CHAPTER 58
I paced around the apartment—nowhere else to go, nothing else to do. Two agents from the FBI, both male and both with short hair, one who went by Robert and the other who went by Bob, sat at my kitchen table, playing cards. They’d been here for hours. One of them, Bob, the taller of the two, apparently was a technician of some sort, who would come in handy should the Fiend made contact. Takeout wrappers from D’Angelo’s and McDonald’s—theirs, not mine—filled my wastebasket to the brim. I couldn’t eat.
Once again I was back to the waiting game, which reminded me of the day—two lifetimes ago, it seemed—when Ruby and I sat nervously in Dr. Anna Lee’s medical office, waiting for our names to be called. Not our names, I remembered, but the Uretskys’ names—Elliot and Tanya, our stolen identities.
I had my phone plugged in and charged. I moved my desktop computer out of the bedroom and into the living room. The FBI wanted me to keep my remaining computer, hoping the Fiend would initiate another video chat. I prayed that he would, not so that Bob, the computer savvy FBI agent, could try to track him down—I knew he couldn’t—but so I could see Ruby again.
Ginger moved cautiously about the apartment. She wanted food. She wanted her head scratched. She wanted her belly rubbed. She had become extra needy, her way of expressing knowledge that something was wrong. I sat with her on the futon, consoling her, tapping my foot nervously.
And I waited . . . and waited. . . .
“Do you mind if I make some coffee?” Agent Robert asked.
“No,” I said.
Clegg called. “Just want to tell you we’re still working but got nothing to report,” he said. “How are you holding up?”
“I want to puke,” I said.
“Do it,” he said. “You’ll feel better. I’ll be in touch.”
He hung up before I could answer him.
I turned on the TV, flipped through the channels, and saw every news station reporting the latest breakthrough in the SHS Killer case.
They didn’t use the graphic from the See Evil game, just the logo from Sick World, the game’s producer. People who played the game were asked to call a special tip line splashed across the screen but weren’t given any specifics as to why. I wondered how many people would fess up to being avid gamers of the equivalent of torture porn. Then again, people plunked down a lot of money for films that were just as dark and twisted.
I did a bit of research simply for the want of some distraction. Ruby, that was all I could think about. Where was my wife? What was happening to her? I wanted her back with me like I wanted air. To me, there was no difference.
In my research explorations, I discovered that Sick World made a bunch of these games, but See Evil was by far their most popular. The head of Sick World was a twenty-nine-year-old California native named Peter Rosenheim. He had a Facebook page, set to private; a LinkedIn account, with fifty connections and no picture; and a Twitter feed with about a hundred tweets, all announcements for his games. A Google search didn’t turn up much on Rosenheim, but I figured he was an underground sort of guy, adept at communicating with his user base while keeping in the virtual shadows. We were both small-time game developers, but Rosenheim cultivated very a different sort of following from mine. Still, Elliot Uretsky played my game and his, so there was overlap. The Fiend could be a registered player of my game. In fact, he could be online playing it right now, using my servers and code for his enjoyment while holding my wife hostage.
Who would play these games? Why would they play them? I dug up an article in WebMD about the attraction of torture porn. I wanted to understand the Fiend better—figure out for myself why playing See Evil no longer satisfied his sick fantasies.
The article discussed something called the “horror paradox.” By our very nature, we’re programmed to want to experience only pleasant emotions. As it turns out, when tension and fear get built up and released—the climax when good triumphs over evil—the brain produces lots of those pleasure sensations, hence the paradox. But games like See Evil? Well, I just didn’t see anything pleasant or pleasing about it. Evil wins no matter what.
Maybe the Fiend played the game to cope with his own fears about violence but discovered within himself a hidden bloodlust. Or maybe he believed that he’d actually act out his fantasies, and hoped the game would serve as a release valve for his darkest impulses. Perhaps the game itself ignited a long-simmering sadistic streak—a deep desire for power and control. Whatever the cause, this psychopath had my wife, and I had just over eleven hours to get her back.
A vibration pulled me back to the moment. My phone! It had buzzed. I jumped up, grabbing it with fumbling hands. I took a look at the display screen. The two-word message sent my heart racing again.
Let’s chat.