of earphones on now, and was tweaking a row of dials.
The panic was passing, thanks to the woman in the rose madder gown. As a calmative, thinking of her even beat fifteen minutes of rocking in Pooh’s Chair.
No, it’s not her, it’s you, the deep voice told her. You’re on top of it, kiddo, at least for the time being, but you did it yourself. And would you do me a favor, no matter how the rest of this turns out? Try to keep remembering who’s really Rosie around here, and who’s Rosie Real.
“Talk about anything,” Curtis was telling her. “It doesn’t matter what.”
For a moment she was utterly at a loss. Her eyes dropped to the sides in front of her. The first was a cover reproduction. It showed a scantily clad woman being menaced by a hulking, unshaven man with a knife. The man had a moustache, and a thought almost too fleeting to be recognizable
(wanna get it on wanna do the dog)
brushed past her consciousness like a breath of bad air.
“I’m going to read a book called The Manta Ray,” she said in what she hoped was a normal speaking voice. “It was published in 1951 by Lion Books, a little paperback company. Although it says on the cover that the author’s name is ... have you got enough?”
“I’m fine on the reel-to-reel,” Curtis said, foot-powering himself from one end of his board to the other in his wheeled chair. “Just give me a little more for the DAT. But you’re sounding good.”
“Yes, wonderful,” Rhoda said, and Rosie didn’t think she was imagining the relief in the director’s voice.
Feeling encouraged, Rosie addressed the mike again.
“It says on the cover that the book was written by Richard Racine, but Mr. Lefferts—Rob—says it was actually written by a woman named Christina Bell. It’s part of an unabridged audio series called ‘Women in Disguise,’ and I got this job because the woman who was supposed to read the Christina Bell novel got a part in a—”
“I’m fine,” Curtis Hamilton said.
“My God, she sounds like Liz Taylor in Butterfield 8,” Rhoda Simons said, and actually clapped her hands.
Robbie nodded. He was grinning, obviously delighted. “Rhoda will help you along, but if you do it just like you did Dark Passage for me outside the Liberty City, we’re all going to be very happy.”
Rosie leaned over, just avoided whamming her head on the side of the table, and got a bottle of Evian water from the cooler. When she twisted the cap, she saw that her hands were shaking. “I’ll do my best. I promise you that.”
“I know you will,” he said.
Think of the woman on the hill, Rosie told herself. Think of how she’s standing there right now, not afraid of anything coming toward her in her world or coming up behind her from mine. She doesn’t have a single weapon, but she’s not afraid—you don’t need to see her face to know that, you can see it in the set of her back. She’s ...
“... ready for anything,” Rosie murmured, and smiled.
Robbie leaned forward on his side of the glass. “Pardon? I didn’t get that.”
“I said I’m ready to go,” she said.
“Level’s good,” Curtis said, and turned to Rhoda, who had set out her own Xeroxed copy of the novel next to her pad of paper. “Ready when you are, Professor.”
“Okay, Rosie, let’s show ’em how it’s done,” Rhoda said. “This is The Manta Ray, by Christina Bell. The client is Audio Concepts, the director is Rhoda Simons, and the reader is Rose McClendon. Tape is rolling. Take one on my mark, and ... mark.”
Oh, God, I can’t, Rosie thought once more, and then she narrowed her mind’s vision down to a single powerfully bright image: the gold circlet the woman in the picture wore on her upper right arm. As it came clear to her, this fresh cramp of panic also began to pass.
“Chapter One.
“Nella didn’t realize she was being followed by the man in the ragged gray topcoat until she was between streetlights and a garbage-strewn alley yawned open on her left like the jaws of an old man who has died with food in his mouth. By then it was too late. She heard the sound of shoes with steel
taps on their heels closing in behind her, and a big, dirt-grimed hand shot out of the dark ...”
3
Rosie pushed her key into the lock of her second-floor room on Trenton Street that evening at quarter past seven.