Page 30 of 36 Hours
‘He could also have been there to make sure we were taking him seriously,’ Bryant offered as Frost returned to her computer.
‘True,’ Kim said before turning to Stace. ‘Any luck on the next clue?’
‘Still working on it. I mean, what the hell does “cubed chieftain slithers around Bonzo” mean?’
‘Okay, keep at it. Any names that jump out from the Seekers website?’ Kim asked, taking a bite from one of the pastries.
‘I’m not done on the site yet, and there are plenty other sites to check, but if we’re assuming whoever’s doing this is an experienced geocacher, I’ve got a couple of interesting names. First one is Eric Lane, forty-eight years of age, married, two kids and a job as a sales demonstrator of kitchen appliances.’
For some reason, that image went hand in hand with the hobby they were looking at.
‘Go on,’ Kim urged, finishing her pastry.
‘He’s a purist. Absolutely passionate about sticking to the rules of the game. Very vocal in the chat rooms about doing it all correctly, even jumps on the others for bad grammar.’
‘Fun guy,’ Kim observed.
‘The other one is Jared Truss. He’s a twenty-five-year-old YouTuber with a few thousand followers who films himself finding and exploring caches. He does it mainly in the dark and combines it with spooky ghost stories. He sneaks into abandoned buildings and likes to scare his audience.’
‘Sounds marginally more fun. Why the interest in these two?’
‘Cos they’re the top guys. Every trail that gets set is marked by the people that complete it. The scores for these two are the highest. They’re constantly jostling for the top spot and always trying to outdo each other with more elaborate and intricate puzzles.’
‘What lengths would they go to, to be the best?’ Kim wondered. Surely murder was too high a price to pay just to be the top of the leader board.
‘They hate each other passionately,’ Stacey added.
‘How passionately?’ Kim asked.
‘Started out with jabs at each other in the chat rooms. Eric started it as Jared’s style of play became more popular. To get him back, Jared solved Eric’s next trail in record time and posted all the locations and clues online within a couple of hours. Obviously ruined that puzzle. Eric held the record for the longest multi-box trail with twelve linked boxes. A week later, Jared posted a trail with thirteen boxes. Boxes on each of their trails have gone missing, breaking the chain of clues so the puzzle is worthless. No prizes for guessing who the likely saboteurs are.’
‘All very innocent stuff,’ Kim observed.
‘Yes and no,’ Stacey said, tipping her head.
Kim waited.
‘Neither of them is showing any signs of backing down. The animosity is growing, and they both seem to be getting nastier in their efforts to win.’
Kim considered Stacey’s point. Could they be dealing with a case of one-upmanship? Was one of them trying to irrevocably outdo the other one?
‘You got addresses?’
Stacey offered a wide smile. ‘Oh yeah.’
‘Text ’em to Bryant,’ Kim said, pushing herself off the edge of the desk.
Her phone rang as she reached for her jacket.
‘What ya got, Mitch?’ she asked as a greeting.
‘Not much, except to say that this guy has been brutally denailed.’
‘Pain level?’ Kim asked.
‘It hasn’t been a method of torture for centuries for no reason. I could tell you all about the nail bed and the epithelial tissue and the sterile matrix…but ultimately hostages and prisoners who have endured it have described the pain as unimaginable, so I think that gives us a good idea of what this poor soul went through.’
‘What are the chances of these nails coming from a homeless person?’ Kim wanted to be sure Penn wasn’t chasing his tail for nothing.