“No, please,” said Emerson. “Continue.”

Lucy met his gaze without blinking. “Fine. About one-thirty in the morning, Carol—that was the little girl’s name, if anyone’s interested—gets out of bed because she’d gotten sick and thrown up and needed Daddy to change her sheets. Well, Daddy’s busy going down on some bimbo who was willing to spread her legs for some coke or whatever it was they had there that night, and Tim gets pissed off and hits Carol really hard and knocks her down, and Carol starts crying because it hurts but Tim’s too stoked and horny to want to deal with a bawling brat, so he kicks her—about a dozen times. Then he takes her back up to her room, throws her down onto her vomit-soaked sheets, then closes and locks the bedroom door. He finishes getting it on with his bimbo, then everyone—including Tim—takes off. He doesn’t come back until almost two the next afternoon and finds Carol damn near comatose. He waits awhile to see if she gets better and when she doesn’t he takes her to the hospital.

“He ruptured her pancreas. That little girl lay there in her own puke for the better part of twelve hours in unbearable agony. She died ten minutes after they arrived at the hospital. I remember seeing news footage of the medical examiner. The man was damn near in tears when he described how she died and how long it took for her to die. That’s what he did to the girl. And the two of you stand up there with your understanding expressions and sympathetic tones and try to convince us that it’ll be for the good of everyone involved if we let this piece of shit come in here and share his grief with us.”

Emerson was watching her very carefully. “Do you mind, Miss Thompson, if I ask how it is you have so much information about Mr. Beals so readily available?”

“I read the paper. I listen to the news.” Those weren’t the real reason, but no one in this room would understand that. Lucy wasn’t sure she understood it herself.

“Did you know the Beals or their daughter?” asked Emerson.

“Never met them. I don’t think Tim and his wife were the type of people I’d’ve wanted to have over for Sunday dinner, if you read my meaning.”

“I think I do, yes.”

Lucy looked around at the faces of the group. “Look, I didn’t mean to use the kind of language I did, I’m sorry. You all know me—well enough, anyway. And I understand that people like Beals need some sort of therapeutic environment when they get out. I just don’t think it should be here.” There—her voice was calm again—in contrast to the storm she felt raging inside.

“I take it then, Miss Thompson,” said Emerson, “that you’ll be one of the members who won’t be attending next week?”

It was everything Lucy could do not to laugh. His question was so naive it was insulting, and what calm had been regained by her quickly crumbled. “It makes me sick that I have to share this planet with someone like that. I’ll be goddamned if I’ll sit in the same room with him.”