Killing Ways

32

Gary and Ren sat down in Gary’s office.

‘I’d like you to listen to something,’ said Gary. ‘This is a voice recording of a call to a law enforcement agency called... Safe Streets.’ He hit play.

‘Hello, Rodney Viezel here. Is that Special Agent Bryce?’

Ren shifted in her seat. Oh, fuck. Rodney. ‘That’s that idiot who’s been looking at the office space with Valerie, rattling the guardrails—’

‘Ren — listen,’ said Gary.

‘Hello, Rodney... again. Yes, it’s Special Agent Ren Bryce here... again.’

Rodney laughs. ‘Well, what are the chances?’

‘Pretty high, Rodney, pretty fucking high. One in eleven. My boss doesn’t lower himself to take these kind of calls.’

‘What kind of calls?’ says Rodney.

‘Crank calls!’ said Ren. ‘Come on, Gary. Give me a break. Ever since he came to view this place, and I — foolishly, I admit — engaged with him, he’s been calling for some bullshit reason or another.’

Gary glared at her. ‘Keep listening.’

‘I just wanted to follow up on an electrical concern,’ says Rodney. ‘Your building doesn’t seem to have a backup generator...’

‘As a courtesy, Rodney, I’ll respond to that, even though it’s not my job,’ Ren says. ‘This is a very old building. Building code states that because we are under six stories high, we’re not required to have a backup generator. However, yes, we could have one retro-fitted, but that requires many other factors to be taken into consideration — like the space needed to house it, noise levels, etc. This is a matter for the building owner. Or, at the very least, it’s something Valerie can help you with.’

‘And,’ says Rodney, ‘that light switch that was loose in the lobby, the socket...’

Ren laughs, not unkindly. ‘You’re like a superhero with your supersonic vision.’ Wrong, but who cares?

‘Supersonic relates to sound,’ says Rodney.

‘Anal eyesight, then,’ says Ren.

Gary hit Stop. ‘There’s more along those lines, as you know.’ He looked at Ren. ‘If he didn’t have a crush on you, this would have been posted online for the world to hear. Instead, I got it, so I could have a word with you. What were you thinking?’

‘But you know none of this has anything to do with me!’ said Ren. ‘I don’t own the building, I’m not a realtor, I’m not an electrician. The closest thing I can come up with is I have a lot of energy. None of which I want to spend on calls with Rodney fucking Viezel. After that last woman and the aliens...’

‘Ren, you can’t control who ends up on the other end of a phoneline — none of us can. Consider this how not to take a call.’ He paused. ‘You don’t know whether someone is nuts or not. We can’t afford to alienate people.’

‘Aliens — see what you did there?’ said Ren.

‘Go.’

After work, Ren got in the Jeep and dialed Valerie’s number as she pulled out of the parking lot.

Thanks for the reminder, Rodney!

Ren left a voicemail for Valerie.

‘Valerie, it’s Ren Bryce here from Safe Streets. I was just wondering if you could help me find a home. There’s only so long I can handle the apartment! Please call me whenever you get a chance. Thanks so much!’

Ren started to drive home. Her mind wandered to Amanda Petrie, the girl who stumbled across the Jane Doe.

I never visited her. She might tell me more about the woman and the lyrics that are haunting me.

Ren arrived at Amanda Petrie’s house at seven p.m. She got no answer when she rang the bell. She went to the neighboring house, where a woman in her early fifties, in paint-spattered clothes, answered.

‘Hello,’ said Ren, flashing her credentials. ‘I’m Special Agent Ren Bryce with the FBI. I’m wondering if you know Amanda Petrie.’

‘Yes, yes, I do,’ she said. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Ren. ‘I’m just following up on an incident that happened last month. Amanda wasn’t home just now. Her car is in the drive. I was wondering if you’d seen her today.’

‘As a matter of fact, I did,’ she said. ‘Coming back from the beauty salon. It’s her sister’s fortieth birthday party tonight.’

‘Is it on right now?’ said Ren.

‘I guess so,’ said the neighbor. ‘She was home from the salon at four o’clock, looked like she just needed to throw on her dress. She probably had to go early to make sure everything was OK at the venue.’

‘You didn’t see her leave...’ said Ren.

‘I just got back from the store an hour ago,’ said the neighbor. ‘Do you want me to give you her cell phone number?’

‘No, no,’ said Ren. ‘I won’t bother her tonight.’

‘Well, Amanda’s a sensible girl — she won’t be out too late, so you could probably get hold of her first thing in the morning. She’s not the type to need to sleep off a hangover.’

Ren glanced at Amanda’s car in the driveway. ‘And she didn’t drive?’

‘No, I guess she took a ride with family or got a cab. She was probably planning at least to have a cocktail or two.’ She smiled.

‘OK, well, I can try her tomorrow,’ said Ren.

I don’t want to burst her party bubble by reminding her of a maggot-riddled lady and a car accident. Not tonight.

Ren’s cell phone rang when she got into the car.

She picked up. ‘You can be my hero, baby.’

‘Well, that might just be the case,’ said Rodeal.

‘I like the sound of that.’

‘I’ve got something,’ he said. ‘A connection of sorts — goes back to what you were saying about Jane Doe — the people who brought her in.’

Ren felt a shiver up her spine. ‘I’m listening.’

‘We’ll need your help on the other end of things, but what we’ve got is — we picked up a license plate on video close to two of the scenes: it was a rental car, registered to Kurt Vine — he’s the young man who was driving the pickup that crashed into Sky Ridge. It was totaled: his insurance gave him a replacement. It was caught driving west on I-72 the night of Hope Coulson’s murder. And on the night Carrie Longman was last seen.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ren.

‘Now, we did some digging on this guy — he lives in Sedalia.’

I knowww! I was there! Which I can’t say out loud. Because Gary will kill me for going alone.

‘It’s about five minutes from where he picked up the Jane Doe, and the young woman helping her,’ said Rodeal. ‘We just didn’t have the resources to search that entire property at the time she was picked up — it’s easily over four hundred acres. A couple of our detectives called to the house, got no answer, took a look around. They didn’t find anything hinky. Anyway, I looked the guy up today — he doesn’t really register anywhere. He doesn’t seem to have a job, a life, a membership to a club, nothing. No priors. He has a website — ForTheForgotten.net — a whole bunch of photos of abandoned buildings. Anyway, I get the impression this is a guy who lives online. And we don’t have the kind of resources to get any further into that.’

‘Well,’ said Ren, ‘luckily we have the resource that is Everett King! He could be our hero. He mightn’t break his arm in the process, but he will definitely do some damage to a keyboard.’

The next morning, Ren watched Everett get to work, marveling at how his fine fingers struck the keys so lightly, how his eyes scanned the screen so swiftly.

‘Oh, how huge your tiny mind is,’ she said, smiling.

Everett winked, without looking up. ‘Takes one to know one.’

Ren laughed. She brought him coffee, glancing up at him every now and then to admire his talents.

Eventually, he stopped.

‘Are you ready for this?’ he said. ‘There’s an underground online game that Kurt Vine plays called Hufuki. A game created by losers, played by losers—’

‘Lost by... losers!’ said Ren. ‘What kind of game?’

‘A hunting game is all I know. But I can’t just rock up and ask to play without drawing suspicion. This is a delicate maneuver. I will use my wiles to join the forum now, then request to play tonight.’

‘I wonder,’ said Ren, ‘if I could get some spa treatments as part of the investigation...’

‘This will be neither relaxing nor sleep-inducing...’ said Everett.

‘You haven’t met my masseuse,’ said Ren. ‘Someone’s going to file an assault charge on her...’

Ren’s phone rang. She picked up.

‘Ren, it’s Rodeal — I just wanted to let you know — a Missing Persons report came in last night on Amanda Petrie: apparently she was a no-show at her sister’s birthday party.‘ The one she organized.

Oh. Fuck. ‘Oh my God — I was at her house.’

‘Yeah — the neighbor said she spoke with you. Why were you there?’

‘I was following up on the Jane Doe after I spoke with Edie.’

‘You didn’t see anything suspicious...’

‘No,’ said Ren. ‘But I just rang the doorbell — that was it. I didn’t look in the windows, go around back or anything. I mean, I was just there to ask about the Jane Doe. I wasn’t thinking Amanda Petrie could be in some kind of danger. Shit.’

‘Did you get anything on that Kurt Vine guy?’ said Rodeal.

‘He’s a gamer. Everett’s going online to play tonight, find out more, maybe make a connection.’

‘OK,’ said Rodeal. ‘Keep me posted.’

Ren put down the phone. Her stomach tightened.

Did my presence at the house bring something bad to bear on Amanda Petrie? Was she in there while I was outside? Was she in trouble?

Ren filled Everett in on Amanda Petrie.

‘No Amanda Petrie, no Kurt Vine — it might be a coincidence,’ said Ren, ‘but it might not. Get playing as soon as you can, see if we can get a window into his world.’

The next morning, Everett arrived into Safe Streets, white-faced.

‘It turns out that Hufuki stands for — wait for it — Hunt, Fuck, Kill.’

‘What the—’

‘I’ve been up all night playing. I’m scarred. It’s not good. Or it is — depending on your angle. It’s basically about chasing women through woods, and you can work out the rest...’

‘What is wrong with people?’ said Janine.

‘And,’ said Everett, ‘it appears its most successful player is one “twistedvine”.’

‘Oh, God,’ said Ren. ‘Amanda Petrie...’

Everett pinned up an aerial map of Kurt Vine’s property, with all the buildings marked in, and a floor plan of the main house.

Kurt Vine was at the end of Level 9. He had been playing for sixteen hours straight. He couldn’t stop. He was chasing this hot bitch through the woods. She was dressed like one of those Seventies chicks, tiny red shorts, white knee-high socks with the red stripes, red sneakers, tight white top, pointy tits, about to die. Sweat stung Kurt’s eyes. This was incredible. His heart was pounding. He was about to reach LEVEL 10. LEVEL FUCKING 10.

It all became insignificant as two strangers, dressed in black, appeared in his doorway.

Kurt dropped the console, scrambled back in the sofa, grabbed a cushion to cover his erection.

Weird shit just keeps on happening to me, he thought.

The room erupted in crazed laughter from the television screen. It lit up with: YOU’RE THE BITCH WHO DIES! BURN, BITCH, BURN!’

He turned to the two strangers. ‘Who the FUCK are you?’