Sarah stood, watching me, with her arms crossed and her head cocked to the side. “You look so pathetic lying there. It’s just not the same, doing this to you instead of Claudia. Not at all what I’d hoped for.” She shook her head, sadly. “Did you know your sister told Alec that she thought you were heading down the same road to oblivion as your mother? She told him all about your terrible taste in unfaithful men. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

My fury gave me just enough adrenalin to reach the bag. I pulled it down and put my hand in, touched the cold metal of the gun immediately. All I had to do was take the safety off, but I fumbled with buzzing fingers that were still shuddering from the electric current.

“Now what have you got there?” Sarah asked idly, stepping over me. She pulled the bag away, but the gun was still in my hand. She screamed and I pulled the trigger.

There was a soft click and nothing.

Before I could try again, Sarah grabbed the gun with both hands. My own were too weak to hold on to it. She stared at the weapon for a moment, her finger on the trigger and her expression frozen in horror, as if just realizing how close she’d come to being shot. I grabbed the taser she’d dropped and pressed it against her leg. The gun went off and Sarah fell on top of me and everything went dark.

EPILOGUE

Claudia’s funeral was a small affair, officiated by Rachel Heidegger at the Woodlawn cemetery chapel in the Bronx. The old borough had gotten my sister back, after all. At the chapel, I leaned on Jesse’s arm when I had to stand. Sarah’s attack hadn’t left any permanent marks on me, but in the two weeks since it had happened I’d felt so brittle that I might shatter at any second. Bruxton was on my other side, casting concerned looks my way and working a mound of nicotine gum over with his jaw.

After the service, Claudia’s friends talked in small groups. I recognized a few of them, and they came over to pay their respects. Renfrew—or Norah, as I thought of her now—came over afterwards. “What you said about Claudia was beautiful,” she commented, hugging me. “Too marvelous for words.”

A reporter came up to me and shoved a digital recorder under my chin. “Lily Moore, can you tell us about your relationship with Martin Sklar?” he asked.

Cameras had been banned inside the chapel, but voice recorders were easy to slip in. I’d been stupid for thinking that the media interest would die down with the delay in the funeral. Couldn’t there have been some scandal at the governor’s office to knock my sister’s story off the front page?