The Murder That Never Was (Forensic Instincts 5)

His gamer instinct told him that the specificity of giving the level a person’s name was significant. So he took a screenshot just before a cutscene activated.

The scene revealed that the protagonist was a young boy being driven to a house. The boy got out of the car and walked up the steps to the front doors, opening them and walking inside.

As the scene finished, the doors to the formidable house closed behind him. An equally formidable woman, presumably Mrs. Higgins, locked those doors and walked upstairs with the key, threatening severe consequences for misbehaving...and worse for trying to find the key. It seemed the point of this game was to escape the house and avoid punishment.

Ryan rolled his eyes. This was a typical point-and-click survival adventure with no real threat and little challenge. It was like playing with a preschool block set—not worth this adrenaline-junkie’s time. But, hey, Ryan was trying to track down leads about this ScoobyDoo, so he followed the simplistic game along anyway.

Since this character was a young boy, Ryan figured he should move him to the kitchen for a snack. The boy reached into the fridge, grabbed a PB and J sandwich, and swallowed it whole. As soon as he swallowed, a health meter popped up in the top left-hand corner of the screen.

That’s weird, Ryan thought to himself. What’s the purpose of the health meter? Those don’t exist in typical point-and-click adventure games.

His curiosity aroused, Ryan checked out the floor plan, now visible as a tiny thumbnail icon in the upper right-hand corner. There was a tiny green dot to indicate where he was located. Gamer instinct told Ryan he should explore the downstairs before going up. He walked into the living room, right off the kitchen. Excellent, a TV. This could be useful. He switched the TV on, turning up the volume. Suddenly, the map icon started flashing, a moving red dot appeared, and there was the sound of thundering footsteps. Once again, gamer instinct told Ryan that an enemy was headed his way, but he didn’t yet know who or why. Two seconds later, Mrs. Higgins appeared, face red and eyes flashing. A dialog box popped up, saying: Turn off the goddamned TV! It’s too loud. It’s giving me a migraine. You know I hate it when you do bad things like this!

In a split second, before Ryan could even process what was happening, the woman smacked his character across the face with a closed fist. The boy’s health meter dropped to seventy-five percent. The bitchy woman kept screaming, threatening to hit the kid again if he didn’t turn off the TV. So Ryan had him turn off the TV and scramble away, hiding behind a couch.

A cutscene now revealed Mrs. Higgins storming off to the kitchen. Ryan heard the sound of ice in a glass, followed by the distinctive splash of liquor. Then more footsteps leading upstairs, and a slamming door.

As the scene finished, Ryan pieced some things together. For any “bad behavior,” the boy would be attacked by this woman with no means of defending himself except running away or hiding. And her attacks were strong enough to take chunks out of his health. The only way to beat the level was to find the key and escape, but if he got caught, something worse than that attack would happen. The questions for Ryan were: What constituted bad behavior? Where were the hiding places? And where were some clues to help him find the key?

The story continued to unfold, and Ryan soon learned that bad behavior was something totally subjective, hiding places were tough to come by, and clues to find the key were well hidden. At one point, the boy got caught checking the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, and Mrs. Higgins came screaming at him with a bat. Luckily he found a closet to hide in.

This game was way more challenging than Ryan had initially thought. And more twisted. The villain was an alcoholic psycho with a violent temper. And there was no strategic way to appease her. So the boy took a beating.

Plowing expertly through the game, Ryan finally got the boy to find the key in Mrs. Higgins’ wallet, which was no easy feat. The boy tried to make a break for it, but as he got to the top of the staircase, the crazed woman jumped from out of nowhere to block him. At this point she was half woman, half monster, puffed face like Ursula the Sea Witch, except red with anger and drunkenness. A huge vein was popping out of the side of her head, no doubt a manifestation of her “migraines.” It was time for the Boss Battle…

Wailing with rage and insanity, Mrs. Higgins whipped out an empty bottle of vodka and raised it over the boy’s head, preparing for a kill move. Gamer instinct told Ryan to aim for his enemy’s weak spot. He made the boy jump as high as he could while aiming his fist right for that throbbing vein...

Queue a cutscene. Totally stunned, Mrs. Higgins’ head snapped back, causing her to stumble and fall backwards down the staircase. She collapsed at the bottom in an unconscious heap. Camera angle shifted, and it was suddenly clear that she was dead—impaled by the jagged edges of her own liquor bottle.

A fitting end.

Ryan moved the boy forward at a breakneck pace, headed for Level Two. There were ten levels in total. The premise behind each level was the same as the first: there was an evil captor—each with a different persona and a different name: Mrs. Higgins. Mrs. Kaminski. Mrs. Gillman. Mr. Hilltop. Mrs. Korman. Mrs. Bridges. Mr. Todd. Mrs. Flanders. Mrs. Wilkins. Mr. Engels. As with the first level, Ryan took screenshots of all the captors’ names.

Each of these ten captors unleashed punishment on the terrified boy, who grew older, stronger, and smarter with each level. He continued to hide when necessary, looking for clues that would help him escape. The escape plans got more challenging with each level, as did the captors. Each Boss Battle got harder, too, with more shots needed to destroy the captor in various ways.

The House ended with the boy—now a teenager—walking off into the sunshine. Inconclusive but hinting at the positive. Typical gamer melancholy for dramatic effect.

Ryan sat back in his chair and folded his arms behind his head. He had to take a minute to congratulate himself for not losing his gamer edge. He could still complete a complex game faster than any pro.

Okay, enough ego for now. Time to analyze the scenario. ScoobyDoo’s game was very unusual and very specific in the way of details. No doubt he’d had the whole game scripted before he’d started coding. Something made him choose this setup when no other survival games were like it—and whatever that something was, was personal to him.

Ryan was willing to bet that he’d lived this life.

So what had he become as a result—a stronger, more compassionate man or a dangerous monster?

The answer to that would tell Ryan who he was potentially helping to vanish off the grid.

Upper Montclair, New Jersey

Julie and Milo were settled into their new apartment—as settled as vagabonds on high alert ever were.

For the time being, life seemed to be holding its own.

Home from the gym, Julie sat on her bed, cross-legged. She opened her laptop and signed in. In the smaller bedroom, she could hear Milo on his headset, calmly but expertly answering the questions of a Dell customer.

Calling up her Facebook page, she settled herself to read the newsfeed and see what was going on.

She never expected to find a personal message waiting for her. But she did.