Playing the Game (8 page)

            We quickly built up a picture of a happy girl with her whole life ahead of her. This would be yet another tragic loss if we didn’t win the game and get her back.

            Just as the psychologist was about to backtrack yet again, with a seemingly irrelevant line of questioning, Charlie asked the question that perhaps, in retrospect, I should have asked at the beginning.

            ‘Laura?’ he asked, remembering the engraving on the key we’d been given by The Chemist. ‘Do the numbers three-sixteen mean anything to you?’

            Her brow furrowed as she tried to answer his question. ‘No, no I don’t think so’, she was searching through the possibilities in her mind. Then, just maybe, a glimmer of hope. ‘Oh wait, I think, yes I’m sure, well her email address’.

            ‘What about it?’ Charlie asked.

            ‘I’m pretty sure three-sixteen is part of it’, she realised. ‘In fact, I’m certain’.

            There it was - the next piece of the puzzle, the next part of the game. ‘Laura,’ I asked, ‘where is Stella’s computer?’

20

            Upon relaying this discovery to Captain Williams, he decided to send Dave Ferguson directly down to the Edwards house. This was a good call; we didn’t want to overlook anything. They hadn’t had any more success with the code, and they had Bradshaw there now anyway, and he seemed to be the code expert. ‘If there’s anything on that computer, I’ll find it’, he assured us. Still, he had only just left the PD, and we were eager to uncover what we could.

            ‘Leave this to me, man’, Charlie advised, ‘I might not know how to break a code, but I can boot the fucking thing up and we can look at her email, no problem’.

            I was all for that. ‘Let’s just hope she doesn’t have a password’.

            Three minutes later, it was moment of truth time. We held our breath as Stella’s laptop went through the final stages of booting up, both of us let out an audible sigh of relief as it went through to Windows with no password prompt. One break there, at least. A couple of clicks later and we had signed on to her email.

            ‘Well, her mother was right Patton’, Charlie confirmed. ‘There it is man, right there, look,
[email protected]
, that’s gotta be it.’

            ‘Well there must be something’, I was searching the screen. ‘Hell, try her inbox’.

            Charlie made the necessary clicks and took us her inbox. There was just one email in there. The header read ‘Good morning Detectives’.

            ‘Fuck me …’ Charlie couldn’t hide his surprise. I had to agree, although I was aware that this brought us a step further into the game, it also established that we were right about Stella. Her mother would have to know. I might leave that one to the psychologist, after all.

            ‘Well, do we open it or not?’ I asked. I really wanted to know what that e-mail said.

            ‘I don’t know, man’, Charlie was doubtful. ‘How long before Fergs gets here?’

            ‘About fifteen minutes’, I reckoned.

            ‘Thing is, man, the thing might be booby trapped’. Seeing my blank face, he needed to clarify. ‘It might have a virus that wipes the email off the computer as soon as you read it. Permanently. It might have information we need to read more than once. If we open it, we might not get it back’.

            ‘Game over’, I nodded. It was agreed that we wait for Ferguson. Despite time being of the essence, I knew Charlie was right. We couldn’t afford to potentially destroy a vital piece of evidence. Stella couldn’t afford us to either.

            By the time Ferguson got there, we’d already relayed the information to him and he had concurred. After assessing the laptop for several seconds, he started plugging in wires, routers and boxes before he’d even said hello. It seemed he was just as keen to play a part in this.

            ‘You wanna tell us what you’re doing there, techno-boy?’ Charlie had a way of cutting straight to the point, ‘and in language we can actually understand, man’.

            ‘If the email has a virus linked to it, then this box right here, will copy the email in real-time, as we open it. If it suddenly disappears, then we have a copy’.

            ‘Won’t that copy have the virus too though’, maybe Charlie knew more about computers than he let on. Ferguson almost looked like he was happy he’d asked the question.

            ‘No no’, he looked assured. ‘This box right here, one of my ‘not quite off-the-shelf’ magic boxes, will filter out and kill off any virus’. Ferguson looked particularly proud. ‘So then we have a clean copy of the email that we can read, or re-open as many times as we need to’. Well, at least we understood what he was talking about, which was a first.

            ‘How long will it take you to set up?’ Charlie wanted to know. We both did.

            ‘Done’. Well I hadn’t expected him to be that quick setting up. I was suitably impressed. ‘Go ahead and open it’, he gestured to the laptop.

            The three of us gathered round the computer, and you could have heard a pin drop in the room. The sense of anticipation was palpable, even from Fergs. I clicked on the e-mail, steeling myself for what it might contain.

21

            The Chemist had left Katie Patton for now to go about her business in maybe the last day of her perfect little world. She was where the game would really begin. She was the main event.

            It didn’t really matter where the next part of the game was set, as long as it was within half an hour or so of Sutherland Boulevard. With this in mind, The Chemist chose to drive through Angelino Heights and up to Silver Lake and after twenty minutes pulled up alongside a diner on Sunset Junction. This was one of the previously scouted locations that could be used once, anytime The Chemist wished. Yes, Sunset Junction would be perfect.

            If Patton and Holland were still on schedule, they should have figured out the identity of Stella Edwards and hopefully, any time soon, they would open their email.

Pulling a pager out of the glove compartment, The Chemist visually confirmed that no email had been read. A page would be sent automatically by the computer when the email had been opened. A thin smile broke across The Chemist’s face, remembering the little surprise that had been left at that particular address. The LAPD wouldn’t see that one coming that was for sure. And for certain, it would throw them into chaos and turmoil. It would make no sense to them, but then again, the rules weren’t theirs to make, were they?

            Knowing that even when the email had been opened, there would be around an hour or so before Patton and Holland made it to Sunset Junction, The Chemist relaxed a little. Maybe a coffee would help? After all, half a cup of latte had been cast aside in a hurry when the Kavannagh had been evacuated earlier this morning.

            Deciding that nothing could be done to advance the game any further, The Chemist parked brazenly in front of the diner. Well why not? No-one had any clue where to look for The Chemist just yet and it was doubtful if anyone ever would.

            Once inside, a large white coffee purchased and window seat occupied, The Chemist basked in the glow of the mid-morning Californian sunshine. Suddenly, with the customary lack of warning, the familiar feeling of a sharp pain of a migraine invaded the serenity. It was like someone was prodding with a hot needle. The Chemist, through closed eyes and gritted teeth, didn’t wish to draw any unnecessary attention and fought through the pain, suffering in silence.

            These migraines came and went fairly quickly; sometimes thirty seconds or so, sometimes a couple of minutes, but very rarely any longer than that. During this time, The Chemist often had flashbacks to various points of the past. The Chemist had at first tried to control the flashbacks, but soon found that this was impossible. The only solace was that they didn’t last very long.

            As The Chemist had been active in Los Angeles for over fifteen years there were many memories for the subconscious to unearth, many of them horrific. As well as Los Angeles, The Chemist had occasionally strayed into Sacramento and San Bernardino County, just for a change, but Los Angeles was home.

            The Chemist was sure that if any criminal profiler ever had the misfortune to conduct an analysis, and if The Chemist truthfully admitted to the many, many atrocities committed over the last decade and a half, then every single one of them would point to the same thing; the one thing that had been a catalyst to the acceleration from teenager to monster.

            And it was that one thing that The Chemist was reliving during this particularly piercing migraine.

            Caldwell had returned from school one afternoon, with younger brother Andrew, to find their mother cowering in the kitchen, sobbing, holding the side of her face, which had turned black and blue.

            In retrospect, it probably wasn’t unusual for their alcoholic, abusive father to beat on their mother. He handed out beatings often enough but never to Andrew. At least that had been something to be thankful for. Being the eldest, Caldwell’s cards had always been marked from the start. Andrew, two years behind, had been lucky.

            Caldwell had fought the temptation then to end the abuse once and for all, but cowardice had prevailed and the beatings had continued for another few months.

            Finally summoning up the courage, Caldwell had waited in the shadows of the dark landing of the house one Friday night, knowing that Dad would return in the early hours of the morning and slowly stagger up the stairs before finally crashing into bed in a drunken stupor.

            Right on time, at one o’ clock, he had returned, and sure enough, muttering obscenities under his breath, slowly began the ascent. There was a definite feeling of adrenaline pumping around the veins, as the grip around the baseball bat, ironically an eleventh birthday present from Dad, tightened.

            Even though for last few hours, Caldwell had thought about nothing else, doubt somehow managed to creep in and Dad staggered past. Just as he was about to turn the bedroom handle, Caldwell slowly rose from the darkness and landed an almighty blow to the top of Dad’s head. Strong blow though it was, it didn’t knock him out. He turned around obviously shocked and in a mood to kill. His eyes were enraged and had widened when he saw who had struck baseball bat over his skull and grabbed his assailant by the throat.

            A brief struggle ensued, and hearing the commotion, Mother opened the door and was horrified to see what was unfolding. She had rushed to them, trying in vain to break them apart, and in so doing, caught a flailing arm from one of them squarely under her chin, the force of which propelled her sideways and over the banister rail. Both of them had momentarily put aside their altercation, looking on helplessly as she had fallen fifteen feet to her death; her neck snapping back immediately on impact, her body crumpled, motionless, in a lifeless heap at the bottom of the stairs.

            Dad had turned back, open mouthed, but with a look on his face that said ‘What on earth have you done?’ just in time for the baseball bat to land surreptitiously across the bridge of his nose. Reeling from the impact, it had taken surprisingly little effort to push him in the same direction as Mother.

            Even at that relatively young age, instinct had taken over, and the individual who would later become known as The Chemist had simply packed up a few things and left. Before doing so, Caldwell had opened another bedroom door, where Andrew was sleeping peacefully. He had remained oblivious to the events that had unfolded on the landing. Scrawling the word ‘Sorry’, on a scrap of paper, Caldwell placed it next to Andrew and kissed him goodbye. As what had just occurred fully sank in, tears began rolling down Caldwell’s cheek; not for the loss of father, abusive bastard; not for the loss of mother, she must have known about the beatings all along. But for the loss of Andrew.

22

            As soon as we opened the email, the screen went black. After a pause of around twenty seconds, during which time all of us were standing around the laptop transfixed to the screen, the Schoolhouse Rocks ‘Three Is A Magic Number’ faded in. The Chemist must have been laughing at us. Stella was number three wasn’t she?

            The cartoon video I remember seeing as a child began to play, in sync with the music. I glanced at Charlie who looked as puzzled as me. Was this all it was?

            The video and song played out, and I was pretty sure there was going to be more. The Chemist would no doubt have enjoyed watching us stand around helplessly as the little joke played to its conclusion.

            The screen went black again and the words ‘Catch me if you can’ scrolled down from the top. The Chemist was certainly pushing all the right buttons; we were growing more and more agitated.

            ‘This fucker knows how good they are, man’, Charlie observed. ‘Here we are again, jumping through hoops just because somebody says ‘jump’. Give me five minutes alone with this prick’. It was five minutes I knew we’d all like.

            All of a sudden, Dave Ferguson, who had up to that point been watching the unfolding events in silence, made a loud exclamation, ‘What the hell?’

            ‘What’s up Fergs?’ I questioned, ‘What is it?’

            ‘That light right there’, he pointed to one of the several boxes he had plugged in. The LED was bright red.

            ‘What about it, man?’ Charlie continued for me.

            ‘It’s just come on, that’s what about it’.

            ‘And what does that mean?’ we both wanted to know.

            ‘It means that a signal has been sent to a remote device, could be a phone, could be a pager, a signal to say that the email has been  opened’, Fergs explained it as best he could, in lay-mans terms.

            ‘So someone knows we have just opened and read the email?’ Charlie clarified.