I stare at Tanya’s mouth and will the chattering to stop—Leave, there’s a gunman standing right here, run back across the road and save yourself—but my mind is as thick as molasses. I need her to stop talking long enough for me to give her some kind of sign. A subtle clue that she will recognize as a call for help, but the gunman won’t.

“Jade, I swear. You are such a dreamer. Did you hear a single word I said?” She watches me, eyebrows raised. I shake my head, and she laughs like I’m the silliest thing ever. “I have a question for you. And before you say no, just promise you’ll hear me out, okay?”

I don’t respond. My mind is racing, trying to come up with words that pry loose some understanding, some urgency in Tanya. She takes my silence as an affirmative.

“Okay, so I’m putting together a fundraiser for my niece, you know, to help out with some of the medical costs. Poor thing’s not getting any better. If you’re the praying type, say a little prayer she gets in that trial, will you? Her insurance is being so difficult.”

I mold my face into something that I hope resembles sympathy. Tanya’s niece needs new lungs. Doctors say she won’t survive the next year without them.

“Anyway, you know how you told me once Baxter went back to school this fall you were thinking about getting back into decorating?”

She pauses just long enough for me to nod. I don’t remember telling her as much but it’s something I could have said after a glass or two of wine.

“Well, that got me to thinking, what if you offered up some free room makeovers for the silent auction? We could take some before and after pictures at my house, or if you have a girlfriend who could use some pointers, her place. Doesn’t matter where, as long as the pictures are good because you know the people who come to these things. They spend stupid amounts of money on their homes, and I thought maybe this way, we could raise money and drum you up some business. A win-win, don’t you think?”

This. This right here is why despite all her faults, I harbor a soft spot for Tanya Lloyd. On the one hand, she lets herself into my house to ask me a question she could have easily posed by phone. It annoys the hell out of Cam, and any other day, it would annoy the hell out of me, too.

But anybody else would have marched over to ask me to donate something from Cam. A cooler filled with Lasky steaks, a dinner for twelve in the Lasky private room, a Lasky gift card.