Page 84 of Antihero

And then she slumped to the floor.

Dumping the umbrella, Evan sprinted across the street, horns blaring.

Banging into the lobby, he slid to her on his knees.

She was convulsing, irises half-moons beneath her upper lids, cheek jittering against the worn tile. He slid a hand beneath her face, tugged her into his lap, rolled her onto her side, checked her airway. Snaggles of hair tangled across her forehead, curtaining her eyes. He smoothed it back. Her boots kicked and squeaked against the floor, her fingernails clattering. Her back arched and arched again.

He held her.

She was unconscious, so it felt safe for him to do so.

At last she stilled.

Her head lolled. Long, long blinks.

And then she gazed up at him. Awareness came into her slowly but palpably.

“I’m sorry,” Evan said. “I was following you.”

Her words came out fuzzy. “I know.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“You’re right.” The faintest smile. “I didn’t.”

She pushed herself up to a sitting position on the floor, and he helped her.

“I saw you,” he said. “With the girl.”

Propped on one arm, Anca breathed a few times, steadying herself. “It takes so much meanness to keep good out.”

“Yes,” Evan said, “and to protect it sometimes.”

She gave a slight nod, more reassuring than affirming.

The dandelion had fallen from her hair. She picked it up from the tiles. It was slightly crushed, like the one floating in Joey’s cocktail.

Anca rose and stood once more on wobbling legs, gripping Evan’s arm until she found her balance. With a quavering hand, she slid the dandelion back behind her ear.

“Onward,” she said, and turned to summon the elevator.

There it is, he thought. The Parable of Anca Dumitrescu.

33This Is Me

The walls of the Opera House Hotel were clad with framed newspaper clippings featuring Barrymore and Houdini and more dazzling erstwhile performers. Evan and Candy walked shoulder to shoulder down the hall, separate room keys in hand.

After settling Anca in, they’d taken their leave, Candy promising to check in on her in the morning and to broach the topic, when appropriate, of her giving a statement to Deputy Assistant Director Naomi Templeton. Evan could grab about six hours of shut-eye before leaving for his flight. Six hours were sufficient to sustain him with no deterioration of reflexes or mental acuity. A mattress would be nice.

He could smell Candy’s perfume—no, not perfume, but something softer. Lotion, perhaps. Plumeria. As they moved down the corridor, the backs of their hands brushed and they drew apart. Candy pulled slightly ahead and the light caught the side of her neck, pooling in the faint indentation of the supraclavicular fossa just above the sleek stroke of her clavicle. Her pale pink fitted raincoat was jogged back on her shoulders, showing a half-moon at the back of her collar just above the wreckage of the scar tissue. Her trapezius was smoothly defined, strong and feminine. The rain had left a sheen across her cheek. It glistened. The spot beneath her ear looked soft.

Distracting.

Reaching his room, he peeled left, and she drifted ahead, honeying the air with the slightest trace of that lotion—tropical, floral, not too sweet. Her hips swayed but not theatrically. That was just how Candy McClure moved.

She reached a doorway midway up the corridor.

His electronic key card was pressed to the reader. A flickering green dot accompanied the click of the yielding lock. Her key card was in her hands. Her manicured nails drummed against the plastic. She looked down the hall at him.