The disappointment and anger Scott had expressed in me had been too much to take. And the worst part of it was that he was right. I had failed. The Laughing Man had knocked me down and I hadn’t gotten back up. I’d surrendered. I’d spent the last three years destroying myself, finishing the job he had started for him. How many times had I wished he’d killed me? He could have done it easily enough. It would have been so simple for him to cut me up and pose me in the still-life he had created out of what was left of those two little girls I’d been trying to save. But it had been a game to him. Like checkers, or maybe chess, and a chess game didn’t usually end with the winner murdering the loser. He’d wanted to savor his victory, and he’d wanted me to be alive while he did it. He’d wanted me to live with the knowledge that he’d won our game. God, I needed a drink. I drove home, stopping at a liquor store along the way for two bottles of vodka and a packaged ham sandwich.
