a bracing November dip and do a salvage job if he so chose.
She could breathe a bit better now, but she knew from experience that the health benefits of childish, vindictive behavior were very short-term. She’d crash and burn again soon if she didn’t stay in constant motion. Work was the only thing that could save her now. She grabbed her purse, jumped into the car, and headed downtown to her office.
Dougie, her receptionist, looked up with startled eyes when she charged through the glass double doors of Callahan Web Weaving. “Wait. Hold on a second. She just walked in the door,” he said into the phone. He pushed a button. “Mag? What are you doing here? I thought you were coming in this afternoon, after you had lunch with—”
“Change of plans,” she said crisply. “I have better things to do.”
Dougie looked bewildered. “But Craig’s on line two. He wants to know why you’re late for your lunch date. Says he has to talk to you. Urgently. As soon as possible. A matter of life and death, he says.”
Mag rolled her eyes as she marched into her office. “So what else is new, Dougie? Isn’t everything that has to do with Craig’s precious convenience a matter of life and death?”
Dougie followed her. “He, uh, sounds really flipped out, Mag.”
Come to think of it, it would be more classy, dignified, and above all, final if she looked him in the eye while she dumped him. Plus, she could throw the panties bag right into his face if he had the gall to deny it. That would be satisfying. Closure, and all that good stuff.
She smiled reassuringly into Dougie’s anxious eyes. “Tell Craig I’m on my way. And after this, don’t accept any more calls from him. Don’t even bother to take messages. For Craig Caruso, I am in a meeting, for the rest of eternity. Is that clear?”
Dougie blinked through his glasses, owl-like. “You OK, Mag?”
The smile on her face was a warlike mask. “Fine. I’m great, actually. This won’t take long. I’m certainly not going to eat with him.”
“Want me to order in lunch for you, then? Your usual?”
She hesitated, doubting she’d have much appetite, but poor Dougie was so anxious to help. “Sure, that would be nice.” She patted him on the shoulder. “You’re a sweetie-pie. I don’t deserve you.”
“I’ll order carrot cake and a double skim latte, too. You’re gonna need it,” Dougie said, scurrying back to his beeping phone.
Mag checked the mirror inside her coat closet, freshened her lipstick, and made sure her coppery red ’do was artfully mussed, not wisping dorkily, as it tended to do if she didn’t gel the living bejesus out of it. One should try to look elegant when telling a parasitical user to go to hell and fry. She thought about mascara and decided against it. She cried easily; when she was hurt, when she was pissed, and today she was both. Putting on mascara was like spitting in the face of the gods.
She grabbed her purse, uncomfortably aware, as always, of the 9mm Beretta that shared space with wallet, keys, and lipstick inside. A gift from Craig, after she’d gotten mugged months ago. A pointless gift, since she’d never been able to bring herself to load the thing, and had no license to carry it concealed. Craig had insisted that she keep it in her purse, along with an extra clip of ammunition. And she’d gone along with it, in her efforts to be sweet and grateful and accommodating. Hah.
If she were a different woman, she’d make him regret that gift. She’d wave it around at him, scare him out of his wits. But that kind of tantrum just wasn’t her style. Neither were guns. She’d give it back to him today. It was illegal, it was scary, it made her purse too heavy, and besides, today was all about streamlining, dumping excess baggage.
Emotional feng shui. Sploosh, straight into the lake.
By the time she got to her car, the unseasonable late autumn heat made sweat trickle between her shoulder blades. She felt rumpled, flushed and emotional. Frazzled Working Girl was not the look she wanted for this encounter. Indifferent Ice Queen was more like it. She cranked the air-conditioning to chill down to Ice Queen temperatures and pulled out into traffic, the density of which gave her way too much time to think about what a painful pattern this was in her love life.
Used and shafted by charming jerks. Over and over. She was almost thirty years old, for God’s sake. She should have outgrown this tedious, self-destructive crap by now. She should be hitting her stride.
Maybe she should get her head shrunk. What a joy. Pick out the most icky element of her personality, and pay someone scads of money to help her dwell on it. Bleah. Introspection had never been her thing.
She parked her car outside the newly renovated brick warehouse that housed Craig’s new studio, and braced herself to see Craig’s tech assistant bouncing up to chirp a greeting. Mandi was her name. Probably dotted the i with a heart. Nothing behind those big brown eyes but bubbles and foam. She had long dark hair, too. Fancy that.
There was no one to be seen in the studio. Odd. Maybe Craig and Mandi had been overcome with passion in the office in back. She set her teeth and marched through the place. Her heels clicked loudly on the tile. The silence made the sharp sounds echo and swell.
The door to Craig’s office was ajar. She clicked her heels louder. Go for it. Burn your bridges, Mag, it’s what you’re best at. She slapped the door open, sucked in air and opened her mouth to—
She rocked back with a choked gasp. The panty bag dropped from her hand.
Craig was dangling by his wrists from the pipes in the ceiling, suspended by one of his own ties. Naked. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth. Her brain picked out random details to focus on with preternatural clarity. The tie knotted around his wrists, cruelly tight. Beige silk, tasteful accents of gold. One of his favorites.
His bloodshot eyes rolled when he saw her. His mouth worked, but no sound came out. Fine hairlike things protruded from his naked body. Needles. He was stuck full of them. They were everywhere.
She lunged forward, a hoarse croak that felt more animal than human jerking out of her throat, and stumbled to an abrupt stop.
Slim legs sprawled wide on the floor, one shoe on, one shoe off. Gartered hose. Bare, pale, skinny bottom. Mandi. She lay terribly still.
Mag’s horrified gaze locked with Craig’s. His desperate eyes flicked to a point behind her, to her left. She slowly turned her head.
A flash of awful pain, fire, and ice combined stabbed into her neck, down into her arm, up into her head, where it proceeded to explode.
Fireworks were overtaken by blackness. The world was gone.
“She has to die, Faris.”
Marcus’s voice on the cell phone Faris clutched to his ear seemed soft with puzzled regret, but he knew the cold steel beneath it very well.
Faris stared at the naked girl lying on the hotel bed. Her coppery hair was snarled against the pillow. He stroked the curve of her belly, the indentation of her navel. Her translucent skin was so soft and fine.
He was so gifted. He deserved this. Her love would fill that hollow ache that tortured him whenever Marcus had no jobs for him to do.
“No,” he whispered.
