CHAPTER 4
THE RISE AND swell of voices in the corridor seemed to Riley like the hum of angry bees. She’d fled to the dressing room, locked the door, and ignored the persistent demands for entry. Her stomach churned and rolled under an enveloping wave of buffeting, suffusing misery. She dreaded looking into any human face and longed for the unreserved championing of a dog. In human eyes, she would encounter disdain, resignation, or worst of all, pity. And before she could face that, she needed to identify her own feelings, understand the mechanism underlying her disaster.
The wraith of some destructive force teased at the edges of her mind, refusing to come into focus. She could only return to the conclusion which she, and the world at large, had accepted for the last two years. That Jim
