wasn’t sure. His voice was crazed, his syllables more like the grunts of an animal than a human being.
“She’s mine,” he said, slashing wildly. “Mine, mine—”
Bryce kept the knife blade away somehow. Should he have holstered his gun? It was more of a liability now. The fight had become primal, hand-to-hand. He could smell Kenny’s breath. Foul. It seemed to carry the stench of his psychosis.
The struggle lasted about ten seconds. He felt Kenny’s knife finally find a home, sinking into the flesh of his upper arm as if it were a piece of pie.
The cold blade radiated fire out in all directions. And then it hit bone. Bryce’s vision exploded, red and starry, but he refused to faint.
The split second it took Kenny to work the knife free was the second Bryce needed. Ignoring the pain, he dropped his gun into the sweaty inch between their bodies. He jerked Kenny around so that the gun pointed toward the back of the dais, where no one could get hurt if something went wrong.
And then he pulled the trigger.
Kenny frowned, and for a minute Bryce thought maybe, somehow, he had missed. He had his finger on the trigger again, ready to pull, when Kenny’s mouth opened and blood spilled out like liquid words.
Kenny shook his head, as if rejecting the truth, but his body knew. He began to slide to his knees. Some absurd instinct made Bryce catch him under the arms and break his fall, lowering him toward the floor, careful of crooked legs and lolling arms.
Kenny’s abdomen was pulpy, red, and sickening. Bryce looked at it only a second before training his eyes on the man’s face. Kenny’s breath was coming in small, choking spasms. He stared up at Bryce and clutched his arm, as if he needed comfort. Bryce found that he couldn’t pull away. He didn’t even try.
“Lara,” Kenny whispered, sounding, here at the end, as innocent and adoring as wide-eyed Ted from Iowa. His fingers opened and shut rhythmically on Bryce’s coat sleeve. He shut his eyes and said her name one more time, tight with agony, blood bubbling between his lips. “Lara.”
His hand fell away.
With a fierce suddenness, the sounds of the real world came rushing back into Bryce’s ears. He felt wobbly and wet, as if he had just surfaced from a deep sea dive. Still, he struggled to his feet and took a step. He must have lost a lot of blood. He felt strange, as if he were about to fall asleep, or as if he had just awakened.
He was surprised to see he still held the gun. Its warm weight was like a living thing in his hand, black and smoking, temporarily docile but always dangerous.
He fought the urge to toss the gun aside, aware that the police would want to look at it, do tests and take prints and label it as evidence. He couldn’t let the curious onlookers touch it.
He stared down at Kenny Boggs, weaving a little, casting a moving shadow across the silent body. It all seemed so bizarre. Somehow he had never believed it would come to this. He hadn’t ever really believed it would end in death.
Bryce had never shot a man before. Maybe, he thought suddenly, he should have mentioned that to Darryl before he accepted this mission. He hadn’t shot any of the criminals he’d investigated during eight years in the FBI. He hadn’t shot the thug who stole his Lexus from his apartment parking lot, or the creep he’d found in bed with his girlfriend. He hadn’t even shot his father, whom he had hated more than anyone else on earth.
But he’d shot this guy. This total stranger. He didn’t seem to be able to force that to make sense. Kenny was crazy, of course he was, as crazy as a rabid dog, but he had died with Bryce’s bullet in his stomach and Lara Lynmore’s name on his lips. Even now, that just wouldn’t make sense.
“Bryce!” Lara came running out from the wings, stumbling gracefully. Ted must have wrestled her to the ground back there, because her bloodred coat was torn, and her tight white pants had dirty circles on the knees. Her brown hair flew around her shoulders, matted and dusty, but still flattering, as if she’d just come from Makeup, where they’d transformed her into the perfect heroine in distress.
Bryce turned away, suddenly unable to bear the sight of her.
She called his name again, catching on the y subtly, so that the sound hinted at a deep, inarticulate need. He’d heard that sound before. It was exactly how she’d called out to her lost highwayman in her big death scene. Brava, Ms. Lynmore. He half expected the delighted director to appear and yell “Cut!”
When he heard her first soft sobs, he started to walk away, toward the other end of the dais, where he now saw the uniformed cops appearing.
“Bryce, come back.” But he didn’t turn around. Kenny’s bloody body lay between them, and it was a gulf he knew he would never be able to cross. Not today. Not ever.
“Bryce.”
He almost paused. She sounded so alone.
But what a joke that was. Lara Lynmore, budding starlet, was never alone. Already a dozen people were rushing past him, eager to comfort the beautiful woman who was crying so prettily, acting as if her heart would break.
Of course she was. That was what Lara Lynmore did.
She acted.
CHAPTER TWO
LARA RODE THE GLASS ELEVATOR up to her third-floor apartment, clutching her bag of new shoes as if it were the Holy Grail. It was ridiculous to be so proud of something so simple. But this was the first time she’d ventured out of her apartment alone since the shooting, and even if it was just to the Jimmy Choo store, it still felt like a victory.
Her mother had wanted to go with her. She always wanted to—not because she thought Lara still needed protection, but because she enjoyed the adventure. If none of Lara’s fans recognized her right away—which happened very rarely these days—Karla Gilbert would be sure to do something to draw a crowd.
“Look, Lara,” she’d say loudly enough for everyone standing nearby to hear, “it’s just like the scarf you wore in The Highwayman.” It was childish, but Lara had learned not to mind. Her mother’s vicarious pleasure had always been by far the most uncomplicated reward of this strange and exhausting career.
Today, though, Lara just hadn’t been up to all the fuss. Today had been a test, to see if she could shake off the depression and anxiety that had been smothering her for the past eight weeks.
And she had passed the test. She leaned against the cool elevator walls and closed her eyes, squeezing the Jimmy Choo bag to her chest.
Now if only she could pass this next test, too. She thought of the long yellow packet, the letter from Moresville College, that lay at the bottom of her purse, like a bomb waiting to explode, and shivered slightly. This test would be so much harder.
But she couldn’t wait any longer. She’d agonized over this, she’d worried and prayed and dreamed, until she had thought she’d go crazy. But the time for fretting and planning was over. Now that she knew she was strong enough to face the world on her own, it was time for action.
Today was the day.
The first day of the rest of her life. She almost smiled, thinking how perfectly that old cliché fit the moment. A small squeeze
