“You see. He make me ugly.”
Her eyes were slits surrounded by puffy red skin. From swollen lips, a slow trickle of blood ran down her chin. Gingerly, she wiped it on her coat. Allison saw the cloth was already sodden.
Allison reached out her hand.
Sonika flinched, nearly toppling over.
“I’m sorry,” Allison said. She knelt beside her, careful to keep some distance. “What happened?”
Without a word, the young woman reached out her hand. Her finger-tips grazed Allison’s belly, then touched her own.
Allison didn’t bother asking how Sonika knew. “You’re pregnant?”
Getting pregnant and trying to leave were the two most dangerous times for an abused woman.
“Maybe.” Sonika hesitated. “Maybe not anymore.”
And then Allison saw what she hadn’t before—the blood on the floor between Sonika’s heels. She yanked her cell phone from her belt. Within minutes, the sirens sounded.
As the paramedics flung open the ambulance doors to buck the gurney inside, Sonika grabbed hold of Allison’s hand. The other women at the shelter peeped from their windows, some looking stoic, others frightened. How many of them had been in a similar situation? Hurt if they didn’t fight back, hurt if they did. One of Allison’s clients had been sentenced to ten years after she killed her husband, her self-defense argument laughed out of the courtroom. Too many people—including cops and judges—still thought domestic violence should never be discussed out-side the family.
“He told me I shame him if I leave,” Sonika said before the paramedic shoved the gurney inside the double doors.
As Allison drove back to her office, she passed the animal shelter where Jalape?o had originally been taken. Squeezing the wheel to keep her hands from shaking, she thought, In this country, there are more animal shelters than women’s shelters.
EMERICK RESIDENCE
December 31
Leif Larson was standing next to the fireplace at Rod Emerick’s New Year’s Eve party when he caught sight of the most beautiful woman.
And then it was like adjusting the focus on a microscope. It was Nicole. Nine months earlier, Leif had been transferred to the Portland office from Oklahoma. In that whole time, he had always seen Nicole dressed in variations of the same outfit: dark, well-cut pantsuits worn with flats and small gold earrings.
Tonight she was almost unrecognizable in a long, sleeveless black dress. Its wide straps crisscrossed in the back, revealing the strong muscles of her shoulders. She laughed at something Rod had said, her large silver hoop earrings swinging back and forth.
Leif couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Nicole was the smartest woman he knew, and the most aloof. She was like a cat, he thought, and not just because of her tip-tilted eyes.
Some people were like cats and some people were like dogs. Dog people liked everyone. They came when they were called, could be taught lots of tricks, and begged for affection and treats.
You had to wait for cat people.
Leif decided he was willing to wait.
Brad Buffet leaned down and kissed Cassidy’s cheek at the party he was hosting for everyone for Channel Four. She giggled as his five o’clock shadow grazed her skin. He might as well have kissed her ring. Brad had been the king of the station for the last three years, ever since he showed up from Sante Fe. Now it was clear her star was the one in ascendance.
A second later, Rick hissed in her ear, “Come outside. Now!” He yanked her arm. In the hallway, he said, “I saw you. I saw you flirting with that guy.”
Rick’s eyes were crazy, as if he had caught her having sex instead of getting what was practically an air kiss from a colleague. Cassidy felt shocked and yet oddly guilty. She had been laughing and flirting, sure. But that was just who she was. Wasn’t it?
“I was just having fun,” she said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Rick’s hand snaked under her silver-sequined top and pinched her waist hard enough that she sobered up instantly. She knew it would leave a tiny nip of a bruise.
“Listen to me,” he said urgently. “Listen.”
She could smell the whiskey on his breath.
“You’re acting like a slut.”
The word was a punch to the gut. It was the word her father had used when he caught Cassidy with Tommy Malto in the backyard one summer night when they thought everyone was asleep. She was fourteen. Her parents had made it clear that she was used goods, of value to no one.
“No, I’m not,” she said, her voice not angry but pleading.
“You talk to guys like you’re ready to go to bed with them.” Rick was so close she could feel his spit flecking her face. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Something inside Cassidy broke. It felt like her head was filling up with liquid. Tears and the beginnings of nausea.