Fantasy in Death

“They’d have to expect Bart to come home in order to cross paths.”

“Exactly,” she agreed. “Which goes right back to someone from U-Play. All it takes is one tag. He’s on his way. Get in, arrange to run into him-knock on the door a couple minutes after he’s inside. Time to have him shut down the droid so he’s got everything set for game time. ‘Hey, how’s it going-I was just in the neighborhood, thought I saw you come in.’ Bart’s all whistling-a-tune happy, excited. He’s nearly ready to launch his baby, just wants to play with it first, fine-tune. Here’s someone he knows. Another game player. It virtually has to be or why bring them in?”

She paced the room, stopped, put her hands on her hips. “I don’t like it. Too loose, too many variables.” She closed her eyes a moment, tried to see another angle. “He takes the game disc, but doesn’t log it. Or he did and someone doctored the log. Either way, it’s a work thing. Someone from work, someone involved in the project, maybe someone he wants along to help with specifics. But on the down-low. They don’t come in together, so maybe the killer arranges to meet him. ‘I’ll be right behind you’ sort of thing. Gives him a chance to get in another way, before or after Bart leaves. Before’s better. Got a couple things to do first, so I’ll meet you. Access on the sly so nobody knows you’re there. Disc’s not logged out, and Bart’s place is a short walking distance from the warehouse. Busy place. Is anyone really going to notice if someone’s gone for an hour?

“It could work.” Complicated, she thought again, but doable. And didn’t gamers prefer the complex? “You’re in, and the only person who knows you’re in is going to be dead.”

“And the weapon?” Roarke asked.

“Big shiny toy. Look what I’ve got. Just had to show you. Game’s in, and they play because that’s got to be part of it. The competition, the game. It wasn’t a goddamn accident. It was premeditated. Otherwise there’s no need to avoid coming in through security. No need to time it just so. Some sort of war fantasy, fight, sports-something to explain the minor bruising. Fight. Sword fight? Knights in shining freaking armor or warlords or whatever the fucking hell boys play.”

She circled the room trying to see it, to get some sort of picture in her head. “Maybe Bart’s getting the upper hand, racking up points. That just pisses you off, helps wind you up for the kill. Give him a taste first or maybe you just missed. First blood with that arm wound. See the shock on his face, smell the blood-it’s like copper on the back of the throat. Then one vicious swing, and it’s done. End of game. The blood’s real though, so much of it now that copper taste is too strong. Clean up, change clothes, stuff the bloody ones in a bag. Get out the same way you got in.”

“And leave the game disc behind?”

“If he knew Bart well enough to get in, he knew him well enough to know the security. Anybody tries to eject without all the codes, it self-destructs. It’s just a copy. It’s not about the disc, it’s about the whole-the game, the company, the man, everything. Because to do what was done here, you were very, very pissed off. Passion,” she murmured. “Passion and ego more than money, I think. Money’ll play a part. It nearly always does, but it’s not leading this charge.”

She held up a hand as a new thought emerged. “He brought the disc home. Five-minute walk. I bet it’s not the first time. Did EDD download the full log?”

“It goes back to the begi

“But the log may give us a pattern. That, the building’s security discs, and the security discs and logs from U-Play.”

“It’s going to be a long night,” Roarke predicted.

7

On the way home she checked in with members of the team, logged the updates. She sent copies of all reports to her commander, then requested a consult with Mira for the next day.

“Two arrests today,” she said, thinking of DuVaugne and Dubrosky. “Both deserve the cage time, but neither of them killed my vic. Someone closer than that. Someone more fun.”

She remembered Peabody’s angle. “These conventions-cons-where people get all dressed up in weird outfits, play games, have contests, take seminars. I bet you’d meet a lot of fun people at those, if that’s what you’re into.”

“Shared interests, like minds. That’s what you’re after.”

“And the weapons. Fancy magic sword. Maybe it was a bribe, or some sort of payment. Let me play the game, let me be-what did Bart call it with the Sing kids-your test study-and you can have the sword.”

“Most auctions and shops have records of that sort of sale. I can try to find it.” Roarke maneuvered around a maxibus, threaded the needle between a couple of Rapid Cabs while evening traffic spurted, snarled, or stalled. “But it’s just as likely it was private, and no record exists.”

“Worth a shot. Tie the sale to someone at U-Play. Someone he met at a con, and maybe hired. For the warehouse spot, for consulting. Someone he used before in test studies.” She stared out the window where the warmth had tourists flooding the sidewalks, but she saw a secured holo-room where her victim died in shoes wet from a whistling walk in the rain.

“He knew his killer,” she stated, “or whoever set him up for the kill.”

She thought of DuVaugne again as they drove through the gates of home. Not in the killing sense, but in taste, in scope. The steel and glass box, she thought, so cold, so hard, so desperately trendy. And here was Roarke’s taste and scope in the strong and graceful lines of home, the towers and turrets adding a little fancy, the streams and rivers of flowers, the warmth and color.

Yet the man who’d built it had lived in the cold and the hard for so long, as she had. When given the choice, he’d taken the strong and the warm.

And, in turn, had given them to her.

“We should eat.”

He turned to look at her as he stopped the car. “Now you’re stepping on my lines.”

“You could start the search for the weapon, and I’ll put something together.”

“Will you now?”

She couldn’t really fault his skepticism. “I won’t program pizza.”

He got out of the car, waited for her, took her hand. “What’s the occasion?”

“You have good taste in houses.”

“I have good taste in all ma

She gave Summerset a good, long study as he stood exactly where she’d expected, like a harbinger of doom in the foyer with the chub of cat at his feet.

“I saw your evil twin today,” she told him. “Wait, you’re the evil twin. I think he has the same tailor, too. I. M. Funereal.”

“Well, that was clever,” Roarke said and pinched the hand he’d just kissed. “We’ll be eating upstairs tonight,” he told Summerset.

“Hardly breaking news. There’s some very nice grilled swordfish, if the pair of you choose to eat like adults.”

“Swordfish,” Eve considered. “Might be lucky, considering. You didn’t have to pinch me,” she added as they continued up and the cat, his mind very likely on food, raced ahead of them. “I really did see his evil twin today. You can ask Peabody. Of the droid variety, and it had one of those fake-sounding upper-class Brit accents, but it was a ringer. I bet you could buy it cheap if you ever want to replace dour with droid.”

“You’re asking for another pinch.”

“Probably a bad idea, about the switch. As much as I hate to say it, I think the droid’s worse. Did Summerset ever tell you not to drink too many fizzies because they’re not really good for you?”

“Possibly. Probably,” Roarke said as they turned into the bedroom. “I want to change out of this suit.”