Chapter 7: Room 214
David arrived at my house forty minutes later.
Rachel was with him.
I showed them the message without saying anything.
David read it.
Passed the phone to Rachel.
Rachel read it and handed it back to me, and her face had that careful, composed expression again — the one I now understood was armor.
"She got your number," David said.
"She must have asked someone at the reception.
Or found it another way." I looked at Rachel.
"I'm sorry.
I don't know how she got it."
"It doesn't matter how she got it," Rachel said.
She sat down at my kitchen table.
David sat beside her.
"This is what she does.
She finds a way in." She looked at her hands.
"She's done this before.
After I graduated college, she showed up at my first job and told my manager things about me.
Personal things.
She framed it as concern." A pause.
"I lost that job."
David's jaw tightened.
"You never told me that part."
"I told you enough." She looked at him.
"I told you she was dangerous.
I told you she doesn't stop."
"What does she want?" I asked.
Rachel looked at me.
"She wants David to doubt me.
That's always the goal.
She finds the person closest to me and she plants something.
A question.
A suggestion.
Something small enough that it seems reasonable but big enough that it doesn't go away." She paused.
"She picked you because of the dress."
I felt that land.
"She saw what happened today," Rachel continued.
"She saw that there was already tension between us.
She's going to try to use that."
"What would she tell me?" I asked.
"What's the thing she thinks she has?"
Rachel was quiet for a moment.
Then she said, "Before David and I got together, I was in a difficult period.
I made some choices I'm not proud of.
Nothing criminal.
Nothing that hurt anyone else.
But the kind of thing that sounds worse than it was when someone tells it without context." She met my eyes.
"She'll make it sound like I'm not who David thinks I am."
"Are you?" I asked.
Not unkindly.
Directly.
Rachel held my gaze.
"I am exactly who David thinks I am.
I've told him everything she might use.
He knows all of it."
David nodded.
"She has nothing I don't already know."
I looked at them both.
Then I looked at the text message on my phone.
"So what do we do?" I asked.
David leaned forward.
"We don't go to Room 214.
We don't engage.
We document the message, we block the number, and if she contacts you again, we involve a solicitor."
"She'll find another way in," Rachel said quietly.
"She always does."
The kitchen was very still.
"Then we deal with it when she does," David said.
"Together."
Rachel looked at him.
Something in her face shifted — not the armor, but what was underneath it.
Something tired and relieved at the same time.
"I'm sorry she came today," Rachel said.
"I'm sorry she found you."
"Don't apologize for her," I said.
Rachel blinked.
"She's not your responsibility," I said.
"She's not something you caused." I paused.
"I know something about causing problems for the people you love.
And I know the difference between that and someone else's cruelty landing on you."
Rachel looked at me for a long moment.
Then my phone buzzed again.
A second message from Room 214.
May you like
*I have photographs, Carol.
You'll want to see them before everyone else does.*
