I Can See You

Chapter Six

Monday, February 22, 5:15 p.m.

Detective Olivia Sutherland’s eyes were tearing over her partner’s dinner. “Jennie’s going to kill you when I tell her what you’ve been eating.” She waved the air between them. “Not that I need to. Those onions will do it for me.”

“She’s out of town,” Kane said. “Back on Thursday.” He waggled his brows in a way that always made her laugh. “Could be worse. Could be sardines.”

“God, I’m glad you gave that up.” She shuddered. “I’d forgotten about those.”

“What are you doing for dinner?”

“After that thing, I have no appetite. I got a few pounds left to lose anyway.”

“You’re fine.” Which was what he always said, but Olivia knew differently. She’d gained a little weight after some surgery a few years back and she still wasn’t back to top condition. She’d expected her metabolism would slow down, but she never dreamed it would happen at thirty-one. And of course Kane could eat whatever he wanted and never gain a damn ounce. It wasn’t fair. And it was disrupting her job.

“Which was why I lost that creep this afternoon,” she muttered. To be outrun by a teenager was one thing, but to lose a middle-aged dealer whose primary exercise was the heavy breathing he did while snorting coke… She was still kicking herself.

“Liv, he caught a ride. No way he could have outrun you like that. He’s probably in the wind,” Kane said, speaking of the DA’s star witness, the dealer who’d given her the slip. “We wait until he pops his head up again. DA doesn’t need him till next week.”

“You’re right,” she murmured, then answered her cell phone, knowing it was Abbott as soon as she heard the opening bars from “Bad to the Bone.” “Sutherland.”

“I need you two on this hanger case. We need to find one Cassandra Lee. She runs a phone sex operation called Siren Song.”

“We’re looking for Dustin Hanks,” she said. “DA needs him in court.”

“This is more important. Faye’s waiting with the addresses we have for this Lee.”

Olivia handed the phone to Kane. “It’s Faye. We’re being pulled into Webster’s hanger case. And try not to get onions in my phone.”

Monday, February 22, 6:45 p.m.

At least they hadn’t cuffed her again. Eve sat alone in the interview room at the precinct. It had been almost an hour. A cup of coffee sat untouched, its aroma taunting her churning stomach. All she could see in her mind was Christy Lewis. Hanging there.

Three women were dead. Somebody killed them. And they think I know who.

You have to tell them, Eve. You have to tell them everything.

Deliberately Eve turned her head and stared at what she knew was a two-way mirror. Her own eyes stared back, dark and angry. “Fine,” she muttered. “I will.”

“Excuse me?” The door opened and Webster came through it. Jack Phelps was right behind him. Jack had spoken. “We missed that.”

“You were watching me? All this time?”

“No. We came in just as you spoke.” Webster put a bag on the table. “A sandwich.”

She pushed it away. “I can’t eat. But thank you.”

Webster sat across the table. “We’ve been trying to get in touch with your boss.”

Eve kept her face expressionless, but her stomach turned over. Donner was going to shit a ring. When this had been about suicide, it had been possible a discipline committee would have taken her side over his. But it wasn’t about suicide or Martha’s state of mind. She was a lowly grad student who’d broken double-blind. I’m on my own.

The help she’d give the police would be at her own professional peril. “My boss.”

Webster’s eyes were steady as he studied her. Something had changed from when he’d first removed her cuffs and placed her in his car back at Christy’s house. He’d been disapproving then. Now, she saw gentleness. And concern. And compassion.

Dammit. He knew. She could always tell when they knew. No one in the bar ever asked, unless they were drunk, and Sal would kick their asses out of the place. But when they found out, they’d always look, and they’d whisper.

“Yes,” he said, “your boss. We need a personnel list.”

Eve frowned. “Why?”

“Because we need to know who’s in danger there.”

A personnel list? That didn’t make any sense. She was about to tell him so when the door opened and a well-dressed man in his mid-thirties entered.

“Don’t say a word,” he cautioned. It was Callie’s defense attorney date. “I’m Matthew Nillson. I’ve been retained as Eve’s attorney. May I speak with my client?”

“When did you call a lawyer?” Webster asked.

Eve shrugged, her eyes wide. “I didn’t.”

Matt shot her a warning look. “Make sure you turn the speaker off, Detective.” When they were gone, Matt sat. “Do you know the meaning of ‘Don’t say a word’?”

She ignored that, going for the obvious issue. “I can’t afford to pay you.”

“It’s okay. I do pro bono every so often. Callie called me. She drove to the scene, but the police said you’d been taken away. She was very upset.”

“I didn’t mean to scare her. Look, Matt, I really appreciate you coming, but I don’t think I need an attorney. After today I’ll need a new career, but not an attorney.”

“Callie said you’d say you didn’t need me. Did they let you keep your cell phone?”

Eve sighed. “No.”

He nodded, as if that were all the proof he needed. “Tell me your story, Eve. Let me decide if you need me or not.”

Eve considered it. “You’re my lawyer, right? So everything we say is privileged.”

He lifted his brows. “With a few exceptions.”

“I didn’t kill anybody. But, if you can secure anonymity for my testimony, that would be a big help. So. From the beginning. Two years ago I got into grad school…”

Monday, February 22, 7:00 p.m.

Abbott, Jack, and Noah stood at the mirror, watching Eve in the interview room with Matthew Nillson, the speaker turned off. “I want to know what she knows,” Abbott said. “Damn attorneys.”

“She’s probably worried she’s in trouble for being a phone sex provider,” Jack said. “We should have questioned her in the car.”

“Why didn’t you?” Abbott asked, annoyed.

“I wanted to,” Jack said. “Mr. White Knight here wouldn’t let me say a damn word.”

Noah glared at him before returning his attention to Eve. “I wanted to know what I was dealing with.” Now he did. And it was worse than he’d ever imagined.

Abbott blew out a breath. “Now she’s lawyered up.”

“I don’t think she killed any of these women, Bruce,” Noah said. “Do you?”

“I don’t want to. But until she tells us what she knows, she’s a suspect. Got it?”

Noah opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. “Got it.”

“So what are we dealing with?” Abbott asked.

Noah didn’t take his eyes off her face, not wanting to remember all the things he’d just read about Evelyn Jayne Wilson, knowing he’d never be able to forget. “She was assaulted, almost six years ago, left for dead. In fact she did die, twice, on the way to the hospital.” Bile burned his throat, thinking of what Eve had endured. Stabbed, strangled. Assaulted. “She recovered, some. Then two years later, she was kidnapped.”

Abbott’s eyes widened. “Same perp?”

“No, different one. She was working for a shelter aiding battered women escaping their abusers. Dangerous stuff. You remember that woman in Chicago a few years back? The one that kidnapped a deaf kid, then killed something like a dozen people?”

“Yeah,” Abbott said slowly and pointed to Eve. “You mean she…”

“Was kidnapped by this killer, too. The Chicago cops credit Eve with saving the kidnapped boy’s life. She didn’t kill these women, Bruce.”

Abbott sighed heavily. “But she knows who did.”

“She knows something. I think if she knew who did it, she would have already told us.”

“See if you can get her to talk about Siren Song, at least to tell us where we can find the owner, Cassandra Lee. I’ve got Sutherland and Kane looking for her.”

“And Sutherland and Kane found her.” Olivia Sutherland entered the observation room from the hall. “And lost her again. Faye said I’d find you here. Cassandra Lee lives in Uptown. By the time Kane and I got down there, she’d left. Her doorman said he hailed her a cab. He said he didn’t hear where she told the cab to go.”

“Did you believe him?” Noah asked.

Olivia shrugged. In her early thirties, she was blonde, graceful, and a damn good cop. Micki said Olivia was Eve’s family friend. Noah had questions, but he’d save them.

“No,” she said, “but we couldn’t prove he was lying. Kane’s pulling her credit cards to try to track her. We alerted area airports, bus stations, and rental car facilities.” She started, staring at the mirror. “What’s Eve Wilson doing here?”

“She found the last victim,” Noah said. “She called me.”

Olivia’s lips closed tightly.

“What?” Abbott demanded.

“She called me, too,” Olivia said. “Earlier this afternoon. She left a message on my phone at my desk. I was just about to call her back. How does she know the victim?”

“Victims,” Abbott said. “She knew Martha and Christy. From Siren Song.”

“No way. No how. Eve is not mixed up with sex ops. Let me talk to her.”

“That’s her lawyer,” Jack said. “Good luck.”

Olivia knocked on the window and Matthew Nillson came out to the observation room. “I’m a family friend. I’m going to talk to her.”

Olivia started to push past, but Nillson stopped her. “My client wants to talk to you all, too, but she’s afraid of the impact it will have on her work.”

“What impact?” Jack asked. “Guys call, get off, she gets paid. Where’s the impact?”

Nillson stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Your client,” Abbott said. “She works for a company called Siren Song. They provide phone sex services.”

Nillson was still staring. “And you think Eve works for them?”

“She knew Martha Brisbane from work,” Noah said. “Martha worked for Siren Song.”

“We have epic misunderstanding here,” Nillson said. “Eve’s a grad student working on her master’s in psychology. She knows Martha and Christy through her duties there. She thought it was strange that you asked for a personnel list. Now that makes sense.”

“So Eve doesn’t work for Siren Song?” Abbott asked carefully.

Thank God. When Noah saw her at Martha’s, he’d thought it was fate. Maybe it was.

Nillson shook his head. “Um, no. She does not work for Siren Song.”

“Told you,” Olivia said with satisfaction. “So why did she want a lawyer?”

“Because she’s found herself in a corner. She’s seen information she shouldn’t have seen. Information that led her to two of the victims. She’s worried that if her role in helping you comes out, she’ll be expelled. She’d like to be a confidential informant.”

“A CI?” She was staring into the mirror, but Noah got the impression she wasn’t looking at them, but at herself. He’d watched her tending bar, watching everyone else so cautiously. Knowing about her background, her innate caution made perfect sense.

He’d watched her, wishing he was a different man, wanting to shield her from himself. Now she needed shielding from whatever danger she’d stumbled into.

Noah cleared his throat. “We can proceed on a CI basis, right, Bruce?”

Abbott was also watching Eve, thoughtfully. He nodded. “Okay. For now.”

“Then, let’s begin,” Matthew said. “She has a hell of a story for you.”

Monday, February 22, 7:20 p.m.

Eve was relieved when Olivia came through the door. Webster and Phelps followed, along with Abbott, their captain. Matt closed the door as Olivia took the seat next to her.

“They’ve agreed to keep your role confidential,” Matt said taking his seat.

Eve nodded, still guarded. “I appreciate that.”

Webster sat across from her. Again, something was different. Where she’d seen anger and compassion, now his eyes flickered with relief. Matt looked almost amused.

Abbott reached across the table to shake her hand. “I’m Captain Abbott.”

“I know. Vodka, straight up.”

“We’re very interested to hear your story,” Abbott said.

Jack Phelps hadn’t said anything at all, which was highly uncharacteristic. He stood off to the side, back against the wall, watching. He seemed… disappointed.

Eve glanced at Olivia. “What just happened?”

Olivia’s lips twitched. “I’ll tell you later. It’ll make your day.”

Webster looked uncomfortable. “We’re ready to listen.”

Eve met his eyes, again sensing she could trust him. Six years had taught her a great deal about who she could trust. Webster was the real deal. “I wanted to tell you earlier, but I wasn’t sure you’d believe me. I’m not sure I believe me. I’m a grad student. I’ve wanted to become a therapist for a long time. To help victims of violent crime.”

Webster nodded. “I understand.”

She was certain that he now did. “I’ll tell you what I know. But first, can you tell me when Christy died?” Please say it was before I met you on Martha’s doorstep. She’d been rehashing that moment in her mind, hoping her selfish desire to keep her secret hadn’t cost Christy Lewis her life.

“The ME thinks it was sometime early this morning,” Webster said kindly.

Relief had her shoulders slumping. “Thank you. All right. My thesis is on the use of the virtual world to improve self-esteem.”

“Virtual world?” Abbott asked with a frown.

“RPG. Role play games,” Eve added when he still frowned. “Like Shadowland.”

“It’s a computer game,” Olivia said.

“It’s more than a game,” Eve said. “It’s a community. You can meet people, have a job, buy property. All with complete anonymity. At least that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

“Their motto is ‘Sometimes you want to go where no one knows your name,’ ” Jack said. “I’ve played. A little.”

“Well, a lot of people can’t play ‘a little.’ Martha couldn’t. That’s why we picked her for my study. I wanted to tap the potential of the virtual world as a teaching tool. Like a big flight simulator, only to teach life skills, socialization. I wanted to help people who couldn’t function in the real world to… practice in the virtual world.”

“So a person who was socially clueless could learn to interact without the fear of rejection,” Webster said.

“Yes. I want to help these people leave the virtual world and make lives for themselves in the real one. This is important to me. I’ve worked hard to get here, to get into grad school, and I didn’t want to lose it. Which is why I didn’t tell you earlier.”

“All right,” Webster said. “So where do Martha and Christy fit in?”

“We recruited subjects for my study. People who’d never played before, like Christy Lewis. People who dabbled, like Detective Phelps. And what we called our ‘ultra-users,’ like Martha Brisbane. Martha averaged eighteen hours a day in Shadowland.”

“Eighteen hours?” Abbott said, shaking his head. “How did she have a life?”

“I wondered how Martha made a living, because she was in the game all the time.”

At that Webster actually blushed. Eve glanced around, only to find everyone in the room casting their eyes everywhere but at her. “Okay, what did I miss?”

Olivia sighed. “Martha was a phone sex operator, Eve. When you told Detective Webster that you knew her from her work…”

Eve’s mouth fell open. “That explains a lot.” She felt her own cheek heat and knew her face was aflame, leaving her scar starkly white. “For the record, I don’t do… that.”

Webster cleared his throat. “I’m sorry we thought so.”

A hysterical giggle bubbled up and she shoved it back. “Okay. Moving right along.”

“Your study,” Olivia prompted.

“Our subjects do exercises to increase self-awareness. Like find three people with whom you have something in common. It started out by them finding people that looked like them. Or their avatars. Later, they dug deeper for hobbies and personal interests.”

“Avatars?” Abbott asked, then shrugged. “Sorry. I’m old.”

Eve smiled at him. “No, you’re not. An avatar is like a game piece. Like when you play Monopoly, you’re always the…?”

“Shoe,” he said.

“I’m the iron,” she confided and Abbott smiled back. “An avatar is what you look like in the virtual world. Martha was a sex goddess named Desiree. Christy was a former Miss Universe and champion ballroom dancer named Gwenivere.”

“Who are you?” Webster asked softly and she started, not expecting the question.

“Me? Oh, lots of different people,” she evaded. “But for the purposes of this study, I started as Pandora. I own a shop called Façades Face Emporium. I sell avatars.”

“Sell?” Abbott leaned forward, interest in his eyes. “You sell things in this world?”

“You can sell all kinds of things. When you enter the game you can design your own avatar, but it’s from a template. If you want anything more unique, you pay someone. I don’t charge a lot for my avatars, which is why I get a lot of business, especially with people new to the World.”

“Like many of your test subjects,” Webster said.

“Exactly.”

“You were watching them,” Jack said. “As Pandora.”

Eve nodded. “Yes. That’s where I get into trouble.”

“Why were you watching them?” Webster asked.

“My concern was having subjects abuse Shadowland. The ultra-users did, but they were our control. I worried that people who had full lives in the real world would be sucked in, so I monitored usage. We also measured personality changes. Mood swings, changes in sleep, missing work. And suicidal tendencies.”

“Oh.” Webster leaned back, understanding in his eyes. “You read Martha committed suicide. You thought it had something to do with your study. With the game.”

“That was my fear. I’d wanted to test subjects monthly for mood changes, but my advisor wouldn’t approve that frequency. We tested every three months instead. I was, and still am, worried that that’s not often enough.”

“So you monitored them from the inside,” Abbott said. “Clever.”

“And against the rules, Captain. I was only supposed to know these people by a number. I got worried when a few of them started spending huge hours in the World. It was like recruiting people for a gambling study and watching them become overnight addicts. It was taking over their lives.”

“So you went undercover,” Olivia said.

Eve nodded. “I opened Façades and waited for people to come to me. It was the least intrusive method I could conceive. I could chat with them, gauge their moods, and they didn’t know who I was. Martha’s Desiree was one of my best customers. She was an obsessive face upgrader. Then about a week ago, Desiree disappeared.”

“What did you do?” Webster asked.

“Worried. Hoped Martha had gone on a real-world vacation, but I knew she hadn’t. She was hard-core. And she’d been like that for months before the study began.”

Webster frowned. “How long had she been a gamer, in total?”

“I’d have to check my notes, but maybe a year?”

Webster looked over his shoulder at Phelps. “It’s when everything changed for her.”

Phelps was nodding. “The mess in her apartment, missing her bills. The fights with her mother. Makes sense. So Martha disappeared. Then what?”

“I went looking for her. I didn’t find Martha, but I did find Christy. Every single night Christy would go to the club. It’s called The Ninth Circle.”

“Of hell?” Webster winced. “Lovely.”

“It’s a dance club, a social center. Christy’s Gwenivere was a party girl. I’d use Greer-that’s another of my avatars-to check on her and my other red-zones, the subjects I most worried about.”

“How many red-zones do you have?” Webster asked.

“Right now, five more, with another dozen brewing. I just checked on Christy last night, when I got home from Sal’s. She was dancing and flirting, same old.”

“So how did you know who these people were in real life?” Jack asked.

“This is where I really get into trouble. I broke double-blind.”

The detectives glanced at one another, their confusion clear.

“Double-blind means I don’t know who they are and they don’t know which group they’re in. It’s supposed to be sacrosanct.”

“But you peeked,” Olivia murmured.

“Big time.” Eve rubbed a tight cord in the back of her neck. “I broke in, located the test numbers of the subjects I was most concerned about, and their real-world names.”

“And real-world addresses?” Webster asked sharply.

Eve closed her eyes, trying to figure out how to keep Ethan’s involvement secret. “Not until today. I needed to know where to find Christy. I’d just come from Martha’s. You said she’d been murdered. And here’s where it gets incredibly unbelievable.”

Eve looked at Webster. “I’d set a Google Alert for Martha. This morning it popped up, with an article saying she’d committed suicide. I didn’t know what to do. I ended up going to my advisor. I told him about Martha.”

“You admitted you broke the double-blind?” Webster asked. “That was brave.”

“It was the right thing to do,” she said and saw respect in his eyes. “I couldn’t let anyone else’s life be ruined by this study. But my advisor got angry. I gave him a printout of the article about Martha. He… shredded it and told me I’d never seen it.”

“Bastard,” Abbott murmured.

“Technically, he was right. Morally he wasn’t. I knew where Christy worked. She’d told me about her job when she came to Pandora’s. Christy was lonely. She just wanted to talk. She was worried about getting fired for being online so much, but couldn’t stop.”

“She was addicted,” Webster said quietly and Eve nodded sadly.

“I went to see her in real life, but she hadn’t come to work. I thought she was home, playing. I thought if I couldn’t find Christy, I should at least pay my respects to Martha. That’s when I saw you, Detective Webster.”

“And when you called me?” Olivia asked.

“Not yet. I went home, got online.” Eve felt her heart start racing all over again. “I went to Christy’s house, in the World. There was a black wreath on the door and…” She swallowed hard. “She was hanging. And her shoes had fallen off.”

“How?” Webster asked, his eyes narrowed.

“The same way they were in the real world. I almost called 911, but it sounded too crazy. So I called Olivia here at the station. I didn’t have her cell.”

“That’ll change,” Olivia said. “My sister will kick my ass if anything happens to you.”

Eve’s smile was wan. “Can’t have that. I figured you could get her address, that you could check on her and make sure she was okay. I didn’t think you’d think I was crazy.”

“How did you find Christy’s address?” Webster asked, more quietly this time.

“Don’t answer that,” Matt said, then lifted his brows at Webster’s scowl. “For now.”

“I went to see Christy,” Eve said, “hoping it was a sick joke. But it wasn’t.”

“What about Martha’s door?” Webster asked. “Did it have a black wreath, too?”

“I didn’t check today. I was too rattled. But it didn’t as of yesterday.”

“Let’s check when we’re done here,” Webster said. “What about Samantha Altman?”

“She may live in Shadowland, but she wasn’t in my study. I’m sorry.”

“How do you know?” Webster pressed, and Matt Nillson stepped in.

“All you need to know is that Eve checked the list and Altman wasn’t there.”

Webster shook his head. “Two of my victims were in her study. Not a coincidence.”

“That’s exactly what it is. Hear me out,” Eve added. “Two victims spent inordinate amounts of time in the virtual world. Your third might have, too, but not as part of my study. Whoever killed them knew Christy played, because he simmed the crime scene.”

“Simmed?” Abbott said.

“I’m sorry, Captain. Simulated. Maybe he knew all three from the World. Maybe he preyed on them there.” That Christy wouldn’t have been there except for her study was something Eve couldn’t dwell on right now. The guilt would come later.

Webster was shaking his head. “What are the odds that he’d meet two of your test subjects at random, Eve?”

“Pretty high, if he’s local. We required our subjects to come in for evaluations. They had to be local. We stacked the deck, geographically speaking. If he was looking for women from the Cities, he would have had a larger-than-average pool to choose from.”

“That does make sense,” Webster admitted.

“And we don’t even know if Samantha Altman was a player,” Abbott said.

“Gamer,” Eve murmured.

“Gamer,” Abbott repeated. “Until we find differently, Samantha was not a gamer.”

“The other connection,” Jack said, “could be Siren Song.”

“Or something you don’t know yet,” Abbott said. “For now, we assume nothing.”

“At least we know he met Christy in this Shadowland,” Webster said. “We need to use that to find him. Will you help us?”

“Of course. Tell me what you need me to do.”

Monday, February 22, 7:45 p.m.

Liza had held her tears until she’d made it home from the police station. Sitting at her kitchen table, she looked again at the paper the officer had given her. She’d gone to file a missing person report and the officer had put the information in the computer.

Then he’d looked at her with a frown. “You said your sister cleaned buildings.”

“She does,” Liza had insisted, but he’d shaken his head.

“Afraid not.” He’d turned his monitor so she could see for herself.

She was still… stunned, two hours later. A mug shot. SOLICITATION, the charge read. “We picked Lindsay up for hooking two months ago. You didn’t know?”

Lindsay had chosen to… sell herself. And now she was missing. I have to find her.

She didn’t have the first idea of where to begin looking. She’d figure it out. She’d find some hookers, start asking questions. Somebody must know her sister. Somebody must have seen her. I have to know.

Lindsay could be alive somewhere, hurt. Needing me. I have to try.