Time of Death (21 page)

One key wanted to be found. That meant it would have to practically fall into his hands.

He looked up, and scoured the pipes and the ceiling of the tunnel with his eyes. Nothing. He wondered about the other gamers who had arrived before him. One of them may have already retrieved the key, and he would have to battle for it with his wits. Or trade for it, if he located something that he didn’t need but another gamer did.

Thomas set off down the tunnel. He was on a quest.

Thirty minutes later, Thomas had gone through several junctions of the tunnel, always choosing the path on the right to avoid getting lost. He wasn’t actually very far from the entrance, because he was taking his time searching for keys.

His haul so far was four coins of limited bargaining value and his prize, a green fake gem the size of a golf ball. He’d also found a mummified mouse, which he’d brought with him in case it had some magic power in the game. He was getting discouraged. Time was ticking away, and soon he’d have to turn back, get off campus, and call a cab with his cellphone.

Then he spotted it, a glint of something gold. Rushing forward, he picked up a key that was partially concealed by a broken piece of concrete. It had to be the North Key, or it wouldn’t have been so easy to see. There was no message with it, so he pocketed the key and moved on. He might not have to leave before the game was over after all.

At the next branch of the tunnel, there was a small door in the side wall that looked like it might lead to a storage room. Thomas fingered the North Key in his pocket.

The North Key may offer help or treachery.

A storage room might contain many items that he could use, including more keys, gems, or even a map. As far as he knew, he was the only gamer in the tunnels who could open that door.

The key fit in the lock. Thomas decided that at this point, with his time running out, he needed help. He’d take his chances on the treachery.

The door opened inward to a black space. The tunnel lights were too far away to light up the interior. Thomas put his hand on the wall inside the door, fumbling for a light switch. He found one, and snapped it on.

The room was small, a damp, musty place with old bookshelves stacked every which way, almost as if they’d been tossed in and forgotten. There were no obvious prizes for him. He’d have to search the room thoroughly, or ignore it as a dead end. He took a few steps inside, and when he did, he felt a rush of air behind him. The hairs rose on the back of his neck, and he had the strong feeling of being watched.

Then the door slammed and a heartbeat later the light went out.

T
HERE WAS SOMETHING PJ
wanted to pursue but never seemed to find the time for it. She was determined to make some progress now that she’d been left alone in her office.

Call Thomas?
She had her hand on the phone, but took it off.
He’s probably asleep. Poor kid used up his whole Friday night on a book report.

It was the rumor of the third sister that June mentioned that kept sticking in PJ’s mind. Just because May dismissed it out of hand didn’t mean there was nothing to it. She may have reason to lie.

It was hard to believe anything one sister said about the other. As hard as that was for PJ to imagine, she knew from her work as a psychologist that it wasn’t uncommon. Sisters often saw each other as rivals for their parents’ attention, for the clothes they sometimes were made to share, for the boys in a small pool of eligible dates. Thinking about that brought a smile to her face.

PJ grew up with a sister less than two years older than she was. She and Mandy did everything together, shared lipsticks, squealed over the same rock stars, competed against each other in academics and volleyball, and gave each other surprise birthday parties. Then along came Vince.

Vince Sellerman’s family moved into Newton, Iowa, from Los Angeles. They might as well have landed in a starship for all the attention handsome, worldly Vince got from the local girls. He was seventeen, a year older than Mandy. Both sisters had a crush on him. Who didn’t, in their crowd? He was the most exciting thing that had happened at Newton Senior High School since the Kolson brothers blew up the toilet in the teachers’ restroom. But at fourteen, PJ was too young to even exist as far as Vince was concerned.

Mandy had a date with Vince and she and her friends were swooning with delight. PJ was feeling shut out, probably because she
was
shut out, told by the giggling girls to go play with the little kids. She started a rumor that Mandy had gone all the way with the football quarterback. In their circle, such things were the province of whispers and shock, something not done by nice girls. The rumor swept through the school and caused terrific hurt when Mandy not only heard it but also learned the source. PJ could still feel the shame that had overwhelmed her when Mandy confronted her. There was no such thing as an anti-rumor that would annihilate the rumor, or a magic undo command. Until Mandy graduated, kids still snickered behind her back.

For having been through it, the sisters were closer than ever.

Vince and Mandy married and had four children. Mandy had latent Earth Mother qualities, and was a wonderful, warm-hearted mother who managed her rambunctious family with love and a great sense of humor. Mandy confided that after hearing the rumor, Vince was particularly eager to go out with her. Standards in Los Angeles weren’t quite the same as in the heart of the Midwest. Inadvertently, PJ may have been a matchmaker.

The things May and June said about each other had the same vicious elements as PJ’s rumor about going all the way did twenty-five years ago. Juvenile and hurtful. But these sisters were still doing it to each other years after their adolescence, and neither of them seemed to feel any shame about it.

PJ shuddered to think what a trio of such sisters would be like. The duo was bad enough.

The parents were Henry Winter and Virginia Crane, married in 1956. The Crane family was very wealthy, very high society. The Winters weren’t on any social register; they clung to the underside of the middle class like barnacles on a hull. Henry Winter was a hard-working dynamo of a man who wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty all the way up to the shoulders to build his manufacturing business. Virginia Crane was raised as a debutante whose idea of hard work was having a French lesson and a tennis lesson on the same day.

In PJ’s opinion, there were two reasons a young woman like Virginia would marry Henry Winter. One was blind love. The other was defiance of her parents. Regardless of the reason, the offspring of the marriage had ended up with a thinly masked dislike and suspicion of each other.

There were records of the births of two daughters, May Flower Winter in 1967 and June Moon Winter in 1975. PJ wondered how June had suffered with a middle name like that. Parents could be so inconsiderate when it came to naming children.

No indication of a third daughter.

Death records revealed that both parents died in a light plane accident in 1997, while on their way to a political fundraising event in Jefferson City.

Survived by daughters May F. Simmons of St. Louis and June M. Merrett of St. Louis; John T. Winter of Denver, Colorado; Jasmine C. Singer of Hannibal, Missouri; and numerous friends.

Death records revealed that Virginia Crane had a brother who had lived only a year.

What was it June said? Virginia had a brother who died at the age of one and maybe he was murdered. A family secret.

The existence of the brother who died at a young age lent credibility to what June revealed. If there was one secret on such a scale, perhaps there was another. It might be interesting to talk to the surviving aunt and uncle, do a little prying. PJ made note of their names.

It was 1:30 a.m. when Schultz came in. She’d run over her time estimate, but apparently he’d been busy.

“Brush those crumbs off your shirt and take me home,” she said.

“Your wish is my command. Sometimes.”

T
HOMAS SCREAMED AND SPUN
toward the door, banging his shin on one of the bookshelves and tripping. Something landed on him in the blackness, something slippery and brittle that was all over him. Scrambling backwards, he pulled himself out from under whatever it was. With his back against the wall, he crouched, hands held out, ready to defend against what he couldn’t see.

The light came back on. Blinking in the sudden brightness, Thomas stood up. The thing that had landed on him was a Halloween skeleton made of plastic, and it was coated with something that looked a lot like blood. The door was ajar, and he heard fading laughter out in the tunnel.

He shook his head. Apparently the joke was on him.

Some joke. I almost shit in my pants.

Feeling both ashamed and angry, he began retracing his steps. His shin hurt, and he kept replaying his moments of panic over in his mind, wishing he’d acted differently. How could he be so stupid?

All I can say is my ten bucks better still be there.

At one of the tunnel branches, a figure loomed suddenly in front of him, wearing a garish costume fashioned to look like a cyrroth from
The Gem Sword of Seryth.
A cyrroth was a fierce, shaggy mercenary with great strength but a tendency to double-cross anyone foolish enough or desperate enough to employ him.

As much in turmoil as Thomas was, he couldn’t help admiring the authenticity of the costume, down to the sword that was permanently welded to a cyrroth’s arm in a rite that marked its passage from welph to adult.

“Nice costume, dude,” he said. “Don’t think much of your joke, though.”

“No passage without payment,” the cyrroth said. His voice was deep and mechanical, like Darth Vader’s. The costume must have a voice-morpher.

“I’d really just like to get out of here now,” Thomas said in annoyance.

“No passage without payment.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time. Get out of my way, man.” He gave the cyrroth a shove, but the creature stood his ground.

“Fuck you, asshole, get out of my way now!” Thomas advanced on the cyrroth again, the anger he felt when he discovered he’d been tricked in the storage room boiling over. “Now!”

The cyrroth raised his sword. Thomas was steamed, and if he could get hold of the guy in the costume, he was going to pummel him. He’d never been so riled up before. Normally he would have avoided confrontation, but this time he kept going, and made a grab for the shaggy chest.

The sword cut through Thomas’s jacket and traced a hot line of pain across his left forearm.

Shit! This is for real!

The panic he’d felt in the storage room when the light went out returned tenfold. The sword was moving upward in a wide sweep, and when it came down, it would be heading for his neck. He looked around frantically for anything he could use to defend himself. Jamming his left hand in his pocket, he came out with the fake gem. He threw it as hard as he could, aiming right for the creature’s face. It bounced off with no effect. Thomas raised his right arm to fend off the sword. It came whistling down and bit deeper this time. For a moment, pain immobilized him. Blood flowed down his arm inside what was left of his coat sleeve. He felt the wet warmth of it running down his side and smelled his own fear. His arm dropped to his side uselessly.

His other hand pulled out his cellphone.

Trying to shove his panic down, he flipped open the phone, making it chirp a few notes. The familiar blue glow of the numbers gave him an idea. Straightening himself up, he summoned his voice and began shouting.

“Yeah, I’m calling the police, you weirdo! You stay away from me. Get the hell out of here!” It was all bluff. His phone had no reception in the tunnel. “I’m taking your fucking picture, too.”
Snap, snap.
He clicked a series of pictures. “The cops are gonna find you, freak!”

The distraction worked long enough for Thomas to dive to the side of the tunnel, roll, and come up on the other side of the creature. Then he ran like all the demons of Seryth were after him.

S
CHULTZ PULLED INTO PJ’S
driveway and went around the back of the house. It was nearly two in the morning and they were both tired. He was going to get a good dose of painkiller down her throat and put her to bed. The only thing they’d be sharing tonight would be a blanket.

They went upstairs. Thomas’s bedroom door was closed. Schultz brought her a glass of water and watched her swallow the pills. She kicked off her shoes, got into bed fully dressed, and fell asleep in moments.

She’d made him promise to check the cat’s food and water, and make sure the kitty litter was clean. He didn’t feel like going back down because his arthritis was acting up and his screwed-together foot ached. It was a measure of his love for her that he was standing in the laundry room with a kitty litter scoop in his hand when he heard the noises from the downstairs bathroom.

He drew his gun and checked the kitchen. No one. Looking down the hall, he could see that a slice of light was coming from underneath the closed bathroom door. That door had been open before he went upstairs. He moved down the hall quietly and stood outside the door. There were drops of blood on the floor. Amid the bumps and shuffling coming from inside the bathroom, he heard a familiar voice.

“Ouch,” Thomas said. “Damn it!”

“Son, you all right in there?” Schultz said. He hadn’t holstered his gun yet. There was no response to his question. “Open the door, Thomas.”

“It’s okay,” came Thomas’s voice, a little shaky. “I just got a paper cut, that’s all. You can go to sleep now. Everything’s all right.”

Schultz had heard better lies from street-hardened six-year-olds. “Open the door, son, or I’ll break it down.”

The doorknob turned and the door fell open a couple of inches. Schultz put one foot in the door to keep it from closing, and tapped the door open with the muzzle of his gun. There was no telling who was in there with the kid.

Thomas was alone. He stood in his boxer shorts with a package of gauze in his hands. “I can’t get this fucking stuff to work right,” he said. There was a clumsy bandage wrapped with gauze that was already slipping loose on his shin. His right forearm had a five-inch cut that had bled a lot. His left arm had a slice that did look like a giant paper cut. There were bloody towels in the sink.