Color Blind (26 page)

One thing at a time. Jenna had called Irv and had him check Land of Valor for an account under Isaac Keaton’s name. Of course, nothing. Irv was pulling up lists of all the Isaacs and Keatons registered, but in a game with millions of users, those lists weren’t as limiting as she wished.

Back to square one: Isaac himself.

On the way to interview him, Yancy gave her a crash course about Land of Valor. So far, she’d learned that MMORPG stood for Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, and that the world of MMORPGs proved far more complex than most people thought. The stereotype of role-players as loners was only about half-true in that even if they were somewhat antisocial in real life, they were anything but online.

“You have social circles, kind of. Clans. A bunch of people who know each other and work together online,” Yancy explained.

“How many people in a clan?” Jenna asked, expecting him to answer ten or twenty.

“A hundred, maybe? Give or take.”

“Whoa! Really?”

“Yep. Most of the adults communicate with each other using voice software like I have. They know each other’s usernames, but most of the time they know real names, too. And each other’s voices, and probably some about their real lives.”

“Scary,” Jenna ventured, though she filed away the coral her mind registered: the shade reserved for all things goofy and lackadaisical. Most of these guys were probably harmless.

“Ah, yeah, well. Most guys don’t think about other players being something to be freaked out about. If someone pisses you off or weirds you out, you can block ’em.”

Spoken like a guy who doesn’t deal with sociopaths for a living.

“Can anyone sign up? What stops you from creating an account as a different person?” Jenna asked.

Yancy laughed. “Apparently nothing, if this Isaac dude is any indication. For most people, it’s a payment issue. You have to use a credit card or debit card. I guess you
could
get a prepaid gift card or something, but most people end up using a credit card at some point or other. Christmas presents don’t last forever.”

“Hm. Unless you’re Isaac and you want to make sure your information isn’t recorded.”

“Exactly.”

Jenna sighed. “Not that it would matter. We wouldn’t find his name anyway since we don’t know what his real name
is
. For all we know, he
did
pay with a credit card.”

“How are you planning to get this out of him? From what you’ve told me, you can’t simply tell him you figured out where he found the ferry shooter and expect him to dish the details.”

“Leave that to me, okay?” she said, the purple that had occasionally flashed in during her conversations with Isaac doing so again. While it had given her the idea for what she was about to attempt, and exploiting this bastard’s pretentious side was going to be fun, the facts had to come first. “Tell me more about the tribes or clans or whatever. You’re familiar with each other’s voices, names, anything else?”

Yancy took a minute to think. “I guess you’d know some about looks. Characters pass each other, work together, run into each other within the game.”

“Looks?”

“Yeah, they’re customizable. You can even buy certain wardrobes. Knew a guy once who had a character who wore assless chaps. Wasn’t in
my
clan, though.”

“So you know
other
clans, too?” Jenna asked, perking up.

“You know some people within other clans, sure. Depends on who you hang around with and who they know, too. Kind of like real life, I guess, only you can take breaks from it and don’t have to put up with people you hate. Like I said, block button.”

Other people in other clans could be acquainted. So technically, Yancy could’ve run into Isaac Keaton’s character and never have had any idea it was him. Given the number of players worldwide, the odds were astronomical, but the sheer fact that the
possibility
existed seemed insane.

“Wait a minute. If you recognize people in other clans, are there players
everyone
knows? Like famous people?”

“Kim Kardashian, they ain’t, but yeah. Everyone is ranked in the game, all the way down to the billionty-first character created. But most people know the names of or recognize the really high-ranked players. Top one hundred, maybe most of the top thousand, if they’re into it enough. I know what you’re thinking, but I doubt this Isaac guy is ranked. Seems like he’s too busy with other craziness to invest as much time into it as you have to put in to be that level. Don’t mean to toot my own horn, but
I’m
pretty good, and I’m nowhere
near
that high.”

“But if Isaac was in that Dreamland place where you were, he’d have to be at least that good, right? You said it depended on your level,” Jenna countered.

“Good point. Also means the ferry shooter would have to be at least that good, too. Since when do serial killers use Internet games to find shooting partners?”

The answer was easy enough as to why Isaac was using the method he was, though this particular method itself was new to Jenna. “It isn’t uncommon for sociopaths to have places they frequent to find targets to use as followers. They love to be surrounded by people who virtually worship them, and they have ways of sidling up to certain individuals, making them feel valued, and essentially, hooking them in to do their bidding. It’s what Isaac Keaton would’ve been doing with the ferry shooter. They do it wherever they find is their comfort zone to find these particular types they’re looking for, usually where they can appear an expert of some sort. Some sociopaths hunt in religious circles, some in arts clubs. I guess Keaton just happens to use the Internet gaming world.”

They’d reached the precinct, and Jenna parked the Blazer. “Whatever you do in here, just keep the things we’ve talked about on the down low until I’m done, got it?”

“You’re the expert.”

Inside, Jenna walked straight past the desk without explaining Yancy. One of the good things
and
pitfalls about a place like this: no one would ask questions. She’d called ahead and requested Isaac Keaton be brought to the box, and apparently her call had prompted someone to contact Hank, who was back at the precinct as well.

When Hank saw Yancy behind her, his face contorted into a mix of outrage and incredulity. “What the
hell
are you doing, Jenna?”

She put one hand into his chest and pushed past him toward the box door. “Something you can’t.”

B
eing found in the park with a man’s ex was awkward enough. Now, as Yancy stood next to S.A. Hank Ellis in the police precinct—
Hank’s
territory—that discomfort took on a whole new meaning. “Come here often?” didn’t seem appropriate.

Instead, Yancy turned his focus on the two-way mirror that showed him everything inside the box. There sat Isaac, the all-American boy Yancy had run into that day. Guy looked smugger than a foreign ambassador pulled over for a speeding violation.

“Do you have a
clue
what this is about?” Ellis asked Yancy.

“Can I say no?” Yancy replied. Wasn’t a good answer, but the truth was he didn’t know. Had Ellis asked him what they’d been talking about for the past hour, Yancy could tell him honestly, but he knew Ellis’s team had already told him about the Dreamland angle. As for Jenna’s current move, Yancy was as in the dark as Ellis.

“Didn’t figure out enough during our last rendezvous, Dr. Ramey?” Isaac asked.

“Oh, I learned a thing or two,” Jenna replied. She leaned against the back wall, crossed her arms. “I’m guessing you told me more than you planned.”

Next to Yancy, Ellis coughed.

“Oh, really?” Isaac leaned forward, propped his head on his fists. “Do tell.”

Like the cat that swallowed the canary.

“Dreamland,” Jenna said, adopting her own self-satisfied expression. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Oh, I know that, Dr. Ramey. It’s why I wanted to chat with you in the first place. You figured out my little joke then, hm?”

She was going to
tell
him?

“Wasn’t that hard. So where in Dreamland does he work, Isaac?”

Isaac’s head tilted to the side, but the expression on his face remained unchanged. “Do you really think it’s that easy?”

Jenna stood up from where she’d been leaning against the wall. Then she winked. “You can’t blame a girl for trying.”

She sat down in the chair opposite Isaac, and Yancy could almost see the wheels of thought turning in her head. She smiled again, almost like she was
flirting
with the bastard.

“Your partner must’ve been a lower-level employee to have gotten a job there, huh? From what we’ve already determined about his profile, I already knew he was most likely a bottom feeder. You confirmed it for me, too.”

Isaac mimicked a scale with his cuffed hands, weighing imaginary ingredients. The way they were bound, his hands couldn’t move much, but the imagery came across. “He wasn’t too bad.”

“Smart,” S.A. Ellis grunted like it pained him to say so. “She’s playing to his narcissism.”

“What do you mean?” Yancy asked.

Ellis glanced over at him, squinted. “You had law enforcement training, right? You tell me.”

S.A. Ellis turned back to the mirror.

Ass.

Yancy shrugged off Ellis’s comment, focused on Jenna and Isaac.

“You’re saying the ferry shooter
didn’t
get hired because of affirmative action laws?” Jenna asked.

“Oh, come now, Dr. Ramey. You know he’s white. Let’s not pretend you’re getting something out of me there. Then again, perhaps there
is
affirmative action for very ugly people. Of that, I’m not sure.”

Jenna looked him straight in the eye. “Bad joke.”

“Like the bad joke you made about me being in a homoerotic relationship with him?” Isaac asked.

She shrugged. “It was my only card. I had to play it. You have to admit it worked to some extent. You told me something, didn’t you? Still, that he’s ugly is news to me. Even then I wasn’t insinuating you were in a homoerotic relationship with a very ugly person.”

Now Isaac looked proud of himself. “I jest. I wouldn’t associate with him if he was
that
hideous. I have standards.”

S.A. Ellis muttered under his breath again. “Son of a bitch. He thinks she couldn’t possibly know what he’s really talking about.”

“Standards, huh?” Jenna said. “So he’s management? Upper management? I would’ve figured
you
were the management type, Isaac. He has to be lower on the totem pole than you.”

In a social setting, yes. In Land of Valor, no.

Isaac stared straight ahead, deep in his own head. It seemed he was weighing words. “You can’t climb too high on the pole when your head’s in the clouds, Jenna. I told you. Fairy.”

Brilliant.

Jenna nodded vigorously. “Right, right. So you
knew
he wanted you then?”

Isaac laughed. “’Course I knew! Wanted me, wanted to
be
me. Take your pick.”

Jenna closed one eye, looked at him through the other. “You have that problem a lot?”

“People get attached, Dr. Ramey. You give them what they need, they’re
bound
to get attached. You of all people should know that. She did it a lot.”

For the first time, Yancy saw Jenna flinch. She sat straighter.

“True. She was good at what she did,” Jenna said.

“Not as good as you.”

“Get out of there, Jenna. Don’t let him start this shit,” Ellis breathed.

“I think she’s holding her own pretty well,” Yancy muttered.

“You’ve known her about five minutes,” Ellis said.

Not long enough to hold preconceived notions against her.

But it was like Jenna had heard Hank. She pushed back from the table and stood.

“Isaac, I’m not as good as you think,” she said.

A minute later, Jenna was back on Yancy’s side of the mirror. She collapsed against the door and stared at her feet, breathing hard. Then her eyes rose and met Yancy’s. She grinned.

He smiled back. He’d read so much about Jenna Ramey, but the stories didn’t compare to watching her work in real life.

“No,” Yancy said. “You’re way better.”