Balance of Power [antikvár]

ONEFeeling the gun against the nape of her neck, Joan Bowden froze.Her consciousness narrowed to the weapon she could not see: her vision barely registered the cramped living room, the images on her television-the President and his fiancée, opening the Fourth of July gala beneath the towering obeUsk of the Washington Monument. She could feel John's rage through the cold metal on her skin, smell the liquor on his breath."Why?" she whispered."You wanted him."He spoke in a dull, emphatic monotone. Who? she wanted to ask. But she was too afraid; with a panic akin to madness, she mentally scanned the faces from the company cookout they had attended hours before. Perhaps Gary-they had talked for a time.Desperate, she answered, "I don't want anyone."She felt his hand twitch. "You don't want me. You have contempt for me."Abrupdy, his tone had changed to a higher pitch, paranoid and accusatory, the prelude to the near hysteria which issued from some unfathomable recess of his brain. Two nights before, she had awakened, drenched with sweat, from the nightmare of her own death.Who would care for Marie?Moments before, their daughter had sat at the kitchen table, a portrait of dark-haired intensity as she whispered to the doll for whom she daily set a place. Afraid to move.