to me and widened with recognition. “You have the right to remain silent,” Clegg said, removing the ball gag from her crinkled mouth.
Soon as the gag came free, she howled, “You!”
Clegg continued with her Miranda rights.
“You’re cops?” she said.
“I’m a cop,” Clegg said. “He’s my friend. And she,” Clegg said, looking at me while pointing at Lucille, “pulled a gun on us.”
“I don’t follow.”
“We came here looking for Carl,” Clegg explained. “Mom apparently didn’t like us coming around, so she pulled a gun on us. There’s a gun here, right?” he asked Lucille. She didn’t answer, but Clegg didn’t seem to care. “That’s okay,” he said. “I’ll find it.”
“That’s a lie!” Lucille barked. Her mouth looked as snarled as the Fiend’s zombie policeman mask. “You’re both liars.”
“No, I’m a police officer with the BPD,” Clegg said. “And you’re the mother of a level three sex offender who probably knew all about your boy’s weird little BDSM hangout. So nobody is going to believe your story. Not even your lawyer. Say, how much kiddie porn does Carl boy have on these computers? Any idea? Well, we’ll find out soon enough.”
“So we just take her into custody?” I asked.
“That’s what we do,” Clegg said. “And then you and I need to go and have a little powwow about how we’re going to get your wife back.”
I sat alone at a Formica table in a waiting room at police headquarters in downtown Boston, vaguely aware of a CNN news report blaring from a wall-mounted TV. Even though the Medford police had taken Lucille into custody, Clegg still had to process paperwork for the booking, which left me alone with my dark thoughts.
Despair washed over me in great waves. Ruby. My Ruby. Where was Ruby? Carl Swain, meanwhile, had become the prime suspect in the SHS killings, finally. Bringing in Mama Swain added fresh urgency to an already frenetic investigation. Ruby became media fodder, her picture broadcast across every news outlet. Search warrants and APBs were being issued. Carl Swain was considered armed and dangerous and not to be approached.
I fought to hold myself together. I thought about survivalists, the people whose stories inspired my own adventuring—Shackleton; the sailors from the sailing ship Essex; Joe Simpson and Simon Yates, whose nearly fatal climb of Siula Grande was turned into the movie Touching the Void; the Uruguayan rugby team who survived ten weeks in the Argentine Andes. Their stories, their trials and tribulations gave me a shot of strength, a glimmer of hope that I would see and hold Ruby once again. Not knowing what else to do, I got down on my knees in that lonely waiting room and looked past the drop ceiling and fluorescent lights. I envisioned my affirmation. It was how Ruby had taught me to make things happen. Ask of the universe, and the universe shall provide.
I will find you, Ruby.
I will bring you home.
I will set right what I have made wrong.
Clegg entered the waiting room some time later and found me asleep on the same Formica table.
“John, let’s talk,” he said, shaking me alert.
I looked up at him, my eyes raw and red for sure. Clegg offered me an oil slick in a Styrofoam cup, which I declined. He took a long sip, evidently accustomed to the drink, and fixed me with a hard stare.
“We’ve got to face the reality here,” Clegg said.
“How long have I been out?” I asked, my voice scratchy and hoarse.
“A few hours,” he said. “You need it. For Ruby. You need to rest when you can rest.”
“What are we going to do? How do we find her?”
“Our computer forensic guys might not be able to trace the location of the chat.”
“But they’re looking at Swain’s computer?”
“Yeah, they’re looking,” Clegg said. “All the computers, the Uretskys’, too.”
Something Clegg had said triggered a thought—a clouded, still developing thought, but a thought nonetheless.
“Games,” I said.
“What?”
“I found Elliot through my game, but how did he find Elliot?”
“What do you mean?” Clegg asked.
Shaking my head, I tried to dislodge the sleepiness that seemed to block my thinking.
“Elliot is the only male murder victim of the Fiend that we know of. We’ve been trying to figure out why, and I think I’ve come up with something.”
“Go on.”
“We need to find out if the Fiend and Elliot knew each other through my game. I mean, how did he come to know Elliot? Does he play my game, One World, or were they playing a different game? I know it’s a