“Who’d want to do this?” I asked, hating the self-pity in my voice. It was the first time I’d been murdered, but I didn’t need to be a drama-queen about it.
Dan’s eyes got a far-away look. “Sometimes, people do things for reasons that seem perfectly reasonable to them, that the rest of the world couldn’t hope to understand. I’ve seen a few assassinations, and they never made sense afterwards.” He stroked his chin. “Sometimes, it’s better to look for temperament, rather than motivation: who could do something like this?”
Right. All we needed to do was investigate all the psychopaths who’d visited the Magic Kingdom in ten years. That narrowed it down considerably. I pulled up a HUD and checked the time. It had been four days since my murder. I had a shift coming up, working the turnstiles at the Haunted Mansion. I liked to pull a couple of those shifts a month, just to keep myself grounded; it helped to take a reality check while I was churning away in the rarified climate of my crowd-control simulations.
I stood and went to my closet, started to dress.
“What are you doing?” Lil asked, alarmed.
“I’ve got a shift. I’m running late.”
“You’re in no shape to work,” Lil said, tugging at my elbow. I jerked free of her.
“I’m fine—good as new.” I barked a humorless laugh. “I’m not going to let those bastards disrupt my life any more.”
Those bastards? I thought—when had I decided that there was more than one? But I knew it was true. There was no way that this was all planned by one person: it had been executed too precisely, too thoroughly.
Dan moved to block the bedroom door. “Wait a second,” he said. “You need rest.”