Alafair Burke - Long Gone

She found comfort in that knowledge. She’d found a small element of control.

As she approached the gallery, she spotted brown butcher paper lining the previously unobstructed glass. Drew had been quite the busy bee this morning. She let out a frustrated sigh. She was as upset about the protesters’ allegations as anyone, but covering the windows like some seedy peep-show emporium was a little over the top. Knowing-okay, not knowing at all-but based on her assumptions about Hans Schuler, she wondered if this was the artist’s way of generating even more controversy, along with the attendant publicity.

The security gate was unrolled over the glass entrance, but when she bent down to unlock it, she found it unsecured. Drew must have pulled it down behind him. She rolled the gate open and found the front door also unlocked. She pushed it open, ready to find Drew waiting for her at the desk. Instead, the lights were off. The space black.

“Drew?”

He must have stepped out for coffee. If she was going to continue to work here, she’d have to talk to him about leaving the place unattended, even at this early hour.

She made her way through the gallery space, struggling to adjust her vision to the dark, wondering who the genius was who installed the light switches in back. She was relieved when she finally felt the rear wall. She ran her hand along the now-familiar row of switches, but nothing happened.

Damn it. She had no idea where the fuse box was in this place.

She worked her way toward the fire exit, one hand against the wall. Fumbled with the bolt until she felt it release. She was disappointed when only a gray ray of morning light crept through the propped open door.

She knew immediately when she turned to face the interior of the gallery again that something was wrong. It was one of those unexpected realizations. A dawning of awareness at a cellular level. The rhythms of this space had already become ingrained. Even in the dark, her brain was wired to expect certain shaded forms-the low leather banquettes dividing the gallery in half, the glass-topped desk toward the front door, the very objects that she’d been careful to avoid bumping into as she’d worked her way to this place. But she saw nothing but evenness in her field of vision.

“Drew?”

Her voice sounded different in the room. Louder. With a touch of an echo.

Every sense was telling her that something had changed. She fumbled inside her purse for her cell phone and activated the screen for a tiny pocket of light. Did a 180-degree scan of the room. Saw an empty floor where the benches had been. Saw uninterrupted blank space on the wall where Hans Schuler’s First had hung.

Fuck. She had assumed the brown paper on the windows was a cheap publicity stunt-a very public effort to obscure their so-called pornography from public view-but now she realized Drew had been even busier this morning, and even more overreactive, than she’d first assumed. It looked like she wouldn’t be calling the shots about how the end would go down. Obviously the owner was pulling the plug.

She was tempted to walk out the door and leave the entire experiment behind her, but thought Drew owed her an explanation. She assumed, based on the open gate, that he’d be returning.

As she walked toward the front of the gallery, she noticed a shadow on the floor-some sort of pile. She took each step carefully, as if the sounds of her footsteps might disrupt it. Fifteen steps from the pile. Now ten. Five.

Despite her caution, she felt the sole of her boot slide beneath her on the floor. Felt her weight pulling her down backward. She reflexively stuck her hands beneath her, forgetting all those old ski lessons about protecting your wrists in a fall. She heard her cell phone tumble to the floor.

Her body hit the ground, palms first, and then slid against the tile. Wet. Warm. Sticky. Paint?

She pulled herself to her knees and crawled toward the form on the ground. Used a tentative hand to tap what she recognized upon touch as some kind of fabric. A rug? A large canvas?

She patted the form’s edges and jerked upright when she finally identified a texture with certainty. Hair. Coarse human hair.

She scrambled on the slick tile, fumbling for her phone. Found the button at the bottom. Aimed the tiny beam of light toward what she now suspected was a body.

Drew Campbell lay on his side, a magenta pool forming beneath him despite the bundling of his winter coat. Her hands and knees and shins and forearms were soaked in his fresh blood.

She felt her fingertips stick to the glass screen of her phone as she dialed 911.

This page has been blocked. Please try again later or contact your network administrator for assistance.

“God damn it.”

Detective Jason Morhart hit the enter key on his computer once again, this time so hard he thought it might not pop back into place.

This page has been blocked. Please try again later or contact your network administrator for assistance.

“Fuck.”

“Cursing’s for the uncreative. They say ‘Frack!’ on Battlestar Galactica , and everyone still knows what it means.”

Nancy had appeared at his desk about six presses of the return key ago. Her job was to process file requests. In her mind, that plus a few software classes at the community college made her the resident computer expert at the police department. No one had the heart to disabuse her of the notion. He knew for a fact that Nancy could out-cuss a cussing contest at a sailor’s convention, but that wasn’t going to stop her from ribbing him about his temper.

“Cursing’s also for the seriously pissed off, Nancy. And I’ll let you in on another secret while I’m at it: Battlestar Galactica’s for nerds. You’re never gonna land a man quoting a nerd show.”

“Now, for that ? You really do deserve to have your mouth washed out with soap. Let me see that keyboard again.”

She reached across him and typed in the Web address he’d been trying to pull up: Facebook.com. Hit the enter key.

This page has been blocked. Please try again later or contact your network administrator for assistance.

Tony Rollins passed behind her and rolled his eyes, but Morhart just shrugged. Nancy could drive folks crazy, but her heart was in the right place.

“You want me to call Gary?” she asked. “You know all roads eventually lead to Gary.”

Gary Moore was the town’s technology guru.

“No, I’ll call. The fucking town’s blocking all the good Web sites again.”

Two years ago, after it was discovered that eight of the ten most-frequented Web sites on the town network were sex-related, the town had finally started tracking Internet traffic, issuing warnings and threatening to go further for inappropriate usage. Apparently the Big Brother tactics didn’t go far enough, however-at least not for the accountant who racked up nearly thirty hours a week watching online porn from his desk. When the local news broke the story, the higher-ups demanded stronger action.

Now poor Gary Moore had to foresee all of the idiotic ways town employees might squander their time online and block all the fun stuff in advance. Jason knew from experience why he was getting that frustrating message about the Web site being blocked. He’d received the same error alert a few months ago when he was investigating a sex offender who groomed his victims by enticing them to look at pornography with him. Every time Jason tried to pull up one of the sites listed in the suspect’s browser window, there went the alert.

He picked up his phone and dialed Gary Moore’s number. “How can I help you, Detective?”