Free Fantasy in Death by J. D. Robb Page B

was heading to my office to send you a report. You’ll want to see him again.”
    He began to walk with her.
    “Tell me about the burns.”
    “Minor, but found along every wound, even the bruising.” He pushed open the doors of his autopsy room where the body lay on a steel slab, with the head on a smaller tray. He offered them both microgoggles. “You’ll see they occur with increasing severity. The bruising on his skin, left forearm, and here on the ankle? So minor he might not have felt the jolt. But here? On the shoulder, which shows slightly deeper bruising and inflammation—there’d been a good wrench in that area—it’s more pronounced.”
    “The more severe the wound, the more severe the burns?”
    “No, though I initially thought the same. But the shin shows more bruising than the ankle, the forearm, but the burns are very mild. The arm and the neck, the burns are virtually identical. And, we’d have to say the neck is a more serious wound.”
    “So... the jolts—whatever caused the burns—increased along with the game. The longer he played, the bigger the shock when he got tagged.”
    “It seems most likely.”
    “Challenges usually go up in gaming,” Peabody commented. “As you move through a level, or head up to the next.”
    “Okay.” Eve let that one simmer in her brain. “Power boost maybe. Roarke’s got this virtual game. You use actual weapons—guns. If the bad guy makes a hit, you feel a little jolt. So you know you’ve been hit and where. Enough to register, but not to hurt. Somebody changed the rules on Bart. But that doesn’t explain the internal burns. I get how he might have them on the skin, but the gash, the slice, those are inside, too, not just on the outside. Which means the weapon itself had to carry a charge. What’s the point? Isn’t a big, sharp sword enough?”
    “It certainly would’ve been.”
    She stepped over to the head, examined the neck. “And do they match up?”
    “Perfectly.”
    “Maybe the charge added to the thrust. Added power, so the killer didn’t need to be particularly strong. Gave the killer more leverage, speed.” She pulled off the goggles. “Face-to-face?”
    “That’s how it plays,” Morris agreed.
    “It would have to be fast, wouldn’t it? Damn fast. He’s not drugged, he’s not restrained, and he’s facing someone with a big sword. He’d run, try to get the hell away. He’d take it in the back, but I’m damned if he’d just stand there and get his head offed. The killer gives him a taste of it with the arm wound. Wants to see his reaction, wants to shock him. And then, one clean blow.”
    She shook her head. “I’m going back to the scene.”
    DuVaugne came first. She had Peabody check with his office, and as she suspected, he’d left for the day. Corporate execs and cops had neither the same work hours nor pay scale.
    She didn’t begrudge him that part, but it was a pain in the ass to know she had to drive all the way uptown, then down again.
    “You know,” Peabody began and Eve snarled.
    “If you mention any part of anyone’s anatomy I’m shoving you out the window and into oncoming traffic.”
    “I wasn’t going to, but know I’m thinking about it again. What I was going to say was about the sword. Not the euphemistic male sword, but the murder weapon. Last year I went to a con with McNab.”
    “Why would you go to a con?”
    “A game con—convention—in New York at the convention center. A total geek-fest, which is actually a lot more fun than it might sound.”
    “Since it sounds like a nightmare in hell, it wouldn’t have to come up much to be any fun at all.”
    “Well, people dress up like characters from the games, and vids and screen shows. Actors who play the characters come and sign stuff or do demos. They sell all kinds of stuff, even have auctions. High-dollar, too. There are parties and contests and seminars, and a lot of hands-on. You can play just about any game out there if you’re