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That night, sleep didn’t come easy. She’d hoped not to take the pills the doctor had given her, but she gave up. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Eliza’s face.
She decided to study Eliza head on Maybe if she pieced together her life, her death would be easier to handle. To process. Also, maybe she could help find answers about her death. Perhaps help find who killed her. She didn’t want to get her hopes up. She knew the police must be working hard to find her killer.
“Eliza Hartwell,” she keyed into her laptop. A string of posts and links lit the screen. A drug arrest last year. A car accident the year before. She scanned the list for one good thing—or maybe good wasn’t the right word—maybe “different” thing in the list of incidents. She clicked over to the next page.
Wait. What’s this?
The high school awarded her for best computer skills. Interesting. What happened that she didn’t further her education? An award such as this might mean she was talented and could’ve had an impressive career.
Which prompted Viv to think of herself. She’d done all the right things. Where was her “gaming career”? She’d assumed she was on her way with her first job out of college. The next thing she knew, the company went bankrupt, and she was one of the first people laid off—and they used her record as a hacker against her to not give her a severance pay. Even though her hacking was for a good cause, allowing college students to afford their education, she hadn’t been able to land another gaming job.
But maybe Eliza wasn’t into the gaming aspect of computers—maybe it was something more commercial, like cyber security, or coding. Her stomach roiled—she’d never know, would she?
The words blurred on the computer screen. She blinked to fight against the blur—but the sleeping pills had their way. She slapped shut her computer and slipped back into her creepy canopy bed. Lord, she wished her aunt would’ve put her in another room.
But beggars can’t be choosy, she reminded herself. She was broke, owed student loan money, and was supposed to be helping her mom out with money too. Since her stepdad died three years ago, leaving them with next to nothing, Viv’s mom had been working two jobs trying to make ends meet. Viv used to send money to her weekly. But she couldn’t do that now. The last thought before she fell asleep was for her to reach out to Stu’s widow to see if she could have her part-time job back at Mourning Arts. It was awkward...but so what?
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She dreamed of the cemetery, tops of tombstones poking out of mist, and the Blue Topsy flower, finding a whole hillside full of them. Oddly enough, when she woke up the next morning, she felt better than she had since she found Eliza. Tomorrow was the Spring Fling. She was bound and determined not to ruin it for her aunt, already upset by the turn of events.
She untangled herself from her quilts and went downstairs to offer help—and get coffee. Yes, she needed plenty of that.
When she walked into the kitchen, it surprised her to find Aunt Libby sitting at the table with a police officer.
“You’re up! Good morning!”
It was as if it was an ordinary thing to greet your niece with a police officer at your table eating scones and drinking coffee. She knew he was a cop, even though he wasn’t dressed as one. She could always tell. It was more than the clean-shaven look and closely cropped haircut. It was the posture of a man. The way he sat straighter than most. The way his eyes darted around, observing each movement. Her heart raced. She wondered where good ol’ Willoughby was.
“Good morning,” she muttered, heading to the pot of coffee.
“This is Officer Andy Jacobs, he’s a new cyber-specialist with our police force. The chief sent him. He’s down with the flu.”
Viv finished pouring her coffee. “Nice to meet you.”
“Actually, I’m in training. I’m learning the cyber ropes, so to speak.” He looked too young to be a cop, at closer glance. And he even wore a diamond stud, which somehow made his gray eyes even more gray.
“Sit down, dear.” Aunt Libby gestured at an empty chair. “Officer Jacobs was just telling me he thinks our Eliza was involved with someone online.”
Interesting. She sat down.
He cleared his throat. “Your aunt tells me you’re quite the expert.”
Viv drank her coffee. “I’m a game designer.”
“Computer games, right?” He said leaning forward, hopeful.
“Yes,” Viv said. An unemployed one.
“Good. Our victim was involved with an online game where we think she met someone who might know something relevant to our investigation, and we wondered if you could help us. I’ve been tracking her on the game, but it stops in a strange place,. I think I’m missing something because the text indicates there’s more to it.”
“Interesting,” Viv said. She wasn’t sure she could help anybody with this, but she liked a good puzzle. “Can I see it?”
. “Absolutely.” He reached in a bag and took out a laptop. Within minutes, they were set up in the kitchen, playing “Bella’s Victorian Grimoire.”
Viv blinked. “A Victorian-themed game? I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it.”
It was a basic game, with classic software. The object was to collect magical trinkets to hold a ritual with, and if the ritual was successful, the player would get access to the game’s grimoire, which was a book of spells and potions, from what Viv gathered. But when Viv zoomed to highest level in the game, she spotted the treasures—crystals, red fan, wooden box, and Victorian silver hand mirror called a scry, the very things Eliza had around her in the graveyard. Viv shivered. “This is creepy.”
“I agree, but get the treasures.”
Viv did so. Within minutes she’d reached the end of the game.
“Well, you’re right, the end of the game here is strange. You can’t get to the supposed ritual.” Viv read the words over and over until she figured it out. And it wasn’t pleasant news.
“The game continues on the dark web.”
The officer stiffened.
“Oooo. Dark Web. That sounds intriguing,” Aunt Libby said as she poured coffee.
Viv and the officer exchanged looks. The dark web was a network of untraceable online activity and websites on the internet. “If I were you, I’d access it with another laptop. You don’t want to infect this one. Viruses are rampant on the dark web—and they are the kind you can’t easily get rid of.”
“I’d suspected this, but I just wanted to get confirmation. Someone donated a computer to the office. We’ve been using it just for the dark web. I better get going. Can I call you if I have questions?”
She nodded. Thoughts rippled to the surface of her brain. “How popular is this game?”
The officer leveled at look at her while he slipped the laptop into the bag.
“We can’t be certain, but we think it’s very popular with the local kids.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” A bunch of high schoolers messing around on the dark web? Not a good thing, at all.