Read Online Server Down by J.M. Hayes - Free Book Online Page B

occasionally rolling broad shoulders.
    â€œThat stopped him in his tracks,” Mrs. Kraus said.
    A bright pink message appeared at the bottom of their screen. “I guess you can’t sleep any better without me than I can without you. Unless you’re about to log off, I’ll come help you run some quests.”
    The message was from a character named Pamdora.
    â€œThat pink,” Mrs. Kraus said. “That’s a whisper. Supposed to be a way for one character to talk to another without anyone else in the game knowing.”
    â€œYou suppose that’s Pam Epperson?” Pam was a young lady from Benteen County who’d left Kansas to play in a piano bar in Las Vegas, but not before starting an unlikely romance with the sheriff’s brother.
    â€œMakes sense,” Mrs. Kraus said, “since she gave Mad Dog the game and got him started playing it.”
    â€œYou can whisper back, right?”
    Mrs. Kraus nodded.
    â€œJust warn her then, ‘trouble with Fig Zit.’ Maybe she already knows about this guy.”
    Mrs. Kraus sent the reply, but just as she did, Fig Zit spoke again.
    â€œGood morning, Mrs. Kraus,” the creature said. “And Englishman, too, I presume.”
    ***
    Heather peeked out the front window of Ms. Jardine’s living room. The uniformed TPD officer who had followed them back to the house was still out there, parked in the driveway immediately behind Ms. Jardine’s Prius. They might not be prisoners, but the police weren’t planning to let them come and go without knowing about it.
    Deputy Heather had called her dad and reported the circumstances. Live with it and get some sleep, her father said. Tomorrow might get hectic and he was working some angles back in Kansas. He’d keep her posted if anything important happened.
    Ms. Jardine offered Heather a drink. Something to calm her down and help her get that sleep. Heather declined. Her host poured a glass of cabernet sauvignon for herself and curled up on one of her sofas. Heather was a little surprised not to be offered a hit on the bong that sat in front of the fireplace, but apparently it was there for decorative rather than functional reasons. It certainly fit the décor, which Heather decided was best described as delayed flower child. Paisleys and beaded curtains predominated.
    Ms. Jardine lived just east of the university in a trendy neighborhood she laughingly referred to as Barrio Volvo. On the less desirable fringes, actually, where student rentals had become as common as owner-occupied properties. Parking was such a problem near the university, that Ms. Jardine had been forced to provide Heather with a guest permit to put in the front window of her rental car. That vehicle was right out front, not twenty feet from the police car. Getting out of the house wouldn’t be a problem. It had a back door. A gate led to an alley behind. But Heather wasn’t going to find another car in which she could go chasing after her uncle, not at this time of night. The only ones available to her were Jardine’s Prius and her rental Kia. Both under the watchful eye of the officer parked in the driveway.
    â€œYou really should try to get some rest,” Ms. Jardine said.
    Heather wasn’t interested. Not with Mad Dog the object of a citywide manhunt.
    â€œI’ve got to go look for him,” she insisted. Mad Dog was out there somewhere, on his own in a strange city. And a killer was on the loose. Worse yet, Captain Matus seemed convinced Mad Dog and the killer were one and the same. The Captain had seemed angry enough to bring in Mad Dog conveniently dead so all the troublesome problems of proving his guilt wouldn’t be necessary.
    Ms. Jardine listened sympathetically as Heather shared her worries. “I don’t know how you expect to find him,” she said. But, in the end, she agreed to help Heather slip TPD’s surveillance.
    A few minutes later, Heather exited