Chapter 4

Pearl sat outside for the longest moments, just waiting, her heart in her throat as she wondered what the hell was going on inside. When her phone rang, she frowned to see a number she didn't know. Hesitantly she answered it.

"My name is Jasper. I'm a friend of Gideon's."

"Yes, yes, he mentioned your name when he got off the phone earlier."

"That's correct. What's going on there?"

"I haven't heard from him since he went to check out the house." She anxiously clutched the phone in her hand. "I'm just sitting here, waiting, but I don't know what's going on."

"You just keep waiting," Jasper said. "I want you to stay right where you are. A group of men will soon enter your house, so I don't want you to move. We can't have you becoming part of this."

"I'm not part of it," she said in frustration, "but Gideon went in there at least ten or fifteen minutes ago, and he hasn't come out."

"I've been in contact with him, and I just need you to stay where you are."

She took several slow, deep breaths. "Fine, but somebody sure as hell better get me some answers before I go in there on my own."

"Do not go in there," Jasper snapped.

She glared down at the phone. "Fine, but the longer you take, the harder it is for me to sit here. I'm worried about Gideon."

"I don't care how hard it is for you to sit there," Jasper replied, his tone inflexible. "Do not move from that car, do you hear me? I don't have the manpower to waste on sending somebody over there to sit in that car with you. Make sure you stay put. I can't afford to take people away from what's going on inside that house."

"That's fine," she muttered, sagging back into her seat. "Just make sure that Gideon's okay."

First came silence on the other end. "That, I can do," he said calmly, then quickly ended the call.

She stared down at her phone, wondering what Gideon could possibly have told Jasper that he would even think to call her. Yet it made sense that he would, as she remembered how Gideon had used her name in the earlier call to Jasper. So he was in contact with Gideon, so surely he was okay. He had to be okay.

Anything else just wasn't acceptable. She sat here with her face buried in her hands. When a knock came at her driver's side window, she shrieked and looked up to see Gideon. She immediately unlocked her door and bolted out of the car, throwing herself into his arms. "Oh my God, oh my God," she cried out. "Are you okay?"

He held her close and murmured, "I'm fine. I'm okay."

She patted his body to confirm he wasn't hurt and then asked, "What the hell happened? You went in there and then nothing."

"Definitely not nothing," he replied, with a grimace, "but not anything you want to hear."

"Oh, no, I want to hear it. I need to know what the hell is going on."

"Come in the house then."

She nodded and locked up her car, then turned to Gideon. "What about the guy inside? Did you get him?" He winced at that. She stopped in her tracks, shocked. "Did you kill him?" she asked.

"It's not so much that I killed him but that his own actions led to his death."

She frowned, as he led her slowly up to the house. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means," a man replied from her front step, which startled her. But the man gave her a smile, a friendly face. "It means that the intruder fired his gun, thinking Gideon would be an easy target, and found out the opposite."

She looked over at Gideon in panic. "But you weren't hurt?"

"I'm not hurt," he repeated.

"But he shot you," she cried out in confusion.

"No, he shot at me. I don't kill very easily, remember?"

She blinked at that, remembering bits and pieces of stories she had heard. "Oh my God."

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and tucked her up close. "It's fine."

"No, it's not fine," she argued, taking several deep breaths, "but it will be."

"Exactly." He gave her a quick squeeze. "Now come on. I need you to see something."

"I'm coming, but I can't say I'll be too impressed if my house is destroyed."

"What do you call destroyed ?" he asked curiously.

She glared at him as he opened her front door, and she winced at the massive blood puddle just inside her house, and yet no body was here. "Where is he?" she asked, looking around. "I want to see his face."

"That's why I want you to see if you recognize him."

She was led out to the backyard, where she saw a whole team of people working. Sure enough, an ambulance had arrived silently, and a gurney sat inside it, with the body completely zipped up atop it. All of a sudden, it was way too real. She sucked back her breath, sagging against Gideon. She was freaked out, just now realizing that she never heard any sirens. She had been so self-absorbed in all this that she never even realized when all these people arrived, even though she had been sitting right outside.

"It's all right," Gideon said. "This guy was waiting inside the house for you ."

She blinked at that and slowly nodded. "I do have to remember that, don't I?" She was in limbo, wanting him dead and not wanting him dead. "Otherwise I'll feel so damn bad."

"You can't feel bad in this case," Gideon murmured. "This guy was in your house, waiting for you, but we still don't know why."

"And neither do I," she replied in bewilderment. "It makes no sense to me."

"Well, first let's see if you recognize him." As they walked to the gurney, Gideon kept his arms locked around her for support. When they got up to the body, he asked, "Are you ready?"

She just nodded. The EMT unzipped the black bag, and she stared down at the face of the man who'd been here in her home. Bewildered, she shook her head. "I don't know him at all. I don't understand. Why was he in my house?"

"We'll talk about that inside," Gideon said, as he turned and led her back into the kitchen.

She sagged down onto a kitchen chair and stared up at him.

"As much as nobody wants to consider it, I did find out that he wasn't here to rape you," he shared, and she stared at him in shock.

"That's the good news, I guess," she replied cautiously. "If that's not the reason, why was he there?"

"He told me that he needed the house ."

Dumbfounded, she couldn't even begin to make sense of what he was talking about.

Gideon nodded. "That sounds strange to me too, so we're wondering if anything is going on with your neighbors here."

"With my neighbors?" she asked, staring at him. She got up and walked to the living room window, where she stared outside her house. "I don't even know my neighbors. I've only been here at this particular house,… I don't know, maybe eight months." Then she frowned. "I guess in most places you could get to know people in that time, but I'm always at work. Plus, if I'm not at work, I'm at the gym, or I'm at home. I guess I haven't been terribly friendly because I don't know anybody here."

"Okay, that's important, and again, you don't recognize him? Not at all?"

"No, not at all."

"Now think about it before you answer my next question. What about this?" He pointed to the little gift bag that was on her kitchen table.

She stared at it and winced. "That's from Betty, isn't it?"

He nodded. "Yes, as far as we can tell, and I did ask your intruder about it," he shared, with a forced calm tone, but she knew his triggers. "He told me that she had nothing to do with anything he was up to, which is too bad, because I would love for her to be found guilty of something." Pearl stared at him, and he shook his head at the irony. "You need to take a look at it."

Frowning, she opened it up and inside was a card and a small bottle of something that looked rather putrid. "What is it?" she asked, frowning, then smelled the top of the bottle. Even closed, it had an acrid smell.

Gideon shook his head. "I don't know, but I suspect, if you would open that up, it won't smell the nicest."

She looked at the card and read out loud. " You're such a bitch , and there's a winking emoji. I figured this is exactly what you deserve. Isn't it time you left your job and moved on? Jeez, are we in junior high?" She stared at it, and then shook her head. "I have never met anybody like Betty in my life," she stated. "Mean and vindictive. Why would anyone go out of their way to do something like this?" The last part was a rhetorical question, but it was obviously on everyone's mind.

"She appears to be obsessed with you. The question is, why?" Gideon asked.

"I have no idea." Pearl raised both hands. "I don't even talk to her."

"We have video proof that she delivered this, so the question is, what is in the bottle, and do you even want to know?"

"No, I don't want to know," she declared. Still, she got a little bit closer to the bottle and wrinkled up her nose. "Honestly, it smells like urine and poop."

Jasper joined them, and both the men shared a look. "That was our take."

"Why on earth?" she muttered.

"I don't know, but you appear to have somebody at your office with a serious mental problem."

"Ya think?" Pearl stared at it, turning all kinds of red with the fury overtaking her. "I don't need crap like this."

"None of us do," Gideon agreed, "but this is something that we can't leave unanswered either."

"Oh, great ," she muttered, almost too loud for even herself, but she needed to vent, "because that'll bring me even more trouble."

"How will that get you in trouble?" Gideon asked.

"I don't know, but every time any complaint is made against her, she's been let off the hook."

The men eyed each other. Jasper asked, "Has she got any relationships with anybody at work?"

"I honestly don't know," she replied.

"More to the point, do you have any relationships at work?" Jasper asked carefully.

She frowned and shook her head. "No, I haven't gone out with anybody at work. I'm not a fan of workplace romances," she said, looking sideways at Gideon. "They get very,… oh, let's go with awkward ."

"Did you rebuff anybody at work?" Gideon asked.

She sagged back into her chair.

"You did, didn't you?"

"I mean,… not badly. He wanted to go out for lunch, so I did, thinking it was just a quick coworker thing. Then he wanted to go out for dinner, and I told him that wasn't something I was interested in. I wasn't, and I'm still not. He seemed to take it fine, and I told him that I just didn't get involved with office romances to begin with, that it wasn't my thing, and that I liked him, but I didn't like him in that way."

"Did you make it very clear that your answer was no?" Jasper asked.

She nodded. "I thought so. It's hard not to have it be clear when you actually say the word no ."

"Yet we all know that some people are deliberately obtuse," Jasper stated.

"Maybe, but that wouldn't have anything to do with this." She waved at the bottle of whatever it was and the nasty card. "Did she think that I wouldn't know who it was from?" She looked at the two men, puzzled.

"If she didn't know that you had a security system, then yes. It would make sense that she wouldn't expect to get caught."

She nodded blankly. "I've never in my life seen anybody do something like this."

"She's apparently a little unhinged when it comes to you."

"Ya think?" She hated that she seemed to be saying the same thing repeatedly, but it was all a little hard to process.

"Unless somebody else is putting her up to it."

She blinked at that too. "You mean, to get me fired or to get me to quit?"

"Then maybe you would go out with this guy you rebuffed."

She stared at him and laughed. "I wouldn't go out with him because I told him I didn't like him in that way. That's not the way this works."

"Maybe he didn't believe you, or maybe he just thought that if he could get you away from the office and get you away from things that bothered you, he could convince you otherwise. You made it clear that you have a problem with work romances, after all."

She shook her head. "Seriously, nobody in my world gives a shit about me like that, and it makes no sense."

"At least we have some proof now."

"Yeah, that is good. Now Betty's been clearly caught on camera. So, now what? Do I call the police?" she asked, as she looked at the bottle, looked at the others. "Surely this can't go unanswered too."

"No," Gideon declared, looking over at Jasper, who nodded too. "This definitely doesn't go unanswered, but you also must realize that, if Betty loses her job, she's likely to take more steps in an unhinged direction."

Pearl buried her face in her hands, as she tried to figure out what the hell had just happened in her world. "I've been wondering if it was time to just pull up stakes and move." She seemed frazzled, and the fury was dampening with the reality crashing down on her.

"You're making that decision pretty easily," Jasper intervened.

"I would imagine that decision wouldn't be very hard at this point," Gideon countered. "Personally, I'm quite surprised to find you back here."

She just nodded, didn't say anything. How could she explain that she was back because of him? It made her sound almost as bad as whoever the hell was stalking her now. "Do we think that she's…" Pearl shook her head. She stared at the evidence before her, then panicked and looked back to the guys for support. "I just don't understand it."

"How bad has it been at work?"

"It's been bad for a while, but especially the past few weeks to a month, and then today? Well, today might have started this," she muttered, as she stared at the bottle, which looked like a urine sample from the labs, yet darker than it should be.

"Tell us about today."

"It wasn't any different than any other day," she began, "but then it got a little worse in some ways because I found out she was badmouthing me to everybody in the office. Even to the extent that at times the patients could hear her. I wasn't happy on a professional level to have her doing that in a work environment, but she's been told off about it before. Still, it's never seemed to make a difference. She got reprimanded today by the head of the therapy group."

"So, that's the extent of it?"

"She's never lost her job. I don't think she's even come close to having anybody even put her on probation," she muttered.

"So, somehow her job is protected," Jasper noted.

"That somehow is something we must figure out," Gideon stated, "because, as of now, you're not safe from her at work or at home. For all we know, that bottle's got something in it."

She stared at it, feeling her stomach recoil, and she nodded. "I think you're right," she agreed. "It would have to be tested to find out for sure. What probably set her off is the fact that my supervisor went to bat for me today with a reprimand because Betty was being particularly nasty and vile."

"Yeah, I can see how that would have set her off."

" Great , so I just can't win in this instance, can I?"

"The fact that she was here when we also had somebody in your house is just aggravating our issue under investigation. Now we've got to confirm that she isn't connected to Mason's case somehow."

Pearl stared blankly. "I can't imagine that Betty was connected with Mason's sniper attack, but it isn't for me to say," she stated. "That will be for you guys to figure out.… I don't suppose I could have you guys make an issue out of this little delivery, huh ?" she asked, looking carefully from Gideon to Jasper, "So that I'm more or less out of it?"

"It won't matter if you're out of it or not. You'll get blamed in Betty's mind no matter what," Gideon stated, being straight with her. "You only have to look at how she's acted up until now."

Pearl whispered, "Jeez, this is just too much."

"We'll have to figure out in what way her job is protected and see if they've got anything to do with this harassment by Betty or even with Mason's shooting."

She shrugged. "We can call my supervisor. She is one of the most professional people I know, honest too. She might have an idea but isn't telling me. I don't know."

"What's her name?" Jasper asked.

She gave him the name and phone number of her direct boss and added, "It's best if I'm left out of this as much as possible."

"You were left out of this," Gideon pointed out, with a laugh. "You remained in your car, and I was with you. We saw the video. Betty brought this on herself," he declared, his tone hard. "I'm more concerned about what comes next as a workplace consequence and then what's Betty's reaction to you."

"Me too," Pearl muttered. "but it has to stop."

"Oh, it will stop now," Gideon murmured. "We just don't know what will start up afterward."

*

The parcel was one thing, and the unhinged coworker Betty was another thing, and both were completely different compared to whatever the asshole Gideon had killed was up to. He didn't even want to go through the details as to how the shooting had happened, and it had certainly happened quickly. The gunman pulled his gun quickly, just quick enough to get himself killed.

Gideon had already gone over the details with Jasper. Now that there had been a shooting, a full investigation would ensue. He was up for that regardless, and it was okay by him. This asshole tried to shoot him, and, as far as Gideon was concerned, it was self-defense all the way. He wasn't sure how Pearl would handle it, but she was still rather shell-shocked. She was also dealing with more than just one issue here, and the coworker problem alone was very strange.

Jasper whispered, "Better call Pearl's supervisor."

Gideon nodded because he wanted the same thing. He got up, stepped out on the back deck, and called her supervisor. When the woman answered on the first ring, he quickly identified himself as one of the investigators on base. He didn't give her much more information than that and got straight to the point. "I'm looking for contact information for a woman who goes by the name of Betty."

After a moment of silence, Maria asked carefully. "Why, if I may ask?"

"Sure, I'm keeping Pearl out of this, as she's dealing with enough shocks right now. What I can tell you at this point is that Betty has crossed the line, and I need her contact information right now."

"Oh dear, oh dear." Maria gasped for breath.

"Contact information," he repeated.

"Yes, yes, of course." She quickly gave him Betty's full name, address, and phone number. "I hope it's not serious."

"It appears Betty is being protected by somebody at work," Gideon added, without any reservation because there was no point in beating around the bush. "Do you know who that is?" She hesitated, and he understood her reaction, but he needed to assert his authority to speed things up a bit. "I'll be coming to your office very soon for an in-person interview on this matter, so the sooner you give me the information I need, the better."

"Oh dear, but that's, that's kind of…"

Gideon interrupted her wanderings with a more forceful tone. "Betty's harassment of Pearl is not something you would want broadcasted. I get it, but, when I say Betty's crossed the line, she's crossed the criminal line and will be picked up and brought in for questioning very soon."

"Did she hurt Pearl?" Maria cried out in astonishment. "I thought for sure Betty was harmless."

"She may have been until she delivered something today to Pearl's house and then snuck away. We're having the contents of the bottle analyzed as we speak."

"Oh my gosh, I never thought anything like that would happen."

"According to Pearl, something may have happened earlier today that could have triggered this."

Silence came on the other end, and then Maria replied in a more professional tone, "I had to reprimand Betty more harshly than usual and even went to my boss again. Betty's been just an absolute bitch, completely unprofessional, and her actions should never be allowed," Maria stated, clearly upset. "But, for some reason, nothing I say or do ever seems to change it."

"Who's your boss?" Gideon asked immediately.

She gave him the name, then added, "You could get this information from other people, right?" She was worried, and it showed. "I'm not giving away anything?"

"No, of course not," Gideon replied. "Don't worry. This will wind up very official."

She asked again, "Is Pearl okay?"

"Yeah, just shaken up."

"Pearl is a sweetheart and has been one of our best employees. She's a wonderful physiotherapist. I know that all this has been incredibly troubling for her, and she's mentioned to me that she may very well leave because of it, but I was hoping we could get it stopped before she made that choice."

"I'm not sure what her state of mind is at the moment," Gideon shared, "but we'll get her to a safe place, where she can have some time to destress. Under the circumstances, she may not be in to work for the next few days, though I don't have an official ruling on that yet."

"I do need a little more information about you," she said carefully, "so that I'm not in trouble for passing on this information."

He quickly gave her his name, rank, and his contact number. "If you have any issues, my boss for the purpose of the current case regarding Betty would be Jasper Maclintok."

"Okay, good, thank you. Please tell Pearl to call me, whenever she feels up to it."

"I'll tell her that," Gideon said, then quickly ended the call. He went back inside to see Jasper talking to Pearl. Gideon shared a knowing look with Jasper, who pulled out his phone and stepped away a little. Gideon addressed Pearl, "I talked to Maria. She seems to be a good boss to have on your side, but she's pretty freaked out about it all too."

"I'll bet she is. It's not her fault or anything she has control of. Betty is just nasty."

Gideon nodded. "Her behavior is inexcusable to me, and she should have been sent down the road a long time ago."

Pearl winced. "That's true, and Maria's done her best to deal with it, but, when management won't support Maria, what is she left to do?"

"I get it, and there will end up being a much bigger investigation because of what Betty did. She crossed a line."

Pearl shivered and nodded, and then smelled coffee, realized Jasper had put some on.

The smell eased Gideon's stretched nerves. "Coffee will be good," he said, with a note of humor. "Good choice."

She looked over at him, a wry look on her face. "You're still a coffee addict?"

"Are you still a coffee addict?" he replied, with a smile.

"I am, yes, the one bad habit I haven't been able to kick."

"It's the one bad habit I don't give a crap about kicking," Gideon declared, grinning.

She burst out laughing. "Trust you to make me feel like all those years we've been apart just disappeared.… I didn't say it before, and I should have," she shared honestly, "but it's sure good to see you." He smiled a genuine smile that tugged on her heartstrings, as she realized just how much she'd lost.

He nodded. "Ditto, right back at you. And, just for the record, you're looking great. Did I mention that earlier?"

She flushed bright red and then laughed. "Yeah, you mentioned it while I was sitting outside, freaking out. You always were good with compliments."

"Hey, I'm not good with anything. That's just the truth. You've always looked good. You always did. Just something about you is such a natural presence." He took another look at her, and she flushed again. "Just that home girl beauty thing."

She flushed and laughed. "As I said, always good with the compliments."

He shrugged. "But never for any other reason than the truth," he murmured. "It's the truth."

"Thank you." She gave him a bashful nod.

He got up, poured coffee for them, and handed her a cup. "How are you feeling?"

"Rough, to be honest. This is not exactly how I thought my day would end when I got up this morning," she shared. "It was rough at work because of… Betty. I was prepared to come home and to write up my notice, figuring out what was next in my life. It was rough when I saw you there in the hallway," she added, shaking her head. "That hit me like a ton of bricks."

"Hit you how?"

She looked over at Jasper and realized he was still on the phone and not paying attention, and that was as much privacy as she would likely get any time soon. "Because I realized just how much…" She winced. Forcing herself to be as honest with him as he had been with her—even knowing it might completely change everything—she went on. "Knowing what I lost."

He stared at her, his eyebrows shooting up. "Lost?"

"Yes, lost." She nodded, the sorrow evident in her expression. "I'm the one who broke us up. I'm the one who walked away, and I'm still not exactly sure why, except that… I just don't think I was ready for the commitment it seemed we were heading toward. I wasn't ready and, well,… I ran. I was terrified," she admitted, the shame and sorrow filling her heart.

Gideon still listened to her, but he never spoke up.

"Then today, when all this hell broke loose, I was getting ready to run yet again, only to realize how much time I spend running, and I didn't want to run anymore," she murmured. She stared down at her hands on her lap, lifted her gaze to his. "So I'm staying here, for whatever may happen. With us ."

*

In the craziness of the last couple hours, Pearl's words just washed over Gideon, adding to the confusing combination of it all. He didn't even know what to say, but he understood that she was sitting here, waiting for him to say something. It was the something part that he didn't have figured out yet.

When he didn't respond right away, she winced. "I would ask you to say something, anything," she said too quickly, "because the silence is deadly painful, but honestly, the silence also says everything."

"No, it doesn't," he countered. "You've caught me off guard. I hadn't had any clue that you were anywhere near here at all. I wasn't expecting to see you, and now that you're here,… you've thrown me for a loop."

"Yeah, I got that part," she noted, with a mocking laugh.

He stared at her, hearing the derision in her tone. "You didn't use to be so self-critical."

She shrugged. "Life hasn't been all that easy."

"What happened after you left? We lost touch."

"No, we didn't lose touch." She raised her hands to stop with the niceties. "Call it what it was. I walked away—ran away more like it—and I did reach out, but by then you'd left for overseas."

He nodded slowly. "I'll admit that the breakup was rough. It was fast. I thought we were heading down a path to a future together, with something permanent. The next thing I know, nothing is permanent because we no longer had a path. You were gone."

She nodded. "And I've explained that, although it's not much of an explanation. And I can certainly understand if you don't get it. I'm not sure I get it, but something about how things went today with Betty and then Maria had me wanting to leave it all again to start fresh. Then I realized how much of my world was about running away."

"Was talking to me so hard that you had to run away?" he asked. "I thought we had a great relationship, with good communication, until you suddenly just left. I realized that maybe we didn't have anything at all." Gideon watched the wisp of regret cross her face. "I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just… I still don't understand."

"I'm not sure that understanding is even something I can give you," she murmured, "because honestly, it's not an explanation that comes easily. I wasn't ready for a commitment, and I didn't think I was ready for anything, and now here I am,… in another mess of my own making, though I'm not entirely sure what I did to deserve it."

"It doesn't mean that you did anything to deserve it," he declared. "You didn't use to blame yourself for everything."

"No, I didn't," she agreed, with a smile, "and then, over time, you start to look at all the things you've done wrong and realize that you're the reason you're alone and not liking your life very much. I was living with more regrets than joy and happy memories.… Anyway"—she seemed to give herself a physical shake and looked back at him—"I'm happy to let it go. I just needed to tell you."

"And I appreciate that." Gideon placed his hand on his heart. "I'm not exactly sure what to do with that information, and you sprang it on me, but I do appreciate that you spoke up. It's always good to know what happened."

She nodded. "I suppose I will have an interview with your boss now."

Gideon knew her head was just not in the game. "Yes. We must deal with the problem of Betty."

Pearl frowned at that and then shrugged. "That seems so minor when compared to everything else."

"And maybe it is minor, but we can't take a chance. If it's all connected somehow to Mason's shooting event—and that's a big if —we must follow up."

"You think that Betty brought that package for my intruder to collect? I don't think so. Yet, if she did, somehow the intruder could be involved in Mason's shooting? That doesn't make any sense either."

"Maybe not, but it's also possible that somebody else saw Betty come by."

"Meaning?"

"Your intruder may not be acting alone. If he or his partner were afraid that Betty saw something, when dropping off your package, maybe they would want to shut up Betty too."

Pearl stared at him, and her jaw slowly dropped, as she realized what he was saying. "You think Betty's life could be in danger?"

"It could be. We just don't know. Regardless, I do have to follow up, and I have to go see Maria's boss as well."

Pearl nodded, as she stared around at her house. "I can't stay here, can I?"

"No, you can't, but that will just be for a few hours at best or a few days at most," Gideon explained, with a careless wave. "Do you have a friend's place you can go to?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't." She huddled and wrapped her arms around her chest. "I can go to a hotel, I guess." She stared around aimlessly, still in shock, not quite sure what she was supposed to do.

Just then Jasper rejoined them. Looking from one to the other, he gauged the chill. "Are you two okay?"

Gideon nodded. "Phone calls made?"

"Yeah. The guys are on the Mason investigation, trying to find leads, witnesses. Meanwhile, I told them that you were tasked with the Pearl investigation, to see if it linked up to Mason somehow. Both investigations will share intel daily. We'll drop off Betty's delivery for analysis later today. I stepped aside to give you guys a few minutes, though I'm not sure you settled anything," he noted, his gaze going from one to the other.

"Not a whole lot to settle," she replied briefly. "I can't stay here, can I?"

"No, you can't," he confirmed immediately, and she just nodded.

Gideon looked over at Jasper. "I just told her that, but she was hoping for a different response."

"It can't be, not after your armed intruder was killed here. This is now a crime scene," he declared, with a shake of his head. "Pack a bag, and we'll get you to a hotel, where you can stay tonight."

"Will one night be enough?" she asked, staring at him. "What about work? What do I do about that?"

Gideon nodded. "I already told your boss that chances are you won't be coming in for a couple days, but, yes, you do need to check in with her too."

When Pearl just stared at Gideon, he could see that none of this was filtering through. Groaning, he reached for her hand. "Come on. Let's get you upstairs, where we can pack a bag."

She immediately rose from her chair, yet just stood there, dumbstruck.

Gideon turned to Jasper, who was staring at her, frowning. "She'll be fine," Gideon said. "She's just had a difficult day."

"Ya think?" he asked, with a sideways look. "I'm not sure we should leave her alone like this. Does she have somebody to look after her?"

She immediately turned, her expression flat. "I'll be just fine." She waved her hand. "I've been alone a lot in my life, so don't worry about it."

That comment surprised Gideon, since Pearl had always been surrounded by friends and family when he knew her before. He wasn't sure when all these changes happened. She was never alone when they were together. "Look. If nothing else, you can come stay at my place. I have a spare room."

She stared at him for a long moment and then shook her head. "No, thanks. A hotel would be good."

For some reason her rejection hit him harder than it should have, considering the situation. It was certainly her right after all, particularly given their history, but it seemed to be more than that. He looked over at Jasper again, who was almost waiting for Gideon to respond, but he shook his head. "Come on. Let's get you packed."

He wasn't sure that he would let her go to a hotel, not when she was as obviously upset and out of it as she appeared to be right now. He would also get damn angry if she was refusing his offer of help just because of what she'd shared a few moments ago.

He would like to think that, if nothing else, they were still friends. He understood that she might feel awkward about it all, but he hadn't had any time to process things. So she could be as awkward as she wanted. It still wouldn't change the fact that it wasn't the way things would go down.

He marched her to her bedroom and waited while she collected a bag of clothing. She took enough for more than a few days, maybe a week or two. He was quite surprised, until he realized she was literally grabbing things and throwing them into the bag, with no apparent rhyme or reason as to what she was collecting. Finally he got up, grabbed another bag from the closet, then handed it to her and watched as she basically packed up all her clothing.

When she stood here with her two bags, she just looked at them blankly.

"Shoes," he nudged.

She nodded, then headed to the closet, where she pulled out a pair of runners and a couple pairs of walking shoes.

"Do you expect to go back to work anytime soon?" he asked her.

She thought about it, then shook her head. "I have no idea, and I'm not sure if I even want to."

"No, of course not," he stated. "I suspect that's taken on a negative connotation for you."

She didn't say anything but looked around with that same blank expression.

He nudged her to the bathroom. "Grab a few toiletries."

Within seconds, everything was packed up, almost a clean sweep. Probably a few things were around that she would still want, but she had essentially packed up all her personal stuff from her bedroom and wouldn't need to come back for quite a while. With her in tow, he led the way out to his vehicle. He loaded her luggage in the bed of his truck and then, with a raised hand, said, "Let's go."

She got into the passenger seat without arguing. As he turned on his vehicle, he stared at her intently, watching for any signs. "I'm still taking you to my place."

She stiffened, then shrugged. She didn't say anything, and that pissed him off even more. "What's wrong?" he asked, trying hard to mask his frustration with her attitude.

"Everything, absolutely fucking everything." With that, she fell silent.