Serafina and the Virtual Man - By Marie Treanor Page 0,26
of the other woman penetrated her brain. Roxy May. She knew that name. A singer, pretty good, sang a unique mixture of rock and folk that had a large cult following across Europe and America. Jilly had some of her stuff on her personal stereo.
Sera, who’d obviously caught on before Jilly did, said, “Love your new album.”
“Thanks, I was pleased how it turned out.” Roxy May’s voice was low and throaty, almost the way she sang. She took off her sunglasses and offered her free hand to Sera. “Nice to meet you.”
Jilly gazed at the newly unshaded face as memory fought its way up. A portrait on Adam’s drawing room wall. This girl. Roxy May, with a guitar in her lap and a log fire behind her.
Jilly managed to close her mouth before the singer’s gaze and friendly hand came to her. Roxy May had soft skin and rough, careless nails, an odd failing that somehow made her more appealing, more human. And yet some strange, unrecognisable feeling struggled up from Jilly’s stomach. It might have been excitement.
Roxy dropped Jilly’s hand and turned back to Petra. “Thanks for the watch. I still can’t believe he’s gone.” She gave Petra a quick, spontaneous hug from which she broke away to exchange cheek kisses with Dale, and then with a husky, “Good-bye,” she strode out of the house.
Dale closed the glass door behind her, and Petra heaved a sigh.
“She seemed upset,” Jilly observed.
Petra, who still looked surprised whenever Jilly opened her mouth, glanced at her wide-eyed. “Oh yes. Well, she would be. It’s the first time we’ve seen her since Adam died. I met her for lunch, and she wanted a keepsake, so she came back with me to collect the watch.”
“She was a good friend of his?” Sera asked casually.
Petra shrugged. “They had a thing.”
A thing? What the fuck was a thing?
“She’s Adam’s ex-girlfriend,” Dale said dryly. “They kept it out of the press, but they went out for years, off and on, before she dumped him.”
Petra snorted, though what that signified, Jilly was at a loss to guess. It crossed her mind that Petra was jealous. What had Dale’s wife thought of his brilliant friend and partner? That odd feeling in the pit of Jilly’s stomach tightened, forcing her to wonder, appalled, if it wasn’t she who was jealous.
Of a dead man’s relationship with a rock singer? Or his partner’s wife? Come on, Jilly, get a grip!
“Why did she dump him?” Jilly asked.
Dale shrugged. “The drugs, I suppose.”
“Then she wasn’t responsible for getting him into that scene?”
“She might have dabbled. I don’t know. She certainly has friends who’re more deeply involved, and Adam will have known them. But Roxy was in America while most of the shit happened. She’s only just got home. Why? What’s all this got to do with our…problem?”
Sera said bluntly, “We think your poltergeist might be Genesis Adam.”
It didn’t quite have the effect Jilly was expecting. Dale glanced over at his wife, who stared back at him.
He sighed. “Sit down.” He led them over to the sofas, speaking as he walked. “We had another visit from the…problem last night. It…it contacted me on the computer.”
Jilly’s breath caught.
Sera asked calmly, “What makes you say that? What happened?”
“I’d been talking online to one of our major distributors in the US. And his name just suddenly popped up in chat. And then everything started up as usual, throwing things around the room just like—”
“What did he call himself?” Jilly interrupted. “When he contacted you on chat?”
Dale blinked. “What he always did: Exodus.”
Jilly swallowed and sat down with her laptop bag dangling from her right shoulder.
“What did he say to you?” Sera asked.
Dale’s lips quirked to one side. For the first time, Jilly caught a faint air of regret from him, the first sign that he missed his old friend and partner. “He said, ‘Fancy a pint.’”
Poltergeists didn’t hold discussions, not with words, at any rate.
“You’ve been hacked,” Sera said.
So have I. Somehow…
“By someone pretending to be Adam,” Sera continued.
Or by Adam himself.
“Who?” Dale shot back. “Who else would know that’s what he always said when he wanted to discuss something with me?”
“Someone who’s been hacking you for a long time,” Jilly said. “Any leaks about your new system?”
“Absolutely none. Security is—” He broke off, staring at her. “How do you know about the new system?”
“I guessed,” Jilly said breezily. “A company like yours doesn’t stand still even when its founding genius is gone. Besides, your big launch in March