The Never Game

by Jeffery Deaver

  Standing over her was a young man about her age, on the other end of the style spectrum. The baggy cargo pants were well worn, and the loose red-and-black-checked shirt too large; this made him seem smaller than his frame, which was probably five-eight or -nine, slim. He had straight hair that was none too clean and was self-cut or clipped by a mother or sister. His dark brows nudged close over his fleshy nose. A big gray laptop, twice as thick as Shaw’s, was clutched in his hands. His face was bright red with embarrassment. Anger was in his eyes too. “You’re Sherry 38.” He shook his head. “We instant-messaged in Call to Arms IV. You said you’d be here. I’m Brad H 66.”

  “I’m not Sherry anybody. And I don’t know who the hell you are.”

  The man lowered his voice. “You said you wanted to hook up. You said it!” He muttered. “Then here I show up and you don’t like what you see. Right?”

  “Oh, excuse me. You really think I’m the sort of loser plays Call to Arms? Fuck off, okay?”

  Once more a scan of the room. The young man surrendered and walked to the order station.

  The perils of the internet. Had the poor kid been set up by bullies? Shaw recalled what Maddie Poole had told him about SWAT’ing. And what Marty Avon had told him about the ease of hacking gaming servers.

  Or was the kid right, that the description he’d sent the woman online didn’t match the in-person geek version, so she’d bailed on him?

  The kid placed an order, paid and took the number on the wire metal stand to a table in the back, dropped into a chair and opened his computer. He plugged in a bulky headset and began pounding away on the keys. His face was still red and he was muttering to himself.

  Shaw pulled out a notebook and opened his fountain pen. From memory he sketched a map of where Hank Thompson had been killed. His sure hand completed the drawing in five minutes. He signed it with his initials in the lower-right-hand corner, as he always did. He was waiting for the ink to dry when he looked up. Maddie Poole was walking in. Their eyes met. She smiled; he nodded.

  “Lookit you,” she said, possibly meaning his posture. He was leaning back in his chair, his feet stretched out in front of him, the Ecco tips pointed ceilingward.

  Then the smile faded. She’d scanned his face. The eyes, in particular.

  She sat down, took the bottle of beer from him and lifted it to her own lips. Drank a large mouthful.

  “I’ll buy you another one.”

  “Not a worry,” he said.

  “What is it? And you’d better not say ‘Nothing.’”

  He hadn’t texted or spoken about Thompson’s murder.

  “We lost the second victim.”

  “Colt. Jesus. Wait. Was it that murder in the state park? The guy who was shot?”

  A nod.

  “The Whispering Man thing again?”

  “The police still aren’t talking about that in the news—they don’t want the Gamer to know how much they know.”

  “Gamer?”

  “That’s what they’re calling him.” He sipped the beer. “He took Thompson into the mountains and left him with the five objects. Thompson came to and started a signal fire. That’s how we got onto him. But the Gamer came back to hunt him. That’s part of the game too.”

  She looked over the map, then up at his eyes, a frown of curiosity on her face. He explained about his custom of drawing the maps.

  “You’re good.”

  Shaw happened to be looking at the spot on the map that represented the foot of the cliff where Henry Thompson had died. He closed the notebook and put it away.

  Maddie touched his forearm firmly. “I’m sorry. What about Tony Knight? You didn’t tell me what happened. I was worried until I got your text.”

  “Things got busy. And Knight? I was wrong. It wasn’t him. He’s been helpful.”

  “Do the police have any ideas who it is?”

  “No. If I had to guess, a sociopath. Nothing I’ve ever seen before—this elaborate modeling on the game. My mother might have known people like that.”

  “You said she was a psychiatrist.”

  He nodded.

  Mary Dove Shaw had done a lot of research into medications for treating the criminally insane and as a principal investigator had funneled a lot of grant money to Cal and other schools.

  That was earlier in her career—before the migration east, of course. In the later years her practice was limited to family medicine and midwifing in and around White Sulphur Springs and the management of paranoid personality and schizophrenia, though the latter practice involved only one patient: Ashton Shaw.

  Shaw had yet to share with Maddie much about his father.

  She asked, “Are the police offering a reward?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know. I’m not interested in that. I just want to get him. I—”

  The rest of the sentence was never uttered. Maddie had lunged forward and kissed him, her strong hands gripping his jacket, her tongue probing.

  He tasted her, a hint of lipstick, though he hadn’t seen any color. Mint. He kissed back, hard.

  Shaw’s hand slipped to the back of her head, fingers splayed, entwined in her sumptuous hair. Pulling her closer, closer. Maddie leaned in and he felt her breasts against his chest.

  They began to speak simultaneously.

  She touched his lips with a finger. “Let me go first. I live three blocks from here. Now what were you going to say?”

  “I forgot.”

  47.

  Shaw led a nomadic life and didn’t have a large inventory of possessions. But the Winnebago was downright cluttered compared with Maddie Poole’s rental.

  True, it was temporary; she was only in town for C3, had driven up from her home outside L.A. Still . . .

  One aspect exaggerated the emptiness: the ancient place was huge, five bedrooms, possibly more. A cavernous dining room. A living room that could be a wedding venue.

  It was occupied by few possessions; her big desktop computer—a twenty-something-inch monitor dominating the table it sat on. On either side of the big Dell were cardboard cartons serving as end tables; they held books and magazines, DVDs and boxes of video game cartridges. An office chair rested before it. Surrounding the workstation were shopping bags from computer companies—giveaways, he guessed, from the conference.

  A mountain bike, well-used, sat in the corner. The brand was SANTA CRUZ. Shaw didn’t bike but when hiking or climbing he came across bikers often. He knew this make could go for nine thousand dollars. Also, there were free weights—twenty-five-pounders—and some elastic exercise contraption.

  In the bedroom, to the right, was a double-sized mattress and box spring, sitting on the floor. The sheets were atop it, untucked and swirled like a lazy hurricane.

  In the living room an unfortunate beige couch rested before a coffee table that made Frank Mulliner’s limb-fractured model look classy. The laminated dark wood top of Maddie’s was curling upward at the ends.

  The kitchen was empty of furniture and appliances other than those built in: a range, a fridge, an oven and a microwave. On the counter was a box of cornflakes and two bottles of white wine, a six-pack of Corona beer.

  Shaw dated the huge house around the 1930s. It was sorely in need of paint and repair. Water damage was prevalent and the plaster walls cracked in a dozen places.

  “Out of The Addams Family, right?” Maddie said, laughing.

  “True.”

  Last Halloween, Shaw had taken his nieces to an amusement park; it had featured a haunted house that looked a lot like this.

  She went on to explain that she’d found it through an Airbnb kind of service. It was available only because its days were numbered; next month it was being demolished, thanks to Siliconville. The stained wallpaper was of tiny, dark flowers on a pale blue background. The dotted effect was oddly disconcerting.

 
; “Wine?”

  “Corona.”

  She got a cold bottle from the refrigerator and poured herself a tall glass of wine, returned to the couch, handed him the beer and curled up. He sat too; their shoulders touched.

  “So . . . ?” From her.

  “This is where you ask if there’s anybody in my life.”

  “Good-looking and a mind reader.”

  “Wouldn’t be here if there was.”

  Clinking glasses. “Lot of men say that but I believe you.”

  He kissed her hard, his hand around the back of her neck once more, surprised that the tangles of her rust-shaded hair were so soft. He thought they’d be more fibrous. She leaned in and kissed back, her lips playful.

  She took a large sip of wine. A splash hit the couch.

  “Oops. Good-bye, security deposit.”

  He started to take the glass from her. She had one more hit and then relinquished it. The glass and his beer ended up on the wavy coffee table. They were kissing harder yet. Her legs straightened from their near-lotus fold and she eased back onto the cushions. His right hand descended from her hair to her ear to her cheek to her neck.

  “Bedroom?” Shaw whispered.

  A nod, a smile.

  They rose and walked inside. Just past the threshold Shaw kicked off his shoes. Maddie lagged, diverting momentarily, shutting out the living room and kitchen lights. He sat on the bed and tugged his socks off.

  “Got something that might be fun,” her voice whispered seductively from the dark space on the other side of the doorway.

  “Sure,” he said.

  When Maddie appeared in the doorway, she was wearing the Hong-Sung Immersion goggles.

  “Lord, Colter, I got what I think is the first smile out of you in two days.”

  She pulled them off and set them on the floor.

  Shaw reached out a hand and tugged her to him. He kissed her lips, the tattoo, her throat, her breasts. He started to pull her into the bed. She said in a soft voice, “I’m a lights-out girl. You okay with that?”

  Not his preference but under the circumstances perfectly fine.

  He rolled across the bed and clicked the cheap lamp off and, when he turned back, she was on him and their hands began undoing buttons and zippers.

  Naturally, it was played as a competitive game.

  This one ended in a tie.

  48.

  Nearly midnight.

  Colter Shaw rose and walked into the bathroom. He turned the light on and in his peripheral vision he saw Maddie scrambling, urgently, to pull a sheet up to her neck.

  Which explained the lights out. And explained the cover-up clothing of sweats and hoodies; many of the women at C3 wore tank tops and short-sleeved T’s.

  He’d gotten a glimpse of three or four scars on Maddie’s body.

  He recalled now that, earlier, as his hands and mouth roamed, she would subtly direct him away from certain places on her belly and shoulder and thigh.

  He guessed an accident.

  As they’d driven from the Quick Byte Café, she’d done so carelessly, speeding sometimes twenty over the limit, then slowed to let him catch up. Maybe she’d been in a car crash or biking mishap.

  Making sure to shut out the bathroom light before he opened the door, Shaw returned to bed, a towel wrapped around his waist. He passed her by and went into the kitchen, fetched two bottles of water from the fridge and returned. He handed her one, which she took and set on the floor.

  He drank a few sips, then lay back on the lumpy mattress. The room was not completely dark and he could see that she’d pulled a sweatshirt on while he was in the kitchen. The shirt had some writing on the front. He couldn’t read the words. She was sitting up, checking texts. Shaw could see the light from her phone on her face—a ghostly image. The only other illumination was the faint glow from her monitor’s screen saver bleeding through the door to the living room.

  He moved closer to her, sitting up too. His fingers lightly brushed her tattoo.

  I’ll tell you later. Maybe . . .

  Maddie stiffened. It was very subtle, almost imperceptible.

  Yet not quite.

  He put distance between them, propping the pillow up and sitting against it. He’d been here often enough—on both sides of the bed, so to speak—to know not to ask what was wrong. Words that came too fast were usually worse than no words at all.

  Head on the pillow, he stared at the ceiling.

  A moment later Maddie said, “Damn air conditioner. Makes a racket. Wake you up?”

  “Wasn’t asleep.” He hadn’t noticed. Now he did. And it was noisy.

  “I’d complain but I’ll be gone in a few days. And this place’ll be in a scrapyard by next week. That Siliconville thing.”

  Silence between them, though the groaning AC was now like a third person in the room.

  “Look, Colt, the thing is . . .” She was examining words, discarding them. She found some: “I’m pretty good with the before part. And I think I’m pretty good with the during part.”

  That was true. But the rules absolutely required him to not respond.

  “The after part? I’m not so good with that.”

  Was she wiping away tears? No, just tugging at the tangle of hair in front of her face.

  “Not a big deal. It’s not, like, get the hell out of my life. Just, it happens. Not always. Usually.” She cleared her throat. “You’re lucky. I got pissed at you for bringing me water. Imagine what would’ve happened, you’d asked to meet the family. I can really be a bitch.”

  “It’s good water. You’re missing out.”

  Her shoulders slumped and she twined hair around her right index finger.

  He said, “Here’s where I say we’re a lot alike and that pisses you off more.”

  “Fuck you. Quit being so nice. I want to throw you out.”

  “See? Told you. We’re a lot alike. I’m not so good with the after part either. Never have been.”

  Her hand squeezed his knee, then retreated.

  Shaw told her, “Had two siblings, growing up. We fell out in three different ways. Russell, oldest, was the reclusive one. Dorie, our kid sister, was the clever one. I was the restless one. Was then, still am.”

  The laugh from Maddie’s mouth was barely perceptible but it was a laugh. “You know, Colter, we should start a club.”

  “A club.”

  “Yeah. Both of us, good with before and during, not after. We’ll call it the Never After Club.”

  This struck home.

  The King of Never . . .

  Which he didn’t share with her.

  “I’ll go,” he said.

  “No way. You’ve gotta be beat. This’s a hiccup, is all. Only don’t plan on spooning till noon tomorrow and then make plans to take BART to an art museum and a waffle brunch.”

  “The likelihood of that happening I’d put at, let’s see, zero percent.”

  Maddie gave a smile. A whatever happens, it’s been good smile. “Curl up or stretch out. Or whatever you do.”

  “You going to . . .”

  “Kill some aliens. What else?”

  LEVEL 3:

  THE SINKING SHIP

  Sunday, June 9

  49.

  We’re calling it an accident. No other thing fits.”

  Colter Shaw awoke, lying in Maddie Poole’s disheveled bed, his eyes on the overhead fan, a palm frond design, one blade sagging, and though the room was hot he didn’t think it was a good idea to flick the unit on.

  Accident . . .

  Maddie was not in bed nor was she in the living room, killing or maiming aliens. The big house creaked, the sounds from its infrastructure, not inhabitants.

  Apparently the woman took the “never after” part seriously.

  The hour was close to
4 a.m.

  Sleep was an illusion. He wondered if he’d had a nightmare. Maybe. Probably. Because he kept hearing the voice of White Sulfur Springs sheriff Roy Blanche.

  “We’re calling it an accident. No other thing fits.”

  This was the opinion too of the county coroner, regarding the death of Ashton Shaw. He’d lost his footing and tumbled off the eastern side of Echo Ridge, a hundred-foot-plus plummet to the dry creek bed where Colter spotted him, that rosy-dawn morning, October 5, fifteen years ago. The boy had rappelled as fast as he’d ever descended in the hope that he might save his father. While he didn’t know it at the time, a person falling from that height will reach a speed of about sixty-five miles per hour. Anything over forty-five or fifty is fatal.

  The death occurred around six hours earlier—1 a.m. Sheriff Blanche found a patch of wet leaves that might have been slick with an early frost. One step on them, with the incline, and Ashton would have gone over.

  The glint that Colter had seen was the sun striking the chrome receiver of the Benelli Pacific Flyway shotgun. It was lying on the ground, ten feet from the edge, where it had flown after Ashton made a frantic grab for nearby branches to arrest his tumble.

  Another possibility was in everyone’s mind but on no one’s tongue: suicide.

  To Colter, though, both theories were flawed. Accident? Twenty percent. Suicide? One percent.

  Ashton was a survivalist and outdoorsman and conditions like slippery foliage would have been just one more factor he’d have tucked into the equation on a trek, like gauging the dependability of ice on a pond or how fresh a bear paw print was and how big the creature that had left it.

  As for suicide, Ashton Shaw’s essence was survival and Colter couldn’t envision any universe in which his father would have taken his own life. Mental issues? Sure. Yet as mad as he could be, his affliction was paranoia—which is, of course, all about protecting yourself from threats. He was also carrying a 12-gauge shotgun. If you want to end your life, why not just use a beloved weapon, like Papa Hemingway? Why tumble over and hope the fall will kill you? Colter and his mother had discussed it. She was as sure as her son that the death was not self-inflicted.