Alone in the bathroom, I stripped off my night clothes and climbed into the tub. The water was a bit warmer then I like it, but it helped to soothe and calm my troubled heart. However, I didn’t stay in the tub for very long. I had heard the unmistakable sound of Jacquelyn’s brothers walking past the bathroom door and feared that one or more of them might walk in on me.
It had occurred to me to lock the bathroom door before I got into the tub, but there hadn’t been a lock on the door. Back home we had the kind of door knobs that you push in and turn a quarter turn to lock them, but in the Doleshire house all of the knobs appeared to be unlockable except for the front and rear doors to the house. I don’t know why I checked, it just seemed to be something odd that I had to look into before we left.