“You don’t have to let Ashley stay,” Reed said. “But if you don’t make a place for her, she might not come back.”
Ellery heaved a deep sigh. “She’s got your old spot on the couch.”
“Warn her it comes with a hound’s tongue bath in the morning.”
“It’s more fun when the guests figure that one out on their own.”
Reed slid his gaze to the laptop screen. “Listen,” he said, “wherever Chloe is and how she got there, I don’t think she sent the threatening text to her mother.”
“She sure seemed fed up with her to me.”
“She is that. But Chloe modulates her texts based on her audience. She uses slang and text-speak with her friends but more or less proper grammar when corresponding with her mother. It’s so ingrained that I doubt it would occur to her to switch now.”
“Great. We’re back to the probability that someone took her.”
“Someone who doesn’t care for Teresa Lockhart.” He had a developing theory that the person might have used Chloe’s exasperation with her mother as an opening, a shared bond: Here, have a secret cell phone where we can trash your mom together.
“Wait a sec, I’ve got Conroy on the other line.”
Reed used the intervening time to kiss his daughter’s warm head and tuck the covers securely around her. She mumbled something unintelligible into her pillow and clutched the pony around its neck. When Ellery returned to the phone, her tone was grim.
“The FBI is officially involved now.”
“What happened?”
“Teresa got another text from a different burner phone. I’m sending you the screenshot.”
Reed braced himself, the cords of his neck rigid, but the image still stole his breath away. Chloe Lockhart appeared in a close-up in front of what looked like a gray concrete wall. She had duct tape across her mouth, bruises on her face, and someone had chopped off her hair at the one-inch mark. Her blue eyes looked dazed, out of focus under the bright light from the camera. The accompanying text said: WILL U CRY IF SHE DIES LIKE THE 1ST ONE?
“There’s no way a twelve-year-old girl did this to herself,” Ellery said. “It’s definitely an abduction.”
It’s worse than that, Reed thought as he sank down on the bed. It’s the prelude to a murder.
13
Ellery stared out the floor-to-ceiling window of her loft at the city lights below her. Logically, she knew there was nothing more she could do for Chloe Lockhart at that precise moment. The tech team was doing their best to extract any information from the electronics. Every officer in the state remained on high alert, and Chloe’s picture was all over the news, meaning that millions of eyeballs across New England were on the lookout for the girl. Ellery’s eyes would simply be one more pair. She had no special knowledge, no obvious clue or place to start. Still, she felt restless, her skin crawling for need of something to do.
Behind her, Ashley took stock of her CD collection, which sat against one wall of the living room. Ellery had largely switched to digital music, but she’d built that collection with meager money saved over many years and she couldn’t bring herself to part with it. “Springsteen, okay,” the girl said. “The Smiths. Journey. The Cure. Joy Division?” She turned and wrinkled her nose at Ellery. “How old are you?”
“Hey, some of those are classics.”
“I know what they are.” Ashley replaced the albums one by one. “They’re his music.” She glanced at Ellery. “Dad’s.”
Ellery didn’t need to be told this. Some of her few happy memories were riding around in her dad’s truck with him, the music on blast and the wind in her ears. He took the truck with him when he left, but the music stayed with her. “You can’t keep him away forever, you know,” she said to Ashley. “He may have agreed to let you stay here a couple of days, but legally, he can have the cops come haul you out of here any time he wants, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him.”
“He can drag me back, but he can’t keep me there.”
Ellery suspected John Hathaway appreciated this truth better than most fathers. A wife and two kids hadn’t tied him down one whit. She sighed and went to the kitchen. “I’m going to make tea. Would you like tea?”
“Sure.” Ashley followed her and leaned against the counter to watch Ellery fill the red kettle. “Don’t you hate him? You must hate him.”
Ellery hated that she had to think about him at all. He didn’t give a shit about me, she’d told her therapist last spring when the woman wanted to probe at her relationship with her errant father. Why should I spend two seconds talking about him now?
Maybe you could consider talking to him, Dr. Sunny Soon had suggested.
About what? About how he walked out and never looked back until the day his second daughter got sick … at which point he came crawling back to ask for a literal piece of me?
“He loves you,” she told Ashley. “So maybe he’s not all bad.” She’d confined her father to a soundproof room in her head. He could scream all he wanted, but she would never hear him. She kept her back to the girl as she pulled down two mugs and fussed with the tea bags.
“He calls me Abby sometimes,” Ashley confessed in a hushed voice.
Ellery jerked in surprise at the mention of her old name, knocking a mug to the floor, where it shattered on the tile.
“Shoot, I’m sorry.” Ashley hurried to help her clean up.
“No, no, it’s fine.” I’m fine. I’m always fine. Ellery ignored the pounding in her ears as she struggled to hold the dustpan and broom in her shaking hands. “No one calls me that anymore,” she told her sister without looking at her.
“I know.” The girl’s sympathetic tone made it worse. “I read all about you when Dad told me who you were. I read Reed’s book and I watched one of the movies. I just meant … he didn’t forget about you. When he’d slip up and call me the wrong name, he’d say that I reminded him of a girl he used to know named Abby, and that our names were similar. Abby, Ashley.”
A girl I used to know. Ellery swallowed past the painful lump in her throat as she disposed of the broken mug. She got down a whole one, just the same, like nothing had ever happened. “I’m sorry,” she muttered as she lifted the kettle. “That must have been confusing to you to be called the wrong name.”
“I believed him at the time about why he got it wrong. Later, when I found out how much he’d lied—that was confusing.” Her voice grew small. “You came and saved me after everything he did to you.”
Ellery looked at her. “It’s not your fault you got stuck with a crap dad.”
The girl shrugged. “You didn’t have to do it, but you did. You didn’t stick around, though. You didn’t let me say thank you.”
“No thanks are necessary. Just—drink your tea.”
“I want to help you.” Ashley persisted, following Ellery back to the living room with her tea in hand. “I can clean your apartment if you want.”
The dog-fur tumbleweeds under the furniture said she needed it, but Ellery winced at the idea of someone touching her stuff. “It’s fine, really.”
“I could walk the dog while you’re at work.”
“He’s got a pet sitter, thanks.”
“There must be something I can help you with,” Ashley said, flopping back dramatically against the couch cushions.
In her head, Ellery saw the picture of Chloe, duct-taped and scared to death. “What do you know about video games?” she asked her sister.
Ashley perked up immediately and sat forward into Ellery’s space. “Which one? Anya’s Journey? StarKwest? World of Battlecraft?”
“I don’t know,” Ellery admitted. “The girl we’re looking for, Chloe, she played online. We think she may have met a boy named Ty in the process.”
“Sure, I’ve met tons of people gaming. When I was sick, it was one of the only things I was allowed to do, because I couldn’t leave the house. Some of the kids I met turned into friends IRL, but others lived in, like, Japan. You can
meet people from all over.”
“IRL?”
“In real life.”
“We think this girl did meet up with the boy in person.”
“You think he, like, took her or something?” Ashley’s eyes turned concerned.
“We don’t know. The problem is that we don’t know his name or where he lives. If we turned on her gaming system, do you think we could find a record of their interaction?”
“Mmm, not really. Most gamers use headsets or outside apps to communicate now. Like, to talk to each other while they play? I don’t think anyone’s recording that stuff.” She brightened. “But if you know which game they met on, you could go in as her character and chat up her crew. If he’s one of them, people might know who he is or where to find him.”
“Would you know how to do that?” Ellery checked her phone and saw the time was nearing ten, but she would bet money the Lockharts weren’t asleep.
“Sure, if you show me her stuff and the logins are preset.”
“Get dressed,” Ellery said as she sprang from the couch. Her tea sat neglected on the end table. The tech boys would have a better handle on the programming and the software, but they didn’t speak teenage girl. If the Lockharts agreed to the plan, they wouldn’t have to wait for warrants. While Ashley changed out of her pajamas, Ellery put back on her boots and her dark jeans. She wound her hair into a knot and shrugged into her leather jacket.
“Damn,” Ashley said with admiration as Ellery holstered her weapon. “You could be starring in your own video game.”
“No,” replied Ellery as she grabbed up her keys and headed for the door. “This is IRL.”
She called the Lockharts from the road and so she was not surprised to arrive to find the house ablaze with light. A pair of news vans remained parked outside in the shadows, just in case of any action. Ellery did her best to act casual as she ushered Ashley through the gate and up the front walk. Martin Lockhart opened the door before they had a chance to knock. He looked like he’d aged ten years since yesterday.
“I apologize for the lateness of the hour,” Ellery said as he let them inside.
“Time has no meaning anymore,” he told her.
Teresa appeared in the doorway to the living room, her pale eyes red rimmed and glazed. “Agent Markham isn’t with you?”
“No, ma’am, not this time.”
She sucked in her mouth, looking pained. “He’s the profiler, right? I wanted to ask him. I wanted to know why, if this is about me and what a terrible mother I am, why they are torturing Chloe? Why not just take me instead?”
“For God’s sake, you’re not a bad mother!” Martin snapped, and Teresa covered her face with both hands. “You’re protective and you love Chloe. You have a job outside the home that saves people’s lives daily. If that’s terrible, I don’t know what to say about the women who give birth and leave their babies in trash cans.”
Ashley stiffened at her side and Ellery felt a stab of guilt at involving her in this whole mess. She wished she’d brought Reed along, because he was so much better at soothing people than she was. Teresa Lockhart wept into her hands as her husband glared at her from across the entryway. “Ma’am … if I may. I’m not a profiler and I’m not here to pass judgment on your parenting one way or the other. But I can promise you one thing for sure: whoever is doing this to Chloe, it’s is about what’s wrong with them and not about you.”
“Exactly,” Martin said, holding his arms out to Teresa in beseeching fashion.
She raised her face and fixed him with an accusing glare. “They didn’t say anything about you. You work as many hours as me, if not more. Why is it always about the mother?” She looked to Ellery. “The school notices come to me, not him. It’s the mothers who are expected to contribute to the bake sales and make the posters for the book fair and volunteer at the Halloween parade. If the homework is late, if the child isn’t practicing her piano enough, the teachers go to the mother, not the father. Fathers can jet off to work for weeks at a time. They can be twenty-five or sixty-five and no one bats an eye. No one asks them to go on television to say what a shit parent they are!” Her voice, which had been steadily rising, reached a seething crescendo at the end.
Martin crossed to Teresa and took her in his arms. She fought him at first but then sagged against his chest when he held fast. “We’re terribly worried,” he told Ellery. “As you can see.”
“I know. That’s why I’ve brought Ashley to try out Chloe’s video games. She might be able to learn something about this unknown boy Chloe was photographed with.”
“Go ahead,” Martin said over Teresa’s soft weeping. “Her room is upstairs and down the hall on the right, as you know.”
Relieved to have an escape hatch, Ellery nudged Ashley, and they hurried up the stairs to Chloe’s suite. “Whoa, that was intense,” Ashley whispered to her. “Now I feel kind of bad for running out on Mom and Dad like that. Mom, especially. It’s not her fault he’s a douchecanoe.”
“Not weighing in on that one,” Ellery said as they reached the room. She led Ashley to the large television and gaming devices. “Here it is. Does this make sense to you?”
Ashley pulled over a beanbag chair and put on a headset. “Yeah, I got it.” She turned on the various devices and the screen filled up with options. “Which one of these do you want me to try first?”
“Is there a way to see which one she played last?”
“Hang on a sec. Yeah.” Ashley moved the arrow around through various titles. “It was this one, World of Battlecraft.”
“Do that one.”
“Gotcha.” She took up the controls, hit a button, and the screen changed to reveal a sweeping landscape with high mountains and a purple sky. To the right, a line of thick trees suggested the edge of a forest. Just visible at the base of the nearest mountain was a cluster of houses. A female figure with flowing black hair, chest armor, and a longsword at her side began to run through the field of white flowers toward the houses.
“Is that you?” Ellery asked.
Ashley nodded. “This is Chloe’s avatar.” She ran the figure up to the end of a rocky overhang and then jumped her down onto a somewhat more well-worn path toward the town. The woman on the screen huffed and puffed like an actual runner. She drew up short as a troll-like green figure materialized out of nowhere in front of her. His mouth moved and Ellery heard a voice through Ashley’s headphones. She leaned in closer to hear.
“… going to do a raid on Alavan’s castle. Are you in?”
“Not now,” Ashley said. “I’m looking for Ty. Have you seen him?”
“Not for a couple of days. We’re gathering at Tu’laq Peak if you change your mind.”
“Thanks.” The Chloe figure on the screen continued onward toward the town. “If he’s not logged on, we won’t find him.”
“Can you call him through the game?” Ellery had no idea how this worked.
“No, but if he’s called Ty here, I can check to see if he’s logged on.” She called up a menu that appeared to list Chloe’s contacts. Ellery saw a couple of the troll-like creatures, a muscular young man with brown skin and glowing eyes, a blond woman with a fancy silver collar, some sort of hairy beast with large teeth, a unicorn, a blue guy with long white hair … the list went on and on, and most of them had names like Lothar, Indigo, CreeXanthes, or Pulani. If they were logged on, the avatar was in color and alert, blinking out at the user. If the person was not logged on, the avatar was grayed out and unmoving.
“I don’t see a Ty,” Ellery said as Ashley scrolled on by.
“People don’t name their characters after themselves. See? Chloe is Amara.”
“Chloe!” The shout that came through the headphones knocked Ashley backward for a moment. “Where are you? What happened?”
Ashley exited the screen to find the blue man with white hair standing in front of Chloe’s character. She shrugged silently at Ellery. “What do I say?” she whispered.
“Tell the
m you’re not Chloe. You’re a friend and you’re looking for Ty.”
“I’m not Chloe. Just using her setup. I’m a friend who’s worried about her.”
“God, man. Me, too.”
“I want to find Ty.”
The blue figure gesticulated wildly. “I’m Ty. What do you want with me?”
“Have you seen Chloe?”
“Naw, man. I ain’t seen her in days. They’re saying on the news she got kidnapped.”
Ashley mouthed at Ellery, What now?
“Ask him when he saw her last.”
“When did you last see Chloe?”
“Last Tuesday at the Y as usual. She was acting normal.”
“Did he know Chloe had a bunch of money?” Ellery whispered.
Ashley relayed the question.
“I knew she had some bread, yeah. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“The cops are interviewing all her friends,” Ashley improvised. “They may want to talk to you, too.”
“What? No way. I don’t need no part of this.”
“I don’t mean you’re a suspect. I mean to help with finding Chloe.”
“I’d help if I could, but I don’t know nothing.” He stressed that last word hard. “Ask me, the cops should be talking to her dad.”
Ellery made a rolling motion with her hand. Follow up. Come on.
“Why her dad?” Ashley asked.
“He’s got some pervy-ass friends, that’s why. One of ’em been creeping on Chloe, asking her for pictures and shit.”
Name, Ellery mouthed. The man’s name.
“What guy? What’s his name?”
“I don’t know his name. I’ve gotta blast. I hope you find Chloe.”
“Wait,” she said, but the blue figure on the screen melted away.
14
Reed woke to the sound of his phone buzzing on the hotel nightstand and he craned his head up to look at it. Sarit again. He couldn’t ignore her forever. “Hello?” he said, his voice still rough with sleep.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” she said by way of greeting. “You’re supposed to be walking the Freedom Trail and showing her where the tea went into the harbor. Instead, I see her face on CNN. What the hell, Reed?”
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