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“Chloe, you should eat something besides pecan and caramel candy.”

“I’m a big girl; if I get hungry, I’ll raid your kitchen.” I bit out the words. I needed out of here. Away from him. “Just show me where I’m sleeping,” I requested bitterly.

Zarek must have seen my resolution, because he nodded. He continued to keep his arm around me as he guided me down the hall towards a bedroom decorated in blue and cream.

“The bathroom is across the hall, and my bedroom is at the end of the hallway. I’m going to keep my door open in case you need me.”

“I won’t.”

“Slayer will be up roaming the halls. If you don’t want him to check on you, keep your door closed.”

I watched as Zarek put down my suitcase on the bed. As he was leaving the room, he turned to me. “Do you want the door open or closed?”

“Closed.”

He sighed as he closed the door.

It was an hour later after struggling to go to sleep that I got up from bed and opened the door. I found Slayer right there waiting for me.

“What are you doing?”

The big dog huffed.

Slayer followed me into the room as I went back to bed. He laid down on the floor, his head resting on his paws, looking up at me. If he could talk, I was sure he would be telling me that it was okay for me to go to sleep, he would keep me safe. With that thought in mind, I closed my eyes.

Chapter Eight

Zarek

It was time to come clean with my Lieutenant at Station 22. I’d tacked on an additional two days off when I’d gone to Jasper Creek, which hadn’t been a problem. Hell, I had enough time off saved up to take a two-month cruise, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that the situation with Chloe was unusual, and I might need to take some unexpected time off in the future and I needed to give Henry Sykes a heads-up.

Luke saw me waiting outside our lieutenant’s office and sidled up to me.

“What did she think of the daffodils?”

“Uhhhm…”

“She busted your chops?” Luke guessed.

“Something like that,” I admitted.

“So, when am I going to meet her?”

“I don’t know.” I thought about the woman I’d spent the last four days with at my house. She had been like a ghost. I should never have given her the password to my Wi-Fi. All she seemed to do was play Candy Crush. Her social interaction seemed limited to my dog. Luckily, I had gotten her to eat a little bit. But the woman I had seen signs of, on the trip back from Jasper Creek, had disappeared. Something needed to give.

“What’s going on?”

“For a while she seemed to be coming out of her shell. She was responding to things and talking. Hell, she even smiled. Three times. But then she just crawled back under a rock for the last four days. I guess I should be happy she likes the food I cook. As long as it has cheese in it.”

“What shook her up before?”

“Arguments with her sisters.”

“Zarek, you’ve talked about Chloe for years. I’ve kind of got my own opinions of what makes this girl tick, what she’s like. I have a question for you. The Chloe that you know, would she go into mental hiding after being beaten and traumatized, or would she come out fighting?”

I looked at Luke. I didn’t just blow off my friend’s question. Luke had been through the fire, so to speak. He was someone who freely admitted to nightmares and struggles with PTSD because of the survivor’s guilt he carried. He understood people’s psyches better than a lot of psychologists.

“I would have said that Chloe would have had a big ole ‘fuck you’ to everyone after she got her sea legs under her and moved on. Her childhood was fucking hell, Luke, but she rose above that and was making something of herself.”