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Carrie crowed with delight. “Oh, thank God you’ve finally gotten properly laid! I was wondering if it would ever happen! It wouldn’t have ever, if you’d married the dickwad. So when do we meet Mr. Muscles?”
She winced. “You won’t. It ended. Very badly.”
“One of those one-night stands where the guy never calls again?”
Becca let out a long, measured sigh. “I guess so. More or less.”
“Those suck,” Carrie said sagely. “But it’s probably just as well. He’s just a rebound boy. Slam, bam, thank you, Sam. Those Neanderthal types are great when the lights are out, but you can’t take them to the opera. You can’t let yourself get depressed about that.”
She was obscurely irritated by her sister’s superior, lecturing tone. “Actually, it would appear that I can,” she snapped.
It always needled her when Carrie played the role of the more sexually experienced sister. At nineteen, she was just too damn young, but Becca had always been too frantically busy keeping her orphaned family afloat to do the role justice herself. Carrie had picked up the slack with great enthusiasm. It worried Becca sometimes.
Carrie was still nattering on. Becca jerked her attention back to her sister’s voice. “…up to Seattle, just to check on you,” she was saying. “It’s definitely time for a visit.”
Panic exploded through her. She sat bolt upright. “No! Carrie, no. Don’t come up. Please.”
“Why the hell not?”
Becca floundered for a credible explanation, but she found herself mired in unspeakable memories instead. Gunshots, pools of blood, slashed throats, the Spider’s wet smile and glittering eyes, it was all far too close to her, too real. The toxic vibe infected the very air she breathed. She didn’t want Carrie and Josh anywhere near it.
And she couldn’t do anything crazy, like disrupting their lives by taking out a loan and sending them both to Argentina without telling them everything. Telling them struck her as even more dangerous.
“But I’m worried about you,” Carrie said plaintively. “It’s not like you, Becca. Not answering your phone, forgetting to go to work, picking up dangerous strangers and having wild sex with them…it’s weird. I think you need some serious, heavy-duty, industrial strength cuddling.”
Her heart squeezed, and tears rushed into her eyes. “You’re a sweetie, honey, and I appreciate the concern, but I don’t want to interrupt your studies. You can’t lose your scholarship. I can’t—”
“Yes, yes. I know. You can’t help me with rent and tuition both. I know, we’ve been through it.”
“Please,” Becca pleaded. “I can’t handle a visit now. I’m just not presentable. I need to lick my wounds alone for a while, OK? And oh, before I forget. I lost my cell phone. I have a new number. Got a pen?”
“Go ahead,” Carrie said.
Becca recited the new number to her. “Could you give it to Josh? And as soon as things calm down, I’ll come down to see you. I promise.”
“Hmm. We’ll see,” Carrie hedged. “I’ll talk to Josh.”
“Carrie, I’m serious,” she said, edging on desperation. “Please—”
“Talk to you soon, Becky. Big, smoochy kisses, OK? Bye.”
The connection broke. Becca stared at the phone in her hand, silently cursing her stubborn little sister. She flung the phone in the direction of the table and missed. It tumbled to the floor.
Just as well. She didn’t want to get an angry phone call from Gilda, the manager of DeLillo’s Fine Gourmet Catering, Becca’s off-and-on night job. She didn’t want to grope for lies, excuses, justifications, for feeling so bad. She just wanted to stare at the sky through the window as it turned from cobalt blue to black.
It got so terribly quiet. She pushed the button of the TV remote, did a desultory surf, and settled on a channel withFriendsreruns. That was the only thing that felt safe and bland enough to watch.
The doorbell rang, and the illusory sense of safety dissolved like smoke. In an instant, she went from feeling limp to feeling every muscle go rigid, with terror.
Who…? The Spider had found her already?
She got up, stumbling down onto one wobbly knee and kept herself bent over in the dark so no one looking in the windows would see any moving shadows as she crept towards the door. Kicking herself for not thinking to turn on the porch light before. Turning it on now would announce her presence behind the door like a trumpet fanfare.
Oh, hell, her security was useless anyway, so Nick said. And the Spider’s guys could shoot her right through the freaking walls, if they felt like it. They probably had thermal imaging devices on their damn guns. She should get over herself. She forced herself to stand up.
She put her eye to the peephole. There was enough light from the streetlamps to see the tall, broad silhouette. Those night-dark eyes.
Nick. Oh, God. It was Nick.
