Slater giggled. His face twitched.
“Drop the gun,” Kevin said. He had to know what Slater meant. He wanted to shoot the man. He wanted to send a piece of lead through his forehead, but he wanted to know what Slater was saying.
“Drop the gun.”
Slater reached for the doorknob, twisted it, pushed the door open. Balinda sat on the floor, hands bound behind her back, foot against the door. Slater calmly pointed his pistol at her white, stricken face.
“Sorry, Kevin,” Slater said. “Toss me the peashooter, or I shoot Mommy.”
What? Kevin felt his face flush with heat. He could still shoot and Slater would be dead before he could kill Balinda.
“Drop it!” Slater said. “I’ve got this trigger milled down to a hair. You shoot me and my finger twitches and she’s dead.”
Balinda started to cry. “Kevin . . . honey . . .”
“Now! Now, now, now!”
Kevin lowered the gun slowly.
“I know how fond you are of it, but when I say drop, I really do mean drop. Now!”
Kevin dropped the gun and stepped back, panicked.
Slater slammed the door shut on Balinda, stepped forward, and scooped up the gun. “Good boy. Mommy will be proud of you.” He shoved Kevin’s gun into his own belt, walked toward the door to the stairwell, and shut it.
“There.”
Balinda’s feet thumped the door again. “Kevin? Pleeeease . . .”
“Ahhhhh!” Slater screamed and ran at the door. He kicked it hard enough to put a dent in the steel. “Shut up! One more peep and I’ll staple your mouth shut!”
Slater stood back, panting. Balinda quieted.
“Don’t you hate these women who don’t know how to keep their yappers shut?” Slater turned around. “Now, where were we?”
A strange resolve settled over Kevin. He was going to die down here after all. He really had nothing to lose. The twisted boy had grown up into a pathetic monster. Slater would kill both him and Balinda without a fleeting thought of remorse.
“You’re sick,” Kevin said.
“Now there’s a novel thought. Actually, you’re the sick one. That’s what they suspect now and, believe me, by the time I’m done here, they won’t have any reason to think differently.” “You’re wrong. You’ve already proved your insanity. You’ve torn this city to shreds and now you’ve kidnapped an innocent—”
“Innocent? Hardly, but that’s not the point. The point is, youkidnapped her.” Slater grinned wide.
“You’re not making sense.”
“Of course not. I’m not making any sense to you because you’re not thinking. You and I both know that I did all those nasty things. That Slater called Kevin, and Slater blew up the bus, and Slater is holding the old witch in a cement box. Problem is, they think that Kevin is Slater. And if they don’t yet, they will soon enough. Kevin is Slater because Kevin is crazy.” Grin. “That’s the plan, puke.” Kevin stared, mind numb. “That’s . . . that’s not possible.”
“Actually, it is. Which is why it’ll work. You don’t think I’d go for something implausible, do you?”
“How could I be you?”
“Multiple Personality Disorder. MPD. You’re me without even knowing that you are me.”
Kevin shook his head. “You’re actually stupid enough to think that Jennifer—”
“Sam believes it.” Slater walked over to the desk and touched a black box that looked like an answering machine. He’d lowered the pistol to his side, and Kevin wondered if he could rush him before he had a chance to lift it and shoot.
“She found the cell phone I used in your pocket—that alone’s enough for most juries. But they’ll find more. The recordings, for instance. They’ll show that my voice is really your voice, manipulated to sound like a terrible killer named Slater.” Slater feigned horror and shivered. “Oooo . . . chilling, don’t you think?”
“There are a thousand holes! You’ll never get away with it.”
“There are no holes!” Slater snapped. Then he grinned again. “And I already amgetting away with it.”
He picked up a picture. It was a photograph of Sam, taken at a distance with a telephoto lens. “She’s really quite beautiful,” he said, lost in the image for a moment. He reached up and ripped down a large black sheet that hung on the wall. Behind it, fifty or sixty pictures had been affixed to the concrete.
They were all of Samantha.
Kevin blinked and took a step forward. Slater’s gun came up. “Stay back.”
Pictures of Sam on the street, New York, Sacramento, through a window, in her bedroom . . . Heat spread down Kevin’s neck.
“What are you doing?”
“I wanted to kill her once.” Slater slowly faced Kevin, eyes sagging. “But you know that. You wanted her, so you tried to kill me instead.”
Slater’s lips began to quiver and his breathing came in short quick drags. “Well, now I amgoing to kill her. And I’m going to show the world who you really are, because you’re no better than I am. You’re the pretty boy down the street she loves to play with. But does that make you better? No!” He screamed the last word and Kevin jumped.
“Hang out with me for a while and we’ll see how sweet you are.” He leaned forward and tapped Kevin’s chest with the gun barrel. “Deep down inside you’re no different than I am. If you’d met me before you met Samantha, we’d both have been at her window, licking the glass. I know that, because I was just like you once.”
“That’s what this is about?” Kevin demanded. “A jealous schoolboy come back to butcher the boy across the street? You’re pathetic!”
“And so are you! You’re sick like the rest of them.” Slater spat a thimbleful of saliva at the cement. It landed with a smack. “Sick!” He took two steps forward and shoved the gun into Kevin’s cheek. Pain flashed up his jaw. “I should just end this now. You and all the freaks who pretend to be so sweet on Sundays! You may not be me but really you are me, you slug.”
Slater’s body shook against Kevin’s.
Kevin’s mind began to shut down . You’re going to die, Kevin.
Slater fights a desperate urge to pull the trigger. He knows that he can’t do it. This isn’t the plan. Not this way. Not yet.
He stares at Kevin’s round eyes. The smell of fear and sweat wafts through his nostrils. Impulsively he sticks out his tongue and presses it firmly against Kevin’s jaw. He draws it all the way up his cheek to his temple, as if he’s licking an ice-cream cone. Salty. Bitter. Sick, sick, sick.
Slater shoves Kevin and steps back. “Know what I taste? I taste Slater. I’m going to kill her, Kevin. I’m going to kill both of them. But that’s not what the world will think. They’re going to think that you did it.”
Kevin straightens and glares at him. The man has more spunk than Slater estimated. Enough to come here, he’d guessed as much. But he can’t forget that this man also locked him in that cellar once, when he was still a boy. They might be more alike than even Slater realizes.
He takes a deep breath. “Now, let’s calm down, shall we? I have a new game I would like to play.”
“I’m not going to play any more games,” Kevin says.
“Yes, you are. You’ll play more games or I’ll cut up Mommy, one finger at a time.”
Kevin glances at the door that holds the old woman.
“And if we still aren’t properly motivated, I’ll start on yourfingers. Are we still all stuffed and cocky?”
Kevin just stares at him. At least he isn’t whimpering and crying like the old hag.
“Let’s face it, Kevin. You came here with one thing on your mind. You wanted to kill. Kill, kill, kill. That’s another way you and I are alike.” Slater shrugs. “True, the object of your blood lust is me, but when you cut away all the face-saving, it’s the same instinct. Most humans are truly murderers, but I didn’t bring you here to lecture. I brought you here to kill. I’m going to give you your wish. You came to kill me, but that doesn’t suit my tastes, so I’ve chosen to flip things a bit.”