Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(12)

Stark sucked in air audibly. “Ms. Parr,” he said, his voice tight and prissy with disapproval. “I know this is shocking news for you, and very painful. It’s impossible to accept all at once. You might need help processing it, and no one could blame you, believe me. If you like, I can give you the number of someone you can call—”

“She’ll have stopped crying by tomorrow, right?” She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice. “Will the drugs have worn off by then?”

“Leave the interviews to the professionals.” Stark’s voice was crisp. “There will be a police investigation. The last thing Miriam needs is for distraught family members to descend upon her and—”

“To be honest, Dr. Stark, I really don’t care what Miriam needs.”

“It doesn’t sound like you cared what Howard needed, either!”

Lily stopped dead, jaw sagging. “Excuse me?” she said. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Ms. Vargas gave me a full report of what transpired between you and she and Howard this afternoon, Ms. Parr—”

“Well, then, she lied!” This conversation was a lost cause, but so was her self-control. “She was the one who agitated him, not me! And Howard would never have cut himself!”

“Ms. Parr?”

The new voice called to her, from outside the babble of the doctor’s scolding voice coming through her cell. Lily looked around to see where it was coming from.

A man in a gray hoodie, standing above her on Nina’s stoop. Young, dark-haired, good-looking. Smiling a blank sort of smile. He was familiar. The kind of familiar when you don’t really know a person, but you see him regularly, like the guy who sold her bananas from the fruit cart on the corner. She knew him, but from where . . .?

It exploded in her mind, jolting alarm through her rattled system. The cab driver from the Shaversham Point train station. What in the hell was he . . . oh. Oh, God. Oh, shit.

And this was Nina’s apartment. Not even her own place. So how did they . . . how could they . . . her mind couldn’t even embrace it.

How had he known where she was?

She looked at the cell phone in her hand, heard the tinny warbling still coming from it. Dr. Stark was continuing his rant, but she no longer heard him. She had bigger problems now. Much bigger.

Her heart thudded. Her eyes locked with his and stuck there.

He took a step toward her. “Can I have a word with you, please?”

The scrape of a door sliding open behind her. It was a big SUV, humming on the curb. It all came together. The prickles on her neck, Howard’s garbled confession, his impossible suicide.

And now, this guy with the blank, empty smile advancing on her from above, and the open SUV yawning behind—

Fuck this. She flashed the guy her most blinding bimbo bombshell smile. “Oh, my God! You’re the cabbie, right? The guy from Shaversham Point?” Her voice sounded high and thin and stupid. “Look, I’m, like, so sorry about standing you up for that cab ride, but things got really crazy for me today! But I do owe you that fare, and a tip, so let me just get that for ya right now, ’kay?” She beamed, reached in her purse—

Whipped out the Mace can. Squirt. Sucker punched.

The man reeled back, clawing at his eyes. She twirled to meet the other guy, heaving her computer bag in an arc into his face. He whipped his arm up to block it. She used that split second to zap a front kick to his crotch. He stumbled back with a grunt of outrage.

She recognized the other guy as his leg snapped up and his boot heel cracked agonizingly against her wrist. The Mace can flew, bounced, rolled. She scrambled back into a cluster of garbage cans. Kicked one into his path. He bounded over it, blade glinting, slashing down—

Thud. She ran backward into a parked car, did a flying flip-’n’roll over the hood, and hit the street at a dead run. She darted between cars, heedless of braying horns, squealing brakes. Guy Number Two was another cabbie from Shaversham Point. Normal reality had ripped open, releasing demons from hell. Busy street. She needed an avenue block, a subway stop. Witnesses. She groped for her phone. Gone.

Her legs pumped, past the Indian restaurant, the sushi bar, the Laundromat, the clothing boutique, the florist. No one in those places could defend her against knife-wielding demons while she called 911 and waited for the cops to sort it out. She’d be meat. So would they.

She peeked over her shoulder and shit, he was gaining. Subway stairs. She flew down the steps, praying that it was a turnstile one, not the revolving cage with no fare booth. It had turnstiles, thank God, but the fare booth was closed, just an automated machine. No one to see her plight, call the cops. A train pulled in, squealing. She leaped the turnstile like a jackrabbit, sped toward the train on the tracks, its doors agape. Ping, the doors were closing. She dove for it.

Crunch, the closing doors stuck on her shoulders and gnawed at her, burping and hiccupping in their efforts to close around her body. Pinned. She could only twist her head and watch death pounding down the stairs, straight toward her. The door lurched open. She tumbled inside, ambled like a crab on the floor to the middle of the car. Her legs shook too much to get up. He was going to make it inside, too.

Whoosh, the doors slid closed in his face. Thunk, her attacker slammed into the train. He tried to pry his fingers into the rubberized closure, scrabbling. The train took off, smoothly gaining speed.