Velocity

still, but the SUV made its own wind, which blustered at the broken-out window. In the halogen headlights, flat vineyards, hillside vineyards, and wooded heights remained familiar to his eye but, mile by mile, became as alien to his heart as any foreign barrens.
     
     
     
     
     

PART 2
     
    ARE YOU PREPARED FOR YOUR SECOND WOUND?
     
     
     

Chapter 17
     
    In February, after the extraction of a molar with roots fused to his jawbone, Billy had been given a prescription for a painkiller, Vicodin, by his periodontist. He had used only two of ten tablets.
    The pharmacy label specified that the medication should be taken with food. He had not eaten dinner, and he still had no appetite.
    He needed the medication to be effective. From the refrigerator, he got a baking dish of leftover homemade lasagna.
    Although the punctures in his brow were plugged with clots and the bleeding had stopped, the pain continued unrelenting and made coherent thought increasingly difficult. He chose not to delay the few minutes necessary to zap the dish in the microwave. He put it cold on the kitchen table.
    A pink sticker on the pill bottle counseled against consuming alcoholic beverages while taking the painkiller. Screw that. He had no intention of driving a car or operating heavy machinery in the next several hours.
    He popped the tablet and forked lasagna into his mouth, washing everything down with Elephant beer, a Danish brew boasting a higher alcohol content than other beers.
    As he ate, he thought about the dead schoolteacher, about Lanny sitting in the bedroom armchair, about what the killer might do next.
    Those lines of thought were not conducive to appetite or to digestion. The teacher and Lanny were beyond rescue, and there was no way to foretell the freak’s next move.
    Instead, he thought about Barbara Mandel, mostly about Barbara as she had been, not as she was now in Whispering Pines. Inevitably, these reminiscences led forward to the moment, and he began to worry about what would happen to her if he died.
    He remembered the small square envelope from her physician. He fished it out of his pocket and tore it open.
    The name Dr. Jordan Ferrier was blind embossed on the face of the cream-colored note card. He had precise handwriting: Dear Billy, When you start timing your visits to Barbara in order to avoid me during my regular rounds, I know the time has come for our semiannual review of her condition. Please call my office to schedule an appointment.
    Sweat beaded the bottle of Elephant beer. He used Dr. Ferrier’s note card as a coaster to protect the table.
    “Why don’t you call my office for an appointment,” Billy said.
    The baking dish was half full of lasagna. Although he had no appetite, he ate everything, shoving food into his mouth and chewing vigorously, ate as if eating could satiate anger as easily as it could hunger.
    Eventually the pain in his forehead substantially subsided.
    He went to his fishing gear in the garage. From his angler’s kit, he retrieved needle-nose pliers with a wire-cutting edge.
    In the house again, after locking the back door, he went to the bathroom, where he examined his face in the mirror. The mask of blood had dried. He looked like an aboriginal resident of Hell.
    The freak had inserted the three hooks with care. Apparently, he had tried to do as little damage as possible.
    To suspicious police, that tenderness would have supported the theory that these wounds were self-inflicted.
    One end of the hook featured the bend and the barb. At the other end was an eye to which a snap and leader could be attached. Pulling either the barb or the eye through the puncture would further rip the flesh.
    He used the pliers to snip off the eye from one hook. Between thumb and forefinger, he pinched the barbed end and extracted the cut shank.
    When he had removed all three hooks, he took a shower as hot as he could tolerate.
    After the shower, he sterilized the punctures as best he could with rubbing alcohol and then hydrogen peroxide. He applied Neosporin and covered the wounds with gauze pads fixed with adhesive tape.
    At 4:27 A.M., according to the nightstand clock, Billy went to bed. A double bed, two sets of pillows. His head on one soft pillow, the hard revolver under the other. May the judgment not be too heavy upon us…
    As his eyelids fell shut of their own weight, he saw Barbara in his mind’s eye, her pale lips forming inscrutable statements.
    I want to know what it says, the