CHAPTER 18
I told Ruby about Uretsky’s call the moment I heard Dobson descending the stairs. She didn’t break into tears, didn’t seem all that shocked to me, either. If anything, she looked numb, just like me.
“He wants you to rob a liquor store?” Ruby asked.
I nodded.
“Which one?”
“Well, I don’t know,” I said. “He didn’t say. He just hung up.”
“How could he have known that we successfully played the part?” Ruby asked me.
I went from standing in the kitchen area to kneeling on the futon, watching Dobson through the apartment window as he crossed Harvard Avenue. Thankfully, I didn’t have to look down to see him—probably would have sent me into a dizzy spell—but from my futon perch I could follow him as he weaved in and out of the mid-morning crowds. Puffy clouds drifted lazily across an azure sky; it was a perfect June day, the kind that let people know summer lurked just around the corner.
But something else lurked around the corner, too, something waiting just for me, an evil beyond any I could have imagined.
How could he have known?
Ruby’s question haunted my thoughts.
“He must have broken in here and bugged our apartment,” I said, leaving the futon to stand beside Ruby in the center of the living room. “That’s the only explanation I can think of.”
“You mean he’s listening to us? Right now?” she said.
“I’m guessing,” I said. “I don’t know.” I began to pace, trying to walk off a toxic cocktail of agitation, frustration, and fear building inside me.
“I can’t stay here,” Ruby said as a look of disgust came across her face while surveying the apartment. She saw ghosts lurking in every corner, or at least that was what her eyes suggested. He’s been in here. He’s listening to us. He knows our every move. “We’ve got to get out of here, now,” she added.
“We can’t leave,” I said. I sounded emphatic and meant to. “Uretsky told me that we had to stay put. You know the consequences. He’s proved he’ll do what he says.”
“This has gone far enough,” Ruby said. “We’re going to the police, and we’re going now.”
“No!” I shouted, my voice both sharp and angry.
Ruby jumped, and I felt terrible for startling her.
“We can’t do that,” I said more calmly, but still unable to mask my frustration and upset. “He’ll kill again. Don’t you get it? He’ll kill again.” I spoke those last three words through clenched teeth, slowly and forcefully.
He’ll. Kill. Again.
“Well, maybe you can’t or won’t go to the police, but I can.” Ruby stormed off into the kitchen, while at the same instant my cell phone chirped out the first notes of the Beatles song “Help!”
That ringtone told me I just got a customer service complaint. Anytime a player of my One World game sends an e-mail to [email protected], I get a text message containing the sender’s name and the subject line of their message sent to my phone. This way, since I don’t always check my e-mail, I’m alerted to every new support issue as soon as it hits my in-box. “Help!” Get it? Usually, people e-mail customer support when there’s something wrong with the game, something my automated monitoring services might not have picked up. My iPhone buzzes intermittently with these alerts, so typically, I just glance at the sender and answer later, usually in a marathon customer support session. I didn’t imagine I would be doing customer support anytime soon, but habits are like a reflex, so I looked at the phone.
When I saw the sender, I just closed my eyes tightly and willed it to be different. The message came from Elliot Uretsky’s game account. The subject line of his message: Read me.