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A death wish did not, however, entirely explain either the decor or Allwine This black hole was also about power, just as real black holes, in far reaches of the universe, exert such gravitational pull that not even light can escape thes, these floors had not been painted by a man in a state of despair; despair enervated and did not inspire action She could etic anger, in a frenzy of rage

If that was true, then at what had his rage been directed?

The arms of the chair ide and plumply padded Under her hands, she felt nuht pal beneath a puncture, she extracted a pale crescent: a broken-off fingernail

A closer look revealed scores of curved punctures

The chair and the roo on a block of ice in a cooler

Carson hooked her hands, spread her fingers She discovered that each of her nails found a corresponding slit in the vinyl

The upholstery was thick, tough, flexible Extreernails to puncture it

Logically, despair would not produce the intensity of eht not have been sufficient if Allwine had not been, as Jack Rogers had said, inhu her hands on her jeans She felt unclean

In the bedroohts The pervasive black surfaces soaked up the illumination

Someone had opened one of the black blinds The apartrim world unto itself that the streetlalow of the city seemed out of phase with Allwine’s realm, as if they should have existed in different, isolated universes

Beside the bed, she opened the nightstand drahere she discovered Jesus His face looked out at her froht hand raised in blessing

Fro perhaps a hundred pamphlets, she selected four and discovered that they were memorial booklets of the kind distributed to mourners at funerals The nah all caht Funeral Home

Nancy Whistler, the librarian who had found Allwine’s body, said he went to s because he felt at peace there

She pocketed the four booklets and closed the drawer

The s on the air as thick as it had been earlier in the day Carson couldn’t shake the disturbing idea that so the black candles that stood on a tray on the seat

She crossed to the candles to feel the wax around the wicks, half expecting it to be warm No Cold and hard, all of them

Her i but entirely subjective Enduring New Orleans hadn’t changed In the grip of creeping paranoia, however, she saw not the festive city that she knew, but an oles, throbbing darkness, eerie light

A reflection of lass pulled her focus froure stood in the roo her hand upon the 9 it, she turned

The intruder was tall and powerful, dressed in black Perhaps he had entered fro room or from the bathroom, but he seemed to have materialized out of the black wall

He stood fifteen feet ahere shadows hid his face His hands hung at his sides--and see as shovels

"Who’re you?" she demanded "Where’d you come from?"

"You’re Detective O’Connor" His deep voice had a timbre and a resonance that in another man would have conveyed only self-assurance but that, coested o where I want In two hundred years, I’ve learned a great deal about locks"

His implication left Carson no choice but to draw her piece She pointed the muzzle at the floor, but said, "That’s criht"

He did not ht"

"I’ve been trying to do that all my life," he said as he took two steps forward

She could not have anticipated his face Handsoht side Over that wrongness, veiling it, was an elaborate design reminiscent of but different from a Maori tattoo

"The man who lived here," the intruder said, "was in despair I recognize his pain"

Although he had already stopped, he loomed and could have been upon her in two strides, so Carson said, "That’s close enough"

"He was not onized"

"You have a nanored her order "Bobby Allwine had no free will He was in essence a slave He wanted to die but couldn’t take his own life"

If this guy was correct, Harker had nailed it Each razor blade in the bathroom wall marked a failed attempt at self-destruction

"We have," the intruder said, "a built-in proscription against suicide" "We?"

"Allas full of fury, too He wanted to kill hisa hand against hioand he nearly killed ht she knew all the tropes, but this guy had a different edge fro intensity "I tried going to his house to study it froht have finished me So I ca heart I was in part made froeon or not, he didn’t sound like the kind of citizen whoon the streets

She said, "Too weird Spread your arh it ht a luh his eyes as he said, "I bow to no one"

CHAPTER 35

I BOW TO NO ONE

No suspect had ever challenged her in such a poetic fashion

Wound tight, wary, edging sideways from thebecause her back felt exposed, she said, "I wasn’t asking"

She took a two-hand grip on the pistol, pointed it at him