“…can’t believe that guy! That asshole! Can you believe what he said to me?” She caught his eye and promptly directed her outrage toward him before he could turn and shrink away unnoticed. “He shoved me!” she shrieked. “How dare he?”

“Calm down, baby. Don’t freak. There are concert presenters all over the place,” the butthead pretty boy was muttering desperately.

“Calm down? Screw you, Petey! I was, like, attacked in public, and all you can say is just calm down?” She turned her bug-eyed blue gaze to Liam. “He shoved me!” she repeated. “I almost fell!”

“Who shoved you?” Liam asked.

“The producer asshole, but you know what? I bet he wasn’t a producer at all. I mean, he didn’t look like one. He didn’t have that Hollywood gloss. And he was big and fat, and he had bad breath. Like, nobody’s fat with bad breath in Hollywood! And why would he want to talk to Nancy, and not me? I mean, I’m the talent! She’s just—” Enid struggled for a word sufficiently dismissive—“administrative help!”

First the hairs on his back prickled, and then icy cold talons sank into his gut. Big fat guy. Bad breath. Wanted Nancy. Shit.

He grabbed Enid’s shoulders so hard, she squeaked. “Did he go with her? Where did he go?”

She goggled at him. He gave her an impatient little shake.

“Do you mind?” she sniffed, wrenching away. “He went after her, toward the restaurant. She’s welcome to him. Rude son of a bitch.”

“What does he look like?” Liam demanded.

“Hey!” the butthead Peter blustered. “Don’t touch my wife!”

“Fuck off,” Liam said, not bothering to look at him. “What does he look like? Hair color, eyes? Talk to me, goddammit!”

Enid was starting to look scared. “Um, black hair?” Her voice had gotten small and uncertain. “A goatee, and, um, a black leather jacket.”

He lost the rest, already forging through the crowd amidst shouts and grunts of protest. Fear propelled him toward the restaurant.

He’d lose too much time if he stopped to get the gun and load it. He jogged through the restaurant, checking all the tables. No Nancy.

Think, meathead. Think. The door to the kitchen burst open. A harried-looking waitress came bursting out. Behind her, there was some sort of commotion in the kitchen. People were yelling. Good enough for him. He pushed his way through the swinging door. A woman caught sight of him and ran forward, holding up her hands to bar his way.

“Hey! No customers in here!” she yelled. “Get back!”

“What happened in here?” he demanded.

“It was gross,” a round-faced girl standing near the entrance confided. “This lady was sick to her stomach, and the guy gets the bright idea to drag her through the kitchen? That’s so unhygienic! The Board of Health could shut us down for—hey! Where are you going?”

Liam barreled through the people. He slipped, arms flailing, in a long, harrowing slide down the straight-a-way between two rows of range tops, in a slippery skid of yellowish sauce, barely keeping his feet.

He pitched out the door, reeling. Loading bay, garbage. No movement. He took off, heart thudding, for the parking lot.

A harried mother pushing a stroller. A young couple. A retirement age man and his blue-haired wife getting out of a sedan, arguing. Their voices floated over. A big guy in a yellow fringed coat rolling a string bass behind him. No black-haired guy, no black jacket. No Nancy.

He looked again. Nothing else moved. The man and his wife passed. Their babble did not penetrate his mind. He stared at the parking lot, feeling with all his senses. Doubts niggled. Maybe Nancy was in the hall, safe and sound, conducting her business. And he was out here chasing phantoms created by his own overheated brain.

And maybe not. Big fat guy. Bad breath.

He gave the yellow-coated man a second look. The guy slowed to a stop and looked around. Sun glinted off his mirrored sunglasses. He looked at Liam for a second, and turned away, but when he started to move again, he was moving slightly faster. Dragging his big instrument case. It rattled and bumped behind him.

The case. The fucking case. Oh, sweet suffering Christ.

He took off running. The guy was opening the hatchback of an SUV. He heaved the instrument up and into the back of it, slammed it shut. Glanced at Liam racing toward him. Dove for the driver’s seat.

The motor roared. Brake lights came on. Liam was shouting, screaming. The SUV started to pull out. It had to stop and correct. Liam flung himself at the back of the vehicle, yanked at the latch of the hatchback.

It opened. The guy had been in too big of a hurry to lock it. Liam flung himself inside, next to the case. It lay there like a deformed coffin in a hearse. The guy screamed back over his shoulder.

Liam scrabbled for something to grab on to as the guy backed up again, with a violent burst of speed, and then braked abruptly.

Liam slid out the back, dragging the case with him. It toppled, rolled, rocked on the asphalt. Bam, the asshole took a shot at him. Liam flung himself to the side. Zing, another bullet ricocheted off the asphalt.

A car window exploded. Glass rattled, tinkled. The case was still lying right behind the vehicle’s tires. The SUV had stopped moving.

Liam guessed the filthy fuck’s intentions and leaped to heave the case out of harm’s way right before the SUV roared into reverse and ran it down. They landed between parked cars in the opposite row. He flung himself onto the case, landing with a bone-wrenching thud, in case the bastard stopped to shoot again. Shouts, screams. People had heard the gun.

The SUV peeled away, tires squealing. It tore out of the parking lot, ran a light at the corner, and was gone.

Liam slid off the case onto his ass, shaking. His face was wet. His nose streamed with blood. He turned the case gently right side up and unlatched it with trembling hands, his heart in his throat.

Nancy was curled inside the padded interior, hair over her face. He felt her throat, rejoicing at the pulse. Scooped her out into his arms and cradled her. He brushed the hair off her forehead, murmuring her name over and over. Alive. Not shot. Not broken. Not taken. Oh, God.

He was crying. He couldn’t stop. He just sat on the ground, while the commotion buzzed. Rocking her. Holding her.

Until they pried her out of his arms and took her away from him.

Chapter

12

Nancy stared out the window of her apartment from her seat on the couch. It was full dark, but she couldn’t be bothered to turn on the light. And she was too tired to wrestle the couch down into a bed.

She should be at the cathedral uptown, where Novum Canticum, her Gregorian chant choir, was having their big New York debut concert. It was an important gig for them, their first well-established classical concert series, and she should be there to support them.

But she couldn’t get off the couch. Her ass was weighted down.

They would understand, of course. Everybody was extremely understanding these days. They were treating her like blown glass.

She’d tried to stay too busy to be miserable. How could a woman wallow in self-pity when her cell phone never stopped ringing, and her e-mail in-box never had anything less than twenty new messages? She was surrounded by people who needed her. The hub of frantic activity.

The Jericho gig had been a smash. Peter and Enid were besieged with offers. Record companies that had previously disdained them were making unctuous overtures. Nancy boosted concert fees by a judicious 50 percent and passed out promo packets right and left, wondering why she wasn’t happier. It was finally coming together, and that was something, wasn’t it? All that heroic effort had paid off. Hadn’t it?