Cast Of Shadows

– 77 -

“Do you even have your learner’s permit?” Shadow Barwick asked.

“No.”

“God.”

“Relax,” Justin said into his headset. “It’s like playing a video game. In fact, we are playing a video game. Remember.”

“ You might be playing,” Sally said. “This is real to me. I’m risking my life here.”

“We’re not going to die.”

“We’re chasing a serial killer!”

“So you’re convinced he’s the killer now?”

“I didn’t say that. You know what I mean.”

The blue Camry belonged to Justin’s Shadow mother. Unlike his real-life mother, Shadow mom hadn’t upgraded to a Sable, and the digitized import showed its age in the frayed floor mats and worn steering wheel. Tonight, for the fourth time in a week, Justin snuck out with the car, picked up Sally, and parked across the street from the garage underneath Sam Coyne’s apartment building. In reality, of course, they were both sitting in their pajamas at home.

“I’ve topped two hundred and fifty thousand points on Ultrathon Grand Prix,” he reassured her. “I’m a good driver.”

“Maybe you’d be better off playing your little driving game tonight,” Sally said. “I don’t think he’s coming out.”

“He has to sooner or later.”

The last Wicker Man killing had been ten weeks ago. According to Justin’s theory (illustrated on his revised chart), there would be a killing either in the game or on the real streets of Chicago very soon as Coyne felt the need to release his aggression. For many reasons, they were both hoping it would be in the game. Sally in particular was hoping it would be tonight. She was tired.

That’s not to say she didn’t enjoy her time with Justin. He was the only man in her life. He had read more books than many adults, and understood them better than she did. He could argue a point without being personal. He wasn’t an intellectual and could talk about movies and music and television, and also at length about Sally’s primary interest – life in Shadow World. If he weren’t so young, she’d no doubt be dating him by now. Given all the time they spent together, between the game and her dreams, some version of Sally practically was.

“Unless he doesn’t,” Barwick said. “Have to, I mean. At some point we need to give up on your theory, Justin. I don’t want to, but with all these late nights I’m having trouble staying awake at work. Both of me are.” The dashboard and computer clocks both said 12:30 a.m.

“Well, I have to go to school, ” Justin said, as if this stakeout had been her idea. Sally was reminded that when she was fifteen, she had been certain high school was so much harder and more boring than work would ever be.

“Wait.” She nudged him. “There!”

The garage was technically underground, a dead end in the maze of arteries carved underneath downtown known collectively as “Lower Chicago.” At night, however, visibility was just as good as it was on the upper streets bearing the same names. A black BMW glistened in the fluorescent light as it nosed under the corrugated door and turned onto the street. Shadow Justin checked the license plate.

“That’s him!” he said, and in a small window showing third-person point of view, Barwick watched her on-screen avatar lurch forward as Justin took the car out of park. From a dozen car lengths, they followed Coyne’s taillights up Shadow Wacker Drive to the surface, then West on Madison to the old meatpacking district. There weren’t slaughterhouses here anymore – only galleries and nightclubs and condos, with the odd restaurant-supply store on Lake Street, the neighborhood’s only secondhand memory of its past life. Barwick’s town home was a few blocks north and west, in fact.

“I think I know where he’s going,” Sally said. “Stay on him just in case.”

Coyne parked the Beamer on Aberdeen, and Justin stopped short and backed up to a space more than a block behind. Coyne stepped out of his car and the lights flashed when he locked it with the remote. “Crap!” Justin said.

“What?”

“I don’t know how to parallel park.”

In her bedroom, behind her computer, real Sally chuckled. “Take your time,” she said.

“No! We’ll lose him!” Justin said. “You wait here and I’ll chase after him.”

Shadow Sally reached out and held his arm before he could unbuckle his seat belt. “You’ll never get in.”

“What do you mean? Where is he headed?”

“The Jungle,” Barwick said.

When it opened six months ago, the Jungle was celebrated with local headlines that were half mocking and half adoring: New Meat Market Opens in Old Packing District was typical of the press. In fact, Sally, making a rare contribution to the features department, had written that article for both the real and Shadow Tribune s. The nightclub took its name from Upton Sinclair’s book that exposed the once-unspeakable practices of Chicago slaughterhouses. The modern-day incarnation of the Jungle, however, was nothing but high-tech glamour. With three stories, six dance floors, more than a hundred yards of bar if you put all nine of them together and laid them end to end, the Jungle was the hottest dance spot, pickup joint, and celebrity hangout in Chicago, real or otherwise.

“I can pass for twenty-one,” Justin protested. “In the game, anyway.”

“That’s not the problem,” Sally said.

“What?”

“You look like you’re dressed for softball,” she said, fingering his avatar’s T-shirt and baggy shorts. “We discussed how Coyne must be picking up women in bars at night, and these clubs have strict dress codes. Why do you think I’ve been breaking out the tight dresses for our stakeouts this week?” It was an opening for a come-on line, and when Justin didn’t take it, Sally was reminded once again he was just a kid. “You stay here. I’ll check it out.” She stepped carefully onto the sidewalk, balancing herself on a pair of high black heels. “Keep the engine running and keep your eye out for me.”

“Wait,” Justin said. “I should go, or give it a try anyway. Like you said, it could be dangerous.”

“Not because I’m a girl, I hope.”

“Of course not. Because you’re a TTL. If something happens to me, I shrug it off and start the game over. I have nothing to lose.”

Sally smiled. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’m just walking into a bar. I do it all the time. Did you happen to see what his avatar was wearing?”

“It looked like a black overcoat,” Justin said. “But under that was a dark shirt with a vertical yellow stripe down the left side.”

“Good,” Sally said.

The entrance to the Jungle was up a short flight of concrete stairs. At the top of them a bouncer with a black ponytail and a square goatee protected a glass door with a purple curtain behind it. Having been judged lacking in some way, a small group of avatars stood on the sidewalk. They were mostly men, and had likely been rejected for wearing tennis shoes or committing some other fashion offense. In most cases, Sally guessed, they hadn’t left for another bar because the bouncer had nodded their girlfriends inside and the girls had gone dancing, abandoning the men in the virtual cold.

Shadow Barwick paused to glance at herself in the window of a gallery that earned its reputation setting outrageous prices for artists no one had ever heard of, hoping to make them stars right out of the box. This tactic had worked once or twice, but now it looked to Sally like the gallery was going under. It shouldn’t matter to the landlord. This neighborhood – although still a bit gritty and industrial – was red-hot. Another gallery would take its place before anyone noticed. In the window’s reflection, Sally looked good, in a tight black dress with a red scarf and a small red purse. Although now in her mid-thirties – and even with Shadow World sucking up so many hours – she still made the gym three days a week and made certain her avatar was as fit as she was in real life, right down to her current weight in ounces. Earlier in the week, Sally had downloaded the latest update of the avatar builder and the difference in appearance was stunning. The skin tones and facial expressions were lifelike. The stitching in her clothes was twice as detailed. The animation in her straightened hair was so good she could differentiate between strands. Although it was a violation of the unwritten TTL code, she took advantage of the new installation and made some minor adjustments to her face – lengthening her nose, widening her eyes, slightly adjusting the shade of her brown skin – nothing too drastic, but she was both delighted with the way the new look made her feel and ashamed of having done it. Such tinkering was counter to the True-to-Life ethic, but the new technology made it irresistible. The first night of the stakeout, Justin had commented, shyly, that she looked great, but she couldn’t tell if he was referring to the higher resolution of her avatar or to the minor surgery she’d done on her face. She promised herself she’d change it back, but was unconvinced she actually would.

Threading herself between the castaways on the sidewalk, Sally climbed the concrete steps and the bouncer opened the door with a big grin. “You look fine, honey.” She wondered if this was the same doorman she had interviewed in real life at the opening, and if he recognized her. Either possibility was a stretch.

Inside, patrons were packed into the most inconvenient places. The coat check was as difficult to get to as any of the bars. Fortunately, Sally’s avatar wasn’t thirsty and she’d left her coat in Justin’s car.

Not thirty seconds inside, a tall Asian man asked her to dance. She couldn’t even see the dance floor and the music was so loud she could barely understand the request in her headset. She turned him down and continued to push her way deeper into the Jungle.

The center of the club boasted a fifty-foot ceiling and an enormous skylight that would have revealed a brilliant display of stars if the sky were clear and the city not so lousy with light pollution, a detail Shadow World’s programmers had written into the Chicago code. When there were no clouds, you could make out a handful of the brightest planets and stars, but mostly you’d see the blinking lights of airplanes in holding patterns over O’Hare and Midway. Last month, during a meteor shower, the club – the real Jungle – had a party to celebrate. There had been little to see through the skylight but patrons partied on, soon forgetting the promotion that had brought them there in the first place.

Two more offers to dance followed in quick succession, along with a third suggestion that prompted Barwick to push away the propositioner with the heel of her palm. Disgusting. When yet another avatar asked if she wanted to join him for the next song – what were they, taking numbers? – she finally said yes. From the dance floor she could move around better and also get a decent look at all sides of the club.

Out in the middle of the room, under the big skylight, Sally loosened up. She felt self-conscious when she danced in real life, but in Shadow World she could relax. Let the music lead her. The motion of her fingers across the keyboard was a dance of its own, and the easy manner with which her avatar responded was much more satisfying than any real-life two-step. This was why she felt more alive in the game than she did in real life. This feeling of confidence and control was something she had tried to describe to her family but never could. They would just shrug and laugh and say they’d never understand this True-to-Life obsession of hers.

Tonight, though, even more than other nights she’d spent clubbing in Shadow World, Sally really had it going on. The motions of her new avatar were so fluid. So natural. Changing to third-person in the point-of-view window she could watch herself as others saw her, and what others were seeing was a sexy, sexy display. The way her hips rolled, the way her hair fell in front of her eyes, the fluid way her arms turned above her head as if she were undersea.

In the main panel of the screen, she saw her dance partner – dressed up, trying too hard, a good but not great dancer, handsome face, shaved head, broad shoulders under a ribbed turtleneck. He had a grin on his face and an empty, fixed stare that Sally recognized from thousands of hours in the game as lust.

Of course.

That was why she was getting all the attention. Most of these guys were in here for online sex, and she represented the newest technology. They were after some high-resolution in-and-out with her. She was both flattered and nauseated by the thought. Scanning the area around her, she found a lot of eyes on her body, men and women, some horny and some just curious. She counted a few others who had obviously upgraded, maybe one in twenty players at this point. TyroSoft predicted that in one month the penetration would be close to ninety percent.

It had been stupid to upgrade so early. She was here on surveillance, for crying out loud, trying to be stealthy, not sexy, and she stuck out like one incredibly desirable sore thumb.

On the other hand, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

Winking at her dance partner, she spun away from him and began walking the perimeter of the club. She found an opening at the bar and ordered a vodka and tonic and then resumed her patrol, although she had to stop every ten feet or so to deny a request for dancing or sex or both. Sally was becoming irritated, waving away suitors like gnats.

There: dark blue shirt with a yellow stripe. He was standing three bodies out from the bar, talking with a couple of blondes. Coyne had made the upgrade as well, she noticed, and she wondered if he also had cheated on his looks a bit, chiseling those cheekbones and squaring that jaw when he redid his avatar. Her investigation hadn’t turned up a photo. The real Sam Coyne was probably a stereotypical fantasy player: short, fat, and bald.

She watched him from this safe distance, simply ignoring the propositions when they came now and taking small sips from her glass to make the drink last. She’d feel conspicuous standing here alone and without a drink, and she was afraid of losing sight of him if she had to go back to the bar.

He became focused on one of the girls now, his eyes boring into her. One blonde tried to inch her way into his line of sight, but he seemed more and more interested in her friend. They were too far away for Barwick to hear what they were saying (sound in the game carried about the same distance as it did in real life), but it seemed to her to be all smiling and flirting. Sam Coyne was a charming man, it seemed.

He looked up from between the two blonde heads and made eye contact with Sally. Not a casual glance, but a long, unbroken connection. Barwick was slow to look away, and then it was too late to do anything but return his gaze and look indifferent. She didn’t, apparently, seem indifferent enough.

In a matter of seconds he had excused himself from the blondes and they turned and pouted as Coyne made his way over to Sally. This wasn’t what she wanted, but she couldn’t run. And what did she expect would happen when she walked into this bar, anyway? Sally realized too late that she had no plan.

“Hello, I’m Sam,” he said. Sally noticed another benefit of the upgrade. The lip sync was almost perfect. Forget about flesh, she thought. Even dirty talk would be sexier in the new Shadow World.

“Sam, hi,” she said. “I’m Sally.”

If he was a TTL, and he looked anything like this in real life, Sam Coyne, attorney-at-law, was quite a catch. Wavy blond hair. A big white smile. Athletic waist and thighs. Coyne might be the Shadow World thrill killer, but she was finding it harder and harder to buy into Justin’s thinking. She’d met a lot of serious gamers and this guy was too good to be true.

“Sally, do you want to dance?” he asked.

Did she? Heck, it’s a crowded club. “Sam, sure,” she said.

Coyne was better than a decent dancer, although she acknowledged that dancing in the game was all fingers and wrists – a different skill set than dancing in a real club. It still took rhythm, though, and he had it. As he moved on her screen, she couldn’t help seeing in him something like what men had been seeing in her all night. Casual sex wasn’t Barwick’s thing, in Shadow World or in life, but she was attracted to him. Or to his avatar, anyway. Of course, the avatar was a real man as far as Shadow Sally was concerned, and whether or not danger had anything to do with it, Shadow Sally was turned on. And he was picking up on it.

After just one song, he leaned in next to her ear and said, “Sally, do you feel like going for a walk?” She had been playing the game long enough to know what that meant. She was scared. Excited and scared. She needed that plan now.

Barwick had entered the Jungle to spy on Coyne, not to bait him. Or become another of his victims. She had a life here in Shadow World, a life she loved as much as its mirror in the alternate universe of the real world. She simply couldn’t risk it all chasing the crackpot whim of a high school kid she barely knew. She had to give Sam Coyne the same answer she’d give in real life if he asked her to go somewhere for quick and meaningless sex.

“Sam, no,” she said. “Thanks, but no.”

He stared at her for a minute as if others in this situation had changed their minds in the line of his hypnotic pupils. She didn’t doubt they had.

“All right, Sally,” Coyne said. “Some other time.” She watched him turn and walk back to the bar where one of the two blondes was still waiting. At just a word, she hopped off her stool and followed him toward the coat check. Sally waited until they were lost between bodies in the crowd, then set off after them.

Her escape from the dance floor was as littered with oversexed obstacles as her entrance, however. “No. No. No thank you. God, no! ” she insisted to one poorly rendered avatar after another until she finally reached the cold air outside. Snow had begun to fall. At her computer, Barwick looked out the window. The flakes were just beginning to stick to the boxwood outside. She marveled again how the Shadow World programmers were able to make the world on her screen so responsive and complex.

It was nearing last call and the bouncer had left, locking the entrance door behind him. The sad crowd of boys on the sidewalk were gone. The street was visible for several blocks in either direction, but she couldn’t see Coyne or the blonde. Sally began walking to the Camry, her head twisting in all directions, but a hand on her arm stopped her. Justin was out of the car.

“Sally, they walked into that building!” he said. “Across the tracks!” Barwick looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a large tin garage used by a private disposal company to warehouse garbage trucks.

“Eww,” she said. “Are you kidding me?”

“Maybe he’s testing out a new technique,” Justin said, looking over his shoulder as Sally tried to keep up with him in her heels. “Or maybe he’s done this very thing dozens of times as the Wicker Man, in the real world. Maybe he dumps the bodies with the garbage, and they’re never found. Who knows what his body count might be?”

Barwick didn’t buy it. “Sex next to a garbage truck has got to be an in-game-only fetish,” she said. “Stink doesn’t go through the computer. Besides, I’m not so sure this guy’s a TTL.”

“Why?” Justin asked.

“He’s too good looking.”

In his bedroom, Justin smiled.

A door to the giant tin barn was left open and Justin and Sally slipped inside. Dozens of blue trucks were lined up in rows, ready to make their rounds in just a few hours. A few fluorescent lights were on, high in the rafters, and they could hear loud echoes – a man and woman breathing and giggling – from somewhere inside the barn. Barwick put a finger to her lips and Justin understood. If we can hear them, they can hear us.

They walked with gentle footfalls up and down the rows, and the sounds from Coyne and the blonde became louder and more passionate, but they couldn’t tell if they were just inches away or dozens of yards. The crazy acoustics of the metal roof and walls, and the directional limitations of their headsets, limited their ability to home in.

Until they heard the blonde screaming.

“That way!” Justin whispered, running off before Sally could get her bearings. She slipped her heels off and followed the screams, which became more and more angry.

You sonofabitch! You sonofabitch! You goddamn crazy sonofabitch!

At least she wasn’t a True-to-Lifer, Barwick thought. If she were a TTL, the screams would be more terrified. More real. This chick’s just pissed.

Ten seconds later Sally ran right into Justin’s back. He was frozen between the front and rear bumpers of two garbage trucks. Because he was six inches taller than she was, Sally couldn’t get a look at anything on the other side of him.

“I can’t see!” Justin whispered desperately. “I’m blind here. I can’t see!”

It took Sally a moment to figure out what he meant. This was a fine time for his computer to freeze, or for a glitch in the software to show itself. He turned to face her. “I can see you,” he said. “But I can’t see out there.” Then she understood. Around the corner, there must be a scene so deranged or sexually explicit (or both) that it set off the parental filters on Justin’s computer. His screen had gone black.

“Look away,” Sally said. “Turn around and get behind me.” She pushed him aside and nudged in front of him, almost wishing she had the parental filters activated herself. Even if the blonde wasn’t a TTL, Barwick wasn’t sure she wanted to see what Coyne had done to her.

And when she stepped out to look, she wasn’t able to see it. Not right away.

The instant she maneuvered in front of Justin, Sally was hit in the face with something hard and metal. The pain meter at the bottom of her screen redlined. “Ow!” she said instinctively. She rolled over onto her back and looked up. Sam Coyne, pants buttoned but belt unbuckled, stood above her holding a shovel caked in dirt and filth. He sneered at her.

“What are you doing?” he asked. His voice was calm and measured – and calm and measured, under the circumstances, was cold and creepy. “If you wanted to come along so badly, Sally, you should have just said yes when I asked.”

Barwick tried to push herself backward, but the blow had injured her avatar, making it unresponsive to commands. “Sam, stay away from me,” she said. Through Coyne’s legs, she could see the blonde’s naked, lifeless avatar lying in an expanding pool of red. Somewhere in Chicago, the woman who had been playing the game with that character had no doubt stomped into the next room and was already watching television in a foul mood.

From one of his deep pockets, Coyne pulled a bloody towel. The towel dropped to the ground, unveiling a long knife with a black handle. “Sally, I usually like to get to know a girl first,” he said, crudely grabbing his crotch with his other hand. “Too bad.”

Barwick tried to stand, and managed to lift herself up on a straightened arm before falling back to the ground. Coyne lunged at her, then stopped himself, taking a slow step, then another lunge, a slow step, a lunge. Toying with her. When he was so close his right shoe gently kicked her bare left foot, Sally managed a scream.

And not some prissy, fantasy-playing, nothing-at-stake blonde-girl scream, either. It was fat and loud and high-pitched and it echoed through the old tin barn like a soprano aria. Coyne was startled then, not just by Sally’s yelling, but also by footsteps.

Seconds later, Coyne was on his side against the concrete, the knife skidding away with a sound like a shuffleboard disc. Justin was on top of him, flailing at the man’s face, but most of his blows missed or were blocked, and a few even struck concrete, punishing his own knuckles and forearms. Sally tried to right herself and looked around for the knife. By the time she saw it, deep under a truck at least a hundred feet and three rows away, Coyne had reversed positions with Justin. Now he was attacking with jabs, like a boxer, and Justin could do nothing but cover his face.

“Justin!” Sally yelled.

“I can’t see!” he managed to spit out between desperate breaths.

Shit! Barwick thought. Coyne likely thought Justin was babbling or referring to some temporary condition caused by the blood in his eyes. Sally knew better. As long as the blonde’s naked body was in his line of vision, the parental controls on Justin’s computer forced his screen to go black. Because Coyne was standing between Justin and the naked avatar, when Justin faced Coyne he couldn’t see anything in the game at all, much less defend himself against the man’s blows.

Sensing an opportunity, Coyne backed off a few steps and reached for the shovel, which had fallen behind the tire of one of the trucks. Barwick’s avatar had regained enough strength to wobble to her feet, and she circled around Justin in the opposite direction, testing Coyne. He didn’t make a move for her. Justin was his concern. The boy was twenty years younger and could no doubt take him in a fair fight. Coyne needed a weapon. Justin bobbed his head toward the sound of the older man’s breathing, trying not to reveal his handicap.

Sally walked backward, toward the dead blonde. Coyne knelt slowly by the giant tire, feeling for the shovel. Justin began throwing uncertain taunts in Coyne’s direction, trying to appear cocky.

“Sally, a little help!” Justin shouted.

When Coyne had walked from the car to the door of the Jungle, Justin said he was wearing a long black overcoat. It must be around here somewhere, Barwick thought. She saw no clothes around the body, however. Coyne must have thrown anything that had become bloody during the attack into the back of one of these trucks. She kept searching. She heard the first blow strike Justin in the side. Another crunched bone and she hoped it was an arm. She saw his avatar slump. On the back of one truck, camouflaged by the vehicle’s blue paint, sat a tarp of the same color. It was covering an open bed full of waste that hadn’t yet made it to the landfill. She jumped up and grabbed the edge, but the tarp slipped out of her hand. She tried again and this time got a better handle, but it was stuck.

“Help!” Justin called as Coyne swung the shovel again with a thud.

She leaped a third time, looping a thin finger inside a metal grommet, and pulled down with all her weight. The tarp came loose and brought several pounds of rotting meat and fruit down with it. Wet, Shadow Sally dragged the tarp over to the lifeless blonde avatar and tossed it on top of her, covering her naked body.

“Justin! Look!”

His screen blinked to life just as Coyne was bringing the shovel down on the crown of his head. Responding to Justin’s expert keystrokes, his avatar ducked and rolled, and the blade clanged against the concrete. Standing, he got a glimpse of Sally pointing to his left, in the direction away from Coyne, who was recovering from the stinger shuddering through the wooden handle.

What the hell is she pointing at?

He waited to be sure Coyne was after him, not Sally, and he dashed off in the direction of her gesturing. Coyne followed between the rows of vehicles.

“Under the truck!” Barwick yelled. What was she talking about? Justin thought. Why wouldn’t she just come out and say it? The trucks were parked nearly bumper to bumper and in the narrow space between them, Justin couldn’t put any distance between him and Coyne. He heard the man gaining behind him. He heard Coyne breathing. Close. Coyne lifted the shovel over his head, and it made a whooshing sound past Justin’s ear.

Under the truck! Duh!

Justin dove forward on his belly and slid on some sort of greasy sludge, which propelled him beneath the carriage of the truck in front of him. The shovel came down, just missing his foot.

“Bastard!” Coyne shouted.

All right, Justin thought. Now it really is personal. Mother. Fucker.

On his belly he slithered away from Coyne, using the trucks as cover. Coyne hadn’t followed him. Justin could see his feet circling around the perimeter of the trucks, trying to cut him off. Justin backed up and changed direction. Sensing his motion, Coyne retraced his steps. Dammit. He had to find a way back to Sally.

“Little ‹ AGE INAPPROPRIATE›, where are you?” Coyne shouted. He was practically jovial about it. Laughing between taunts. Sally and Justin hadn’t foiled his plans, they’d just made the game more challenging for him. More fun. Justin wondered if the extra energy Coyne spent killing him and Sally might actually save a real girl’s life. He hoped he wasn’t doing this for nothing.

Then he understood what Sally had been warning him about. Under the trucks.

Three vehicles to his right he saw the blade of the knife wink at him in the reflected light. Beautiful. That was his way out of here.

“Why don’t you come under here and get me?” Justin answered as he made his way toward the weapon.

Coyne snickered. “Maybe. Or maybe I’ll just back you up into the lot until there’s no place for you to go, and then double back to your girlfriend there.”

Justin took the knife in his right hand and crawled until he was inches away from the aisle where Coyne was standing. Justin waited a second, then bent his right knee, kicking a gas tank with his boot. To Coyne, the noise was loud and close. He ran toward it.

“Gotcha!” He bent down and swung the shovel under the truck. Justin stopped it with his left hand, the blade making a gash in his palm, and pulled the shovel toward him. Coyne refused to let go, fighting with Justin for control of the tool. In an effort to break it free, Coyne pushed the shovel further under the truck, exposing his hands at the end of the handle. Justin saw and struck.

“‹ AGE INAPPROPRIATE ›!” Coyne yelled. When Justin slashed unexpectedly into Coyne’s arm, the game created an involuntary response to the pain, causing Coyne to drop the shovel and recoil. Justin pushed himself out from under the truck and went after Coyne again. Sitting on the ground, the older man could do little but try to defend himself. He rolled onto his back and started kicking at Justin’s hands. Justin swatted the man’s shoes away and made a few crazed stabs at his legs.

Barwick called out, “Justin, what’s happening?” Her voice stopped Justin in the middle of his assault. The most important thing was to protect her. She was the one putting her online life at risk. Cocky again, Justin grabbed the shovel and retreated between the trucks, back toward her voice. “Fuck you, Coyne!” Justin called out over his shoulder, for no reason but to make the lunatic aware they knew his name. “Go to hell!”

On the blue tarp, blood beginning to ooze from underneath it, Barwick looked up with a start when she heard Justin approach. He knelt beside her and took her hands in his, and she turned his left one over and started at the open wound.

“We need to get to a hospital,” she said.

Justin shook his wrist. “Naw, I’m fine. It’s just a game.”

“I mean for me,” she said. She pointed to the shovel in his hands. “While you were blinded, he smacked me with that thing.” Sally lifted her hair and on her finely rendered temple Justin could see a large bruise growing toward her eye.

“All right,” he said. “We should get out of here now. I lost sight of him, but he could try to cut us off.” He held out the knife. “Can you hold this? Or wave it around, anyway? Look menacing?” She wanted to stab Justin with it, to tell the truth. Justin had saved her with that blind tackle, but it was his insane scheming that had put her in danger in the first place. What the hell had she been thinking? And they weren’t out of it yet. She tapped her bruise with the handle of the knife and the pain meter shot to life. She might have a concussion.

Practically hanging from his shoulder with one hand and making a conspicuous presentation with the blade in the other, Sally and Justin walked out of the garage the way they’d come in. Neither mentioned to the other how relieved and disturbed they were that Coyne didn’t show himself again.