Serafina and the Virtual Man (Book 2 of the Serafina's Series)

by Marie Treanor

  Her heart seemed to explode. He was back.

  ****

  “But that isn’t possible,” Sera argued. She glanced around Elspeth, Jilly, Jack, and Blair, all sitting, lounging, slouching, and sprawling around the large table in her office. “Is it?”

  “That I can talk to the spirit of Genesis Adam in a VR game? No,” Jilly agreed. For some reason, her heart sank at the disbelief of her friend. She so needed this to be real, for reasons she didn’t even want to think about. “But it happens all the same.”

  Unexpectedly, Jack said, “I don’t see why it should be more impossible than any of the other crap around here. Only three months ago, Sera, you told me there were no such things as vampires, although you’d been talking to dead people all your life. And now…” He waved one expressive hand at Blair, who stood up to give an ironic bow before sprawling back into the chair that looked far too small for him. He was wearing biker’s leathers, which was how he got around in the hours of daylight, and even Jilly had to admit he looked good in them: big and sexy and dangerous.

  Sera frowned from Jack to Blair.

  Elspeth said, “What other explanations are there? We can discount the possibility that Jilly’s lying. So either she’s mistaken—which I doubt; someone’s tricking her—possible but unlikely in the circumstances; or it’s just as she says.”

  “Also,” Jack added, “why shouldn’t a spirit enter a computer program? Is it really so very different to writing on a blackboard or hurling things around a house, or even just standing at the end of someone’s bed?”

  Sera nodded slowly. “So… I don’t know everything…but I do know you, Jilly. Can we all enter this program?”

  Jilly shrugged. “I don’t see why not. I’ll ask him. The other thing is, I think there was some kind of cover-up. I think he was killed in that house, the night of the break-in, which was probably the night Killearn was killed. I think the paper trail to Australia was planted to remove suspicion. I don’t even think there was any drink or drugs or rehab. Roxy said he was never very interested in these things before, and she sent me a load of names, friends and colleagues of Adam who never saw him stoned or even very pissed after his student days.”

  “And the newspaper reports?”

  “Hearsay. Unattributed sources. Even the pictures like this one…” Jilly laid the flattened laptop on the table to show the picture of the wasted-looking Adam in the dark Edinburgh street. “Look at the box of shopping he’s carrying. I enhanced it.” She zoomed in on the box of groceries. “Bread, something wrapped that might be prepackaged meat, frozen veg, eggs, butter, coffee, milk, loads of juice. No alcohol, not so much as a can of beer. He went to the corner shop, not some opium den!”

  “He could have been on his way home from the opium den,” Jack pointed out reasonably. “With the munchies.”

  Jilly blinked at him. “Sometimes you surprise me. And it’s a fair point. Have another glance at the picture. Okay, he looks rough. He needs to change his clothes and shave and sleep for twenty-four hours. But come on, guys, don’t you know any geeks? Or students who pull all-nighters to get their work in on time? Or game players who’re too into the game to go to bed?”

  “Hmm,” Sera said thoughtfully, pulling the tablet closer to her. Jack nodded as if allowing Jilly the point.

  She pushed it home. “Everyone who knew Adam says that when he was in the middle of developing something big, he’d disappear for weeks on end. No one saw him. He shut himself in his office and worked day and night, only paused very erratically for sleep when his brain shut down. He forgot to eat sometimes for a whole day. This was one focused nerd, with a revolutionary idea that he was making work. No way was he addicted to drink and drugs, because in that state he just wouldn’t have been able to produce the system currently in Dale’s testing lab.”

  Jilly sat back in triumph.

  “Maybe he did the work earlier?” Elspeth offered.

  “Some, maybe,” Jilly agreed. “You can’t bring concepts like these to life overnight. But everyone agrees his big breakthrough, his big push came between March and August, when no one was checking up on him. Dale, his colleagues, his friends all knew he was in geek-cave mode and left him alone. He’d split up with Roxy, who was in America anyway. No one saw him to deny the rumours of his drug addiction. But his friends laughed at tabloid reports like these. Until he died, of course. He told no one he was going to Australia—except, apparently, the newspapers. Never told anyone he was selling out to Dale either. Both stunned his friends. Both were announced to the press via unattributed sources: so-called friends, ‘those close to him.’”

  “You’re saying all this could happen without Adam even noticing?” Sera said in amazement.

  “Yes,” Jilly said flatly. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. He wouldn’t have noticed an earthquake until he had his system ready to show to Dale. That was in August, after which he apparently sold off his fabulous idea with his share of the company, emigrated, and died of a drug overdose.”

  Sera frowned. “Unlikely, put like that.”

  “Even more unlikely if he died in August. Everyone was told he’d gone to Australia, recovering from his addiction. No one heard from him after August, not even Roxy.”

  They stared at Jilly. Jilly stared back.

  “I’m almost buying it,” Jack said carefully. “But what about the legal documents? What about Adam’s solicitor? He must have had one, and you can’t forge death certificates.”

  “Actually, with the right money, you probably can. Or buy a dodgy doctor for the purpose. And as it happens, Dale and Adam shared the same law firm. Adam’s lawyer didn’t know Adam planned to sell out, but was presented with the signed documents all in order. He knew the addiction stories. Basically, he’d no reason to question it or investigate.”

  Jilly leaned forward to grab her laptop back. “And that’s the point of this whole thing. No one had any reason to question any of it until it was too late to bother. It’s all too easy to leave a basic paper or digital trail that’s just enough.”

  Sera eyed her with fascination. “Have you chased it any further? Can you prove any of this?”

  “I know what I can’t find. And that’s any record of his registration at a rehab clinic in the UK. Or any proof that he was ever in Australia, beyond a one-night paid-for-in-advance hotel reservation at a hotel in Sydney. There’s no proof that he ever took it up. And a house in Sydney that he’s meant to have owned, where he died, according to the death certificate. I’ve got an Aussie friend investigating that, but I’m pretty sure we’ll find no one ever saw him there and that the house was sold after his apparent death in October.”

  “That’s crazy,” Elspeth murmured. Her gaze lifted from the table to Jilly. “And utterly wrong! Who would have done all this?”

  “His killer,” Jilly said steadily. The words seemed to freeze her own blood. “And unless we find there were other people in the house, that’s beginning to look like his old pal Dale.”

  Sera shifted in her seat, swung it back on two legs. “So Dale hired Killearn to take Adam out so he could own the whole company and its new toy without splitting the profits? Only Adam killed Killearn. And Dale had to kill Adam himself?”

  “Looks that way,” Jilly said in a hard voice.

  “Then where is Adam’s body?” Sera wondered.

  Jilly raised her brows. “I’m hoping you can tell me that.”

  Sera opened her mouth with clearly blistering intent, then closed it again and fished in her pocket for her phone. Along with everyone else, Jilly watched in silence while Sera found the number she wanted.

  “Hello, Mrs. Ewan? Hi, it’s Sera. I take it the police told you they’ve identified the body and his killer?”

  Petra’s voice drifted out of the loudspeaker, sounding panicked. “They think we knew about it, that we must have covered up what Adam did.”

  “Well, they have to wonder,” Sera soothed. “It’s their job. But Adam knew your house and ground
s well, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, of course he did.”

  “Bet he even stayed overnight in the old days, before you guys grew apart.”

  “True,” Petra said eagerly. “I think he even had a key still.”

  “Where did he sleep when he stayed over?” Sera asked. “Which room?”

  “One of the spare rooms upstairs.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one you saw,” Petra said. “The one that was trashed.”

  Sera smiled at the phone. “Well, that explains the particular fury of the attack. Tell me, have you cleared that up yet?”

  “There isn’t any point until you get rid of the damned thing,” Petra said with brittle accusation. “It’ll only do it again. It was up last night, hurling the rubble about again.”

  “Can we come and take another look? I’m going to bring a powerful colleague of mine this time. I think we can get rid of it for good tonight.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The Ewans took the appearance of the handsome if slightly cadaverous Blair very well. He inclined his head graciously on being introduced, even smiled at Petra, who was clearly not immune to his charms, and no one seemed to notice the fact that he never spoke.

  “Same deal as before,” Dale said shortly as he strode across the wide entrance hall toward the glass front door. “I’ve locked and alarmed the out-of-bounds areas.”

  “Silly question,” Jilly said suddenly. “Does the poltergeist stick to those rules?”

  Dale paused, his fingers grasping the door handle as he frowned in thought. He and Petra exchanged glances. Then he said, “Actually, it seems to. So far. It’s never been near my testing area. I’d really like to keep it that way—Jesus, the damage it could cause in there…”

  “Don’t you have the…work duplicated anywhere else?” Jilly asked.

  Dale stared at her. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

  Jilly shrugged. “Your funeral. Even school kids know to keep backups.”

  “It’s okay,” Sera said hastily before Dale’s irritation could become incandescent, although, interestingly, he already seemed to be calming into thoughtfulness. “We’ll get rid of this thing tonight, give you peace to concentrate on business matters.”

  “Let’s go,” Petra said with an impatient glance back into the house. “We’ll be home in the morning, but please keep us informed of any major events. If you discover any more bodies, for example.”

  She stepped after her husband and closed the door with a very decisive clack.

  “I think we’ve been told off,” Sera murmured. “Okay, Jilly, do you want to find your virtual man while we rake up the rubble for a keepsake?”

  Sera wanted something of Adam’s to try to reach his spirit via what was, to her, more normal channels. Jilly hesitated. She distrusted the urgent yearning to see him again. But more than that, she needed evidence.

  “I want to do a bit of raking myself,” she said, leading the way to the stairs. “By their own admission, the Ewans dumped stuff in there. I want to see what they took from Adam’s flat.”

  “Good luck with that,” Sera said. “If they didn’t destroy it, the poltergeist will have.”

  When Jilly tried to push open the door to the spare bedroom, it wouldn’t budge.

  “Have they locked it?” Sera demanded. She looked at Blair, who shook his head. He stepped forward, and Jilly hastily got out of the way. Blair put his broad shoulder to the door and forced it open, pushing against whatever was in the way. When it was wide enough, they all edged through the gap.

  “I know,” Sera agreed as if Blair had made some comment. “Well, he certainly rearranged the mess, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t look much worse than last time. Blair, can you heave that mattress up against the wall? Well, the bits of it.”

  As Blair moved it, the disturbed duvet stuffing got up Jilly’s nose and made her sneeze. It was everywhere. Some of the mattress springs had even been torn loose and all but straightened.

  “I’d say this room must reek of Adam,” Jilly observed. “Judging by the fury this thing vented in here. Didn’t you feel him the first time?”

  Sera shook her head, crouching down to rake through the mess of splintered wood and paper. “No. I just felt the poltergeist. Like an echo.” She shivered. “Come on, we’ll have to be quick here, or the damned thing will show up again.” She glanced at Blair and after a moment said, “Are you sure about that?”

  Blair nodded.

  Sera said, “Apparently the poltergeist won’t form anywhere near Blair.”

  “Well, if you don’t get rid of the bastard tonight, Blair can just come and live with the Ewans. Shite, this is impossible, Sera, everything’s in bits. You can’t even tell what it was.”

  “I should be able to pick up something from bits. I just have to touch the right bits.”

  After a few minutes’ more sifting, Jilly finally uncovered a plastic bag. She dragged it free and discovered with some triumph that it was heavy, full of stuff. Broken stuff, as it turned out. A piece of glass poking out of the bag cut her finger.

  “Ouch,” she said and quickly sucked the blood before it dripped onto her skirt. Over it, her gaze flew to Blair, who stopped lifting up the larger pieces of wood to watch her. His eyebrow twitched. He licked his lips.

  “Blair, stop teasing her,” Sera commanded, and Blair winked before bending back to his work.

  Jilly, unconvinced it was all teasing, opened the plastic bag with more care. Her breath caught. It was full of photographs. Some of the glass and wood from the frames had been broken, and some of the photographs were either pierced or scrunched, but it was the closest to intact they’d so far seen in this room.

  Jilly pushed a heap of rubble to one side and began to ease out the photographs, one at a time. Four young lads in a bedroom, sprawled around a computer, grinning at the camera. Adam was there, his hand on the mouse, smiling over his shoulder while someone aimed a pillow at his head—Dale. Student days, Jilly guessed from the institutional look of the room, like a university hall of residence. Both Adam and Dale certainly looked several years younger. Dale’s hair was longer, and he looked less smart, more carefree. But Adam didn’t seem to have changed a great deal. His black hair was just as uncut and unruly, and he had the beginnings of a beard on his jaw.

  Something contracted in Jilly’s chest. She wished she’d known him then. She wished—

  Hastily, she moved on to the next photo. Adam wasn’t in all of them. Neither was Dale. There were several of Roxy, some with Adam, some not, a few of her on stage with her band, a couple of other women Jilly had never met. There was even one of Dale, Adam, and Petra, arm in arm in Trafalgar Square, London. Jilly looked at that one quite closely. Petra, in the centre, had linked arms with both men. Smiling, her face was half-turned toward Adam.

  It was only when she found the tiny picture of the raven-haired toddler that she was sure. He was on a battered-looking tricycle in front of a block of council flats, and a young, equally dark woman in tight jeans bent over him, holding on to the tiny handlebars while she smiled up at the camera. The little boy was smiling too, with great glee, as if this was a rare treat he was enjoying to his utmost.

  Genesis Adam, with the woman who’d named him.

  Jilly swallowed. “Eureka,” she said. She passed it to Sera, who’d crawled over to see what she was looking at. “I’ll bet you anything these came from Adam’s flat. Dale must have removed them to make it look as if Adam took his personal stuff with him to Australia, and just dumped them in here.”

  “Maybe. Or he could have kept them as a keepsake of his old friend. Jilly, if Dale did him in and was responsible for this whole charade, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep anything that’d incriminate him.”

  “Suppose not,” Jilly said reluctantly. “But he’d have gone through them, wouldn’t he? Why would he keep a picture of Adam and his mum from long before they ever met?”

  “I don’t know,”
Sera admitted, picking up the tiny, battered picture. “But I should be able to use this. All of them, in fact, if they were in Adam’s home and meant something to him.”

  Sera sat back in a cleared space, her back against the wall, holding the photograph and what was left of its frame between her hands. She closed her eyes. Blair and Jilly looked at each other, then at Sera. Her expression didn’t change from calm concentration for several moments.

  Then she opened her eyes. “Nothing,” she said in a frustrated voice. “But then, this isn’t the best place to try. It’s too full of our friend the poltergeist. And Jilly? This is the man who killed Killearn. Remember that.”

  “Maybe,” Jilly said, feeling ridiculously mutinous.

  Sera didn’t answer. She was looking at the other photos. “Hot, though,” she observed, before casting a quick, half-annoyed glance up at Jilly. “For a geek. All right, let’s take the photos and find the virtual man himself.”

  ****

  Jilly’s heart rate increased rapidly as they piled into Dale’s office. What if he’d gone? What if he wouldn’t talk to Sera? What if the whole thing was proved to be a figment of her sick imagination? How would he greet her? Would he even remember the kiss from the game? Shite, did she want him to?

  Squashing the surge of ridiculous questions, she concentrated on opening the inner door.

  “Doesn’t Ewan ever review the camera recordings?” Sera said. “Won’t he see you opening his precious door?”

  “I think Adam wipes them.”

  “Do you have any idea how bizarre that sounds?”

  “Do you ever listen to yourself?” Jilly retorted, and pressed the final four numbers that caused the door to slide silently open. “Okay. When you step beyond the first computer there, it triggers the VR machine. It scans you with a bright green light, and then you’re in the virtual world. I’ll go first.”

  She stepped into the room and glanced back at Sera. “It’ll scan you for longer because you’re not in its database yet.”

  “Fab,” Sera said faintly. She actually took Blair’s hand, as if this scared her more than the poltergeist.