The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

could deal with André glowering at her from across the English Channel while she convinced Anne to come to New York with her. And once she did, André’s tracking efforts wouldn’t matter any more. He and Katrin could search high and low for Jane Boyle: by the time she reappeared, she would be useless as a bargaining chip. Lynne wouldn’t need her for anything – and so neither would the Dalcaşcus.
    For now, she was safely hidden behind Ella’s face. Ella was the one who would be hunted when everything was said and done. Ella would be the one who had snatched the merger out from under the Dalcaşcus’ noses, and Ella would be the one who showed up in New York with the missing Doran girl in tow and a short list of demands. If anyone was out for payback of any kind, they’d be chasing a woman who didn’t exist.
    She let the note fall back onto the nightstand, then let herself fall backward onto the quilted bedspread. Her feet bounced happily into the air, and she felt like her eighteen-year-old self again on the train to Paris: all her troubles behind her, and an unimaginable new adventure ahead.

Thirty
    J ANE RAN UP the steps to Anne’s flat, this time ignoring the peeling paint in the shabby, industrial hallway. She rehearsed her speech over and over again in her head, trying to make sure she remembered it all in the correct order. She was so busy polishing her wording that she collided squarely with a blond, faux-hawked young man who had been heading the other way. A rainbow of old-fashioned vinyl records spilled across the slick tile of the floor, and Jane made a halfhearted attempt to help him scoop them up.
Courtesy is nice, but I have an appointment,
she fretted, shoving a couple of the records haphazardly into the man’s black-fingernailed hands. She ran on before he could thank or berate her, breathlessly mouthing the beginning of what she planned to tell Anne when she arrived.
    On the fifth floor, Jane stopped to smooth down her hair and straighten the twisting waistband of her skirt, glancing anxiously towards Anne’s door. There were four on that level, all a dark, uneven-looking green colour that had carelessly been spread over their built-in peepholes. Number 18 was down a short extension of the hallway, and Jane headed towards it so briskly that the heel of her shoe skidded out from under her on the worn tile of the floor.
    ‘Damn it,’ she hissed, balancing precariously on the other leg and rubbing her ankle. Righting herself, she limped tentatively a couple of steps towards the door.
    Around the moment she realized her ankle wasn’t really hurt at all, she also realized something was actually wrong. She stopped again, holding perfectly still this time. The soft rise and fall of a voice wafted out into the hall, and Jane tried to quiet her own breathing, which was still a little rough from her rush up the stairs. She leaned back towards the main hallway, trying to figure out what had bothered her, but as she moved, the voice got even softer. She took a careful, silent step in the other direction, towards Anne’s door, and the sound got clearer. It stopped and was replaced by the deeper rumble of a second voice.
    Anne wasn’t alone.
    Crap.
Had she misread Anne’s apparent loneliness? It could be impossible to tell her the truth about her past if she had other people over. Jane bit her lip so hard that she drew blood.
Now what?
    She hesitated in the hallway, feeling suddenly, horribly exposed by the open, echoing space around her. Her next move depended, she decided, on what she found inside the flat. She was a little early, after all. Perhaps a friend had dropped by unexpectedly, or the exterminator was overstaying his welcome. Even if a lot of people were there, she might still be able to get Anne alone.
    It could still work out,
she told herself, turning Gran’s silver ring on her finger. It would certainly help to know what she was dealing with before she walked into the middle of it. She had never tried to read someone’s mind through a closed door, but this seemed like a good time to start.
    She leaned against a cold, painted cinderblock wall, closed her eyes, and centred her mind directly behind her eyelids. Breathing slowly and deeply, she let the magic begin to talk to her, tingling in her extremities and swimming through her veins until she could almost see each drifting, shining particle of it. She felt the kind of powerful stillness that Dee always encouraged her to try