Tim nodded, though he didn’t look entirely convinced. “You work with proprietary information, don’t you? Was there anything in your house that someone might have been after?”
“What, you mean like industrial espionage?” Niles frowned. He closed his eyes, hoping to block out any distractions and help himself focus, but all it made him do was want to sleep. “Daniel works for a respected trade magazine. He wouldn’t jeopardize their rep doing anything shady, and besides, I gave him all the scoop he could want. As far as anyone else is concerned, I don’t keep anything like that at my house. It’s all on my work computer or my laptop, which I always carry with me.” He patted his messenger bag.
“Niles. Look at me.” Tim’s voice was a little blunter, a little firmer than before, compelling Niles to meet his eyes. “I swear to you, I’m not trying to lynch your one-night stand. If anything comes up that looks like he might have something to do with this, I’ll be handing this case off to another detective because I’d have a clear conflict of interest.”
Niles ducked his head at the intensity of Tim’s gaze. “Really?”
“Yeah. In fact, I should have done so already since I’m a homicide detective and this is a stalking and menacing case. My captain is letting me follow it for now, but I need to tread lightly. So, don’t worry about defending him to me, okay?” Tim leaned back, easing off the heavy stare. “Just answer the questions, and this will all go faster. Leave the detective work to me; it’s what your tax dollars are paying me to do. Now, can we get through this so you can focus on taking care of you and your brother? Okay?”
“Right. Sure.” Niles closed his eyes again for a long moment, then forced them open before he nodded off.
Tim’s mouth twitched. “You really do look like hell.”
“Yeah, you try spending the night in an airport, see how sprightly you look.” Niles took a long drink of his coffee, inhaling the smoky aroma. His headache was easing up slightly, at least.
“Do you still think this is related to your work?” Tim asked after a moment, watching him closely.
“What else could it be?”
“We just had two girls murdered after a convention you were at. You tell me.”
Niles shook his head adamantly. “You can’t think there’s a connection.”
“There’s nothing to indicate one just yet, no, but the rate of violence happening against people who attended that convention means I should at least keep the idea open as one avenue of inquiry.” Tim’s eyebrows lifted until Niles settled down again. “So tell me why you still think this is connected to your work.”
“Because right now we’re besieged with people unhappy with what we’re doing.” Niles ran a hand through his hair, pushing it back violently. He could hear himself speaking quickly, the words pouring out. “I mean, you’ve got the dude-bros in one corner protesting any potential shift in a status quo that favors them. In another, you have the anti-gaming lobby that wants to blame video games for the violence in our culture in a country where you’ve got people giving their kids assault rifles for their birthdays. In yet another, you’ve got the family-values yahoos afraid that playing a game with a queer character in it will turn their kid into a fag. I mean, Jesus, the fucking Guiding Light Fellowship was outside our offices the other day to remind us that every time God lets a soldier in Afghanistan die, it’s all our fault.” Niles slid down in his chair in a tired slump. “I need a scorecard to keep track of all of them nowadays.”
“What about other relationships? Any bad breakups?”
“Well, there’s Anthony, but he’s harmless.”
Tim smirked. “Famous last words. Tell me about Anthony.”
“Anthony Joyner. I was seeing him for a couple months this fall, but it wasn’t working out. He still calls and texts me a lot, thinks maybe we can try to get back together, but he’s never been the slightest bit menacing. Just . . . clingy.”
Tim turned on his phone again. “Where does he live? Work? What does he do?”
“He’s a sound engineer at the studio where we record our voice actors. I met him early last year when the actors were in town doing the voice work for PF3. It’s over off Hawthorne. He lives in John’s Landing.”
“Well, give me his phone number, and I can at least get an alibi to rule him out.” Niles rattled it off, and Tim gave him an approving nod for his cooperation. “Okay, now, tell me about these protesters. Have there been any particular ones who have stood out, been more aggressive than the others, tried to escalate matters?”
Hunched in his chair and aching with the need for sleep and something stronger than Tylenol to knock out the residual headache, Niles answered Tim’s questions until Rosie called to let them know Jordan was awake.
“Niles? Y’okay?” were his first words, and Niles laughed softly, shaking his head. He brushed a gelled and matted hank of hair back from Jordan’s face.
“I’m fine, Jordie. Tim’s here, though. He needs to ask you some questions.”
“’ll kick his ass again,” Jordan slurred. Niles heard Rosie laugh behind him.
On the other side of the bed, Tim snorted. “No, not about that,” he clarified. “You got bashed in the head with a rock at Niles’s house, Jordan. Remember?”
Jordan blinked, his eyes flicking back and forth between them. “Um. No?” He looked at Niles as if for confirmation.
Niles gave Tim a shrug and a wry smile. “Guess that answers that.” He squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “Hang tight, Jordie. I’ll see if they’ll release you or if they need to keep you awhile longer. Rosie, you think you can give us a ride back to Jordie’s place? I don’t have my car.”
“I’ll do that,” Tim said before Rosie could answer. Niles flashed him a look, and he offered an apologetic smile. “I’d like to check Jordan’s place, make sure no one is waiting for either of you there.”
A protest died unborn on Niles’s tongue. “Right. Okay. Looks like you can get some rest, Rosie. I’ll be back soon.”
It took a few more wearying hours to get Jordan released from the hospital, and then only once they were assured someone would be staying with him. Once they reached his condo and had finished waiting outside while Tim checked the apartment, Niles escorted his shuffling brother to bed. When he came back out to the living room, Tim was on the balcony talking on his phone. A glance at the clock told Niles it wasn’t even noon yet, so he decided to forego the beer he wished he could have and helped himself to the orange juice in Jordan’s fridge instead.
He was seated on the sofa, sipping it thoughtfully, when Tim came back inside, his medium-weight microfiber jacket beaded with small drops of water from the misting rain.
“That was Payne.” He sank onto the sofa beside Niles. “I asked her to follow up with your ex.”
“Okay. I thought of something else that might have . . . provoked someone.”
“Oh?”
Niles cleared his throat. “Yeah. The other night, as I was leaving work with Daniel after you and I arranged to meet, we drove past those Guiding Light douche bags and, um, decided to give them something to really protest.”
He wasn’t sure how Tim would take that bit of information, but Tim grinned. “Way to go. But I take it they weren’t thrilled?”
“We were gay and breathing. Of course they weren’t thrilled. The kiss was just salt in the wound.”
“Was there anyone who seemed particularly upset by the display?”
Niles shrugged. “You know, I didn’t really check. I didn’t care how they reacted. I was just sending them a big fuck you.”
Tim looked down at his hands. “You always were so comfortable with who you were. I used to envy you that. I think that’s why I got so mean when I broke things off.”
“I guess that makes sense, in a way.” Niles rubbed his palms up and down the denim covering his knees. “I wasn’t always, you know. Of the two of us, Jordie was the brave one, the confident one. We came out to each other before anyone else, of course, but I wasn’
t going to come out to him at all. I’d thought I was alone in being gay, and he . . .” He chuckled, shaking his head. “It never occurred to him that I wasn’t gay. He took it as a given that if he was, I would be too. No question about it. So he blurted it out to me like it was no big deal, assuming that I had the same confidence in him that he had in me, that I just knew. Weird. It was the only time in our lives that I ever doubted anything about him, even for an instant. After that, though, it didn’t matter what anyone thought of us. Of me. As long as he was there alongside me, I didn’t care who else objected.”
“You’re lucky.” Tim turned sideways on the sofa to face him more fully. “If I’d had that sort of support system, maybe I would have handled things differently.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t as sympathetic as I could have been to what you were facing. Coming out was so easy for me, and once I knew Jordie was gay too, I was so secure that the people who mattered most to me wouldn’t care. I couldn’t really appreciate how much harder it must be for other people.” Niles sighed and looked away. “Sorry. I’m being rude. You want some juice? Water? I can make a pot of coffee.”
“Coffee would be great, thanks. I got the call about your brother around three o’clock this morning.”
“Sure.” Niles pushed himself up off the sofa, grateful for the excuse to put some distance between them. “So, how did your family take it? When it finally all went down?”
“My wife was both furious and not surprised, if that makes any sense.” Tim chuckled without much humor. “She said she’d known since I’d come back from college that something was off. She’d assumed I’d met another girl there and felt guilty about it. Then when the truth came out, so to speak, she was livid that I’d been lying to her for so long. As divorces go, it wasn’t terribly acrimonious, but it wasn’t a joyride, either, and now we’re awkwardly amicable exes.”
“Could be worse.” Niles fell silent while the electric coffee grinder burred. “Any kids?”
“No, thank God. Though, really, I should thank her for that. I was pushing for it. I think maybe I believed that if we had kids, I would forget everything else, forget you, and everything would finally feel right in my life. I’d focus on them and that would be all that mattered. But like I said, Kayleigh knew something was off and kept telling me she didn’t think we were ready yet. Pretty smart of her, in the end.”
“What about the rest of your family?” He was proud of himself for sounding so calm and steady. Tim’s fear of coming out to his family was what had broken his heart and left him devastated, after all. Maybe ten years had actually been enough to relieve some of the sting, though even thinking about it, his chest felt tight.
“As awful as this is to say, my dad’s illness was probably a good thing on that front. No one had time to get hysterical when I was outed, because we had other things to worry about. And by the time Dad had passed away and we’d stopped mourning, it had just sort of settled in.” Tim shrugged, and Niles turned on the coffeemaker and returned to the sofa, cursing Jordan for having a sectional instead of a chair where he could actually sit across the room from Tim. He would have stayed standing at the breakfast bar if he weren’t so exhausted that his knees felt weak. “My mom and brother don’t actually talk about it. It’s a little Don’t ask, don’t tell. They never inquire about whether I’m dating anyone or anything like that, which is something I’ll have to deal with someday when I want to bring someone home for the holidays, but for now, it’s okay with me to just leave things like that.”
Niles nodded, biting his lip against the urge to ask why Tim had been in town for seven years and never called him. Awkward silence fell, disrupted only by the burbling of the coffeemaker in the background.
Finally, Tim spoke again as Niles poured the coffee. “So you and this reporter—”
“No, it’s not anything.” Niles flicked him a quick look before dedicatedly studying his coffee. “I don’t know what you think I’ve been doing all these years, but it wasn’t pining for you.”
“I didn’t think you had been.” Tim cleared his throat and ventured a few more desultory questions about who might wish Niles harm, but by the time they were midway through their first cups, they’d lapsed back into silence. Niles thought Tim looked as exhausted as he felt.
“I should go,” Tim muttered finally, pushing himself up. “I’ll have more questions later, and I’ll need to talk to Jordan, of course, once the drugs wear off, but right now we’re both too tired to come up with anything useful.”
Niles nodded, slumping into the sofa. “Yeah. I need a shower and some sleep in the worst possible way. I’m going to hang out here with Jordie today until he’s in the clear, then I’ll be at home the rest of the weekend. One good thing about missing this convention: it gives me some free time I hadn’t planned on having.”
“Okay.” Tim’s mouth tipped up in a rueful smile, as though he were on the verge of pursuing that opening. And that was what it was, Niles realized. He was making a point of letting Tim know he was available. But Tim just reached for his jacket. “Tell Jordan I’ll call later, when he’s feeling better.”
“Sure. Thanks, Tim. For everything.” He escorted Tim to the door and locked it behind him. He was too tired for even his brain to spin wildly, trying to make sense of everything that had happened, the way it normally would have. If he let himself sit and think too long, he was probably going to end up freaking out over the fact that he might have lost his brother. Instead, he grabbed a change of clothes out of the suitcase he’d dragged with him from the airport and headed for the shower.
“’S Tim gone?” Jordan slurred when Niles climbed into bed beside him, feeling somewhat more human for his shower and the clean shorts and T-shirt, if not any less exhausted. He borrowed one of the hydrocodone the doctor had prescribed for Jordan’s pain to knock out his own residual headache.
“Yeah. He’s going to need to speak to you when you come down off the meds.”
“’Kay. Sorry ’bout your trip.”
“Pfft. I’m sorry I went when you were telling me you had a bad feeling about me going. Clearly, I should have listened.”
“Eh, don’t do that.” Jordan burrowed deeper under the covers, and Niles huddled beside him, feeling the wooziness of the meds starting to kick in. “’S better you went.”
“Why’s that?”
“’Cuz if you hadn’t, it would have been you getting hit.”
Niles was still trying to parse how that realization made him feel when Jordan’s quiet snores lulled him to sleep.
“Niles, can you come in here, please?”
“Sure thing, Rosie.”
Rosie hung up her phone, staring at the images on her computer. She gnawed her lip a moment, then turned away from her laptop to open the files on the large-screened gaming rigs set up against the far wall in her office.
“Jesus, what are those?” She turned to look at Niles where he stood in the doorway, his eyes troubled.
Their PF3 characters stared back at them in multiple series of comic-style drawings. The last panel of each series showed eyes wide with horror, faces eternally caught in the rictus of a gruesome death. The drawing of Issis was the worst of the lot, her final pose so blatantly sexualized that it felt like a deliberate taunt from the artist, as if making a statement about Third Wave’s anti-male-gaze approach to rendering female characters. Or maybe mocking them, now that news of Charity’s and Lakshmi’s deaths had gotten out into the gaming community. After the shit people had said when Rosie’d had her brain tumor, it wouldn’t surprise her. There was no limit to how low these guys would sink to make themselves feel big.
“Fan art,” she said. “Jordan emailed me the link.” At her insistence, Jordan was working from home this week, even though it had been three days since the attack and he said his head was fine. “He found them on one of the fan site message boards—not ours, unfortunately, so we have no way to trace the account. The thread was titled, ‘How PF3 SHOULD Be Played.’”
>
“Well . . .” Niles swallowed audibly, and Rosie nodded in sympathy. The images were definitely disturbing. The style of the art looked familiar, also, though she couldn’t place it. “Someone is in violation of the NDA.”
“Yeah.” She’d been so thrown by the level of personalized violence in the sketches that it had taken her a while to notice the little details that marked the artist as having access to the content of the beta release. Beta participants were bound to a nondisclosure agreement, but that wasn’t the worst of the issues with this series of drawings. “We could get legal on it, send a cease and desist based on that, but you know it will turn into a censorship firestorm.”
“True, that.” Niles moved closer, his eyes intent on the monitor. He reached for the mouse and began scrolling through the images. “What is this, exactly? These aren’t scenes from the game.”
“Well, they could have been, in a manner of speaking.” Rosie took the mouse from him and navigated to one particular image. “See? This is the scene where Issis is waiting for her contact in the park. The thugs are about to get the drop on her and hit her with a board when the PC shows up and alerts her to the attack.”
That scene was proving to be controversial among beta participants; in it, the player character was too far away to prevent the attack and Issis Lowe dealt with her attackers on her own, quickly and easily taking them down. Players felt the PC should have saved her. They also didn’t appreciate that Issis reamed the PC out afterward for interfering with her meeting. Depending on if the PC agreed that Issis could take care of herself, the scene could spell the end to any hope of the sexual relationship between Issis and the PC evolving into an actual romance.
“Only in this series of sketches, the attack happens, but the PC never arrives,” Niles observed, paging through them one after the other. “God, this is just—” He fell silent, clicking through each collection of panels one by one. “Some days I wonder what sort of people call themselves fans if this is what they want to see.”
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