They were gone and it was quiet. Except for the dripping. She turned up the volume of the Ninth Circle band. It was the lesser of two evils, but just barely.
She searched the bar once again for the handsome avatar, then turned to her list of red-zones. There were still five, three of which were women. Rachel Ward, Natalie Clooney, and Kathy Kirk. She knew them only by their avatars-Rachel’s cabaret dancer, Natalie’s poker queen, and Kathy’s real estate mogul.
Who they were in real life Eve didn’t yet know. That was about to change. But first she wanted to be sure they were still present. She spotted Kathy’s avatar on her bar stool, negotiating a land deal. Natalie’s hung at the casino, as did Rachel’s on the nights she was dancing. But on Mondays, Rachel hung at Ninth Circle with everyone else.
Eve was looking for Rachel, when a sharp knock startled her. She set her laptop aside and got up to let David back in. “Remind me to make you a key.”
The words were out before the man on her welcome mat registered in her mind.
Noah Webster’s face was shadowed by his hat brim, but she could see the wry humor in his eyes. “I’m flattered,” he said. “But it’s a little soon for that, don’t you think?”
A disturbing little thrill raced down her spine. “I… I thought you were my friend.”
“Now I’m hurt,” he said mildly. “I haven’t even told you why I’m here.”
“I didn’t mean…” Flustered, she looked down at her feet, got her composure, then looked back up to find him staring in that unsettling way of his. “Come in.”
Webster slipped his hat from his head in a gesture she found endearing. “I saw your friend downstairs. He was looking under the hood of Callie’s car. It wouldn’t start.”
“Callie drives a bigger hunk of junk than I do. David will find the problem.”
Webster’s dark brows knitted slightly. “So your friend fixes cars and roofs?”
“David does a little bit of everything,” she said. “He’s a fireman, too. And he cooks.”
“All that,” Webster said sourly and she had to chuckle.
“I’ve never met a woman who could resist him,” she said lightly.
“Except you?” he said, too seriously, and something twisted in her stomach.
“Except me.” David had earned her trust. But to fall for a man on the basis of his pleasing face? Never again. She required actions before she trusted a man now. But she’d trusted Webster, almost at first sight. To deny it would be an outright lie.
And Noah Webster had a very pleasing face. It was a bothersome admission.
“What brings you back, Detective?”
His eyes left hers and too late she remembered she’d left the disposable phone out in plain sight. He walked to her chair, picked it up. “Untraceable cell phone?”
“It’s not a crime to own a prepaid phone,” she said blandly, but she tensed. A bit.
“No, it’s not. But, hypothetically speaking, if you learned anything, you’d tell me?”
“You’d be the first call I made. Hypothetically speaking.”
“Of course.” He looked at her laptop. “Did you see the guy who talked to Christy?”
“Not yet. I’ve been checking off and on since I got home.” She didn’t want him looking too closely at her screen. “Have a seat, Detective. I’ll put coffee on.”
But again, it was too late. “Who is this, Eve?” He pointed at the panel in the top left of her screen, the one that showed her active avatar. “Did Greer take the night off?”
She’d indeed given Greer the night off, resurrecting an avatar she hadn’t used in a very long time. “I needed to get her appropriate clothing. Didn’t want her to catch cold.”
He sat in her chair, pulled her computer to his lap. “And here I thought you’d created a new avatar so that you could approach this dancer without breaking your word to me.”
Eve sat on the sofa. “I’m not that clever.”
He didn’t smile. “Uh-huh. So who is this new face of Eve?”
Eve took her computer, set it aside. “What happened? Why did you come back?”
He glared at her laptop, eyes flashing with annoyance. “I need your participant list.”
“I expected you’d ask once Matt Nillson was gone. He’d have a cow, you know.”
“I won’t say where I got it. I promise.”
“I’d planned to bring it to you tomorrow anyway. Wait here. I’ll be back.”
Noah watched her head to her bedroom, laptop under her arm, then checked the phone. Her only call was to a 206 area code, same as ShadowCo. He knew this because he’d looked it up for his warrant request.
Eve was planning to hack into Shadowland, if she hadn’t done so already. In her place I’d do the same. He put the phone back and considered her computer.
He’d caught a look at her new avatar. Dark, sleek, and dangerous-of a different style than her other designs, although the face had been disturbingly familiar. He knew he’d looked at a much younger Eve, before she’d met the man who’d left her for dead.
The new avatar’s name was Nemesis. Noah knew Eve well enough by now to know that meant something. On his own cell, he did a quick Internet search. Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution. Eve was planning to kick some virtual ass. That shouldn’t arouse him, but he’d be lying if he denied it did.
Eve reappeared, a stack of papers in one hand. “It took a few minutes to print.”
He took the stack. “How many people are in this study, anyway?”
“Five hundred, but you don’t have to check them all.” She leaned close to point at a page, but didn’t touch him. He thought of how she’d thrown her arms around Hunter and felt a tug of jealousy. It was irrational, and embarrassing, but it was there.
“We have three groups,” she was saying. “Group C is the one you want to focus on.”
“They’re in Shadowland.”
“Where they do self-esteem exercises. They’re broken into three subgroups-those who never played until this study, who played a few hours a month, and who played a few hours a week. They fill out diaries with their usage, but I can check their online time. The heavy users almost always lie, understating their usage.”
“Like Martha.”
“Actually she was honest about her habits.” She pointed. “These are the top users.”
“Martha and Christy are still on the list,” he noted.
“I’m not supposed to know I should take them off,” she said quietly. “And that sucks.”
There was guilt in her tone and Noah wanted to alleviate it if he could. “When would they have been missed from the study? If you hadn’t been keeping track?”
“In a few weeks, when they had to come back for their personality evals.”
“Then you did good.” He met her eyes. “You couldn’t have stopped these murders. But you might have saved his next victim by doing everything you’ve done. Don’t let your guilt overshadow your contribution.” He smiled. “No pun intended.”
“Thank you. That helps a lot more than being told it’s not my fault.”
He held her eyes a moment longer before she looked away, but in that moment he saw an unguarded loneliness that squeezed at his heart. Trina’s words came back to hit him like a ton of bricks. You don’t deserve to be alone forever. And he finally admitted he didn’t want to be. That he’d give anything to have somebody again.
“One more question. You want people to have meaningful lives in the real world.”
Her glance up was nervous, fleeting. “Yes, so?”
“So, what good is living in the real world if you have to live alone, unavailable?”
She flinched and he knew he’d overstepped, but didn’t care. She walked to her front door and opened it wide, not looking at him. “Call me if you need anything else.”
He stood looking at her for a few seconds before walking through the door. It closed sharply behind him and he heard the click of her deadbolt. With a sigh he walked down a flight of stairs, only to find David Hunter sitting on one of the steps, looking very cold.
“Is everything all right?”
Hunter stood. “I figured you two needed to talk about whatever happened tonight.”