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"Hurt?" I asked

"No"

"Bullshit"

"You?"

"Bruises"

The four cuts in his side weren’t deep, but they bled freely

Roosevelt settled into a chair at the table He’d gotten some ice cubes from the freezer and wrapped them in a dish towel He held this co shut Fortunately, the bud vase hadn’t shattered when it hit hiht have had splinters of porcelain in his eye

"Bad?" I asked

"Had worse"

"Football?"

"Alex Karras"

"Great player"

"Big"

"He run you down?"

"More than once"

"Like a truck," I suggested

"A Mack This was just a daen peroxide and pressed it repeatedly to Bobby’s wounds Every time she took the cloth away, the shallow cuts bubbled furiously with bloody foam

I couldn’t have ached inaround in an industrial clothes dryer

I washed doo aspirin with a few sips of an Orange Crush that I found in the Stanwyks’ refrigerator The can shook so badly that I drizzled ed to drink--suggesting that uided when they allowed e of five

After several applications of the peroxide, Sasha switched to rubbing alcohol and repeated the treatrinding his teeth to dust Finally, when he had ground away enough dental surface to be li wounds with Neosporin

This extensive first aid was conducted without comment We all knehy it was necessary to apply as ents as possible to his wounds, and talking about it would only scare the crap out of us

In the weeks andhimself out, and not because he was vain He’d be …teratoid

Roosevelt’s eye ollen to a slit Nevertheless, he still believed in the ice

While Sasha finished wrapping Bobby’s cuts with gauze bandages, I found a chalkthe kitchen to the garage Sets of car keys hung on the pegs Sasha wouldn’t have to hot-wire a car, after all

In the garage were a red Jaguar and a white Ford Expedition

By flashlight, I lowered the rear seat in the Expedition to enlarge the cargo area This would allow Roosevelt and Bobby to lie down, belo level We roup than Sasha would draw if she appeared to be alone

Because Sasha knew exactly where ere going out on Haddenbeck Road, she would drive

When Bobby entered the garage with Sasha and Roosevelt, he earing his pullover and Hawaiian shirt again, andso the rear of the Expedition

"I’ll grab soer’s seat, when I sluitive-on-the-lam posture, I became acutely aware of every contusion, neck to toe But I was alive Earlier, I’d been sure ouldn’t all leave the Stanwyk house with beating hearts and brain activity, but I’d been wrong When it cos, but Christopher Snow’s hunches can’t necessarily be trusted--which is coojerrie scrambled onto the console between the front seats He sat erect, ears pricked, looking forward, like a misplaced hood ornament