OURS OF OPERA…

Sitting in Kathryn Dance's office, alone now, Jonathan Boling was cruising through Travis Brigham's computer, in a frantic pursuit of the meaning of the code. ours of opera…

He was sitting forward, typing fast, thinking that if Dance had been here, the kinesics expert within her could have drawn some fast conclusions from his posture and the focus of his eyes: He was a dog scenting prey.

Jon Boling was on to something.

Dance and the others were out at the moment, setting up surveillance. Boling had remained in her office to prowl through the boy's computer. He'd found a clue and was now trying to locate more data that would let him crack the code. ours of opera…

What did it mean?

A curious aspect of computers is that these crazy plastic and metal boxes contain ghosts. A computer hard drive is like a network of secret passages and corridors, leading farther and farther into the architecture of computer memory. It's possible-with considerable difficulty-to exorcise these hallways and rid them of the ghosts of data past, but usually most bits of information we've created or acquired remain forever, invisible and fragmented.

Boling was now wandering these hallways, using a program one of his students had hacked together, reading the scraps of data lodged in obscure places, like the wisps of souls inhabiting a haunted house.

Thinking of ghosts put him in mind of the DVD Kathryn Dance's son had lent him last night. Ghost in the Shell. He reflected on the nice time he'd had at her house, how much he'd enjoyed meeting her friends and family. The children especially. Maggie was adorable and funny and would, he knew without a doubt, become a woman every bit as formidable as her mother. Wes was more laid-back. He was easy to talk to and brilliant. Boling often speculated about what his own children would have been like if he'd settled down with Cassie.

He thought of her now, hoped she was enjoying her life in China.

Recalled the weeks prior to her leaving.

And withdrew his generous wishes about contentment in Asia.

Then Boling put thoughts of Cassandra aside, and concentrated on his ghost hunt in the computer. He was getting close to something important in that shred of binary code that translated into the English letters ours of opera.

Boling's puzzle-loving mind, which could often be counted on to come up with curious leaps of logic and insight, automatically concluded that those words were fragments of "hours of operation." Travis had looked at that phrase online just before he'd vanished. The implication of this was that perhaps, just perhaps, these words referred to a location the boy was interested in.

But computers don't store related data in the same place. The code for "ours of opera" might be found in a spooky closet in the basement, while the name of whatever they referred to could be in a hallway in the attic. Part of the physical address in one place, the rest in another. The brain of a computer is constantly making decisions about breaking up the data and storing bits and pieces in places that make sense to it but are incomprehensible to a layperson.

And so Boling was following the trail, strolling through the dark corridors filled with spooks.

He didn't think he'd been this engaged in a project for months, maybe years. Jonathan Boling enjoyed university work. He was curious by nature and he liked the challenge of research and writing, the stimulating conversations with fellow faculty members and with his students, getting young people excited about learning. Seeing the eyes of a student intensify suddenly when random facts coalesced into understanding was pure pleasure to him.

But at the moment, those satisfactions and victories seemed minor. Now, he was on a mission to save lives. And nothing else mattered to him but unlocking the code. ours of opera…

He looked at another storeroom in the haunted house. Nothing but jumbled bits and bytes. Another false lead.

More typing.

Nothing.

Boling stretched and a joint popped loudly. Come on, Travis, why were you interested in this place? What appealed to you about it?

And do you still go there? Does a friend work there? Do you buy something from its shelves, display cases, aisles?

Ten more minutes.

Give up?

No way.

Then he strolled into a new part of the haunted house. He blinked and gave a laugh. Like joining pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the answer to the code "ours of opera" materialized.

As he gazed at the name of the place, its relationship to Travis Brigham was ridiculously obvious. The professor was angry at himself for not deducing it even without the digital clue. Looking up the address, he pulled his phone off his belt and called Kathryn Dance. It rang four times and went to voice mail.

He was about to leave a message, but then he looked at his notes. The place wasn't far from where he was right now. No more than fifteen minutes.

He flipped the phone shut with a soft snap and stood, pulled on his jacket.

With an involuntary glance at the picture of Dance and her children, dogs front and center, he stepped out of her office and headed for the front door of the CBI.

Aware that what he was about to do was possibly a very bad idea, Jon Boling left the synth world to continue his quest in the real.

"IT'S CLEAR," REY Carraneo told Kathryn Dance as he returned to the living room where she stood over Donald and Lily Hawken. Dance's pistol was in her hand as she was looking vigilantly out the windows and into the rooms of the small house.

The couple, shaken and unsmiling, sat on a new couch, the factory plastic wrap still covering it.

Dance replaced her Glock. She hadn't expected the boy to be inside-he'd been hiding in the side yard and had appeared to flee when the police arrived-but Travis's expertise at the game of DimensionQuest, his skill at combat, made her wonder if the teenager had somehow seemed to escape but had actually slipped inside.

The door opened and massive Albert Stemple stuck his head in. "Nup. He's gone." The man was wheezing-both from the pursuit and from the residual effects of the gas at Kelley Morgan's house. "Got the deputy lookin' up and down the streets. And we got a half dozen more cars on the way. Somebody saw somebody in a hooded sweatshirt on a bicycle heading through the alleys, making for downtown. I called it in. But…" He shrugged. Then the bulky agent vanished and his boots clomped down the steps as he went to join in the manhunt.

Dance, Carraneo, Stemple and the MCSO deputy had arrived ten minutes ago. As they'd been meeting with likely targets, an idea had occurred to Dance. She thought about Jon Boling's theory: that, expanding his targets, Travis might include people merely mentioned favorably in the blog, even if they hadn't posted.

Dance had gone to the site once again and read through the blog's homepage.

http://www.thechiltonreport.com

One name that stood out was Donald Hawken, an old friend of James Chilton's, who was mentioned in the "On the Home Front" section. Hawken might be the victim for whom Travis had left the cross on the windswept stretch of Highway 1.

So they'd driven to the man's house, their purpose to get Hawken and his wife out of danger and set up surveillance at the house.

But upon arriving, Dance had seen a figure in a hood, possibly holding a gun, lurking in the bushes to the side of the ranch. She'd sent Albert Stemple and the MCSO deputy after the intruder, and Rey Carraneo, with Dance behind him, barged into the house, guns drawn, to protect Hawken and his wife.

They were still badly shaken; they'd assumed Carraneo was the killer when the plainclothes agent had burst through the door, his weapon high.