The Game (11 page)

Chapter 23

D
etective Spencer Webb closed the door behind him as he exited Candice Laguna’s apartment. He was one year away from retirement but he was wishing it were here already. His wife kept showing him brochures for the community in Tampa Bay, where she wanted to move. The department told him last week that if he wanted to pack it in early, they would honor all his retirement benefits. Eight weeks from now, he could be lounging by the pool with a beer, watching the girls in bikinis strut by.

He’d been a cop for so long, but there’d never been a case like this. He’d exhausted his search for Candice, but she was nowhere. Every cop instinct he had said something was going on here, but it was eluding him. Every turn uncovered a dead end.

The trail on Candice had gone so cold, yet twisted. Now she was suspected of being tied with two deaths, her ex-boyfriend, Edward Ahern, and the body the Rockaway Police fished out of White Meadow Lake belonging to one Mark Lewis, A.K.A. Ken Shepard.

Spencer knew Candice was mixed up in something bigger now, he just couldn’t prove it. His Captain wanted him to abandon the entire case, but after doing some checking, it turned out everything was sketchy, including the fact that now another missing person’s case the local police caught seemed to lead straight into his case.

Zyanna Zharkov was missing. He spoke with Zyanna’s mother Ekatarina, and she was able to put together several straight lines.

As it turned out, Zyanna was very close with her mother and told her everything, she’d expressed concern over Candice’s safety and her odd behavior.

Spencer had called Altruistic Innovations to get the information of Candice’s firing, but they declined to share details of an ongoing investigation unless he had a court order. They did tell him they had discovered some anomalies.

Candice’s car had been repossessed. Spencer found out the company that ordered the repossession wasn’t even the same bank that owned the car loan. The repossession was fraudulent. He also discovered her bank account was frozen. A company called TRK Consulting administered an order to seize her assets based on a debt, but no debt was on file to corroborate. The bank agreed to freeze the assets based on what they claimed was a real legal demand, but it only looked real. After some digging, it all came back bogus. The court order was faked. No judge had signed the order to freeze Candice’s assets.

The FBI was already opening a file on this, as there were several federal violations here beyond what the New Jersey State Police wanted to handle. But until the FBI officially took over the case, he was going to work it.

Spencer was convinced now that Candice had been telling the truth the whole time. Someone was screwing with her for some nefarious reasons. But who or what was doing it was a hard thing to pin down.

He’d been a cop for thirty years and he had never come across anything like this. It was a tapestry of lies like he’d never seen before. He’d heard stories of things like this on television, but he’d never actually seen it.

The other thing that occurred to him was that whoever was messing with Candice may also be responsible for murder and kidnapping. But he’d be spending the better part of the day trying to find out who this TRK Consulting was.

He headed back to the office.

Chapter 24

E
very ounce of logic in her soul was telling her this was a bad idea, but Candice didn’t have another option. Angus wouldn’t tell her much about the game, but it didn’t matter.

Angus had left the room, to use the bathroom. Vince checked the small room first to make sure there was no way out, and there was no weapon in there.

Vince looked at her and shook his head. “For the record, this is a horrible idea.”

She tied her hair up in a ponytail and raised her brows. “No kidding, but do you have a better idea?”

“I’m going in with you,” he replied.

“No, you can’t.”

“I can’t let you go in there alone.”

She put her hands on her hips. “I can’t let you risk your life for me.”

“It’s not only for you, it’s for Alexis.”

“You don’t even know if this psycho is going to let us do that.”

A shapely brunette with stunning jade eyes walked through the door and scowled at them both. “Who the hell—” She recognized Candice. “Oh, you. I’ll be damned. He was right.” She walked past them to the red door of the bathroom and rapped on the steel. “Angus, are you in there?”

The door opened and Angus came back into the dull gray room. “Rena, I see you’ve met our new friends.”

Rena walked around Vince, eyeing him up. “Who’s this?”

“This is Vince Markoe,” Angus said, touching his finger to the tip of his nose.

Rena squinted, pulled a gun from her pocket, and shot Vince in the head.

Candice screamed as she watched Vince fall to the ground. “Jesus, oh no!” Her heart twisted. The breath squeezed out from her body and failed to return. It felt like a bomb had splintered shrapnel inside her skull and was rattling around with no escape. She nearly fell to the ground, but just managed to maintain some level of control over her legs.

“There,” Angus said as he faced her. “If that doesn’t break you, nothing will.”

Candice tried to hold back her tears. She didn’t want to give his bastard the satisfaction, but she felt like she’d just been hit by a truck. She dared not look at Vince’s body. “Why?” She shook uncontrollably.

“Why not?” Angus said as a large man came through the red door. “This is Caleb. He’s my
villain
.” Caleb didn’t look at Candice as he dragged Vince’s body outside into the hallway.

Angus sat in his chair. “I had to make sure you were in this for the long haul, and I saw the way he was looking at you. He would’ve died for you, and I can’t have that kind of thing screwing up my game.”

Rena stood in front of Candice, wrapped her hand around the back of her head, and kissed her on the mouth. Candice twisted her face away and smacked Rena off her with a push.

Rena smiled and wiped her lips. “Thanks, baby.” She followed the seductive tone with a slap to Candice’s ass.

Candice steadied her breathing. She wanted to run, but also wanted to fight. Either way, she knew there was no way out of this, not now. She’d gone into their lair willingly like an idiot and there was no way out. Even without the tracker in her mouth, there was no doubt they would find her.

Angus walked up to her. “Are you ready?”

She didn’t respond.

“I said, are you ready?”

“Do I have a choice?”

He laughed. “If you did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

Before she could gather a response, she felt a prick in her arm. She had just enough time to see the syringe pull away as her vision went black.

Candice came to in a small gray cell. It wasn’t a jail cell, but a tiny eight by ten padded room. Although she had never been in a psychiatric facility she was sure this was one of some kind.

She noticed someone had cut up her clothes. Her jeans were now cut into shorts, sliced high enough that the front pockets were hanging below the cut line. Her tee shirt, cut up too, shaved off at the navel in the same jagged fashion.

The room was hot, probably ninety degrees. In that respect, she was grateful she wasn’t stuck in her long jeans. She walked to the door and looked out the thin wire mesh embedded glass, but the only thing across from her was a light gray wall. Everything in the place sported the same drab gray-sky colored paint. It wasn’t a fresh coat, either, but in an advanced state of age, peeling forlornly from the wall. The place smelled like a combination of mildew and rubbing alcohol.

“Hey!” she yelled, pounding on the door, but there was no response. She sat back on the bed, sliding her way up against the wall. Pulling her knees to her chest, she fought the urge to cry. The soft whir of the camera in the top corner of the room above the door pulled her back from the edge of tears.

She wanted to scream at the camera, at her captors, at herself. She didn’t ask for this. She cursed Vince for conning her into coming here. But she was all too willing, tired of running and playing the rabbit.

If only she could make some sense of all this. She was worried about Zee, but she was sick to death over Vince. What a horrible thing to watch. It didn’t seem real. She had never seen anyone die. It didn’t look at all like the movies. It was just so sickeningly sudden. One second he was full of life, and the next second, just a carcass falling to the floor.

A stream of tears began to flow down her face. She hadn’t known Vince very long, but she felt a certain comfort around him. In an insane situation, he was just so calm and cool, and that made her feel calm, too.

She wanted to feel sorry for herself, curl up into a ball and just go to sleep. But there was no time for either luxury. She’d never cried in anger before but she was right now.

A constant nervous buzzing radiated through her body. It was as if every nerve ending was twisting in a pool of electrically charged water. She’d had this feeling once before, many years ago while at the hospital, waiting for the news about her brother. It was that knowing anticipation that life was about to change forever, but in this case, it already had.

Madness started to crawl up her back, fingering her neck like spider legs searching fiendishly for her brain stem. This was something she’d never felt before, a need to lash out and kill, a thirst for the blood, revenge.

Candice took a deep breath. She had to remain in control. They wanted her to crack, to give in to the madness, to lose her composure and do something stupid. She refused to let them break her. Her wits were all she had right now, her only weapon.

The familiar jingle of keys entering a lock and snapping it open drew her out of her thoughts. She sat up and moved to the edge of the bed. Angus walked through the door.

“Sweet Candy. How’s my star today?”

“Where am I?”

“New Jersey.”

She glanced around. “What is this place?”

“Iron Stone Mountain.”

“The old mental facility?”

He smiled and fiddled with his keys. “You’ve heard of it.”

“Everyone’s heard of it.”

“Then you know there’s no point in trying to escape.”

She laughed, then shook her head. “What is this, Angus? I mean what the hell is this? Are you psychotic? Did your mother not love you enough?”

His face didn’t budge as she’d hoped. He just curled a smile. “This, my dear, is an indictment. It’s a symbol of the degeneration of America. This is one step too far.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “What does that even mean?”

“Oh, Candy…I thought you were smarter than that.”

“So, this is some sort of political movement?”

“No, this is some sort of sociological experiment, it’s what the people want. We’ve stripped ourselves raw. This is rock bottom. This is the great American reality wakeup call.”

She laughed, longer than she meant to. It wasn’t funny, but it was. “So, because you hate reality television, you’ve decided to ruin a bunch of innocent lives. Am I understanding this correctly?” She laughed again. “Boy, you’re a loser.”

Angus’ poker face finally cracked. She had inadvertently touched a nerve. “I’m not the loser, honey.” He pointed to the wall. “They are! They are! They’re the losers. They’re the losers, out there in the world, pissing their lives away on social media and reality television, venturing to fantastical adventures on the Internet while the real world, the real rug of reality, is yanked from under their feet. These are the losers that put me in hell for twelve years and said I was bad. They judged me.” He laughed. “Of course, I got out early for good behavior.”

He took a step towards her. “I know you understand me. I’ve watched you, I know you. I know you feel my plight. You’re one of the few who doesn’t live and die on the blogs and social media. You get it.” He moved back and walked towards the door. “That’s why I’m pulling for you, Candice. I want you to make it out alive.”

“Why did you say I asked for this?”

He looked at her, puzzled. “I don’t follow.”

“On the phone, you said I asked for this.”

“Because you did.”

“How?”

He held his arms out to the side. “Everyone asks for it. Everyone poisoned by the American decline asks for this every day. But you, you asked to win this game.”

She stood. “Tell me.”

He tilted his head. “Tell you what?”

“About the game.”

He studied her for a few seconds, smiled, nodded slowly. “I knew you’d come around.” He took a step towards her. “What do you want to know?”

“How does it work?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?”

“It may ruin the surprises. I want that authenticity on camera. If you know what’s coming, it won’t be natural.”

“I can fake it.”

Angus laughed a harsh grunt. “No, you can’t. That kind of authenticity can’t be faked, trust me. I’ve worked with enough actors to know that no one is that good. Don’t you see, that’s what makes reality television so desirable. People like the unscripted surprise. Even if it’s loosely scripted, it still remains authentic in it’s initial state. People are drawn to it because they think it could be them. And this, my dear Candice, is going to gut them to their core.”

“So, what if we all die? What if no one plays?”

“Then it will be one big snuff film-fest. But I’m guessing the need to run for their lives will drive everyone forward.”

He went out and locked the door behind him. Candice flopped back on the bed.