of time so that Claire could bear witness to every millisecond of her husband’s struggle.
Paul could’ve outrun this man on a treadmill or solved an equation before the guy had a chance to sharpen his pencil, but his opponent had something over Paul Scott that they didn’t teach in graduate school: how to fight with a knife.
There was only a whistling noise as the blade sliced through the air. Claire had expected more sounds: a sudden slap as the hooked tip of the knife punctured Paul’s skin. A grinding noise as the serrated edge sawed past his ribs. A scrape as the blade separated tendon and cartilage.
Paul’s hands went to his belly. The pearl handle of the knife stuck up between his fingers. He stumbled back against the wall, mouth open, eyes almost comically wide. He was wearing his navy-blue Tom Ford suit that was too tight across his shoulders. Claire had made a mental note to get the seam let out but now it was too late because the jacket was soaked with blood.
Paul looked down at his hands. The blade was sunk in to the hilt, almost equidistant between his navel and his heart. His blue shirt flowered with blood. He looked shocked. They were both shocked. They were supposed to have an early dinner tonight, celebrate Claire’s successful navigation of the criminal justice system, not bleed to death in a cold, dank alley.
She heard footsteps. The Snake Man was running away, their rings and jewelry jangling in his pockets.
“Help,” Claire said, but it was a whisper, so low that she could barely hear the sound of her own voice. “H-help,” she stuttered. But who could help them? Paul was always the one who brought help. Paul was the one who took care of everything.
Until now.
He slid down the brick wall and landed hard on the ground. Claire knelt beside him. Her hands moved out in front of her but she didn’t know where to touch him. Eighteen years of loving him. Eighteen years of sharing his bed. She had pressed her hand to his forehead to check for fevers, wiped his face when he was sick, kissed his lips, his cheeks, his eyelids, even slapped him once out of anger, but now she did not know where to touch him.
“Claire.”
Paul’s voice. She knew his voice. Claire went to her husband. She wrapped her arms and legs around him. She pulled him close to her chest. She pressed her lips to the side of his head. She could feel the heat leaving his body. “Paul, please. Be okay. You have to be okay.”
“I’m okay,” Paul said, and it seemed like the truth until it wasn’t anymore. The tremor started in his legs and worked into a violent shaking by the time it reached the rest of his body. His teeth chattered. His eyelids fluttered.
He said, “I love you.”
“Please,” she whispered, burying her face in his neck. She smelled his aftershave. Felt a rough patch of beard he’d missed with the razor this morning. Everywhere she touched him, his skin was so very, very cold. “Please don’t leave me, Paul. Please.”
“I won’t,” he promised.
But then he did.
TWO
Lydia Delgado stared out at the sea of teenage cheerleaders on the gym floor and said a silent prayer of thanks that her daughter was not one of them. Not that she had a thing against cheerleaders. She was forty-one years old. Her days of hating cheerleaders were well over. Now, she just hated their mothers.
“Lydia Delgado!” Mindy Parker always greeted everyone by their first and last names, with a triumphant lilt at the end: See how smart I am for knowing everyone’s full name!
“Mindy Parker,” Lydia said, her tone several octaves lower. She couldn’t help it. She’d always been contrary.
“First game of the season! I think our girls really have a chance this year.”
“Absolutely,” Lydia agreed, though everyone knew it was going to be a massacre.
“Anyway.” Mindy straightened out her left leg, raised her arms over her head and stretched toward her toes. “I need to get Dee’s signed permission slip.”
Lydia caught herself before she asked what permission slip. “I’ll have it for you tomorrow.”
“Fantastic!” Mindy hissed out an overly generous stream of air as she came out of the stretch. With her pursed lips and pronounced underbite, she reminded Lydia of a frustrated French bulldog. “You know we never want Dee to feel left out. We’re so proud of our scholarship students.”
“Thank you, Mindy.” Lydia plastered on a smile. “It’s sad