Rune sat up slowly. She brushed at her ears. They felt cottony, stuffed with ash. She snapped her fingers near them; she couldn't hear a sound. Not her fingers, not even the huge Seagrave fire truck as it braked to a halt ten feet from her, whose siren was probably screaming loudly.

She stood, supporting herself on the van. She was dizzy. She waited for the sensation to pass but it didn't and she wondered if maybe she had a concussion.

Rune wondered too if there was something wrong with her vision — because she found she was focusing perfectly on two things at the same time: one near, the other far away.

The close object was a feather of thin paper, gilt-edged and printed with fine lettering. It sailed decorously down past her cheek and slipped away in the uneasy current of air.

The other thing Rune could see all too clearly, even through the column of black smoke, was the hole in the third floor of the building in front of her — the cavern that had been the office where Shelly Lowe had been standing to shout to Rune what would be, apparently, the last words she'd ever say.

Death of a Blue Movie Star

CHAPTER FIVE

Their faces were stone.

Rune sat in the back of an NYPD patrol car, the door open, her feet on the ground outside, and wiped at her tears. She was aware of the two men who stood five feet away, watching her, but she didn't return their gaze.

The fire was out. A foul, chemical reek filled the air and a film of smoke hung over the street like an oily fog.

Rune's face and elbows had been cleaned and bandaged by the EMS attendants. They used Band-Aids. She thought they would've used something more elaborate but they just scrubbed the skin, slapped on flesh-colored strips and went upstairs. They walked slowly. No one up there needed their talents.

She pressed the shredded wad of Kleenex into her eyes one final time and looked up at the men, who were dressed in dark suits. “She's dead, isn't she?”

“You're shouting,” one of the detectives said.

She couldn't hear her own voice — her ears were still numb. She repeated the question, trying to talk more softly.

The question surprised them. One had an expression that could have been a faint smile. He said something she couldn't hear. Rune asked him to repeat it. He said, “She's extremely dead.”

It was confusing, talking to them. She caught fragments of phrases, missed others. She had to look at their eyes to make sense of what they were asking.

“What happened?” she asked.

Neither of them responded. One asked gruffly, “What's your name, miss?”

She told them.

She heard: “Not your stage name, honey, not the one you use when you're up on the silver screen, your real name.” He gazed at her coldly.

“Rune is my real name. Wait... You think I worked with Shelly?”