“I apologize for the lateness of the hour,” Ellery said as he let them inside.
“Time has no meaning anymore,” he told her.
Teresa appeared in the doorway to the living room, her pale eyes red rimmed and glazed. “Agent Markham isn’t with you?”
“No, ma’am, not this time.”
She sucked in her mouth, looking pained. “He’s the profiler, right? I wanted to ask him. I wanted to know why, if this is about me and what a terrible mother I am, why they are torturing Chloe? Why not just take me instead?”
“For God’s sake, you’re not a bad mother!” Martin snapped, and Teresa covered her face with both hands. “You’re protective and you love Chloe. You have a job outside the home that saves people’s lives daily. If that’s terrible, I don’t know what to say about the women who give birth and leave their babies in trash cans.”
Ashley stiffened at her side and Ellery felt a stab of guilt at involving her in this whole mess. She wished she’d brought Reed along, because he was so much better at soothing people than she was. Teresa Lockhart wept into her hands as her husband glared at her from across the entryway. “Ma’am … if I may. I’m not a profiler and I’m not here to pass judgment on your parenting one way or the other. But I can promise you one thing for sure: whoever is doing this to Chloe, it’s is about what’s wrong with them and not about you.”
“Exactly,” Martin said, holding his arms out to Teresa in beseeching fashion.
She raised her face and fixed him with an accusing glare. “They didn’t say anything about you. You work as many hours as me, if not more. Why is it always about the mother?” She looked to Ellery. “The school notices come to me, not him. It’s the mothers who are expected to contribute to the bake sales and make the posters for the book fair and volunteer at the Halloween parade. If the homework is late, if the child isn’t practicing her piano enough, the teachers go to the mother, not the father. Fathers can jet off to work for weeks at a time. They can be twenty-five or sixty-five and no one bats an eye. No one asks them to go on television to say what a shit parent they are!” Her voice, which had been steadily rising, reached a seething crescendo at the end.
Martin crossed to Teresa and took her in his arms. She fought him at first but then sagged against his chest when he held fast. “We’re terribly worried,” he told Ellery. “As you can see.”
“I know. That’s why I’ve brought Ashley to try out Chloe’s video games. She might be able to learn something about this unknown boy Chloe was photographed with.”
“Go ahead,” Martin said over Teresa’s soft weeping. “Her room is upstairs and down the hall on the right, as you know.”
Relieved to have an escape hatch, Ellery nudged Ashley, and they hurried up the stairs to Chloe’s suite. “Whoa, that was intense,” Ashley whispered to her. “Now I feel kind of bad for running out on Mom and Dad like that. Mom, especially. It’s not her fault he’s a douchecanoe.”
“Not weighing in on that one,” Ellery said as they reached the room. She led Ashley to the large television and gaming devices. “Here it is. Does this make sense to you?”
Ashley pulled over a beanbag chair and put on a headset. “Yeah, I got it.” She turned on the various devices and the screen filled up with options. “Which one of these do you want me to try first?”
“Is there a way to see which one she played last?”
“Hang on a sec. Yeah.” Ashley moved the arrow around through various titles. “It was this one, World of Battlecraft.”
“Do that one.”
“Gotcha.” She took up the controls, hit a button, and the screen changed to reveal a sweeping landscape with high mountains and a purple sky. To the right, a line of thick trees suggested the edge of a forest. Just visible at the base of the nearest mountain was a cluster of houses. A female figure with flowing black hair, chest armor, and a longsword at her side began to run through the field of white flowers toward the houses.
“Is that you?” Ellery asked.
Ashley nodded. “This is Chloe’s avatar.” She ran the figure up to the end of a rocky overhang and then jumped her down onto a somewhat more well-worn path toward the town. The woman on the screen huffed and puffed like an actual runner. She drew up short as a troll-like green figure materialized out of nowhere in front of her. His mouth moved and Ellery heard a voice through Ashley’s headphones. She leaned in closer to hear.
“… going to do a raid on Alavan’s castle. Are you in?”
“Not now,” Ashley said. “I’m looking for Ty. Have you seen him?”
“Not for a couple of days. We’re gathering at Tu’laq Peak if you change your mind.”
“Thanks.” The Chloe figure on the screen continued onward toward the town. “If he’s not logged on, we won’t find him.”
“Can you call him through the game?” Ellery had no idea how this worked.
“No, but if he’s called Ty here, I can check to see if he’s logged on.” She called up a menu that appeared to list Chloe’s contacts. Ellery saw a couple of the troll-like creatures, a muscular young man with brown skin and glowing eyes, a blond woman with a fancy silver collar, some sort of hairy beast with large teeth, a unicorn, a blue guy with long white hair … the list went on and on, and most of them had names like Lothar, Indigo, CreeXanthes, or Pulani. If they were logged on, the avatar was in color and alert, blinking out at the user. If the person was not logged on, the avatar was grayed out and unmoving.
“I don’t see a Ty,” Ellery said as Ashley scrolled on by.
“People don’t name their characters after themselves. See? Chloe is Amara.”
“Chloe!” The shout that came through the headphones knocked Ashley backward for a moment. “Where are you? What happened?”
Ashley exited the screen to find the blue man with white hair standing in front of Chloe’s character. She shrugged silently at Ellery. “What do I say?” she whispered.
“Tell them you’re not Chloe. You’re a friend and you’re looking for Ty.”
“I’m not Chloe. Just using her setup. I’m a friend who’s worried about her.”
“God, man. Me, too.”
“I want to find Ty.”
The blue figure gesticulated wildly. “I’m Ty. What do you want with me?”
“Have you seen Chloe?”
“Naw, man. I ain’t seen her in days. They’re saying on the news she got kidnapped.”
Ashley mouthed at Ellery, What now?
“Ask him when he saw her last.”
“When did you last see Chloe?”
“Last Tuesday at the Y as usual. She was acting normal.”
“Did he know Chloe had a bunch of money?” Ellery whispered.
Ashley relayed the question.
“I knew she had some bread, yeah. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“The cops are interviewing all her friends,” Ashley improvised. “They may want to talk to you, too.”
“What? No way. I don’t need no part of this.”