night of the party.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Something interesting’s come up. I interviewed Travis before he ran off. I took some notes.” A nod at the notebook resting on her lap.
“You did? You talked to him?”
“That’s right. I didn’t pay much attention until I’d spoken to you and some other people. But now I’m hoping to piece together some clues as to where he’s hiding.”
“How hard could it be to find—” Caitlin’s mother began, as if she couldn’t stop herself. But she fell silent under Dance’s stern glance.
The agent continued, “Now, you and Travis talked some, right? That night.”
“Not really.”
Dance was frowning slightly and flipping through her notes.
The girl added, “Well, except when it was time to leave. I meant during the party he was hanging by himself mostly.”
Dance said, “On the ride home you did, though.” Tapping the notebook.
“Yeah, talked some. I don’t remember too much. It was all a blur, with the crash and all.”
“I’m sure it was. But I’m going to read you a couple of statements and I’d like you to fill in the details. Tell me if anything jogs your memory about what Travis said on the drive home, before the accident.”
“I guess.”
Dance consulted her notebook. “Okay, here’s the first one: ‘The house was pretty sweet but the driveway freaked me out.’ ” She looked up. “I was thinking maybe that meant Travis had a fear of heights.”
“Yeah, that’s what he was talking about. The driveway was on this hillside, and we were talking about it. Travis said he’d always had this fear of falling. He looked at the driveway and he said why didn’t they have a guardrail on it.”
“Good. That’s helpful.” Another smile. Caitlin reciprocated. Dance returned to the notes. “And this one? ‘I think boats rule. I’ve always wanted one.’ ”
“Oh, that? Yeah. We were talking about Fisherman’s Wharf. Travis really thought it’d be cool to sail to Santa Cruz.” She looked away. “I think he wanted to ask me to go with him, but he was too shy.”
Dance smiled. “So he might be hiding out on a boat somewhere.”
“Yeah, that could be it. I think he said something about how neat it would be to stow away on a boat.”
“Good. . . . Here’s another one. ‘She has more friends than me. I only have one or two I could hang out with.’ ”
“Yeah, I remember him saying that. I felt sorry for him, that he didn’t have many friends. He talked about it for a while.”
“Did he mention names? Anybody he might be staying with? Think. It’s important.”
The teenager squinted and her hand rubbed her knee. Then sighed.
“Nope.”
“That’s okay, Caitlin.”
“I’m sorry.” A faint pout.
Dance kept the smile on her face. She was steeling herself for what was coming next. It would be difficult—for the girl, for her mother, for Dance herself. But there was no choice.
She leaned forward. “Caitlin, you’re not being honest with me.”
The girl blinked. “What?”
Virginia Gardner muttered, “You can’t say that to my daughter.”
“Travis didn’t tell me any of those things,” Dance said, her voice neutral. “I made them up.”
“You lied!” the mother snapped.
No, she hadn’t, not technically. She’d crafted her words carefully and never said they were actual statements from Travis Brigham.
The girl had gone pale.
The mother grumbled, “What is this, some kind of trap?”
Yes, that was exactly what it was. Dance had a theory and she needed to prove it true or false. Lives were at stake.
Dance ignored the mother and said to Caitlin, “But you were playing along as if Travis had said all of those things to you in the car.”
“I . . . I was just trying to be helpful. I felt bad I didn’t know more.”
“No, Caitlin. You thought you might very well have talked with him about them in the car. But you couldn’t remember because you were intoxicated.”
“No!”
“I’m going to ask you to leave now,” the girl’s mother blurted.
“I’m not through,” Dance growled, shutting up Virginia Gardner.
The agent assessed: with her science background—and her survival skills in this household—Caitlin had a thinking and sensing personality type, according to the Myers-Briggs index. She struck Dance as probably more introverted than extraverted. And, though her liar’s personality would fluctuate, she was at the moment an adaptor.
Lying for self-preservation.
If Dance had had more time she might have drawn the truth out slowly and in more depth. But with the Myers-Briggs typing and Caitlin’s personality of adaptor, Dance assessed she could push and not have to coddle, the way she had with Tammy Foster.
“You were drinking at the party.”
“I—”
“Caitlin, people saw you.”
Kathryn Dance Ebook Boxed Set : Roadside Crosses, Sleeping Doll, Cold Moon (9781451674217) Page 30
