Game (34 page)

Hat-Dog was killing people in New York. No one in Lobo’s Nod cared. Why should they?

They would care if they knew there was a connection to Billy. But there’s no hard proof of that yet.

Yet
being the operative word.

Connie knew that Billy was involved somehow. The
Ugly J
graffito and acrostic on the Impressionist’s letter just couldn’t be a coincidence. She refused to believe that. That meant there was a connection—however tenuous—between Billy and the Hat-Dog killer. Connie was even willing to bet that it was Billy who had—somehow—invited Jazz to “the game,” whatever that meant. And she was sure he was the one who’d guided her to the old Dent house and its strange buried treasure. Who else could have done that? Who else
would
have done that? Who else would even know there was something there in the first place?

Her cell rang and she grabbed it. Howie was supposed to call her if he learned anything new from Sam, but when she answered, she realized immediately that it wasn’t Howie.

“You broke the rules, Connie,” said a voice she didn’t recognize, and not because it wasn’t familiar to her. She didn’t recognize it because it had been filtered and Auto-Tuned to the point that it sounded both musical and robotic at the same time.

“Who is this?” she asked, not expecting an answer, and not surprised when she didn’t get one.

“You broke the rules,” the voice said again, sounding vaguely disappointed in its flat way. “And the rules weren’t complicated. I said no police. You called the police. So simple. I thought you were smarter than that.”

Connie’s mind raced. She
hadn’t
called the police. But someone else
had
. The guy with the baseball bat. But how on earth could her caller know that? It had just happened, like, an hour ago. Maybe ninety minutes. How…

“I didn’t call the police,” she said. “It wasn’t me. It was a neighbor. It was—”

“Do you really expect me to believe you?” the voice asked. “Do you expect me to
trust
you? You would say anything, wouldn’t you?”

If the voice knew about the police… that meant the person had to be local, right? Someone who would be aware of happenings in Lobo’s Nod.

Or just someone who has a line to the Lobo’s Nod police band. Or
…

She flipped up the lid of her laptop and searched
BILLY DENT PROPERTY
and the day’s date. Sure enough, a squib popped up on the Lobo’s Nod Web version of the police blotter that the cops had been called to Billy Dent’s old haunt. Attributed to Doug Weathers, of course. That weasel probably lived with a police scanner glued to one ear, just on the off chance Billy Dent’s old address popped up on a broadcast.

And now it was online. Anyone in the world could know.

She expected her caller ID to say
UNKNOWN NUMBER
, but it didn’t. She quickly jotted the number down on a piece of
paper, as though it might vanish from her phone. “I’m sorry, Mr. Dent,” she said. “But it really wasn’t me. I can’t help it that your old neighbor got agitated when he saw me and called nine-one-one.”

The voice laughed. The sound was metallic and headache-inducing with all the audio processing. “You think I’m Billy Dent? Now, why would you think that?”

“Who else could you be?” She felt dizzy and sat down on her bed. Jazz’s warning about letting a man like Billy into her head spun over and over in her mind. She had to be careful. Billy held all the cards, including his own identity. He could get her confused very easily. She took a stab in the dark: “Or maybe you’re Ugly J.”

Another laugh, this one longer and more sustained. “I like you, Connie,” the voice said. “I’ve liked you since the first time I saw you. A few months ago. In
The Crucible.”

Connie shivered and goose bumps broke out along her arms and neck. Oh, God. In
The Crucible
. Weeks after Billy had broken out of Wammaket… In the audience? In the friggin’
audience
and no one noticed?

“I thought you were wonderful as Tituba, Connie. I stood in the back and watched you. And Jasper. Watched both of you. Fine actors. I think you may have a career in show business ahead of you, Connie. Assuming you live, of course.”

“Threaten me all you like—”

“Don’t show me a bravery you don’t really feel, Connie,” the voice warned. “It doesn’t impress me. I appreciate honesty more than bravado. And I’m not threatening you. I haven’t threatened you so far, have I?”

Connie waited and then realized the question wasn’t rhetorical—the voice was waiting for an answer.

“No. You haven’t.”

“Exactly. And I’m still not threatening you. Let me tell you who I
am
threatening, though.”

At that instant, Connie’s phone trilled with its text message alert. She automatically pulled the phone away from her ear, just in time to catch an incoming picture.

It was Jazz.

In New York.

She knew it was New York because he was wearing that Mets cap he’d bought at the airport as a partial disguise, and because she recognized the edge of Hughes’s sleeve at one side of the photo. It had been taken in New York. Recently.

Close enough to take that picture.
Her throat stopped working.
Close enough for that picture means close enough… oh, God. If he can get that close without being noticed or seen
…

She put the phone back to her ear, tried to speak. Nothing came out.

“Your boyfriend will suffer for your insolence and your lying, if I so choose.”

“No,” Connie tried to say. A rasp. She tried again. “No. He’s not even here. He’s not even involved. It’s not fair to—”

“I think I’ve been very fair with you,” the voice went on. “Sent you clues to that which you seek. Complimented your acting—and I was being sincere, by the way.”

Had she been wrong? Was this
not
Billy Dent after all? Would Billy threaten Jazz like that? And if he did, just to
frighten her… He would never actually carry through on such a threat….

Would he?

She didn’t think so.

But then again… maybe it wasn’t Billy Dent.

The cadence of the voice… the vocabulary… things that Auto-Tune couldn’t hide. She’d seen Jazz’s Billy impression. She’d heard Howie recount the man’s monologues. She’d even seen the few rare TV clips of him speaking. And this didn’t…

Oh, God.

“Did it bother you, playing a slave, Connie? Did it stir something inside? Resentment? Anger? Racial memories you’d thought long buried?”

The voice, processed into neutrality, didn’t sound sly or conniving, but the words did the trick. Connie struggled against it. She would not let herself be dragged into a psychological quicksand pit by a psychopath. She would do this on her terms.

“It was just a role,” she said carefully. “That’s all.”

“But surely a part of you wondered if you only got the role because you were the only black female actor at the school. Didn’t you wonder that? What if you’d not been interested? What would that pretty little drama teacher have done?”

At the mention of Ms. Davis, Connie’s breath caught and her heart leapt forward a beat. Tears sprang to her eyes and she rubbed them away furiously.
No. I’m not going to be manipulated.

“I wouldn’t know,” she replied, keeping her voice steady.
“I would tell you to ask Ms. Davis, but she’s slightly dead.” Her gut clenched as she said it; it was like pissing on Ginny’s grave. But this game was too serious not to use all of her available ammunition.

The voice chuckled—it sounded like a rubber ball bouncing in a giant tin can. “Trying to keep up with me, Connie? Trying to keep me out of your head?”

“Just being proactive.”

“Ever think maybe that’s what I wanted in the first place?”

Great. Now Connie didn’t know
what
to do.

“People are dying, Connie, and they will continue to die, while you try to play games with me. While you try to keep me out of your head, a place I’ve already been to. Trust me—you have no secrets from me.”

I don’t believe you. I can’t.
“Oh?”

“People keep dying and all you care about is yourself. Oh, you claim you care about your boyfriend, but really you just worry about him because he’s
yours
. No other reason. You’re selfish, Connie. You’re an actress, after all, and they are a vain, self-centered lot.

“Let me ask you this, though, while I have you on the phone: Do you ever wonder why they always focus on the pretty
white
girls, Connie? The ones that go missing, I mean. The ones who get killed or maimed or raped or—on a good day—all three. When
black
girls go missing no one seems to care, do they? If I made you disappear—and I’m not saying I would, though I could—no one would notice.”

“People would notice,” Connie said through gritted teeth, and then slapped her forehead. Damn it! She was doing
exactly
what he wanted her to do! She was buying into the argument. Accepting the premise. Joining the debate.

“You’d like to think so, I’m sure. Oh, your parents and friends would notice, but no one else. It wouldn’t be a national story. It would make the news in your little town, but even then they would give up reporting on it after a couple of days. They’d devote ten or fifteen seconds to it on the local news the day your raped and mutilated body was found in a shallow grave near the intersection of Grove Street and Route Twenty-seven. You know the spot, Connie?”

She didn’t answer. Didn’t need to.

“Ten or fifteen seconds. A picture of you from the yearbook. A cutaway to your mother weeping hysterically, and all the white folks watching shrug and wait for weather and sports. But when a white girl goes missing… oh, then they go nuts, Connie. They update you every chance they get. The cable channels get involved and it goes national. People talk about the poor pretty girl who’s gone missing. They gather at work and at school and they post blogs and they go on message boards. They name
laws
after them. They give you AMBER Alerts in their honor. And when those poor lily-white girls show up dead, they spend more than ten or fifteen seconds on them. They show you the home videos. They show the parents. The friends. They take you right to the memorial service. Why is that, do you think?”

“Because this is a racist society that devalues black lives,” Connie said with heat, then immediately bit her lower lip. Damn it! How many times had Jazz told her that you never let a psycho into your head? You never expose a weakness or an irritation or a rage. They live in your heads forever after that.

“Racism!” the voice chortled in triumph. “Racism! Of course! That must be it! Why, that’s the only possible explanation! But, Connie… what if it isn’t racism? What if it’s just true that your life is genuinely worth less than a white girl’s? What would you say to that?”

In a tone of frosty neutrality, she responded, “I would say that you definitely have the most up-to-date version of the White Supremacist Jackass app on your phone. Good for you.”

A long, sustained burst of tinny, artificial laughter. “I like you so much, Connie. I really do. You give me hope for the future.”

“Glad to help. Now why don’t you tell me exactly where you are and who you are?”

“Heh. That wouldn’t be any fun. We’re playing a game, Connie. You agreed to the rules.”

“I don’t even know what the rules are.”

“Well… basically, the rules to
this
game are whatever I decide they are. This isn’t like the game being played in Brooklyn. This is
our
game, Connie. A game for you and me. Something special, just for us.”

“I’m touched and honored,” Connie said sardonically. “When do I get to make my next move?”

“Oh, soon. Very soon. But it’ll be a little tougher on you, Connie, because you broke the rules.”

“I told you, I didn’t call the—”

“There must be a
penalty
for people who cheat,” the voice went on, “for people who don’t abide by the rules, wouldn’t you agree?”

The droning, toneless roboticism of the voice was beginning
to grate, sawing through her brain and generating a massive headache in its wake. “Stop playing around and tell me who you are,” she said. “As if I didn’t already know.” A bluff. Maybe it would…

“Oh, I’ll tell you. In my own way. In my own time. The first clue is in that lockbox.” The voice paused for a moment. “I’m going to give you five minutes, Connie. Five minutes to find the clue and then I’ll call you back. If you don’t have the clue, you’ll never hear from me again.

“Well… until the night I come for you, that is.”

“Wait!” Connie shouted. “Wait! Five minutes? That’s not fair. I can’t—”

“Not
fair
?” The voice’s aggravation and anger broke through the Auto-Tuning. “Fair? You broke the rules, Conscience Hall! And now you suffer the consequences! Five minutes, beginning… now.”

Click.

Oh. Crap.

Connie rooted through the box. Baby pictures of Jazz with his parents… the birth certificate… was that the clue? That it was Billy? Or maybe the clue was that little crow toy… which could still be Billy, really. She shivered, remembering the creepy Crow King fairy tale.

Or maybe it was something else. Something related. What was the word
crow
in Latin? In Spanish? In French? She had taken classes in all three languages and struggled to remember, then thought,
What if it’s not a crow? What if it’s a raven? And what if the clue is in Russian or German? What if the damn toy isn’t the clue in the first place?

Her clock had advanced a minute.
You’re kidding me.
Her heart thudded so hard in her chest that she would not have been surprised if she could have seen it throbbing through her shirt.

Less than four minutes left. The desire to speed through the contents of the box was great, but she forced herself to scrutinize each item. Same three people in each photo:

Jazz.
No. Not him. Duh.

Mom.
Dead. Not her. Double-duh.

Billy.
Obvious choice.
Too obvious, in fact, now that she thought about it. Billy’s escape from Wammaket had been planned and coordinated and abetted by someone on the outside. So her mystery Auto-Tuned voice would be someone helping Billy. Someone on his side of the game board. Hat-Dog?