His gun was still there, in the sopping grass. Leave it to the two losers inside not to know he’d left it behind. He cocked it, so that all he had to do was pull the trigger and a bullet would zip out. He knew just enough about guns and shooting to be dangerous, he decided. Not that he’d ever had any instruction in firearms. He figured any idiot could handle a gun, and since he was smarter than most people, he wouldn’t have any trouble. He had no patience with learning things, practicing—he liked just to know them.

He retreated back to his position in the pines. He was drenched. Mad with itching. He used his thumbs to get the rain out of his eyes, figured he was spreading poison ivy into his eyes and pretty soon they’d be swollen and itching, too. But he could see okay now and peered at the cottage. It had two windows on this side, a bunch of lilac bushes—he could see the front porch and the back steps from his vantage point. He didn’t worry about the one side he couldn’t see, because it had no windows.

But if he could see them make a move, they could see him. It wasn’t another standoff since he was the only one with a gun.

Presumably, he thought. He wasn’t about to stick his head up and get it blown off. Not the best way to find out for sure they were unarmed. But a doctor? A guy running for the senate, out here after the doctor, no idea she was in trouble? Nah. They didn’t have a gun.

“I’ve got you covered.” Even to himself, he sounded like a maniacal John Wayne. “You have no way out. Stick your foot out a door or a window, I’ll blow it off. Your head? Same thing.”

No response. He wondered if they’d heard him. If they were in there, cowering. He could do it, he thought. He could shoot Antonia’s foot off. He was a good enough shot—why wouldn’t he be?—and he’d waited long enough to see her bleeding and in pain.

“Scared?” He waited, but still no answer. “Good. I hope you are. I was scared when I came to the bitch doctor for help. How about it, Dr. Winter? Suppose I give you the same treatment you gave me? How’d you like that?”

He remembered her slender hands on him as she’d examined him. Her soft, kind words. He’d trusted her, believed in her. He thought she’d finally open up to him. He assumed she’d recognized him.

But she didn’t. She’d asked him his name, as if she’d never seen him before, and even before she turned him in to the cops, he knew he’d misplaced his trust and affection.