Scavenger

1

“Have any of you read Dorothy L. Sayers?” the Game Master asked.

Amanda adjusted her headset, convinced that she couldn’t have heard correctly.

“Who?” Viv asked.

Amid the ruins of the church, Derrick stared up at the glaring sky. The rocks of the fallen walls radiated heat. “First, you want to know if we can guess what this Sepulcher thing is. Now you ask about—”

“Amanda,” the voice said, “you ought to be able to tell us about Ms. Sayers.”

“Why would she know?” Ray demanded. “You already told us she’s your favorite. Are you giving her the advantage, asking questions only she can answer?”

“I work in a bookstore,” Amanda told them. She deliberately used the present tense, needing to convince herself that life could be normal again. “Yes, I know who Dorothy L. Sayers is.”

“Prove it,” the voice said.

“She’s a British mystery writer who created an amateur detective named Lord Peter Wimsey. Her most famous novel is probably The Nine Tailors, which is about bells in a church steeple and a body that’s found there.”

“This is more bullshit.” Ray wiped his sleeve across his forehead. “The clock’s ticking, and we’re wasting time, yacking about a mystery writer.”

His stomach rumbled, the noise so loud that everybody noticed.

“Good heavens, Ray,” the voice said. “Are you hungry?”

His face turning scarlet, Ray glowered at the others. “Talk to this guy all you want. Waste your strength as well as your time.”

He yanked the empty water bottles from Viv and Derrick, then programmed the latitude and longitude numbers written on them into his GPS receiver. “While the rest of you dick around, I’m going to find out how to win this game and get away from here.”

He picked up two full bottles that the toppling wall had exposed. After stuffing them into pockets, he rushed down the hill.

“He’s right,” Viv said. “We need to get to the next coordinates.”

Viv stooped toward the rocks and took two bottles. Derrick did the same. When Amanda reached down, she discovered that only one bottle remained.

Furious, she ran after the others. The red needle on her GPS receiver pointed toward the narrow end of the lake, before which lay the remnants of Avalon. Trying not to lose her balance running down the hill, she felt a shadow to her left and looked toward the west. Clouds gathered over the mountains.

“Storm’s coming,” Derrick said. “A couple of hours.”

“Amanda,” the Game Master said, “You didn’t mention that Dorothy L. Sayers translated Dante’s Inferno.”

“Will you shut up?” Ray yelled below them.

“I’m trying to make things easier for all of you,” the voice said. “I’m trying to help you understand the game. Sayers wrote The Mind of the Maker. Have you ever read it, Amanda?”

“No!” Amanda breathed hard. Reaching the bottom, she chased Derrick, Viv, and Ray toward the ghost town.

“That disappoints me.”

“It isn’t a huge bookstore, damn it!”

“But you have an M.A. in English from Columbia University.”

Racing, Viv turned and shot Amanda an angry look.

“We didn’t study mystery writers!” Amanda shouted.

The voice sighed with disappointment. “Sayers was a devout Anglican. But she was troubled by the contradiction between God’s omniscience and the free will humans are supposed to have. If God knows everything, He’s aware when each of us will sin. But that means our future is locked into place, and we don’t have free will.”

“Shut up!” Ray yelled, almost at the ghost town.

“That’s why Sayers wrote The Mind of the Maker,” the Game Master explained. “She decided that God’s like a novelist. God establishes the time and place for the story. He creates characters and knows generally what they’ll do. But as any novelist will tell you, characters often assume a life of their own and refuse to abide by the story. They exist in the novelist’s mind, and yet they’re independent. They’re almost like method actors. ”I don’t think I should do this,“ one says. ”My character would tell the truth in this scene.“ Another says, ”I think I’m more motivated to turn down the promotion rather than work with someone I dislike.“ Sayers realized from personal experience that characters in novels have free will. In that same way, she thought, humans have free will. The plot’s laid out for us, but sometimes we choose not to follow it. Sometimes, we surprise even God. That’s how we gain salvation, Sayers believed. By showing how resourceful we are and surprising God.”

Ahead, Ray lurched to a stop, working to catch his breath as he studied the screen on his GPS receiver. “This is it,” he said. “The coordinates.”

Derrick, Viv, and Amanda caught up to him. Sweat clinging to his beard stubble, Derrick pulled a water bottle from a pocket and gulped from it.

“Make it last as long as you can,” Viv said.

They were in the remnant of a street. Sagebrush grew from the dust, straight lines of collapsed buildings on each side. Unlike the church, which was mostly stone, these buildings were made of wood, their walls and roofs lying in heaps from which weeds sprouted. The boards were gray and splintered with age.

“Look around!” Ray ordered. “These receivers are accurate to within ten feet! Somewhere close, there’s something we’re supposed to find!”

Ray searched the ruins on the left while Derrick kicked under sagebrush and Viv checked the ruins on the right.

The immense sky made Amanda feel dwarfed. Dizzy, she stared up. “Are you telling us you think you’re God?”

Derrick stopped and frowned.

“I told you I’m the Game Master,” the voice said.

“Are you telling us you think we’re characters in your mind?”

Viv, too, stopped and frowned.

“We’re not in your mind!” Amanda shouted. Desperate, she remembered Frank telling her that criminals were more inclined to abuse their victims if they considered them objects instead of people. At all costs, she had to make the Game Master relate to her as an individual, a personality, a human being.

Frank. The thought of him sent a shudder through her. Grief welled through her with the renewed apprehension that Frank was dead. She knew with all her heart that if Frank were alive, he’d be here, helping her.

“I’m twenty-six! My favorite food is spaghetti and meatballs, even though the carbohydrates put on weight! I like Brad Pitt movies! I like to watch the History Channel! I like to play with my father’s Irish setter! I like to jog through Prospect Park. I like to—”

“Stop wasting your breath!” Ray shouted. “Help find whatever the bastard hid at these coordinates!”

“I imagined Bethany would run,” the Game Master explained. “That was all right because I needed someone to make an example of. The thing is, it could have turned out another way. She could be there with you right now. Honestly, all she needed to do was surprise me.”

“Like God wants to be surprised?”

“Damn it,” Ray said, “help us search!”

In the ruins on the right, Viv yelled, “I found something!”

“What?” Derrick scrambled toward her.

“Part of a sign.”

“Let me see.” Ray charged over and grabbed the fragment. The letters on it were faint: RAL STOR. “That could mean anything.”

“General store,” Derrick blurted. “I bet that’s what it means. The store would have sold a little of everything, including food.”

“Food?” Ray looked hopeful only for a moment. “But after all these years, there wouldn’t be anything left of it.”

“Those water bottles at the church were put there recently. Maybe food was put here.”

Ray pointed at Derrick. “You’re supposed to be such a big-deal outdoor-survival expert. Can’t you show us how to scrounge for stuff like nuts and berries? I’ll eat anything.”

“Scrounging expends more energy than you get from whatever nuts and berries you manage to find. Eventually, you’d starve.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d have an excuse.” Ray yanked up an old board and searched under it. He grabbed another board, which broke in his hands. He hurled the chunks away. “Come on! Dig!”

Amanda joined him. Splinters stung her hands.

“I found a can!” Derrick yelled. He held it up, showing a label marked PEACHES.

“Another one!” Viv shouted in triumph. The can she held up was marked PEARS.

Amanda and Ray hurled more boards away.

“Where are the others?” Ray dug down to a rotted wooden floor. “Keep searching! Where are the others?”

Fingers raw, Amanda tossed another board into the street.

“I’ll use a sharp rock and bang the tops open,” Derrick said.

“You’re not doing anything until we find the other cans!” Ray fumbled through the wreckage.

“I’m afraid there aren’t any others,” Amanda said.

Derrick turned toward the street. “I kicked up a rock over there.” He hurried to it. “Yes! It doesn’t have a sharp end, but we can pound with it!”

“You’re not pounding anything,” Ray emphasized, “until we figure how to guarantee we each get our share.”

“Like how you drank the first bottle of water we found?”

“It won’t happen again.”

Right, Amanda thought. But everybody took two bottles of water and left me only one.

“You bet it won’t happen again,” Derrick said. “We’ll each take a swallow of the juice. Then we’ll count how many pieces of fruit there are and share them evenly.”

“Whatever you want. Now that you’re running the show, let’s find that other rock.”

“I’m not running the show,” Derrick said. “All I want is what’s fair.”

“Sure. Right. Of course.”

“Over here.” Viv sounded like she hoped to change the subject. She picked up a rock that resembled a wedge. “We can use this to bang a hole in the top.”

Derrick set the can on a board. He put the wedge-shaped rock on the lid and prepared to slam it with the rock that was flat.

“Stop.” Ray wiped his mouth. “You’ll send juice flying. We don’t want to spill a drop.”

“It’s impossible to keep that from happening,” Derrick told him angrily.

“No,” Viv said. “The rubber gloves I took from the building.” She pulled one from a pocket, its yellow bright against her brown coveralls. “We’ll put the can in the glove. If juice sprays, it’ll stay inside.”

Viv held the can in the glove’s long sleeve while Derrick braced the first rock and slammed it with the second.

The impact made a dull thumping sound. The can’s lid pushed inward but remained intact.

“Hit it harder,” Ray said.

“I don’t want to crush the fruit.”

“Hit it,” Ray said.

Derrick slammed the rock down so hard he grunted. With the sound of metal breaking, juice leapt from a jagged hole but stayed within the glove.

“We’ll drink the juice,” Ray said. “When it’s gone, we’ll knock the can all the way open and get the fruit.”

“Is that what we’ll do?” Derrick handed the can to Viv.

Shaking, she raised it to her lips and took a swallow.

Ray stepped close, watching her. “How does it taste?”

“Warm.” Viv gave the can to Amanda.

“But not spoiled?”

“Sweeter than I like, but it’s fine.”

“Jesus, is that why you didn’t complain when I let Viv go first?” Derrick shook his head in amazement. “You wanted to find out if she’d get sick?”

The thought that the juice might be spoiled made Amanda reluctant to drink. Slowly, she raised the can. The thick sweet warm liquid was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted.

Now Derrick reached for the can.

“No,” Ray said. “I’m next.”

“You think so?” Derrick glared.

“Let him,” Viv said. “Maybe he’ll calm down.”

As Ray brought the can to his mouth, Derrick watched carefully. Ray’s Adam’s apple moved in his long neck.

“That’s enough,” Derrick said.

The sun seemed hotter. Ray lowered the can. “I wasn’t going to drink from this after you put your lips to it, boss.”

Derrick screamed. In a blur, he surged to his feet, swinging the rock.

The attack took Ray by surprise. Stumbling back, he groaned as the blow meant for his head struck his left shoulder. Wailing, Derrick struck again. Ray jerked up a hand to protect himself, moaning from the impact of the rock against his forearm.

“Stop!” Viv shouted.

Derrick swung again and almost hit Ray’s jaw.

“Don’t!” Viv screamed.

Ray lost his balance, and fell to the dust. Standing over him, Derrick swept back his arm to hurl the rock at his head.

“No!” Viv wailed.

Ray kicked Derrick’s legs from under him. As Derrick landed, Ray scuttled toward him. Derrick threw the rock, hitting Ray’s chest, but the next moment, Ray was upon him, banging his head against the dirt.

Amanda couldn’t move. What felt like a minute was only seconds, she knew. At once, it seemed that a powerful spring was released, propelling her into motion. She ran and grabbed Ray from behind, straining to pull him off. She smelled sweat. Ray’s breath was vinegary from hyperventilating.

“Stop,” she said.

Viv joined Amanda and struggled to pry Ray’s hands from Derrick’s neck. Amanda tugged frantically at Ray’s shoulders. Derrick’s tongue bulged from his mouth. His face had a blue tint.

“You’re killing him!” Viv screamed.

Ray opened his hands.

Thank God, Amanda thought.

Ray took his fingers from Derrick’s throat.

“Yes!” Amanda said. “Let him go!”

Ray moved back.

“Yes!” Viv said.

Then Amanda’s heart seemed to slide loose in her chest as she saw Ray pick up the rock Derrick had thrown against his chest.

“Stop!”

Amanda grabbed him again, but Ray swung an arm, striking the side of Amanda’s head. The blow made her see gray. Feeling weightless, she dropped to the dust. Ray knocked Viv away from him. His hand streaked toward Derrick’s head. The rock made a brutal crunching sound. Derrick moaned. The rock came up bloody. It slammed down again, and this time, the crunch had a liquid sound.

Amanda hurled herself toward Ray at the same time Viv did. They each grabbed an arm, tugging in a frenzy. Ray squirmed to get free. They pulled him back, and suddenly he went with them, all of them dropping. With a yell, he rolled over them, his momentum twisting their arms loose. He dove toward Derrick. His hand still held the rock. He slammed with it. He slammed again. Blood dripped from the rock.

“No black son of a bitch—” He struck. “—is going to tell me—” He struck harder. Hair now clung to the blood on the rock. “—what to do!”

Derrick’s crushed face wasn’t recognizable. Viv shrieked and ran to him, but Derrick trembled and lay still.

Viv, too, became motionless, kneeling next to her husband. Her features were frozen in shock. Amanda felt as if the metal spring tightened now, squeezing her.

Ray squinted at the blood-covered rock in his hand and dropped it.

2

A breeze stirred up dust. For a long while, that was the only movement.

On her knees beside Derrick, Viv nudged him. He didn’t respond. His cap was blood-soaked. His eyes and nose were bashed in.

“Come on, baby. Wake up.” She sobbed.

Ray stumbled toward the can of peaches. It lay on its side in the dirt, where Ray had dropped it when Derrick attacked him. Some of the juice had spilled. Ray picked up the can and wiped grit from the opening. He raised it to his mouth, tipped it all the way up, and drained the remaining liquid down his throat. He put the can into the rubber glove, looked around, picked up another rock, and pounded the can until it split apart.

“Wake up,” Viv murmured to Derrick.

Ray pulled a peach from the can and shoved it into his mouth. He chewed and stared at Amanda, silently challenging her to stop him.

“You’ll be okay as soon as you wake up,” Viv murmured.

Ray hooked another peach from the can and crammed it into his mouth, hardly chewing before he swallowed. “It’s not my fault. He attacked me.”

“You provoked him,” Amanda said.

“He shouldn’t have given me orders.” Ray took the last peach from the can and ate it. Juice dribbled down his chin.

“Do you remember when Ray kept insisting he wasn’t a hero?” the voice asked, startling Amanda. “That was the truth.”

Slowly, Viv pivoted toward Ray. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Oh, his jet was shot down the way I described,” the Game Master said. “And he survived for ten days on bugs and pools of stagnant water while Iraqi insurgents hunted him. But the reason he didn’t use his location transmitter wasn’t to stop the rescue helicopters from flying into an ambush. No, he didn’t use his location transmitter because it was broken. The truth is, he’d have done anything and risked anybody’s life to survive.”

“That’s what I did!” Ray shouted to the sky. “I survived!”

“Two months after his rescue and return to the United States, Ray got in a fight in a bar. This wasn’t the first such incident, but it was the first time he killed somebody outside his duties as a military pilot. Nasty temper, Ray. However, there was enough evidence to suggest that the victim was drunk and fell and hit his head in what amounted to a mere scuffle. The incident occurred on base. The military chose not to prosecute. Ray was given a medical discharge. His temper became the civilian world’s problem.”

Viv’s features hardened.

“Not that Amanda and Viv haven’t killed also,” the voice said.

“ What?” Ray looked at them.

“Amanda had to kill to survive the Paragon Hotel,” the Game Master continued. “As for Viv and Derrick, I told you about their heroism on Mount Everest. I neglected to explain why they were so determined. On a previous expedition, they led climbers across a glacier. Everyone was in a line, connected by a rope. A chasm opened. The climbers at the back fell into it, dragging the others with them. Everything happened so fast, there wasn’t time to use ice axes to hook into the side of the chasm. The gap kept spreading. People kept dropping, their weight dragging the next people on the rope. Viv and Derrick slid across the glacier, desperately trying to keep from being pulled into the chasm. They were the last two. At the final moment, Viv… or perhaps it was Derrick… cut the rope. The climbers attached to it fell a thousand meters. None of them survived. An investigation stopped short of finding fault. After all, were Viv and Derrick supposed to let themselves get sucked into the chasm and die along with the others rather than do anything they could to save themselves? When it comes to survival, difficult choices sometimes need to be made — and made quickly. It has nothing to do with heroism. Isn’t that correct, Viv?”

“Yes.” Viv scowled at Ray. “Nothing to do with heroism.”

Ray picked up the can of pears.

“Get your hands off that,” Viv warned. “We’ll stone you to death if we need to, but you’re not eating what’s in that can.”

Ray ignored her. He turned the can, examining it. When he looked at its bottom, something attracted his attention. Immediately, he pulled out his GPS receiver and programmed numbers into it. He looked dismissively at Viv and dropped the can. Then he picked up the empty can of peaches and stared at its bottom. Again, he programmed numbers into his GPS unit, then headed away down the sagebrush-dotted street.

Amanda hurried to the cans. She upended them and saw a sequence of numbers marked LT on one and LG on the other. “More latitude and longitude directions.”

Viv glared at Ray, who walked faster along the street.

“Help me,” Amanda said. “I’m still learning how to use my receiver. You need to program these numbers for me.”

Viv didn’t blink, just kept watching Ray, who studied his receiver and turned to the left, heading down the remnant of another street. When she did blink, tears streamed down her face.

“You need to help me,” Amanda insisted. “I need to smash this can open, but I can’t do that until you program the numbers. Otherwise, I might destroy them.”

Viv turned toward Derrick, stroking his arm. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Help me!” Amanda said. “Don’t you want to get even?”

With a furious glance toward Ray, Viv came to her feet and stumbled toward Amanda. Revenge was as effective a motive as any to get her moving, Amanda decided, but she herself wanted to punish more than Ray. The Game Master, she thought.

“Okay, they’re programmed.” Viv stared at Ray’s receding figure.

Amanda put the can of pears into the rubber glove. She picked up two rocks and pounded. Once. Twice. Harder. The lid broke inward.

“You first,” she told Viv.

“Not hungry.”

“Then you won’t have the strength to pay him back.”

Eyes raw, Viv nodded with determination and gripped the can, drinking. “I took two swallows.”

“Okay.” Amanda raised the lid to her mouth and tasted the warm, sweet pear juice.

They went back and forth until they drained the can. Amanda shoved it back into the rubber glove and used the rocks to split it open. Four pears. They each took two.

“Chew them slowly.” Viv sounded weak.

Amanda understood. She might get sick if she ate too fast.

Viv turned toward her dead husband.

The wind blew stronger. The storm clouds obscured the mountains to the west, their shadow entering the valley.

3

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” Balenger demanded. He and Ortega stood outside Professor Graham’s faculty building. The trees of Washington Square were across from them.

“Wrong?”

“When you came into the office, we almost had an argument. At the library, you talked about another part of the investigation. You wouldn’t be specific, but your tone made clear I wasn’t your favorite person. What on earth’s the matter?”

“You mean other than the way you act like you’re running the investigation? This morning, I mentioned that my partner and I made some inquiries yesterday. Perhaps you wonder why you haven’t met him.”

“I assumed today was his day off.”

“He’s been checking your background.”

Balenger was taken by surprise.

“Earlier, you told me this happened to you once before. Your wife was kidnapped. The same man also kidnapped a woman who looks like her.”

“Amanda. So what’s your point? Psychopaths often fixate on women who resemble one another. The victims tend to remind the killer of his wife or his mother or another female who so traumatized him, he’s been getting even ever since.”

“And what makes you such an expert?”

“If your partner’s been checking my background, you already know the answer. When I was in law enforcement, my specialty was investigating sex crimes.”

“Ever been to a psychiatrist?”

Balenger felt heat rise to his face. “I assume your partner told you what happened to me in Iraq.” A car drove by. Balenger waited for the engine noise to recede, using the time to try to calm himself. “In the first Gulf War… Desert Storm… I was a Ranger.”

“Nineteen ninety-one. Check,” Ortega said.

“I got headaches. Muscle pains. Fever.”

“Gulf War syndrome. Check.”

“Some people said it came from a disease spread by sand fleas. Others said it came from the depleted uranium we use in our artillery shells. The army doctors tried various treatments. When those didn’t help, they suggested I talk to an army psychiatrist to see if the illness was psychological, a form of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

“That was the first psychiatrist,” Ortega said.

Balenger almost walked away, but he kept telling himself that Amanda was all that mattered. I’ll do anything to get her back, he thought. “After the war, I became a police officer in Asbury Park.”

“Where you took psychology courses about sex crimes.”

Balenger worked to keep his voice steady. “Then my wife disappeared, and after a year, when the authorities couldn’t find her, I quit my job so I could look for her. Eventually I needed a lot of quick money so badly that I signed on as a private security operator in the second Iraq war. Twenty-five thousand dollars a month. All I needed was a couple of months guarding convoys and I’d have enough cash to keep searching for my wife. You could have asked me about this.”

“Tell me about your second time in Iraq.”

Balenger sensed the old panic taking control. “You know what happened. Shortly after I got there, the convoy I was guarding came under attack. An explosion knocked me unconscious. When I woke up, I was being held prisoner by a bunch of Iraqis wearing hoods, one of whom threatened to cut off my head if I didn’t look into a video camera and denounce the United States. After a Ranger unit attacked the compound where I was tied up, I managed to escape, but even when I was safe in the States, I didn’t feel safe. I had nightmares. I couldn’t bear being closed in. I broke out in sweat.”

“Post traumatic-stress disorder,” Ortega said.

“Check,” Balenger said, mocking Ortega’s earlier expression. “So, as you know, I went to another psychiatrist.”

“Who had an unusual method of therapy.”

“He advised me to do everything I could to distance myself from the present. Study history. Read novels about the past. Try to do everything possible to imagine I’m somewhere a hundred years ago and more. It was sort of like trying to transport myself back in time.”

“What happened after you went inside the Paragon Hotel and you found your dead wife and you rescued Amanda?”

Balenger didn’t trust himself to speak.

“Your fists are clenched at your sides,” Ortega said. “Do you want to hit me?”

“I woke up in a hospital, where a psychiatrist wanted to know why I called Amanda by my dead wife’s name.”

“Psychiatrist number three. Did you get that straightened out by the way? The names?”

Balenger was too furious to answer.

“You and Amanda. In the night, in the shadows, do you ever think you might be seeing a ghost?”

Balenger felt a scalding fury. “Stop.”

“You said psychopaths often fixate on women who resemble one another. The victims tend to remind the killer of his wife or his mother or whatever.”

“I don’t think I’m living with my dead wife! I don’t think I’m sleeping with my dead wife!”

Ortega didn’t reply.

“You believe I’m responsible for Amanda’s disappearance?”

“It’s a theory,” Ortega said. “Maybe you freaked out when you understood the implications of your domestic arrangements. Maybe you got so disgusted with yourself that you did something you regretted. You used to be a police officer. You could predict how the investigation would proceed.”

“Be careful,” Balenger warned.

“I told you it’s a theory. Everything needs to be considered. You set up a diversion. You rented the row house on Nineteenth Street. You hired a woman to arrange for the actors to be there. You showed up with someone you paid to impersonate Amanda. As instructed, the actors left during the talk. With everybody gone, you thanked the woman who impersonated Amanda. She was puzzled, but you paid her well, so she thought ‘Another weirdo’ and went home. Meanwhile, everybody thought they’d seen the real Amanda and that someone had abducted her.”

“For any of that to work, I’d also need to be responsible for the fire at the theater. But you and I were always together.”

“Except for the time you waited in the lobby while I went into the main part of the theater to look around. You could have started the fire then. I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“We almost died. Why would I put myself in danger?”

“To convince me of the threat. Anyway, according to this theory, you were never in danger.”

“What do you mean?” Balenger’s forearm felt as if an abscess wanted to burst.

“You should have come with me to talk to the fire investigators you tried so hard to avoid. The conversation was revealing. It seems the woman who hired the actors asked for a tour of the theater. She was very interested when she learned about the sub-basement. She asked to be taken down there so she could have a look. A couple of weeks ago, a woman matching her description also visited businesses along the street. The antique store was one of them. While she pretended to think about buying something, she mentioned that she’d heard about dried-up streams under Greenwich Village and passageways where the water used to flow. As it turns out, the antique store owner was happy to talk about it because that piece of history helps him sell antiques. He has the only other building in the area with a sub-basement that matches the one in the theater.”

“You think I set the fire, hoping I could escape by crawling along a passageway that I couldn’t be sure was open? That’s crazy!”

“Is it any more crazy than your claim to have seen this same woman in the library this afternoon? A woman who magically disappeared and who hasn’t the slightest reason to show herself and whom nobody else saw except you.”

“Why would I lie?”

“To make me continue believing there’s a threat. To keep throwing me off track. You took every chance you could to assume control of the investigation.”

Balenger stared past Ortega toward the end of the street where a woman wearing dark slacks and a white blouse waved at him.

“You’re wrong,” he told the detective.

“It makes as much sense as your theory that somebody abducted Amanda to force you to play a sicko game.”

“You’re wrong, and I can prove it.”

“Believe me, I’d like a little proof about something.”

“The woman who showed herself at the library, the woman who hired the actors and introduced herself as Karen Bailey at the lecture…”

“What about her?”

“She’s standing down the street, waving at us.”

4

As Ortega spun to look, Balenger was already running. For a moment, Karen Bailey didn’t move. Then she ducked around the corner on the right.

Balenger raced. It was almost five thirty. Classes were finished for the day, students having returned to their dormitories or homes elsewhere in the city. Few pedestrians got in Balenger’s way. He reached the corner and saw Karen Bailey’s white blouse disappearing around another corner.

He avoided a passing car and turned the next corner in time to see her charge into what looked like an apartment building. Her shoes were lace-up, low-heeled, like a man’s, giving her mobility.

“Stop!” he yelled.

He heard Ortega’s rapid breathing behind him. Then Ortega was next to him, and they rushed toward the building.

“Now do you believe me?”

A wire fence blocked the sidewalk. A Dumpster held broken plaster and boards.

Chest heaving, Balenger reached the fence. No one was around. He studied a gate that seemed to be locked.

Then he saw that the lock hung loose. Furious, he shoved the gate open.

Ortega grabbed his shoulder. “For God’s sake, wait till I call for backup. We don’t know what’s in there.”

“You wait.” Balenger raced over bits of debris toward grit-covered steps that led to a sheet of plywood tilted over the entrance as a makeshift door.

“You’re not a police officer!” Ortega shouted. “You don’t have authority!”

“Which means I don’t have a job to worry about!” Balenger yelled over his shoulder. “I can do whatever I want!”

He gazed warily through the gap beyond the plywood, then eased inside. The place smelled of dust, mildew, and old plaster. As his eyes adjusted to the murky light, he saw exposed floorboards and walls stripped to their joists. A corridor led to doorless entrances to what he assumed were other stripped rooms. On the right, a stairway didn’t have a banister. The ceiling had dangling strips of ancient paint.

Another old abandoned building, Balenger thought. Shadows. Narrowing walls. Shrinking rooms. Sweat oozed from his pores, but not because he’d run to get there. With all his being, he wanted to turn and escape.

Amanda, he thought. Footsteps echoed on the next floor. He climbed the stairs, stretching his legs over gaps. A noise behind him made him pause. He turned and saw Ortega enter the building.

“Backup’s on the way,” Ortega said.

“You’re sure this isn’t another diversion I arranged.”

“The only thing I’m sure of is, I want to talk to this woman.”

Ortega joined him. Boards creaked as they climbed. The upper area gradually came into view: more strips of paint dangling from the ceiling, more exposed walls and naked joists, another staircase without a banister. At the top, they listened for footsteps, but all Balenger heard was the muffled sound of distant traffic.

“This seems to be the only stairway. She can’t get out,” Ortega said.

“Can’t she? Maybe there’s a way into the next building.”

A noise to the left made Balenger turn. He stepped across a hole and eased along a dusky corridor. Grit scraped under his shoes. They checked each opening they passed, seeing more gutted rooms.

In the gray light, Ortega examined a jagged edge on each side of the hallway. “Looks as if a wall was here and the renovators smashed through. It’s an awfully long corridor for one building.”

“But not for two,” Balenger said. “This is a couple of buildings being made into one.”

They came to a corridor on the right. It stretched deeper into the structure.

“Maybe three buildings,” Ortega said. “Maybe the university’s combining them into one big classroom complex.”

A creaking sound stopped them. It came from an area farther along. A board lay across two sawhorses. Other boards were stacked against a wall, boxes next to them. On the floor, a tarpaulin was littered with bits of wood and sawdust. A rope dangled from the upper level.

“There’s something on that sawhorse,” Ortega said.

The small rectangular object was silver and black, with buttons and a screen.

“A cell phone,” Ortega said. “One of the workers must have left it.”

“Looks different than a standard phone.”

Ortega took a step closer. “It’s a BlackBerry.”

Although Balenger had never used one, he knew that a BlackBerry could connect to the Internet and manage email. “Aren’t they expensive?”

“Several hundred dollars,” Ortega said.

“Would a construction worker, who managed to afford one, be careless enough to leave it behind?”

They stopped next to the sawhorse. Balenger reached for the BlackBerry.

“Better not,” Ortega cautioned. “If you’re right about somebody playing games, that thing might be a bomb.”

“Or maybe it’s like the video-game case, and it’ll lead me somewhere else.” Balenger picked up the BlackBerry.

“One of these days, you’ll listen to me,” Ortega said.

Balenger noted that the BlackBerry was slightly heavier and thicker than his cell phone. It had a bigger screen and many more buttons that included the alphabet as well as numbers.

“I hear voices.” Ortega turned. “Sounds like they’re coming from the entrance. Must be the backup team.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll tell them where we are.”

Sudden movement caught Balenger’s attention. On the other side of the work area, a white blouse appeared in the corridor. Flushed from her hiding place, Karen Bailey ran.

Balenger shoved the BlackBerry into a pocket and chased her. He crossed the tarpaulin, and at once, it sank through a hole it disguised. His knees went down. His hips. He grabbed the rope that dangled from the next level. The tarpaulin kept sinking. His chest dropped into the hole. The rope in his hands tightened, suspending him.

Ortega hurried to grab Balenger’s hand.

“Be careful,” Balenger warned. “With the tarp, it’s hard to know where the edge of the hole is.”

Holding Balenger’s hand, Ortega leaned so far over the tarp that he needed to grip the rope for support.

The rope went slack, whatever it was attached to giving way. Ortega lost his balance. Balenger felt weightless again, groaning when Ortega landed on him, both men dropping with the tarpaulin through the hole. The rope fell with them, and something else, something that Balenger caught only a glimpse of — a wheelbarrow that the rope was tied to on an upper level.

“No!” Balenger screamed, dropping with Ortega.

The tarpaulin scraped against the hole’s edge. When Balenger hit the lower floor, the impact knocked the wind from him, as did the jolt of Ortega against him. He heard a crash, looked up, and saw the plummeting wheelbarrow strike the hole’s edge. It broke boards and continued falling.

“Lookout!”

There wasn’t time to react. The wheelbarrow slammed onto Ortega’s back. Something snapped inside him. Blood bubbled from his mouth. His face went slack. His eyes lost focus. Balenger struggled to push the wheelbarrow off him, to do something to revive him, but there was no mistaking the stillness of death.

Grieving, he stopped trying to find a pulse. In the distance, he heard distraught voices, people running toward the sound of the crash. The backup team, he thought, trying to adjust to the shock of what had happened. They’ll question me at the station. It’ll take hours to explain. The footsteps sounded closer.

He struggled to his feet. The BlackBerry weighed in his pocket as he staggered along a hallway, turning a corner just before the voices arrived behind him. He crept along another corridor, then another, feeling trapped in a maze. He passed more sawhorses, boxes, and boards. He came to a window frame, its glass not yet installed. Breathless, he crawled over the frame, dangled, and dropped to the ground.

His ribs hurt. His legs ached. His left forearm felt biting pressure. For a few steps, he limped. Then he managed to steady his pace. Following the chain-link fence, he headed toward the end of the renovation site. The sun was lower. Traffic was sparse. The few students going by hardly looked at him.

Sirens wailed in the distance. When Balenger reached another gate in the fence, he found that it was locked. As the sirens came nearer, he found a piece of tarpaulin, climbed onto a Dumpster, and draped the tarp over barbed wire at the fence’s top. The sirens stopped on the street around the corner. He squirmed over the fence, unhooked the tarpaulin from the barbed wire, threw it into the Dumpster, and climbed down to the street.

He fought the urge to run. Look calm, he told himself. Keep moving.

Students came out of a coffee shop. A young man with a knapsack asked a friend, “You want to go down and check out what’s happening?”

“I stay away from war zones.”

Wise plan, Balenger thought.

More students came from the coffee shop. Hoping they gave him cover, Balenger turned a corner. He saw his reflection in a window, did his best to smooth his hair, and brushed dirt off his jacket.

Hearing other sirens, he knew he couldn’t keep walking much longer. When word spread that a detective had been killed, the police would close off the area for blocks in every direction. All the restaurants and bars in the area were student hangouts. If he went into any of them, he’d look conspicuous.

He tried a door to what seemed an office building. It was locked. Need to get off the street, he told himself.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Karen Bailey. When she ran from her hiding place, he’d assumed that he panicked her. But now it was obvious that she wanted to make him chase her, to step onto the tarpaulin. Another trap. No, another obstacle, he corrected himself.

The words on the back of the Scavenger game case nagged at him. An obstacle race and a scavenger hunt. I survived the obstacle, and what did I get? he thought. A BlackBerry phone.

But how did Karen Bailey know where to find me?

An answer to that question abruptly occurred to him. It told him where to hide.

5

The corridor seemed longer than the last time. Reaching the office, Balenger again heard gunfire inside. He drew a long breath and knocked. No answer. He opened the door.

Professor Graham sat behind the computer monitor, furiously working the mouse and keyboard. The dark circles under her eyes were more pronounced.

“I thought you broke the mouse,” Balenger said.

“I always keep spares.” The elderly woman jabbed buttons in a blur, then scowled at the screen. “Damn, they killed me again.”

Balenger heard sirens outside.

“What happened to you?” Professor Graham looked at him. “Your pants.”

Balenger peered down and noticed dirt he’d missed. He brushed it off. “I ran into a couple of obstacles.”

“And the detective who was with you?”

Balenger did his best to keep his voice neutral. “Same obstacles.”

“Do those obstacles have any connection with the commotion outside?”

Balenger nodded. “And with everything we talked about. I’m glad you’re still here.” He didn’t add that, if she hadn’t remained in the office, he’d have done everything in his power to find where she lived.

“I stayed because my pills wore off.”

“Pills?”

“The ones I swallowed a while ago haven’t started to work yet.” The fatigue lines around her eyes seemed to deepen. “I won’t bore you with the specifics.”

Now Balenger understood why she seemed to age visibly when he spoke to her earlier. His suspicion about an illness was correct. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged fatalistically. “Years ago, the student who taught me that video games prolonged time also made me realize that the reality in there—” She pointed toward the monitor. “—is more vivid than the reality here. What made you come back? Not to be rude, but I want to restart the game.”

“I had a thought.” Balenger prayed he was right. “If I’m being given clues, whoever kidnapped Amanda must have known I’d eventually come here and talk to you about the Sepulcher. You’re the expert in it. I reminded myself that you’re also a video-game expert.”

“An enthusiast. My student’s the true video-game expert.” Professor Graham’s face tensed, then relaxed, as a pain spasm ended.

Balenger hid his desperation. “Does he keep in touch with you?”

“Emails. Phone calls. He was upset when I told him about my health problem. That’s why he sent me this new computer. It has state-of-the-art game capability. The large monitor’s the best I ever had.”

“He’s very generous.”

“He can afford it. That’s why I didn’t refuse.”

“What’s his name?” Balenger made the question seem off-handed.

“Jonathan Creed. I see you recognize it.”

“No.”

“But you reacted to it.”

“Only because it’s distinctive.”

“Even non-game players sometimes recognize it.”

“Why?” Balenger had trouble concealing his intensity.

“There are a few people who are undisputed legends in the game world, people who designed games of such genius that they set an impossibly high standard. Or else they’re marketing geniuses. CliffyB, for one. His game’s called Unreal Tournament.”

“Unreal? That’s a significant title if I understand what you said earlier about the power of games to take us to an alternate reality.”

“Then there’s Shigeru Miyamoto, who created Super Mario Bros. He was the first to give character motivation to the game’s hero. Mario navigates an underground maze, fighting monsters while he tries to rescue a kidnapped girl.”

“A kidnapped girl?”

“I can imagine why the parallel strikes you.”

“Tell me more about these designers.”

“John Romero and John Carmack developed the first-person shooter games like the one I played earlier: Doom. In contrast, Will Wright developed God games.”

“God games?”

“Like SimCity. It’s a cartoon version of a city. With all the problems of a city. Pollution. Deteriorating infrastructure. Slums. Poverty. Labor problems. The goal of the game is to make adjustments to the city in an effort to improve it. But the game player soon realizes that by making well-intended changes, sometimes disastrous things can happen. That’s why it’s called a God game. Whereas first-person shooter games are viewed from the limited perspective of a weapon’s barrel, the player of a God game has an omniscient view of everything — and total control.”

“But unlike God, the player doesn’t know how everything’s going to turn out, right?” Balenger asked. “Unlike God, the player can make mistakes.”

“Who says God can’t make mistakes?” Professor Graham’s face tightened. “I don’t understand why these pills aren’t working.”

Balenger repeated her earlier comment. “An omniscient view of everything.” He gazed at the upper corners of the room.

“What are you doing?”

“Thinking about God.” With a chill, Balenger scanned the bookcases.

“What are you looking for?”

Balenger’s pulse raced. “When did Jonathan Creed send you this computer?”

“Two weeks ago. Why?”

Balenger leaned close and drew his hands over the monitor, examining it in detail. He suddenly felt off-balance, as if he’d entered the alternate reality they’d been discussing. “I know you want to continue playing Doom. But why don’t you let me buy you a cup of coffee somewhere?”

“You’re right. I do want to continue playing.”

“I think we could talk more freely if we went somewhere else.”

Professor Graham looked baffled.

“The monitor’s bugged.”

“What?”

“Look at the holes in the front and back corners. Miniature cameras. Probably microphones. We’re his private TV show! Let’s get the hell out of here.”