Falling Awake

in the game?” Isabel asked.

    “Right.” Dave did not look away from the cobra. “The players give their avatars whatever personality traits or quirks or temperaments they choose. They also select symbols or heralds for their banners and shields. You know, like the knights and nobles did in medieval times.”
    Isabel shuddered. “Talk about a setup that allows people to act out their repressed side.”
    “Yeah,” Dave said. “It’s supposed to be a game of strategy but a lot of the players go overboard. They really get into the life they create online. It’s like an endless Level Five lucid dreamscape.”
    Isabel noticed Ellis’s brows climbing at that comment but he kept silent.
    “I’ve read about that syndrome,” she said to Dave. “Some players don’t play the game just to win, they play it to have a life. Through their avatars they form relationships with other players.”
    Dave swallowed visibly. “Sometimes people get really intense, all right. That’s what happened to Katherine about three months ago.”
    “After Scargill’s death,” Ellis said quietly.
    Dave nodded. “Yes. I tried to tell her that she was getting way too involved but she wouldn’t listen. She had introduced Scargill to the game when they were dating, you see. It was one of the things they did together. I guess playing the game after his death was her way of hanging onto his memory. But one day a couple of weeks before she was killed—” He broke off abruptly.
    “What happened, Dave?” Isabel asked.
    “She suddenly sounded a lot better. More like her old self. Ithought she was coming out of her depression. I figured maybe she was seeing someone new.”
    Ellis’s expression sharpened. “Did you ask her?”
    “Sure.” Dave looked at the photo of the cobra. “She said she wasn’t seeing anyone new but that things were definitely looking up. She said she didn’t want to talk about it on the phone but she promised to tell me everything the next time we got together.” He exhaled slowly. “I never saw her again. Two weeks later she was dead.”
    Isabel touched his shoulder gently. For a moment no one spoke.
    After a while Ellis reached out and took the magazine from Dave’s grasp.
    “Thank you,” he said quietly. “You’ve confirmed some of my own conclusions and you’ve given me some useful information. Now I’ll tell you what I know and what I think I know.”
    Dave’s throat worked but Isabel could see that he had himself under control.
    “I’m listening,” he said.
    “Technically speaking, some of what I’m going to tell you comes under the heading of classified information,” Ellis said quietly. “At least as far as Lawson is concerned. But you already know a lot more than you’re supposed to know about the work that’s done at Frey-Salter so I’m not going to worry about it. In any event, you’ve got a right to be informed about what is going on.”
    “You mean, what you think is going on,” Dave said.

    Ellis’s mouth curved faintly. “Yeah. What I think. Okay, here’s how I see it.”
    He gave Dave a quick, concise summary of events. As far as Isabel could tell, he left nothing out.
    “Everyone except me is satisfied that Scargill is dead,” Ellis concluded. “They think I’m obsessed with a dead man. But my theory is that Scargill is still alive.” He pointed at the cobra. “And you’ve just given me a little bit of proof that supports my version of events.”
    Dave sat down slowly, shaken. “I still don’t understand why you think the magazine proves anything. Katherine probably bought it as a sort of keepsake because it represented something she shared with Scargill.”
    “That may be why she purchased it but I don’t think that’s why I found it where I did on the floor. It was located only a short distance from where she fell, Dave. I believe that she managed to grab it just before she was shot. The impact of the bullet probably caused her to drop it. That’s why there’s no blood on it.”
    “Wouldn’t Scargill have noticed it and recognized his own game avatar?”
    “The magazine was facedown when I found it,” Ellis said softly. “My hunch is that Scargill never saw the cover.”
    Dave studied the magazine as if he were trying to read a half-forgotten language that could be deciphered if he just worked at it. “The police said the place had been vandalized as well as burglarized.”

    “If I’m right, Scargill tore up Katherine’s apartment in order