After one more desperate glance around the room, Lana had a flash of inspiration. She bent down and took off her shoes. She picked up one in her right hand, running her fingers over the metallic spike heel, remembering when Jimmy Choo himself had kissed her hand at Nobu one glittery night. She fished her sunglasses out of her tote bag. She slid on the shades and wrapped her fingers around the stiletto. She pulled her arm back, took a deep breath, and swung with all her might.
Crack. A tiny spiderweb fractured the glass where she’d hit it. She slammed it again, and a second set of cracks bloomed, as big around as a fist. She did it again, and again, plunging the metal spike heel into the shuddering glass until it splintered and rained down around her.
Jackpot.
She didn’t have time to admire her work. Thick, gray smoke poured in through the now-open window, and she had to keep moving. After stuffing her shoes in her bag, she leaned toward the bookshelf with her right hand, reaching for a heavy hardcover book. “THE BARK BEETLE BIBLE,” it said on the worn leather cover. She hoped it wasn’t a rare first edition. She used it to clear as much glass as she could from the window, until she had a crude opening the size of a trash chute in front of her. Then she ripped out fistfuls of pages and used them to line the sides of the ragged hole in the window so she wouldn’t slice herself on the way out.
Lana looked at her handiwork, panting. She’d done it. She had chiseled her own escape route. Now all she had to do was use it.
In theory it should be simple: put one paper-wrapped hand on the crumbly windowsill, then the other. Swing one leg over. Then the other leg. The bottom of the window was only a few feet from the ground, three at most. No problem.
Reality, however, was riddled with problems. Lana’s left leg was still tingling, and her left arm was doing its best impression of a wet noodle. She figured she’d have only one shot to lift each bare foot clear of the glass-strewn floor and out the window, and she didn’t trust her balance, let alone her ability to hurdle a jagged windowsill. It was entirely possible she’d crash back down onto the shards tiling the library floor and bleed to death in a blazing inferno next to an open window.
Lana shuffled back, away from the broken glass. She dragged one of the armchairs to the window, crawled onto the seat, and peered out. The fire was coming around the building from the back, licking its way toward her. Over the screaming alarm, the cracks and rumbles of the fire echoed around her, trapping her in a storm of heat and fear. Her feet were bleeding, and pain shot like sparks up her legs. She could feel the fire filling her nose, pounding at her heart.
It was now or never.
Lana placed her tote bag on the windowsill, creating a buffer between her and the broken glass. She rose from the chair, sat on the bag, tucked her knees to her chest, and started sliding toward the parking lot.
Midway through her slow-motion slide over the broken windowsill, Lana remembered she still hadn’t canceled her membership at Body by Pilates Beverly Hills. For four months now, Fritz had been charging her to lie in bed three hundred miles north of the studio while he yelled at other women to raise their pelvic floors. But maybe Pilates worked through osmosis, because she could feel her obliques flexing, her abdominal muscles straining in synchrony with her hamstrings. In her head, she heard Fritz demand one more thrust, and she toppled all the way out the window.
She landed with a curse and a thud on the asphalt.
Freedom; it hurt like hell. She could already feel the bruise forming on her right butt cheek. Her hands were scraped, her face bleeding. And her wig was missing. She glanced up and saw it hanging like a hostage from the broken window. But the fire was just a few feet from the window now. She had to get out of there.
In all the commotion, it seemed that no one had seen her heroic drop into the parking lot. Firefighters rushed past her with hoses aimed at the building. A cluster of office building refugees flowed the other way, into the street. Part of her was relieved no one saw her. Part of her was disappointed. But most of her was hot, in pain, and wishing for her European mattress.
“Lana! Lana!” She heard Victor’s voice before she saw him, red-faced, eyes wild, running toward her from the throng in the street. “Dios mío! Let me help you!”
Lana remembered him smiling down at her and closing the library door. A cocktail of fear and fury flooded her brain. She forgot everything she’d taught herself about interacting with men. She scowled. She may have even barked.
When Victor didn’t slow, Lana fished one of her shoes out of her tote and brandished it at him, metal spike out.