by Karen Rose
Abbott reached across the table to shake her hand. “I’m Captain Abbott.”
“I know. Vodka, straight up.”
“We’re very interested to hear your story,” Abbott said.
Jack Phelps hadn’t said anything at all, which was highly uncharacteristic. He stood off to the side, back against the wall, watching. He seemed… disappointed.
Eve glanced at Olivia. “What just happened?”
Olivia’s lips twitched. “I’ll tell you later. It’ll make your day.”
Webster looked uncomfortable. “We’re ready to listen.”
Eve met his eyes, again sensing she could trust him. Six years had taught her a great deal about who she could trust. Webster was the real deal. “I wanted to tell you earlier, but I wasn’t sure you’d believe me. I’m not sure I believe me. I’m a grad student. I’ve wanted to become a therapist for a long time. To help victims of violent crime.”
Webster nodded. “I understand.”
She was certain that he now did. “I’ll tell you what I know. But first, can you tell me when Christy died?” Please say it was before I met you on Martha’s doorstep. She’d been rehashing that moment in her mind, hoping her selfish desire to keep her secret hadn’t cost Christy Lewis her life.
“The ME thinks it was sometime early this morning,” Webster said kindly.
Relief had her shoulders slumping. “Thank you. All right. My thesis is on the use of the virtual world to improve self-esteem.”
“Virtual world?” Abbott asked with a frown.
“RPG. Role play games,” Eve added when he still frowned. “Like Shadowland.”
“It’s a computer game,” Olivia said.
“It’s more than a game,” Eve said. “It’s a community. You can meet people, have a job, buy property. All with complete anonymity. At least that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
“Their motto is ‘Sometimes you want to go where no one knows your name,’ ” Jack said. “I’ve played. A little.”
“Well, a lot of people can’t play ‘a little.’ Martha couldn’t. That’s why we picked her for my study. I wanted to tap the potential of the virtual world as a teaching tool. Like a big flight simulator, only to teach life skills, socialization. I wanted to help people who couldn’t function in the real world to… practice in the virtual world.”
“So a person who was socially clueless could learn to interact without the fear of rejection,” Webster said.
“Yes. I want to help these people leave the virtual world and make lives for themselves in the real one. This is important to me. I’ve worked hard to get here, to get into grad school, and I didn’t want to lose it. Which is why I didn’t tell you earlier.”
“All right,” Webster said. “So where do Martha and Christy fit in?”
“We recruited subjects for my study. People who’d never played before, like Christy Lewis. People who dabbled, like Detective Phelps. And what we called our ‘ultra-users,’ like Martha Brisbane. Martha averaged eighteen hours a day in Shadowland.”
“Eighteen hours?” Abbott said, shaking his head. “How did she have a life?”
“I wondered how Martha made a living, because she was in the game all the time.”
At that Webster actually blushed. Eve glanced around, only to find everyone in the room casting their eyes everywhere but at her. “Okay, what did I miss?”
Olivia sighed. “Martha was a phone sex operator, Eve. When you told Detective Webster that you knew her from her work…”
Eve’s mouth fell open. “That explains a lot.” She felt her own cheek heat and knew her face was aflame, leaving her scar starkly white. “For the record, I don’t do… that.”
Webster cleared his throat. “I’m sorry we thought so.”
A hysterical giggle bubbled up and she shoved it back. “Okay. Moving right along.”
“Your study,” Olivia prompted.
“Our subjects do exercises to increase self-awareness. Like find three people with whom you have something in common. It started out by them finding people that looked like them. Or their avatars. Later, they dug deeper for hobbies and personal interests.”
“Avatars?” Abbott asked, then shrugged. “Sorry. I’m old.”
Eve smiled at him. “No, you’re not. An avatar is like a game piece. Like when you play Monopoly, you’re always the… ?”
“Shoe,” he said.
“I’m the iron,” she confided and Abbott smiled back. “An avatar is what you look like in the virtual world. Martha was a sex goddess named Desiree. Christy was a former Miss Universe and champion ballroom dancer named Gwenivere.”
“Who are you?” Webster asked softly and she started, not expecting the question.
“Me? Oh, lots of different people,” she evaded. “But for the purposes of this study, I started as Pandora. I own a shop called Façades Face Emporium. I sell avatars.”
“Sell?” Abbott leaned forward, interest in his eyes. “You sell things in this world?”
“You can sell all kinds of things. When you enter the game you can design your own avatar, but it’s from a template. If you want anything more unique, you pay someone. I don’t charge a lot for my avatars, which is why I get a lot of business, especially with people new to the World.”
“Like many of your test subjects,” Webster said.
“Exactly.”
“You were watching them,” Jack said. “As Pandora.”
Eve nodded. “Yes. That’s where I get into trouble.”
“Why were you watching them?” Webster asked.
“My concern was having subjects abuse Shadowland. The ultra-users did, but they were our control. I worried that people who had full lives in the real world would be sucked in, so I monitored usage. We also measured personality changes. Mood swings, changes in sleep, missing work. And suicidal tendencies.”
“Oh.” Webster leaned back, understanding in his eyes. “You read Martha committed suicide. You thought it had something to do with your study. With the game.”
“That was my fear. I’d wanted to test subjects monthly for mood changes, but my advisor wouldn’t approve that frequency. We tested every three months instead. I was, and still am, worried that that’s not often enough.”
“So you monitored them from the inside,” Abbott said. “Clever.”
“And against the rules, Captain. I was only supposed to know these people by a number. I got worried when a few of them started spending huge hours in the World. It was like recruiting people for a gambling study and watching them become overnight addicts. It was taking over their lives.”
“So you went undercover,” Olivia said.
Eve nodded. “I opened Façades and waited for people to come to me. It was the least intrusive method I could conceive. I could chat with them, gauge their moods, and they didn’t know who I was. Martha’s Desiree was one of my best customers. She was an obsessive face upgrader. Then about a week ago, Desiree disappeared.”
“What did you do?” Webster asked.
“Worried. Hoped Martha had gone on a real-world vacation, but I knew she hadn’t. She was hard-core. And she’d been like that for months before the study began.”
Webster frowned. “How long had she been a gamer, in total?”
“I’d have to check my notes, but maybe a year?”
Webster looked over his shoulder at Phelps. “It’s when everything changed for her.”
Phelps was nodding. “The mess in her apartment, missing her bills. The fights with her mother. Makes sense. So Martha disappeared. Then what?”
“I went looking for her. I didn’t find Martha, but I did find Christy. Every single night Christy would go to the club. It’s called The Ninth Circle.”
“Of hell?” Webster winced. “Lovely.”
“It’s a dance club, a social center. Christy’s Gwenivere was a party girl. I’d use Greer—that’s another of my avatars—to check on her and my other red-zones, the subjects I most worried about.”
&n
bsp; “How many red-zones do you have?” Webster asked.
“Right now, five more, with another dozen brewing. I just checked on Christy last night, when I got home from Sal’s. She was dancing and flirting, same old.”
“So how did you know who these people were in real life?” Jack asked.
“This is where I really get into trouble. I broke double-blind.”
The detectives glanced at one another, their confusion clear.
“Double-blind means I don’t know who they are and they don’t know which group they’re in. It’s supposed to be sacrosanct.”
“But you peeked,” Olivia murmured.
“Big time.” Eve rubbed a tight cord in the back of her neck. “I broke in, located the test numbers of the subjects I was most concerned about, and their real-world names.”
“And real-world addresses?” Webster asked sharply.
Eve closed her eyes, trying to figure out how to keep Ethan’s involvement secret. “Not until today. I needed to know where to find Christy. I’d just come from Martha’s. You said she’d been murdered. And here’s where it gets incredibly unbelievable.”
Eve looked at Webster. “I’d set a Google Alert for Martha. This morning it popped up, with an article saying she’d committed suicide. I didn’t know what to do. I ended up going to my advisor. I told him about Martha.”
“You admitted you broke the double-blind?” Webster asked. “That was brave.”
“It was the right thing to do,” she said and saw respect in his eyes. “I couldn’t let anyone else’s life be ruined by this study. But my advisor got angry. I gave him a printout of the article about Martha. He… shredded it and told me I’d never seen it.”
“Bastard,” Abbott murmured.
“Technically, he was right. Morally he wasn’t. I knew where Christy worked. She’d told me about her job when she came to Pandora’s. Christy was lonely. She just wanted to talk. She was worried about getting fired for being online so much, but couldn’t stop.”
“She was addicted,” Webster said quietly and Eve nodded sadly.
“I went to see her in real life, but she hadn’t come to work. I thought she was home, playing. I thought if I couldn’t find Christy, I should at least pay my respects to Martha. That’s when I saw you, Detective Webster.”
“And when you called me?” Olivia asked.
“Not yet. I went home, got online.” Eve felt her heart start racing all over again. “I went to Christy’s house, in the World. There was a black wreath on the door and…” She swallowed hard. “She was hanging. And her shoes had fallen off.”
“How?” Webster asked, his eyes narrowed.
“The same way they were in the real world. I almost called 911, but it sounded too crazy. So I called Olivia here at the station. I didn’t have her cell.”
“That’ll change,” Olivia said. “My sister will kick my ass if anything happens to you.”
Eve’s smile was wan. “Can’t have that. I figured you could get her address, that you could check on her and make sure she was okay. I didn’t think you’d think I was crazy.”
“How did you find Christy’s address?” Webster asked, more quietly this time.
“Don’t answer that,” Matt said, then lifted his brows at Webster’s scowl. “For now.”
“I went to see Christy,” Eve said, “hoping it was a sick joke. But it wasn’t.”
“What about Martha’s door?” Webster asked. “Did it have a black wreath, too?”
“I didn’t check today. I was too rattled. But it didn’t as of yesterday.”
“Let’s check when we’re done here,” Webster said. “What about Samantha Altman?”
“She may live in Shadowland, but she wasn’t in my study. I’m sorry.”
“How do you know?” Webster pressed, and Matt Nillson stepped in.
“All you need to know is that Eve checked the list and Altman wasn’t there.”
Webster shook his head. “Two of my victims were in her study. Not a coincidence.”
“That’s exactly what it is. Hear me out,” Eve added. “Two victims spent inordinate amounts of time in the virtual world. Your third might have, too, but not as part of my study. Whoever killed them knew Christy played, because he simmed the crime scene.”
“Simmed?” Abbott said.
“I’m sorry, Captain. Simulated. Maybe he knew all three from the World. Maybe he preyed on them there.” That Christy wouldn’t have been there except for her study was something Eve couldn’t dwell on right now. The guilt would come later.
Webster was shaking his head. “What are the odds that he’d meet two of your test subjects at random, Eve?”
“Pretty high, if he’s local. We required our subjects to come in for evaluations. They had to be local. We stacked the deck, geographically speaking. If he was looking for women from the Cities, he would have had a larger-than-average pool to choose from.”
“That does make sense,” Webster admitted.
“And we don’t even know if Samantha Altman was a player,” Abbott said.
“Gamer,” Eve murmured.
“Gamer,” Abbott repeated. “Until we find differently, Samantha was not a gamer.”
“The other connection,” Jack said, “could be Siren Song.”
“Or something you don’t know yet,” Abbott said. “For now, we assume nothing.”
“At least we know he met Christy in this Shadowland,” Webster said. “We need to use that to find him. Will you help us?”
“Of course. Tell me what you need me to do.”
Monday, February 22, 7:45 p.m.
Liza had held her tears until she’d made it home from the police station. Sitting at her kitchen table, she looked again at the paper the officer had given her. She’d gone to file a missing person report and the officer had put the information in the computer.
Then he’d looked at her with a frown. “You said your sister cleaned buildings.”
“She does,” Liza had insisted, but he’d shaken his head.
“Afraid not.” He’d turned his monitor so she could see for herself.
She was still… stunned, two hours later. A mug shot. SOLICITATION, the charge read. “We picked Lindsay up for hooking two months ago. You didn’t know?”
Lindsay had chosen to… sell herself. And now she was missing. I have to find her.
She didn’t have the first idea of where to begin looking. She’d figure it out. She’d find some hookers, start asking questions. Somebody must know her sister. Somebody must have seen her. I have to know.
Lindsay could be alive somewhere, hurt. Needing me. I have to try.
Chapter Seven
Monday, February 22, 8:15 p.m.
Amazing.” Abbott watched as Eve sat at his desk showing them Shadowland.
Noah sat on Eve’s right, more interested in the focus in her face. She was giving them what she knew in a professional way. Well, almost everything she knew.
Her attorney sat at the round table across from Abbott’s desk, as did Olivia, two people who wanted to protect Eve Wilson. So I’m not the only one.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye. “Can you see the screen, Detective?”
She didn’t like to be watched. “Yes. Can you show us your Pandora avatar shop?”
“I thought we were waiting for Detective Phelps.”
“He’s gone back to the crime scene. He’ll join us if he’s able.”
“All right.” She typed in a few commands. “Welcome to Façades Face Emporium.”
Abbott let out a low whistle. “All those faces. That’s just damn creepy.”
One side of her mouth lifted. Noah had always thought she’d conjured her Mona Lisa smile. Now he knew a monster had cut her face, damaging nerves on one side.
“Like an old Vincent Price flick,” she said. She clicked her mouse, bringing up a female avatar with blonde hair and a sweet face. “Meet Pandora. She runs the shop.”
Pandora. She’d known all
of this would bring her grief, but she’d done it anyway.
“Customers come in, try on faces,” she said. “We chat. It’s almost… real.”
“Indeed,” Abbott said. “Show me Martha Brisbane’s face.”
“Here are Desiree’s last six faces, top quality. Martha had Shadow-bucks to burn.”
“Where did she get it?” Noah asked. The faces were ethereal. Beautiful.
“I don’t know. Most serious gamers keep a balance sheet. It would be on her PC.”
Micki had found nothing on Martha’s computer. Noah hoped Christy’s wasn’t wiped.
“What do you do with the money you earn, Eve?” Olivia asked from the round table.
“Mostly pay the rent. Façades is on the Strip. Location, location, location. What’s left, Pandora donates to virtual charity.” Again the half smile. “She’s a community activist.”
As was Eve. “You designed all these faces?” Noah asked and she nodded.
“I wanted to be an artist, long time ago. But my hand was damaged, so I got into graphic design. Drawing faces was much easier with a mouse than a pen.”
That she’d begun creating faces when hers was scarred was insight he didn’t think she’d want him to pick up. “You’re very good,” he said and her cheeks pinked.
“Thank you. I’ve studied faces for a long time. People make instant decisions about whom to trust, and facial features are key. I track the faces my customers choose with what kind of character they become. Kind of a side psychology hobby. Where to next?”
“Martha’s virtual house first,” Noah said.
“Let’s get Greer.” A redhead appeared, very buxom and very sparsely clothed.
Abbott choked on a laugh. “Well, nobody’s gonna be able to describe her face.”
“That was the idea,” she said, embarrassed, then rolled her eyes. “Geeze.”
Noah bit back a smile. “I got the meaning behind Pandora. Why Greer?”
She shrugged self-consciously. “It means ‘guardian’ or ‘protector.’ ”
“I see.” And what he saw, he liked. Very much. Fate, he thought. Maybe.
A cell phone rang. “Mine,” Olivia said. “Miss Lee, Siren Song, just checked in for her flight to Vancouver. I’m meeting Kane at the airport. You’ll bring me up to speed?”