“Two of the three. Both caught him staring in the
bedroom window. Both filed a complaint and suddenly things started breaking in
their respective apartments. Finally both moved out, saying Mrs. Kobrecki would
lie like a rug to protect her grandson.”
“So he’s a peeper and a sniffer. Could he have moved
to murder? It’s a big step.”
Jack shrugged. “Like I said, based on the friends he
hangs with, I don’t think he’s got the brains. But we’ll keep looking for him,
if for no other reason than to cross him off.”
“Speaking of lists, I need to get back to this one.
We’re going to have to decide if we begin contacting the heavy users on Eve’s
list or not. If we do, Eve will bear the brunt.”
“And if we don’t,” Jack said seriously, “we could find
one of them hanging from a rope. There’s really no choice, Web.”
“I know,” Noah said. “And Eve knows that, too.”
“Give me half of the names,” Jack said. “I think our
time is better spent identifying potential victims than tracking Taylor
Kobrecki.”
“You’re right.” Noah gave him half the stack. “Focus
on the heavy users.”
They worked for twenty minutes in silence, and then
Jack spoke in a strained tone. “Web, I think I found Samantha Altman.”
Noah’s head jerked up. “What? Eve said she wasn’t on
the list.”
“She wasn’t, not as Samantha Altman.” Jack handed Noah
a single sheet across their desks. “I put a check next to her name.”
“Samantha Porter,” Noah read, then he remembered.
“She’d just gotten divorced. Porter was her married name, but she’d gone back
to Altman.”
“But when she signed up for this study, she was still
Samantha Porter.”
“Eve’s got her in the lightest user group. Zero to
five hours a week.”
“Samantha couldn’t play if she was dead,” Jack said
dryly, then he frowned when Noah picked up the phone. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Eve.”
“At this hour?”
“She won’t mind.”
“Noah?” Her voice was husky with sleep and he pushed
the distracting mental image of her snug in bed from his mind. “What’s
happened?”
“We found Samantha Altman, the first victim, on the
list you gave me last night.”
He heard the creak of bedsprings. “That’s impossible.
I checked myself. Twice.”
“She’d just gotten divorced and Altman was her maiden
name. She’d registered with you as Samantha Porter. She was in the light user
group.”
There was a pause, then a quiet sigh. “Because she was
dead. She would have been at the zero end of zero to five hours a week. Oh
God.”
“Can you check her usage history, find out when she
stopped playing?”
“Already checking. Hold on… Two weeks ago she went
from six hours a day to nothing. I must have seen this. How did I miss this?”
“If you had seen it, you just would have thought she’d
lost interest in the study.”
“You’re right.” She drew a breath. “Hysterics won’t
help. What do you need?”
Noah’s respect for her ratcheted up. “I take it you
never saw the avatar who was with Christy Sunday night.”
“He wasn’t on.” She went quiet. “I’d convinced myself
that a local killer trolling for local women was more likely to find my test
subjects as we’d geographically stacked the deck. But now, three for three…
Somebody has access to our subject list.”
“Jack is here. I’m going to put you on speaker. Who
has access, Eve?”
“Jeremy Lyons. He’s Dr. Donner’s secretary. He typed
the names in. And anybody who has access to Jeremy’s office. Jeremy keeps his
user name and password on a sticky note under his desk blotter. If his computer
is on, you can get in.”
“So anybody wanting the files would have to physically
go to his office?”
“Well, no. If you connect to the university’s server
from an outside line, you could also get in.” She hesitated. “With Jeremy’s
password, that’s pretty easy to do.”
Which was how she’d found Christy’s address. “Who had
access to his office?”
“Anybody who enters the building. Jeremy takes a lot
of bathroom breaks and leaves his computer unattended. Anybody who knew about
the study could have managed it.”
This wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. “Which includes
who?”
“Dr. Donner, the committee that approved my thesis
proposal, any of the members of the study itself, most of the grad students in
the department, and ShadowCo.”
Noah frowned. “Why ShadowCo?”
“They sponsored my research. Not a huge stipend, but
enough so that their PR people could say they put money toward responsible use
of role play games.”
“In other words,” Jack said, “a helluva lot of
people.”
“Well, maybe somebody saw him with Christy on Monday
night,” Noah said. “If he broke into her house, we should have seen evidence of
forced entry. If he lured her out, hopefully somebody saw them. Does Shadowland
keep track of conversations?”
“It’s up to the individual. A lot of gamers don’t want
anyone to know where they’ve gone or who they’ve met. Anonymity is a benefit of
the game.”
“If the user does choose to save the conversations,
where do they go?” Jack asked.
“They’re saved to the gamer’s hard drive. I suppose
ShadowCo may store them on their servers, but that seems unlikely given the
volume of conversations. It would be like if the wireless companies kept track
of each individual text message or IM. They don’t because they simply don’t
have the capacity. Did you get Christy’s computer?”
“Yes, but it’s… unlikely that we’ll find anything on
it.” Especially if the killer had switched Christy’s computer as he’d done with
Martha’s.
“We may have to resort to old-fashioned detective
work,” Jack said with a wry smile.
Noah didn’t feel much like smiling back. “Eve, for
now, I’d like a list of anyone you know who could have accessed the files.
We’ll start with alibis for Donner, Lyons, and the grad students. I’ll be in
touch.” Noah hung up and leaned back in his chair. “Well?”
Jack lifted his brows. “I was right. She would have
been great at phone sex.”
Noah gritted his teeth, irritated. “Jack.”
“You have no sense of humor,” Jack said and Noah
gritted his teeth harder.
“Christy Lewis. She’s online chatting up avatars
around midnight Monday morning. She’s gotta be dead before nine o’clock,
because she doesn’t show up for work.”
Jack grimaced. “And there’s a snake involved.”
Noah took the lid off the coffee cup Jack had brought
him and stirred in his normal four packs of sugar. “We can’t forget about the
snake. Why use a snake?”
“ ’Cause he’s a sick bastard. You don’t need all that
sugar. This coffee is good.”
Sugar had become his vice when he’d quit the booze.
“Habit. Okay, so we know he’s a sick bastard. He’s killed three women. Still,
why the snake?”
“Maybe Ian can tell us more after he finishes the
autopsy.”
Noah stood up. “He said he’d do it last night. Let’s
find out if he’s done.”
Tuesday, February 23, 6:45 a.m.
Liza cooked the last egg they had. They were always
low on food, but she’d been afraid to spend any money until Lindsay came home.
If
she ever comes home.
The police weren’t looking for her. Nobody was looking
for her,
nobody except me
.
She closed her eyes, so tired. She’d covered miles the
night before, only to come up empty-handed. No one had seen Lindsay.
She’s
dead
.
A wave of grief washed over her.
Don’t give up
.
If Lindsay was lying in an alley somewhere, hurt, she was frozen by now.
Don’t
give up
.
She lifted her chin. She had an English exam today.
When Lindsay did return, she’d kick Liza’s butt for failing a test and losing
her chance for a scholarship.
She went back to her room to get ready for school.
Tuesday, February 23, 7:25 a.m.
Noah and Jack found Ian at his desk, typing a report.
“I was going to bring a report to Abbott’s 8:00 a.m. meeting,” Ian said. “You
didn’t have to come down.”
“We’re stuck on the snake,” Noah said. “We don’t know
why he used it and were hoping you found something that would shine some light
on it.”
“Because he’s a sick bastard?” Ian said sourly.
“Told you so,” Jack said.
“I was hoping for a more scientific explanation,” Noah
said. “Anything, Ian?”
“Plenty.” He pulled the sheet from Christy’s body.
“She has the same puncture on her neck and was positive for ketamine, just like
Martha. Unlike Martha, Christy was restrained at her ankles. The rope burns are
only on the front, bruising on the back.”
“She was tied to a chair,” Noah said.
“I think so. There is also swelling in her elbows.”
Ian looked up, his eyes weary. “We see that elbow swelling when the arms are
kept crossed over the torso for long periods of time, like this.” He
demonstrated. “But there’s no evidence of arm or wrist restraint.”
Jack frowned. “Straitjacket?”
“It makes sense,” Ian said. “A straitjacket will
immobilize without leaving marks. I found bruising between her shoulder blades,
same height as the chairs around her dining room table. I think she struggled,
repeatedly rocking back against the chair.”
“Trying to get away from the snake,” Jack said, horror
in his voice.
Noah cringed at the thought. “He tied her to a chair
and set a rattlesnake on her?”
Jack looked ill. “If she struggled, she wasn’t
sedated. Why the ketamine?”
“Good question. Perhaps he sedated her before, to get
the jacket on her,” Ian said. “Officially, strangulation was once again the
cause of death.”
“He terrified her,” Noah murmured. “Why? Other than
the fact he is a sick bastard?”
“Sometimes it’s just because they can,” Jack said.
Noah sighed. “True. But why a snake? How did he know
that would scare her?”
“Most people are afraid of snakes,” Jack said thinly.
“It’s a common phobia.”
“I suppose. Still doesn’t feel right. What else, Ian?”
Ian shrugged. “She ate waffles a few hours before she
died, with maple syrup.”
“And time of death would have been when?” Noah asked.
“Sometime between five and six yesterday morning.”
Noah did the math. “So she ate waffles around 3:00 or
4:00 a.m. She either made them in her own kitchen or she went out.”
“I didn’t see any evidence that she cooked,” Jack
said. “I think she went out. And at that time of the morning, there aren’t many
places that serve. This is a good break.”
“So we take her photo to the all-night diners and
waffle houses around town.”
“She also filled her tank with gas. There were traces
of hydrocarbons on her hands.”
“A waffle house near a gas station,” Noah mused. “When
will you get Samantha?”
“Sometime after eight. Since I’ve given you my prelim,
I’ll stay here and start on Samantha Altman’s autopsy as soon as she arrives.
I’ll be in touch.”
Tuesday, February 23, 7:45 a.m.
Eve was frying eggs when David stumbled into her
kitchen, rubbing his eyes.
“You need a new couch, Evie. I could feel every
spring.”
She handed him a cup of coffee. “I know. I got it from
a yard sale.”
“Yeah, I noticed. Nice to have someone cook for me
occasionally.”
She put their plates on the table. “Don’t any of those
other firemen cook?”
“Out of a Hamburger Helper box. Hey, these are pretty
good.” “Even I can fry an egg. So, you gonna fix my roof today?”
“If it stays dry. Who was that on the phone earlier?”
Eve picked at her breakfast. “Noah Webster. They found
the first murdered woman on my list. She’d signed up under her married name,
but got divorced. Three for three.”
David sighed. “Sucks, kid. But you still aren’t
responsible.”
“Neither Samantha nor Christy had played Shadowland
before we placed our recruiting ad. They were there to be preyed upon because
they signed up for my study.”
“And if you’d asked them to take a daily walk in the
park and they’d been mugged? Would that have been your fault, too?”
He was right, but that didn’t make it any easier.
“No.”
He set back to work on his breakfast. “You break into
Shadowland yet?”
“Not yet. I upped my network privileges, but I still
haven’t got the keys to the kingdom. I’m a lot closer though. Shouldn’t take
too much longer.”
“So you’re going to stay here all day to work on that,
right?”
“No. I’m not going to stay here all day so you can
watch over me. But thanks.”