212 LP: A Novel by Alafair Burke Page B

actually opened up to her. She said she’d gone through some rough times—a boyfriend, someone older, someone who really fucked with her head. She said she was pretty screwed up until she went through counseling for it, and now she was getting a fresh start. But then Megan had made the mistake of asking her what had happened between her and the guy to make it so bad, and all of a sudden, Heather was gone. She had a paper to write or something, excused herself from Megan’s room, and never mentioned the conversation—or any other one, for that matter—again. She was just a tenant renting a room.
    Then, yesterday, when she got home from the police station, for just a second, Megan had felt something like a bond again when Heather noticed how upset she was and asked what was wrong. But when Megan told her about the Web site, all Heather had said was, “Wow, I’m sorry to hear that. That must be really stressful.”
    Megan supposed it was a polite enough response. But it wasn’t the kind of thing a real friend would say. Courtney had spent nearly an hour with her on the phone yesterday, helping her pull herself together and put the entire situation into context. “The big picture,” Courtney kept saying.
    Then later, when Megan was hanging her coat in the closet outside Heather’s room, she heard Heather on the phone saying something about “threats” on a Web site. She hadn’t asked Heather to keep it a secret. And she probably should have expected Heather to gossip to whomever it was she spent most of her time with when she wasn’t home. But she didn’t want anyone else talking about it. About her.
    And she didn’t need to hear that word. Threats.
    Megan looked at her watch. Eight forty. She should be at her morning spin class, pushing through a sprint to spike her heart rate. But Courtney had advised her to deviate from her usual schedule, just in case.
    She turned her attention back to a paragraph about steroid biosynthesis in rat cells, and realized she was actually starting to feel better. She had gone a full hour without crying. Maybe in the afternoon, after classes, she’d go to the gym and use the elliptical trainer for a little while.
    As she turned the page, she heard a knock on the apartment door. She pulled one bud from her ear to make sure Heather was going to respond. Maybe she would finally meet one of Heather’s friends.
    “I’ll get it,” Heather yelled from the kitchen.
    Megan readjusted her headphones and turned back to her book just as she realized she hadn’t heard the security door buzzer.
    “No, wait,” she yelled, pulling off her headset.
    Jumping from her bed and lunging toward her bedroom door, she heard voices in the living room, then a loud groan, followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the floor.
    Megan should have stayed in her room. She should have jumped out the window to the street below if that’s what it was going to take.
    But she didn’t think. She acted on instinct. And her instinct was to help Heather. Heather. Poor innocent Heather. In the wrong place at the wrong time.
    She opened her bedroom door to see her roommate sprawled on the floor next to the breakfast table. A man in a black-wool skimask was plunging a six-inch blade into her torso. As he pulled the knife from Heather’s body, he looked up, saw Megan, and charged toward her.
    Following instinct again, she slammed her door shut. She found herself grasping at the doorknob, but there was no lock on the bedroom door. She pressed her back against the door, trying to hold it closed with the weight of her body, but it was no use.
    As she felt the door spring open and push her forward to the ground, Megan knew she would die. She knew she would never see her mother, father, or Courtney again. She would never graduate from college. She would never become a doctor.
    She wished she could have saved Heather. She wished she knew why this was happening. And she wished she could have said good-bye.

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