One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. Keep the chin up. That’s the stuff. One, two …”
Her lids lifted again a bare fraction of an inch and under them her eyes moved weakly from side to side.
“That’s fine,” he said in a crisp voice, dropping his monotone. “Keep them open. Open them wide—wide!” He shook her.
She moaned in protest, but her lids went farther up, though her eyes were without inner light. He raised his hand and slapped her cheek half a dozen times in quick succession. She moaned again and tried to break away from him. His arm held her and swept her along beside him from wall to wall.
“Keep walking,” he ordered in a harsh voice, and then: “Who are you?”
Her “Rhea Gutman” was thick but intelligible.
“The daughter?”
“Yes.” Now she was no farther from the final consonant than sh .
“Where’s Brigid?”
She twisted convulsively around in his arms and caught at one of his hands with both of hers. He pulled his hand away quickly and looked at it. Across its back was a thin red scratch an inch and a half or more in length.
“What the hell?” he growled and examined her hands. Her left hand was empty. In her right hand, when he forced it open, lay a three-inch jade-headed steel bouquet-pin. “What the hell?” he growled again and held the pin up in front of her eyes.