Perry's killer playlist

“How romantic.”

She shook her head. “Only you would think so.”

“I can’t sleep like this.”

“Try.”

“What happens in the morning when the rest of the guys start tearing this place apart, looking for me?”

“I should be gone by then.”

“Wait, what?”

She switched off the light. A moment later I heard the shower go on. When it stopped, the bathroom door creaked open. I smelled steam and soap, some kind of shampoo and conditioner, and a tiny cell phone screen appeared, the one she’d taken from Swiercynski, floating in the darkness on the far side of the room. I heard her voice murmuring in Lithuanian, soft consonants and s-sounds, just above a whisper. It reminded me of when she was living at our house in Connecticut, the way that I’d sometimes heard her talking through the wall. Back then we’d thought she was calling her family in Lithuania. Who was she calling now?

Despite what I’d told her about not being able to sleep with my arms above my head, I must have dozed off, because at some point, I felt her slip in bed next to me, heard the bedsprings creak underneath me. Although our bodies didn’t touch, I was aware of the warmth of her skin in the cool sheets and the faint, even sound of her breathing. Her bare arm brushed against mine. I could smell leather and the faint ocean smell mixed with whatever she’d used to wash her hair.

“Gobi?”

“What?”

“I seriously can’t feel my arms.”

“I can.” She rolled over and put her hand on my chest. “Your heart is pounding.”

“Pain elevates the heart rate.”

“Is that really what you want to talk about now?” she said. “Pain?”

“Don’t.” I tried to move away, but the cords around my wrists weren’t going anywhere. “I told you…”

Her hand slid over my stomach and farther down. “You are telling me something very different now.”

“That’s-”

“What?”

“. .”

“. .”

She let out a chuckle, patted me on the chest and rolled over onto her back. “Go to sleep,” she said. “Tomorrow is a busy day.”

18. “Panic Switch” — Silversun Pickups

“Perry?”

I opened my eyes and tried to sit up, then remembered that I couldn’t. My shoulders were on fire, and my neck ached like I had iron rods running down from the base of my skull. Off to the right, there was a rattling sound as the heavy curtains swung open and daylight exploded in my face. It was blinding enough that I could barely make out the female silhouette poised in front of it.

“Okay,” I managed, “we’ve established that it’s morning. Can you please untie me now?”

My eyes adjusted, and I got my first real look at the woman standing over me.

It was Paula.

She was standing by the window, wearing the coat that she’d no doubt arrived in, and her briefcase was still in one hand and her suitcase in the other. For a moment, we just stared at each other. I realized that the blankets were pulled down to my waist, just far enough to reveal that I wasn’t wearing anything underneath them, and I was now acutely aware of my position on the bed.

“I–I finished early in L.A.” She blinked exactly once. The words were dropping out of her mouth like stale candy falling out of a vending machine, just lying there between us. “I got on a plane. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Officially surprised.”

“Yeah.” Another word that just lay there. “Me too.”

“Thank God you’re here,” I said. “Gobi-”

“Gobi?” Her eyebrows went up even higher, if that were possible. “Gobi is here?”

“Who do you think did this?” I tugged on the cords, as if I needed to draw more attention to the fact that I was still tied to the bedposts. “Can you cut me loose?”

Paula looked at Gobi’s clothes strewn around the room, a blouse on the nightstand, something lacy and red dangling from the doorknob. Some dazed part of me realized that Gobi must have gotten up early and gone shopping, then come back here to change while I lay sound asleep. Couldn’t she have at least picked up after herself?

When Paula’s eyes returned to me again, they were harder to read. The surprise was gone, and there was something else there instead, a kind of keen, businesslike efficiency, as if she were suddenly seeing this from a completely different set of contact lenses. “Of course.”

“Paula, wait-”

“I’ll be right back. I’m just going to go see if they have anything sharp at the front desk.”

The door closed. I lay there staring at the ceiling for what felt like a very long time, trying to identify various stains. One of them looked like a fish. One looked like a bird. One looked like my future imploding.

I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand and saw that it was somehow already two in the afternoon. If Linus and the band had started searching the hotel for me, they hadn’t gotten around to breaking down random doors yet.

Finally Paula came back with a pair of very lethal-looking scissors. She reached over the bed toward my arms. Now she wasn’t making eye contact with me at all.

“Hold still.”

“Look,” I said, “Paula-”

“I’m actually here for a reason.” Snip-snip. “Armitage is flying in this afternoon.” Snip. “He wants to meet you personally before tonight’s show.” She finished with the first cord and moved on to the second one. “So I guess I don’t have to ask how the tour’s going so far.”

“Stop it,” I said. “Just listen, okay?”

Snip-snip. “I’m not upset, Perry, all right? I’m a grownup. I get it.”

“But I haven’t told you anything.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Hold on-”

“I read what you wrote about her, remember? In your college essay?”

“Okay,” I said, “but that isn’t-”

Snip. “I should never have sent you to Venice.”

“I’m not-”

Snip. “I ought to have my head examined.”

“Paula, she’s killing people again.”

The scissors froze midsnip, and Paula straightened up and looked at me. “What?”

“Gobi. She’s working for somebody named Kaya. He’s got something on her, I don’t know what, but he’s forcing her to do some new assignment. The targets-one of them was dressed as a priest. She made me help her get rid of the body last night and dump it into the canal from her hotel balcony.”

“You helped her get rid of a body?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Last night she bought a shotgun at a restaurant and kept it pointed at my back all the way here. We have to call the police right now, before she gets back.”

Paula cut the last cord and my left hand was free at last. I stretched my arm back, working the pins and