Poor Bannion. He looks so pathetic standing there, trembling. But he believes. It's there in his eyes. He's completely convinced.
Which means it's time.
You reach under the bed and search for the kitchen knife.
▼
"What are you doing?" Ed said, finding his voice at last.
Kara had reached under the bed, and now she was sitting there with the sheet pulled over her lap. What could she have under the sheet. One of his slippers?
Who the hell cared? He wanted her-him-it out of here!
And it was the only term that seemed to fit. What sort of a creature was Gates that he could take over bodies like this? And Ed was now completely convinced that Gates could do it. How else to explain what it knew? Gates had to have been inside Kelly Wade that night to know what had been said! So bizarre—a demonic nightmare. But Ed knew he was awake.
And he had to get this… thing out of here!
But how? He wished he had a gun. All the times he'd planned to pick one up but put it off. He decided to try the direct approach. And if she wouldn't go, he'd throw her out. He outweighed her by fifty pounds. It might be an unpleasant scene, but he had to get her out!
"You'll have to leave. I don't want you here."
She said nothing. Only stared at him, her hands under the sheet on her lap.
His heart thudding, he stepped toward her.
"Out!"
▼
You debate the situation. Is there a way you can leave Bannion here alive? Certainly he'll talk. He'll go to the State Board and lodge a complaint. He might even go to the papers. He'll be branded a madman, but the damage will be done. The reputation of Dr. Lawrence Gates will be permanently smeared.
That would ruin everything.
Regrettably, there is no other viable option.
There can be no hesitation. Kara is strong and in excellent condition, but she is still a woman and no match for Bannion's extra weight.
"Didn't you hear me?" Bannion says, a tremor of fear in his voice. He takes another step closer. "I said out!"
You grip the knife handle. With a single motion you rise and lunge at Bannion. The man's eyes goggle when he sees the blade. He tries to block it with his hands but the blade slips under them. It drives forward with all of Kara's strength behind it, the sharp point piercing the skin at the lower edge of the sternum, slicing up through the diaphragm and into the heart. You wrench the blade left and right to make sure you pierce the myocardium, then you yank it free.
Bannion's eyes bulge wide, his face blanches with agony and the horror of death as he clutches at his chest and epigastrum. Blood bubbles between his fingers. He makes a gurgling sound in his throat as he drops to his knees, then topples face first with a loud thunk onto the hardwood floor.
You watch Bannion a moment. You've never killed before. It's not pleasant to watch someone die. Why do some personality types find this rewarding? Most unpleasant. But most necessary in this case, unfortunately.
You hurry to the bathroom. There's blood splattered on your hands and your breasts. You wash it away— there are definite advantages, it seems, to committing murder in the nude. You scrub the knife as well and return it to its teak block.
You take one last look at Bannion. Miraculously, he's still alive, but just barely. Blood pools under him, crimson foam bubbles at his lips.
Such a waste. But at least your secrets are safe.
You return to the living room where you slip back into Kara's sweater and slacks and hurry from the apartment. As you close the door behind you, the phone begins to ring.
Sorry. No one lives here anymore.
It's too late to do anything else tonight. You'll have to go straight back to Kara's apartment. The Friday night revelers will still be out in droves. A cab should be easy to find. Especially in Kara's body.
▼
Rob sat in Kelly's apartment and slammed the phone back onto its cradle. He was having no luck so far with the list of Bannions. He'd called every single one. Yet with the number of no-answers he'd had, he couldn't be sure if he'd already hit the right one.
He tried being analytical.
Wouldn't Ed have given Kara his home phone number?
Rob searched the apartment and found the papers that Ed had left with Kara on Thursday. His card was there, with his home phone number and address written on it. West 70th. It figured.
He called the number and let it ring for a long time. He was about to hang up when the ringing was broken by a clatter, as if the receiver had fallen on the floor.
Then a voice like death came over the wire.
▼
The ringing of the phone drew Ed from the wonderful lethargy that enveloped him. He was cold, colder than he had ever been in his life, but it didn't seem to matter. He was in that floating, dreamy state before sleep when consciousness is still hanging on but everything is fluid, everything is peaceful, everything and anything is possible.
He felt wet. His chest and abdomen were soaked. Probably with blood. Somewhere in his brain a voice— probably the same unheeded voice as before—screamed that he was dying. But that wasn't true. Couldn't be. He'd been stabbed, yes, but there was no pain now. Only cold. And you couldn't die of cold. Not in a heated Coronado apartment. Not with what he laid out a month in mortgage payments.
His outflung arm was only inches from the phone wire where it jacked into the wall. He stretched and reached it. He tugged on the wire and the phone dropped to the floor with a bang that sent Shockwaves vibrating through his skull.
The trimline receiver tumbled to a rest near his head. Ed tried to reach the receiver, to bring it closer to his lips, but his arms wouldn't respond. He tried to shout but the words gurgled in his throat, emerging as a barely intelligible croak.
A tinny voice rattled out of it.
"Hello? Hello? Is this Ed Bannion? From Paramount? Hello? This is the police calling."
Ed didn't recognize the voice. He tried again to make his voice work.
"Help… dying…"
Why had he said that? He wasn't dying. Just tired. And very cold.
"What? What did you say? Did you say you're dying? Hello?"
It sounded a little like Kara's detective friend, Harris. Ed tried to speak again, to reassure Detective Harris that he was all right, but no words came. He was so tired. Too tired to talk. Maybe later.
Who is this? Hello, damn it!"
Finally the voice clicked off, replaced by silence. Blessed silence. Now he could get some sleep. So tired. And so cold. If only he could get warm, everything would be perfect…
… perfect…
He roused himself. What if that panicky voice in his head was right? What if he went to sleep and didn't wake up? He had to warn them about Dr. Gates, about what he was doing to Kara, and to others. But how? Even if he could manage to dial the phone, he couldn't talk. He could just barely move his finger.
Move his finger…
▼
Rob didn't know who the hell that had been on the phone, but it was somebody in extremis. He called Doyle and told him to get a radio car over to the address, then headed for his own car.
He hadn't been able to tell if the voice was male or female, but its owner was surely dying. He prayed it wasn't Kara.