Chapter One
There is a day, in
everyone’s life, where suddenly – everything falls to pieces. Either through heartache, nothing in your
life going the way you wanted or hoped, or something …someone…being taken from
you without your control, or you do something horribly wrong. There are so many variables to life, and it
is in that moment of shock and reflection that you realize that 98% of your
life is completely out of your control.
Life isn’t easy.
What happens to your
soul, to your psyche…when your whole life is filled with that kind of low? What happens when all the people who are
supposed to love you, who are supposed to gather around you and hold together
the pieces falling apart, just don’t? What happens if you are neglected, told you
aren’t wanted, and treated lower than the lowest?
Does that person then
become a monster?
Perhaps they turn into
the type of unique person who only see the world differently.
That’s what she
wondered. That’s what she was an example
of. She just wondered if she was the
exception to the rule.
She stood at the large
window in her den, pondering, and watching the birds around the bird feeder
fighting for seed. She had found some
bad bread in her kitchen that morning when she was making some breakfast. She had already taken that outside and broke
it up, spreading around the bases of the feeders. She loved feeding the birds and being able to
see the wildlife from her windows. It
was the great thing about leaving away from town, and a small Mayberry type
town at that. She had seen a lot of
deer, even a couple bear cubs, and lots of racoon from her windows.
She watched a robin pop
out of the birdhouse nailed into the big backyard tree. That single tree was so big it shaded a good
portion of her backyard all by itself. It
had taken two years, but birds were finally using the bird houses she had
gotten when she moved in. The bird
feeders they used right away, but the bird houses had taken longer. She
imagined that they finally figured out she wasn’t planning on going
anywhere.
At least that’s what
she hoped. Moving was never in her
plans. She never planned on moving
around or being a theoretical gypsy, but she would wake up some mornings and
just know it was time to leave. This was
the place, though, she had finally decided to make a home. The place where her roots were going to dig
in. This was home, she was done with
moving.
She managed to find a
small town that felt welcoming to her.
It was kind of like those older black and white television shows, where
everyone knew everyone and everyone’s business was discussed as entertainment
over the white picket fences, or at the diner over the meatloaf special, and in
every waiting room there was. This was where
she believed she belonged. Where she
wanted to bury those roots after they dug in.
Now the whole family was in the
general area.
Though, she was still
known as the girl so full of “mystery” around town, which she typically laughed
off. She typically only let anyone in to
the surface, but never deep enough to figure out the skeletons she kept
shackled in her closet. The ones that
she didn’t want anyone to ever find out.
She was lucky that she
had come out of her childhood situation alive.
She couldn’t go as far as to say she had been unharmed, because she had
been plenty harmed. It had taken her
years of therapy to work through fears and trust issues. Nevertheless,
she certainly wouldn’t call her issues “cured” or “gone” by any definition.
After everything that had
happened, she had only completely trusted four people in her life, until she
moved here. Four people! Well, four people and various therapists, but
the therapists she didn’t necessarily trust, she just paraded her skeletons
around them. It was astonishing to
her. She couldn’t imagine her daughter
living like that, like she did.
She sipped her coffee
as she watched the robin while the other birds join her.
You ask most children,
who understand what trust is, and they will tell you that they trust their
parents, their grandparents, siblings, friends, teachers, coaches, family
friends, the list goes on. Not with
her. She trusted the only girl who had
befriend her, that she had ever told her secret to. The girl who had become her sister for the
last fifteen years of her life. The one
who had married ten years before, settled in one place and up-rooted her family
to be where she had finally decided to settle.
The whole family had become her lifeline. They had become her everything. Her Mom, her Dad, and her brother. They insisted on doing, and did, everything
that they had to in order to keep her before the trials started. They were the ones who got up in the middle
of the night, while she screamed out – waking the whole house – from nightmares
that plagued her sleep. They’d hug her,
talk softly and soothingly to her, and let her cry until she couldn’t cry
anymore. They gave her allowances in her
behavior, warning her more than they would worn Reed and Gabby. It was Gabby who saved her when she had been
contemplating killing herself. It had
been Gabby who had sat there and said that if she insisted on doing it, they’d
both do it.
She couldn’t take on
that responsibility, she wasn’t that selfish.
It was in that moment, sitting on that bathroom floor, crying with her
best friend, when she realized how selfish that choice would have been. She couldn’t do it, she didn’t do it. All it took was for her best friend to stand
by her. They never spoke of it
again.
They made her their
family. They never let her forget. She knew that they loved her like they did
Gabby and Reed. They supported her through
the trials, the therapy, the nightmares, the fear, and the trust issues. Now she called them her Mom and Dad. If it hadn’t been for them, for that sliver
of trust she had for them to begin with, she wasn’t sure what might have become
of her.
She still had scars and
she always would. That’s the thing about
scars, they never went away, no matter how they faded. But the one thing she couldn’t do anymore was
live in fear. She was done walking around, looking over her
shoulder. She could no longer be the
roaming gypsy she had been, even with a daughter in tow.
She had put her
biological father and brother away for life, both sentenced to death. They had been found guilty of nearly eighty
deaths, suspected of so many more. They
referred to them as some of the worst serial killers in history. It was discovered that they had traveled to
neighboring cities to get victims. At
least once, they traveled one hundred miles out of town. There were books written about them, movies
made about them, about their story, about her story. Some of the proceeds had been given to her,
but she’s sure it was only a sliver of what had been made. The Johansons’ had
put them into a savings account for her, they wouldn’t take a penny of it. They might share her genetics, but they had
never been her family.
She sat down in the overstuffed
chair she had placed next to the window.
Her coffee still hot in her cup, steam still rising from it, billowing
in the air until it dissipated. She sunk
back, and relaxed, still watching the birds.
Her black Huskey, Luna, got up from
the dog bed and walked over to her, resting her head in her lap and she automatically
started stroking Luna’s head.
Then she noticed the
squirrels starting to come out. There
were three of them that lived in her yard.
There was one that had a black paw and a black ear, she called him
Willy. The one with the chunk of ear
missing, well, she called him Ulysses. The
normal gray one she couldn’t find any distinct markings on, she called
Pudding. She left a bowl of peanuts out
for them every morning. They would sit
there and break open the shells to get the treat inside. She always had fun watching them, even taking
pictures of them for her blog.
Things happened in her
life, the courts had allowed her to change her name so that she could try to
have as normal of a life as possible.
Her life would never be normal though.
She would never be rid of the nightmares and the things she saw and
experienced. Seeing a bloody naked woman
in a cage, tied up, was something one could never get over. She had been alive when the police got there,
she survived, but during the trial – after she had testified, she had killed
herself.
“Mom,” she heard from
behind her. She turned around and saw
her daughter with her fiery red curly hair falling around her face, down to
about the middle of her back. She was
blessed with blue eyes that contrasted her own green eyes. She looked just like her Mom but for the color
of her eyes. She dressed in a long
sleeved white shirt and a jumper.
“What Emma?”
“What if we were living
on someone’s face, and the mountains were really pimples. The mountains would just disappear when
people popped them, and it was like our volcanos spewing lava puss all over
killing everyone on that part of the face?”
“Emma,” she couldn’t
help but to laugh. “That’s pretty
gross.” She encouraged her daughter to
be creative and use her brain. Sometimes,
she really wondered about her daughter’s pre-teen mind and if it was a danger
to herself. She watched her daughter
smile and skip out of the room. “I think
you do that to try to get reactions out of me,” she yelled after her.
She chuckled as she turned
back to her window, seeing the squirrels trying to figure out how to climb the
pole to the main bird feeder she has just filled up that morning when she had
spread the bread around the base. The
squirrels, who had tried it a thousand times already, were not getting
anywhere. They did gobble up whatever
seed the birds would push over the edge that fell to the ground, and whatever
bread was left. They also ran back and
forth to the bowl of peanuts in the shells she kept outside.
It was only a few minutes
before Emma hopped back into her office.
“Mawm-mee” she said drawing out the word that was the absolute best
nickname and the worst she had, all at the same time.
“What has crawled into
your bonnet this morning Emerson?”
“Well,” her daughter hopped
across the room and wrapped her arms around her mom’s waist. “Hannah, Cicaly, Harper and I were wondering
if we could have a sleep over.”
Her daughter was
referring to the children of her two best friends, Gullia and Catrina. When she had moved here, she had joined the
elementary school PTA and met Gullia and Catrina who had both come up to her
and started carrying on conversations like they had known each other all their
lives. It was a feeling she had only
ever had one other time, and that is when she met Gabby.
The PTA was something
she was part of but she wasn’t heavily involved. It was a dare to herself to get out of her
loner comfort zone. She just sort of blended
into the background while her two best friends ran the show. She wished Gabby had kids her daughter’s age,
but she loved all of her nieces and nephews so much. She loved that Gabby was there now, and that
Reed and his family was in Seattle, just a couple hours away, or an hour by
boat, and their parents were just south of them by about an hour.
They were her parents,
in every way she had never had until they surrounded her with love and support
and didn’t even let her think twice about them not being her parents. She had never met two people who were more loving
than Phillip and Rose, though, these days they were just naturally Mom and
Dad.
They had fought so hard
to keep her with them. Luckily Rose’s
sister worked in the Family Welfare department and had pulled some strings back
then so that they could take her home that night from the police station. They had supported her, loved her, stood by
her while she battled the demons of her past, and cheered for her for every
single accomplishment she made. She got
the opportunity to be adopted by them, and to change her name.
Gabby had given her the
nickname of Bella. It was the first
time, other than her biological mother, that anyone had given her a
nickname. It was important to keep Bella
as her nickname. So, becoming Isabella
was easy. Rose had suggested Grace as a
middle name after the grandmother she loved dearly. Of course, she took their last name as her
own, and she officially had become Isabella Grace Johanson, Bella for
short. A name she hoped the evil monster
whose DNA was used to create her, and the brother she shared DNA with, would
never know.
She didn’t talk about
them anymore, not one word. It was like
a silent rule these days. Just not to
think about them, or talk about them, but every now and then, they crept into
her thoughts hanging onto memories mostly.
He daughter would never know them, or of them, if she could help
it.
“Sleep over
where?” She asked turning her back to
the window for the moment and facing her daughter. She pretty much knew what was coming. The girls loved to come over to her house for
sleepovers because both Hannah, Harper and Cicaly had other siblings. At least at her place, it was just the four
of them.
“Here,” she said giving
her mother her best pleading look. “Indy
won’t leave us alone and Dakota and Hayden go and burp and fart wherever we
are, it’s gross! Anna is always coming
in where we are, plus Matt and Micha are just brats, Mom!”
Indiana was Hannah’s
older brother, Dakota and Hayden were her younger brothers, and Annalisa was
Hannah’s younger sister. Harper and
Cicaly were Irish twins. Matthew and Micha were their younger brothers. Indy was in the grade ahead of the four
girls. Bella suspected he liked Emma,
but she wasn’t going to say anything to anyone about that. It was a matter of the way he looked at her
sometimes that caused the suspicion. Dakota
and Hayden were seven and five respectively and typical little brothers. Annalisa
was only four years old and looked up to Hannah and all the girls. She was a little girl who wanted to do
everything the big girls were doing.
Matthew was seven and Micha was three, those two did everything they
could to make their older sisters scream, especially Matthew. Anytime the girls were all together over
there was best time to make all of them scream.
It was actually amusing if you were a witness to it. Matthew had a very mischievous mind and some
of the things he came up with were pretty genius. Of course, Micha just wanted to be cool like
his brother. The stories that were told. She didn’t envy Catrina and her husband
Greggory in the slightest.
“Have they talked to
their parents?”
She looked around
innocently, “Not yet,” she muttered. “I
wanted to see if it was okay with you first.”
Good call, she
thought. “When are you thinking?”
“Tonight?”
“Short notice, there,
Emma Rose.”
“I know, I’m sorry,”
she said going back to giving her the best pleading look she had. All the girls were in drama club, all of them
had been in some of the community plays.
They all knew how to bring out those acting skills when and if needed. She stood up and went to her desk, sitting
back down in her computer chair.
She was thinking about
asking Gabby, Gullia and Catrina over for a wine night. They could all shoo the three dad’s and
little boys for a poker night, she loved hosting poker night, but the girls
really wanted to be just the four of them.
It was a thought. “I will talk
to their moms, okay?”
“Really!?!” she
squealed.
“School is getting out
soon, we’re headed into summer vacation.
So if this plan doesn’t work out, just remember there will be plenty of
other opportunities, okay?” She told her
daughter.
“But
Moooooooooooooommmmmm,” she was a very dramatic child. “It’s a four-day weekend!”
“I know, I’ll see what
I can set up.”
Emma squeezed her mom
extra hard in a hug and skipped back off to finish getting ready for
school. Bella just shook her head. She had no idea where that child got her
dramatic flair from, but it certainly wasn’t her.
She debated on shooting
her sister and friends an email, a text message, or a phone call. Figured it would be easiest to pop on Facebook
and shoot them all a message at the same time in their group message they kept
going. It was someplace where they only
had to say something once instead of having to repeat it ten times, plus share
photos and gossip.
She walked around to
her desk chair and sat down. Putting the
coffee cup on the quilted little coaster, she quickly worked past her computer
security measures and got onto Facebook.
She shot them all off a message in one shot.
Interested in a movie and wine night tonight? Emma wants to have the girls over for a
sleepover. Dads could play poker and
have their own guys night with the other kids.
Would be such a full house though – where ever it would happen. Girls could stick around until the campout on
Sunday, it’s fine by me.
While she was sitting
at her computer, she glanced at her email.
Her editor was bothering her for her newest finished book. Problem was, it wasn’t finished yet. She needed to get it done, but she was having
a hard time feeling it. She shot her off
a reply explaining she was having a little bit of a block. She didn’t understand what the rush was, they
already had a book that hadn’t been released yet. She always liked to have that “buffer” book
though. It was her own fault. The first few years she wrote, she was
getting two or three books done in one year, now that she was twenty books into
the series – it was a little bit rougher to find the brilliance that seemed to
flow out of her fingers so easily before.
There was an email from
an address that she didn’t recognize marked “Urgent.” She was about to click on it when she heard
the chime from Facebook meaning that someone had replied to the message. She switched tabs of her browser and saw that
Gabby had replied.
I’m in! I will
have to bring the baby because I cannot even think about leaving him for a few
hours. Plus, I figure you all will love
taking him from me every moment you can.
She smiled. She couldn’t wait to hold her nephew and
smell him. She longed to have another
baby, someday. She just held him two
days prior, but twenty-four hours was way too long. Sadly, she’d never have another baby. Just the hand that life had dealt her. Didn’t mean she couldn’t spoil all her nieces
and nephews.
Emma had been such an
amazing gift to her. It happened her
freshman year of college. Her and Gabby
were lucky enough to share a dorm room. They had been taking different paths, but
still were the best of friends. Just
then, they needed to spread their wings more independently. Gabby was really interested in the Greek
aspect, and pledged a sorority. Bella
still had issues, hard core issues, about large groups of people and trusting
anyone.
There was this guy
named David in her creative writing class.
He was charming and handsome. He
would look at her during class and smile at her, but she would always shy away,
figuring that he wasn’t looking at her but past her at someone else. Until he confronted her after class one
day. She heard him saying “Hey” from
behind her but it wasn’t until he caught up to her and tapped her
shoulder. She had spun around and seen
that it was David, and he had in fact been talking to her.
He started talking to
her, and at first, she was almost feeling panicky. He asked her if she wanted to catch a movie
with him, or dinner, sometime. She said
sure, because she wasn’t sure what else to say.
She had never had a boyfriend before, never even going out on a
date. Gabby had a boyfriend in high
school and there was a lot of group outings and activities as their core group
of friends.
Regardless she met up with
David and he took her out to a nice sit-down restaurant. She had barely eaten, did the classic order a
salad crap because she wasn’t comfortable eating in front of this guy. As the night moved forward he was making her
laugh and she was becoming comfortable around him. He made her forget about her fears and
anxiety and all those demons in her closet.
She felt pretty and smart and like she was valuable. She fell in love with him, or at least, what
she thought was love, first love kind of love.
Then small things
started to happen, and she’d dismiss them or try to talk her inner voice out of
the panic that sat on the edge of her soul jumping at saying what was going on
was wrong. Her inner voice was
screaming and she brushed it off as being silly. He’d make rude comments and he’d see the look
of confusion, or that it upset her, and he’d laugh about it and claim he was
joking.
Then he started to show
up at the restaurant that she was waitressing at for spending money. He’d show up when she wasn’t working and he’d
demand answers for the people she worked with on if anyone was interested in
her, if anyone was flirting with her, including customers. Then he’d start sitting at the bar and drink
while she was working, and he’d give her this angry stare the whole time she
went from table to table to take care of her customers. Waitressing was a huge step for her out of
her comfort zone, it was a big deal to her.
Luckily her boss wasn’t mad, more so concerned about her safety, but
that didn’t mean she wouldn’t get in trouble.
The first time he
punched her in the face was after work one night. She had closed, and she was so angry because
he had made a scene and almost gotten her fired. She had come out of the back door and he had
started in on her right away. She had
swung around on him and yelled at him about how he almost got her fired. It was the first time she had actually ever
stood up for herself. She was rewarded
with a black eye. One of her co-workers
and friends came out as his fist met her face and she fell to the ground. He ran off, like a thief in the night, and
when her co-workers had asked if she had known who had done it, she lied, and
said no.
He had punched her one
other time. It was about a month after
the first time, they had been dating about six months at the time. They were sitting at her dorm room having
pizza and watching a movie. Gabby was doing stuff with her sorority and she was
staying at the sorority house. She had
done something, and spilled a glass of Coke on him. He just punched her in the head a second
time. She demanded he leave between her
crying hysterically and him apologizing profusely.
The last straw happened
when she was avoiding him, because she was truly fearing being around him. All those feelings of living with her
biological family was flooding back and she couldn’t go back there. He got mad about being ignored. She was trying to figure things out in her
head and asked him for space. One night,
after a party she had been invited to on Greek row by Gabby, he found her
starting to walk back to the dorm and started to accuse her of sleeping with
another guy and various other horrible things.
She started to go back to the sorority house out of fear. In that moment, she decided, it was clear
they couldn’t be together. It was such
an unhealthy relationship and she was beating herself up internally while she
was breaking up with him outwardly. She
didn’t see it coming. She just remembered
screaming at him it was over, and next thing she knew she was waking up in the
emergency room with an IV bag, bruised and swollen face, Gabby was crying. She couldn’t open one eye and two ribs were
broken.
The doctor came in with
the police. She gave them all the
details. After the police left, the
doctor came back in and started going over test results. Then he said five words that forever changed
her life. “Did you know you’re
pregnant?”
She was three months
along already and had no clue. She’d
been pregnant for almost half of the relationship with David and hadn’t
known.
She didn’t tell him.
She pressed charges and got a 90-day restraining order. They went to the same college though and
unless someone was going to change colleges, it was hard to truly avoid each
other. When she started showing, really
showing, there was one day where she was walking to her next class and out of
the corner of her eye she saw someone walk into a pole. She turned to look and it was David, and he
was still staring at her and her large pregnant belly.
He
had asked a mutual friend to give her a message after the restraining order was
up. He asked if she would meet with him
with Gabby in a public place. He didn’t
want her to feel uncomfortable and he promised he wouldn’t hurt her. She agreed and told him to meet her at a
coffee shop that evening.
When
she had gotten there, he was already waiting.
She got in line first and got herself a hot tea before she went and sat
with him. She hadn’t even told Gabby she
was going to meet him. They exchanged
some small talk and then he decided to address the elephant in the room,
because that’s what she felt like, an elephant.
She didn’t lie to him, she was honest about being pregnant with his
child. Other than what had happened to
her before her escape, she hadn’t ever been with anyone that way but
David.
He
said he was very remorseful for what had happened. He’d gone to anger
management and had even started to volunteer at a woman’s shelter where abused women
and kids came in all the time. He didn’t
expect to mend things with Bella but he hoped they could be tolerable towards
each other. He had told her he wouldn’t
make excuses about how growing up in a family where his father abused his
mother had damaged him, because what he had done was beyond wrong, but he did
want to say he was truly sorry. It did
feel like he was being sincere.
She
had given him her cell number and he stuck to his word. He didn’t push anything with her and they
were forming a bit of a friendship. He
wanted to be involved in the baby’s life, but he didn’t want to push anything
either. So, she agreed to play it,
basically, by ear.
She
moved into an apartment with Gabby after college ended for the year. They were pretty much right on campus still
and very close to Greek row since Gabby would be highly involved with all of
that. Bella had joined the staff of the
college newspaper and the photography club.
They had gotten a three-bedroom place so that the baby could have her own
room. She knew Gabby probably wouldn’t
be there a whole lot but it would be nice when she was.
She
went into labor on July 3rd that year. She had called him to tell him when she found
out she would be having the baby, for sure.
While she labored, he rushed to the hospital. On the way there he ran a red light at a
high rate of speed and he ended up hitting a semi-truck. His car ended up getting wedged under the
truck’s cargo area. The top half of the car was completely ripped off. David’s head was ripped off with it, as his
body remained seat belted into the car.
She
found out that his car had hydroplaned through the red light on the very wet
blacktop. It had been raining hard that
day, sometimes causing visibility to be less than a hundred feet. It didn’t help matters that he was talking on
his cell phone, which had been found still clutched in his hand. She had gotten so mad when he had told her he
was coming and he didn’t show up. So
mad!
She didn’t find out
until the following day that he had died.
She kept trying to call him, and kept getting his voicemail. She left one message. The last time she called, a detective had
picked up the phone. He informed her
that he had been in an accident. The
detective had come to talk to her. She
once had strong feelings for him. The
fact that – she thought – he was so excited about the baby, and rushing to the
hospital, and died on the way there, made her heart sink.
He died before his
daughter was born in the very early hours of the 4th. His family had come and they had no idea that
she was upstairs holding their granddaughter and niece.
She
had attended his funeral a couple days after she went home with the baby. She didn’t know his family, had never been
introduced, but she had gone and hung back.
There were a lot of people there that she knew, from the college, and so
she tried to blend in. She didn’t go
tell his family. From what she
understood, based on what he had told her while they dated and after when he
was explaining to her why he reacted the way he had, she didn’t feel like she
wanted them involved in her daughter’s life.
“Mom!”
Emma slid through the door in the fast pace she moved at. “I’m headed out for the bus,” she said
crossing the room in only a few steps.
She hugged and kissed her mom and rushed back out as quickly as she had
come in.
She
was like a whirlwind, that one.
She
wanted to think that David was watching over Emma, wherever he was. She found comfort in that. Her daughter’s own personal guardian angel. She had told Emma about him. She left all the bad stuff out, just saying
they decided they’d be better friends. Luckily,
she did have some photos of David, so Emma could see what her Dad looked
like.
After
she was done with college she moved around the United States some. She’d be here a few months, there a
year. Once Emma had started school, she
had to stay in one place for the school year, at least. Then it got to the point where it was really
weighing on Emma, all the moving around.
Her own gypsy heart needed to settle down and plant some roots. So one summer she had gone to visit Reed and
his wife in Seattle. Emma had just
turned 7 years old. She would be
starting Second Grade in the fall. Reed
and Natalie had three kids at the time. Jacob
was 8, Sawyer was almost 5, and little Katie Marie was born six days after
Emma’s birthday. They were there to
cuddle the baby and for family.
One
day, Reed suggested they take a drive, enjoy the peninsula and the Olympic
Mountains. So she and Emma got in the
car and did just that. They took the
ferry over from Seattle to Bremerton and drove around from there.
They
had stopped in the small town of Sable Thicket to eat. The diner they stopped at, Lizzy’s Diner, was
really good food. The staff had been so friendly, they commented on and
interacted with Emma like they had known her since she was born. The waitress, Candice, had even given Emma a
small stuffed unicorn, and Emma had carried that thing around with her for a
couple years.
After
they ate, they had gone across the street to the park and hung out there for a
little while. She watched Emma play with
the other kids at the park that day, and she just had this feeling that this is
where she belongs. This is where she
needed to plant those roots with Emma.
She
ended up buying her house, going back down to California and packing up their
stuff, she hoped, for the last time. The
whole process was quick. Before she knew
it, she had planted roots.
Her
sister Gabby had quickly followed. The
funny thing was that Gabby’s husband Callum had already gotten a transfer to a
Seattle hospital. By ferry, it was about
an hour commute. So they had already
settled on getting a house in Sable Thicket too. Mom and Dad were both retired and ended up
moving up to a town just south of them, by about an hour. Dad wanted to be close to the bases in case
they ever had a job for him, once a military man, always a military man. The whole family was within an hour of each
other.
She
sipped her coffee and opened her writing program. She got up, to get more coffee. As she made her way to the kitchen, putting
her cup on the counter, she decided to open the windows in the house to let the
breeze of cool air come in. She walked
to the front door, disabled the security for the house, and opened all the
windows, and the heavy front door leaving the screen door secure. She walked back through the kitchen, grabbed
more coffee, and walked around continuing to open the windows. When she made it back to her office, she
flipped on the security monitor that showed the various views from the numerous
security cameras.
Then
she sat down at her desk, with the window open so she could watch the birds in
her back yard, and got to work on her book.
She wanted to get what she could done before she had company that
night.
The
silence in the room was almost deafening except for the heavy punching of the
computer keyboard at such a quick pace.
