On the floor near the fireplace, Delbert Kingsley was coming to his senses. He groaned and sat up slowly, rubbing his swollen, discolored jaw. Seeing the gun in Corey’s hand, he groaned again. Then he turned his head and saw Lita slumped in the sofa, kept turning his head and saw Walter Grogan. He groaned loudly, despairingly.

Grogan was lowering his gun into the side pocket of his pajama blouse. Through a long silence he stood looking at Lita, then at Kingsley, back and forth from one to the other. His hand was raised to his head and he was smoothing his silver hair.

Then his hand went into the side pocket of his pajama blouse and he took out the gun again. Kingsley stiffened, his mouth open and stretched tight at the corners. Grogan fired three times in quick succession and Kingsley sat there with two holes in his head and red-black rubble where his nose had been. His eyes remained open and he continued to sit there, propped against the brick wall of the fireplace. The valves of his heart had stopped pumping but his head was turning slowly, as though he was trying to get a final look at Lita.

Grogan pocketed the .38, turned away from the seated corpse and started walking out of the parlor. Corey said, “Where you going?” and Grogan murmured, “Just hold the gun on her. Be back in a minute.”

Corey heard him going through the dining room, then heard a click as the light was switched on in the kitchen. From the kitchen there was an assortment of metallic sounds, as though pots and pans were getting pushed aside in the kitchen cabinet. Then there was the rattling sound of other hardware and finally the slight popping sound of a vacuum-sealed can as its lid was forced open.

Lita looked up. Her bulging eyes aimed past the gun in Corey’s hand. She saw Grogan coming into the parlor, her mouth opened wide and she screamed without sound.

Grogan slowly moved toward her. In his right hand there was a metal can with the lid removed. Corey looked at the label on the can. The contents were stipulated in three large letters and Corey shuddered.

The can contained lye.

Grogan moved closer to Lita. For a moment she sat rigidly, then made an animal effort to get off the sofa, to veer to the side. Before she could, Grogan’s free hand reached out and grabbed the platinum-blonde hair, gripping hard and twisting and forcing her head back.

“Look at me,” Grogan said quietly. “Look at me and take a good look. It’s the last time you’ll see me. It’s the last time you’ll see anything.”

“No,” Corey said.

Grogan didn’t hear him.

“No,” Corey said louder.

Grogan heard and ignored it. He was tilting the can so that the opened lid aimed directly at Lita’s eyes.