Size 12 and Ready to Rock (Heather Wells 4)

Now the hair is brown again. His button-down shirt is neat and clean under a boringly ordinary coat and tie, the coat and tie of . . . a suburban choir teacher or a dad. He could be driving the kids to soccer practice or taking the babysitter home. You wouldn’t notice the bandage on his hand if you weren’t looking for it. You probably wouldn’t notice the revolver he’s holding in that same hand either, if you weren’t looking for it.

But I am. And I do.

“I . . . I don’t understand,” Tania says, looking from the revolver to his face. Her expression is bewildered. “How . . . how did you get in here?”

I don’t blame her for feeling confused. I feel confused too. A minute ago, I’d been sure it was Jordan coming toward us from the darkness. I’d expected it to be Jordan.

Except it’s not Jordan at all, but Gary Hall, dressed as himself, his true self, a forty-six-year-old abusive husband . . . who, it turns out, can look like anyone at all.

“Hello, Tatiana,” he says, smiling. “Do you like this outfit?” He reaches up to straighten the brown knit tie with one hand, keeping the muzzle of the gun pointed straight at us with the other. “I do too. It’s comfortable. I’m Mallory St. Clare’s dad tonight. You know Mallory, don’t you? Of course you do. She’s one of your little protégés. Of course, the truth is, according to Bridget, that Mallory’s dad left the family when she was ten, but tonight he’s making a surprise return. I called ahead and made sure his name got put on the list. The student at the box office was so sympathetic. Most people are when it comes to single dads and their teenage daughters. They want everything to work out.”

Tania doesn’t say anything. I don’t blame her. I feel as if an earthquake is going on, only inside of me instead of beneath my feet. The ground is shifting, shifting, everything moving in slow motion, but only I can feel it.

How could this be happening? Everyone kept telling us we’d be safe. Detective Canavan had laughed when I asked if he thought it was a good idea for Tania to go through with the Rock Off.

“Hall is a thousand miles away by now,” he’d said, the last time we spoke, “getting his ass bit by a million mosquitoes in Saskatchewan.”

The head of Protection Services—what was his name? O’Malley? O’Brian?—had stood there with his shiny buttons and badge and his blue eyes filled with tears and said he’d have everyone—everyone—on duty, watching every door.

But all it takes is one door—one person looking away for one tiny second—and you realize how much everything can change, how fragile life is. This time I really am about to die, like I thought I was going to that night in Fischer Hall when Gavin hit me with the paintball.

Only this is real. This guy is going to kill me. I’ll bet anything that even though Gary Hall gave a phony name at the door and may even have shown a phony ID, that’s not a phony gun in his hand.

“What do you want?” I demand, my voice shaking. That’s because of the fear I’m feeling, dancing and bubbling up and down my spine, like the water in the fountains outside in Washington Square Park. I have no idea how I’m still standing. I long to sit down, give my shaking knees a rest. But I have a feeling I’ll be resting forever soon.

“Tatiana knows what I want,” Gary Hall says, not unpleasantly. “Don’t you, Tatiana?”

“What I want is for you to go, Gary,” Tania says, her voice shaking as much as my knees. “Now. This is an invitation-only event, and you”—her eyes look crazy in the pink glow of the gels shining on the podium—“were not invited.”

I can’t believe what I’m seeing, let alone hearing. Tania is actually standing up to her lunatic husband, and not in song.

“Yeah,” I say to him, setting Baby on the ground, since he’s begun to whine, not liking the fact that his mistress seems upset. Maybe he’ll leap at Gary’s throat, like a dog on TV. But he only wanders over to Tania’s feet and cowers behind her. “Tania’s right. I’m afraid you have to leave, Gary.”

He looks at us both in disbelief. “I don’t think you’re comprehending the situation, girls,” he says. “I am holding a loaded firearm. I’m going to shoot one or both of you. I don’t think you want that to happen. Tatiana, I’ve had enough of this nonsense. You’re coming with me.”

“No, I’m not, Gary,” Tania says, her voice still shaking. But she holds her ground. “It’s over. I told Jordan. He knows everything, and you know what? He says he loves me anyway, and you can tell the stupid story of how we never got divorced to the whole world for all he cares. He’ll marry me again once you and I are divorced, after you’ve gone to jail for what you did to Bear and Jared and Bridget—”

“Then,” Hall says, holding the revolver to the side of my head and pulling back the hammer, “I guess there’s no reason for me not to shoot your friend, is there?”

I freeze. If I’d thought I felt like I was in my own private earthquake before, now I really feel that way, because I’m positive toy guns don’t make that kind of noise when the hammer is pulled back. I know because Cooper, in an effort to familiarize me with firearms so I wouldn’t feel so nervous around one, showed me how his Glock works (although he hasn’t yet had a chance to take me to the firing range, since he’s been busy guarding Tania). And every time a bullet snapped into the chamber, it made a noise similar to the one I just heard.

Now, I realize, I’ll never get a chance to go to the target range with Cooper to learn how to shoot. Because I’m about to die.

“Is this what you want me to do, Tatiana?” Gary Hall demands in a voice hoarse with desperation. He reaches out to wrap a hand around my upper arm and drag me toward him. That’s when I get a whiff of him. He smells of mothballs—the Mr. St. Clare costume has evidently been in storage—and sweat. The gun smells of oil and my imminent death. “Because this is what you’ve driven me to. You’re making me do this. You made me hurt all those people.”

I can’t believe how clichéd he sounds. Hey, buddy, I want to say to him. You need Stephanie to punch up your dialogue.

But this scene from Jordan Loves Tania hasn’t been pre-scripted. Gary Hall is deeply disturbed.

“If you’d just stayed with me and treated me with the respect I deserved after all the things I did for you,” Gary goes on, “no one would have gotten hurt—”