Mind-Altering Murder

Chapter Eighteen

Shawn blinked against the harsh white light of the Imaginarium. O’Hara had already put her helmet back in the rack and was heading for the door.

“Wait, Jules,” Shawn said.

“Don’t bother, Shawn,” she said. “I was going to take you to the emergency room, but it’s pretty clear that Santa Barbara General isn’t the kind of hospital you need.”

“I’m not crazy,” Shawn said. “I’m sorry if I came across that way. I’ve been playing this game so much lately that I’ve gotten used to the world. Believe me, seeing it through your eyes reminds me how horrified I was the first time I put on the helmet.”

That, of course, was a lie. The first time Shawn had entered Darksyde City he’d hijacked a car and run down pedestrians until a fleet of police cars forced him into the side of a building, killing him and ending the game. But there was some truth to the statement. After all, Gus had been pretty repulsed by the whole thing, and since they’d still been partners when they first played the game Shawn felt he was entitled to claim fifty percent of his reactions.

Besides, even if it was a lie it seemed to be working. O’Hara was still standing by the door but she hadn’t taken another step.

“Look at yourself, Shawn,” she said. “You haven’t eaten. You haven’t slept. God knows when you last changed your clothes. You’ve become obsessed with this game. And now that I see what it is that has you under its spell, I’m really worried about your mental health.”

“I don’t keep coming back here because I enjoy playing this sick, twisted game,” Shawn said, knowing that if he tried lying this blatantly inside Darksyde City his nose would grow at least fifteen inches.

But without the contradictory evidence of an expanding organ, he had apparently managed to strike the right note of sincerity and contrition. She actually moved away from the door a little. “Then why?”

“It’s about finding Macklin Tanner,” Shawn said. “We may disapprove of his work, but there’s no denying that the man is a genius. And somebody has kidnapped him.”

“The SBPD looked into the disappearance weeks ago,” O’Hara said. “Detectives Bookins and Danner found no evidence of foul play.”

“If it had been Detectives O’Hara and Lassiter, maybe I’d be a little less concerned,” Shawn said. “Well, maybe not Lassie so much. The point is, the fact that there was no evidence makes this even worse.”

“Because if he was kidnapped it was by someone who really knew what he was doing,” O’Hara conceded. “But who and why?”

“I don’t know why,” Shawn said. “Maybe there’s some kind of entity out there that needed his expertise and couldn’t get it legally so they were willing to pay huge amounts of money to anyone who’d deliver Tanner to them. As for who, I’m convinced it was someone inside this company. And I’m equally convinced that person left a clue in this game so that the world could admire his genius.”

“And you think this Fawn Liebowitz is that clue?”

“I think she holds it,” Shawn said. “The rules of the game may seem random when you first enter Darksyde City, but they are real and they are consistent. They have to be to make the game play satisfying. She’s the only thing I’ve come across that doesn’t fit.”

“How many times have you tried to make her talk?”

Shawn thought back on his encounters with the student and all the knives, guns, bombs, and poison-gas grenades she’d used to kill him. “At least thirty,” he said. “Maybe more.”

“What seems to be the problem?”

“I don’t know how to talk to her,” Shawn said. “There’s clearly something I’m supposed to say or do to make her open up, but nothing has worked.”

“Well, what have you tried?” O’Hara said.

“I tried being nice to her,” Shawn said. “She cut my throat. I accused her of kidnapping Tanner and she blew us both up. I got tough a bunch of times, but she kept finding ways to turn whatever I was using on her against me.”

Shawn noticed that look of disgust creeping back onto O’Hara’s face. He moved on quickly. “I tried romance a few different ways. I brought her flowers. I offered her jewelry. I even proposed marriage.”

“And none of that worked?” O’Hara said, a smile replacing the look of horror. “What kind of game is this?”

“I’m out of ideas,” Shawn said. “That’s why I was so excited when you came to my door. Because maybe you can get through to her. I’m thinking she speaks a language that only college students understand.”

“I don’t think so,” O’Hara said.

“Sorry I dragged you out here for nothing, then,” Shawn said.

But O’Hara still wasn’t moving toward the door.

“I don’t think it’s a matter of speaking a language only students can understand,” O’Hara said. “I think you need to speak like a woman.”