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fought against evil, how kind they
were to her even when she froze them out, cut them off, snapped at
them and waved away their attempts at friendship. Unwillingly, she
had begun to care about them, to realize she couldn’t without
conscience betray them.
    Now she prayed that in the next few critical
hours, the strength and courage they had shown would be hers.
    Her sister’s life depended on it.

CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    LOST IN her memories and steeled with
determination, Amanda stared, unseeing, out the cab window.
    Sophia had been her life.
    Liam had been her love.
    Now she was alone, and in her coat pocket she
had a piece of paper with an obscene amount of money written in
Irving’s shaky cursive.
    Thank goodness, the cab driver stopped at the
curb in Columbus Circle, bringing her out of her prison of
self-loathing and into the real world. She counted out change, slid
across the seat, and got out before the honking horns reached full
pitch. People hurried by in black peacoats and velveteen hats,
hands in their pockets and eyes downcast as they plowed their way
through their fellow commuters and shoppers. She glanced up at the
Time Warner Center, its glass windows shining in the wintery
sunshine.
    Since Christmas, she had met Liam ten times.
Ten weeks of seeing the person she hated most in the world, while
knowing the sister she had always loved was frozen, motionless,
trapped.
    He always tried to talk to her, act normal,
ask how she was doing, whether she’d seen Sophia. He always tried
to act as if he cared.
    She had stared at the bruising on his face
and the stitches in his scalp and wished they had been twice as
bad.
    Eventually he had given up, and now he just
watched her as if trying without words to convey his concern.
    She must have been such a sucker for him to
believe that would work.
    Of course, that was exactly what she had
been.
    Squaring her shoulders, Amanda took off her
fleece hat, smoothed her blond hair away from her face and went
through the heavy glass doors of the building, skirting the
escalators and entering Williams-Sonoma.
    She had to concentrate now. Liam would be
able to smell deception, so she had to play this perfectly.
    Instantly an overly enthusiastic greeter
bounced over with a cheery, “May I help you find anything
today?”
    Amanda had worked plenty of minimum wage jobs
in high school, and it didn’t seem fair to take her crappy day out
on this poor girl. So Amanda gave her a strained smile. “Could you
direct me to the seasonal section?”
    “ Good
thing you asked. We just moved the store around! I can barely find anything anymore!” As the
girl led Amanda towards the back of the store, she babbled about
the spring green KitchenAid mixers and chick yellow wooden spatulas
and robin’s egg blue mixing bowls. And every sentence ended in an
exclamation point!
    She made Amanda feel tired and old.
    Then, so abruptly Amanda almost ran her over,
the greeter stopped. “Here you are! Every bright, light color you
could ever want!”
    “Thanks, I’ll look around and see what’s
new.” Amanda needed to get rid of the salesgirl so she could find
Liam and be done with Part One of the plan.
    “Great!” More exclamation points. “Just let
me know if you need any more help!”
    The air smelled of spiced potpourri and there
were the usual samples set out next to a sign proclaiming, “Hot tea
and glazed pecans!” in artful script, but Liam was nowhere in
sight. She would have thought he’d be easy to spot in a
Williams-Sonoma. How many tall, black-haired Irishmen could there
be in a kitchen goods store? But all she saw were two housewives
earnestly discussing the pros and cons of salad spinners, and a
balding, middle-aged salesman wearing a deep green apron with
matching oven mitts, presumably in case of an oven-related
emergency.
    As if sensing that she was looking for
something, the salesman approached Amanda, adjusted his round
eyeglasses, and in an unexpectedly gruff voice, asked,