Shehadto do that if she wanted to live.
Survival was still the name of the game only now it was a different kind of survival. What would have been the point of everything she had done over the last five years if now that she was free and had the chance to live again, she wasted it?
No. She couldn’t waste it, she would learn to be normal.
“I'm okay,” she replied and pulled back enough that she could swat at Jem’s shoulder. “But don’t call me little girl, I haven’t been a little girl in a really long time.”
Pain flitted through both her brothers’ eyes, and she knew they were thinking about the innocence that had been stolen from her by Emmanuel, but that wasn’t what she had meant. She’d just meant that in her mind she’d stopped being a little girl around the time she was eight, and she was now almost twenty-eight years old.
Time.
Looked like it would take time for her family to adjust to their new normal just like it would for her. They had been living this nightmare right along with her. As much as she knew she’d had the worst of it, at least she had known where she was and what was happening to her. They hadn't known anything except that she was gone, and they couldn’t find her. No doubt their imaginations had come up with some pretty horrible scenarios.
She offered them both an encouraging smile. They’d been strong for her many times in the past, if she had to be strong for them now, she could do that. Thankfully, her stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, breaking the tension, and making them all chuckle.
“I know it’s early, but any chance of some breakfast?” she asked, settling back down against the pillows. It hurt her back to lie against the small wounds, but she’d certainly endured worse pain, and being here, safe, and free, with the big brothers she’d hero-worshipped for as long as she could remember, the pain drifted into the background.
“First thing Laynie did when we got back was make your favorite cinnamon rolls,” Jeremiah told her. She could tell he tried to get a read on her. Unlike Elijah and his wife, Allina, and Jem’s wife, Allayna—Laynie and Ali were also twins. just like Jem and Elijah, and their parents had been best friends and grown up together—he hadn't joined the police department. Instead, he’d become a criminal psychologist, and right now he was trying to shrink her. Too bad for him she had perfected the art of hiding her emotions over the last five years.
“Laynie and Ali are here?” she asked. Since they weren’t in the room, she’d just assumed that her brothers’ wives were at home. If she’d known they were at the hospital she would have demanded to see them already. They might not be blood related, but they were every bit as much her siblings as her older brothers.
“In the waiting room. We didn't want to overwhelm you by coming in all at once,” Jem told her.
“I'm anxiously waiting to be overwhelmed,” she joked. Family was what had kept her going, it was what made her fight every day. That drive to survive had made her do horrible things, things she would forever regret, but it had all been done for this. To finally be back with the people she loved.
“I’ll go get them,” Elijah told her.
Grace ignored Jem’s prying gaze. If he was trying to get a read on her she wasn’t going to let him. She had a new goal now, well two of them, the first was to help the cops find Emmanuel and make him pay for what he’d done, and the other was learn to be normal again. There was one thing she had learned while she was Emmanuel’s prisoner, and that was that you had to fake it till you made it. If she didn't feel normal, then she had to pretend that she was and sooner or later it would become less act and more real.
When her two sisters-in-law came bursting into the room, running to the bed, crying, and hugging her, Grace realized she wasn’t completely faking it. Her heart did melt a little as the people she loved crowded around her, cocooning her in a little bubble of warmth, safety, and love.
They weren’t the first ones to make her feel safe since she had been rescued a few hours ago.
The first person to do that was Detective Matthew Greer, and she had no idea what to make of that.
* * * * *
9:00 A.M.
“Okay, let’s get started,” Captain Heidi Kramer announced. His boss sat at the head of the conference room table, but like always, she wasn’t sitting still, in one hand she spun a pen, and in the other she rhythmically squeezed a duck shaped stress ball. The woman was in her fifties, tall, thin, bony face, always looked stern, like an elementary school principal, but she was a good boss, fair, listened, made sure that her team was taken care of, and was always supportive of them. “Matthew, Rylla, you guys want to start?”
Matthew glanced at his partner who nodded at him, then turned to face the room. Besides his boss, his partner and himself, Grace’s sister-in-law Allina’s partner Jonathon Dawson was also present—no doubt to represent the family—and one of Matthew’s favorite crime scene techs Kane Curtis.
Unable to resist, this morning before coming to the precinct, he’d stopped by the hospital to check on Grace. She’d been asleep, her body needing the rest to recoup years’ worth of living on a never-ending adrenalin ride. But according to her brother Jeremiah, she’d woken during the night and spent some time catching up with her family before falling asleep again.
It was clear from the psychologist’s voice that he was worried about how his little sister was handling everything. Matthew totally got that, for now Grace seemed to be doing fine, according to her family she hadn't shed a tear yet and had been acting like nothing had happened. They all knew that couldn’t possibly be true, no one could be okay after living through what Grace had, literally no one. But he supposed as far as their job went having a calm and in control victim worked to their advantage.
Heidi cleared her throat and Matthew realized he hadn't said anything yet. Grace was proving to be a distraction, one he couldn’t really afford. He’d dreamed about her last night, only she’d been naked, and in his bed, begging him to make love to her. It was completely inappropriate, and never going to happen, but he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her.
Something he was going to have to get a handle on.
“Rylla and I searched the house yesterday, but we couldn’t find anything to give us any indication on who Emmanuel really is. We did a little canvassing of the neighbors, and best we could figure out from a couple of them who had been in the area for a while, is that Mable White hasn’t been spotted in around seven years. While they have seen a guy going in and out of her house, no one really knew much about him. He introduced himself as Emmanuel, but we’re assuming that’s not his real name. They all said the same thing; he isn’t the kind of neighbor you have over for dinner. He said he was Mable’s grandson who had moved in to help her because she had developed dementia, but Mable White was widowed just two years after she was married, had no children, and never remarried.”
“Chances are he looked for a vulnerable victim, settled on Mable White, killed her and just moved in,” Rylla added. “It makes things easier for him. He doesn’t tell anyone she’s dead, he keeps her name on the house and all the utilities, he gets access to her bank accounts, keeps collecting her social security which means everything is paid for, and if the house is found he’s virtually untraceable.”
“We need proof that Mable White is dead,” Heidi said. “We need CSU to go over the property. If he killed her and didn't want anyone to know it, then chances are she’s buried somewhere there.”
He and Rylla had come to the same conclusion because it was the most logical answer. “When I spoke with Grace yesterday, she told me that Emmanuel wanted to teach her lessons, that there were tests, apparently they were somehow linked to fables.”