Die for Me

by Karen Rose

  Vito scowled. “I used up a favor to get you here. Jeff’s an asshole.”

  Brent laughed as he hooked Sherry’s computer to his laptop. “One more reason not to be associated with him.” He sat in Nick’s chair and for five minutes worked in silence. Finally he looked up. “Well, this machine hasn’t been wiped. No trace of the virus that took out the victim’s computer. Somebody has been fooling with the history, though.”

  Vito walked around to stand behind him. “What do you mean?”

  “The wipe on the vic’s machine was a virus. This here is totally an amateur effort. Somebody didn’t want anybody knowing he visited certain sites and deleted them from the history. But that doesn’t delete them from the hard drive.” He glanced up. “Big mistake people make when they use company computers to surf for porn. They delete the history, but it’s still on the drive and any IT person worth a nickel can find it.”

  “Good to know,” Vito said wryly. “So which sites were deleted by our amateur?”

  Brent did a little doubletake. “This is a first for me. Somebody’s hiding visits to medievalworld.com, medievalhistory.com, fencing.com… here’s one for clothing of the Middle Ages, more of the same, yada yada, and… Hmm. A site for Caribbean cruises.”

  Vito sighed. “Their honeymoon. Warren and Sherry were getting married. She said he’d dropped some hints about cruises, to see if that’s where she wanted to go.”

  “And the medieval stuff?”

  Vito stared at the list broodingly. “It all fits. I’m just not sure how.”

  “Call me if you come up with any more wiped machines. Gotta say I’m intrigued. That virus had one of the sneakiest codes I’ve ever seen. Here’s my card with my cell.” He grinned as he packed up his laptop. “That way you don’t have to go through Jeff.”

  “Thanks, man.” Vito pocketed Brent’s card, then dialed Jen McFain’s cell.

  “McFain.” The connection was bad, but Jen’s fatigue came through loud and clear.

  “Jen, it’s Vito. What’s happening?”

  “Just sent the eighth body to the morgue, another elderly woman. Nothing funky.”

  “Meaning no bullets, no shrapnel, no cancer, no weird bruises or folded hands.”

  “Pretty much. We’re on the final grave now. First row, first grave.”

  “Well we’ve ID’d the Knight for sure and maybe the Lady.”

  “Wow.” She sounded impressed. “That’s fast work.”

  “Thanks. You didn’t do too badly yourself. Six bodies excavated in one day.”

  “We couldn’t have without Sophie’s map. The real work starts tomorrow when we start sifting through the dirt we took away.”

  “Speaking of tomorrow, we’re having a briefing at oh-eight. Can you be here?”

  “If you bring coffee and crullers from that bakery at the end of your street, then I’m there. Hold on. The team’s calling me.” A minute later she was back. “Last one’s uncovered.” Her voice held new energy. “Young female. And Vito, she’s missing a leg.”

  Vito grimaced. “You mean he cut off her leg?”

  “No, she’s an amputee. And oh, my goodness. If I’m not mistaken… Oh, Vito, this is good. Really good. She’s got a plate in her skull. Oh man, this is gold.”

  Vito blinked hard. “She has a gold plate in her skull? Jen, that doesn’t make sense.”

  She huffed in frustration. “Dammit, Vito, stick with the program here.”

  “Sorry. I’m just tired. Try again.”

  “Well, it’s not like this has been a garden party for me either. Pay attention. Her skull has decomposed, revealing a metal plate. She obviously had it implanted after an injury or surgery at some point in her life. Now that she’s decomposing, it’s visible.”

  “Oh.” He frowned. “I’m still missing why this is so good.”

  “Vito, an implantable metal plate is a class-three medical device. All class-three medical devices have unique, traceable serial numbers.”

  Cognition clicked and he stood up straighter. “By which we can identify her.”

  “And the prize goes to the man who just woke up.”

  Vito grinned, almost giddy over this lucky turn. “I’ll call Katherine and have her start with the amputee first thing tomorrow morning. See you at oh-eight.”

  Monday, January 15, 10:15

  P.M.

  Daniel was staring mindlessly at CNN on the hotel television when his cell phone rang. “Luke? Where have you been?”

  “Catching fish,” Luke said dryly. “That’s what usually happens on a fishing trip. I didn’t get your message till now. So what’s up? Where are you?”

  “In Philadelphia. Listen, I found a memory stick after you left this morning. I plugged it into my laptop and all I could see was a list of files with PST at the end.”

  “Those are e-mail files. That’s probably your dad’s backup file since he wiped everything before November.”

  Daniel pulled the memory stick from his pocket. “How can I see what’s on here?”

  “Plug the stick into your PC. I’ll walk you through. It’s not hard.”

  Daniel did what Luke said to do and was soon looking at his father’s e-mails. “I’ve got ’em.” Several years’ worth, in fact. But Daniel didn’t think he wanted Luke to know what had been on the memory stick any more than he wanted Frank Loomis to know about his father’s secret safe. “Let me check it out. Thanks, Luke.”

  It took Daniel only minutes to get to the message that stopped his heart. It was from “RunnerGirl” and was dated July, eighteen months before. It said only, “I know what your son did.”

  Daniel forced himself to breathe, to think. This was not going to be pretty at all.

  Tuesday, January 16, 12:45

  A.M.

  It was damn good. On his computer screen the Inquisitor battled his opponent, the Good Knight. Both characters fought sword in one hand, flail in the other. Each step was smooth, each jab of a sword or arc of the flail a realistic combination of muscular movement. It was a masterpiece.

  Van Zandt would be pleased. Soon hundreds of thousands across the world would flock to experience this. Van Zandt considered him an animation genius, but he never forgot that the computer animations were merely a means to an end. The end was having his paintings displayed in the best galleries, the very galleries that had rejected him before.

  He lifted his eyes to the seventh painting of Warren Dies. To the moment Warren Keyes ceased to be. Perhaps those galleries had been right. His work before Claire and Warren and all the others had been generic. Familiar. But these-Warren, Claire, Brittany, Bill Melville as the flail sheared his head away-these were genius.

  He stood up and stretched. He needed to sleep. He had a long drive ahead of him tomorrow morning. He wanted to be in Van Zandt’s office by nine and out by noon. That would allow him ample time to meet Mr. Gregory Sanders at three. By midnight he’d have Gregory Dies on canvas and a whole new scream.

  He took a few stiff steps, rubbing his right thigh. This old house was too drafty. He’d picked it for its remote location and ease of… appropriation, but every gust of winter wind found its way inside. Philadelphia in the winter was hell. Made him long for magnolias and peach blossoms. He clenched his jaw. He’d been exiled from home far too long, but that would soon change. The old man’s hold over him was broken.

  He chuckled. So was the old man. Broken. He walked to his bed on the far side of his studio. Sitting on the mattress, he focused on the poster board that he’d mounted on the wall next to his bed, positioned so that he could see it every time he woke. The poster board on which he’d drawn the matrix. Four by four.

  Sixteen blocks, nine of them filled with still shots of the victim at that crucial moment of death. Well, one was a photo of a painting. He hadn’t filmed his strangulation of Claire Reynolds, but in the moments after her death, he had created Claire Dies and knew his life had irrevocably changed. In the days thereafter he’d relived the moment he’d ended Claire’s
life over and over.

  In those days, he’d dreamed of doing it again and again. And in those days he’d formulated the plan which was progressing well. Some might attribute his success to luck, but only fools believed in luck. Luck was for the lazy, the undeserving. He believed in intellect, and in skill. And fate.

  He hadn’t always believed in fate, in the inevitable overlap of one person’s destiny with another’s. He believed now. How else could he explain walking into Jager Van Zandt’s favorite bar a year ago, just hours after the man had received a crushing review on his last game? “Less exciting than Pong,” the reviewer had proclaimed and Van Zandt had been just drunk enough to pour out every last detail, from his frustration with Derek Harrington to the fear that the game he was ready to launch, Behind Enemy Lines, would be equally disastrous.

  How else could he explain the sudden appearance of Claire Reynolds with her bold but poorly executed attempt at blackmail the very next day? Those had been fate.

  Intellect was being able to combine Claire’s unfortunate end and Van Zandt’s unfortunate present into a new destiny that would meet his own needs. But none of it could have happened without skill. He had been uniquely gifted to give Van Zandt exactly what he wanted in exactly the form he needed. Few others could create images, worlds, with both pixels and paint. Few others had the computer expertise to imbue them with life.

  But I can. He’d created the virtual world of the evil Inquisitor, a fourteenth-century cleric who saw the elimination of heretics as more of a hostile takeover opportunity and the elimination of witches to be the door to great power. The more wealthy heretics and true witches the Inquisitor found and eliminated, the more powerful he would become, until he becomes the king.

  A fanciful tale, but gamers would enjoy the political scheming and lies required to get ahead. Points would be scored by how clever the deceit and how diabolically complex the torture. He’d filled most of the primary roles-the powerful Witch who’d suffered the torture of the chair before revealing the source of her great power, the Good Knight who is vanquished with the flail, the king himself who suffers a most ignominious and… gutless end.

  Of course all of these subjects had played supporting roles as well. He’d been careful to plan the tortures to get the most use out of each subject, both audio and video. With a few small changes, these additional tortures would be converted to at least twenty additional minor characters that gamers could add to their collection.

  Gregory Sanders would play the role of an honest cleric attempting to stop the evil Inquisitor. Of course the cleric would not prevail and Gregory Sanders would meet a most bitter and painful end, after which he would be buried in the final plot on the third row. The third row would be complete.

  The first row was already complete, filled with casualties of Behind Enemy Lines-Claire and Jared and Zachary. And poor Mrs. Crane. Crane was… collateral damage, an unfortunate victim of his real-estate acquisition. Regrettable, but unavoidable.

  The fourth row was currently empty, reserved for cleanup when Inquisitor was complete. The fourth row would hold his resources, the only people capable of proving the images in his medieval fantasy world were more than the product of an active imagination. They were the only people who knew the instruments of torture were indeed real, who knew of his intense interest in the weapons and warfare of the Middle Ages. They would pose a distinct threat when Inquisitor hit store shelves, so they would have to be dealt with before that time.

  The three vendors of illegal antiquities would give him no pause. They were pompous asses who’d overcharged him too many times. Simply put, he disliked all three. But the historian… She would be another regrettable loss. He had nothing against her, per se. On some level he even… liked her. She was intelligent and skilled. A loner. Just like me.

  Still, she’d interacted with him on too many occasions. He could not allow her to live. Like the two old women, he’d make it as painless as possible. Nothing personal. But the historian would die and would be laid to rest in the last block on the fourth row.

  He lifted his gaze and stared at the second row of blocks with cold resolve. Two blocks were filled. Two remained. Unlike any of the others, this row, these blocks were very, very personal indeed.

  Tuesday, January 16, 1:15

  A.M.

  Daniel had been staring at the ceiling for hours, putting off what he knew he had to do. It was probably too late, in more ways than one. But she had a right to know, and he had a responsibility to tell her.

  She’d be angry. She was entitled. With a sigh Daniel sat up and reached for the phone, dialing the number he’d committed to memory long ago but had never called.

  She answered on the first ring. “Hello?” She sounded awake and alert.

  “Susannah? It’s… me. Daniel.”

  There was a long moment of silence. “What do you want, Daniel?” There was an edge to her voice that made him cringe. But he supposed he deserved it.

  “I’m in Philadelphia. Looking for them.”

  “In Philadephia? Why would they go there?”

  “Susannah, when was the last time you talked to them?”

  “I called Mom on Christmas Day, a year ago. I haven’t talked to Dad in five years. Why?”

  “Frank called me, told me they might be missing, but it looked like they were only on vacation. Then I found e-mails on Dad’s computer. They say ‘I know what your son did.’”

  Once again he was treated to a moment of silence. “So what did his son do?”

  Daniel closed his eyes. “I don’t know. The only things I know is that one of them did an Internet search for Philadelphia oncologists and that the last person to actually talk to them was Grandma. I’m here looking for them, and I’m prepared to go to every hotel in this city, but it would help to know what number they called Grandma from.”

  “Why don’t you ask someone from GBI to run it for you?” she asked.

  Daniel hesitated. “I’d rather not. My boss wanted me to initiate a missing-person case. I told him I would when I had evidence that this was more than a simple vacation.”

  “Your boss is right,” she said coldly. “You should do this by the book.”

  “I will, once I’m convinced they are missing, and not on vacation. So can you run Grandma’s LUDs?”

  “I’ll do my best. Don’t call me again. I’ll call you if and when I find something.”

  Daniel winced when the phone clicked in his ear. It had actually gone far better than he’d anticipated.

  Tuesday, January 16, 1:15

  A.M.

  The occupants of the second row were completely personal. The old man and his wife were already buried there. Soon the empty plots would hold the old man’s spawn. How fitting that the family would spend eternity together… in my graveyard. His mouth curved. How fitting that the only one buried in the family plot behind the little Baptist church in Dutton, Georgia… is me.

  He hadn’t asked for the confrontation now. Artie and his wife had brought it to him, right to his doorstep. He’d always planned to wage this war, but after he’d made his mark. After his goals were met. When he had true success to shove down the old man’s throat. When he could say, You said I’d never be anything. You were wrong.

  It was too late for that. He’d never be able to say, “You were wrong.” Artie started it, but now that he was engaged in battle, he’d finish it, once and for all. The old man had paid dearly for his crimes. His offspring would soon follow.

  Artie’s daughter would play the final major role in his game-she would become the Queen, the only character standing between the Inquisitor and the throne. She would be, of course, destroyed. Painfully.

  Artie’s son would play a mere peasant poaching the king’s land. A minor role in the game. He stood abruptly. But his death will close a significant chapter in my life. He crossed the floor of his studio with a purposeful stride, no longer tired. Opening a cabinet, he carefully drew out the tool that would deliver his vengeance. He’
d saved it for years, just waiting for this time. Setting it on his desk, he pried open the jagged steel jaws and set the trap. Hands steady, he lowered a pencil between the jaws and tapped the release. The jaws snapped shut and the shattered pencil flew from his hand.

  He gave a hard nod of approval. Artie’s son would know pain-intense, excruciating, unimaginable pain. Artie’s son would scream for help, for release, and finally for death. But no one would hear him. No one would save him. I killed them all.

  Tuesday, January 16, 6:00

  A.M.

  Vito stumbled into the kitchen, lured by the smells of coffee and sizzling bacon. Then smiled at the sight of his sister Tess sitting at the kitchen table, feeding baby Gus in his high chair. Or trying to.

  Gus pushed his bowl of oatmeal away. “Want cake,” Gus said, very distinctly.

  “Don’t we all?” Tess asked the baby wryly. “But we don’t always get what we want, and I know your mama does not give you cake for breakfast.”

  Gus tilted his head, measuring her slyly. “Tino cake.”

  Vito’s lips twitched. Cake had been Tino’s answer to every child-care calamity since the boys had arrived. “I guess we’re busted.”

  She wheeled around, eyes wide. But the startled look quickly gave way to her gorgeous smile as she quickly crossed the small kitchen into his open arms. “Vito.”

  “Hey, kid.” Something was wrong. Her smile had been genuine, but her body was tense as she hugged him. “What’s wrong? Is it Molly?”

  “No, she’s better this morning. You worry too much, Vito. Sit. I’ll get your plate.”

  Still wary, he sat. “I found the snack you left in the fridge last night. Thanks.”

  She threw a look over her shoulder as she heaped eggs and bacon on his plate. “That was an entire ravioli, not a snack. But you’re welcome.” She put the plate on the table before him and took the other chair. “What time did you get home last night?”

  “Almost one.” On the way home he’d stopped at the bar where Warren Keyes had waited tables. Interviews with Warren’s boss and coworkers had turned up nothing new. No one had noticed anything or anyone out of the ordinary. “I didn’t want to wake you.”