“I am not responsible for the things you do, Gary,” Tania says. “Only you can be responsible for your actions.”

It occurs to me that Tania might actually have been getting some therapy behind my back. I only wish she’d have saved it for a time when Gary wasn’t pointing a loaded gun at my head.

“You’re making me do this, Tatiana!” he shouts, his fingers sinking into my skin as he jabs the muzzle of the gun into my updo, causing tendrils of it to fall from the many bobby pins that had been used to secure it. “I have nothing left to lose. Whether this woman lives or dies is entirely up to you.”

Tania’s expression changes. Maybe she’s realized what I’ve already figured out—reasoning with Gary isn’t going to work, because he isn’t sane. He’s never going to give up until he gets what he wants, which is Tania.

I watch the fight drain out of her . . . along with all hope. Her slender shoulders sag.

“All right,” she says softly. “All right, Gary. I’ll go with you. Let Heather go first, though.”

He grins, triumphant, then shoves me away.

I’m not sure what makes me do it. I guess it’s true that I don’t want to die. But I know I can’t let anyone else die either.

So as Tania moves past me, I snatch Miss Mexico from her limp fingers. Then I spin around and bury the pointy Spanish comb that’s glued to the doll’s head as hard as I can into the skin just below the bandage on Gary’s hand . . . his gun hand.

Dolls are not meant to be used as weapons. Miss Mexico’s head breaks off—along with the comb—in Gary’s skin.

But Gary is startled enough—and in enough pain—that when he lowers the gun with a cry, he inadvertently pulls the trigger so that the revolver fires.

Fortunately, the bullet goes harmlessly into the auditorium stairwell.

Still, I hear people in the audience begin to murmur. I’m certain the NYPD and campus protection officers posted around the auditorium have heard the gunshot and are on their way backstage. I only hope they won’t be too late.

I snatch Tania’s hand and pull her behind the scrim, forcing her to duck with me beneath a table from one of the Drama Department’s sets before Gary can pull Miss Mexico’s head from the back of his trigger hand with his teeth.

As he’s doing this, the stage door bursts open and Cooper strides out.

The bright white light thrown by the fluorescents behind Cooper temporarily blinds Gary Hall. But it allows Cooper to immediately recognize the man in the coat and tie from his photo on Tania’s high school website. He sees the gun that Gary Hall raises in his direction. And without a word, Cooper shoots him three times in the chest, until Gary Hall drops the revolver, falls forward, and lies still.

Chapter 29

So Sue Me
All those times you said
I’d never make it
All those times you said
I should quit
All those times you said
I’m nothing without you
The sad part is
I believed it too
Then you left and
What do you know
I made it on
My very own
So go ahead and sue me
You heard me
Go ahead and sue me
Now that I’ve made it
You say it’s you I owe
Well, you owe me too
For the heart you stole
If I’ve got one regret
It’s all the time I spent
All the tears I wept
Thinking you were worth the bet
Go ahead, go all the way
Take me to court
It’ll make my day
So sue me
Go ahead and sue me

“So Sue Me”
Performed by Tania Trace
Written by Weinberger/Trace
So Sue Me album
Cartwright Records
Thirteen consecutive weeks in the Top 10
Billboard Hot 100, current number-one hit
“ ‘Center mass,’ ” Cooper explains much later that evening when I climb into my bed beside him. “I wasn’t aiming for his chest. I was shooting at whatever I was least likely to miss in order to avoid having him shoot back at me. That would be the largest part of him. They call that part ‘center mass.’ That’s how you stay alive in a gunfight.”

“Good to know,” I say, passing him one of the drinks I’ve rustled up from the kitchen downstairs. “Anyway, you got him in the heart. I’d want you on my side in a gunfight anytime.”

He takes a sip of the drink, then makes a face. “What is this?”

“Your sister Jessica’s favorite drink, a pink greyhound.”

He passes it back to me. “Never make this for me again, especially after I’ve just shot a man. They might take away my detective’s license.”

I put the drink on my nightstand. “I had a suspicion you were going to say that, so I made you a backup drink, just in case.” I pass him a whiskey on the rocks.

“That’s more like it,” he says.

I lift the pink greyhound and clink the rim of his glass with mine. “L’chaim. It means ‘to life.’ I don’t mean to be insensitive that someone is dead. I’m just happy it’s not you or me.”

“Me too,” he says, after a sip. “And I know what l’chaim means.”

“Well,” I say, “at least with Gary dead, Tania won’t have to deal with all the negative press if the police had caught him and word had got out that the two of them were still married. Now she and Jordan can quietly remarry somewhere and say it’s a renewal of their vows or whatever.” I wince. “Is that an insensitive thing to say?”

Cooper shrugs. “Not as insensitive as some of the things I’ve been thinking about those two. You nearly died tonight because of my idiot brother not telling anyone about that first letter—”

“That’s a little harsh,” I say. “Jordan’s suffered enough, don’t you think?”

“No,” Cooper says flatly.

It had taken a little while for Tania and me to convince the dozens of NYPD and New York College protection officers who rushed backstage that Cooper was not the one who’d attacked us. That had been the man bleeding out on the floor. While all this was going on, Jordan was found unconscious in a stall in the lobby men’s room. It turns out that just moments before Gary Hall let himself backstage, Jordan had encountered him at the urinals, recognized him, and attempted to perform a citizen’s arrest. Sadly, this attempt was unsuccessful. Gary coldcocked him, propped Jordan up on a toilet, then shut the stall door, all as the auditorium lights were going down and everyone else was heading to their seats.