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I stare at the crackling blue fire strip

So this is how she’d done it No chlorofor over the head with a baseball bat She’d simply shown up at Beth’s door, and then later, at Bobby’s, stunned them, then shoved their limp bodies down the elevator shaft What could be simpler?

And Detective Canavan had said killers were dumb Rachel isn’t dumb What kind of doofus would have the savvy to pull off this kind of cri stupid stunts like elevator surfing, no one would ever think that the girls had actually been murdered, not when there was no hint of suspiciousness to their deaths

No one except a freak like me

No, Rachel isn’t duht up the perfect way to get rid of her ro if it hadn’t been formouth, Sarah and I wouldn’t be about to become Rachel’s third and fourth victi that qualifies e around here, you know," Rachel assures un to eree in che Did you know that, Heather?"

I shake my head Maybe one of the RAs will key in to the office to pick up his e I’d left on his cell phone…

"It’s aineering One can, for instance, learn to build small incendiary devices--so simple, yet so effective Do you knohat an incendiary device is, Heather? No, I would iine that you don’t After all, you were far too busy twitching your ass at the local h school, weren’t you? Let et when you stand a bunch of blonds next to each other, shoulder to shoulder?"

I look at Sarah She’s still sobbing, but she’s trying to do it quietly, so Rachel won’t slap her again

I shake hs humorlessly and says, "A wind tunnel, Heather! A wind tunnel!"

"Oh, , Rachel," I say, aht She’s definitely crazy Nuts, even "That’s really funny But you knohat? I have to go now Cooper’s waiting by the guard’s desk If I’ for"He doesn’t have a key And we aren’t going to let hi, Heather We have a lot of important work to do"

"Well, you knohat, Rachel?" I say "If we don’t open the door, Cooper’ll just have Pete call one of the RAs to let him in--"

"But the RAs don’t have keys to the office anyed" Rachel’s cheeks have twin spots of color in thehtly as the thin volt of electricity that leaps froht," she says happily "I had the lock changed yesterday, while you were in the hospital, and I’ht eyes on me and says, "You understand, don’t you, Heather? I mean, this isn’t a career for you This is just a job Assistant director to Fischer Hall It’s just a rest stop between gigs, isn’t it? A steady paycheck until you get the guts to go on the road again after your little dispute with your record coher education is my life My life, Heather Or at least it was Until--"

She stops speaking suddenly, her gaze, which had beco on me like a vise "Until him," she says, silance at the weapon in Rachel’s hand

But I don’t dare Seated, I’et No, somehow I have to distract her from whatever it is she intends to do to Sarah and ood idea what that is

"Hi to sound friendly, like we’re just chatting over cups of coffee in the cafeteria, so had begun "You hs bitterly, and that laugh un

"Christopher," she says, rolling the word on her tongue like it’s a piece of chocolate--so "Yes Chris You wouldn’t understand about Christopher, Heather You see, I love him You’ve never loved anyone before, Heather, except yourself, so you can’t knohat it’s like No, you can’t knohat it’s like to feel that all your happiness in life is dependent on one single individual, and then--and then to have that individual turn around and reject you--"

The look she gives el I think aboutabout…that this is how I’d felt about Jordan, who is at this veryMad Libs with Tania Trace in his hospital bed

But somehow I don’t think she’d listen

"No, you wouldn’t understand that," Rachel says "You’ve always had everything you’ve ever wanted, haven’t you, Heather? Handed to you on a silver platter Some of us have had to work for ant, you know Take ood?" Rachel runs a hand up and down her lean, hard, thousand-crunches-a-day abs "Hell, no I used to be fat A real lard ass Kind of like you are now, actually A size twelve" She laughs "I drowned my sorrows in candy bars, never worked out, like you Do you know I never got asked out--never, not once, until I turned thirty? While you were strutting around like a little slut for Cartwright Records, I hadas hard as I could, because I knew no one was going to swoop down and offercontract I knew if I wanted out ofto have to useout the , desperately hoping, I can tell, that so on inside

But it’s raining so hard, no one is on the street And the few people who are out hurry past with their heads tucked beneath umbrellas