“It was Mossing?” Heloise blinked a couple of times, and her breathing sped up. “The boy in the closet that time was Christoffer Mossing?”

“Yes, and he seemed like he was doing just dandy when I saw him that night at the restaurant,” Anna nodded. “Our little rendezvous way back when, him punching me repeatedly while he raped me?” She frowned and shrugged. “Apparently that didn’t ruin his life. He didn’t have any trouble completing his education or getting himself set up with a good life. His business card even said that he was a criminal defense lawyer for a law firm up north, so he had plenty of money too. He definitely seemed to be doing well.”

“What did you say to him?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. I got the liquor he requested and set the bottles on the table in front of him.” She got a faraway look in her eyes as she spoke. “Later that night I saw him again, out by the coat check. He was looking for some cigarettes in his jacket pocket, drunk and tense, and he grabbed my arm as I walked by. I tried to yank it back, but he held on harder, squeezed so that it hurt. I told him to let me go, but he held on tight and leaned in close to me. ‘I forgot your name,’ he said, ‘but I remember you.’ Then he winked at me. Motherfucker winked at me. I was this close to getting a knife from the kitchen and jabbing it into his throat right then and there.”

“Was that when you decided to do it, to kill him?” Heloise tensely adjusted her position in her chair.

“No.” Anna shook her head. “I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I told my manager that I wasn’t feeling well, and she let me go. So I left.”

“Did you ever see him again? I mean, before the night when you …”

“I tried for a while to forget having run into him, but I couldn’t. The next few months, it just got worse, and my nightmares from when I was a kid came back. I wasn’t doing well. It was really bad.”

“Were you afraid of him?”

“No, I wasn’t afraid. I was …” She paused for a moment and put her hands together behind her head. “I was infuriated. I was filled with a red-hot, consuming rage, which only grew and started overflowing inside me. He didn’t see me as a person. I was worthless in his eyes; I was nothing! A toy he had played with one time a long time ago.”

“Then what did you do?”