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found cowering in a sand dune, sole survivor. It’s all in her dossier.”
    Lucy felt the woman’s hand covering hers. “That must have been awful for you.”
    “It was the worst day of my life. Until today.”
    “I’m very sorry, Lucy. And I’m sorry to have to make you relive this, too. But we’re nearly done. Now, I want to get back to what happened at the studio. You were in the greenroom, but you saw the shooting. How did you see it, when the greenroom is so far away from the soundstage?”
    “I…I saw it on the TV.”
    “I see. So you saw it happen on the TV in the greenroom, and then you ran.”
    “Mmm-hmm.”
    “And then what happened?”
    Lucy sniffled hard and wondered why she was spilling her guts this way. But she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “S-Someone told me to stop. He was dressed all in black, I think. And he had sunglasses. So I froze, and I tried to stay still, like he said, but I just…I just couldn’t. My legs just wouldn’t obey. And I ran. And he…he shot me. He shot me.”
    “But you’re all right now,” the woman said.
    “There was all this blood. It was everywhere. And I fell down, right in it. And it started to hurt. And then…and then he was there.”
    “Who was?”
    “I don’t know.” She frowned, her eyes still closed, as if to keep the memory inside. “He touched me, and I felt like I knew him. And he had these eyes…”
    “And what did he do to you, Lucy?”
    “Nothing. He just touched me.”
    “How, Lucy? Where did he touch you?”
    “My chest.” She lifted a hand to press it to her own sternum, where she was sure there had been a gaping, jagged hole before. But there was only soft fabric, not her own clothing, and though she explored with her fingers, she felt no sign of any injury beneath it. “And then the man who shot me and…other men who looked like him were pushing him away and putting me in the ambulance. And now I’m here.”
    “But you don’t know his name?”
    “No.”
    “But you said you felt like you knew him?”
    “And yet…not. You know?”
    “No. No, I don’t.”
    “Ask her what she felt when he was touching her,” the scarred man barked.
    She didn’t like his voice, and she didn’t like him speaking as if she wasn’t even in the room. And she wanted to go home. To her cozy one-story house with the flower boxes in the windows and the neat sidewalk that was all bordered in flawless flower beds, just like the house itself. Her house was sunny and yellow and orderly and neat, and above everything else, it was safe.
    Safe. Like the big maple tree at her grandpa’s house, when she used to go there as a child and play tag with her neighbors. The giant tree was always safe. She’d convinced herself that her home was the same way. Off-limits. No one could get to her there. No pain, no violence. Home was her haven.
    “When the stranger put his hands on you, what did you feel?” asked the woman with the Stevie Nicks voice and Cruella de Vil hair—Lillian, Lucy remembered.
    “I was terrified. I’d just been shot. At least…I thought I had. I was covered in blood, and it hurt, it really did. But I guess I must have…hallucinated it, or maybe I hurt myself when I fell down.”
    “What did you feel physically? ” the woman went on. “When the stranger put his hands on you?”
    “Oh, that. Well…his hands felt…warm. And then hot. And it seemed like there was a light sort of…coming from them. And it filled every part of me. And for just a second, I thought I might be dying, and that he was an angel.”
    “An angel,” the man said, nearly spitting the words.
    “That’s an interesting thing to say.”
    Lucy sighed. “I really want to go home now. I’m all right, aren’t I? I mean, I wasn’t shot after all, right?”
    “Well, there are certainly no bullet holes in you now,” the woman said, sounding cheerful. And then she got up and joined the man, then spoke in a very, very soft whisper, “The pentothal is wearing