There are no more doors, except one to President Allington’s bathroom. I’m trapped.
I can hear Rachel coming, slamming doors and screaming like a banshee. I look frantically around the room for a weapon, and come up empty-handed. Because of the track lighting in the mirrored ceiling—I’ll think about that one later—there isn’t even a lamp I can unplug and swing at her head. I think of sliding under the bed, hiding behind a set of those damask curtains, but I know she’ll find me. Can I talk my way out of this? I’ve talked my way out of worse jams than this. I can’t quite think of any right now, but I’m almost sure I have.
Rachel comes careening into the room, stumbling over the threshold and blinking as her eyes adjust to the sudden darkness. I stand on the opposite side of the room, behind the massive bed, trying not to be distracted by my reflection on the ceiling.
“Look, Rachel,” I pant, talking low and fast. “You don’t have to kill me. Or Sarah, either. I swear we won’t tell anyone about this. It’ll just be our secret, between us girls. I totally understand where you’re coming from. I’ve had guys jerk me around, too. I mean, Chris definitely isn’t worth going to jail for—”
“I won’t be going to jail, Heather,” Rachel says. “I’ll be organizing your memorial service. And my wedding. I’ll be sure to play all of your greatest hits at both. That is, if there’s more than one. Weren’t you kind of a one-hit wonder, anyway? Such a shame. I wonder if anyone will even show up at your funeral. After all, you’re already a has-been at—how old are you, anyway? Twenty-five? Twenty-six? Just an ex-pop star who’s let herself go.”
“Twenty-eight,” I say. “And fine. Kill me. But not Sarah. Come on, Rachel. She’s just a kid.”
“Aw.” Rachel smiles and shakes her head at me. “Isn’t that sweet? You begging for Sarah’s life like that. When in real life, I know how much she annoys you. See, that’s the problem with girls like you, Heather. You’re too nice. You have no killer instinct. When the going gets tough, you cave. You’re born with all the advantages, and you just throw them away. You let your body go, your man slip away, your career go down the toilet. Jesus, you even let your own mother rob you blind. And yet you’re still so… nice about it. I mean, you and Jordan? Still friends. You can’t stand Sarah, and here you are, pleading with me not to kill her. I bet you still send your mom Mother’s Day cards, don’t you?”
I gulp. And nod.
Well, what else am I going to say?
“See,” Rachel says. “Now that’s just sad. Because nice girls, they always finish last. I’ll actually be doing the world a favor by killing you. It’s natural selection, really. One less blond to watch go to waste.”
With that, Rachel comes at me, diving across the bed, stun gun first.
I whirl around and throw back the curtains. I unlatch the first set of French doors I reach and hurl myself out onto the terrace.
31
Wake up, look around
Everybody’s got their feet
On the ground
No way I’ll do the same
I’m over you,
No one to blame
Get out, out of my life
I’m not your mother
Won’t be your wife
Go on, go out that door
Don’t you mess
with me no more
It’s all over
Just leave it be
I’m over you
Get away from me
Heather Wells, “Get Out”
It’s still raining—harder than ever, actually. The sky is a leaden gray all around me.
I’ve never realized it before, but Fischer Hall is the tallest building on the west side of the park, and the penthouse terrace affords spectacular views of Manhattan on four sides, of the Empire State Building to the north, just visible through the mist, the fog-shrouded void where the World Trade Center had once stood to the south, the sodden East and West Villages.
An excellent place, I realize, to shoot a scene from a movie.Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, perhaps.
Except that this is no movie. This is real life.My life. For however much longer it lasts.
The wind up on the twentieth floor is strong, and drizzle spits in my face. I have a hard time figuring out just where I’m headed, since everywhere I look, I see only geranium planters precariously perched on low stone balustrades over which I can picture my body very easily tumbling.
Not knowing where else to go, I duck my head and start running around the sides of the Allingtons’ apartment, to the opposite side of the terrace. With no sign of Rachel following, I have a minute to pause and open my backpack, still hanging from its strap across my shoulders, and fumble inside it for that canister of pepper spray I could swear was still in it. I have no idea if the thing will still work, but at this point, anything that will keep me from meeting the volts from that stun gun is worth a try.
I find it. I release the safety catch when a deafening crash occurs just behind me, and in a shower of splintering wood and flying glass, Rachel leaps through a set of French doors—like Cujo, or a teenage mutant ninja turtle—not even bothering to unlatch them first. She hits me with the full force of her body, and we both go down onto the wet flagstones.
I land solidly on my sore shoulder, effectively knocking all the breath from my chest. But I try to keep rolling, over shards of wood and glass, to get away from her.
She’s on her feet before I am, and coming toward me at full charge. Through it all, she’s managed to hang on to the Thunder Gun.
But I still clutch the pepper spray, hidden in my fist. When she bends over me, her dark hair already becoming plastered to her face by the rain, her lips are curled back in a snarl not unlike Lucy’s when she’s riled by a tennis ball or a Victoria’s Secret catalog.
“You’re so weak,” Rachel sneers at me, and she waves the stun gun under my nose. “How can you tell a brunette?”
I try to maneuver myself into a position from which I can spray her directly in the face. I don’t want the wind whipping the stuff back at me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I wheeze, still breathless from the impact of my fall. God. I can’t believe I once bought this woman flowers.
And okay, they were only from the deli. But still.
“You know how you can tell a brunette?” Rachel grins, her face just inches from mine. “Turn a blond upside down!”
As she lunges to blast 120,000 volts into my right hip, I lift my hand and launch a stream of pepper spray into her face. Rachel shrieks and backs up, throwing an arm up to protect her face…
Only the nozzle won’t push all the way down. So instead of a jet of chemical poison hitting her in the eye, the stuff just foams down the side of the canister, soaking into my stitches and burning me badly enough to make me go, “Ow!”
Rachel, realizing she hasn’t been hit after all, starts to laugh.
“Oh God,” she brays. “Could you be more pathetic, Heather?”
But this time, when she lunges at me, I’ve rolled to my feet, and I’m ready for her.
“Rachel,” I say, as she comes at me. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you for a long time. Size twelve”—wrapping my stinging fingers around the hard canister, I slam my fist as hard as I can into Rachel’s face—“is not fat.”
My knuckles explode in pain. Rachel screams and staggers back, both her hands going to her nose, from which an astonishing amount of blood is spurting.
“My nose!” she shrieks. “You broke my nose! You fucking bitch!”
I’m barely able to stand, my shoulder is throbbing so badly, my hands feeling as if they’re on fire from the pepper spray. I have shards of glass stuck to my back, the knuckles on my right hand are numb, and blood is coming from a cut somewhere in the vicinity of my forehead: I’m blinking both rainwater and my own blood from my eyes. All I want to do is go inside and lie down for a while and maybe watch the Food Network, or something.