Rachael could see virtually everything either directly or in the mirrors
covering one wall, gray tile with a burntyellow border, big sunken tub,
shower stall, toilet, one edge of the counter that held the sinks,
bright brass towel racks and brass-rimmed recessed ceiling lamps.
The bathroom appeared deserted. However, when she crossed the
threshold, she heard someone’s quick, panicked breathing, and her own
heartbeat, already trotting, raced.
Close behind her, Benny said, “What’s wrong?”
She pointed to the opaque shower stall. The glass was so heavily
frosted that nothing could be seen of the person on the other side, not
even a tenebrous form. “Somebody’s in there.”
Benny leaned forward, listening.
Rachael had backed against the wall, the muzzle of the thirty-two aimed
at the shower door.
“Better come out of there,” Benny said to the person in the stall.
No answer. Just quick, thin wheezing.
“Better come out right now,” Benny said.
“Come out, damn you!” Rachael said, her raised voice echoing harshly
off the gray tile and the bright mirrors.
From the stall came an unexpectedly woeful mewling that was the very
essence of terror. It sounded like a child.
Shocked, concerned, but still wary, Rachael edged toward the frosted
glass.
Benny stepped past her, took hold of the brass handle, and pulled the
door open. Oh, my God.”
Rachael saw a nude girl huddled pathetically on the tile floor of the
shadowy stall, her back pressed into the corner. She looked no older
than fifteen or sixteen and must be the current mistress in residence,
the latestand lastf Eric’s pitiable “conquests.” Her slender arms were
crossed over her breasts more in fear and self-defense than in modesty.
She was trembling uncontrollably, and her eyes were wide with terror,
and her face was pale, sickly, waxen.
She was probably quite pretty, but it was difficult to tell for sure,
not because of the gloominess of the enclosed shower stall but because
she had been badly beaten. Her right eye was blackened and beginning to
swell. Another ugly bruise was forming on her right cheek, from the
corner of the eye all the way down to the jaw. Her upper lip had been
split, blood still oozed from it, and blood covered her chin. There
were bruises on her arms as well, and a big one on her left thigh.
Benny turned away, clearly as embarrassed for the girl as he was alarmed
by her condition.
Lowering her pistol, stooping at the shower door, Rachael said, “Who did
this to you, honey? Who did this?” She already knew what the answer
must be, dreaded hearing it, but was morbidly compelled to ask the
question.
The girl could not respond. Her bleeding lips moved, and she tried to
form words, but all that came out was that thin grievous whining, broken
into chords by an especially violent siege of the shivers. Even if she
had spoken, she would most likely not have answered the question, for
she was obviously in shock and to some degree disassociated from
reality. She seemed only partially aware of Rachael and Benny, with the
larger part of her attention focused on some private horror. She met
Rachael’s eyes but didn’t really seem to see her.
Rachael reached into the stall with one hand. “Honey, it’s all right.
Everything’s all right. No one’s going to hurt you anymore. You can
come out now. We won’t let anyone hurt you anymore.”
The girl stared through Rachael, murmuring softly but urgently to
herself, shaken by a wind of fear that blew through some grim inner
landscape in which she seemed trapped.
Rachael handed her gun to Benny. She stepped into the big shower stall
and knelt beside the girl, speaking softly and reassuringly to her,
touching her gently on the face and arms, smoothing her tangled blond
hair. At the first few touches, the girl flinched as if she’d been
struck, though the contact briefly broke her trance. She looked at
Rachael for a moment instead of through her, and she allowed herself to
be coaxed to her feet and out of the shadowy stall, though by the time
she crossed the sill of the shower into the bathroom, she was already