This is the End 2(67)

“No.”

“Did he offer you credits?”

“No.”

“What did he offer you, Neil?”

Neil studied his lap. “He said he had a way to get you into trouble.”

“Why would you want to get me into trouble?”

“He said you’d go to prison. Then I could have Vicki for myself.”

My anger was tempered with a healthy dose of pity, so I didn’t smack him. Yet.

“Tell me everything he told you.”

Neil talked through the headphone call with the mystery man. He’d fixed it so Neil could get into the apartment using his chip. He made Neil type and memorize everything he needed to say, which Neil had done. He sent Neil the prism ball via UPS, no return address, along with several bugs, and told him to plant them in my house.

“Did you get the impression this man knew you?” I asked. I was looking at Neil’s DT, studying the instructions the mystery man had given him.

“Yes. But not because I knew him. He said he’d been spying on me for a while. Knew how I felt about Vicki. Wanted us to be together.”

“Did he say anything about himself?”

“Nothing.”

“What was his voice like?” I raised an eyebrow. “Did he sound like me?”

“He used a voice scrambler. He called me four times. Each time he sounded different.”

“Do you know what this is, Neil?” I took the prism ball from the pouch on my belt.

“No.”

“You don’t know, but you still hid it in my house?”

“He assured me it was safe.”

“The nameless, faceless stranger assured you it was safe? What if it wasn’t safe? What if it was a bomb?”

“I’m not an idiot, Talon. I scanned it, made sure it wasn’t explosive or poisonous. It’s just a bunch of electronics.”

I raised my fist. Neil cowered.

“Please don’t hurt me. Please.”

I was going to hurt him, all right. He’d lied to me, planted bugs in my house, and endangered my wife. But I wasn’t going to risk breaking my knuckles on his thick head.

I held up my DT, showing Neil it was recording. “You see this, asshole? I’m playing this for Vicki. After she hears it, she’s never going to speak to you again. And that’s the very least of what you deserve.”

Neil started to blubber. I left him to his pain and began to search the apartment. There had to be another prism ball in here, one that made me timecast the parallel earth where Alter-Talon killed Aunt Zelda. I assumed the balls had a limited range, which was why Alter-Talon disappeared near the elevator—it didn’t broadcast that far. That meant the ball had to be close.

There were hundreds of places a small object could hide. I began in the kitchen, going through the cabinets and drawers, opening containers. I also checked the refrigerator. Zelda’s backward head stared back at me, accusatory. Her open eyes had frosted over, becoming a dull white. Even more disconcerting was Zelda’s jaw, hanging wide-open like she was about to eat me.

I snapped on a pair of latex gloves I keep in my utility belt for occasions such as this one, and reluctantly patted her down, feeling ghoulish. I flinched when I felt a lump under her dress, near her middle. I used the Nife to carefully cut away her clothing, and then paused.

The ball wasn’t on her stomach.

It was in her stomach.

I frowned. At least it explained the open jaw. The killer had stuffed the ball into her mouth. I momentarily wondered why that hadn’t been in the timecast transmission, then remembered the transmission was from a completely different murder. I hadn’t seen this Aunt Zelda killed.

Yet.

I stared at the bulge, knowing what needed to be done, not wanting to be the one to do it. Maybe I could have forced Neil to, but his caterwauling was so intense I feared he’d slit his own throat if I gave him the Nife.

Rather than dwell on the task, I went straight to it. A quick stroke of the Nife blade across the bump split the skin. The prism sphere pushed up through the viscera like a giant eye opening, congealed blood and bits of gore sticking to the surface. I plucked the ball out, got hit with the acrid stench of gastric juices bubbling up from the stomach, and quickly slammed the refrigerator door.

Neil had watched the spectacle, and had traded wailing for covering up his mouth with both hands. He’d gotten some color back, but unfortunately for him the color was sickly green.

I studied the sphere, which was identical to the one from my house. It was buzzing softly, the prism oscillating on the surface beneath the cold, gelatinous blood. This one had no press me inscription, but there was a button. I touched it, and the noise ceased.

I set the ball on the counter, stripped off my gloves, and washed my hands in the sink even though I hadn’t gotten any blood on them. I also splashed some water on my face. When I finished, I was energized. It was finally time to see who set me up.