room. Had he done so, he would have had to go find it because his blood was on the shank.
He put it on the floor beside the hole that it had made.
The blaze of pain darkened to throbbing embers, and he found that he could get to his feet.
His left hand bled from the entry and exit points, but not in a gush. He had been pierced, after all, not drilled, and the wound was not wide. Cupping his right hand under his left to avoid dripping blood on the hallway runner and the flanking wood floor, he hurried into the kitchen. The killer had left the back door open. He wasn’t on the porch, probably not in the yard, either.
At the sink, Billy cranked a faucet and held his left hand under the spout until it grew half numb from the cold water.
Soon the stream of blood diminished to an ooze. Pulling paper towels off a dispenser, he wound several layers around his hand.
He stepped onto the back porch. He held his breath, listening not for the killer but for approaching sirens.
After a minute, he decided there had not been a 911 call this time. The freak, the performer, prided himself on his cleverness; he would not repeat a trick.
Billy returned to the front of the house. He saw the photograph, which the killer had thrown in his face and which he had forgotten, and he plucked it off the hallway floor.
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She was a pretty redhead. Facing the camera. Terrified.
She would have had a nice smile.
He had never seen her before. That didn’t matter. She was somebody’s daughter. Somewhere people loved her. Waste the bitch.
Those words, echoing in memory, nearly dropped Billy to his knees. For twenty years, his emotions had not merely been restrained. Some of them had been denied. He had allowed himself to feel only what seemed safe to feel.
He had permitted himself anger only in moderation, and he had not indulged hatred whatsoever. He had been afraid that by admitting to one drop of hatred, he might unleash furious torrents that would destroy him. Restraint in the face of evil, however, was no virtue, and to hate this homicidal freak was no sin. This was a righteous passion, more vehement than abhorrence, brighter even than the pain that had seemed to make of him an incandescent lamp.
He picked up the revolver. Leaving Cottle to his own devices in the living room, Billy climbed the stairs, wondering if when he returned he would find the dead man still on the sofa.
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In Lanny’s bathroom medicine cabinet, Billy found alcohol, an unopened package of liquid bandage, and an array of pharmacy bottles with caps that all warned CAUTION! NOT CHILD RESISTANT.
The nail, having been clean, had not itself been an agent of infection. But it might have carried bacteria from the surface of the skin into the wound. Billy poured alcohol in his cupped left hand, hoping it would seep into the puncture wound. After a moment, the stinging began.
Because he had been careful not to flex his hand more than necessary, the bleeding had already nearly stopped. The alcohol did not restart it. This was imperfect sterilization. He had neither the time nor the resources to do a better job.
He painted liquid bandage on both the entrance and exit wounds. This would help prevent filth from working into the puncture.
More important, the liquid bandage—which dried into a flexible rubbery seal—should inhibit further bleeding.
The plethora of pharmacy bottles each contained a few tablets or capsules. Evidently Lanny had been a bad patient who never quite finished a course of medication, but always reserved a portion with which to treat himself in the future.
Billy found two prescriptions for an antibiotic—Cipro, 500 mg. One bottle contained three tablets, the other five.
He combined all eight into one bottle. He peeled the label off and threw it in the waste can.
More than infection, he worried about inflammation. If his hand swelled and stiffened, he would be at a disadvantage in whatever confrontation might be coming.
Among the medications, he discovered Vicodin. It would not prevent inflammation but would relieve pain if that grew worse. Four tablets remained, and he added those to the Cipro.
Keeping time with his pulse, an ache throbbed in his wounded hand. And when he looked again at the photograph of the redhead, pain of a different character, emotional rather than physical, swelled too.
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Pain is a gift. Humanity, without pain, would know neither fear nor pity. Without fear, there could be no humility, and every man would be a monster. The recognition of pain and fear in others gives rise in us to pity, and in our pity is our humanity, our redemption.
In the redhead’s eyes, pure terror. In her face, the wretched recognition of her fate.
He had not been able to save her. But if the freak had played the game according to his rules, she had not been tortured.
As Billy’s attention shifted from her face to the room behind her, he recognized his bedroom. She had been held captive in Billy’s house. She had been killed there.
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