"All right," she said. "You win."

He stared at the back of her head, nonplussed.

She continued in the same low, assured voice. "You can fuck me."

He withdrew from her, ever so slightly.

"In fact, I want you to fuck me. But let me tell you something." She squirmed in his grip, twisting to face him. "You'd better fuck me long and hard." She glared at him, trying to pierce his eyes with her own. His face loosened, anger giving way to fear. She felt him going soft against her. His hand hovered, then withdrew.

She knew her words-aggressive and sexual-would strike at the heart of his vulnerability. An incisive psychological attack was her last chance, so she continued. "I need a man with endurance," she said, spitting out the words. "I hope you're up for that. I hope you're man enough to fuck me how I need to be fucked."

He released his other hand, baffled, and leaned back, pulling his weight off her. She reached back, yanking up her scrubs, not yet daring to scream. A crescent of sweat darkened his shirt at the collar. His face had turned pasty, almost totally devoid of color. He was mumbling to himself nervously, "Three, two, one. Step back from the door."

His putty-fat cheeks quivered, then drew tight. He tried to say something to her, but the words came out a jumbled mess, an animal's low-throated bellow. Reduced again to the pathetic creature he was.

He slapped her once, hard, across the face, and scampered across the lot, struggling up and over the concrete wall, the posts of his legs kicking in the air.

Pain ringing through her slapped cheek, Diane waited until he dropped to the other side, then cried out as loud as she could manage.

She sank down to the ground, bumper digging into her back, and tried to hold her throbbing face in her hands as she wept with relief.

Chapter 60

DAVID and Diane sat in perfect silence at their ends of the telephone. Listening to the quiet hum of the line, David watched the minute hand of the bronze clock in his study make a full rotation, then another. He was running late for his morning shift.

Diane had just relayed the news of her near-rape, leaving him stunned. For the first time, the thought of Clyde elicited in David a cold, vengeful rage. The perfect dark outside his bedroom window mirrored his mood.

"I'm leaving now for the hospital," he finally said. "Can I come see you?"

"No. I don't want to see anyone right now." A long pause before she spoke again, her tone more recognizable. "You've got the night shift tomorrow, right? You can come upstairs and see me then. I'm the new permanent addition to the ninth floor. Me and a bad Monet print they hung across from the elevators."

"And the wounds?"

"Reopened. It set me back a few days, that's for sure. Won't help with the scarring either."

"No. No, it won't."

"He told me to be sure to tell you about his attacking me. He's using me to threaten you. To hurt you. To get you to back off."

"I wish more than anything he'd come after me."

"That probably would have been less effective."

He considered this.

"Hey, David? I know that what you found out about the study has replenished your store of empathy, but don't expect that from me. The first time, with the shower, well that was awful. But this. This was so much more personal. His smell, his dead eyes. There was nothing there behind those eyes. Nothing. He's already dead. Death masked in flesh and bones." He heard her breathing for a moment on the other end of the line. "I think if the police found him first and shot him, well that might be all right with me."

"Right now," he said, "I'd have to agree."

"You don't mean that."

He wasn't sure if objecting would have been specious, so he didn't.

"With all my involvement since his escape, I don't know how much good I've done," he said. "It seems like I've only made things worse."

"I guess it's better to make a mistake than do nothing. Isn't it? Isn't it?"

"Yes," he said slowly and with little conviction.

They breathed together for a few moments.

"I'm thinking maybe I should leave things in the hands of the cops," he said. "They're used to this game, these stakes. I have an ER to run. If I'd just focused on that from the beginning, neither of us would be in this mess."

"Well, you do what you have to do." Diane sounded disappointed, though he couldn't tell if that had to do with him or the miserable position in which she'd found herself. Again. "I have to change my wrappings. I'll talk to you later."

He hung up the phone and felt the bitter, distinct sensation of defeat settle over him like a noxious rainfall.

The cockatoo immediately became animated when David withdrew the drape from the bronze cage, preening itself and gnawing at its black claw. Dressed in his white coat, ready for work, David regarded the bird with weary irritation.

"M amp;M's," it squawked. "M amp;M's. Where's Elisabeth?"

"Resurrecting the Russian economy."

David angled the seed carefully into the cup, but some fell anyway. Grumbling to himself, he crouched and tried to pinch it up off the floor.