Read Online Roadside Crosses: A Kathryn Dance Novel by Jeffery Deaver - Free Book Online Page A

which was duly noted and summarily ignored.
    Boling called his thanks and, after pouring three sugars into his coffee, dug into the cookies and ate two. “Good. No, better than good.”
    “She bakes them herself.”
    “Really? People do that? They don’t all come out of a Keebler bag?”
    Dance went for half a cookie and enjoyed a sip of coffee, though she was caffeinated enough from her earlier meeting with Michael O’Neil.
    “Let me tell you what’s going on.” She explained to Boling about the attack on Tammy Foster. Then said, “And we have to get into her laptop.”
    Boling nodded understandingly. “Ah, the one that went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean.”
    “It’s toast . . .”
    He corrected, “With the water, more likely it’s oatmeal—if we’re keeping to breakfast food metaphors.”
    Just then a young MCSO deputy stepped into Dance’s office, carrying a large paper bag. Good-looking and eager, though more cute than handsome, he had bright blue eyes, and for a moment he seemed about to salute. “Agent Dance?”
    “That’s right.”
    “I’m David Reinhold. Crime Scene at the Sheriff’s Office.”
    She nodded a greeting. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for bringing that over.”
    “You bet. Anything I can do.”
    He and Boling shook hands. Then the trim officer, in a perfectly pressed uniform, handed Dance the paper bag. “I didn’t put it in plastic. Wanted it to breathe. Get as much moisture out as we could.”
    “Thanks,” Boling said.
    “And I took the liberty of taking the battery out,” the young deputy said. He held up a sealed metal tube. “It’s a lithium-ion. I thought if water got inside there could be a fire risk.”
    Boling nodded, clearly impressed. “Good thinking.”
    Dance had no clue what he was talking about. Boling noticed her frown and explained that some lithium batteries, under certain circumstances, could burst into flames when exposed to water.
    “You a geek?” Boling asked him.
    The deputy replied, “Not really. Just stuff you pick up, you know.” He held out a receipt for Dance to sign and then pointed out the chain-of-custody card, attached to the bag itself. “If there’s anything else I can do, let me know.” He handed her a business card.
    She thanked him, and the young man retreated.
    Dance reached inside the bag and extracted Tammy’s laptop. It was pink.
    “What a color,” Boling said, shaking his head. He turned it over and examined the back.
    Dance asked him, “So, do you know somebody who could get it running and take a look at her files?”
    “Sure. Me.”
    “Oh, I thought you said you weren’t that much of a tech anymore.”
    “That’s not tech, not by today’s standards.” He smiled again. “It’s like rotating your tires on a car. Only I need a couple of tools.”
    “We don’t have a lab here. Nothing as sophisticated as you probably need.”
    “Well, that depends. I see you collect shoes.” Her closet door was open and Boling must’ve glancedinside, where a dozen pairs sat, more or less ordered, on the floor—for those nights when she went out after work, without stopping at home. She gave a laugh.
    Busted.
    He continued, “How ’bout personal care appliances?”
    “Personal care?”
    “I need a hair dryer.”
    She chuckled. “Sadly, all my beauty aids are at home.”
    “Then we better go shopping.”

Chapter 8
    JON BOLING NEEDED a bit more than a hair dryer, as it turned out. Though not much.
    Their shopping spree had yielded a Conair, a set of miniature tools and a metal box called an enclosure—a three-by-five-inch rectangle from which sprouted a wire that ended in a USB plug.
    These items now sat on Dance’s coffee table in her office at the CBI.
    Boling surveyed Tammy Foster’s designer laptop. “I can take it apart? I’m not going to screw up any evidence, am I?”
    “It’s been dusted for prints. All we found were Tammy’s. Go ahead and do what you want—she’s not a suspect. Besides, she lied to