“Oh my God, I killed him,” Jane gasped when she could speak again, a sob rising in her throat.

“Stop that. Stop that now!” Dee hissed, rubbing her injured arm. “He was going to kill us. You had no other choice.”

“I could have hurt him—just knocked him out, maybe,” Jane whispered wildly, the moment when she had swung the tire iron downward playing over and over in her head. She had been afraid—terrified, actually. But was that really all, or had there been anger, too? Had she just been defending herself and her friend, or had she also wanted Yuri dead? She had been absolutely disgusted by what she had seen in his mind: his perverted cravings for fear and pain. Had she made a decision without even realizing it? Had she judged that Yuri deserved to die?

“You did the only thing you could. This is the only way to be sure,” Dee remarked, startling Jane out of her thoughts. Dee was rubbing at her collarbone; angry finger-shaped welts were forming on her neck. “I was running out of time.”

“He followed me from the house,” Jane said numbly. “Lynne sent him after me. I knew he wasn’t just a driver. I can’t believe . . . God. This is all my— Are you okay?”

Dee waved away her concern. “Why was the Dorans’ driver trying to kill us?”

“I don’t think that was the plan.” Jane shook her head miserably. “But it’s not like we can ask him.” She felt herself sliding into a cold, foggy daze. First Maeve, now Dee . . .

“Focus, Jane!” Dee begged. “Come on. I need you. You saved my life, so no wallowing!”

“It was to save you,” Jane repeated slowly, the words sinking in. That was important somehow. “So we can just tell the police—”

“Okay, I’ll do the thinking,” Dee said gently, “because I don’t think you’re quite there yet. You don’t have time to sit around some police station! Lynne sent this freak after you; you have to go now. I know you wanted to wait for Malcolm to get back, but you’re going to have to run tonight.”

There was something wrong with Dee’s logic, and Jane fumbled through the fog that was descending on her mind to try to figure out what was wrong. “I don’t think that’s why he was here,” she managed finally. Once it had been said out loud, she became more sure that she was on the right track. “I read him when he touched me,” she mumbled, hearing an unfamiliar hoarseness in her own voice. “It was horrible. He was horrible. But I don’t think he was planning on hurting us—”

“—until I took a couple of chunks out of the side of his neck,” Dee finished grimly, holding up three bloody fingernails. She twisted a handful of her coarse black hair in her left hand. “I thought he was hurting you.”

“Well, he was,” Jane admitted, “but he wasn’t trying to.” She glanced toward the huge, still body. Just beyond it, out on the sidewalk that butted up against the alley, was a very pregnant woman pushing a stroller. She didn’t turn to look toward the gory scene in the alley, but Jane watched her pass anyway. The woman had curly black hair and dusky skin stretched tautly over high, fine cheekbones. She reminded Jane of her friend Elodie. The resemblance was so strong, in fact, that Jane only barely stopped herself from calling out to the unknown woman. Then she remembered.

Oh my God. We’re standing around chatting over a dead body in plain sight. The sun had moved down below the roofs of the buildings behind them, but there was still sufficient light that anyone who actually looked their way would see enough to be alarmed.

“We need to get inside,” Jane blurted. “We need to get Yuri . . . I don’t know, somewhere. Not here.”

Dee nodded briskly and strode to a rusted blue door just below the fire escape. “Back door,” she explained tersely. “For the trash.” She produced a brass key, and they slipped inside. Jane felt a brief moment of disorientation seeing the familiar foyer from an unfamiliar perspective, but it resolved as they approached the creaky wooden staircase. Jane knew that walking would look less conspicuous if anyone happened to see them, but she couldn’t help herself: on the third stair, she began to run, and by the time Dee’s door slammed shut behind them, they were both out of breath.

Dee ducked into her narrow galley kitchen and reappeared with the plate of cookies from what felt like hours ago. “You said something about Yuri not trying to hurt us,” she prompted skeptically, folding her long legs under her on a large blue cushion. The finger marks on her neck had become so vivid they nearly glowed. Jane broke the cookie over and over into smaller pieces, until it was nothing but a pile of sugary dust on her lap. She couldn’t imagine eating right now. Couldn’t imagine eating ever again. She had taken someone’s life.

Jane’s tongue felt thick and heavy, and her limbs craved a bed to crawl into. But her mind refused to stop whirling. She had to make sense of it all.

“Jane, you have to leave tonight. You know that, right?” Dee said again.

Jane shook her head. The effort hurt and the room spun around her. “No. He tried to get me to go along willingly. He did not want us to make a scene. Which means Lynne still cares about making everything look good.”

“You said Lynne was onto you,” Dee reminded her stubbornly, pushing her tangled black hair out of her face. Her hands were twisting over and over each other anxiously. “He tried to kill us, Jane. The rest of it is just details. We need a plan. Do you have your passport? Any cash? Misty, my friend from Book & Bell, can—”

“Lynne told him to make everything look normal,” Jane repeated stubbornly. “Dee. She can’t know anything for sure because she’s still planning on going ahead with the wedding.”

A low whine began in the kitchen, and Dee jumped off her cushion. Jane froze for a panicked moment, but the whine climbed steadily until it was recognizable as the shrill of a boiling teakettle, and Jane relaxed back against the red wall. She heard the cozy, comfortable sounds of the kettle being removed from the burner and water pouring into mugs, and she sighed: how could her world have gotten so dangerous in such a short period of time?

Dee’s dark blue jeans scissored back across Jane’s field of vision, and a steaming mug found its way into her hands. The surface of the liquid rippled; Jane realized that she must be trembling. “You mean . . . you are going to go back?” Dee said quietly, her husky voice so low it was almost inaudible.

“I have to,” Jane whispered. The heat of the mug emanated up her arms and made her feel more present in her body. The horror of the afternoon was still there, but the emptiness had been replaced with a plan—and a sense of certainty about how the next twenty-four hours of her life would play out. “If she had been sure that I knew about her, Yuri would have just attacked. Instead he was nice—or he tried to be—because Lynne still thinks she can get away with her plan. She wasn’t ready to blow her cover; she just wanted me to come back to the house where she could keep an eye on me. And if I don’t go back, she will know.”

And I’ll be nothing more than an ill-prepared moving target. She would have to run with the clothes on her back, just like she had meant to do the night of the disastrous cocktail party at the MoMA. True, she had her credit cards this time, but the end result would be the same: she’d be caught before she made it out of the state. Malcolm would come home and find . . . what? A forged note saying that Jane had gotten cold feet and flown back to France? A call from the coroner, saying Jane had passed away in a freak car accident that was no one’s fault? He wouldn’t believe either story, but he wouldn’t be able to save her then. And if Lynne caught wind of what he had been up to over the past month . . . “I have to go back,” Jane repeated more firmly, “and you need to run.”

Dee shook her head dismissively. “I’ll be fi—”

“You won’t,” Jane cut her off impatiently. The police might believe that Yuri had attacked Dee at random and that she had killed him in self-defense—the police had probably heard a thing or two about Yuri before. But Lynne would figure it out immediately. She didn’t know Jane and Dee were friends, but when she discovered that Yuri’s body was found in an alley next to the home of someone connected to Jane—even as remotely as an assistant wedding-cake baker was—Dee’s days would be numbered.

Jane cleared her throat. “You can’t be involved in this. We got lucky today, but I need to know you’ll be safe when I’m gone. You need an alibi so good no one will even think to talk to you, and you need to stay out of sight until the whole thing blows over.”

Dee looked as though she was going to argue, but Jane stared her down. Finally, Dee sighed and nodded. “It won’t be as hard as you think. This is Misty’s place. It’s an illegal sublet, and my name’s not on anything. She wanted to be closer to the store, and I had just moved to New York and didn’t know anybody . . .” She trailed off, apparently momentarily distracted by the memory. “Misty will help,” she concluded confidently. “Strays and runaways are like her second job. She can handle this, no problem. And you’ll know how to reach me when—if—” Dee frowned.

“I know,” Jane told her gently. “I’ll miss you. Just stay safe.”

Dee’s wide mouth curved up into a smile that held faint traces of her usual cockiness. “I’ll land on my feet, Jane. And you better do the same.”