Faces of Fear

Good thing Jennifer had a car.

Kimberly tapped out a quick confirmation, then headed to the fitting room to tell Jennifer the good news.

Now the hunt was really on to find something perfect to wear.

Sexy, but not too sexy.

MARGOT!

Risa could still hear Conrad’s voice reverberating in her head as he cried out his dead wife’s name in the middle of their lovemaking.

Actually, not exactly in the middle — more like toward the end, at the precisely worst moment, making the wave of ecstasy that had been building within her suddenly collapse away to nothing.

So much for their first night in Paris.

And Conrad didn’t even seem to know he’d done anything.

Risa gazed at her reflection in the big bathroom mirror, her mascara smudged from the tears she’d barely been able to control until she was alone. The peach peignoir Lexie had bought her for their wedding night flowed over the curves of her body, but she no longer felt sexy in it. In fact, she wanted to rip it off and throw it away, ridding herself of even this reminder of the mistake she’d made.

Why had she ever thought it would be a good idea to marry Conrad while he was still grieving for Margot?

Margot.

That single word, uttered with a passion that would haunt her memory for the rest of her life.

Maybe if he’d said it next year, or next month, or even next week, she’d have been able to laugh it off. But he’d said it tonight, the first night of their honeymoon.

The most important night of their marriage.

And he’d said it after one of the most magical evenings she had ever experienced — dinner at La Tour d’Argent, with a view of the Seine and Notre Dame, followed by a slow walk through a perfect Parisian night back to the Hotel de Crillon, where they’d sipped champagne and danced on the terrace of the suite that had been Leonard Bernstein’s favorite.

It had all seemed like a fairy tale.

And then that word.

That one word that had ruined everything.

Risa slowly massaged Danielle DeLorian’s new moisturizing cream into her face while she listened to her new husband breathing rhythmically in the bedroom.

Maybe she should pack up and leave — leave the room, leave the hotel, leave Paris.

Now that would be melodramatic! Straight out of the kind of romance novel she hated, even though she’d never actually read one.

And too impulsive, too.

Sighing, she pulled two tissues from the holder and began removing the makeup from her face, and as her real face emerged, so did her sense of fairness.

How long would it be before she herself slipped and called Conrad “Michael”?

She sank down onto the velvet bench in front of the vanity and fantasized about telling Lexie why she had left Conrad after only two days of marriage.

It sounded ridiculous, she abruptly realized after using every word she could think of to make herself sound terminally wounded.

So he’d had a slip of the tongue. So what? If she couldn’t overlook this one small thing, then she didn’t deserve to be married to a man as wonderful as Conrad Dunn. And he certainly didn’t deserve to be stuck with someone as thin-skinned as she obviously was.

“Get a grip, Risa,” she whispered grimly to the mirror. “Get over yourself.”

She finished removing her makeup, dropped the tissues into the gilt wastebasket, then clicked off the bathroom light, walked across the darkened room, and slipped back into bed.

“Honey?” Conrad said sleepily, pulling her close. “Where’ve you been? You’re cold.”

His warmth seeping into her, she snuggled into him. What happened earlier had been no more than a slip of the tongue, and one of the more common ones at that. Not only would she never mention it to anyone, she wouldn’t even think about it again. She was married to a man she loved, and one who loved her, and she was in Paris on her honeymoon, and she wasn’t about to let a single word ruin everything for her.

A moment later Conrad was snoring softly, and a few minutes after that she, too, drifted into a peaceful sleep.

11

KIMBERLY ELMONT FLUSHED THE TOILET AND PUSHED HER WAY OUT of the grimy stall into the crowded warehouse restroom. She wet her hands, but there was no soap, and the only paper towels in sight were overflowing the trash bin and littering the floor, so she shook her hands as dry as she could, then shook her head, too.

Mother would die if she saw this place.

Still, she found herself grinning as she fluffed her sweaty bangs. This was even more fun than she’d thought it would be. And what could possibly happen to her with this many people around, as long as she didn’t drink more than a single beer, and stayed completely away from the drugs all the girls around her were putting into their mouths?

One beer, and no drugs. Those were the limits she and Jennifer had set for themselves when they were still two blocks from the warehouse and heard the pounding music. When they pulled into the jammed parking lot, they almost lost their nerve completely, but paid their way in, got their hands stamped, and easily exchanged a drink ticket for a beer at the bar, no questions asked. After surveying the sea of people, she knew there was no way she’d be able to spot Dean in the crowd — if they found each other, it would be pure luck. Next time they’d arrange a specific place to meet.

A place where they could at least find each other.

Within a few seconds, some guy asked Jennifer to dance, and Jen had grabbed her hand and pulled her along to the dance floor, where a teeming crowd was twisting and writhing under the strobe lights, dancing with whoever happened to be closest.

She’d danced for nearly an hour before retreating to the restroom, but even after the short break she wasn’t sure how much longer she could last, since the warehouse kept getting hotter, and the music louder. Now, she freshened her lipstick and tried not to be too obvious as she watched while two girls she thought she knew from school snorted white powder up their noses.

Echoes of her mother’s voice recurred to her, but she didn’t need the silent warning. She might have one more beer just to quench her thirst, but that was it. No drugs.

Making her way out the restroom door into the vast warehouse, Kimberly began searching for Jennifer. The band was back onstage and picking up their instruments, and the crowd roared as a surge of people moved once again toward the dance floor. She caught sight of Jennifer then, still with the lanky guy who had first asked her to dance. They were on the dance floor, their arms wrapped around each other, gyrating slowly even though the music hadn’t yet begun again.

With only a faint twinge of jealousy that Jennifer had found a boy right away while she’d utterly given up on Dean, Kimberly moved toward one of the two bars when someone — who’d had a lot more to drink than she had — slammed into her and then careened off in a different direction.

She automatically checked to make sure the tiny purse containing her money and house key was still securely in the pocket of her jeans, and rubbed at the spot on her thigh where it felt almost like she’d been burned with a cigarette.

Her money and key were still in her pocket, and the burning sensation in her leg was already fading