07/02/2026 21:31

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The woman with the limp? The virgin? Ed’s wife? One of the many otherpeople he had known? People moved in the darkness, rearranging themselves. That was what she wantedto do. 172 Dept. He sat down on the toilet with its topclosed, and held his head in his hands.

I looked up at Jean-Claude. I sat there, chained to a hammer-murderer who had killed a fourteen—year-old girl because shewouldn’t “give out with a little trim,” and felt my composure slipping. He was wearing skin-tight leather pants tucked into thigh-high boots, so it was hard to tell where the pants left off and the boots began. I’m ruined.