VEN WITHOUT THE benefit of excessive lunchtime Chardonnay, Donald Hawken was feeling maudlin.

But he didn’t care.

He rose from the couch where he’d been sitting with Lily and embraced James Chilton, who was entering the living room of his vacation house in Hollister, carrying several more bottles of white wine.

Chilton gripped him back, only mildly embarrassed. Lily chided her husband, “Donald.”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Hawken laughed. “But I can’t help it. The nightmare’s over. God, what you’ve been through.”

“What we’ve all been through,” Chilton said.

The story of the psycho was all over the news. How the Mask Killer wasn’t the boy but was really some crazy man who’d been trying to avenge a posting that Chilton had put on his report several years ago.

“And he was actually going to shoot you on camera?”

Chilton lifted an eyebrow.

“Jesus our Lord,” said Lily, looking pale—and surprising Hawken, since she was a professed agnostic. But Lily, like her husband, was a bit tipsy too.

“I’m sorry about that boy,” Hawken said. “He was an innocent victim. Maybe the saddest victim of all.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Lily wondered.

“I doubt it,” Chilton said grimly. “Schaeffer would have to kill him. Leave no traces. I’m heartsick about it.”

Hawken was pleased he’d rejected the request—well, from that Agent Dance it had almost been an order—to go back to San Diego. No way. He thought back to those dismal days when Sarah had died and James Chilton had sped to his side.

This is what friends did.

Breaking the pall that had descended, Lily said, “I’ve got an idea. Let’s plan a picnic for tomorrow. Pat and I can cook.”

“Love it,” Chilton said. “We know this beautiful park nearby.”

But Hawken wasn’t through being maudlin. He lifted his glass of Sonoma-Cutrer. “Here’s to friends.”

“To friends.”

They sipped. Lily, her pretty face crowned with curly golden hair, asked, “When’re they coming up? Pat and the kids?”

Chilton glanced at his watch. “She left about fifteen minutes ago. She’ll pick the boys up from camp. Then head up here. Shouldn’t be too long.”

Hawken was amused. The Chiltons lived close to one of the most beautiful waterfronts in the world. And yet for their vacation house they’d chosen a rustic old place in the hills forty-five minutes inland, hills that were decidedly dusty and brown. Yet the place was quiet and peaceful.

Y ningunos turistas. A relief after summertime Carmel, filled to the gills with out-of-towners.

“Okay,” Hawken announced. “I can’t wait any longer.”

“Can’t wait?” Chilton asked, a perplexed smile on his face.

“What I told you I was bringing.”

“Oh, the painting? Really, Don. You don’t need to do that.”

“It’s not ‘need.’ It’s something I want to do.”

Hawken went into the guest bedroom where he and Lily were staying and returned with a small canvas, an impressionistic painting of a blue swan on a darker blue background. His late wife, Sarah, had bought it in San Diego or La Jolla. One day, while Jim Chilton was in Southern California to help after her death, Hawken had found the man staring at the painting admiringly.

Hawken had decided at that moment that someday he’d give the art- work to his friend, in gratitude for all he’d done during those terrible times.

Now, the three of them gazed at the bird taking off from the water.

“It’s beautiful,” Chilton said. He propped the painting up on the mantel. “Thank you.”

Hawken, now a half glass of wine more maudlin yet, was lifting his glass to make a toast when a door squeaked in the kitchen.

“Oh,” he said, smiling. “Is that Pat?”

But Chilton was frowning. “She couldn’t be here that fast.”

“But I heard something. Didn’t you?”

The blogger nodded. “I did, yes.”

Then, looking toward the doorway, Lily said, “There’s somebody there. I’m sure.” She was frowning. “I hear footsteps.”

“Maybe—” Chilton began.

But his words were cut off as Lily screamed. Hawken spun around, dropping his wineglass, which shattered loudly.

A boy in his late teens, hair askew, face dotted with acne, stood in the doorway. He seemed stoned. He was blinking and looking around, disoriented. In his hand was a pistol. Shit, Hawken thought, they hadn’t locked the back door when they’d arrived. This kid had wandered inside to rob them.

Gangs. Had to be gangs.

“What do you want?” Hawken whispered. “Money? We’ll give you money!”

The boy continued to squint. His eyes settled on Jim Chilton and narrowed.

Then Donald Hawken gasped. “It’s the boy from the blog! Travis Brigham!” Skinnier and paler than in the pictures on TV. But there was no doubt. He wasn’t dead. What was this all about? But one thing he understood: The boy was here to shoot his friend Jim Chilton.

Lily grabbed her husband’s arm.

“No! Don’t hurt him, Travis,” Hawken cried and felt an urge to step in front of Chilton, to protect him. Only his wife’s grip kept him from doing so.

The boy took a step closer to Chilton. He blinked, then looked away—toward Hawken and Lily. He asked in a weak voice, “They’re the ones you want me to kill?”

What did he mean?

And James Chilton whispered, “That’s right, Travis. Go ahead and do what you agreed. Shoot.”

SQUINTING AGAINST THE raw light that stung his eyes like salt, Travis Brigham stared at the couple—the people his captor had told him, in the basement a half hour ago, he had to kill: Donald and Lily. His kidnapper had explained that they’d be arriving soon and would be upstairs—in this house, the very one whose basement he’d spent the past three or four days in.

Travis couldn’t understand why his kidnapper wanted them dead. But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was keeping his family alive.

Travis, did you bring me M’s?

He lifted the gun, aimed at them.

As the couple blurted words he hardly heard, he tried to hold the weapon steady. This took all his effort. After days of being chained to a bed, he was weak as a bird. Even the climb up the stairs had been a chore. The gun was weaving.

“No, please no!” someone cried, the man or the woman. He couldn’t tell. He was confused, disoriented by the glaring light. It stung his eyes. Travis aimed at the man and woman, but still, he kept wondering: Who are they, Donald and Lily? In the basement the man had said, “Look at them like characters in that game you play. DimensionQuest. Donald and Lily’re only avatars, nothing more than that.”

But these people sobbing in front of him weren’t avatars. They were real.

And they seemed to be his captor’s friends—at least in their minds. “What’s going on? Please, don’t hurt us.” From Lily. “James, please!”

But the man—James, it seemed—just kept his eyes, cool eyes, on Travis. “Go ahead. Shoot!”

“James, no! What are you saying?”

Travis steadied the gun, pointing it at Donald. He pulled back the hammer.

Lily screamed.

And then something in Travis’s mind clicked.

James?

The boy from the blog.

Roadside Crosses.

Travis blinked. “James Chilton?” Was this the blogger?

“Travis,” the captor said firmly, stepping behind him, pulling another gun from his back pocket. He touched it to Travis’s head. “Go ahead and do it. I told you not to say anything, don’t ask questions. Just shoot!”

Travis asked Donald, “He’s James Chilton?”

“Yes,” the man whispered.

What, Travis wondered, was going on here?

Chilton shoved the gun harder into Travis’s skull. It hurt. “Do it. Do it, or you’ll die. And your family will die.”

The boy lowered the gun. He shook his head. “You don’t have any friends at my house. You were lying to me. You’re doing this alone.”

“If you don’t do it, I’ll kill you and then go to their house and kill them. I swear I will.”

Hawken cried, “Jim! Is this…for God’s sake, what is this?”

Lily cried uncontrollably.

Travis Brigham understood now. Shoot them or not, he was dead. His family would be all right; Chilton had no interest in them. But he was dead. A faint laugh eased from his throat and he felt tears sting eyes already stinging from the sunlight.

He thought of Caitlin, her beautiful eyes and smile.

Thought of his mother.

Thought of Sammy.

And of all the terrible things that people had said about him in the blog.

Yet he’d done nothing wrong. His life was about nothing more than trying to get through school as best he could, to play a game that made him happy, to spend some time with his brother and look after the boy, to meet a girl who wouldn’t mind that he was a geek with troubled skin. Travis had never in his life hurt anybody intentionally, never dissed anyone, never posted a bad word about them.

And the whole world had attacked him.

Who’d care if he killed himself?

Nobody.

So Travis did the only thing he could. He lifted the gun to his own chin.

Look at the luser, his life is epic FAIL!!!

Travis’s finger slipped around the trigger of the gun. He began to squeeze.

The explosion was fiercely loud. Windows shook, acrid smoke filled the room, and a delicate porcelain cat tumbled from the mantelpiece and shattered on the hearth into dozens of pieces.