LITMIR.BIZ

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understood. The techs and coroner’s office were constantly screaming about how the police first responders always screwed up the evidence. But the officers on this one had gone upstairs to interview the other employees—the know nothings, according to Gretchen—as soon as the tech team had arrived so there wasn’t anything to complain about, as far as September could see.

      As if her thoughts had willed them, she heard footsteps on the stairs and one of the employees, a young man with long, floppy red hair, most of which was tied back in a rubber band apart from two hanks beside his white face, was walking on rubbery legs down the last steps. The officer with him was someone September didn’t know, a young guy with an equally white face. She understood completely. The gory scene around them was like something out of an art director’s vision, except this one was real.

      “I—I—I heard it. The pops. I—I—thought it was the game. Kinda. But it couldn’t be. I looked around but everyone was on their screens and nobody moved. And then Officer . . .” He gazed vaguely toward the young policeman.

      “Lomax.”

      “Officer Lomax was just there. And I asked what the hell he was doing upstairs. Mr. Upjohn doesn’t let people just walk upstairs. We’re careful, y’know? Piracy, and all that . . .” He looked from September to Gretchen and back. “Where is Mr. Upjohn?”

      “The rest of the employees still upstairs?” Gretchen asked Lomax. The officer nodded. “How many?” she asked.

      He looked to the red-haired man, who said, “Um . . . twelve? And Mr. Berelli. Phillip Berelli. The accountant.”

      “Berelli came downstairs,” one of the techs said. “He’s puking in the bathroom.”

      Gretchen looked to September, who said, “I’ll go check on him.”

      As she walked away, Gretchen asked the redhead what his name was and he responded, “Ted,” and then started hyperventilating. September glanced back as he collapsed on the floor. She caught Gretchen’s eye.

      “Security tapes?” she asked, and Gretchen asked Ted, “You got any cameras on this building?”

      “Oh, sure. I—I—yeah. Piracy. Gotta worry about that. . . .”

      Gretchen said, “Who’s in charge of security?” and Ted looked at the body nearest him and pointed with a shaking finger at the facedown man near the front door, blood pooling under his head.

      September left them in search of the accountant, circling Kurt Upjohn’s office and finally discovering the door to the unisex bathroom in the short hallway behind it. Rapping her knuckles on the panel, she then tried the handle when there was no answer. The door was unlocked and she pushed it in slowly and carefully. “Mr. Berelli? I’m Detective Rafferty. Are you all right?”

      “Yes . . .” he quavered.

      “Is it all right if I come in?”

      “Yes . . .”

      She stuck her head inside and found him propping himself up at the counter, his head drooping on his neck, his forearms taut and shaking with the effort.

      “You might want to sit down,” she suggested.

      “I didn’t know. I was up there. I heard the noise but I thought somebody’s computer volume got switched up. It was like a blam. And then blam. And then . . . after a little bit, blam, blam, blam, blam, blam! A lot of ’em. Too many! I walked into the control room—that’s where it all happens at Zuma, y’know—and the guys were all working on their computers. Most of ’em had headsets on so they didn’t know, and it was weird, but I . . .” He exhaled hard. “He said they were shot . . . the officer . . . was it . . . all of them?”

      “I don’t have any answers for you yet,” September said. “We’re sorting through it. Can you come out and talk about it with my partner?”

      “The whole first floor?” he asked, looking panicky. “Jessica and Liv, too? The women?”

      “What are their names?”

      “Jessica Maltona and Liv Dugan.”

      “Which one’s which?” September asked as they walked slowly back to the main room. Phillip Berelli looked like he could fall over at any time.

      “Jessica’s the receptionist. Dark-haired and has the big chest. Liv’s pretty . . . younger . . . brown-haired, too. She’s the bookkeeper. Is she okay? She and Aaron are friends. . . .” They were passing Upjohn’s office and he looked inside, an automatic reaction. The coroner and another tech were zipping Aaron Dirkus’s corpse into a body bag. He stopped and goggled. “I saw Paul and Aaron and Kurt. . . . They’re all dead, aren’t they?”

      “Mr. Upjohn is on his way to the hospital.” Liv Dugan had gotten lucky somehow, September thought.

      Gretchen crossed the room toward them. “Mr. Berelli?”

      He gazed at her with horror-stretched eyes.

      “Who should I ask about the security cameras?”

      “Paul . . .” His eyes turned toward the man’s bloody remains.

      Gretchen followed his gaze and said, after a quiet moment, “Who else?”

      Chapter 5

      Liv threaded the key into her apartment door lock with quaking fingers and a field of vision that had narrowed to a two-inch square. Blackness was creeping in on all sides. She’d made it home. To her apartment. In her Accord, which was parked a bit cockeyed in the lot. And now . . . and now . . . the familiar panic from her youth was taking her over.

      “I can’t . . .” she whispered, shaking her head furiously. No, no, no!

      No.

      The police. She should call the police.

      But the officer from her youth invaded her thoughts, followed quickly by the memory of the supercilious policeman who’d come to Hathaway House over a disturbance during her teen years and had treated them all like criminals.

      No. No police. She couldn’t trust them. She couldn’t trust anyone!

      Why? Why Zuma Software?

      You know why. It’s not Zuma. It’s you.

      She clapped her hands over her ears, hyperventilating. This was her own paranoia talking. Talking, talking, talking. Always talking. Always convincing. But she knew better. She—knew—better. Didn’t she?

      Didn’t she?

      She’d slammed the apartment door behind her, and now she leaned against it, eyes ravenously searching the room. Maybe Kurt Upjohn was into something she knew nothing about. Maybe there were financial concerns. Bad debts to the wrong people. Maybe Aaron was involved in more drugs than she knew.

      It’s about you, Liv.

      Maybe there was some military connection after all. War games. Sensitive information running beneath the guise of computer games.

      But no one went upstairs to the control room, where it all happens.

      Or, did they?

      Her heart seized. Maybe the killer had still been there. When she returned. Maybe he thought she’d seen something and was coming after her!

      “Don’t . . . don’t . . .” she whispered aloud, willing her vision to expand outside the shrinking box closing in on her.

      You have to leave. You have to go. Now. Get your things. Go. Drive. No, walk away.

      Blindly Liv searched through her closet for her backpack, something she could carry. Her hands closed upon it and she squeezed her eyes shut and offered up a silent prayer, asking for what? Help? For a wild moment she thought about calling Dr. Yancy. They hadn’t spoken since Liv was at Hathaway House but the doctor had been kind; she’d talked straight.

      But

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