She looked toward the front windows. Outside, dusk had turned the parking lot glassy and blue, headlights sliding across the walls as cars moved through the strip mall. Her own sedan sat three spaces from the entrance. Derek’s gray SUV was nowhere in sight.
“You said eleven classes,” Rachel said. “How many are there in five weeks?”
“Fifteen.”
Rachel pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose. “So she came to four.”
“Not exactly.”
Rachel’s hand dropped.
Mara seemed to brace herself. “She came into the building twice.”
The words struck harder than the number eleven had.
“What does that mean?”
“It means on two of those evenings she walked through the front door. She was not here for class the other times.”
Rachel tried to picture it. Audrey climbing from Derek’s SUV in leggings and a wrap sweater, her dance bag over one shoulder. Audrey walking toward this building beneath the glowing STUDIO B sign. Derek pulling away.
