CHAPTER THREE
A test? Cami followed behind Fraser as he led the way out of the interrogation room, with Connor stomping along at the back.
This situation was twisting and turning like a rollercoaster ride, and she had no idea what to make of it. What was this test about? Should she ask for a lawyer now?
There wasn’t time to think about this further because Fraser was turning through another doorway.
Cami found herself in an office. This was a world away from the interrogation room. It looked like a more normal place, but definitely one occupied by a senior employee. It was large, and there was a view of the city through the big window. There was a cluttered desk with a big director’s chair on one side, and two smaller seats on the other, and a long filing cabinet with all its doors closed.
On the desk, Cami noticed a photo of a smiling, blond woman and two kids who looked around ten years old. There was another photo of Fraser himself, smiling, with a cute, scruffy black dog on a leash.
So, this guy had a human side, Cami guessed. Could someone who had a cute dog like that be all bad? But then again, he could be a completely different person when he was at work, and she didn’t trust people like that.
Before she could get a better look at the photos, they headed to a boardroom table that had six chairs around it on the opposite side of the room.
“Sit,” Fraser said.
Cami took the chair he’d indicated and sat down. This seat didn’t have a city view. It looked onto a wall with a few framed certificates. Enough to prove to her that this Fraser was a high-powered guy who had a lot of different academic qualifications behind his name.
Fraser walked over to the filing cabinet, and Connor, still looking mad at her, took the seat beside hers.
“I want you to look at this.”
Connor looked startled as Fraser walked back from the cabinet and threw down a manila folder on the table in front of Cami, before sitting opposite her.
She looked down at it, then stared up at him. It seemed like he was daring her to say more, and that if she did, he’d chew her out for it. Cami sensed the best thing to do now would just be to shut up and figure it out for herself.
So, instead of asking anything more, Cami picked up the file and took a look inside.
All she found inside were a few printed pages, but as she read through, she saw that this was what she guessed must be part of a murder case.
Feeling a sense of disbelief that this was actually real, Cami took in the facts.
There were two women who’d been found dead, one in a fancy house and one in a top-end apartment. Both had VR goggles lying nearby and a sophisticated gaming setup in their studies, or offices, or wherever they had been found. There were some details on the IP addresses they’d connected from. Not much else though, and Cami wondered if that was because they couldn’t get much else. There were small images on printed pages left at each scene. Those were interesting. They looked vaguely familiar to her. Both were the same visual type: attractive female avatars in bold, eye-catching colors. She wondered if the victims were similar too.
It chilled her that this was happening, in Boston, perhaps here and now. But why was he showing her this? What was this test about? Cami looked up at him questioningly.
“You have any further information on this?” Fraser asked.
“I don’t know these people. But I guess that’s not what you’re asking?”
“No, it’s not. I want to know—what can you tell me about them? Given what’s here, what can you provide in terms of IT information? We think they were both online, and perhaps gaming, at the time when they were killed.”
“I can probably tell you something,” Cami said. She guessed if they were gaming, they wouldn’t have heard a killer break in. That was how he’d been able to sneak up on them, perhaps. And if he knew who they were in the game, and that their characters were online, he would have known when he could get to them. It seemed to her this must be how it had happened.
“In what time frame can you tell me?” Fraser asked.
She shrugged. “That depends,” she said. She didn’t want to come across as cheeky right now, but geez, they had to understand that she also wasn’t psychic.
“On what? On what does it depend?”
“On how soon I have access to a device. I do need a device,” Cami explained patiently, watching Connor scowl.
Fraser’s lips tightened.
“Get her the phone, please,” he said to Connor.
“Her phone?” Connor sounded incredulous.