formed by my thumb and middle finger, but I didnât have much success. Tonight was the first time Iâd ever wished I had long fingernails. I checked out the hands around me. âFirella,â I said, âyour nails are the longest. See if you can grip this little piece of wood, here. Thatâs whatâs got the door wedged shut.â
Sandy was suggesting in an increasingly nervous voice that we call the police right now, or at least her husband, but Carla put a hand on Sandyâs arm and said, âHush, woman.â I noticed, while Firella crouched and tried to wriggle the strip of wood from its lodging, that Carla had put out her cigarette before it was smoked down to the filter. She was worried, too.
After a lot of shaking of her head and several little whispers of âNo, not quiteâ¦almostâ¦damn thing!â Firella said, âGot it!â and held up the thin strip of wood. About four inches long and two wide, it could have been no more than two millimeters thick, if that. It was just the right size to slip in the crack in the door, just thick enough to get wedged there when the first person tried to open the door to go to Tamsinâs office.
I reached out to turn the knob, hesitated.
âWhat you waiting for?â Carla asked, her voice raspier than ever. âNow weâre late.â
I was waiting because Iâd thought of fingerprints, but then I shrugged. By her own account, Sandy had already touched the door. âRemember, she didnât answer the phone,â I said, my voice as quiet and calm as I could make it. I opened the door. The other women clustered around me.
The hall light was on, and Tamsinâs office door was open, but not the door to the therapy room.
âTamsin!â called Carla. âYou and Janet in there? You two stop messing around, you hear! The rest of usâll get jealous!â
Carla was trying to sound jaunty, but the atmosphere in the hall was too thick with anxiety for that.
Melanie said, âIâm scared.â It was an admission, but it didnât signal that she was going to run away. Sheâd planted her feet and had that bulldog look on her face that meant she wouldnât back down.
âWeâre all scared,â Sandy said. Oddly, sheâd gotten calmer. âDo you think we had better just stay out here in the parking lot and call the police?â
âNo,â I said.
They all turned to look at me.
âYou can all stay outside,â I said, amending my words. In fact, I wouldâve preferred they all stay out. âBut I have to see if theyâreâ¦okay.â
Even slow Melanie read between the lines on that one. To my surprise she said, âNo. You go, we all go.â
âWe all go,â Firella said, in a voice even more certain. Sandy didnât say anything, but she didnât walk away, either.
Oh, wonderful, I thought. The five musketeerettes.
We shuffled down the hall in a clump. I couldnât control my anxiety any longer and stepped out ahead of them, pivoted on my left foot and faced into Tamsinâs office, my hands already floating up into the striking position. I was ready for something, but not for what I saw.
Behind Tamsinâs desk, on the fuzzy wall where all the clippings had been stuck up with pinsâ¦
âOh, dear God,â said Sandy, miserably.
âShit, shit, shit!â Carlaâs blackbird voice, hushed with shock.
â¦was a body, and the whiteness of it was the first thing I noticed, the whiteness of the chest and arms and face. Then the blackness of her hair.
âHoly Mary, Mother of God,â Firella said, her voice more steady than I would have believed. âPray for us now, and at the hour of our death.â
But then there was the redness of it; that was startling, and considerable. The glistening redness mostly issued from theâstake? Was that really a metal stake? Yes, driven through the heart
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