Chapter 13

Ann fished in Guiyesse's pockets until she found the key for the shackles. By the time she'd located it, she was sure he was dead. She felt sorry for him. Somewhere he'd been twisted, probably as a small boy with a less than capable mother. And he'd used his twisted mind to plot against the Fleming

If what he'd said had meant anything, this man must have bed behind the whole thing.

She took the key and the Beretta she spotted on the floor near the stairs where Le Boeuf had missed seeing it in his haste. Tommy was white faced and Shaking when she got to him. He'd been worried sick about what might have happened to them upstairs.

He took the gun from her, and the key, and rushed back upstairs to look things over. As soon as she saw that Gerault was still there-holding his leg and moaning through whitened lips-and that Yvette was sleeping peacefully on her mattress, Ann went up to join her children.

She could hear Tommy moving about in the living room, so she started to go to him. Then she halted at the bathroom doorway. Darla was just getting the bleeding stopped at the several places where Guiyesse had bitten her natal lips.

"My God, honey! That maniac must have bitten damned near through you! Is it stopped bleeding? We'd better get you to a doctor right away. A bite can be dangerous."

"It's not as bad as it looks, Mother. It's several bites bleeding a little - not one bleeding a lot. Until I douched and started it bleeding again, I'd forgotten it. I know this towel looks like I'm mortally wounded, but get that deathbed look off your face. I guess his head lying on me there made it coagulate, and then the water got it going again. But it's stopped."

Tommy appeared in the doorway, and both he and Darla blushed darkly before he excused himself and moved down the hall. Ann shook her head sadly at the brief scene. These two wouldn't be comfortable around each other for a long while, if ever again. Neither would any of the family, probably. It had been a hell of a ghastly experience for them all.

When the Citroen rolled up out front Ann panicked. "My God, kids! We forgot all about the pictures!

We've got to find them and burn them before anyone but your father gets in here! Tommy, run out and tell him that. Darla, help me look."

"I think they're right over there in that drawer, Mother," the girl said. "I saw Yvette putting some in there once."

She raced over to the table in question and pulled out the single, large drawer so fast that all the curved photos spilled onto the rug. They gathered them up, hastily and ran with them into the bathroom. They closed and locked the door, and started tearing them into little pieces. Frequently, they'd flush an accumulation down the drain.

Just as they watched the last ones disappear in a swirl of water, someone pounded on the bathroom door.

Ann opened it, as she stepped out, Fleming jumped inside and closed the door, yelling =B3Emergency!"

It was several minutes later that she recalled the fact that Darla still must have been in there.

Fleming was unlimbering and aiming as he ran to the commode. It wasn't until the final relieving feeling that he realized his daughter was standing at the lavatory with her dress up, daubing at her tender parts with a bloody towel. Her eyes were wide with wonder at the sight of the once coveted member of her father, streaming like a fire hose in front of her eyes.