Chapter 42

• The young woman who stabbed Amanda turned her daughter over to family services and gave the police her entire justification for attacking a stranger. Before he became her boyfriend, Alecks was a client. She had lived with him in a small apartment and depended on welfare in between his irregular visits. When he did visit her, he was harsh and violently mistreated her for days at a time, feeding her narcotics to make her reliant on him and susceptible to his abuse. However, Alecks had threatened to kill her child if she declined his offer of money and a better life with him in exchange for killing his sister. She believed that she had no choice but to attack the mother in order to protect the baby from his heinous abuse. She went right to the police and turned herself in after realizing that he had left her and the child after the stabbing. Before making her final admission, she begged for protection and a decent home for the only good thing in her life—her daughter.
• Coming out of his trance, he asked, "Do you need a hand?" while perusing the news coverage of the attack because he assumed she had been taking a while.
• She softly murmured, "You have no idea," from behind him. She moaned, "I knew it would be difficult not being able to lift my arm yet, but I can't even do up a bra or put my hair up.