The whole room opened up before her, big enough to be a ballroom. Thirty feet of polished wooden parquet flooring lay between the archway and the desk. The chandelier was not switched on, but several lamps along the walls gave light.
“Rosa!”
Iole wore only a white nightshirt that came down to her knees. She was sitting on a leather sofa beside the west wall of the study, with her wrists bound. She tried to jump up, but a slender hand grabbed her arm and dragged her back down onto the cushions. Valerie was holding a silver pistol in her hand, pressing the muzzle against Iole’s temple.
The corners of Rosa’s mouth twitched. It was almost a smile.
“Your hardcore is my mainstream,” she said softly—the wording on the T-shirt that Valerie had been wearing when they’d first met in Brooklyn. She didn’t know why that popped into her mind just now. Or why she suddenly laughed, a loud laugh intended to wound. The words were in such absurd contrast to the emaciated, drug-addicted girl with the gun that she couldn’t help herself. She was laughing at Valerie’s betrayal, her sorrow, her naive, obsessive, fatal love for Michele Carnevare. She laughed until it turned to a choking cough, and the look in Iole’s wide eyes showed more concern for Rosa than anxiety for her own fate.
“Finished?” inquired Valerie. “Then go over to the desk and pick up what’s lying there. Use it.”
Rosa’s eyes followed her gesture. A syringe ready for injection lay under the lamp on the desktop. The contents shimmered yellow in the sharply outlined circle of light.
Rosa didn’t move from the spot. She stood in the middle of the room, the archway behind her, the huge oak desk in front of her, and to her right, fifteen feet away, the sofa with the two girls sitting on it.
“The Hundinga are in the house,” she said, not sure whether Valerie knew what that meant.
But Val was in league with Michele now. “They want you,” she said. “You and your boyfriend. They’re not here on my account, or Michele’s.”
“Is that what he said? Did he tell you they won’t hurt you when they come up here? Or do you think they won’t mind at all that there are a few of them lying out by the pool—and not to sunbathe?”
Valerie slowly shook her head. “I’m the Suicide Queen, Rosa. I’m not afraid.” The gravity in her voice was shattering. Almost enough to make Rosa feel sorry for her. Almost.
“There’s no need to point that thing at Iole,” said Rosa. “She hasn’t done anything to you.”
“I hadn’t done anything to your friend Trevini, either, but all the same he wasn’t particularly nice to me.”
“I just got back from seeing Trevini. He won’t be hurting anyone again.”
“And how long did it take you to decide to let me go? Two days? Three? Why not right away, Rosa?” Valerie’s voice was sharper now. “What was so hard about telling him to let me go?”
Rosa held her gaze, but still didn’t move. “Because you deserved it, Val. Every damn minute in Trevini’s dungeon cell. Because you stabbed me in the back not just once, there in New York, but again here. What do you expect? You think that if you shoot Iole everything will get better? That you’ll be better off yourself?”
“I’m just fine. Michele is here. Everything will be all right.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
Valerie’s eyes flashed. The pistol stayed where it was against Iole’s head. “We know so much about each other, Rosa. All kinds of embarrassing little secrets. Stuff you say in the club at night when you’re drunk. Or outside waiting in line to get in. We were good friends once.”
“We were never real friends,” Rosa contradicted her. “You didn’t want a friend; you wanted someone who’d look up to you. Admire you.”
“Well—and didn’t you admire me?” Valerie laughed a soft, mirthless laugh. “Why do insecure, vulnerable girls like you always need someone to cling to? Someone to keep showing them what they aren’t and never will be?”
“Because they still hope to change. To learn how to change. And not go crawling someday to an asshole like Michele Carnevare, begging him to pat them on the head and act as if they meant something to him.”
“Michele loves me!” Valerie snapped.
“Nobody loves you, Val. Nobody ever did. That’s your problem, right? That was it even with the Suicide Queens. And now you’re trying to buy his love by killing Iole? Great plan!”