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The next shot showed Summersby leaning over the gypsum block and pouring a pink liquid into the opening.

Laila guessed he filled the plaster cast with silicone.

She hesitated, her eyes refusing to take in the details of the next photo.

Summersby leaned over Danielle's body.

She lay on the steel table.

Under the table Laila saw the plastic and glass jars.

This time they were not empty.

Danielle's body was connected to them by hoses and intervening equipment.

Laila suspected Summersby was pumping body fluids from Danielle's body.

In the next photograph, Summersby held the small silver circular saw in his hands, with which Laila had moved to the door frame.

His face was barely visible behind the goggles.

The photo clearly showed Laila that he used the mini circular saw for its very purpose.

He opened Danielle's skull with it.

The next photograph - Danielle's hair was resting on an upturned glass carafe, and Summersby leaned over Danielle.

He had put many small spatulas under her scalp.

In the photograph, Summersby gripped the skin curling around the edges of Danielle's skull with both hands.

"My God, he takes off her skin." Laila whispered.

Four photos per page. Mercilessly, the next doc.u.ments presented further steps in Summersby's perverse work.

The skinned and unrecognizable figure of Danielle's body.

Summersby rubbing Danielle's skin over a dressmaker's dummy with a substance from a bluish bucket.

Laila remembered the numerous jars of preservation salt.

Summersby tapping off ivory-colored bones and connecting them with wires.

Disgusted, Laila thought of the tub of milky fluid.

Summersby with a huge makeup palette in front of Danielle's reproduced body.

Laila was not sure if she wanted to know what to expect when she turned the next page.

She had started it, so she had to finish it.

Her stomach cramped as she looked at the large single photo.

One could almost think that everything would be fine with her if it were not for the cold, dead eyes staring out of Danielle's pretty face.

Slowly, Laila dawned on what cruel works Summersby was creating in his cellar.

Her muscles and sinews cracked as she turned trembling and stepped two steps forward between the lined up girls and boys.

Laila dropped to her knees and screamed her terror and desperation against the artificial night sky of the vault.

All around them a cascade of demonic laughter rang out, echoing loudly from the walls.

Laila stood in her cell and checked her face in the mirror.

Slowly she pulled the lip gloss over her lips.

Soon she would be in Lapuente's office.

Would she manage to kill him? Laila was uncertain.

A planned murder that would give Laila an advantage - freedom.

No matter how benevolent a magistrate would accept hardly mitigating circ.u.mstances.

She stood on the threshold of a new life, a new identity.

Laila tried to read in the reflection of her eyes if she was willing to lead the life of a woman who had been rejected by good society.

She pressed her lips together, feeling the creamy consistency of the lip gloss.

Violently, she wiped it with her fingers.

What was she imagining? That she had spent nearly a year in prison as a tough, calculating, no-conscience killer? Maybe that was not a good idea.

Doubting and agitated, she strode through the narrow space.

"Everything OK?" Brutus leaned in the frame and looked at Laila.

"Listen, maybe we should leave the whole thing up, make sure I'm getting a proper trial, I think I have a pretty good chance of getting away with a mild punishment, maybe even counting on the months I'm here already dined ... " Laila fell silent after this hasty lecture.

Brutus studied her in silence.

She sat down on her cot and ran her fingers through her curly hair.

"Laila, you've sworn in. Do you really want to sack Jessica's memory in the dirt? Lapuente is a pig, he has many lives on his conscience."

Laila glared at him angrily. "Then you kill him."

Brutus went to his knees before Laila.

He covered her face with his hands.

"If you can not make it, no one will make it, and Lapuente will only turn off the surveillance cameras when you and Li are alone with him."