Still breathing hard from her flight down the five flights of stairs, Jane hailed the first cab she saw on Park and gave the driver Dee’s address in Brooklyn. “No,” he said firmly. “My shift is over in—”

“Your shift is over as soon as you get me to where I’m going,” Jane snapped. “I’ve got a cell phone and a close personal friend on the Taxi and Limousine Commission.”

The driver sighed but started moving without another word of protest. A month in New York—during which she had been willing to go to great lengths to avoid riding with the Dorans’ creepy driver—had clearly hardened her, Jane reflected grimly.

She tried to relax against the cracked leather seat, but couldn’t help glancing in the rearview mirror every few seconds, a learned habit from the few times she’d had to go somewhere with Yuri. The fourth time she checked the mirror, she saw something.

I know that car.

It was ridiculous, obviously. Manhattan was packed with black sedans, and there was nothing special about the one three cars back. But four blocks and a turn later, there it was again. Jane’s hands started to shake. There are only so many ways to get downtown, she tried to tell herself, but the whole thing just felt wrong. Jane’s phone began to vibrate, and she felt like she was about to jump out of her skin. The call was coming from the Dorans’ mansion, and Jane tapped “Ignore” a little harder than necessary.

A minute and a few nervous checks of the rearview mirror later, her voice-mail alert dinged with unnerving cheerfulness.

“Jane, dear, the couturier is having an absolute fit,” Lynne’s voice purred, making Jane’s skin crawl. “We have an emergency fitting in fifteen minutes, so your nails will have to wait. Please come back to the house. Immediately.”

Like hell, Jane thought, her heart racing. The sedan was still behind them.

“Hey—um, excuse me?” she croaked to the sullen driver. She cleared her throat awkwardly. “I know I should have said this sooner, but can we take the FDR?”

“It’s crowded this afternoon,” the driver grunted.

“Oh.” Jane eyed the encroaching sedan, replaying Lynne’s message in her head. What would Lynne do? “Look, my husband hired this detective guy to follow me around because he thinks I’m cheating on him. So could you, you know, go in a big square or something, like they do in the movies? I promise you that if you help me out here, I’ll be the best tipper you’ve ever met.” She fished a hundred-dollar bill out of her wallet and waved it for emphasis. “It’s my husband’s money—what do I care?”

The driver raised an eyebrow. “Fine,” he sighed, and cut a sharp left.

She tensed as she stared into the rearview mirror.

“Is he still there?” the cabbie asked, avoiding a bike messenger by inches.

“I don’t know,” Jane admitted. Was that the same sedan? Did the car have circular or square headlights? I suck at this cloak-and-dagger bullshit. Why didn’t I look at the license plate? But then she saw the bald head behind the wheel just before the car disappeared behind a Hummer. “Yeah. He’s still there.”

Without signaling, the driver spun the wheel, cutting off a city bus and careening across three lanes of traffic before bumping over a curb to turn onto 50th Street. He made several more turns before flying onto the FDR.

She spied a black sedan—the black sedan?—two more times before they left Manhattan, but by the time she reached Dee’s block, it seemed her driver’s wild risks had paid off: it had been over fifteen minutes since Jane had seen any hint that they might still be pursued. She tossed some bills at the driver without looking at them, and ran up the concrete steps to Dee’s place. She burst into the tiny apartment, gasping for breath.

Dee had a plate of cookies ready and waiting, but Jane was in no mood for comfort food. “I think I blew it,” she almost sobbed.

Dee set the plate down and checked the deadbolt on her door. “Start from the beginning.”

Jane opened her mouth, but instead of her voice, a loud, booming knock filled the room. Jane felt a hysterical scream rising in her throat. “It’s Yuri,” she whispered. “He followed me here. Lynne knows!”

Dee’s hand closed around Jane’s wrist with a surprisingly strong grip. Jane could barely blink before her friend was dragging her toward the open door of her bedroom. She had just enough time to register a patchwork bedspread and giant pentacle on the wall before Dee had opened the small window at the back of the room. Dee shoved her out onto a rusty fire escape that quaked and swayed beneath Jane’s weight.

“Whoa,” she gasped, clinging to the rail. It left orange flakes on her palms. Since Dee was only on the second floor, it was just one flight down and a short, five-foot drop to the alleyway below.

Still, the shock of the fall knocked her to the ground, and sent stabbing pain up her right shin. Rolling to her feet, she saw that Dee had made a much more graceful landing, and was beckoning her to the mouth of the alley. She followed Dee’s back as fast as her aching feet could carry her.

A moment later, Dee jolted to a stop right at the sidewalk, and Jane grabbed Dee’s shoulders to keep from crashing into her.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Yuri.”

He stood before Dee, blocking the entire alley. He was dressed head to toe in black, and the March sun reflected off his bald head.

“Miss Boyle,” he said.

Jane tightened her grip on Dee’s shoulders. She had never heard Yuri speak one single time in the entire time she had been here. His tone was courteous and pleasant and not at all like the voice of someone who had just been chasing her all over New York.

“Missus Doran sent me to find you for a dress fitting. Excuse us, please,” he added, with a polite nod to Dee.

For a half-second, Jane fully intended to go with him. He sounded so reasonable that she almost doubted her own sanity. But then his meaty hand reached for her shoulder, and her instincts kicked in fiercely, propelling her back into the alley.

“Right this way, Miss,” Yuri prompted in the same pleasant tone, closing the distance between them with alarming speed.

“No!” Jane shouted, stumbling out of his reach.

“I’ll drive her!” she heard Dee yell from the sidewalk. She knew it was a bluff—Dee didn’t have a car—but Yuri didn’t even seem to hear it.

“The car is right here,” he announced, his hand finally closing hard around Jane’s elbow.

At his touch, Jane’s body went rigid. Her mind was flooded with image after image of terrified girls, begging, crying, running. She felt the sickening rush of Yuri’s enjoyment as his mind savored his favorites. A blonde with enormous brown eyes, a deep gash running across her sternum. A teenage boy passing out as Yuri severed his hand with a machete. A woman, young and beautiful and familiar-looking, her mouth forming a terrified O as Yuri wrapped his fingers around her throat. Jane’s scream rattled the windows above them.

“Get off her!” she heard Dee shout, but the pictures kept coming. A strawberry blonde bled from a cut on her cheek, clutching at her torn clothes as she staggered backward. Madison Avery’s arm twisted up painfully behind her back. Sobbing and pleading filled Jane’s ears.

When Yuri let go of her arm, Jane was so unprepared that she fell to her knees. Expecting an attack, she jumped up, but the space directly in front of her was empty. A few yards away, Yuri’s back was to her, and he was moving, catlike, in a crouch. She could see three fresh, bloody scratches on the side of his neck, and on the ground in front of him . . .

“Yuri! Stop!”

The driver had pinned Dee to the pavement, his knees on either side of her prone body. He was lifting something made of metal—a tire iron, Jane recognized in a nauseating flash of comprehension. He swung it at Dee’s head. Jane screamed, but Dee managed to twist out from under him just in time, narrowly avoiding the weapon in Yuri’s meaty hand. She didn’t get far, though, and Yuri pinned her down again, wrapping his free hand around her throat this time. She thrashed violently, trying to wriggle free, but she didn’t seem to be able to use her right arm properly, and Jane knew that she had used up all of her luck dodging the first blow.

Jane ran forward, casting around for something to distract the giant about to kill her friend, but there was no way she could get to him in time.

Your body is too far away, her mind shouted at her. Just your body. Her head snapped up sharply. The tire iron was descending. There was no time for doubt.

“Stop,” she hissed through her teeth, sending a surge of raw power at the driver. Her voice was a low, animalistic growl, like no sound she had ever uttered. The iron stopped in midair as if it had just struck bulletproof glass. Sweat beaded on Jane’s forehead, and the effort of resisting Yuri’s considerable muscles threatened to make her knees buckle.

While Dee struggled under his grip, Yuri twisted slowly to face Jane, teeth bared in a snarl. “Bitch,” he snarled. There was nothing human left in his face, and Jane knew immediately that she and Dee would both die in this dank alley unless she could get the tire iron out of Yuri’s hand.

Electricity crackled behind her eyes, and she twisted up hard with her mind. The iron shot toward the sky as if dangling from an invisible fishing rod. Yuri’s beady eyes began to follow it, but Dee chose that moment to kick him clumsily in the groin. With a growl of rage, he turned his full attention back to her, wrapping both hands around her throat. Dee gurgled and her eyes bulged. Barely aware of making the decision, Jane swung the iron back down as hard as she possibly could. It connected with Yuri’s temple with a sickening thud. The huge man collapsed to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut. He didn’t move again.

Jane collapsed several feet away from him, chunks of gravel scratching her cheek. Her heart pounded against the unyielding pavement, and her breath came in loud rasps. Inhale, and then exhale. Inhale . . . When she had counted five breaths, she pushed herself to sitting, ignoring the pain that radiated throughout her entire body. She dragged herself over to the large hulk of a man. His eyes had rolled back in his head. They were milky and unseeing, and a trickle of blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. His chest was still beneath his black jacket.

Dee’s amber eyes were huge. “I think he’s dead,” she rasped.

“I know,” Jane whispered. And then she stumbled to the end of the alley and vomited.