by Atkins, Dawn
“It’s a female,” she said.
“What?” His ribs squeezed his lungs so it was hard to breathe. It couldn’t be Beth. No way. His mind froze. His heart, too. “Show me,” he said flatly.
Bernice rolled a covered body out of a walk-in cold room. Gage waited and watched, holding everything very still—breath, heartbeat, thoughts, muscles. He tasted metal and his mouth was so dry he couldn’t have said a word.
Don’t let it be her.
Please, not her. If he believed in God, he’d be wailing a prayer while Bernice pulled back the sheet. The overhead light glinted pitilessly off the metal, but he could still see. Oh, he could see.
It was her. His sister. Beth.
Lying on a cold metal table in a body bag. Dead.
He was too late. He’d failed to find her. He’d failed to save her. A part of him went very still, a part of him went away, and the rest of him knew he’d never be the same again.
Chapter Twelve
“You know her?” Bernice asked, staring at him.
“Yes.” He choked out the word, shocked and sick. “She’s my sister. Elizabeth Pearl Mandell. That’s her full name.”
“We’ve got your brother and your sister?”
He shook his head. “The guy’s her boyfriend.” He looked again at Beth’s dead face, her eyes closed, her mouth a straight gray line. She looked so very cold.
In life she wouldn’t have minded. As a kid in Denver, she used to run outside naked in winter, squealing with delight at her frosty breath. Older, she loved all the snow sports.
“What killed her?” His feet seemed glued to the floor and his skin crawled with chills. “Don’t give me any BS about a pathology report. What happened?”
“It looked like an OD. The EMTs found her in the park. Lots of junkies hang there. There were drug works beside her.” With her gloved hand, Bernice turned Beth’s heartbreakingly thin arm to show Gage the tiny scab and red streaks of an injection in the delicate skin of her elbow.
“My sister would never do needles. No way did she do that to herself.”
Bernice examined Beth’s mouth. “Her teeth and gums are healthy. Skin’s clear. Tweakers scratch themselves raw. Her nose is okay, so she’s not snorting. No evident signs of long-term drug use.” She looked up at him. “Lately, Seattle’s had some Mac 22 deaths—that’s heroin with fentanyl. Suppresses breathing and heart rate. The dosage is tough to control so it’s easy to OD. There’s no pain, at least. They just drift away.”
But the truth burned through him. This was no accident, not with both Beth and her boyfriend dead within days of each other. “What was his story?” He nodded at the other table. “An OD, too?”
“No needle marks, but I would assume that. The toxicology report will tell the story.”
Someone had murdered his sister and possibly her boyfriend. Who? And why?
With a jolt, he realized Beth had been killed on her birthday. The injustice of it blazed through him. If he’d been just a day or two faster he might have saved her.
He reached for Beth’s cheek.
“No touching,” Bernice said. “Sorry. After the ME in Seattle signs off, they’ll give her to whatever mortuary you choose—here, I hope, for Dave Bartlett’s sake. They’ll give her color. If you have a picture of how she wore her hair that would help.”
“She changed it all the time,” he said woodenly. Pain rose in a hot wave, but he would channel it into cold fury. He would get these people. They will pay, Beth. Like you said. He remembered that Watchers had been looking for her. Maybe they’d found her and she’d refused to sign over her money to NiGo.
Bernice started to put the sheet back up, but Gage noticed a mark on the underside of Beth’s other arm. It looked like ink. “Wait. What’s that?”
Bernice turned the arm so he could see that it was letters in black marker, crooked and smeared, but he could pick out a V and maybe an H. Then T… then was it another H? The letters IN, followed by a K. Think? After that an ampersand and an E, possibly G, followed by a V and a second H. Think & E or Think & G. What did that mean? And who was the message for?
His eye locked on a letter that stopped him cold—a W with wings. Gage in their childhood code. The message was for him! Beth must have known she was dying and hoped they’d find her next of kin. What was she trying to say to him?
Looking again, he saw the V could be a check mark. Check H? H for heroin? Except the second H was wider than the first and the cross mark was too thick—two lines together? A number sign? Check #?
Think & G or Think & E, followed by Check #.
“Look over the rest of her, would you?” he asked. “See if there’s any other writing.” He turned away for modesty’s sake.
The tech found nothing more on her body. She gave him the plastic bag that held Beth’s effects—all that remained of her too-short life.
Fighting anguish, he made himself be logical and thorough. He would need photos. With shaking hands, he used his phone to capture her face, her tattoo, the needle mark, and the letters she’d scrawled on her skin.
His mind a blur, he took Bernice’s card in case he had more questions and left. Outside, the sun was bright, the air fresh and light from last night’s rain, but Gage’s world was black with gloom. Each step dragged him deeper into the quicksand of a nightmare. Beth was dead and he’d let her die.
Fight this. Focus. Later on, he could yell, break things, let guilt sink him. Right now he had a job to do—get Beth’s killers.
He found a bench and poured out the Baggie of Beth’s final belongings. A necklace, some earrings, gum, a felt marker, a bit of change. No wallet, which meant no ID. They’d taken it when they killed her, no doubt, making her a Lost Life for real—a Jane Doe OD in a small-town mortuary, her only link to NiGo the spiderweb squiggle of a weird tattoo the mortician had barely noticed.
He’d failed Beth, but her life would not be lost in vain. Gage would bring in the police to punish the monsters, then he would write the true story of NiGo Interactive, leaving out no ugly detail.
He’d spent his career being objective, a neutral examiner of facts, but objectivity and neutrality were useless to him now. Now he wanted justice, punishment, vengeance. It was all he could do not to get a machine gun and mow down the culprits where they stood.
No. No. Steady. Do this right. That meant he needed enough evidence to get the police to investigate and prosecutors to convict. He needed witnesses, too. At the moment, he had neither. Toxicology reports on Murphy and Beth were weeks away and proving that a drug OD hadn’t been self-administered would be nearly impossible without signs of a struggle.
Beyond that all he had was hearsay, unsubstantiated rumors, and a crazy theory that the Blackstones blackmailed subscribers and murdered employees who asked questions. He hardly believed it himself.
As for witnesses, he didn’t know a Lifer unhappy enough to speak out except Cassie and she’d told him all she knew.
He had his sister’s scribbles and the items found with her body, but what good were they? He ran his fingers through Beth’s meager belongings. So many rings and studs—every time he’d seen her, she’d had new piercings—each stab a payback for some inner pain. He understood the impulse, but he’d handled his anger at the dojo and on wild rides on his bike, taking too many risks, getting hurt, almost glad for an injury. By the time he was twenty, he’d had enough and turned his anger toward the world, with words as his weapons.
Meanwhile, he’d let Beth slip away and she’d been snagged by the Blackstones’ web of false family. An agony of regret washed through him. He pushed it away to think through what he knew and what he had to find out.
Beth had asked questions NiGo didn’t want answered—about the tattoo ink and her sick boyfriend. Supposedly, NiGo wanted to sue the Phoenix reporter, so they wanted no scrutiny. Cassie knew about the secret accounts of banished players. Was that why Lifers were ejected? For asking the wrong questions?
Except Beth had not been evic
ted. Why not? Because they wanted her money? He could ask the trust attorney if she’d tried to claim the cash. Gage was now her only living relative, so the guy had to tell him what had become of her “estate.”
Directory assistance gave him the number and, in seconds, Gage had the lawyer on the line. He told Gage that Beth had arranged for the hundred grand to be overnighted to a Seattle PO box, made out to the NiGo Foundation. The check had gone out early this morning, the first business day after her birthday. The attorney agreed to attempt a stop-payment. If they were lucky, NiGo would never get its blood money.
Gage steadied himself, caged his fury, calmed his breathing. What next? Keep looking. Miss nothing. He hammered himself with the commands. He picked up Beth’s necklace. He’d never seen it before. It was shaped like an ankh and wrapped in waxed string—dental floss? A bit of paper stuck out from the bottom. Curious, he unwound the string and found not a pendant, but a key, stamped Property 3rd St. YMCA. The tiny slip of paper held a phone number.
His pulse kicked. Beth had hidden the key and saved the number for a reason. She must have stashed something in the Y locker. He checked his watch. Noon. He had time to go there before work. He didn’t dare miss his shift. Now he had to stay in the Life for the proof he needed to destroy it.
Pouring Beth’s belongings back into the plastic bag, he headed for his bike, punching in the phone number from the slip of paper as he walked.
The call went straight to voice mail for a woman named Georgia. He left a neutral message, then hit zero to get the front desk, where voice mail informed him he’d reached IFO International. The receptionist was out to lunch, too. He’d Google up the company once he got back to the Lounge.
He headed for the Y where he was soon inserting Beth’s hidden key into locker number sixteen. Heart banging his ribs, Gage opened the door.
All he found was a stack of stapled pages with a cover sheet of Phoenix NiGo Health Center letterhead with “File Copy, Do Not Remove” stamped in red. The papers held columns and columns of numbers.
Why the hell had Beth locked away a spreadsheet?
Her arm had said check #. These numbers? And check them for what? Discouraged, he shoved the printouts in his jacket, slammed the locker, and headed to work.
Who would talk to him? Lost Lives here in Seattle? Ruben might know a few if he could ask without arousing suspicion. When he got back to Phoenix, Gage would ask Cassie for more names.
Maybe a status tat on a dead body had caught an ME’s eye in some Lounge city or other. Gage would ask the Phoenix detective who owed him that favor. In Phoenix, the county ME’s office posted web photos of unidentified bodies for citizens to identify. He could look himself, if it came to that, but what were the chances the tats would even show? If other Lost Lives were dead, that would warrant investigation, he supposed.
What about Seattle? He pulled into a parking lot to call the Seattle reporter to ask him to check with his police contacts about young bodies with weird shoulder marks. The guy agreed to ask around, but Gage could tell he half suspected Gage was a conspiracy nut.
Gage wished to hell he dared to talk to Rena, but she was too deep in the Life to buy his story without more proof than he had.
Back at the Lounge, Gage put himself on autopilot to work his shift. There weren’t a lot of gamers and they were a tough crowd. There were plenty of fights to break up and guns to confiscate. He could see the appeal of a place like this to drug dealers. All this cash made it easy to cover a laundering operation.
As he worked, he kept his mind busy picking apart the clues. Fraud and toxic tattoo ink didn’t seem worth murdering over. What else could be going on?
He didn’t dare stop thinking or he’d slip into thoughts of Beth’s dead face and skinny, blood-streaked arm or memories of her as a kid with crayon-stained fingers, the way she begged for horror films, then hid her eyes against his shirt, insisting he describe each scene.
He remembered her as a little kid warm from a bath when he would read her to sleep. He recalled the video games she’d adored, how pretty she’d been in high school, how pissed she’d been when he’d grilled her boyfriends, the look on her face when he’d chosen a piece of her art for his place, so proud, grinning madly at his praise.
When his shift ended, he left the Lounge for the nearest bar, where he downed a shot of JD with a beer back, desperate to escape the acid drip of anger and sorrow, memory and guilt. Through a filthy window, he watched rain angle in silver streaks beneath the streetlight.
Miserable, he dragged Beth’s papers from his jacket. She’d risked her life for these rows and columns of numbers. What did they mean? All he knew about the health center was that it tested Lifers for drugs and, supposedly, general health. The numbers in the right-hand column were P plus seven digits. Lifer IDs? He checked his own badge. Yep, P with seven numbers. P for the Phoenix Lounge?
The middle column was interrupted every few pages by a new set of numbers. The combination seemed familiar, but he wasn’t sure why. He thought about Beth’s scrawled words. Check #. Think & G.
Maybe Georgia from IFO would shed some light on the mystery when she returned his call. He shoved the report back in his jacket and took out the pages where he’d copied Beth’s coded diary and tried to decipher it. These were the final words he’d ever get from her, making them even more important to him now.
Pain surged through him, but he fought it back, trapped it as a fist of cold rage in his gut. He had to stay strong for Beth. He remembered that last visit. She’d been tense, jerking the cigarette to her mouth as if to show it who was boss. He should have seen through her tough front, known she was in trouble, forced her to talk to him.
He bent to start decoding, but he was too whiskey-fogged to think. The bar had gotten crowded, slowing service, so, in rain so thick he could barely see, Gage set out to buy a bottle from a liquor store. The Commando handled wet streets great, but he took a corner too quick and nearly laid down the bike. Take it easy. As much as he wouldn’t have minded cashing in his chips, if a slick Seattle street took him out, he’d never get justice for his sister, and justice was all he had left to give her.
…
Not long into the afternoon session, it was Rena’s turn to speak. Her heart thudding, she started with her Dome plans, fighting a quiver in her voice. Lionel caught her eye and gave her a thumbs-up, which steadied her. When she asked for questions, she was surprised when Rick Bondurant spoke up, saying the new battles had energized Phoenix Lifers and spiked gamer spending. Everyone seemed impressed and when she finished, applause rained down like the hail in an EverLife storm. Her face burned with embarrassed pride.
As the clapping died and Mason opened his mouth to take back the meeting, Rena knew it was now or never for Girl Power. She picked up a brochure from the stack she’d placed in front of her.
“Thank you so much. Your support means a lot,” she said quickly. “In the Life we always support each other and what’s right. Nigel has asked me to speak to you all about a project he believes is important.”
Invoking Nigel’s name seemed to intensify the silence. Eyes darted to him, then to Rena. Mason’s two-colored eyes flashed irritation.
She held up her brochure. “It’s called the Girl Power Project and its purpose is to give girls their rightful place as equals in Lounge Life. That means more girl recruits, more girl managers, more girls in top jobs, such as Watchers, and the end to demeaning sexual costumes.” She paused for a breath. The audience was listening, their expressions neutral.
She rushed on. “Many Phoenix Lifers have signed our petitions at GirlPowerProject.com because they believe bigotry is not worthy of Lifers. I’m new as a manager, but I believe we all can set the example, lead the way—”
“Very worthy, I’m sure,” Mason interrupted with a phony smile. “New managers have so much energy.” A rumble of laughter rolled through the room.
Rena opened her mouth to speak, but Mason beat her to the punch. “If time allows, Ms
. Novo, we open discussion to new business items at the end of the final day. If you could hang on to your passion until then?” Another smug smile. He was patting her on the head. “You have brochures, I see. How about you leave them by the door for anyone who’s interested?”
Rena was so angry, she couldn’t speak. She looked to Nigel, who smiled kindly. Why didn’t he defend her? Why didn’t he speak up?
At the break, Rena rushed to the door to hand each person a brochure as they left. Everyone took one, but, later, she found most of them in a trash can in the hall. She bent to collect them, tight with anger. Didn’t anyone care about fair play?
As she stood, someone squeezed her arm. She turned to see it was the Sacramento GM, a woman. “Don’t be discouraged,” she said. “We’ll talk later.” The woman moved on before Rena could respond.
Pushing back her disappointment, Rena returned to the conference room to give her check to Mr. Dollar Signs. Mason was talking to Nigel and Maya, which made it the perfect timing for her minor triumph.
“Mr. Rockingham?” she said.
When he turned, she held out the envelope. “My first contribution. It’s early, but I wanted to do my part.”
Mason smiled briefly, then checked the amount. His smile faded and his blue-brown eyes narrowed. “Will there be more?”
“Every month that much. Mailed to NiGo from now on.”
“But that’s it?” he demanded.
“That’s the required amount,” she said, flustered by his displeasure, fresh sweat tickling her underarms.
“You must excuse Mason,” Nigel said. “He is impatient for our financial success. You’ve only begun your contribution journey with us.” He placed a hand to her back. “Did my story assist you in your dilemma?”
“Yes,” she said, heat in her cheeks. “Very much.”
“Your contributor is interested in further investment?”
“I gave them the packet and all, so…”