the realization.
"What did they hit him with?" I asked.
Raley sucked in more air, like he wasn't sure how many details to share. But, his earlier reasoning that it wasn't like he could keep all details out of the press anyway must have won him over, as he finally said, "It looks like he was hit on the back of the head with some sort of gaming console."
I cringed, almost feeling the weight of one at my own noggin.
"Any fingerprints? DNA? Clues?"
Raley shot me a look that said I'd reached the end of his generosity. "Go home, Hartley."
I sighed. "Fine."
"I'd offer you a ride," he said, gaze darting to a couple of CSIs who were threading through the crowd. "But it looks like I'm going to be here awhile."
"No prob. I came with Sam anyway," I said, gesturing behind me. Sam stood a few feet away, licking the last of her churro sugar off her fingers. Chase, however, was conspicuously absent. Not entirely surprising. Somehow he had a knack for disappearing when law enforcement was around.
Raley gave me a nod before going back to the VizaSoft booth, ducking inside to presumably view the body. Not something I envied him doing.
* * *
"Click that link," I told Sam.
"Which one?"
"That one!"
"Shhh!" a woman in a striped cardigan and knee socks told us, aiming a stern look our way.
We were at the Orange Blossom Library on Main Street the next day, sitting in one of their research cubes in the back, reading up on Connor Simon for my article. Or, I should say, my next article.
Getting the inside scoop from Raley had made Chase's eyes light up like Christmas, and while we'd sat outside the shut-down con waiting for the bus, we'd typed up a quick summary and posted it to the Homepage, getting it published just about as quickly as any news outlet. We'd immediately gotten a slew of comments and likes, and by the time Sam and I had gotten off the bus again, Chase had already texted me asking for a follow-up article as the investigation into Connor Simon's death progressed.
As if I'd be privy to more inside info.
Not likely, as Mom had had a near heart attack when I'd come home from the con and she'd found out why it had been shut down early that day. Not that she'd found out from me. I'd strategically waited until I'd seen her minivan leave for a Starbucks run before slipping into the house. But of course Raley had called her and told her all about it. Apparently, he and the SJPD had thought the incident warranted shutting the con down completely. But the con organizers—which included some big tech company backers who stood to lose a good deal of money if it was canceled—had argued to keep it open. A compromise had been reached, the con staying closed Sunday while police processed the scene and being allowed to reopen on Monday and extend an extra day in order to fit in all the events they had pre-planned. Raley had then given Mom just enough details about the crime itself that the SMother was activated in full force. I'd been on lockdown the rest of Saturday, and by Sunday morning she'd only calmed down enough to let me plead a case for meeting Sam at the library to do homework.
Being Sunday, the library was almost empty. It was also deadly quiet, which made the librarian look up in our direction every time we even threatened to whisper to each other.
"Click the link about his childhood," I whispered to Sam as she scrolled through search results.
She did, hitting a line of text that took us to a page with Simon's official bio on the VizaSoft website.
"Dude, he was so cute," Sam said as photos of the young Simon popped up. She scrolled down. "Whoa. And hot," she said, reaching more recent snapshots.
I had to agree, he wasn't altogether unpleasant to look at. He'd been in his early twenties, tall, and had blond hair that was cut long in front to give him a skater look. He wore slim jeans in the picture, with a dark T-shirt and a hoodie over it in a blue that brought out his eyes. I bit my lip. It was kind of eerie and sad at the same time to see a picture of someone so young who was so hot and so not there anymore.
"I wonder if I could get Kyle to start wearing his hair like