Magic xxxx

"I mean," you rephrase, "how were things between the two of you before the incident?"

Selena clears her throat. "Not great," she says. "We had been drifting apart for some time. I didn't always agree with her choices, or the way she chose to spend her time." She pauses. "Then it happened." She lowers her eyes, as if embarrassed.

"You blamed yourself."

She stares at you, her eyes shiny. "Yes. I felt guilty for a long time. I thought I drove her away. Perhaps if I'd been there, if I'd known more about what she was going through, none of this would have happened."

You nod. "I know how this feels," you say.

Selena keeps staring at you, her lips pressed together.

You glance at your notes, then at her.

"Three days ago, I received this in the mail, from an unknown sender." She beams a scan of the mail with her holo. "It's a voucher for a free book from RareBacks, my favorite website." She pauses. "See?" She points at the book's title. "It's for The Missing Voice by Jean-Paul Sartre."

"So?"

She smiles. "There is no such book."

"So you think this is a message from Lori?"

She nods. "I spoke to the police detective that was in charge of the…." She stumbles on the word. "The case," she pronounces carefully. "But he turned me away, said I was imagining things. Suggested I might be losing my mind."

You know a thing or two about that. "Okay," you say. "Okay."

She places her cigarette on the ashtray. "You think I'm crazy too."

"No," you say. "I've seen a lot in my career so far to believe this is perfectly plausible."

"Okay," she says, her voice almost inaudible

"About a year ago, Lori got interested in Virtual Experience," Selena says.

"She was into Rent-a-Vice?"

Selena gives a short, nervous laugh. "God, she hated that term. She thought it made the whole thing sound simple, you know. Shallow." She takes another drag on her cigarette. "You see, Lori was a social worker. She always looked beneath the surface."

"So her interest in VE was professional?"

"At first, yes. She was assigned some cases; I don't know the details." She pauses. "Then, later, I think it got personal," Selena adds.

You make a note to chase up the cases Lori may have been looking into. "I presume she got involved as a user? Do you know which club she went to?"

"No. But I know it was an underground one. None of the entry-level ones favored by beginners. She used to say they were too vanilla."

"I see."

She rubs her forehead, silent for a minute.
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"All right," you continue. "There is one detail we haven't covered. What do you do for a living?"

"Well, I own a bookshop," Selena says.

That explains how easily she decoded the message. If it is, in fact, from her partner, that is, and not a prank, or a mistake. Or something else entirely.

"A bookshop? I thought they had gone extinct years ago," you say. "I've even watched a holo-doc about it."

She smiles politely. "I get that a lot. But there are a few left, despite what th

It comes to you in a minute. "Sartre, right?" you say. "Lori chose a non-existent book by your favorite author. She knew you would notice."

"That's right," Selena says, then pauses. "That's the kind of person she was. Is." She looks away for a moment, her eyes distant.

You carry on.
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