She removed a wrapped present from her purse, then tossed it to Susannah. “I believe this belongs to you, Ms. Winston."
Well that answered my question.
Susannah, to her credit, caught it mid-air. Most people aren't terribly agile with guns to their heads. She hesitated, then ripped the paper off. A stiletto.
I'm guessing it was the same one she'd used on Brad-although I can't fathom how they could have fished it out of the creek without me knowing. Maybe it was just the same make and model? I couldn't help but be impressed. Brad had this planned down the last sticking detail.
“Now use it,” Brad said.
“What?” Susannah asked.
Brad raised his pistol and pulled back the hammer. “You heard me. Use the knife on your boyfriend. I'm thinking fourteen or fifteen stabs ought to do the trick. That is, if you pick non-vital parts first."
“You're insane,” she said.
“C'mon, Lana-I fished it out of the creek for you and everything!"
Ray Loogan, for his part, didn't look like he was enjoying this part of the discussion. He started to panic and tried to crawl up the back of the couch, even if it meant pulling skewers through his skin. I almost felt bad for him. I couldn't help it. All this time I'd thought of him as this suave, genius killer who managed to elude me for the better part of a year. But now, all I saw was a kid who'd been overly trusting of the women in his life, and now he was scared out of his mind. He was going to die.
“Do it,” Brad said. He thrust the gun in her face.
“Sorry, Ray."
Ray started to cry. Susannah lifted the stiletto into the air and paused, as if trying to delay the inevitable. Then she struck down-hard. The blade slid into one of Ray's thighs. He howled. Susannah jerked it out, aimed, and plunged it again, inches higher. And again. Each stroke was more frenzied than the last. I couldn't see everything, because Alison partially blocked my view. But it was enough. And I could hear everything-every grunt, cry and thud.
Soon enough, Ray stopped crying. Susannah was covered in droplets of her ex-boyfriend's blood. She had the strangest expression on her face-part rage, part fear, part confusion.
“Good show, Susannah,” Brad said. “Wouldn't you say, sweetheart?"
Alison didn't say anything. She took a step back. Her heel dug into my outstretched hand. I shrieked, but it came out as a series of gurgles.
By way of pure reflex, Brad spun around and shot me in the shoulder.
“Owww shit,” I said, and rolled over. To be perfectly honest, my hand hurt a lot more than the bullet wound. I managed to spit out the words, “It's Del." As if it would matter to Brad.
“Christ,” he said. “Don't you know when to play dead?"
I would have shot a pithy remark back at him, but I was too busy trying to line my eyes up with Ray Loogan's. He was a dead man, of course. But luckily for me, he'd chosen to expire with his eyelids rolled up in his head.
“Looks like I'll have to teach you.” Brad took careful aim at my head and squeezed the trigger.
Or should I say, took careful aim at my ex-head. Because as the bullet was flying through the air, my soul was flinging across the space of the room, right into Ray's body. I was getting better and better at this. I jerked up my head in time to see Leah Farrell's head do a J.F.K.
And I'll be damned if Ray's body didn't hurt a hundred time's worse than Leah's abused corpse. I didn't know where to register pain first. I turned my new head to the left, experimentally, and saw Susannah staring at me in mute horror.
“Hi sweetie,” I said.
That broke her stunned silence. She screamed and slid down to the floor, and started to crawl backwards until she bumped into Alison.
Brad, once again, spun around to face me. “You…!"
I realized I had to do some fast talking. I was running out of bodies. And at the rate at which Brad was blowing their heads off…
“Hold it, tough guy,” I said. “I have something important to say. To Agent Fieldman."
“I doubt it,” Fieldman said, from within Alison's robot body.
“This exercise in revenge isn't going to solve anything. You're treating the symptom, not the disease. This is an entirely wasted effort.” It must have seemed too funny to watch a dead guy wax philosophical about the uses of revenge.
“Ah,” Fieldman said. “This is where I'm supposed to have an epiphany about violence begetting violence? Spare me the philosophy, Collective. This store isn't buying. The ‘exercise’ you see before you is going to solve everything. I've been trying to explain this to your tiny mind, but will you listen? No. This is much, much bigger than you or I, or anybody in this world."
“Okay, Buddha. Maybe everything you're saying is true. If it is, fine. You want some kind of higher justice served? Bully for you. But it still doesn't address my earlier point: What are we going to do about the killer?"
“We have the killer. Killers, to be precise."
“No, not this pathetic errand boy, or the dizzy wench. I mean the real killer.” I looked at Brad. The face of the killer, accusing the victim.
“What?” he asked.
“You don't see it, do you Brad? You killed your wife, and yourself!"
“Shut up,” he said.
“It was you. You hired these two pathetic people to do it."
“I did not!"
“Perhaps not the personality known as Brad Larsen,” I said. “But the name on the dotted line was John Paul Bafoures. And you were, in fact, John Paul Bafoures."
I could see a dim bulb lighting in Brad's mind. “No…” he said weakly, but he was finally getting it.
Alison's face wrinkled up in confusion. “What are you saying… he hired them?"
“Sorry, Fieldman. I suppose you would have had no way of knowing, looking at the situation from the outside. But Brad and Paul are one and the same. A split personality-do they still use that term in your dimension? Brad wanted out of his professional rackets, and decided to bury the murderous side of him. Only problem, the murderous side resented it. So he decided to cash in everybody's chips, all at once."
“You…” Fieldman said. It sure looked weird coming out of Alison's mouth. “All this… for nothing!"
I saw the fire die in Alison's eyes, and something invisible pound in Brad's body, flinging him back against the wall. Alison took two wobbly steps backwards, found her back against the wall, then slid down. She started to cry. At last, the real Alison Larsen, the woman I knew as Amy Langtree, finally regained control of her artificial body. Had she been watching the whole time? I had no way of knowing. She simply lowered her head into her folded arms and sobbed.
Brad, on the other hand, was on the floor convulsing. Clearly, the Ghost of Fieldman had jumped in there, and there was some kind of battle royale going on in that skull. I probably shouldn't have waited this long to play my trump card, but hell, hindsight is 20/20. And to be honest, I had no idea Fieldman would be this upset. To think that would have meant believing his crazy stories and schemes. And now-after seeing how this damned thing was turning out-maybe I was. Maybe this case was bigger than all of us.
Finally, a victor emerged. Brad stopped shaking. He rolled over on his side, then scrambled to his feet. He paused to straighten out his police uniform and looked at me. “I owe you an apology, Collective,” he said, smirking. “Brad Larsen is under arrest."
I was about to accept Fieldman's apology when I saw Susannah pick the cop's revolver from the floor and shove it in his face.
“Cool your tool, fool,” she said.
As if on cue, a siren screamed outside.