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How could Eve understand she was the true friend if there were others trying to push her aside?
People always pushed her aside.
All her life, they’d pushed her aside, put her into corners, told her to be good, to be quiet. Behave.
No more.
Steady again, focused again, she walked off the elevator. Face angled away from the camera, tipped down.
She slipped her right hand in her pocket, pressed the buzzer with her left.
Nadine, she thought, would never shunt her aside in Eve’s affections again.
Inside, Nadine rolled her eyes at Eve’s last e-mail. Who’d have thought the tough, kick-your-ass-to-next-Tuesday cop would be such a fussy mother hen?
But she studied the latest sketch with interest. She’d check, be sure it was cleared—because she really didn’t want her ass kicked to next Tuesday—and if so she could go in tonight, do a special bulletin, get herself a nice scoop on the competition.
“Yeah, yeah,” she called at the sound of the buzzer. “Just hang on.”
She went to the door, looked through the security peep, saw a bit of profile and a big winter hat, some messy strands of brown hair poking out the bottom.
She reached for the locks, and Eve’s last e-mail sounded in her head.
Do not, under any circumstances, open the door to someone you don’t know. Do not, under any circumstances, open the door to anyone you’re not expecting.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, it’s just a messenger.”
But Eve’s flat, cop’s eyes seemed to bore into her brain.
“Fine, fine.” Nadine pushed the intercom. “Yes?”
“Yeah, Mercury Messengers. Package for Nadine Furst.”
“Let’s see it. Hold it up to the peep.”
“What’s the problem, lady?” But prepared, always prepared, she reached in the messenger bag, pulled out a thick envelope. “For Nadine Furst, from Bing Corbett, Channel Seventy-five. You want it or not? I’m on overtime here.”
Dallas had her spooked, Nadine thought, and reached for the locks again. So she’d compromise and leave the thick chain on, open the door just enough to get whatever her producer had sent her, and be done with it.
She clicked off the locks, let the door open two inches. “Pass it through.”
The brief hesitation had her angling back to look through the peep again.
“You gotta sign.”
“Pass it through,” she repeated, and this time felt a chill along her skin.
She called herself a nervous idiot when the envelope started thro
ugh the gap. She shifted again, started to reach for it, then stumbled to the side as the stunner followed.
The stream blasted heat on the chill, left her left arm tingling numb from the edge of the jolt. She half fell against the door as the stunner fired again, and whoever fired it threw their body weight on the door.
The next stream angled lower, skimmed along her calf, took her down to her knees.
She told herself the chain would hold, she could crawl away, out of range, get to her ’link. Get help.
But she wasn’t sure the chain would hold.
