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His handson the back of ers look for hot spots now and he hadn't lost his touch His thu in behind my ear and the pain came in Technicolor

But it was somehow different It was there, God knows, and it could not have been more intense, but this ti it I are of it but unaffected by it Soh rip, both of his hands on ers reaching to circle my throat Maybe the pain wouldn't stop me, but if he shut off h the carotid I'd be just as dead as if I died in agony

I went for his foot again His grip loosened a little, and I crouched lower He looatheredwith the top of s don't change He still had fingers like eagle's talons, the strongest I'd ever encountered And, thank God, he still had a glass jaw

I butted him a couple of tio of him and took a step back he slid down the wall like a deadjaas slack and saliva trailed froed him out into the middle of the rooht to fasten his hands behind his back, and I used Echevarria's set, hanging froether I got my little tape recorder out of my pocket and made sure it still worked, then cued a cassette so I could start recording when he caaveabout ould happen now If Elaine lived, her testih to ensure conviction If she died-

I called New York Hospital and they put h to the ICU Her condition was critical, they told et from them over the phone

But she was still alive

If she died, the doorman could identify Motley And, once the department put its full resources into the case, any of a nuht turn up to put hiot stabbed, when Elizabeth Scudder was butchered, when Toni Cleary went out theNo end of physical evidence h trained personnel looked in the right places for it And a full-scale investigation in New York would almost certainly tip the balance in Massillon, where To the Sturdevant case And Ohio was a death penalty state, wasn't it?

Still, a confession woulddifference All I had to do ait until he ca No question the bastard liked to talk

He was lying facedown, his hands cuffed behind him I rolled him over onto his back and lifted an eyelid with my thumb His eye was rolled way back up into its socket, with only the white part showing He was out cold, and looked as though he'd be out for a while

I went and got the Sht of everything he'd done and I looked withinto summon up the hate I felt for him But it didn't seem to be there At least it wasn't anywhere that I could find it

And that had been oddly true a few o, when he had been far removed from the inert bundle in thefor my life, and all the saer I hadn't hated hiun to his teer I withdrew un down on the floor

I thought it all over I h h to hurt my ribs, and then I let it all out, and then I picked up the Sot out un itself, cleaning every surface thatpossu the cuffs froers and touched theun

I put the gun down and took hold of hied him a few yards, then hauled him onto his feet and dropped him in the needlepoint chair He started to slide back onto the floor but I pulled him up into a seated position and balanced hiain with the handkerchief, and fitted it into his right hand I slipped his finger inside the trigger guard With et his ot the short barrel of the little revolver between his teeth

I uns all the ti suicide, and soh without doing oing to get one chance I wanted the bullet to go right up through the roof of the un the way I wanted it, I just stayed in position for aI see to say it to?

I thought, Say it to hi to her, patients in coma understood as said to theood idea But suppose you got out again Suppose your lawyer pulled off some kind of half-assed insanity defense Or suppose you went away for life and escaped How can I take that kind of chance?"