'Bart's smarter than that. He's not going to leave anything incriminating on his computer. Even if he did, I'm not that good at computers to be able to find it. And I'm sure the building has an alarm system.'
The idea was tempting, though. Just not practical. And it was out of my league. It was a Ranger escapade.
'Okay, then how about the guy who just called you? The goofy Cone brother that doesn't do anything and wants to be a junior G-man. He's always wanting to take you out, right? I bet you could get him to let you in. I bet he doesn't even like his brother.'
'No. I'll never get rid of him. It would be like feeding a stray cat. Once you give it a bowl of food you're stuck with the cat for life. I don't even talk to Clyde Cone.'
'Too bad,' Lula said, 'because I bet he'd let you in and you could go snooping through ol' Bart's files and drawers and everything. You couldn't get into his email, but you could take a look at the desktop on his computer.'
Truth is, I didn't want to go into the building. Not even with Cal and Junior doing backup. There was something bad in the building. The monster was there. He was waiting for me.
I got a call from Morelli wondering where I was. I didn't know what to say. I was sitting in an empty parking lot. Waiting for the mystery to be resolved. 'I'll be home soon,' I told him. 'Don't worry.'
The don't worry message was insincere. I was worried. I was really, really worried.
'Steph,' Lula finally said. 'Maybe we should go home.'
She was right, of course. So I cranked my yellow Escape over and drove out of the lot. I dropped Lula off at her car at the office and then I went home to Morelli.
I made peanut butter and olive sandwiches for supper and we ate in silence in front of the television. Probably we should have talked about the motel thing, but neither of us knew how to begin. Maybe it wasn't important anyway. We seemed to still like each other.
At nine o'clock Morelli was glued to the television and I was still fighting the fear or dread or whatever the hell it was that had its grip on me. I went to the kitchen and got a beer and took it out to the back porch. The air was soft and smelled nice, like fresh dirt and new grass. Joe didn't do much with his backyard, but his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Lukach, had flower beds and a dogwood tree. Joe and I had gardening skills that were almost as good as our housekeeping and cooking skills.
I finished my beer and stood. I turned toward the house and I felt a familiar piercing pain in my back. In my mind I called for Morelli, but either he didn't hear over the drone of the television or else it was only a mental plea for help, because the blackness came and there was no Morelli.
***
EVEN BEFORE I opened my eyes I knew I was in trouble. Fear filled every part of me. The fear was a hard knot in my chest. The fear clogged my throat. The fear slid in a greasy wave through my stomach. I forced my eyes open and I looked around. I was on the floor, in the dark. I didn't seem to be hurt. I wasn't restrained. I moved my leg and realized I had a chain padlocked around my ankle. There were jingle bells attached to the chain. The potential significance of the ankle chain took my breath away.
I had a dull throbbing ache behind my eyes. It was from the drug, I thought. Like last time, when I was shot with a dart in the parking lot.
The only source of light was a single candle burning on a desk to my right. The light was dim, but I knew where I was. I was at TriBro. I was in Clyde's office. I could make out the action figures in the bookcase to my left.
I pushed myself up so I was sitting and realized someone was slouched in a chair, lost in shadow, watching me from across the room. The shadowed figure leaned forward into the candlelight and I saw that it was Clyde.
'You're awake,' he said. 'And you look scared. Sometimes when I get scared I get sexually excited. Do you get excited when you get scared? Are you hot?'
The words sent a new rush of cold fear into my chest. I looked into Clyde's eyes and I saw the monster emerging.
'Get up,' Clyde said. 'Go around the desk and open the drawer. I have a surprise for you.'
I steadied myself on the desk and got to my feet, swallowing back nausea from the drug. I inched around the desk, carefully opened the drawer, and looked down at another lock of my hair, tied with the slim pink ribbon.
I looked up and my eyes met Clyde's. 'Now you know,' Clyde said. 'You're surprised, right? I bet you never thought it was me.'
Everything fell into place. Web Master wasn't a computer term as we'd all assumed. It was a Spider-Man reference. Days ago, I asked Clyde what he wanted to do, and he said he wanted to be Spider-Man. Spider-Man was known as the webslinger and Clyde's game name was the Web Master.
'Spider-Man didn't kill innocent people,' I said. 'Spider-Man was a good guy.'
'I'm not the webslinger,' Clyde said. 'I'm the Web Master. There's a difference. And I don't kill innocent people. I run a game so people can kill each other. How cool is that?'
'What about the prey? Aren't they innocent?'
'I pick the prey out real careful. And they're never innocent. The cop killed a guy in the line of duty. And so have you. As soon as I saw you at the plant that day I knew you had to be the next prize. Bart tried to warn you away, but you wouldn't listen. It wouldn't have mattered. I had my mind made up right away.'
'Bart knows about the game?'
Clyde was smiling, rocking back on his heels, enjoying his moment. 'Bart's confused. I got careless with the game two years ago and Bart got to read an email. Paressi and Fisher Cat were left in the game and I was giving them the kill clue. Bart didn't know it was a game. He thought I was involved with Paressi and he went to the kill spot to stop me from a crime of passion. Problem was, he got there too late. Paressi was dead and Fisher Cat was gone.'
'And Bart was accused of the crime.'
