Chapter 7

As soon as Gideon left, Pearl locked the door behind him and headed upstairs, where she took a shower, changed, and slipped into bed. It felt so strange to be in this house. It wasn't hers; it was his. Yet it was everything they'd always talked about having together. She lay here stiff under the covers, wondering not only at her nervousness, but also the strangeness of it all. Just as she drifted off, she thought she heard the door downstairs. She waited, thinking it was likely him. She picked up her phone and sent him a quick text, asking if it was. Almost immediately she got a response right back.

No. What are you hearing?

Frowning, she slipped out of bed and walked to the door and listened. Hearing footsteps on the stairs, she immediately texted him back. Footsteps, somebody coming up the stairs. She felt the panic building inside because, if it wasn't him, who the hell was it?

Instead of phoning her, he texted. Open the window on the side. A small deck is there. Close the window behind you. A tree is nearby. Step out onto it.

She stared down at her phone, shaking her head. No way she ever considered that. But hearing another footstep coming up the stairs—stealthy, stopping at every squeak—she raced to the window and realized that he was right. A small balcony was here, little more than a ledge, but she stepped out onto it wishing she had better footwear than slippers. She closed the window, so, if somebody did come into her room, they wouldn't know she'd gone out this way. Then she stepped around to the side of the house and saw the tree that he was talking about.

A huge branch was right here, and she immediately climbed onto it and hid up in the tree. Although, if somebody had a flashlight and shone it in her direction, it would be hard for her to stay hidden. So she climbed higher up in the tree, feeling the wind whip around and past her, wondering what the hell she was doing and how the hell she'd ended up climbing out a second-story window into a tree in her pajamas at this hour.

Her phone kept buzzing, and, by the time she was in a safe position, she found at least a dozen text messages from Gideon. She sent one back. I made it into the tree.

She immediately got a thumbs-up.

On the way was the second message she got, right after that.

She sighed with relief, then leaned her head back against the trunk, and when nobody looked out her bedroom window, when nobody came to the window at all or was even outside the house, she had to wonder.

Had she just imagined all this? Would Gideon come home and find the house vacant, with no evidence of an intruder, and her sitting in the tree, wondering at her overactive imagination?

Hearing vehicles coming up the road, she froze, looking to see if it was him. All she wanted was for Gideon to come home and rescue her. Even the thought made her wince because, damn, since when had she become someone who needed rescuing? Particularly by Gideon specifically. But while she had hidden higher up in the tree, it occurred to her that she might have been hidden enough that the intruder couldn't see her, and she may not see him either. But she did have a good view of the vehicle out front, and she saw somebody dash out of the house and get into that vehicle.

He didn't look like he had anything with him. She immediately texted Gideon, saying a vehicle out front was picking up the intruder. She got a thumbs-up back immediately, and suddenly another vehicle came roaring up behind the one that was in the front. The intruder's vehicle took off, and the second one gave chase. Moments later, two more cars came screeching up and parked at the house.

Immediately she saw someone she thought could be Jasper, while the occupants from the other vehicle all converged at the base of the tree. Jasper called out, "Pearl, you still up there?"

Peering through the leaves, she recognized him, and two military police were with him, easily recognizable by their uniforms. "Yes," she called out. "You want to check out the house and make sure that he didn't come with somebody else?"

"These two guys will go in and do that," Jasper replied. "I want you to come down."

"That's nice," she said, with a shaky laugh, "but I'm not quite sure how to get down."

He let out a bark of laughter. "Yet you got up there."

"Not exactly," she replied, with a shrieking tone. "I crawled out the window onto the balcony, then onto the tree."

"Can you go back that same way?"

She hesitated, then maneuvered herself over to the big branch and stared at it, but it looked a whole lot different now that she wasn't motivated by someone coming after her. "Maybe," she murmured, "but I'm not completely sure."

"Okay, don't worry about it. I'll come up to the bedroom and help you get back that way. Just stay right there."

She waited a few minutes, then suddenly Jasper was there, opening the big window to the bedroom.

He smiled at her. "That's a hell of a system."

"Not what I expected. When I called Gideon and told him somebody was in the house, he immediately told me to step out on the balcony and into the tree."

Jasper nodded at that. "I'm not surprised to find that Gideon has escape routes prepared for his home." Jasper laughed. "Obviously he knew this one was here and would work for you. Can you climb back over onto the balcony ledge or do you want me to come to you?"

She stared down at the ground, looked over at him, and whispered, "Maybe I can make it to you."

He hopped out onto the ledge, got over to the big branch, and held out his arms, urging her forward, "Just come slow. Once you've got my hand, we've got it made."

"Not if I fall," she pointed out. "I'll just take you down with me."

He laughed. "Don't you worry about that. I've got you."

Sure enough, as soon as she made her way halfway across the branch, her knees shaking, her breath raspy in her throat, she reached out, and there he was. Jasper grabbed her hand and got her back onto the balcony, then in through the window.

He took a good look around and said, "That's a hell of a deal."

"And yet, if you think about it, it could also let somebody into the house. Somebody taller than me, I guess."

"I'm sure Gideon was focusing on escape routes. Either way, these things always have pros and cons." He smiled and patted her on the shoulder. "Come on. Let's get you downstairs and start a cup of tea or something."

She followed him downstairs, grateful when she saw the two military police standing at the front door. "I gather nobody is in the house?" she asked them, and they both shook their heads but didn't say a word. "I told Gideon that somebody picked up one intruder who came out, using that side door." She pointed in that direction. Immediately one of the MPs headed in that direction. "That's when a vehicle came up behind and took off after them."

"The vehicle that came up behind and took off was Gideon," Jasper confirmed, with a smile. "He's still giving chase right now."

"Oh," she whispered, just staring. "That's not safe though, is it?"

"I wouldn't worry about that. Gideon knows what he's doing."

She nodded blankly and sat where Jasper pointed. "I didn't think this day could get any stranger. Yet moments ago I'm sitting outside, up in a tree at Gideon's house—a house that perfectly represents the home we had always daydreamed about buying together." She shook her head, shaking away the nostalgia. "It's surreal." She looked around the kitchen, her arms wrapped around her chest. "This is not exactly how I thought my day would go."

"No, I'm sure it's not. What can you tell me about this Betty person?"

Startled, she looked over at him and shrugged. "She hates me for some reason, and that's all I can tell you. She insults me, talks down to me, says nasty things about me to other staff members and even to our patients. It's been so blatant that I don't even know how or why she's still there," she added. "My direct supervisor has taken action numerous times, but it seems like somebody higher up is protecting her."

"One of those bosses is scheduled to come to the base in the morning," Jasper told her, with a smile, "so we'll ask him about that."

"Will they come? The bosses, I mean."

"Yeah, it's been arranged. Gideon can be very persuasive when he wants to be. So, what kind of person is Betty? Is she particularly beautiful? Is she the kind to have affairs at work?"

Pearl started at Jasper, then shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know about that. I've only ever seen the nasty side of her, so it's hard for me to envision anybody wanting anything to do with her."

"Got it. Anyway, we should get more answers tomorrow."

"I don't think you'll get any answers at all. I think whoever is out there will continue to protect her."

"Maybe so," Jasper conceded, "but, either way, we'll get some of the information we need."

"What about the dead guy, the intruder at my house?"

"We were able to identify him. Have you ever heard of anybody named Larry Darwill?"

"Darwill," she repeated and shook her head. "No."

"That's fine. We'll do a full workup now that we're getting somewhere."

"Somewhere?" she asked, with a faint look in his direction. "As far as I'm concerned, we're nowhere. Nowhere at all. For some reason they thought they needed to break into my house and now Gideon's house."

"I get that, and, back at your house, we're studying everything your windows look out on to see which property, which house, might possibly interest them."

"Gideon mentioned something about that to me earlier, asking if I'd noticed anything about my neighbors, who might have strange visitors and all that stuff," she shared, "but I have no clue. I don't watch the neighbors or their visitors. I generally come home tired, worn out, and fed up. I get quite depressed and turn in early, only to start it all over again." She was aware that he was staring at her. She shrugged. "Yeah, not exactly healthy."

"It's more than just not healthy," he noted. "Depression is a serious issue."

"I don't know that I'm depressed as much as confused, worn out, and upset at the choices I made."

"By choices, you mean, walking away from Gideon?"

She nodded. "Did he tell you about that?"

"No.… He didn't have to. It's evident that whatever went on between you two, you're either regretting it or somehow wishing you could change things in some way."

"That's true," she murmured. "I walked away from him quite a few years ago. I still don't have a good idea why, except that I was panicked at the idea of him proposing," she admitted, with a laugh. "Yet that's what we talked about. We talked about it all the time. Then, when push came to shove, I just panicked," she murmured. "I took off and left him hanging, with no good explanation, so he hates me now."

"Gideon?" he asked, turning to look at her.

She lifted her gaze and nodded. "Yeah, why wouldn't he?"

"Because he's not the guy who wastes much time with things like hate. He's one of the good guys in the world." Then he laughed. "If anything, he would bend over backward to try and make your world happy."

"Maybe," she murmured, "but I screwed up, and generally, when you screw up, you pay the price."

"And sometimes"—Jasper walked over and sat at the opposite side of the table—"sometimes the price isn't as high as we think it'll be."

She stared at him in confusion. "Are you telling me that I don't deserve to have him walk away from me?"

"Did you tell him that you were looking to get back together? Or did you just assume that he understood?"

She frowned, then shrugged. "I don't think we ever got that far. It's been a pretty confusing time."

He burst out laughing at that. "I won't argue with you on that. This has all the makings of one of the strangest scenarios I've had to deal with in a very long time."

"Aren't you here for a friend of yours?"

"I'm here for Tesla, who is technically my cousin, but more like a sister to me," he shared. "Her husband, Mason, was recently shot on base."

"Oh, of course, I heard about that," she said, as she stared at him. "That's quite a feat in itself." His eyebrows shot up, and she shrugged. "The base is pretty secure, and everybody has weapons already, so why would you shoot somebody when you're taking the chance of getting your own ass shot?"

He stared at her for a long moment, then slowly smiled. "I like that. Somebody who can think, somebody who's not so quick to judge what's going on with an explanation that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The thing is, we don't know what happened yet or why. We just know that a sniper atop a building took Mason out, while he was getting off an airplane. He had just landed on base, saw his wife a distance away, turned to walk toward her, then boom . He went down."

"So was the shooter trying to show Mason how everything he wanted in life could be taken away? Then there's his wife…"

"Pregnant wife at that," Jasper interrupted.

Pearl nodded. "So, everything Mason wants in the world, his wife, his child, a happy homecoming waiting for him, and, in a split second, somebody takes it all away. It would be a good revenge move, if somebody felt that's what happened to them."

Gideon walked in just then, and he stopped at the doorway, hearing her words. "I always appreciated that about you," he murmured.

She got up and hesitated, as he opened his arms. She tried to hold back a sob, but part of it escaped as she ran over to the security provided by his arms, which he wrapped around her. "I don't know what you could possibly have appreciated," she murmured.

"Your brain," he said. "You seek connections that other people don't see." He led her back to the table and sat her down again. He looked over at Jasper. "What do you think of her theory?"

Jasper turned to him and nodded. "I hadn't considered anything that specific. We've talked about revenge as a motive but not in such a deliberate way."

"The other thing you should do is twist that around," Pearl suggested. "What if the bullet was directed at his wife?"

"How so?"

"Maybe there is some event in her past that you need to look at, and, instead of your friend Mason being the one who sees everything taken from him, it's her."

*

Gideon had already been through the whole gambit of emotions today, even seeing her in his kitchen, where he always imagined seeing her, in their home, which just felt so right. Meanwhile, something was so wrong about a car chase, where unfortunately the intruder and his driver were in a street car and managed to pull away from his rental truck, to the point that he hadn't been able to keep up behind them. He'd lost them somewhere in the shopping mall. Although now a full alert would be placed on the vehicle, it wouldn't be long before they found the car. Yet he hadn't found the intruder himself.

He had a security system here at this house, and he would have a look at that. In the meantime, just hearing her theories and watching Jasper reassessing them, made Gideon smile. He looked over at Jasper to see his take. "She always did have the ability to confound me with things like that. She sees patterns and synchronicity that I never did."

She looked over at him and shrugged. "The shooter sees everything get taken away from him. Then, as Tesla, I'm waiting for Mason's plane to land. I'm pregnant. The father of my child is on his way home. Obviously they love each other, and, in that split second, poof . He's gone. Isn't that important too?"

"It's very important," Jasper noted, as he slowly stood up. He looked over at Gideon. "I think I'll head to the office."

"Not to Tesla?"

"No, it's too late to talk to Tesla," he said, with the wave of his hand, "but I will send her a text, and, if she's still awake, I'll call her."

"I'll check out my security cameras, and I'll send you whatever I can find."

"You do that," Jasper replied, his tone thoughtful as he turned and walked out.

Gideon made tea for her and then added, "I'll check on my security system tapes to see who came into the house and how he got in."

"Oh, good, I wasn't sure if you had something like that."

He snorted. "Of course I do," he murmured. "This is me after all."

"I'm glad to see some things haven't changed," she murmured. "I was trying to figure out how he got into the house at all."

"That's one of the things I need to look at. You can come along, if you want." Together, with her carrying her tea, he led her to a small room he had set up with a laptop and several monitors, so he could see all angles of the property.

"Wow," she murmured, "this is great." He turned on a couple other monitors, and then she realized cameras were inside the house as well. "Interesting." She stared at the screens. "I didn't realize I was being watched."

"You weren't. You were being recorded. That's different."

"The difference is minute, but I get how it makes a difference to you." Once he tapped into the right time frame, he showed her walking through the living room and heading upstairs. The camera followed until she went into her bedroom, and then it stopped.

"Thank God for that," she muttered.

He cracked a smile in her direction. "A camera is in there, but I turned it off when I got it ready for you."

She nodded. "Is it necessary?"

"It is necessary," he replied, in all seriousness, and then he clicked on another camera view, outside her bedroom. He sucked in his breath as he watched her very carefully go out on that tree branch.

"That wasn't exactly a shining moment in my life," she murmured. "I was pretty terrified out there."

"Are you kidding? That was definitely a shining moment in your life." He turned and gave her a brilliant smile that made her heart warm.

She chuckled, as she sat down beside him.

"You got yourself out of a bad situation. You stayed calm. You followed instructions. You got to safety, and that asshole didn't find you."

"Do you think he was looking for me?" she murmured.

"I don't know. That'll be the first question." He flicked through a bunch of other cameras and took the video back to when he had left the house. About fifteen minutes from the time that he walked outside and drove away, another vehicle dropped off a solo male, who then approached the house, walked around to the side, and, under full view of the cameras, used a key and let himself in. Gideon whistled at that. "I'll definitely have to change the locks."

"How the hell?" she whispered.

"I don't know, but I'll find out."

As the video played, she just stared, her jaw dropping as he walked through the house, almost as if he knew where he was going. As he got to the stairs, he turned, looked around, and then slowly, ever-so-slowly, climbed the stairs.

"See his movements there?" he asked.

She nodded.

Gideon continued. "He knew you were here. Otherwise he absolutely had no reason to approach those stairs."

"Particularly, if he already knew that they squeak."

He glanced at her and nodded.

She added, "Which means he's been in your house before."

"Yeah, I got that message all right," he snorted. "Whether it was a reconnaissance mission or he was just looking for trouble, I don't know," he murmured.

He flicked through several more camera angles and got a picture of the man's face. He wore a baseball cap, and it was pulled down low, and he seemed to avoid looking at the cameras—though that may not have been intentional as much as he was focused on what he was doing.

Finally, upstairs when he got to the hallway, he turned to look at the rooms, and the camera caught his face, not full-on because of the hat but the bottom part of his jaw. Immediately Gideon backtracked the video, slowed it down, then took several screenshots of the man's face. "It's not the whole face, but it's something."

She leaned forward and then pointed out, "Look at that."

"Look at what?"

"His hand," she said. "Look at the back of his hand there."

Gideon went through the other videos, looking to see if they got any other view. Only when he placed his hand on the railing and his shirt sleeve pulled up was anything visible. Sure enough, something was on the back of his hand higher up on the wrist above the glove trim.

"A tattoo?" she asked.

"Maybe," he murmured, "let me see if I can get a better picture of it." He changed the video screens several times, going closer and expanding it back out again, until he got the best image that he could, and then he continued to play the security tape. The man froze, when he heard a sound coming from the spare room.

"That," Pearl noted, "was probably me getting out onto the branch. I had no idea it made so much noise."

"It's hard to prevent it," Gideon said. "You do what you can, but, when you think about it, you've got to open the window and climb out. It's not that easy to lift up your body mass onto the tree, especially if you're in a panic."

"I was definitely in a panic," she admitted, "something I'm not particularly proud of either."

He looked over at her and shook his head. "Stop being so hard on yourself," he scolded. "Think about it. Look at how much you've handled today. I think you've done amazingly well."

She beamed at him, and he realized just how little positivity must have been in her world lately, since just a simple compliment had settled her right back down again and put a pretty smile on her face. He smiled. "Honest to God, you've done amazingly well today, not to mention saving the puppy. By the way, I will be checking out the video on that later."

After they shared a laugh, he went back to searching for a better image and then finally sat back. "It doesn't look like we'll get a better picture of the back of his hand, and the gloves cover the fingers," he murmured.

"Can you do a search for that image somehow?"

"I can, and we will at work. They have better equipment there. I will also get the techs on this and see if they can tweak the image and get something more detailed."

"It would be great if you could because that would be huge for identifying this intruder," she shared, leaning forward as the guy crept down the stairs. "Something's off about his walk."

"I noticed," he murmured.

"It's almost as if one leg is either injured or shorter than the other one," she pointed out. "He's walking with an odd gait." She pointed to the screen. "Look at that. See that right there? He's hitching his leg. It's not that it doesn't work properly, but it doesn't have much of a lift in there, which would help to equalize the length of his legs. He's not off by much, just a little bit," she murmured. As the intruder reached for the door, she pointed at the screen. "See that?"

"Yeah," Gideon said, now watching how engaged and confident she had suddenly become.

"He twitched as he pulled open the door, so he's dealing with an injury of some kind. Like something is hurting his back just doing that little bit of a motion. He may have left because he wasn't sure he could handle a confrontation. I'm not sure what he came in for, but I don't think he's in fighting form." Gideon stared at her in amazement, as she shrugged. "Remember the work that I do?" she said, with a mock smile.

"I'd forgotten, but I won't forget it again." He quickly sent videos to the main office, sending them directly to Jasper. "Now, how about getting some sleep because tomorrow is likely to be quite busy."

"Is it safe to go to sleep?" she asked. "Somebody out there has keys to your house."

"Good point," he murmured, "but don't worry. We have ways of stopping doors from opening."

She followed him downstairs as he got 2x4s and propped them underneath the doorknobs so the doors couldn't be pushed open. "Nobody will come through this or push this open without waking me up."

She winced at that. "I would prefer if you just said that nobody would get in."

"I'm not somebody who will lie to you," he stated, with an odd smile. "In reality, somebody could get in, but they'll have a hell of a fight doing it. It would create quite a noise, a noise that he'll be fully aware that I'll hear."

"Right, so that will send you running, and, in theory, him running away."

"Exactly," he agreed. "So, let's get you back up to bed, and, with any luck, you can grab some sleep. I need to be at the office early anyway."

"Right. Can I come?" she asked.

"To the office?"

She nodded. "Honestly, I can't say I like the idea of staying here alone tomorrow, especially knowing that somebody has keys to your house."

"The locks will be changed pretty damn soon, but I get your meaning," he muttered. "Let's talk about it in the morning."

And, with that, he escorted her back to her room, checked to make sure it was empty and secure. Then headed to his own room. It would be a short night, and he needed whatever sleep he could get.