I could hear the hammering of Desiree’s chair on the parquet floor as she did the same, and the room seemed to shrink around Trevor as my footfalls grew closer. His face rose and expanded over the target sight; his eyes rocketed from side to side. Sweat poured from his hair and his ruined cheeks spasmed. His milky white lips curled back against his teeth and he howled.

I stepped up to his chair and put the gun against the tip of his nose.

“How’s it feel?”

“No,” he said. “Please.”

“I said, ‘How’s it feel?’” Angie yelled at Desiree from the other side of the room.

“Don’t!” Desiree screamed. “Don’t!”

I said, “I asked you a question, Trevor.”

“I—”

“How does it feel?”

His eyes darted on either side of the barrel as red veins erupted across the corneas.

“Answer me.”

His lips blubbered then clenched and the veins in his neck bulged.

“It feels,” he screamed, “like shit!”

“Yes, it does,” I said. “That’s how Everett Hamlyn felt when he died. Like shit. That’s how Jay Becker felt. That’s how your wife and a six-year-old girl you had cut up and thrown into a vat of coffee beans felt. Like shit, Trevor. Like nothing.”

“Don’t shoot me,” he said. “Please. Please.” And tears rolled from his vacant eyes.

I removed the gun. “I’m not going to shoot you, Trevor.”

As he watched in amazement, I dropped the magazine from the butt into my sling. I pressed the gun in against my injured wrist and worked the slide, ejected the live shell from the chamber. I bent and picked it up and placed it in my pocket.

Then as Trevor’s confusion grew, I pushed down on the slide lock and removed the slide from the top of the frame and dropped that into my sling. I reached into the frame and removed the spring above the barrel. I held it up for Trevor to see, then dropped it too into my sling. Lastly, I removed the barrel itself, added it to the other pieces.

“Five pieces,” I said to Trevor. “Total. The clip, the slide, the spring, the barrel, and the gun frame. I’m assuming you’re adept at field-stripping your weapons?”

He nodded.

I turned my head, called to Angie, “How’s Desiree with the field-stripping concept?”

“I believe Daddy taught her well.”

“Wonderful.” I turned back to Trevor. “As I’m sure you know, the Glock and the Sig Sauer are identical weapons in terms of field stripping.”

He nodded. “I’m aware of that.”

“Bitchin’.” I smiled and turned away from him. I counted off fifteen paces as I walked, stopped and removed the gun pieces from my sling. I placed them neatly on the floor, spaced out in a straight line.