There was this whimpering which, I guessed, wouldn’t stop until I could somehow manage to force my eyelids up and stare at something besides their unseen insides. There were sobs which went with the whimpering and said it was worse than just Jason Chase getting hit on the head, much worse. There were the sounds of a faucet running somewhere, the feel of something cold and wet against my forehead.
I opened my eyes. The light came down the length of a long foyer and there wasn’t much of it, but too much under the circumstances. I blinked away the pain and tried again. This time I saw Jo-Anne squatting on her heels next to me, patting my forehead with a red-and-white washrag. The red was blood.
My hands found shards of crockery on the floor as I forced myself into a sitting position. It mig
