Page 44 of The Proving Ground

“It would be off the books. Nothing illegal but off the books.”

“Tell me all about it.”

And so I did.

19

THE HOUSE WASdark when I got home. Maggie had taken to staying at the office late to help keep her mind off her losses. I texted to see if she wanted me to DoorDash anything for dinner or maybe go over to Pace in the canyon for Italian. I preferred the latter but wasn’t sure what kind of mood she would be in or if she’d even be interested in eating. She was well into the five stages of grief. Lately she seemed balanced on the line between depression and acceptance. She would fixate on things she had lost: her high-school yearbooks, a tile mosaic we bought in Rome because it depicted a girl eating ice cream who looked remarkably like our daughter. I woke up in the middle of the night sometimes to find her looking at photos on her phone, some her own, taken at the house in Altadena, some from news feeds showing shots from the days of the fire. Other days she talked about the opportunity to build a home to her specifications, even though we both knew that it would be years before she would be able to walk through a new front door. I never stopped reminding her that she had a home right here with me, but this didn’t seem to lift thecloud, and that left me unsure of our future together. It was too fragile a thing to openly discuss.

I went to the back room of the house, where I had a desk. Cassie Snow and her case kept invading my thoughts, threatening my focus on the case at hand. I opened my laptop, went online, and pluggedASMRinto the search engine.

It opened a whole new world to me. ASMR—autonomous sensory meridian response—was the descriptor of a physiological sensation triggered by audio, visual, or touch stimuli. It was described as a tingling sense of euphoria that runs along the scalp and down the neck and spine to the limbs. Certain voices could trigger it. Certain sounds, like the popping of static in a blanket and the strokes of a paintbrush on canvas. One article I read attributed the popularity of YouTube videos of the long-dead artist Bob Ross to the ASMR values of his voice and the sound of his brushstrokes.

Not everyone experienced ASMR, but many who did sought it out like a drug. It was said by some to be therapeutic and a cure for insomnia and panic. There were over ten million videos available online from ASMRtists like Cassandra Snow, videos of people whispering into microphones, tapping on hollow objects, tearing and creasing paper. Apparently there was an ASMR fix for just about any need. But according to the medical sites I checked, there had not been any large-scale clinical studies demonstrating ASMR’s effect on brain activity and mental health. The bottom line was that those who responded to it craved it. Those who didn’t tended to be suspicious of it.

I thought about Cassie’s voice pattern and her long and pointed fingernails. I remembered that she said she had her own channel. I jumped over to YouTube and searched for her by name but nothing came up under Cassie or Cassandra Snow. I guessed that she probably had a professional name that safeguarded her privacy. I assumed that ASMRtists might draw stalkers who wanted more than a video feed.

My research into this world I had known nothing about gave me an idea. I thought about the addictive quality of ASMR and called McEvoy. It sounded like he was in a bar. I heard multiple conversations in the background and glassware clinking.

“Where are you?”

“My local. Mistral in Sherman Oaks.”

“Alone?”

“At the moment. What’s up?”

“Remember, we’re not in the cage. In the material you’ve been looking through, have you seen anything about the voice?”

“The voice? What do you mean?”

“Clair’s voice. Wren’s voice. Where did it come from?”

“Um, I saw some reports. They tested various voices, yeah.”

“You know what ASMR is?”

“Uh, not sure.”

“It’s a positive physiological response to stimuli, including voices.”

“I don’t remember reading about anything like that in the reports. But I wasn’t looking for it specifically. There’s so much to get through. I also got sidetracked a bit with the material we got from Challenger. Is it important?”

“Maybe not. But do a deeper dive on it when you can. Let me know if anything comes up.”

“ASMR—will do.”

“Have a good night.”

I disconnected. Just the short conversation reminded me of my barstool days. I didn’t miss them.

I heard the distinctive rumble of a Harley from out on the street. When the engine cut off after a double rev, I knew that Cisco had come to visit. I walked back through the house and opened the front door before he got to it.

“I thought you were going to stop revving the engine beforecutting it off,” I said. “My neighbors are going to give me holy hell for that.”

“Sorry,” Cisco said. “Force of habit. I forgot.”

“Yeah, tell it to Hank, the old guy who lives next door. You want a beer? I only have alcohol-free Guinness.”