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“You can send her in,” I told Tarra, then moved my laptop to the side of my desk, so that we could talk face to face. I looked up when I felt eyes on me from the doorway, and froze.
And then…frowned.
“I…Amanda?” I asked, standing up from my chair to… see her better, I guess. The last time I saw Amanda, she’d sported blonde, shoulder length locs, an earring in her nose, and the best of the best in floral maxis and beaded bracelets. Now, standing in my doorway, she… looked like she’d been inmycloset. Tall, spiked stilettos instead of the braided leather sandals I was used to, coral-toned slacks, floral button-up, and a sleek olive blazer. And her hair… was a mirror image of…mine– thick, lush weave that framed her face in soft waves.
“You were given a simple instruction,” she said, stepping into the office. “Why couldn’t you just follow it? Everything would have been fine, if you just did what you were told.”
My face twisted. “What? Amanda… what the hell is going on? Why would give a fake name to make an appointment? You’re not Ashley Cline, you’reAmanda Gordon,” I insisted, but then remembered. “Amanda…AshleyGordon.”
Right.
Amanda Ashley Gordon.
“Ash… le… no. No, Ash—”
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts as my final conversation with Kim came to mind. But it nagged at me, as inconvenient a moment as this was, before something snapped into place.
She wasn’t saying Asher. She was trying to say Ashley.
“All you had to do was let me havesomething,” Amanda said, and somehow, there was a gun in her hands, the barrel pointed right at my face. “You had Kellen, even though I wasbetterthan you, he told me. And then you… you pranced around Asher, like a whore, and you took him from me too. You’re not taking anyone else. Helovesme. He just doesn’t see it yet. But once you’re gone, he’ll know how much more worthy I am, and always was. He’ll see me the way he sees –saw– you. I’ll be the one who’s perfect.”
I didn’t – couldn’t – ask her what in world, who in the world, she was talking about, because several things happened next, seemingly at once. The bathroom door opened, and Wick was there, and Amanda fired the gun. Then I was on the floor, sinking into that plush, luscious carpet as pain radiated through every single one of my nerves. The gun went off again, one, two,threemore times, but I was dizzy, and numb, and there was…God, why was there so much blood?
“Monica? Monica!”
There were voices all around me, screams and yelling, but I focused on the voice that felt soothing, and comforting. I focused on Wick.
“What… what happened? What’s happening?” I asked, when his face finally came into focus, filtering through my blurred vision.
Instead of answering my question, he started touching me all over – checking me. “Monica.Monica. Are you hit?”
“Amanda was here. Wick, did you see Amanda?”
Did I imagine that? Is this a dream?
“Amanda is dead, Monica.” Wick’s voice was firm, but not unkind as he grabbed my hand, pulling me up into a seated position. “I took care of it.”
“You’re bleeding?” I asked, even though it really wasn’t a question. I’d gripped his arms as he pulled me up, and now there was blood soaking my hand, and my sleeve, and he was cringing.
“It’s nothing,” he insisted, at the same time that a paramedic –When did paramedics get here? –approached him, telling him that he really should get the gunshot wound looked at. “Man, get off me!” he growled, shooing the paramedic away.
“Sir, you’re bleeding very bad—”
“I’m fine. Leave it.”
“But—”
“Look, I saidleave it. The only thing I’m concerned about right now is my… my…”
I blinked. “Your… what?”
He looked at me for what felt like a long time, before something like determination… likecertainty… spread over his face. “Just…mine.” He held my gaze, wordlessly asking me to understand what he didn’t want to – or maybe, simply couldn’t – articulate.
I did.
“I want you to let them look at your… gunshot wound,” I said, feeling dizzy as I looked at the blood that had soaked the sleeve of his sweater, and was leaking onto the carpet. “What the hell just happened?”
Wick cringed as the paramedic made quick work of cutting the sleeve of his sweater off, to get to a the ragged-looking hole in his arm. “Well… it appears we found Amanda.”
