But that haunted look I’d seen in those eyes was gone now. It had been replaced by a shocked, unblinking stare. And her right eye wasn’t even there anymore. The bullet took it out before it went straight through her brain and blew out the back of her head. She was lying on her back on the steamy tar roof with the hot sun beating down on her. Her arms were spread wide, palms facing the sky. Her tanned legs had splayed rather awkwardly as she fell. It was not her best look. Even so, a crime scene photographer stood over her shooting her from this angle and that for one final pictorial gallery. She was still an object of fascination. The camera loved her. “I—I told her, stay off the roof,” Rita sobbed as Mom and I stood there trying to console her. “After we worked out together in your apartment, I told her do not come up here.” “I told her the very same thing, Rita.” I put my arms around her and hugged her. She towered over me in her high-heeled sandals. “It’s not your fault.”
