He reached behind me and snagged a black molded-plastic box with a snap closure. 'I'm going to wire you. I want to make sure you're safe in there.'
'You're not going in?'
'No one will talk to you if I'm along.'
I raised an eyebrow.
Ranger did the almost grin thing again. 'Sometimes people find me to be a little scary.'
'No! Shocking. You ever think about losing the gun? Or dressing normal?'
He opened the box and removed a matchbook-size recorder. 'I have an image to maintain.'
I was wearing a black tank top and jeans. The jeans were hot, but they covered the bruises and scratches on my legs. Not much I could do to hide the bandage on my arm. My heart did a once over, knowing where the wire was going to get taped. 'I don't think I need a wire,' I said.
Ranger pulled my shirt out of my jeans and slid his hands under the shirt. 'You're not going to ruin this for me, are you? I've been looking forward to this.' He secured the recorder against my breastbone, just below my bra, with two crisscrossed pieces of surgical tape. The wire with the pin-head microphone ran between my breasts. 'Ready to rock 'n' roll,' Ranger said. He spun the Porsche out of the moving and storage lot and into the TriBro lot.
Let's take stock here. I've got my go fast, feet sneakers on and I'm wired for sound. I've got pepper spray and a stun gun in my purse. And I'm cloaked in an invisible invincible protective shield. Okay, so I lied about the shield. Still, four out of five isn't too bad, right?
I crossed the lot and entered the building. I gave a big smile and hello to the receptionist and got waved through to Andrew.
Andrew gave me the hero's welcome. 'Way to go! You found him. The office called about an hour ago.'
'Yeah, but he was dead.'
'Dead or alive makes no difference to me. All right, I know that's heartless, but I didn't really know him. And you saved me a lot of money. I would have been out the bond if it wasn't for you.'
'Unfortunately, your problems aren't over. Singh was involved in a killing game. All game members are dead now with the exception of the game organizer. And I'm pretty sure the game organizer works at TriBro.'
Andrew went perfectly still and the color drained from his face. 'You're kidding, right?'
I shook my head. 'I'm serious.'
'The police have been around talking to us, but no one ever said anything about a killing game.'
I shrugged.
Andrew got up and shut his office door. 'Are you sure about this? This isn't another witch hunt like the one Bart went through? That was a nightmare and nothing ever came of it.'
'Lillian Paressi was a player in a previous killing game.'
'What?' Color was returning to his face, the shock morphing to disbelief and anger. 'That's ridiculous. That's the most insane thing I've ever heard. Why wasn't any of this brought out by the police?'
'They didn't know at the time.'
'But they know now?'
'Yes.'
'Then why aren't they here?' he asked.
I did a palms-up. 'Guess I got here first.'
'When you say you suspect the organizer of this game works at TriBro, does that include me and my brothers in your list of suspects?'
Up to this point I hadn't considered the possibility that Andrew or Clyde might be involved, but what the hell, cast a wide net, right? I took a shallow breath and jumped in with both feet. 'Yeah.'
Even as I was saying this I was thinking to myself that I had a lot of nerve making such an accusation. There was a really good chance that the webmaster was Bart Cone. There was also a chance that the webmaster was someone entirely out of the loop. And there was pretty much no chance that the webmaster was Andrew or Clyde. 'So,' I said, doing some mental knuckle cracking. 'It isn't you, is it?'
He was back in his chair and he was stunned. His mouth was open, his eyes were wide and blank, and a red scald rose up his neck into his cheeks. 'Are you crazy?' he shouted. 'Do I look like a killer?'
I had a vision of Ranger listening to this in the Porsche, laughing his ass off. 'Just asking,' I said. 'No reason to get huffy.'
'Get out. Get out now!'
I jumped out of my chair. 'Okay, but you have my card and you'll give me a call if you want to talk, right?'
'I have your card. Here it is.' He held the card up and tore it into tiny pieces. 'That's what I think of your card.'
I left Andrew and I scurried down the hall to Bart. The door to his office was open so I peeked inside. Bart was at his desk, eating lunch.
'Can we talk?'
'Is it important?'
