Roses Manor, Weston Chapter 19
Sure enough, her voicemail was empty in the morning. Of course it was. It would have been too convenient for the woman to call back to cry into a recording. Gabriella still wasn’t feeling great, even after eight hours of mostly uninterrupted sleep, and for a second, she considered using one of her growing stock of sick days to stay home and shake it off. But they were meeting with Charlotte Lau again today and it was likely that she was the only one who’d be able to attend the meeting. So if she called out, either that would get delayed, or James’ delicate tower of assignments for the day would come crashing down.
Was Bradley cleared to drive yet? Maybe he could take the interview and Gabriella could go back to bed. But as tempting as that thought was, no. She had the assignment. So she tossed back a couple of antacids and sipped her tea, looking out the window at the overturned flower pots on her balcony. She’d had almost zero luck with her garden this year, but maybe next year would be better. Maybe she’d keep it simple and just do an herb box outside her window.
And maybe that herb box should be outside a window at work. She’d have better luck remembering to water it there.
After a shower, Gabriella felt a little better. This wasn’t quite like the flu, but that icy feeling in her stomach was similar enough that she again thought about calling out as she got dressed. No, if she swapped out her bagel for a bowl of oatmeal, that would help her get moving.
A bowl of oatmeal, a couple acetaminophen, and forty minutes later, Gabriella was functional as she pulled up outside headquarters. Amelia’s car was still in the driveway and just as she got out of her own car, she heard James call her name.
“Hey, Gabs!”
He was slowly walking down the street with Bradley and they were probably about two houses away. She waved back, the cold air waking her up more as she breathed it in. Maybe she could get through the day after all. She’d be at headquarters overnight and into the day shift tomorrow, so she’d focus on pacing, breaks, and all the other things James pushed on everyone else without doing for himself.
“Hey, so tell me about that phone call,” he said as she walked toward them rather than awkwardly waiting by her car.
She laid out what had happened the night before, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t been at work and shouldn’t already know about it. James frowned at her as she finished.
“So you think this is a video game character?”
It wasn’t skepticism in his voice, not exactly. More like confusion. But Gabriella’s defenses rose slightly, anyway. “Yeah, but not like that,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a video game character come to life. But they’ve been using stock photos, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So maybe this is an actress. Or they got a free recording of a crying woman. She didn’t respond to me, so it could have just been a recording.”
He nodded, still frowning. “But why?”
“I think it’s for the next level of the game.”
“But why is a video game character calling your phone? Did you give them your number?”
“Of course not,” she snapped with a little more force than necessary. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Sorry,” James said quickly. “I don’t mean to imply… I just don’t understand how you go from a video game on the laptop at work to a video game character calling your personal phone in the middle of the night.”
“Maybe they got my number somehow through the game,” she said, letting her outsized irritation go. “If you combine enough information, you can find anyone. So maybe then they got my phone number from something else. I’ll talk to Madelyn later, she may have some ideas.”
James nodded, but didn’t look satisfied. Meanwhile, Bradley mostly seemed focused on staying upright on his crutches as he walked down the icy sidewalk. “You should have let me drive you,” James said as Bradley even more deliberately ignored him.
About five minutes later, they were finally inside. Gabriella’s meeting with Charlotte was in thirty minutes, in a coffee shop in Fitchburg. So James dismissed her from the meeting (something she was grateful for when she noticed some of the pictures for a case starting today) and she went out back to prepare. She opened Sixteen Roses just long enough to see that the message was gone and the game had dropped her into a still screen, with faded out stairs leading up and out of it. After poking around in this new space for a minute, she had to surrender. The light from the monitor was searing into her eyes and making her headache worse. So she shut the laptop, checked the time, and then went back out into the cold.
The coffee shop they were meeting at was a trendy little place near Fitchburg State University. Gabriella got there first and went up to the register to order an herbal tea. Her stomach was still unsettled and her heart was going a little too fast as she got her drink and sat down gratefully on the hard bench of a booth near the door. The music piping through the speakers above her was gentle, but still too loud, and she resisted the urge to put her head down on the table while she waited.
“Sorry I’m late.”
Charlotte’s voice broke Gabriella out of her daze and she looked away from the window as Charlotte unwound her fuzzy pink scarf and set it on the table. “Do you mind if I get my drink? Want anything?”
“I’m all set,” Gabriella said, her voice a little hoarse. “Thanks.”
She turned back to the cars passing by outside. The train station was across the street, towering over the busy road, and she watched a commuter rail train pull away, heading toward Boston. It’d be really nice to be able to take the train to work instead of driving. The buses out here were better than nothing, but she wasn’t going to get anywhere near headquarters without a twenty-minute walk and two hours of bus changes. But maybe someday that would be possible.
She was once again startled out of her transit thoughts as Charlotte sat down on the other side of the booth. Gabriella updated Charlotte on the case, trying to stay focused through her explanation, keeping her hands on her warm tea mug to anchor herself.
“I wanted to ask though,” she said when she was done. “Did Ezekiel mention anything about phone calls?”
“Yeah,” Charlotte said, frowning down at her latte. “He got a couple he thought were connected to the game in the middle of the night. I thought it was because he gave them his phone number when he signed up, but he swore he didn’t. Why? Are…”
She trailed off, then looked up and studied Gabriella’s face intently. “You’re the one playing it,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“You look sick.”
“I’m fine.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me!”
Gabriella drew back, startled. She thought Charlotte would be too, but Charlotte just glared at her. “He looked sick for days and I kept telling him to rest. He wouldn’t listen, he just pushed through.”
“Listen, I swear I’m alright,” Gabriella said. As though that would convince a grieving woman. “We’re understaffed and I’m not getting enough sleep. And it’s cold season, and I forgot my mask. It’s a cold, it’s not the game.”
“I’m canceling the case.”
Fuck. Oh, she’d managed to fuck this up bad. “I-”
“No!” Charlotte interrupted. “I listened to Ezekiel tell me it was fine, and that it was just stress from classes. And then I’m the one who found his fucking body!”
They were drawing attention now, and Charlotte didn’t seem to care. “Okay, fine,” Gabriella said, knowing the desperation was obvious in her voice. “I’ll back off, alright? I’ll talk to my boss and we’ll figure out how to do this without me getting more sick. Just please don’t pull the case.”
“You promise?”
She wouldn’t get away with faking a promise right now, was she? “I promise.”
“Good.”
Charlotte took a sip of her drink. “I mean it,” she said. “This will kill you. It killed him.”
“I know.”
Could she maybe get away with faking a promise? It wasn’t like Charlotte was going to see her around. So maybe she could just finish this up without having to involve James.
“I’m going to check with Professor Becker and make sure you do.”
Shit, Graham wouldn’t keep that a secret. “I understand,” Gabriella said.
After that, there really wasn’t anywhere else for the meeting to go. So Gabriella paid for their drinks and left with another promise to ease up. As she got in the car, she considered whether she could just leave that part out of her writeup of the interview. She’d back off, but James didn’t need the details.
No, if James found out he’d fire her. For her own protection. She knew that so clearly that he might as well have told her himself. So instead, she reluctantly prepared herself for that conversation as she drove back to work.
