“Did you talk to any of the women who filed complaints about him?”
“Two of the three. Both caught him staring in the bedroom window. Both filed a complaint and suddenly things started breaking in their respective apartments. Finally both moved out, saying Mrs. Kobrecki would lie like a rug to protect her grandson.”
“So he’s a peeper and a sniffer. Could he have moved to murder? It’s a big step.”
Jack shrugged. “Like I said, based on the friends he hangs with, I don’t think he’s got the brains. But we’ll keep looking for him, if for no other reason than to cross him off.”
“Speaking of lists, I need to get back to this one. We’re going to have to decide if we begin contacting the heavy users on Eve’s list or not. If we do, Eve will bear the brunt.”
“And if we don’t,” Jack said seriously, “we could find one of them hanging from a rope. There’s really no choice, Web.”
“I know,” Noah said. “And Eve knows that, too.”
“Give me half of the names,” Jack said. “I think our time is better spent identifying potential victims than tracking Taylor Kobrecki.”
“You’re right.” Noah gave him half the stack. “Focus on the heavy users.”
They worked for twenty minutes in silence, and then Jack spoke in a strained tone. “Web, I think I found Samantha Altman.”
Noah’s head jerked up. “What? Eve said she wasn’t on the list.”
“She wasn’t, not as Samantha Altman.” Jack handed Noah a single sheet across their desks. “I put a check next to her name.”
“Samantha Porter,” Noah read, then he remembered. “She’d just gotten divorced. Porter was her married name, but she’d gone back to Altman.”
“But when she signed up for this study, she was still Samantha Porter.”
“Eve’s got her in the lightest user group. Zero to five hours a week.”
“Samantha couldn’t play if she was dead,” Jack said dryly, then he frowned when Noah picked up the phone. “What are you doing?”
“Calling Eve.”
“At this hour?”
“She won’t mind.”
“Noah?” Her voice was husky with sleep and he pushed the distracting mental image of her snug in bed from his mind. “What’s happened?”
“We found Samantha Altman, the first victim, on the list you gave me last night.”
He heard the creak of bedsprings. “That’s impossible. I checked myself. Twice.”
“She’d just gotten divorced and Altman was her maiden name. She’d registered with you as Samantha Porter. She was in the light user group.”
There was a pause, then a quiet sigh. “Because she was dead. She would have been at the zero end of zero to five hours a week. Oh God.”
“Can you check her usage history, find out when she stopped playing?”
“Already checking. Hold on… Two weeks ago she went from six hours a day to nothing. I must have seen this. How did I miss this?”
“If you had seen it, you just would have thought she’d lost interest in the study.”
“You’re right.” She drew a breath. “Hysterics won’t help. What do you need?”
Noah’s respect for her ratcheted up. “I take it you never saw the avatar who was with Christy Sunday night.”
“He wasn’t on.” She went quiet. “I’d convinced myself that a local killer trolling for local women was more likely to find my test subjects as we’d geographically stacked the deck. But now, three for three… Somebody has access to our subject list.”
“Jack is here. I’m going to put you on speaker. Who has access, Eve?”
“Jeremy Lyons. He’s Dr. Donner’s secretary. He typed the names in. And anybody who has access to Jeremy’s office. Jeremy keeps his user name and password on a sticky note under his desk blotter. If his computer is on, you can get in.”
“So anybody wanting the files would have to physically go to his office?”
“Well, no. If you connect to the university’s server from an outside line, you could also get in.” She hesitated. “With Jeremy’s password, that’s pretty easy to do.”
Which was how she’d found Christy’s address. “Who had access to his office?”
“Anybody who enters the building. Jeremy takes a lot of bathroom breaks and leaves his computer unattended. Anybody who knew about the study could have managed it.”
This wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. “Which includes who?”
“Dr. Donner, the committee that approved my thesis proposal, any of the members of the study itself, most of the grad students in the department, and ShadowCo.”
Noah frowned. “Why ShadowCo?”
“They sponsored my research. Not a huge stipend, but enough so that their PR people could say they put money toward responsible use of role play games.”
“In other words,” Jack said, “a helluva lot of people.”
“Well, maybe somebody saw him with Christy on Monday night,” Noah said. “If he broke into her house, we should have seen evidence of forced entry. If he lured her out, hopefully somebody saw them. Does Shadowland keep track of conversations?”
“It’s up to the individual. A lot of gamers don’t want anyone to know where they’ve gone or who they’ve met. Anonymity is a benefit of the game.”
“If the user does choose to save the conversations, where do they go?” Jack asked.
“They’re saved to the gamer’s hard drive. I suppose ShadowCo may store them on their servers, but that seems unlikely given the volume of conversations. It would be like if the wireless companies kept track of each individual text message or IM. They don’t because they simply don’t have the capacity. Did you get Christy’s computer?”
“Yes, but it’s… unlikely that we’ll find anything on it.” Especially if the killer had switched Christy’s computer as he’d done with Martha’s.
“We may have to resort to old-fashioned detective work,” Jack said with a wry smile.
Noah didn’t feel much like smiling back. “Eve, for now, I’d like a list of anyone you know who could have accessed the files. We’ll start with alibis for Donner, Lyons, and the grad students. I’ll be in touch.” Noah hung up and leaned back in his chair. “Well?”
Jack lifted his brows. “I was right. She would have been great at phone sex.”
Noah gritted his teeth, irritated. “Jack.”
“You have no sense of humor,” Jack said and Noah gritted his teeth harder.
“Christy Lewis. She’s online chatting up avatars around midnight Monday morning. She’s gotta be dead before nine o’clock, because she doesn’t show up for work.”
Jack grimaced. “And there’s a snake involved.”
Noah took the lid off the coffee cup Jack had brought him and stirred in his normal four packs of sugar. “We can’t forget about the snake. Why use a snake?”
“ ’Cause he’s a sick bastard. You don’t need all that sugar. This coffee is good.”
Sugar had become his vice when he’d quit the booze. “Habit. Okay, so we know he’s a sick bastard. He’s killed three women. Still, why the snake?”
“Maybe Ian can tell us more after he finishes the autopsy.”
Noah stood up. “He said he’d do it last night. Let’s find out if he’s done.”
Tuesday, February 23, 6:45 a.m.
Liza cooked the last egg they had. They were always low on food, but she’d been afraid to spend any money until Lindsay came home. If she ever comes home. The police weren’t looking for her. Nobody was looking for her, nobody except me.
She closed her eyes, so tired. She’d covered miles the night before, only to come up empty-handed. No one had seen Lindsay. She’s dead.
A wave of grief washed over her. Don’t give up. If Lindsay was lying in an alley somewhere, hurt, she was frozen by now. Don’t give up.
She lifted her chin. She had an English exam today. When Lindsay did return, she’d kick Liza’s butt for failing a test and losing her chance for a scholarship.