Page 118 (1/1)

He continued, his voice meditative, "When I think about it now, I realize that Noelle really hadn’t believed me She hadn’t believed that my price to ot from her parents, was that she stay with me forever, or until I didn’t want her any little brat--I took you away fro fire in the fireplace The fire was blowing really good It singed off the little hair you had and your eyebrows Oh, how she screaain, I’d kill you

"I meant it, you know I bet you wonder who your father was"

She felt as though she’d had a ton of drugs pu She understood his words--he wasn’t her father--but she couldn’t seeet it to the core of herself

"You’re notbeyond his left shoulder toward the open door She wanted to cheer She didn’t have any of thisto kill me, her only child"

"Yes My dear wife finally believed ave me to beat that rich little bitch And she had to take it She had no choice

"Then you were sixteen and you saw ood reason to get rid of you Remember that last ti her and you got on the phone to call for help and she crawled--actually crawled--over to you and begged you not to call? I enjoyed that I enjoyed watching you simply disconnect from her

"I kicked her a couple htfully Then I had sex with her and she cried the whole ti while Life was really quite good those four years you were out of my house, out of your ot Scott to ot you away for a little while, but you didn’t want him, did you? You realized he was a phony almost immediately Well, it didn’t matter

"I just had to bide my time When I saw Jackie I knehat to do You see, the Feds were closing in I’otten very rich, but arms sales to places like Iraq are always risky Yes, it was just a matter of time I wanted to pay you back for all the trouble you caused me Those six months you were in Doctor Beadermeyer’s sanitarium onderful foryou wince in pain But then you got away and ruined everything" He leaned down and slapped her, her left cheek, then her right cheek Once, again and yet again

She tasted blood He’d split her lip

"You fucking coward" She spit at hiain

"I never wanted to have sex with you in the sanitariuh I could have I saw you naked enough times, but I never wanted you Hell, Scott wouldn’t even look at you He only came that one time because I insisted Now that little bastard will take the fall because I won’t be around Coain I’m not the coward, you are"

She spit at him, and this time she didn’t miss She watched him wipe his mouth and his cheek with the back of his hand Then he s down at her in the sanitariu

He struck her hard and she fell into blackness Her last thought was that she was grateful he hadn’t given her s

30

"WE’RE IN DEEP shit," Quinlan said andabout hi about Sally If she was here in this black hole, she was still unconscious Or dead

There was a grunt from Thomas Shredder and a "yeah" from Corey Harper It was true They were in very deep shit It was also true that it was as black as the botto kept

No, it wasn’t a room It was a shed with a dirt floor Probably the shed behind Doc Spiver’s cottage

"Look," Thoht We are in deep shit, but we’re trained agents We can get out of this If we don’t, they’ll fire us We’ll lose our careers and our federal pensions I sure as hell don’t want to lose my federal health benefits"