Chapters (40)
- Sin determinar
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- EPILOGUE
- THE END
He nodded. He still had not taken his eyes off my face.
“Your sister has a very promising career ahead of her” he said.
“It would be a very great shame if something like this hurt her.”
“She's still unconscious” I said. “She hasn't done anything.”
“No, she hasn't done anything” he said. “What about you?” I just tried to find the guy who stabbed her” I said. I didn't do anything wrong.”
“Of course” he said. He waited for me to say something else, but I didn't and so after what seemed like several weeks, he smiled and patted my arm and walked away across the street to where Coulter was standing and swigging from his Mountain Dew bottle.
I watched as the two of them spoke, turned to face me, and then turned away again to look at the smouldering house.
Thinking that this afternoon couldn't possibly get any better, I turned and trudged to my car. The windshield was cracked from a flying piece of house.
I managed not to burst into tears. I got in and drove home, peering through the cracked glass and listening to my head throb.
TWENTY-THREE
Sin determinar
TWENTY-THREE
RITA WAS NOT HOME YET WHEN I ARRIVED, SINCE I'D gotten there a bit early as a result of my explosive misfortune.
The house seemed very empty, and I stood inside the front door for a minute just listening to the unnatural silence. A pipe ticked in the back of the house, and then the air conditioner came on, but these were not living sounds and I still felt as if I had stumbled into a movie where everyone else had been whisked away in a spaceship. The lump on my head was still throbbing, and I was very tired and very alone. I went to the couch and fell onto it as if I suddenly had no bones left to hold me up.
I lay there for some time —a kind of strange interval in the urgency. I knew I still had to explode into action, track down Weiss, head him off at the pass and beard him in his den, but for some reason I was completely unable to move, and the mean little voice that had been urging me on did not sound terribly convincing at the moment, as if it, too, needed a coffee break. So I just lay there, face down, trying to feel the sense of emergency that had deserted me, and failing to feel anything except, as mentioned, fatigue and pain.