MUSCLES LOCKED, RACKED BY spasms of terror, helpless, his whole body rigid, braced against death, Bernhardt realized that his eyes were closed. An instant’s image of his mother appeared. She was reading to him from a child’s picture book, smiling as she turned the pages. She—
An explosion. A shot.
Instantly, his whole body unlocked, began to quiver. His eyes were open, searching for the face of death, the final vision.
Vision?
Was he alive? Had he been wounded, the pain masked by shock? Had he soiled himself—shamed himself?
The car—he was still in the Escort, his body wedged behind the steering wheel; the Escort’s door was still standing open.
“Ah—” It was a low, muffled moan.
Kane?
Aware that he could move, he was pushing himself away from the steering wheel. His feet were sliding across the seat, out the door. Then his legs. Sitting erect, he saw him: Kane, lying on his face, his hand still clutching the blue-steel revolver with the two-inch barrel.
Without conscious thought, suddenly energized, he sprang to the body, twisting the revolver from fingers that still twitched.
Was it suicide?
He raised the gun to his nostrils. No, there was no smell of cordite. Meaning that someone had—
To his right, there was movement. A figure. A man, crouching. Instantly, Bernhardt dropped to the ground, brought the revolver up, trained it on the intruder.
“Bernhardt.”
A stranger’s voice. The figure was tall and slim. Not thick and gross, therefore not Farnsworth.
But if it wasn’t Farnsworth, then—
“It’s Preston Daniels. Don’t shoot.”