And then she stopped fast.

A human figure was silhouetted in the fog no more than ten yards away. Crouching, she thought.

She gasped, clicked the light out and drew her gun.

Another look. Whoever-whatever-it might have been was gone.

But the image wasn't imagination. She was certain she'd seen somebody, male, she believed from the kinesics.

Now, footsteps were sounding clearly. Branches snapping, leaves rustling. He was flanking her, to her right. Moving, then pausing.

Dance fondled the cell phone in her pocket. But if she made a call, her voice would give away her position. And she had to assume that whoever was here in the dark on a damp, foggy night wasn't present for innocent purposes.

Retrace your steps, she told herself. Back to the car. Now. Thinking of the shotgun in her trunk, a weapon she'd fired once. In training.

Dance turned around and moved quickly, every step making a loud crinkle through the leaves. Every step shouting, Here I am, here I am.

She stopped. The intruder didn't. His steps telegraphed his transit over the leaves and underbrush as he continued on, somewhere in the dark fog to her right.

Then they stopped.

Had he stopped too? Or was he on leafless ground, moving in for an attack?

Just get back to the car, get under cover, rack the 12-gauge and call in backup.

It was fifty, sixty feet back to the chain-link fence. In the dim ambient light-moon diffused by fog-she surveyed the ground. Some places seemed less leaf-strewn than others, but there was no way to proceed quietly. She told herself she couldn't wait any longer.

But still the stalker was silent.

Was he hiding?

Had he left?

Or was he coming up close under cover of the dense foliage?

Near panicking, Dance whirled but saw nothing other than the ghosts of buildings, trees, some large tanks, half buried and rusting.

Dance crouched, wincing from the pain in her joints-from the chase, and the tumble, the other day at Travis's house. Then she moved toward the fence as quickly as she could. Resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to break into a run over ground strewn with construction-site booby traps.

Twenty-five feet to the chain link.

A snap nearby.

She stopped fast, dropped to her knees and lifted her weapon, searching for a target. She was holding her flashlight in her left hand and nearly clicked it on. But instinct once again told her not to. In the fog the beam would half blind her and give the intruder a perfect target.

Not far away a raccoon slipped from a hiding place and moved stiffly away, its kinesic message irritation at the disturbance.

Dance rose, turned back toward the fence and moved quickly over the leaves, looking behind her often. Nobody was in pursuit that she could see. Finally she pushed through the gate and began jogging toward her car, cell phone in her left hand, open, as she scrolled through previously dialed listings.

It was then that a voice from very close behind her echoed through the night. "Don't move," the man said. "I have a gun."

Heart slamming, Dance froze. He'd flanked her completely, gotten through another gate or silently scaled the fence.

She debated: If he was armed and wanted to kill her she'd be dead by now. And, with the mist and dimness, maybe he hadn't seen her weapon in her hand.

"I want you down on the ground. Now."

Dance began to turn.

"No! On the ground!"

But she kept turning until she was facing the intruder and his outstretched arm.

Shit. He was armed, the gun aimed directly at her.

But then she looked at the man's face and blinked. He wore a Monterey County Sheriff's Office uniform. She recognized him. It was the young, blue-eyed deputy who'd helped her out several times earlier. David Reinhold.

"Kathryn?"

"What are you doing here?"

Reinhold shook his head, a faint smile on his face. He didn't answer, just looked around. He lowered his weapon, but didn't slip it back into the holster. "Was it you? In there?" he finally asked, glancing back to the construction site.

She nodded.

Reinhold continued to look around, tense, his kinesics giving off signals that he was still ready for combat.

Then a tinny voice said from her side, "Boss, that you? You calling?"

Reinhold blinked at the sound.

Dance lifted her mobile and said, "TJ, you there?" When she'd heard the intruder come up behind her she'd hit "Dial."

"Yeah, boss. What's up?"

"I'm at that construction site off Harrison. I'm here with Deputy Reinhold from the sheriff's office."

"Did you find anything?" the young agent asked.

Dance felt her legs going weak, her heart pounding, now that the initial fright was over. "Not yet. I'll call you back."

"Got it, boss."

They disconnected.

Reinhold finally holstered his weapon. He inhaled slowly and puffed air out of his smooth cheeks. "That just about scared the you-know-what out of me."

Dance asked him, "What are you doing here?"

He explained that the MCSO had gotten a call an hour ago about "something" having to do with the case near the intersection of Pine Grove and Harrison.

The call that had spurred Dance to come here.

Since Reinhold had worked on the case, he explained, he'd volunteered to check it out. He'd been searching the construction site when he'd seen the beam of a flashlight and come closer to investigate. He hadn't recognized Dance in the fog and was worried that she might be a meth cooker or drug dealer.

"Did you find anything that suggests Travis is here?"

"Travis?" he asked slowly. "No. Why, Kathryn?"

"Just seems that this'd be a pretty good place to hide a kidnap victim."

"Well, I searched pretty carefully," the young deputy told her. "Didn't see a thing."

"Still," she said. "I want to be sure."

And called TJ back to arrange for a search party.

IN THE END they did learn what the anonymous caller had seen.

The discovery was made not by Dance or Reinhold, but by Rey Carraneo, who'd come here along with a half dozen other officers from the CHP, the MCSO and the CBI.

The "something" was a roadside cross. It had been planted on Pine Grove, not Harrison Road, about a hundred feet from the intersection.

But the memorial had nothing to do with Greg Schaeffer or Travis Brigham or the blog entries.

Dance sighed angrily.

This cross was fancier than the others, carefully made, and the flowers below it were daisies and tulips, not roses.

Another difference was that this one had a name on it. Two, in fact.

Juan Millar, R.I.P. Murdered by Edith Dance

Left by somebody from Life First-the anonymous caller, of course.

Angrily, she plucked it from the ground and flung it into the compound.

With nothing to search, and no evidence to examine, no witnesses to interview, Kathryn Dance trudged back to her car and returned home, wondering just how fitful her sleep would be.

If indeed she could sleep at all.