Chapter 10: People Will Say

A Galli car had been parked outside my motel for two days, so on the third morning I checked out.

Massimo had a guest room ready before I asked.

It was on the second floor, with a window over the lake and a lock on the inside.

I tested the lock twice and then felt foolish.

That night I sat at his kitchen table with the three hotel confirmations spread out in front of me and read them until the numbers swam.

He sat across from me with a legal pad and a cup of coffee going cold.

Neither of us said much.

It was almost midnight when he reached over for the hospital file.

"Let me see the sedative page again."

I slid it toward him, and my sleeve rode up.

His eyes stopped on my wrist.

Both wrists were ringed with bruises, purple at the edges and yellow in the middle, where the tie had cut in.

"Who did that?" he said.

"My husband. When I wouldn't kneel."

He didn't say anything.

He reached across the table and turned my left hand over, very carefully, and looked at the inside of my wrist.

His fingers were warm and dry.

His thumb came to rest on my pulse.

I should have pulled away.

I didn't, because nobody had touched me gently in four years, and I wanted to know what it felt like when it didn't hurt.

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