In Death 30 - Fantasy in Death

to notify next of kin via ’link. We’ll see what EDD can do for us, then we’ll pay a visit to U-Play.”

    She took a few moments after the notification to let it all settle. She’d just crushed the lives of two people she hadn’t known existed less than an hour before, Eve thought as she sat on the side of Bart Minnock’s bed. They would never really be the same, nothing would ever be as it had been for them.
    Murder did that. Took lives, crushed others, changed still others forever.
    So why had someone needed or wanted to end Bart Minnock’s existence? And why had they chosen the method used?
    Money. Jealousy. Revenge. Secrets. Passion.
    From all appearances, he had money, she thought, and ran a quick, standard financial. Okay, he had money, and U-Play was a strong, young company. Her first instinct was to take CeeCee at her word. No jealous exes. But money often generated jealousy. Revenge might come through a competitor, or an employee who felt shafted or underappreciated. Secrets, everyone had a few. Passion? Gaming had certainly been the victim’s.
    Method . . . Murder during game play. Kind of poetic in a sick way. Decapitation. Sever the head—the brain—and the body falls. Minnock was the brains of U-Play, it seemed from her quick run. Would the body fall without him? Or was someone ready and waiting to slip in and take over?
    Whatever the answers, the method had been bold, purposeful, and complex. God knew there were easier ways to kill. It was very likely the killer was just as serious and devoted to gaming as his victim.

2
     
     
     
    E ve heard McNab before she saw him. if he’d been a teenaged girl instead of a grown man she’d have called the sound he made a squeal.
    “Holy jumping Jesus! This place is iced to the cube!”
    “Settle down, boy. This is a crime scene.”
    She caught Feeney’s reprimand, but she recognized the edge of excitement in his tone. The EDD captain and her former partner wasn’t just a grown man, she thought, but a freaking grandfather.
    Still, maybe e-geeks were always kids under the skin.
    “Somebody should say something. Like a prayer.”
    And they’d brought Callendar. The reverential whisper made Eve shake her head. Maybe she’d expected more from that source as Callendar was female.
    She went to the stairs, looked down at the three of them. She saw Feeney’s grizzled head—the ginger and silver—McNab’s eye-searing orange cargo pants, and the sunburst pattern of Callendar’s shirt.
    “When you’ve finished being awed and gooey, maybe you could mosey on up here. We’ve got a pesky little murder to deal with.”
    Feeney looked up, and Eve saw she’d been right, there was a flush of excitement on his usually mopey face. McNab just grinned, and the little bounce in his step had his shining blond ponytail swaying. Callendar at least had the grace to look slightly sheepish as she hunched her shoulders in a shrug.
    “This place is a cathedral to all that is E and Game,” McNab called up.
    “I’m sure the dead guy up here would be thrilled with your approval. Holo-room, third floor.”
    She headed up herself, then paused a moment when she saw Chief Medical Examiner Morris hadn’t sent one of his team for the on-scene, but had come himself.
    He looked good, but then he always did. His slick black suit missed being funereal by the touches of silver in the cord braided through his long queue and the subtle pattern of his tie. Still, he seemed to wear black more often these days, and she understood it was a subtle symbol of mourning for his lost lover.
    It had been his life Eve had crushed one morning in the spring, his life she knew would never be quite the same because of that loss.
    He must have sensed her for even as he continued to examine the body, he spoke. “This is something you don’t see every day, even when you’re us.”
    “That’s what I said.”
    He looked up then, and his exotic face softened, just a little, with a smile. “But then people often lose their heads over murder. When the data came in, I wanted to see for myself, on-scene.” He nodded toward the head. “From the spatter and pool, it appears that part of him left this part of him in a hurry, went splat—”
    “Is that a medical term?”
    “Of course. Splat and roll. It’s fate’s little jab in the ribs that the face landed up and toward the door. It looks like the poor bastard died before he knew his head took wing, but we’ll take all of him in and see what