Free Step on a Crack by James Patterson, Michael Ledwidge Page A

of rescuers had to be clustered outside the church right now. And the press. Something this high-profile would be resolved for the simple reason that it had to be.
    Eugena swallowed hard, and let out a breath.
    Things would be resolved.
    When she’d first entered the cathedral for the funeral, she’d thought that its high stone and marble walls were too cold, too stark. But after a few moments of looking upon the votives and feeling the deep silence of this place, she realized it expressed the same spiritual warmness she remembered from the Baptist church her mother took her to every Sunday back in West Virginia.
    “My God,” a woman whispered next to her. “My God. How will this horror end?”
    It was Laura Winston, the New York fashion magazine institution. Poor Laura was
still
trembling. Her gray-blue eyes bulged as if they were about to pop free of her surgically tightened face. Eugena remembered an attempt to get the trendsetter on her show. She’d obtained Laura’s personal number and had called Laura herself in order to discuss her idea-the most fashionable woman in the world’s advice for a real-world budget.
    And she still remembered the high, cackling laugh that had erupted from her earpiece. “Oh, who put you up to this?” Winston had said. “It’s Calvin, isn’t it? Tell Calvin I’ll do Eugena when he goes to work at the Gap.”
    What was worse was when, three months later, Winston actually did appear on daytime talk in a segment called “Haute Couture Meets Main Street.” But it was with Oprah, Eugena’s biggest competitor.
    Poor woman was a puddle now, though, wasn’t she? Eugena thought with compassion.
    She’d been vicious, but
that was then
.
    Eugena reached across the space of the pew that separated them.
    This was now.
    Her soft black hand found the fashionista’s bony white one, and she squeezed gently until the woman looked into her eyes. Eugena put her arm around the distraught woman as she started to hyperventilate.
    “Now, now. We’re in a church and in His hands,” Eugena said soothingly. She could hear the strength and faith in her own voice and was proud of herself.
    She really could get through this. They all could. Somehow, some way.
    “Everything’s going to be all right,” she said. “You’re fine, Laura. This too shall pass.”
    “Yes. But will any of us still be alive?”

Chapter 32
    LAURA WINSTON HAD DRIED most of her tears with a chic red silk scarf she’d removed from her jacket pocket and was quietly thanking Eugena for her kindness when there was a loud commotion up toward the altar.
    Somebody was standing up!
    From the tangle of blond hair and black mini, Laura could tell it was the haute-trash pop singer Mercedes Freer.
    Marble rang as she clicked in her six-inch stilettos toward the rear of the chapel.
    “Sit the hell down!” one of the hijackers yelled at her immediately, and very loudly.
    “
Could I fucking talk to someone, please
? I need to talk to your boss, if you don’t fucking mind,” the diva said, her foul language echoing off the walls of the church. “Just let me talk to somebody in charge!”
    Laura and Eugena craned their necks to watch the spectacle along with the rest of the hostages. What the hell was this crazy woman up to?
    The lead hijacker arrived on the scene a moment later.
    “What is it?” Jack said. “
Talk
to me. I’m a fan, after all. How can I help?”
    Mercedes plucked first one, then the other of her diamond earrings off and offered them to Jack.
    “These are Cartier,” she said in a loud whisper. “I paid, or whatever, a quarter of a million dollars for them. Now, I’m supposed to be on Leno tonight, and he tapes at six,
LA time
, and I’m already running late. You know what I’m saying? I’m not political or religious, nothing like that. My label arranged for me to sing ‘Ave Maria’ and jet. Please take ’em. They’re real, and they’re yours. They’re not enough, I’ll get my manager on the phone.