Two ambulances and four squad cars were on the scene. The entire Red Right Hand was already wanted for crimes committed last night: vandalism, for spray-painting graffiti on the AlbrechTech building, and destruction of property, for smashing the windows of Chuck’s car. Now a couple of them would also face assault charges.
Kane Tidwell was loaded in an ambulance.
“Please let me go to the hospital with him,” Samantha begged as she was handcuffed and put into the back of a police cruiser.
Madeline stepped into the back of the other ambulance, where Jackson lay on a gurney. She was grateful he was conscious and had the strength to argue with the EMT.
“I’m fine,” Jackson said. “Kane broke my fall. Going to the hospital isn’t necessary.”
“Definitely a couple of broken ribs and a possible concussion,” the EMT said.
Sheer panic had flooded her when Jackson fell from the catwalk. It had happened in slow motion. She hadn’t been able to breathe, move; it had been as if her heart had stopped.
The funny thing was, when he opened his eyes and spoke, she had one overwhelming thought. Thank God I didn’t lose him.
She’d had to remind herself that he wasn’t hers. Once this case was over, they’d go their separate ways.
Still, Madeline found herself taking his hand before she realized she’d broken her rule and was touching him, and by then she didn’t want to let go of him. “You’re going to the hospital.”
“I need to be out there, looking for Emma. I have to find her.” His face filled with so much despair that Madeline’s heart broke. “If the Red Right Hand didn’t take her, then who did?”
Since she had no answer to give him, she frowned down at their joined hands. The need to find out who was behind this and save Emma was like a fire burning in her gut, spurring her on. Not to give up. Never.
She’d exhaust every possibility, chase down each lead. But she’d never stop trying.
Her phone rang. She pulled her hand from his and answered. “Yeah, Striker.”
“It’s Liam. I was going to update the file, but thought it was better to tell you.”
“One sec.” She glanced at the EMT. “Could you give us a minute, before you take him to the hospital?” After the woman nodded and hopped out, Madeline waved Dash and Nick over and put the call on speaker. “Go ahead, Liam. I have the others here along with Jackson.”
“Some of the newspapers go back three years,” Liam said.
“Three?” Madeline asked. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. I was only able to find two articles that were related to ETC and one also mentioned Jackson.”
“What were they about?” Dash asked.
“One was about the video game department and the other was an obituary for a former ETC employee. The article talked about Jackson cutting the division and a big sale of the games.”
“Did you have a bunch of angry engineers and designers?” Nick asked.
Jackson shook his head. “The one department at ETC that shouldn’t have a grievance with me was Games. I made all of them rich. Except for one guy. Lou Jenkins. He received the smallest severance package, but it was still generous. I heard he rebounded and is thriving at a new company. This has to be a coincidence.”
“Maybe,” Madeline said. “But you do this job long enough and you stop believing in coincidences. You weren’t really involved with the day to day of the video games department, were you?” she asked, thinking there might have been things going on in the office that he hadn’t been aware of.
“I wasn’t in the trenches with my people,” Jackson said, “but I tried to keep my finger on the pulse of things. I have, had, an open-door policy.”
“Who was the head of the video games department?” Madeline asked.
“Dennis Garcia,” Jackson said. “A good guy. Retired now. I’ve had him to the house for dinner once or twice.”
“What about the obit, Liam?” Madeline asked. “Who was it for?”
“Theon Lasiter, but it doesn’t say what department he worked in.”
Jackson sat up and winced. “You’re right. It’s not coincidence. Theon worked for me, in Games. But I don’t understand how it could be related to Emma’s kidnapping.”
“How did Theon Lasiter die?” Dash asked.
Jackson shrugged. “I didn’t even know he was dead. He walked away from ETC with the biggest check of all.”
“There’s a correlation with the games department,” Madeline said. “We just have to find it. I should sit down with Garcia and talk with him. See what we’re missing.”
“I’ll track down Lou Jenkins,” Nick said.
Dash tilted his head, like he was thinking. “I’ll go back to the office and see what I can find on Lasiter’s death. Liam, keep plugging away at the articles.”
“Where does Garcia live?” Madeline asked Jackson, wondering how long the drive would be.
“I can get you the address from HR.” He reached into his pocket to take out his phone and groaned in pain. “I believe his house is in Olympic Manor.”
Probably a thirty-minute drive, depending on traffic. “I’ll pay him a visit. Talk to him in person,” Madeline said. “No stone left unturned. And you are going to the hospital.”
Madeline’s estimation had been correct. After Jackson got her the address, it took her twenty-eight minutes before she parked in front of the Tudor-style house in Olympic Manor and made her way up the front steps. She knocked and waited.
The door opened. A man stood slightly taller than her on the other side of the threshold. With a round face and kind eyes, he smiled. “Hello.”
She held up her badge. “I’m Special Agent Madeline Striker. Are you Dennis Garcia, the former chief of the gaming department at Emerald Technology Corp?”
“Yes, I am. What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to ask you some questions that might help us with the kidnapping of Emma Rhodes, the six-year-old daughter of Jackson Rhodes.”
He rocked back. “I heard about that, but I don’t understand how I can be of any help.”
“Do you mind if I come in?” Madeline asked.
“Certainly.” He opened the door wide, letting her in. “Would you care for something to drink?”
“A glass of water, please,” she said, her throat parched.
“We can speak in the kitchen, if that’s all right.”
They walked through the tidy home, passing the living room, dining room, and Madeline sat at the small bistro-style table by the window.
Garcia handed her a bottle of water from the fridge and grabbed a can of soda for himself.
She opened the bottle and chugged some of the cool water. “I’m going to record this conversation, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all. Go ahead.”
She took the recorder from her pocket and set it on the table. “How would you describe the layoff of the games department at ETC?”
“In a word, profitable.”
“Did you agree with Jackson Rhodes’s decision to sell off the games and dismantle your department?”
Garcia opened his Coke. “Didn’t matter if I agreed. I understood why it had to happen. Made complete sense. Allowed me to pay for this house in cash and have a comfortable retirement.”
“But it wasn’t profitable for everyone, was it? What about Lou Jenkins? Was he angry when he didn’t receive a big fat check?”
Garcia chuckled. “Lou was grateful he walked away with as much as he did. He was at the bottom of the pack and knew it. Got a new position at another company. As an animator. I see him from time to time. He’s much happier. Doing really well for himself.”
“Do you recall another employee who worked under you—Theon Lasiter?”
His eyebrows shot up. “How could I ever forget?”
“Can you tell me about him?”
“Theon was special. Gifted, I mean. Singular in his vision. It took him a while to find his niche when he first started working at ETC. None of the games he developed had really taken off. But he had an interesting background that I thought he could use as inspiration for a game.”
“Interesting in what way?”
“He grew up in a survivalist community. Real hard-core. Almost cultlike if you ask me.”
“You mean like preppers?” Madeline asked.
Garcia chuckled. “I once foolishly thought they were the same thing, too, until Theon schooled me. There are some significant differences. Preppers and survivalists both plan and prepare for that doomsday scenario. A megadisaster. But how they prepare is where they diverge. One group is focused on stockpiling and the other on developing a finely honed skill set.”
“So I take it, the preppers are the ones loading up their shelves with canned goods, water, powdered milk, that sort of thing.”
Nodding, Garcia opened his soda. “That’s about right.”
“What type of skill set does the survivalist cultivate?”
“Instead of stockpiling massive amounts like preppers, survivalists become experts at fishing, snaring, foraging, hunting. They’re the ones with the guns, make no mistake about that.”
She couldn’t help but think about the fire on Jackson’s lawn. How tree resin was the secret weapon for surviving in the wilderness. “Survivalists are focused on building up an arsenal?”
“No, no. They like to stay light on their feet.” Garcia sipped his soda. “They’ll have a couple of guns in a bug-out bag and will train to be crack shots, but they’ll have knives, too. Think of it like this, you and I have GEICO—they have body armor. Instead of building a garden, they’re creating booby traps, making homemade bombs, that sort of thing. Defense and offense are key to survivalists. Not stockpiling.”
A homemade bomb had been used to blow up the Duwamish site. Forensics confirmed tree resin had been the accelerant. The same compound used in the fire on Jackson’s front lawn.
“Where was the survivalist group based that Theon grew up in?”
“Loon Lake. On the east side of the state. Four or five hours from here.”
Madeline logged the place, updating the shared document, though it seemed too far away for the kidnapper. Seemed more likely that Emma’s abductor was within an easy drive of Jackson.
“Tell me about the game he created,” she said.
“It’s called Survivalist Zone. Apocalypse scenario. Players build a zone, establish a home, and then they have to protect it. Sometimes a player will need to attack another player’s position to claim vital resources. The game was an instant hit. But it still had a lot of untapped potential. Theon wanted to make the next version more elaborate and complicated. Jackson was still overseeing the department at the time and supported Theon when the kid wanted to create a real-life mock-up, complete with booby traps and everything. ETC had some land that they weren’t using and gave him the green light. His older sister even came out to help him make it as realistic as possible. She never even asked for any name recognition or credit.”
“Sister?” A shiver raced down her spine. “What was her name?”
“Chloe. Chloe Lasiter.”
Madeline sent a red alert to the team with the name. She wanted Dash digging into the sister as soon as possible.
“She was devoted to Theon,” Garcia said. “When the video game was sold and our department was cut, I think she was as devastated as her brother.”
“If the game was successful, why was it sold?”
“That’s the reason it was sold. Because it was successful.”
“I’m not tracking the logic,” Madeline said. “Why sell a game that’s making a solid profit?”
“Theon’s game was computer based. Had a strong cult following. Wildly popular. It’s an open world and users contribute content, making the game grow. Generated revenue and profits. Brought in millions. Double digits. But Jackson sold it to a company who already had a foothold with video game consoles. The other company could expand the game to their consoles and their dedicated app store. And make an even bigger profit.”
“How much did the intellectual property sell for?”
“Two. Point. Five. Billion.”
Madeline reeled back. “Goodness.”
“Brilliant move on Jackson’s part.” Garcia nodded with a look of awe twinkling in his eyes. “He did the same with the other moneymaking video games in the department. It was simply more profitable for ETC to sell. But Survivalist Zone was by far the biggest. Theon and the others walked away millionaires. Like me.”
“Then what was the problem?” Madeline asked. It sounded as if the entire department should’ve been kicking up their heels and moving on to greener pastures. “Why wasn’t Theon happy about the sale even if it meant the loss of his own department?”
“The problem was Theon didn’t care about the money. He wanted to remain affiliated with the game and future developments. But the buyer said no. They wanted to take the game in their own direction. Theon was crushed. He had poured his heart and soul into that game. Had spent so much time and energy working on it that his wife divorced him when it was in the beta stage. All he had left was that game. It was his baby. His brainchild,” he said, putting pieces of the puzzle together for Madeline. “And when what he cared about most was taken from him, he lost it. Cracked. Spiraled into a dark depression. Then I heard he killed himself. So sad. He left Chloe all his money. Fifteen million.”
She let out a low sound of surprise.
“Sounds like a lot. To most people it is, more than they’d see in a lifetime. But when you think about it, fifteen mil was only one percent of the profit Jackson and ETC made from the sale. Not that the cash mattered to survivalists like Theon and Chloe. I saw her at the funeral. She was heartbroken. She blamed ETC for his death. Blamed Jackson.”
Chloe Lasiter was behind this. Madeline knew it deep in her heart. “Can you describe what Chloe looks like?” Madeline asked, urgency propelling her.
Garcia shrugged. “She’s about thirty, maybe thirty-two by now. Fair skinned. Long chestnut brown hair. Hazel eyes like Theon. On the slim side but not petite. She was athletic and on the taller side.”
The description didn’t match any of their suspects. But it fit the profile for the unsub and gave a strong personal motive to target Jackson that was tied directly to ETC business.
“Those two put so much into the development of that game,” Garcia said again, his eyes looking haunted. “You know ETC still has the site where they built their real-world mock-up. The company never tore it down. Probably forgot about it.”
“Where is it? I’d like to check it out for myself.” Walking around the site and seeing what Theon had created with his sister might be the best way for Madeline to get inside Chloe’s head. Understand what she was truly capable of and how far she might be willing to go for revenge.
Garcia wrote down the location for her since it was more a set of directions than an actual address.
“Going out there will shed light on what inspired the game. Reflects the darkness that was in their heads, much more than the video game would. Though that Survivalist Zone can get pretty dark with people stealing resources and killing each other. It’s a bit of a drive, about an hour outside of the city up in the mountains. But once you see the site, it’ll have you praying that you never come up against a survivalist.”
AN ELECTRIC HUM from Dash’s computer system purred in the air just beneath the clatter of his frantic typing on the keyboard. Since he’d gotten Madeline’s alert, Dash had been parked behind his desk at BAU headquarters, feverishly trying to dig up whatever he could on Chloe Lasiter, including a picture.
It was like she was a ghost. No social media presence. No property records. No utility bills.
Maybe her brother had been more active and had left a digital footprint.
Dash redirected his search to Theon Lasiter. Once again, no Facebook, no Instagram, no Snapchat. No old property records either.
But all serious gamers were on Twitch—a livestreaming platform tailored for that crowd—and Discord, which was a means for people to easily communicate while playing PC games together.
Already his fingers were darting across the keys. The screens shuddered and flickered as he typed faster.
Sure enough, Theon and Chloe had profiles on both sites. No pictures. Only avatars.
Dash glanced at his second monitor, which showed the results of the search on Theon. There was a magazine article featuring Theon as the Game Awards winner for Content Creator of the Year three years ago. Clicking on the link, he scrolled through the article that touted Theon as someone to watch over the next decade. Theon had been quoted stating he was thrilled his sister had finally moved to Seattle and they were about to close on a house they’d bought together.
That meant there was a property in one or both their names. Maybe under an LLC—limited liability company—for privacy since he had been gaining a bit of fame in the industry.
Scrolling a little further, Dash came to a picture of Theon holding the Game Award up in one hand, his arm slung over the shoulder of a young woman, with their temples pressed together. The caption listed the smiling brunette as Chloe Lasiter.
She looked so familiar, but he couldn’t place her. Was it the hair?
Dash zoomed in, two clicks, and his heart slammed against his rib cage as he stared at the picture.
“Holy hell.”
He knew exactly who that was. Without a doubt. He’d done a background check on her personally, and hadn’t found any red flags under the alias she’d used. How was that possible?
Reaching for the phone to call Madeline, he reconsidered. Before Dash called her, he needed to get Liam to help him do a deep dive and cull as much useful information on this woman as they could to find the Rhodes kid fast. Madeline was going to have a ton of questions for him, and he had better be prepared with answers.
Dialing Liam to save himself the time of running down the hall, he glanced back at the woman’s face on his screen.
At the kidnapper.
Liane Strothe.