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Chapter Thirty-eight
“It’s none of your business,”she is still repeating as she pulls into a parking space in front of the boutique gym located at the intersection of Military Trail and Donald Ross Road. “Stay out of it. It is none of your business.” Her new mantra.
Besides, what can she do? Call the police and report her suspicions? She can just imagine how that little scene would play out.Yes, I realize that Nick Wilson is a highly respected oncologist, that his job issavinglives, and that the affable doctor hardly seems like someone who regularly beats his wife…. No, I’ve never personally witnessed any abuse, although I’ve seen evidence of it on his wife’s face and arms. And I’m aware that the bruises I saw on the good doctor’s knuckles could be the result of any number of things…. Yes, I understand that his wife has never filed a complaint, and that she flatly denies her handsome husband is abusing her. But my instincts all tell me…
At this point, the police would undoubtedly interrupt to point out that instincts aren’t evidence. They would remind her that Dani Wilson doesn’t fit the popular image of an abused wife any more than her husband fits the popular image of an abuser, that Dani is a successful professional in her own right, and that she has both the means and the wherewithal to leave her husband should she desire to do so.
I’m afraid that until such time as Dani Wilson files a complaint,the police would surely inform her,our hands are tied.
And if Maggie decides to report her suspicions anyway? If the police decide to investigate and show up at the Wilsons’ front door? What then?
Furious denials all around? Dani Wilson stops talking to her? A promising friendship is nipped in the bud? Maggie makes enemies of her next-door neighbors? She is forced to move yet again?
Where can she run this time?
Especially now, when she’s only just beginning to stand on her feet again.
Maggie lowers her head to the steering wheel and groans.
And what of the Grants?
If Erin isn’t mistaken, and it really was Sean Grant she saw at the beach on Monday afternoon, that means Sean is still lying to his wife. Should she say something to Olivia?
You should most definitely not,she hears Craig say.
And that little scene that just played out on the Youngs’ front lawn? Clearly, there’s trouble brewing there.
“Also none of your business,” Maggie whispers as she climbs out of her car and approaches the gym’s front door. “No one has asked for your help. No one is interested in your instincts.”
“Hi,” chirps the perky young brunette behind the reception counter. The name tag on her bright orange T-shirt readsPaula. Paula’s smile is wide and toothy. “Can I help you?”
“How much to join?”
“Depends on what you want.” Paula hands Maggie a price list. “Basic membership is twenty dollars a month. Classes and personal trainers are extra, and you have to be a member to make use of either.”
Maggie takes out a basic membership and adds her name to the sign-in sheet.
“Changing rooms and the main gym are through the door behind me on my left. Exercise classes are through the door to my right.” Paula checks her watch. “The last class is almost over, but you’re free to have a look-see.”
“Thank you. I think I’ll just hop on the treadmill.”
Paula swivels toward the door on her left. “Have fun.”
The gym is bright and spacious, full of the usual assortment of treadmills, rowing machines, recumbent bicycles, and free weights. Plus a bunch of scary-looking machines whose use Maggie can only guess at. “Stick to the treadmill,” she says, acknowledging with a small wave a young woman jogging on a treadmill two machines down.
Maggie steps onto the closest treadmill, gently dropping her canvas bag to the floor beside her and taking note of two teenage boys laughing and lifting weights at the far end of the long room. Nearby, a red-faced, middle-aged man is grunting his way through a series of pull-ups on one of two Gravitron machines. He looks as if he’s one pull-up away from a major coronary.
“Not my concern,” Maggie mutters, selecting a program and instantly feeling the machine start moving beneath her feet. She turns on the small attached television, giving herself over to the soothing confidence of the Property Brothers, as the machine finishes its two-minute warm-up and starts picking up speed. Soon, Maggie is alternating between a comfortable three-mile-an-hour walk and two-minute sprints of double that.
She’s halfway through the thirty minutes when she realizes that the woman on the other treadmill and the heart-attack-waiting-to-happen have both left the room. The teenagers at the far end of the gym have stopped lifting weights and are sweating their way through a series of squats and push-ups.
Maggie returns her attention to the TV— a man is demolishing a wall with a hammer while his tiny but surprisingly strong wife is pulling out kitchen cabinets with her bare hands.Looks like fun,Maggie thinks as she begins another two-minute sprint. A minute in, she hears the door to the reception area open and turns, beads of perspiration dripping into her eyes as she watches two men enter the gym.
The men are white, muscular, bearded, and heavily tattooed. The shorter of the two men wears a black T-shirt with a Harley-Davidson logo. The taller one sports a sneer and a handlebar mustache.
“Oh God,” Maggie whispers as the taller man mounts the treadmill next to hers and his companion in the black T-shirt selects a machine closer to the door, trapping her in between.
“You must be Maggie,” the taller man says.
