Wire (Pierce Securities Book 2) (18 page)

The only option he could think of right now was to play dumb and try to get more information. Maybe The Crimson Lady would divulge more.

Mystic:
Nah. I heard she used to be a homeless whore who got a job at IBM because one of their interns caught her building computers out of old cell phones she’d found in the trash.

Red_Dawn:
Hey, Ember, you got your boys on this one, or is it just you working alone? Does your hot little secretary have anything to do with The Crimson Lady case?

Grazy_Lady:
Are we going to fucking play, or what?

Evan suddenly knew the meaning of the phrase, ‘blood running cold,’ as his veins seemed to be filled with ice. He’d been extremely careful to not reveal any personal information about himself or where he worked. He’d always considered himself a bit paranoid, an occupational hazard. Evan knew without a doubt he’d never told his gaming friends about his co-workers, or his job. Or Miriam.

Which meant Red_Dawn knew who he was and where he worked. Chewing on his lip, Evan thought furiously. The Crimson Lady knew who he was, since she’d called him by name in the website chatroom. If Red_Dawn was The Crimson Lady, then how many damn personalities did this freak have? And for what? Paige? All of this for an unrequited love? Revenge? Why in the hell was he calling himself out here? Did he want Evan to know he knew? His head was spinning.

EmberFalls:
Nah, man. She just takes care of paperwork.

It physically pained him to converse this way with the man, like they were friends. But he couldn’t antagonize him. He didn’t even want him to realize that Evan was putting the pieces together. Surely, he’d thrown these tidbits out there to let Evan know who he was.

He wanted to be caught?

Was he tired of playing the games with Paige? Or did he have some huge, epic battle in mind?

He played half-heartedly while calling Miriam.

“Hey, you safe?” he asked her when she answered her phone.

Miriam laughed at him. “Of course I am. What’s going on?”

He explained as much as he could as quickly as he could, and then waited for her to grasp the seriousness of the situation.

She huffed at him, a sound he was accustomed to from her. “You’re telling me I’ve been targeted by one of the sickos you’re trying to catch?”

He breathed out relief. It didn’t sound like she was going to fight him on this one. “Yes. I’m calling Simon next, to see how he wants to play this, but I needed to make sure you’re safe, first.”

“I’m double checking my locks now. Wasn’t planning a night out on the town tonight, anyway,” she said sardonically.

“Thanks, you’re a doll, Miriam.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She hung up on him, and Evan called Simon next, continuing to play his game. He was mostly just aimlessly walking around the forest, losing life points to wolves right and left.

After explaining the situation to Simon, his boss’s controlled voice was a relief to Evan, whose mind was whirling.

“Okay, I’ll take care of Miriam. Your number one priority is to find this asshole and shut him the fuck down. You understand?”

“Loud and clear.”

EmberFalls:
Sorry, guys. I guess my head’s not in it tonight.

Grazy_Lady:
Fuck, Ember. Get done with this job so we can have our flank man back. This is bullshit.

Red_Dawn:
Have fun, Mr. Bigshot.

Mystic:
Cut the guy some slack. Stressed.

EmberFalls:
Thanks, Mystic, but I’m beat. TTYL.

Evan stared at the blank screen long after he’d logged off. Red_Dawn was in this somehow. He probably knew who it was. He thought back to all the interactions he’d had with the person he’d come to count as a friend of sorts.

The most recent addition, Red_Dawn had come into the group about five months ago. At the time, that hadn’t meant anything. Now, though, the timing was telling. That was after the merger, after his night with Paige, after Patton had gone underground. He remembered there had been some times after Red_Dawn had joined the group that he hadn’t shown up to play, citing procedures, leading them to all believe he had health issues. Something about that all tugged at his brain, but he couldn’t see the significance in it.

Red_Dawn was Roger Patton, inserting himself into his former adversary’s gaming world after she’d bought him out, committing the ultimate betrayal. He was The Crimson Lady, having created her and programming her into the game as his final act of retribution. And he knew Evan was EmberFalls. Especially after the dig about Miriam and his parting words, calling him Big Shot. It was a subtle middle finger the rest of the crew wouldn’t get.

So he’d been playing with the murderer. The hermit Patton had come out of hiding, online at least, to flaunt himself to Evan. He’d probably gotten huge ego strokes from hiding in plain sight. Evan just needed to figure out how to get him to come out in real life so he could catch him before he did something to hurt Paige.

He did a quick search of Red_Dawn’s IP address, hoping for a Greek address, and found it to be a pinger. It was usually a computer fingerprint, the string of numbers associated with every computer. Evan wouldn’t be lucky enough to think Red_Dawn had overlooked that vital bit of information. There were all kinds of shield subscriptions to be purchased on the internet to keep people like Evan from finding people with the IP addresses, and undoubtedly whoever Red_Dawn was had either paid for one of these or built his own.

He felt like he’d hit a brick wall. All of the answers were right in front of him, but he couldn’t come up with how to tie them all together. He had a horrible feeling he himself was at the center of it all, but wasn’t sure how. Helplessness washed through him, and Evan closed his eyes for a brief moment, just to rest them.

When he opened them next, daylight filtered in through his curtains, and the answers were no clearer to him.

Paige was surprised and disappointed to find Evan gone and Quinten in his place on her couch. She’d slept, thinking Evan was sleeping just below her, fantasizing about asking him to come to bed, and had almost worked up the nerve to do it. But hadn’t. When she’d come downstairs the next morning, Quinten was sitting on the edge of the couch, a blanket and pillow stacked neatly beside him, blowing across the top of a cup of coffee.

“Good morning. Evan left?”

He nodded, studying her. “I made coffee. Nice place,” he said, gesturing with his cup toward the kitchen.

“Thanks. Um, where did Evan go?”

The taciturn man cracked a small smile. “He went to go do his geek thing. He’ll be back.”

Realizing Quinten was a man of few words, and still having no idea where Evan went, she turned to the kitchen to get herself a cup of coffee and make some calls. She had an emergency Board Meeting to hold.

Tamping down disappointment that Evan hadn’t spent the night, Paige dressed carefully in a sage green business suit. She didn’t dress like this often, usually only for the Board members, but they seemed to expect a certain level of professionalism from the CEO of the company, and she obliged. Of course, they all knew she didn’t work like that, but the Executive Board was a bit of a stage-play to Paige, with all the characters playing their roles, so her costume was important.

While Evan’s presence made the meeting easier in terms of goals, his physical appearance and presence made it much more difficult. When she arrived, he was already there, mingling with the other members of the board, so she had the opportunity to watch him a little before he noticed her. He was wearing a tailored suit with a vest. Paige had no idea she thought vested suits were so sexy until she saw Evan wearing one. Or maybe it was the light green cuffed shirt, complete with the binary code cufflinks she’d given him that complimented her suit perfectly. Or maybe it was just Evan, with his dark mop of hair carefully styled to look like he’d just rolled out of bed. Or his smoldering eyes, catching hers over the shoulder of the man he was talking to.

A slow smile crept across his face as his gaze swept over her, and Paige felt heat rise to her face, then chastised herself for it. Now was not the time for sexual chemistry.

“Gentlemen,” she briskly addressed the assembled men, “I’d like to get started, if I may. I know you all have other things to get to today.”

Her eyes were glued to Evan as he slowly went to a chair and lowered his lean body into it. She couldn’t help it. The way he moved was just sinful. The way his fingertips tugged his pants legs up before he sat, and then rested on the table in front of him, had her captivated. His movements were graceful, and he looked like he belonged here every bit as much as he belonged buried in his laptop.

She cleared her throat and adapted her board meeting voice. She’d never been really great at speaking in front of crowds, but had learned in a professional development class in college that speaking is just acting. So this was her playing the part of commanding CEO. “This meeting was called to revisit the idea of taking
Realm of Worlds
offline completely for a month or so. Mr. Rocco has been hired to help me catch who’s behind The Crimson Lady, and while I brought this up four months ago, he’s here to tell you why it’s absolutely necessary to do this today.”

She looked away from his darkening eyes, his lip curling, and his long, tapered finger resting near his mouth. Evan was looking at her like she was his dinner.

A few of the younger members of the board were nodding their heads.

Clearing her throat, she continued, “As you know from my weekly emails updating you, we’ve been attempting to remove her from the mainframe with the game still operational, to no avail. The AI software used to program her is more sophisticated than that. She’s imbedded into the actual internet, and the only way to get her off completely is to take the game off. It will mean lost revenue, of course, but we can make up some of that by pushing forward on next year’s releases.” She paused as one of the older gentlemen on the board cleared his throat to speak.

“Exactly how much lost revenue are we talking about?” When she’d brought up the possibility of taking the game offline months ago, all of the members had balked. She’d backed off, vowing to find another way, needing to keep the peace in a tumultuous time for her company.

“Well, I’ve got some projections.” She turned to the PowerPoint presentation her PA had put together, explaining the figures to several heads that continued nodding. “We can also offer an incentive package to the players, more life points, extra mods and avatars, things that don’t really cost too much capital when the update is completed.”

The other woman on the board raised her hand. “How will it affect our media presence?”