Chapter 22

Abby

 

 

Once, not too long ago, grief had been an academic topic for Parker. After all, his workday often began with a stranger’s death. He was barely aware of the pain the victim’s loved one’s felt; to him, the victim’s death was just the start to a puzzle to be solved.

Like everyone else, he had experienced personal loss, but back then it had all been remote with little lasting impact—grandparents and extended family members made strangers by time and distance—and colleagues he’d only miss when he needed something from them for a case. A few had been a surprise—car accidents and heart attacks—but most had come after long illnesses, the blow of their loss softened by the mercy of it. Parker had attended the funerals and offered his condolences. He had known exactly how to respond to the anguish; after all, he was an expert, trained in the psychology of grief by the FBI and George Mason University.

That was before he truly experienced it. Before Carrie’s death, Parker had possessed only an abstract, analytical appreciation for how people process loss, and it had made him cold. Aunt Margie will get over Uncle Bob’s death once she gets through the acceptance stage. All the books had taught him grief was overcome in a linear sequence, like steps in an instruction manual for reassembling a shattered life: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, then Acceptance. He’d believed it, too, until he held his dying wife in his blood-drenched arms.

Parker stared at the name and number on the page in his notebook and tightened his grip on the phone in his sweaty hand. He’d been sitting like that for several minutes, unable to punch the numbers into the phone’s screen that would connect him to a mother’s loss. The paralysis wasn’t all out of empathy. Grief—intense grief, he’d learned, could be covered up, but it was always there. Acceptance, if there was such a thing, was nothing more than a layer of scar tissue over a wound that never healed. His scars were still thin and would be easily punctured by the shards of pain he knew would radiate from Abby Loveridge’s mother like shrapnel from a bomb. He was afraid of what would happen when that barrier was penetrated. Would his emotional state hold? He took a deep breath and entered the numbers. It was time to find out.

“Hello,” a woman’s voice answered. The “oh” drawn out in an upper midwestern accent.

“May I speak to Sarah Loveridge, please?”

“Speaking. Who is this?”

“My name is Parker Reid, ma’am. I’m with the FBI.”

The phone went silent for a moment. “Oh. Is this about Abby?”

“Yes. I’m sorry to trouble you, but I need to ask you a few questions.”

“I still can’t believe she’s gone. You hear about these terrible things happening to other people, but you never expect them to happen to your family—to your child.”

Denial.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I truly am.” And he meant it.

The high e and low o sounds that suggested a distant Swedish or Norwegian ancestry developed a harder edge. “When did the FBI get involved? We were dealing with a Detective Vargus from Clearwater City. He promised to keep us informed about the case, but we haven’t heard from him in weeks.”

Parker sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was to cause this woman any more pain. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Detective Vargus is out of the office for health reasons. Otherwise, I’m sure he would have called you.”

“How do I know you are who you say you are?”

Parker had anticipated this question. Vargus or the Clearwater City PD’s Victim Advocacy Office would have warned her to be wary of calls about her daughter from people claiming to be with other law enforcement agencies. Scammers and other lowlifes preyed on vulnerable people like Sarah Loveridge. “I can give you a number to call to validate my credentials.” He paused to let her process what he offered. “Would you like the number, Mrs. Loveridge?”

“Yes.”

He gave her the phone number and his FBI ID code and waited for her to call back. It took her almost thirty minutes.

“They called you Dr. Reid. Is that what I should call you?”

“No, ma’am. I go by Parker.”

“Parker,” she echoed, sounding uncomfortable with the familiarity of his first name, perhaps not willing to make a personal connection. “Okay, Parker,” she said tentatively. “You can call me Sarah. What do you need to know?”

“I will make this quick, Sarah. Did Abby use the Metaverse?”

“The Metaverse?”

“Yes. Computer-simulated reality.”

“I know what it is. I just don’t understand what it has to do with Abby’s murder.”

Parker thought he heard her sniffle and guessed the long delay before she called him back may have been to give her time to get control of her emotions. “I know this is hard. The person who killed your daughter…”

“Person,” she blurted. “Person,” she said it again louder. “No person does such a thing. Only a monster would cut my baby’s beautiful head off.”

Anger.

“I’m sorry.” He knew better than most how right she was. The man who killed this poor woman’s daughter was indeed a monster. “He’s done it to others, Sarah, and he will do it again unless we catch him.”

“So, catch him,” she snapped.

“That’s what I’m trying to do, but I need your help.”

The phone grew silent except for her sniffling, then she asked. “What can I do?”

“I am trying to determine how this monster knew your daughter.” He said knew, but he meant selected. “Where he might have met her.”

“So am I,” she sobbed. “I think about it all the time. Abby hardly knew anyone down there. She had no time to make friends or,” Sarah paused and sobbed, “enemies. She was always in such a rush. So eager to get started with her life after she’d finished her degree.”

“What did she study?” Parker asked, but he already knew.

“Computers. She got a degree in computer science from Madison.” The anger in her voice had gone and was replaced by something between pride and sadness. “Graduated with honors, don’t you know. But then she had to run off to Florida of all places. The beach. It was always the beach. As if she ever took a break from working to see the sun. She spent all her time in that miserable little apartment. I should have never let her go. She’d still be with us if she’d stayed up here and went to work in the Cities. We told her there were plenty of good jobs here.” She sobbed. “God, I would do anything to be able to go back and change her mind.”

Bargaining.

“Sarah, I need to know if Abby played games in the Metaverse.”

“Games?” She snorted. “No. my Abby didn’t play games. She worked. All the time. Code, code, code is what she did.”

It wasn’t the answer he was hoping for. “Did she ever mention a Metaverse simulation called the Land of Might and Magic?”

The sniffling returned and there was a long pause as she considered the question.

“I don’t remember her mentioning it, and we talked all the time,” she sobbed. “Every night, about everything.”

He sighed and rubbed his leg. “Do you know if she owned a cybersuit?”

“She has a mask and gloves, if that’s what you mean. She had to, for work. It’s how everything is done these days.”

“So she did spend time in the Metaverse.”

“Yes, of course she did. Like I said, she was a programmer. They all do, but she didn’t play games. Not that I know of.”

He looked over his notes and his eyes landed on a word he’d written in large block letters, ADDERAL. “Did Abby take any medications?”

“No,” she answered immediately. Then she added, “Well, maybe Tylenol for headaches and cramps. Why?”

“Nothing for focus or attention deficit?”

“No,” she scoffed. “My daughter had no issues with focus, Dr. Reid.” The edge was back. “Again, why the question about medications?”

“Abby had traces of Adderal in her system, Sarah. Do you know what that is?”

“I’m a nurse. Of course, I know what Adderal is. I don’t know why she would have taken it. Maybe it was because of pressure from work. She was always under deadlines.”

“What did Abby do exactly?”

“I already told you. She was a computer programmer, a coder.” She pronounced it cohdar.

“Yes, but do you know what kind of programs she wrote?”

“She worked for a company that built security systems.”

The hair on the back of Parker’s neck tingled.

“What kind of systems? Do you know?”

“I believe she called them entrance way systems.”

“Door locks?” Parker promted.

“I think that might have been part of it, but she worked on all kinds of things.”

The tingle moved to the top of his head, and he had the feeling he’d found another hard-to-fit piece in the puzzle. “What is the name of the company she worked for?”

“ZCS. I believe it stands for Zhang Control Systems. Fucking slave drivers. Chinese, don’t you know.”

The obscenity and anti-Chinese sentiment startled him. “I see.” He took down the company name. “Did she talk about her colleagues? Maybe mention anyone she may have been having problems with?”

“Detective Vargus asked about all this. I’ll tell you the same thing I told him. She barely knew the people she worked with. Most of them were in Las Vegas. She only saw them on the computer.”

Now Parker’s hair was on fire. “Las Vegas?”

“Yes. That’s where ZCS is based. Abby was a remote worker. She talked about moving out there, God forbid, but there’s no ocean. Shit, there’s no water, for that matter. She couldn’t leave the beach she never visited.”

“Would you happen to have Abby’s manager’s contact information?”

“Yes. Give me a minute to find it.”

After a moment, she returned with the information, and he took it down. He scanned his notes, checking to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. Satisfied, he said, “Thank you, Sarah. You have been very helpful. I’m sure Detective Vargus will be in touch soon.”

“Wait,” she said before he could disconnect. “I Googled you after I called the FBI number.”

“Yes?”

“I read what happened to your wife.”

He swallowed but didn’t respond.

“Does it get any easier, Dr. Reid?”

A tear fell from his eye, scar tissue punctured, and he cleared his throat. “No, but you will get stronger, Sarah.”

She sobbed. “Catch the fucking monster,” she pleaded, and the line went dead.

Depression.