“Plain as day.”
“Well,” the laughing one said, her amusement gone now, “that’s terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“Shame Sheila can’t see the truth,” the earring woman said.
“She sees it,” Connie answered.“She just doesn’t want to look straight at it.”
“Maybe she’s scared.”
“She ought to be angry.”
“People don’t always know what to do when they’ve been betrayed.”
Connie’s voice dropped.“I don’t want to lose her as a friend.That’s the truth.I’ve known Sheila since we were girls.I stood up at her wedding.I held her baby before her own mother got there.And now she acts like I’m the enemy because I won’t smile and pretend Bradley isn’t making a fool of her.”
The killer watched a truck turn across the street, its headlights sweeping the waffle diner windows.For one brief second, the glass showed the killer’s own hands wrapped around the teacup.Still hands.Calm hands.
Poor Sheila.
That name had a softness to it.A woman who might sit alone in a kitchen after midnight, staring at a phone, waiting for an explanation that did not insult her intelligence.A woman surrounded by people who talked and judged and took pleasure from her humiliation.A woman who needed the noise around her quieted.
Protected.
Rescued.
The killer lifted the tea again and smiled into the cup.
Bradley.
A plain name.A name that belonged on a business card, a church bulletin, a car loan application.Men with names like Bradley often believed the world had been built to absorb their appetites.They shook hands, complimented mothers, sponsored youth teams, and slid their fingers over the hands of younger women in public places because shame had become unfamiliar to them.
Perhaps Connie was wrong.
That had to be considered.
A proper mind did not rush.
Perhaps Bradley had done nothing beyond accept comfort from an employee after a difficult day.Perhaps Sheila had misunderstood.Perhaps Connie enjoyed the authority of accusation so much that she had built a whole crime from a touch.
Possible.
The killer set the cup down and ran one finger along the folded edge of the napkin.
But if Connie was right, then Sheila had already been failed.By Bradley.By friends who saw her pain as gossip.By a town that would watch the marriage spoil and call it private.
The waitress passed the booth.“You doing all right, hon?”
The killer turned a pleasant smile toward her.“Perfectly, thank you.”
“You want that tea warmed up?”
“No, thank you.I’m finished.”
The waitress moved on.
Behind the killer, Connie was speaking again.
