The skin color of the death mask was almost perfect and the detail was frighteninglyrealistic. The face he'd chosen was young and handsome, an all-American type. She wonderedwhat he really looked like. Who in hell was he? Why did he wear masks?

She would escape somehow, she told herself. Then she would get him locked up for a thousandyears. No death penalty let him suffer.

“If that's your choice, fine,” he said, and he suddenly kicked her feet out from under her.

She fell down hard on her back. “You die right here.”He slid a needle out of the well-worn black medical bag he'd brought with him. He brandishedit like a tiny sword. Let her see it.

“This needle is called a Tubex,” he said. “It's preloaded with thiopental sodium, which is abarbiturate. Does barbiturate-sounding things.” He squeezed out a thin squirt of the brownliquid. It looked like iced tea, and it was not something she wanted injected into her veins.

“What does it do? What are you doing to me?” she screamed into the tight gag. “Please takethis gag out of my mouth.”

She was covered with sweat, and her breathing was labored. Her whole body felt stiff,anesthetized and numb. Why was he giving her a barbiturate?

“If I do this wrong, you'll die right now,” he told her. “So don't move.”She shook her head affirmatively. She was trying so hard to let him know that she could begood; she could be so very good. Please don't Ml me, she silently pleaded. Don't do this.

He pricked a vein in the crook of her elbow, and she could feel the painful pinch there.

“I don't want to leave any unsightly bruises,” he whispered. “It won't take long. Ten, nine,eight, seven, six, five, you, are, so, beautiful, zero. All finished.”