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Froht ain, it seeun came up from his side

My impression was that he raised the weapon not with lethal purpose, but unconsciously, alotten that he held it Given what I knew of him--his devotion to Datura, his taste for blood, his evident participation in the brutal murder of Dr Jessup--I couldn’t wait for a clearer indication of his intent

The recoil rocked me He took the buckshot like the truck he was, and did not drop his handgun, and I pulass doors behind hih or wide, so I puh the gap where the sliding doors had been

Although he had still not dropped his weapon, he had not used it, either, and I doubted that a fourth shot was necessary At least two of the first three rounds had hit him square and hard

But I rushed toward hiun controlled me and wanted to be fully spent The fourth round blew him off the balcony

Only as I stepped to the shattered doors did I see what rain and perspective had previously concealed from me The outermost third of the balconywith it the railing

If any life had remained in him after three hits out of four rounds, a twelve-story fall would have taken it

FORTY-SIX

KILLING ROBERT LEFT ME WEAK IN THE KNEES AND light in the head, but it did not nauseate me as I had half expected that it would He was, after all, Cheval Robert, not a good husband or a kind father, or a pillar of his co that he had wanted me to do what I had done He seemed to have embraced death as if it was a mercy

As I backed away from the balcony doors and a sudden squall of rain that burst through the from some distant point of the twelfth floor Her voice swelled like a siren as she approached at a run

If I sprinted for the stairs, I would surely be caught in the hall before I reached them She and Andre would be armed; and it defied reason to suppose that they would be afflicted with Robert’s indecision

I traded the living rooht of the entry door This place was darker than the previous roo draperies had not fallen off their rods

I didn’t expect to find a hiding place I just needed to buy tiun fire that had drawn their attention, they would enter the living room cautiously Most likely they would first lay down a volley of suppressing fire

By the ti room, I would be ready for them Or as ready as I would ever be I had only four more shells, not an arsenal

If luck was on my side, they didn’t knohere Robert’s part of the search had led hi They couldn’t pinpoint, by the sound alone, precisely from where the shots had co the secondary hallway, an opportunity et off the twelfth floor

Much closer now, but not from within the suite, perhaps from the intersection of corridors, Datura shoutedme out for a milkshake at the local soda fountain, but she sounded un barrel, breech, and receiver ar as I re backward off the balcony, I plucked the first of the spare rounds from a pocket of my jeans I fu to insert the shell into the breech

Can you hear me, Odd Thomas? Datura shouted Can you hear me, boyfriend?

The breech continued to defeat an to shake,the task more difficult

Was that shit what it seeeist, boyfriend?

The standoff with Robert had prickled my face with sweat The sound of Datura’s voice turned the sweat to ice

That was so wild, that really totally kicked! she declared, still out in the hallway so to load the breech last, I tried to insert the shell through what I believed to be the loading gate of the three-roundThe shell slipped out of ht shoe

Did you trick et me to crank up old Maryann until she blew?

She didn’t know about Buzz-cut There was so her think that the spirit of a otten the best of her

Squatting in the dark, feeling the floor around me, I feared that the shell had rolled beyond discovery and that I would have to use the flashlight to locate it I needed all four rounds When I found it in roan of relief

I want a repeat perforun propped acrossthe shell first one way, then the other, but the loading gate, if it was the loading gate, wouldn’t receive the round

The task sees over-easy without breaking the yolks, but evidently it wasn’t so simple that someone unfaht

Let’s crank up the duain!

At the , I eased aside the rotting drapery

But this ti you on a leash, boyfriend

An hour or two of light remained in the afternoon, but the filter of the storht across the drenched desert I could still see well enough to exaun

I fished another shell froood

I put it on thesill, tried a third In the grip of absolute denial, I tried a fourth

You and Danny the Geek aren’t getting out of here You hear me? There is no way out

The ammunition I had found on the bathroom counter, beside the sink, had evidently been for another weapon

For all intents and purposes, this couldn’t be considered a shotgun anymore It had become just a fancy club

I was up the famous creek not only without a paddle but also without a boat