Fortune Is a Woman (41 page)

“Ms. Beaumont, where were you when–”

“Oh, god, I am! I’m bleeding!”

“Dickie and I can take you home.”

“Ms. Beaumont, over here please!”

“Back off!” Paula shouted.

“Ms. Beau–”

“Hurry, Lydia. We’ve got the chopper waiting.”

“That’s assault and–”

“Back off then!”

“Ms. Beaumont, when did you last hear from–”

“You can’t hit a reporter! I’m just doing my–”

“Do it over there, I said! All of you!”

The reporters stepped back. “Ms. Beaumont, this way please!” they continued to shout. “Over here! Look this way!”

Lydia grappled with the meaning of Dickie’s expression. He looked like death. “Paula…an…she’s…?”

“Well, they–they–yes.”

“Ms. Beaumont, can you give us a statement tonight? Anything at all?”

“Come on,” Paula urged. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Ms. Beaumont, did you talk before her plane went–”

“Her plane?”

“Lydia…yes.”

She was not going to faint because she was not a fainter. She went numb instead and slumped against the cab. She would not remember how she made it through the sea of flashing cameras and screaming reporters without fainting, or how she made it into the Treadwell’s helicopter and up into the air again. She would remember the moment preceding that, of becoming suddenly conscious of her hand still pressed against the window of the cab and that, when she lifted it, the glass was wet. She would remember forever that on this Friday evening her life ended in a plane crash. That it was shattered like glass. Shattered into little bits and pieces–1,127 to be exact.

But who’s counting?

End of Book #2 of
THE SECRET TRILOGY

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