She propelled Jenna to the station “green room.” “You can do your makeup here,” she said, indicating a mirrored vanity table, “unless you want to change your mind and use Angela. She’s awfully good.”

“No! No, thank you,” Jenna added hastily, realizing how inappropriately vehement she’d sounded. Professional makeup would be nice, but Jenna didn’t want a stranger studying her face, noticing things she’d kept hidden for so many years.

“Suit yourself,” Ms. Cornmeyer said agreeably. “Just make yourself comfort- able, and I’ll be back with Barry in a bit.”

After closing the door behind her, Jenna sank into the upholstered makeup chair took the cosmetic case from her oversized bag, and leaned towards the three-way mirror. First, she brushed her thick chestnut hair.

God, roots already? It seemed that she was having to go to the colorist every other week.

Pretending to be someone else was hard work, she thought for perhaps the thousandth time. A constant effort. The hair, the green contact lenses covering her own brown eyes. And the lies.

As she’d been instructed to do, Jenna laid on the foundation with a heavy hand—the Manning radio show had a studio audience and harsh studio lights. Unconsciously, her fingers traced a delicate scar just above her left brow and another just at the hairline. The surgery to repair her face had been expert, but traces of it lingered, along with the memory of the man who had tried to destroy her beauty—and her life.

When she had given her olive complexion a flawless matte finish, she applied a cinnamon blusher and smudged her eyelids with charcoal shadow.

She finished with black-brown mascara and paprika lipstick.

Jenna was lucky in her looks, she knew, and lucky in the way she had kept them—her next birthday would be her fortieth, but people always assumed that she was in her early thirties. Now, with just a few minutes of deft smoothing and contouring and highlighting, she looked a young thirty. And gorgeous.

She folded her hands, then unfolded them, drumming her fingers against her knees as she waited. Her throat was suddenly dry, her stomach clenched. Was it just stage fright that had her so jangled? The fight with Brad? The strange feeling of being followed?

Jenna got up, smoothed the wrinkles in her cream-colored cashmere suit, and wandered out into the hall. She almost collided with Courteney Cornmeyer, who had in tow a short, round-faced man with orangish skin.

His coloring made Jenna wonder if perhaps he ate too many carrots or used a defective sunlamp.