CHEVETTE CLIMBS THROUGH the hatch in the roof of Skinner’s room to find Rydell kneeling there in his Lucky Dragon security bib, but the critical factor here is the man from the bar, the one who shot Carson, who’s got a gun pressed into Rydell’s ear and is watching her, and smiling. He’s not much older than she is, she thinks, with his black buzz cut and his black leather coat, his scarf wrapped just so, casual but you know he takes time with it, and she wonders how it is people get this way, that they’ll stick a gun in someone’s ear and you know they’ll use it. And why does it seem that Rydell
...more
