Then what?
“She was here twice,” Rachel repeated. “But she didn’t take class?”
“One time she stayed in the changing room for maybe twenty minutes. She told me she felt sick. I offered to call you.”
“And?”
“She panicked.”
Rachel’s stomach tightened. “Panicked how?”
“She grabbed my wrist and told me not to.”
Mara demonstrated without thinking, fingers closing around her opposite wrist. Rachel’s gaze fixed on the gesture. Audrey had never liked making scenes. Even as a toddler she had cried in bathrooms rather than restaurants, furious at herself whenever tears drew strangers’ attention.
“What did she say?”
“That she was fine. That she just needed to sit down. Then she asked if she could leave through the side door.”
Rachel heard Scott’s voice from two nights earlier: She’s sixteen, Rach. She’s moody. That is practically the job description.
Rachel had wanted to believe him because the alternative had been shapeless and ugly. Because Derek was Derek. Because Derek had brought potato salad to their cookouts and helped Scott replace their water heater and sat in the second row when Audrey had played a tree in a third-grade school musical. Because suspicion without evidence had felt disloyal.
