Fantasy in Death (In Death #30)(101)

“Nothing to find,” Feeney stated. “We have to conclude the killer came in with him, and there’s some malfunction with the droid. We’re going to take her apart again.”

“Maybe not.” Eve left it at that until she finished laying the groundwork. “The victim engaged in solo play for just over thirty minutes, starting at level four. We’ve concluded he gamed K2BK, which through process of elimination would be Usurper. We’ll come back to the details of that scenario.

“Victim Two,” she continued, “Allen, Cilla, attacked and critically injured while engaged in play of the same game, in her holo-room, unsecured, in her apartment, which was secured. No indications of another entry, invited or forced until her partners, Leman and Hoyt, entered this morning and discovered her on the holo-room floor. After questioning, her partners state her preferred game is Dragon’s Egg—a treasure hunt. We’ll go into those details shortly.”

She glanced at her wrist unit. If Roarke ever finished.

“Victim Two began at level one, engaged in play for just over two hours. We have her just shy of completing level three. Expert medical opinion based on her injuries, the scans, concludes she suffered those injuries in a fall from perhaps twenty feet onto a hard, rough, and uneven surface.”

“Can’t be,” Feeney disagreed. Absently, he took a cube of gum McNab offered him. “Screws the time line and the entry, and hell, the physical evidence on-scene. The attack went down in the holo-room.”

“I agree.” Eve stepped to the side of the wall screen to give the team an unobstructed view of the crime scene record. “So how does a woman incur injuries from a fall such as I’ve described on the smooth, flat surface of her holo-room? How does a man get his head cut off when all evidence concludes he was alone? The only logical explanation is Bart was killed and Cill attacked by their opponent in the game.”

“If they were alone, Dallas, they didn’t have a damn opponent.”

Eve shifted her glance toward Feeney. “But they did. Each would have to defeat or outwit that opponent to reach the next level. For Bart, the Black Knight. For Cill, the rival treasure hunter.”

“You’re saying some holo jumped out of a game and sliced off the vic’s head?” Feeney shook his own. “You’ve been working too hard, kid.”

“I’m saying the killer used the game,” Eve corrected. “I’m saying he used a new technology programmed into the game as the weapon. Enhanced wave fronts, increased power to beams and the haptic system, a refocus of laser angles and light, forming electrons and light source in the shape of the programmed images—replicating substance.”

Callendar tilted her head. “Wicked. Wicked freaky.”

21

“That’s science fiction shit.”

“It’s fiction until science catches up.” Eve rocked back on her heels. “Feeney, you work with science every day. Go back to your rookie days and compare them with now. This isn’t my area, so maybe it’s easier for me to consider the possibility. Nothing else fits. And this? Figuring the evidence, the time lines, the circumstances, the personalities, and the areas of interest? It fits like a f**king glove.”

“There’s always some rumbling and mumbling on the underground sites,” McNab commented. His eyes shone bright with the possibilities—what Eve thought of as a geek beam. “Way-out theories and applications.”

“We got sightings of Bigfoot and little green men on-sites, too,” Feeney countered, but he was frowning in a way that made Eve sure he was considering.

“Both vics had minute burns, internal burns, at the site of injuries. We’ve gone around chasing some charged-up sword. I think we weren’t far off. But it only exists within the program.

I believe Levar Hoyt killed one partner and attempted to kill another through his programming. Let’s take him for a minute.”

She shifted gears, back to the comfortable, and outlined her reasons and conclusions on the suspect.

“He looks good for it,” Feeney agreed. “You’ve got a nice pile of circumstantial. But say I came over to this idea of yours, how the hell do we prove it?”

“He’s going to tell me. He’s going to want to tell me.” She paused as Roarke walked in. “Got it?”

“It’s rough considering I was pressed for time—and your equipment is hardly cutting-edge—but I have it, yes.”

“Load it up. Display on screen two. What we’re going to see are reconstructions of the crimes, using the available data, images, medical findings, and applying the theory. The running time’s bottom right. For both, we’ve utilized the victims’ game pattern from records of their sessions.”

She watched as Roarke set the program, displayed it on-screen. “Bart Minnock enters his apartment,” she continued as the computerized images moved over the screen. “Interacts with the droid. He drinks the fizzy she serves him, orders her to shut down for the night. He leaves the glass on the table, goes to the third floor, and enters the holo-room, secures it.”

She watched it play out, keeping an eye on the elapsed time. It fit, she thought again. The image moved through the steps, the pattern previously established. Maybe he’d done something different this time, but it didn’t matter. He’d ended up, as he did now, facing off with the figure of the Black Knight.