In answer, Beau resumed his struggle for the upper hand. Aaron held him in place, the way a wolf might pin a pup.
“My problem?” Beau said. “My problem is you. You bring your little high-class, never-worked-a-day-in-her-life girlfriend here? To my sister’s show?” Beau didn’t give Aaron time to respond. “You think that you can treat people like they’re nothing—”
Beau surged again, and this time, he ended up on top just long enough to land a solid punch to Aaron’s jaw before security swarmed them. The guards pulled Beau off of Aaron—a little harder than necessary—and then looked to Aaron for instruction.
“Allison is not my girlfriend,” Aaron said calmly. “She’s just a family friend, and I was as surprised to see her here as you were.”
“I doubt that.”
Aaron and Beau turned in unison to look at Tory. She was still dressed in her costume from the show, but she was fully herself again. No muss. No fuss.
Nothing can hurt you unless you let it.
“You’re the one who called her up on stage,” Aaron told Tory. “What the hell were you thinking, Tory?” He paused. “What did you do to her?”
“She didn’t do anything!” Beau struggled beneath the security guard’s hold. “You probably set the whole thing up, you sick son of a—”
“Enough!” Tory shouted. Beau stilled. Tory dragged her gaze from him to Aaron, and her eyes hardened. “I want you both out of here. Now.”
The now seemed to be directed at the security guards.
“Sir,” one of them told Aaron, visibly uncomfortable with the words exiting his mouth. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Aaron’s eyes never left Tory’s face. “Tory, let me explain.”
“You don’t need to explain.” Tory’s voice was emotionless, but there was steel underneath. “Our relationship is strictly professional.” She looked around at the audience they’d gathered—including Sloane, Lia, Dean, and me—and her voice hardened. “It always has been.”
“You heard her,” Beau told Aaron, his eyes hard.
“Don’t.” Tory rounded on Beau, her voice cracking whip-loud through the air. “I didn’t ask you to do this, Beau, and I am done cleaning up your messes.” She swallowed, and I got the sense that sending Beau away was even harder for her than ending things with Aaron. “Leave,” she said, her voice lower. “Now.”
Without waiting for a response, Tory turned back to the stage and started yelling out directions for the stagehands. “Get a doctor up here for Ms. Lawrence. Then call the head of security and inform him that we have a situation. I want this show back up and running in five minutes.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” Agent Briggs knew how to make an entrance—in this case, with his badge held high for everyone to see. “Special Agent Briggs, FBI,” he said, his voice carrying. “I’m going to need to ask you all some questions.”
YOU
Could you be any clearer? The numbers. The spiral. The dates. It’s an act of contrition. An act of devotion.
An act of revenge.
You’ve waited so long. You’ve waited, and you’ve planned, and now that you’re this close, you can feel it. The old anger, creeping back into your veins. The power.
The fear.
You will finish it. Three times three times three. You will be worthy.
This time, you will not fail.
The dream started the way it always did. I was walking through a narrow hallway. The floor was tiled. The walls were white. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. On the ground, my shadow flickered, too.
At the end of the hallway, there was a metal door. I walked toward it. Don’t. Don’t open the door. Don’t go in there. The warning came from my conscious mind, which knew all too well what lay down that road.
But I couldn’t stop. I opened the door. I stepped into the darkness. I reached for the light switch on the wall. I felt something warm and sticky on my hands.
Blood.
I flipped the switch. Everything went white. All I could do was blink until the scene settled in front of me.
A spotlight.
A crowd.
I was onstage, wearing the royal blue dress I’d tried on in the store. My gaze traveled over the audience, picking out the ones I’d marked in advance for readings. The woman in the white vest, clutching her purse like it might sprout legs and run away. The teenager whose eyes were already tearing up. The older gentleman in the pale blue suit, sitting dead center in the front row.
This isn’t right, I thought frantically. I don’t want to do this. I turned, and in the wings, I saw myself. Younger. Watching. Waiting.
I woke with a start. My hands were wound tightly in the sheets. My chest heaved up and down. I was alone in the room. No Sloane. Processing that, I rolled over to look at the clock and froze.
The walls were completely covered. Sheet after sheet of paper, marked in red. This must have taken Sloane all night, I thought. She hadn’t said a word when we’d gotten back to the room—not about the message from our killer, not about Aaron and the accusations Beau had flung at him.
Rolling out of bed, I went to examine Sloane’s work more closely. Twelve sheets of printer paper had been affixed to the wall in four rows of three.
January, February, March…
I was looking at a handwritten calendar. Dates had been circled at seemingly random intervals. Six in January, three in February, four in March. I scanned the next row. A handful in April, only two in May.