Faces of Fear

But the top was way too big — the cups bagged around her small breasts.

“The bra doesn’t fit,” she said, staring dolefully at her reflection in the mirrored wall. “Do you have a smaller one?”

Tasha opened another drawer, pulled out a pair of foam rubber falsies, and handed them to her. “These will fill it out.”

Alison stared at them, praying Tasha was kidding, but knowing by the tone of her voice that she wasn’t. “I’m not sure I—” she began.

“Go on,” Tasha said, cutting her off. “They’re the ones I used to wear before your stepdad gave me these.” She lifted her chest with two hands, exaggerating the bulge of her breasts.

Alison reddened and tried not to stare. “You mean those are implants? Conrad gave you implants?”

“Well, it didn’t look like I was ever going to grow them, so first I used those.” She nodded toward the two foam pads that were still in Alison’s hand. “They’ll push you up and fill out the top. Try it.”

“They fit into a pocket in the bottom of the cups,” Dawn said. “Here, take it off and I’ll show you.”

Reluctantly, Alison took off the bathing suit top, trying to resist the impulse to hide her breasts behind her arms since the other girls seemed to be so unconcerned about their nudity.

Dawn expertly fitted the rubber push-ups into the bikini top, then handed it back to her. “Try that.”

Alison put the top back on and tried not to blush as Dawn readjusted everything.

“Take a look,” Dawn said when she was finished.

Alison stared at herself in the mirror and for a moment thought she was looking at someone else. How could those little pieces of rubber make such a difference? She looked like an actual woman instead of a flat-chested adolescent child.

Her breasts were actually mounding over the top of the bathing suit’s bra.

“Just like me,” Tasha said, nodding in approval at the new contours. “You need implants. Ask Santa for a pair.”

Alison stared at her. “Me? You’ve got to be kidding! I could never—”

“Never say never,” Dawn Masin interrupted. “You’ve probably got everything you’re going to get from nature. So now’s the time. You want to get it all done before you go to college.”

Alison turned to Dawn, whose body filled her bikini as perfectly as Tasha’s. “You’ve had something done, too?”

Everybody laughed.

“We all have,” a girl Alison hadn’t met yet said.

“It’s no big deal,” Dawn said. “I had my boobs and lips done over Christmas, and Tasha’s getting cheek implants next summer.”

Alison stared at Dawn’s lips. They were plump and looked perfectly natural. How was it possible she hadn’t been born with them?

“Believe me,” Dawn said, leaning forward so Alison could see her mouth more closely, “I had no lips before. None.”

Tasha sucked in her cheeks so Alison could get an idea of what she was planning, then let them back out again. “I think the way we’re born is just a suggestion.”

A suggestion? Alison thought as she wrapped a beach towel around her body and followed the rest of the girls out to the pool. What were they, crazy? Yet as she listened to the whistles from the boys in the pool, she hesitated.

Nobody had ever whistled at her like that, and they weren’t right now, either. They were whistling at Tasha and Dawn and all the rest of them.

“Come on in, Alison,” Budge Phelps called out. “We’re losing. We need you.” He held up the volleyball.

“Going in?” Alison asked Tasha.

“Later,” Tasha said as she smeared lotion on her long brown legs.

“Come on, Alison!” Trip called. “We need you.”

Alison dropped the towel and waited.

No whistles — none at all.

They knew her breasts were not her own.

Suddenly regretting that she hadn’t just gone home, she plunged into the pool, wishing that not just her body, but she herself could disappear.

DAHLIA MOORE CLOSED the file on her desk and reached for the next on the stack. Before she opened it, she rubbed her neck, trying to relieve some of the pain in her shoulders and upper back that eight hours a day of sitting at her keyboard had made into a chronic condition. And trying to decipher the scribbled notes the doctors made on the patients’ charts wasn’t doing anything for her eyes, either. Sighing heavily, she flexed her fingers, took a sip of her tea, inhaled deeply, and reached for the next folder on the bottomless heap in her in-box.

She was just opening the file when the door to the Records Office opened and a woman walked in.

A woman Dahlia recognized not only from television, but because she’d been in this very office at least three times before, and not once had the newswoman ever gotten anything at all out of her.

But apparently she never learned.

“Hello, Dahlia,” Tina said, her lips curling into the smile she usually used only on TV.

Dahlia wondered if Tina Wong had actually remembered her name or just read it in one of the directories in the hospital lobby. “May I help you?” she said, doing her best not to let the newswoman know she’d been recognized.

“Tina Wong?” Tina said, moving close to the counter in front of Dahlia’s desk. “You remember me, don’t you, Dahlia? Channel 3 News?” Barely acknowledging Dahlia’s curt nod, she plunged on. “I’m doing a story on the Kimberly Elmont murder, and her mother told me that Kimberly’s appendix had been removed here at Holy Cross two years ago.”

Dahlia scowled. Of all people, Tina Wong should understand patient confidentiality. It wasn’t as if they’d never played this game before. “So?”

“So I’m hoping you can tell me who has access to her medical records.”

“Her doctors,” Dahlia responded. This was way too simple a question for the famous Tina Wong, so she was after something else, but Dahlia knew her job, and wasn’t about to jeopardize it for a reporter. “That’s assuming she was a patient here, and you know as well as I do that I can’t tell you anything about a patient.”

“I told you — I’m not asking for information about the patients. All I want to know is if anyone but their doctors accessed their records.”

Dahlia Moore’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘patients’?” she asked, emphasizing the plural. “Kimberly Elmont was only one person, wasn’t she?”

Tina pounced. “So she was a patient here!”

“You already knew that,” Dahlia retorted, rolling her eyes. “Her mother told you, didn’t she?”

“Can you tell me if a woman named Caroline Fisher was ever treated here?”

Dahlia frowned. “How many times do I have to explain confidentiality to you?”

“Confidentiality dies with the patient,” Tina said, putting a lot more certainty into her voice than she felt. Then, as Dahlia’s expression turned even stonier, she changed her tactics. “Look,” she said, her voice much softer. “Both of these girls were murdered. I can’t believe you didn’t hear about Kimberly — I broke the story, but every other station’s been on it ever since. Caroline Fisher was murdered last year, and I think the same person killed them both.”

Dahlia pursed her lips but said nothing. She’d certainly heard about Kimberly Elmont — there’d been practically nothing else on TV all weekend. And she remembered Caroline Fisher, too, because Caroline had been killed only two blocks from the house Dahlia shared with her husband and daughter, and she’d made Fred put extra locks on the day after they found the Fisher girl.

“Come on, Dahlia,” Tina said, sensing the records clerk’s indecision. “I don’t even want medical information. All I want to know is if Caroline Fisher was ever a patient here, and if she was, if there was anyone who looked at both their records.”

Dahlia turned it over in her mind. Technically, Tina Wong was right — the information she wanted wouldn’t break any laws. On the other hand, it would sure violate hospital policy, maybe even badly enough to get her fired.