Chapter 9: The Bathroom Stall

Wayne stood up from the table with a smile on his face.

"Would you excuse us?" he said to the table. "My wife's feeling a little faint."

"Of course, dear."

He took Reese by the elbow, lightly, the way a husband helps his wife, and walked her out of the dining room.

I watched them reach the door.

She didn't look back.

Giles's hand had gone still on my shoulder.

"Don't," he said, very low.

"Don't what?"

"Don't follow him."

"I'm not following him."

"Hallie."

"I'm going to the ladies' room."

I stood and put my napkin on my plate.

For a second he held my eyes, his expression shadowed.

It looked like fear.

Then he nodded once and let me go.

The ladies' room at Meadowbrook had a lounge with a velvet settee and an attendant's chair, and a row of stalls behind a door.

The attendant was gone.

I heard crying in the last stall.

It was quiet, and trained, the crying of someone who had learned not to be heard.

I walked down the row and stood outside the door.

"Reese."

The crying stopped.

"Go away."

"Open the door."

"I'm fine."

"I can see your shoes."

A long pause.

Then the lock clicked.

My sister sat on the closed lid with her sleeve pushed up to the elbow.

Around her upper arm, four fingers of a hand had printed themselves in red.

By tomorrow they'd be purple.

She had a compact open on her knee and a sponge in her fingers, and she was dabbing foundation over the marks with the steadiness of long practice.

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