Fantasy in Death (30 page)

The simplicity of the first level would pull the gamer in, she thought. They want to move up, move on, face more challenges. As she did.

She gathered clues, racked up points, mopped the sweat off her brow, wetted her throat with water from her canteen.

It tasted sweet and clear, and the salt from the sweat stung her eyes.

It was perfect, she decided. So far.

On level three, an arrow whizzed by her head. She knew the path to take—which was maybe cheating a little. But it was fun! And work, too, she reminded herself as she charged up the steep path, her breath huffing out. Her boots skidded on mud from a recent storm, and when she went down, she felt the warm, wet dirt ooze between her fingers.

Up and running again, dodging left, right as muscle memory guided her.

Come on,
she thought,
yeah, come on!
as her fingers reached for the Bowie in her belt.

The rival she’d named Delancy Queeg stood in the path, his knife already drawn.

“The henchmen you hired need more endurance,” she said.

“They drove you where I wanted you. Go back now, and I’ll let you live.”

“Is that what you said to my father before you slit his throat, you bastard?”

He smiled—tanned, handsome, deadly. “Your father was a fool, and so is his daughter. The Dragon’s Egg is mine. It’s always been mine.” He waved a hand, and she glanced behind long enough to see five bare-chested natives with bows ready.

“Not man enough to take me alone?” she demanded.

“Go,” he ordered them. “You’ve done what you were paid to do.”

Though they slipped away, she knew he was a liar. They would lie in wait. She would have to be quick.

She shifted her grip on the knife to combat stance, and began to circle on the narrow, muddy path.

Jabs, feints, and the scrape of blades. Perfect, she thought again, no tweaking necessary. She smelled blood where she’d nicked the bastard Queeg’s arm, just above the wrist.

He’d cut her next, she thought, anticipating the next moves in the program as she played it. After he sliced her shoulder he’d smile, thinking he had the advantage.

Then she’d plunge it into his side, and leap from the cliff into the rock-strewn river below as arrows flew around her.

She considered dodging the slice since she knew when it was coming, and from where, but it was better to study the details, to look for flaws if she played it by rote rather than mixing it up.

His knife struck out fast, the tip ripping through cotton and flesh. But instead of the expected jolt, she felt the tear, the fire of it.

She stumbled back, dropping her knife as she brought her hand up, felt the blood as warm against her fingers as the mud had been. In disbelief, she watched the knife drip with it.

Real, she thought. Not holo. Real.

As Queeg’s lips spread in a feral smile, as his knife began another downward arc, she slipped on the muddy path and tumbled over the cliff with a scream snapped off by the rocks and rushing water below.

The next morning, Benny paced Var’s office. “I’m going to try her again.”

“You tried her five minutes ago.” Standing at his window, Var stared out in the direction of Cill’s building. “She’s not answering the ’link.” He rubbed his hands over his hair. “Or e-mail, or text, or any damn thing.”

Frustration in every line of his face, he turned back. “You’re sure she didn’t say anything to you about not coming in today?”

“No, I told you, just the opposite. She said she’d be in early. She didn’t want to stay at her place any longer than she had to. I told her she could bunk at my place. You know how she is about her things, her space.”

“Yeah, she said the same to me, and that if she didn’t go back and stay the night, she’d probably never go back at all. Goddamn it.” He looked at the time. “She’s probably just overslept, that’s all. Maybe she took a sleeper—”

“Maybe she took too many sleepers.”

“Jesus. We should go over. We’ll go over and check on her. Just in case... Probably just tuned out for a while, but we should check.”

“Let’s go now. Neither of us is going to get any work done until we do. She logged out her copy of Fantastical,” Benny added as they caught an elevator down.

“She did? Well, that’s good. That’s good. Work’s good for her, and it’s probably why she’s tuned out. Sure. She got caught up, worked late, took a sleeper. Probably didn’t crash out until dawn or something.”

“That’s probably it. Yeah, that’s probably it, but everything’s so screwed up.”

He looked at the flowers, thought of Bart.

“I know.” Var laid a hand on Benny’s shoulder. “Let me tell Stick we’re going off-site for a few minutes.”

When they got outside, they walked fast. “She’ll probably be steamed supreme that we woke her up,” Var commented and managed a smile.

“Yeah, I can hear her now. ‘WTF! Can’t I catch a few extra zees?’ We’ll cage some coffee off her.”

“Now that’s a plan. Hell of a storm last night, huh?”

“The sky was lit up like the raptor battle in Third Planet. Serious window-shaking storm. Cooled things off a little.”

“Yeah.” When they reached the building, Var punched in the code for Cill’s visitor alert.

They waited, hands in pockets. Moments later, the comp announced no answer at the residence. When Var started to try again, Benny shook his head.

“Let’s just go in. Let’s go.” He used the swipe Cill had given him, the palm plate, then the entry codes.

“Just tuned out,” Var said under his breath as they headed to her apartment. “That’s all it is; she’s just tuned out.”

Benny used the side of his fist, gave the door a good pounding.

“Jesus, Ben.”

“I’m not waiting.” Again he used the swipe, the palm, and the two sets of codes. He pushed the door open partway, called her name.

“Cill! Hey, Cill! It’s Benny and Var.”

“Yeah, don’t pull out the pepper spray!”

“Cill?” Benny shoved the door open the rest of the way, hesitated a moment as he looked around the living area. He saw the shoes, the new ones, her bag. Pointed to the bag. “She’s here. She never walks out the door without her sack full of stuff. I’m going to check the bedroom.”

“I’ll look in the office.”

They separated.

“She’s not in here,” Benny hurried out again. “I can’t tell if the bed’s been slept in because it always looks like that.”

“She’s not in the office, the spare, the kitchen. She’s—”

“The holo-room!” Spinning on his heels Benny ran for it. He started to enter the code.

“It’s not locked, man.” Var jerked a head up to the green light, opened the door.

Benny shoved by him. “God! Oh God, Cill!” He sprinted to where she lay crumpled and bloody, and very, very still. “Call nine-one-one!” he shouted. “Hurry. Hurry.”

Var whipped out his ’link, hit the emergency key. “Is she alive? Benny, Benny, tell me she’s alive.”

“I don’t know.” He took her hand, stroked her cheek. And as Var’s voice came from behind him, as if through a long, dark tunnel, he gathered the courage to press his fingers to the pulse in her throat.

In her office, Eve prepped for the briefing. She’d requested Mira’s attendance. She needed a professional opinion of her conclusions after having seen and analyzed each partner’s apartment. With any luck, EDD would give her something concrete to add to that, and they could pull in her lead suspect.

She looked up as McNab pranced in.

“She’s good,” he said as he offered Cill’s journal to Eve. “I’m better. Thought you’d want it right away.”

“You thought right. Did you read it?”

“No, I wasn’t authorized to... maybe a couple pages,” he admitted under Eve’s cool stare. “It’s just—or what I read was just stuff. Daily stuff, some work shit, that kind of thing. Maybe she wrote a little about this guy she went out with a couple months ago. She decided he was a loser. I have to agree.”

“Just a couple pages.”

“Maybe what you’d call a few. Just to make sure there weren’t any glitches.”

“I’m going to let you get away with that because you saved me from having to press her to open it. You’ve got over an hour before the briefing. Go away—and don’t bother my partner.”

“I wouldn’t be a bother,” he began, but her communicator signaled and he slipped out.

“Dallas.”

Dispatch, Dallas, Lieutenant Eve. Report to 431 Spring Street, Apartment 3.

“Cilla Allen’s residence. Is she dead?”

Negative. Allen, Cilla, is being transported to St. Ignatius Hospital by emergency unit. Condition critical, multiple injuries. Report to officers on-scene and secure.

“Copy that. Dallas out.”

She swung into the bullpen. McNab, who was bothering her partner, started to grin. Then saw her face. He laid a hand on Peabody’s shoulder briefly. “Shit.”

“Cill’s being transported to St. Ignatius, critical condition. Let’s go.”

“What happened?” Peabody asked as she shoved up to follow Eve’s long stride.

“That’s what we’re going to find out.” She shook her head as Peabody started to speak again. “Try U-Play. I want to know if Var and Benny are there, and if so, I want you to verify that by speaking to them.”

Peabody followed orders as they rode down to the garage. “Not there. Both of them left, together, about a half hour ago.”

“Together,” Eve murmured, nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good play. I want a guard on her—in the ER, the OR, ICU, whatever and wherever. She’s under our watch as of now, twenty-four/seven. See if we can get any details on her injuries, her condition. I don’t want to hear multiple injuries, critical. I want some fucking details.”

“Yes, sir.” Peabody slanted a glance toward Eve as they jumped into the vehicle.

She braced herself as Eve peeled out.

18

E
ve ignored the retro-style elevator and bounded up the steps. “Report,” she ordered the officer on the door as she grabbed Seal-It from her field kit.

“Sir. Nine-one-one came in from Levar Hoyt at nine fifty-six from his ’link and from this location. My partner and I were dispatched as was a medi-unit. We arrived on-scene at ten-oh-two, ahead of the mediunit by approximately two minutes.”

Good response time, Eve thought, and gave him a go-ahead nod.

“We were met at the door by Mr. Hoyt, who immediately showed us into the holo-room at the east side of the unit. The victim, Ms. Cilla Allen of this address, was on the floor, unconscious, and appeared to be seriously injured. A Benny Leman was found in the room with her. He stated that he had not moved the victim in fear of adding to her injuries, but had checked her pulse, and attempted to ascertain the extent of said injuries. He was somewhat incoherent at the time. My partner and I removed the two men and placed them in what appears to be a viewing room where Officer Uttica remains with them. They became increasingly agitated and expressed strongly the desire to remain with the victim, who they identified as their business partner.

“I returned to speak to the MTs regarding the victim’s injuries, which they described as critical and including a fractured skull, a shattered elbow, a broken leg, and at least two broken ribs as well as numerous lacerations and contusions. They transported her to St. Ignatius Hospital, departing at approximately ten-fifteen.”

“That’s some report, Officer Kobel.”

“I like to be thorough.”

“Stay on the door,” she ordered.

“Yes, sir.”

She moved directly to the holo-room where Cill’s blood, she assumed, stained the floor.

“Let’s get samples of that, make sure it’s all hers.”

She walked over to the control. “There’s a disc in here, and it’s going to be Fantastical.”

“Same setup as Minnock,” Peabody observed, “but from the description of her injuries it sounds like the killer decided to beat her to death.”

“Then why didn’t he finish the job? She’s down, broken, unconscious. Why leave her breathing after you’ve gone to all that trouble?”

“Maybe he got spooked, or thought she was dead.”

No, Eve thought. Just no. “He’s too smart to leave her breathing. It’s a really big mistake.”

“Not if she doesn’t make it.”

Eve shook her head. “Go ahead and call the sweepers, and EDD. We’ll see if the partners know her security code. Maybe we can get this disc out without frying it. Either way, I want to know when she started the game, how long she played it.”

“On it. Do you want me to take one of them in another room to get his statement?”

“No. We’ll take them together. Let’s see how they play it. Come in when you finish up here. Then interrupt me, take me aside to give me some news. Keep it low, but I want them to hear you say
EDD, breakthrough, recovered data
.”

“If they’re—or one of them is guilty, it’ll be bad news.”

“Yeah. Sometimes you have to water the seeds.”

“Huh?”

“Nothing.” She left Peabody to go into the viewing room. Both men leapt to their feet and started talking at once.

“Stop! Officer, if you’ll join your partner and keep the scene secured. Sweepers and EDD are being notified. No one else gets in.”

She turned to the two men. “Sit.”

“They wouldn’t let us go with her. They won’t even let us check with the hospital. Please. Please, Lieutenant.” Benny’s voice shook with the tears that swam in his eyes.

She pulled out her ’link. “This is Lieutenant Dallas,” she began and gave her badge number. “I need to know the status of a patient, Cilla Allen, who was just brought in.” She held up a finger before either man could speak again, and walked to the other side of the room. She listened, murmured back, then slipped the ’link back in her pocket before going back across the room.

“They’re working on her. They have a team on her, and they’re trying to stabilize her so they can move her to OR.”

“Operate? She’s going to need surgery?” Var asked as Benny simply stared at her.

“Her injuries are very severe, and they’re doing everything they can. She’s critical. You need to prepare yourselves.”

“She’s not going to die. She’s not going to die. She’s not going to die.”

As he said it again and again, Benny rocked in the chair until Var put an arm around his shoulders.

“Come on, Benny. Come on, man. She’s tough. Cilly’s strong. We need to be there with her,” he said to Eve.

“I need statements from both of you. I’ll make it as quick as I can, and I’ll have the officers who responded transport you to the hospital as soon as we’re done. I need to know what happened.”

“We don’t know.” Benny shook his head. “How could we know? She was... she was lying there when we got here.”

“What time did you get here?”

Benny shook his head again, then dropped it into his hands.

“It was about ten or just before. I don’t know exactly,” Var told her. “We got worried when Cill didn’t come in to work, and she didn’t answer her ’link, or her e-mail. We should’ve come before. We should’ve checked on her earlier, then maybe...”

“I shouldn’t have let her go home alone last night.” Benny raked his fingers over his bold hair. “I should’ve made her stay at my place.”

“What time did she go home?” she asked Benny.

“It wasn’t late. Maybe nine or nine-thirty. We talked about going out and getting something to eat, or just getting blasted. But none of us much felt like either.”

“Did she log out a game? Did she log out Fantastical?”

“Yeah. Yeah. We found out this morning she’d logged it out. Why is this happening?” Benny demanded. “Somebody tried to kill her. Somebody killed Bart. Why is this happening?”

“We’re doing our best to find that out.” Eve glanced over as Peabody came in, signaled her. “Give me a minute.”

She crossed over, leaned in.

“That was a mag-ass party last night,” Peabody whispered, modulating her voice to lift just enough on the key words. “My feet
EDD
are killing me today. But
breakthrough
totally worth it because all that dancing,
recovered data
probably took a solid pound off my ass.”

“You do understand you’re obsessed with your own ass? Now, nod like I’ve just given you an order, then pull your communicator out as you step out. Wait a few minutes, come back in, give me a nod, and then stay in for the interview.”

“Got it.” She nodded, added a “Yes, sir!” for good measure, and took out her communicator as she left the room.

“Is that about Cill?” Benny demanded. “Is it something about Cill?”

“No. So, you last saw Cill at about nine-thirty last night?” She glanced at Var for verification.

“About that.”

“And what was her state of mind?”

“What do you think?” Anger leaked through as Benny fisted his hands on his knees. “She was wrecked. We all were. It was hard enough when she was putting the memorial together, editing the vid stream, thinking about the food. But at least that gave her, all of us, something solid to do, to work on. Now...”

“We were tired.” Var sighed. “We were all just really tired.”

“Where did you go after?”

“We went home.” Now Var shrugged. “We all just went home.”

“Did you walk together?”

“Yeah. Well, we walked together to Cill’s, then I headed to my place. Benny headed to his.”

“Did you notice anyone hanging around? Anyone near her building?”

She glanced over as Peabody came back in, gave her a nod.

“I waited until she went in,” Benny said. “We even talked for a couple more minutes. I wouldn’t have left her alone if I’d seen anybody hanging too close. I watched her go in before I went across to my place. Her light was on when I looked out my window after I got inside. I know she got in okay.”

“Do you always check like that?”

He shifted a little. “If we take off at the same time, I like to make sure she gets in okay. She can take care of herself, but it’s just something you do.”

“Did you talk to anyone, see anyone, have any contacts after nine-thirty?”

“God.” Var rubbed his eyes. “I got something to eat, tried to watch some screen. I couldn’t settle down so I went online for a few hours. Into a couple game rooms. I played some World Domination, tourney style. You know, elimination rounds. Maybe till about two. I didn’t go out. I didn’t want to go out.”

“Benny?”

“I didn’t talk to anybody. We’d talked to people all day. I did some personal e-mail, then some research on a couple of projects. I guess I went down about midnight. Her light was still on. I happened to notice. I almost tagged her, just to see if she wanted company, or just to talk, but I didn’t. I figured she wanted to be left alone. I should’ve gone over.” His voice trembled again. “I should’ve just gone over.”

“Stop it.” Var laid a hand on his shoulder. “Stop. It’s not your fault. We need to go be with her,” he told Eve.

“Nearly done. How did you get into the building, into her apartment?”

“I have a swipe and her codes,” Benny said. “I live the closest, and if she’s got to go somewhere for a few days, I water the plants. She’s got a couple of nice plants. Plus, I just make sure her place is secure. It’s important to Cill her place is secure.”

“Why, especially?” Eve demanded. “Why is she so focused on security and privacy?”

“I...” Benny glanced over at Var.

“Go ahead. Maybe it’ll help.”

“It’s just her mother and stepfather never gave her any privacy, any peace. They used to search her room all the time, pry into all her stuff. They even put a cam in there once, to spy on her. Like she was a freaking criminal. She just... she just wants her private space private. That’s all. It’s why she got so upset with the searches. I guess...” He let out a long breath. “I guess it’s why I did, too. I know how it made her feel so it pissed me off.”

“Okay. Was her security in place when you got here?”

“Yeah, it was.” Var gave Benny’s shoulder a bolstering rub, then nodded. “We thought she’d maybe taken a sleeper and was just conked. We checked the bedroom and the office, then we... we looked in the holo and found her. We—I—did the nine-one-one right off.”

“And checked her pulse.”

“I did.” Benny pressed his lips together tight. “I couldn’t find it at first, but it was there. Barely there. She was cut up and banged up. All torn and bloody. Can you at least check again? For God’s sake.”

“Peabody, check with the hospital. We’re nearly done. Was the holoroom secured?”

Benny frowned a moment. “No. It wasn’t locked. But we’ve holo’d here a lot of times. I don’t think she usually secures the room. I don’t in my place most of the time. That was Bart’s thing. Super Spy Minnock,” he murmured, then squeezed his eyes tight.

“Okay. There’s a disc in the holo-program as I told you. Can you remove it?”

Benny shook his head. “I don’t have the code or sequence.” He glanced at Var.

“No, me neither. We could make a best guess, but if we’re wrong, it’ll hit destruct.”

“All right. We’ll deal with it.”

“She’s in surgery,” Peabody announced. “Indications are she’ll be several hours.”

“Is there family who should be notified?” Eve asked.

“Just her mother.” Var passed a weary hand over his face. “They’re not close, as I guess you could figure, but I guess she should know.”

“We’re her family,” Benny said fiercely. “We are.”

“I’ll have the officers take you to the hospital. Detective Peabody and I will be there shortly.”

She gave the uniforms instructions, secured the door behind them. “We’re going to want eyes on those two, soft clothes.”

“Their alibis are easy to check out. EDD can confirm or dispute the online activity. If they’re in this together, they’re both good at the masks, but it would slide in with Mira’s two conspirators theory.”

“How do you see it going down, if they’re in it together?”

“They walk her home, just the way they said, but they come up, talk her into distracting herself with the holo-game. I don’t get that because the place is pretty well soundproofed, but the holo-area would be the more secure and soundproofed section in the space. And, she would be distracted. They attack her, or one attacks, one keeps watch. They leave her for dead, go home. Pull the ‘We were worried about her’ this morning so they can be the ones to find her.”

“Alive. Why not finish her off then?”

“We’d have TOD to coincide with their presence. They have to think fast, decide on calling it in, getting to the hospital. She’s a mess, Dallas, and her chances aren’t good. Either one of them could finish her there. Or could if we didn’t have a man on her.”

“It’s not a bad theory. Run some probabilities on it.”

“You don’t like it.”

“It’s not in my top five.” She gestured to the power drink tube. “That wasn’t there yesterday, and she didn’t come home until last night.”

“Okay. And?”

“If she has company, why does she have an open drink—just one drink and one it doesn’t look like she touched? We’ll check the supply, and the recycler, but I don’t think you’re going to find a couple more drinks of any sort taken out last night. Just here, standing by the window, deciding she doesn’t want the damn drink after all. She did the same thing the day we notified them Bart was dead. Got the drink, opened it, set it aside.”

“Too upset from the memorial,” Peabody concurred. “Yeah, that plays.”

Eve gestured to the shoes. “What do you do when you get home and your new shoes hurt your feet?”

“Take them off.”

“But if you’ve got company you’re probably not going to leave them in the middle of the room, right in the traffic flow.” She shrugged. “Neither may mean anything, but there are little details that give me a different picture.”

“She doesn’t secure the holo-room, so they could’ve come in while she was in game.”

“How did they know she’d be in game?”

“Because... one or both of them knew she’d logged out the disc.”

Now Eve nodded. “Yeah, and I’ll go one up from that. One of them gave her the disc to take home. The game, under it all? That’s the murder weapon. The killer likes the weapon.”