Chapter 76: Setting Up

Jaen Songok released her shoulders. She turned toward the stereo, and in one practiced motion he plucked the garrote from his pocket, grasped the wooden handles firmly in both hands, and tossed the noose over her head.

She staggered backward, her hands flailing wildly, fingers scrabbling at the garrote in a desperate, doomed effort to pry it free.

Jaen Songok twisted the handles clockwise, and the wire bit deep, severing the carotid arteries.

She whipped her head crazily from side to side, gargling bloody froth, while her reddish-blonde hair was stained a purer shade of red.

Blindly she thrust her hands backward, seeking to claw Jaen Songok's face. Laughing, he dodged her stabbing fingernails.

She balanced on one leg and kicked backward with the other, striking again and again with the ferocious determination of the dying.