Killer Move

Hallam rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “This is fucked up.”

He walked back into the house.

“So?” I asked him. “You going to arrest me right now, or do I have a chance of standing my ground? Are they so in control that I have to get out of here for a while?”

“Wait. Who’s ‘they’?”

Hallam’s eyes looked like he was still seeing what was in the pool. The body had half rolled back over in the water when he saw it, hiding some of her face—but he’d still seen more than enough. He looked as though he was trying to decide what to do first out of about eight possible choices, all of them well above his pay grade.

“Tony and Marie Thompson.”

His eyes snapped back to life and he laughed outright. “The Thompsons? You’re kidding, right? They murdered some girl, hacked her body to pieces, smashed her face off? I don’t think so.”

“There are others in the group,” Emily said, “who probably—”

“The group? What is this—the Manson family? What the hell is going on around here?”

“A collective of locals,” I said. “The Thompsons, the Wilkinses—back when Phil was alive—plus a couple of others, I think. They’ve been playing some kind of reality game for decades. Messing with people’s lives, using them like pawns, smoothing over the fallout with their cash, and then moving on.”

“What? Why?”

“Because they can. Because when your bank account’s full you need something else to divert you. For the fun of it.”

“And this includes murdering people? Come on.”

“Not usually.”

“But . . . and these people you’ve listed—these pretty elderly people, I should point out—are who killed that girl out there? And did all that to her?”

“Maybe. We don’t know.”

“But . . . why bring the body here?”

“To implicate me. I’m this season’s guest star. I’m the guy who got modified this time around.”

“ ‘Modified’?”

“It’s a computer-game term,” I said, remembering all too well that it had been Cass who’d first flashed on what was going on—too late for her, once I’d accidentally got her involved. I could blame other people as much as I liked, but the bottom line was that it had been me who’d put her in my pool. “Alterations are made. Like putting a rat in a maze and moving the walls when it’s not looking, or putting an electric current under its feet.”

Hallam’s face was frank in its incredulity. “Bullshit.”

“They admitted it, to my face. Jane was there—she heard it. According to Tony, it had just been a kind of fireside puzzle before. It was David Warner who took it to another level. He made his money selling computer games. That’s all this is, but in real life. Augmenting reality with a cattle prod.”

“And they’ve been doing this to you . . . how long?”

“Several weeks in the background. It really got going on Monday, but I only started to work it out last night. My wife’s in the hospital because she drank a bottle of wine I bought. It was poisoned. Tony claimed to me that wasn’t part of the plan, he and Marie were the intended victims, but he has no idea who did it—unless it was Warner screwing over his former friends.”

Even as I said this I realized how lame it sounded, how insufficient a handle I had on what was going on.

Hallam evidently felt the same. “Are you shitting me?”

“Deputy, I’ve got a . . . you’ve seen what’s out in my pool. Nobody’s shitting anybody.”

Hallam turned to Emily. “And how do you fit into all this, exactly?”

“I was one of the people moving the walls,” she admitted. “Not a player. A hired hand, helping run the scenario that had been roughed out ahead of time. I’ve been waitressing in Bo’s this last month. I helped set up some of the stuff in Bill’s life, but I was not involved in anyone getting hurt. The plug was pulled once it starting looking like something had happened to David Warner. Someone clearly hasn’t got the message, though.”

“I talked with the Thompsons an hour ago,” I said, “and they were scared. The guy who shot up Bo’s is called John Hunter. He was a victim of the game twenty years back. Warner framed him for a murder he’d committed, some local woman called Katy, and—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Hallam said, holding up his hand. “You have evidence that Warner killed someone?”

“Not actual evidence, but this is straight from Marie Thompson. Why?”

“We found stuff at Warner’s house today. I’d believe that guy was capable of almost anything right now.”

Hallam’s eyes glazed over, as if he was trying to add, divide, and multiply a long series of numbers in his head. “I have to call this in,” he said, as if suddenly remembering that he was a cop.

“No, you don’t,” said a voice.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

It came from above. There was a man standing on the gallery upstairs. It was Sheriff Barclay.

Hallam gaped. “Sir?”

His boss started down the stairs in a slow, measured fashion, as if weighed down with the gravity of a serious situation. I was aware of Emily backing away, melting into the shadows.

“What in hell’s name are you doing here, Rob?”