Chapter 19
The next day, the key to Joy’s house felt foreign in her hand, its weight heavier than it should be.
Today was the day. She was done hiding. Done allowing herself to be forced out of her own home. It was just walls and wood and furniture. It wasn’t alive. It wasn’t waiting to swallow her whole.
So why did she feel like she was standing at the edge of a cliff?
Her breath hitched as she slid the key into the lock. The knob turned too easily, like it wasn’t the barrier she’d built it up to be. The door swung open, revealing the darkened space beyond.
Silence.
No shadows moving in the corner of her eye. No footsteps but her own. No distant echoes of fists slamming into her body, of cruel laughter in the night. But the ghosts were still there.
Along with all the piles of stuff she’d left everywhere.
The kitchen table was exactly as she’d left it—chairs askew, one tipped over from when she had fought back. The broken plaster in the wall by the staircase was still there, a physical reminder of the moment her body had hit the wall, pain exploding through her ribs.
She swallowed, her throat tight.
It’s just a house. Just a house.
Her footsteps felt too loud as she stepped inside, the door whispering shut behind her.
Her breath shuddered, but she didn’t turn back. Not this time.
Yesterday’s Jackalope Fair and Cassie’s attempt to hit on Bear once again had only furthered Joy’s determination to get her house back into livable shape. If she didn’t, she was going to lose Bear.
But more importantly, she was going to lose herself.
She didn’t have to get everything perfect today. And hell, she didn’t even have to move back in to the house if she wasn’t ready. But she could no longer allow it to just stay this way—in shambles, pieces, trashed.
She exhaled slowly, planting her hands on her hips as she surveyed the mess.
The kitchen was the worst. Dirty dishes were still piled in the sink, the remains of a life she had abandoned almost instantly after the attack. The trash can overflowed, the sour scent of forgotten food clinging to the air. The table—the one she had laughed around, eaten around, lived around nearly her whole life—was covered in unopened mail, a casserole dish from Mrs. Fuller she still hadn’t returned, and a fine layer of dust.
She blew out a breath. All right. One thing at a time.
She had planned for this. Had prepped herself for it. Bear was in Reddington City today, picking up parts for the garage, which meant she wouldn’t have his steady presence hovering over her, waiting to catch her if she faltered.
That was the whole point. She had to do this alone.
Grabbing the garbage bag, she forced herself to move. If she stopped, if she let herself think too hard, she’d never get started. The first plate hit the soapy water with a splash. Then another. Then another. She scrubbed hard, her hands aching with the effort, with the need to erase what had happened here.
She wiped down the counters. Swept the floor. Hauled some trash outside.
But every time she turned around, she saw something else. A window smudged with her handprint. The coffee table she had clutched for balance as she’d tried to find her phone to call for help, fingers slipping as pain had radiated through her body.
The rug—God, the rug—the one she had lain on while Jakob Kozak stood over her, laughing as she struggled to breathe.
Her chest tightened.
She backed up, bumping into the counter. Her breath hitched, coming too fast, too shallow.
She couldn’t do this. It was too much.
She started backing away, back toward the playhouse, when she stopped herself. She couldn’t let herself break. Fingers digging into the counter, she forced herself to count, to try to breathe past this.
One, two, three.
But the house pressed in. The air thickened. The weight of the past curled around her throat.
She couldn’t do this alone. Her hands trembled as she reached for her phone.
She could call Bear. He’d drop everything. He’d come. He always came. But that wasn’t the plan. She needed to prove to him and herself that she could do this.
Clenching her jaw, she tossed the phone onto the counter and grabbed another trash bag. She would do this alone.
* * *
Joy wasn’t sure when she’d stopped moving.
Somewhere between dragging the laundry basket to the washing machine and stacking unopened mail into neat piles, the weight of everything caught up to her once again. Snuck up on her this time.
And this time, she hadn’t been able to battle it back down.
Now, she sat on the floor in the middle of her living room, surrounded by half-filled trash bags and a pile of donation boxes. Her arms rested on her knees, head bowed, lungs pulling in sharp, shallow breaths.
It was too much.
She had thought she could do this alone. That forcing herself through it would make the fear shrink and the memories fade. But the house still felt wrong.
Once again, she thought about calling Bear. But once again, she discarded the idea. If she called him, it meant admitting she had failed. Not to him—he wouldn’t care. But to herself.
But she had to face the fact that she wasn’t going to be able to do this alone.
So instead, she had texted Sloane.
I thought I could do this, but I can’t. I need help.
She’d already mentioned to her friend that she’d be cleaning her house today. Sloane most understood what Joy had gone through that night—she’d been there. And while the other woman didn’t know the extent of the state of the house, Joy knew she would help.
Joy hadn’t meant for anyone else to know. She hadn’t meant for it to be a distress signal.
But fifteen minutes later, the knock came. She barely had time to stand before the front door pushed open, and her people filled the space.
Sloane, Callum, Theo, Scarlett, Eva, Lincoln.
Joy blinked at her friends. Some, like Scarlett and Theo, she’d known most of her life. The rest she’d become friends with more recently. But Joy’s throat closed as they spread out like a battle-ready unit.
“I brought reinforcements,” Sloane said, giving her a quick once-over like she was checking for visible damage. “You’re right when you said you didn’t need to do this alone. We’re all here to help.”
Joy opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Callum stepped forward, already rolling up his sleeves. “Just tell us where to start.”
Scarlett nudged past him, looking around. “Oh, we’re starting everywhere.”
Joy didn’t know how it happened. One second, she was sitting frozen in the living room, barely keeping it together, and the next, her friends had taken over like a well-organized strike team.
Sloane was the leader, moving through the house like she had never left, sorting through the piles of unopened mail on the coffee table with quiet efficiency. Callum ended up scrubbing the baseboards.
The Oak Creek sheriff was scrubbing her damn baseboards.
Scarlett was in the kitchen, throwing out anything from the fridge that had expired—judging by the dramatic gags and muttered curses, that was a lot.
Lincoln and Theo tackled the biggest mess, hauling trash bags and rubbish out onto the porch without asking where it should go.
“We should repair that,” Lincoln said, pausing to examine the dented plaster by the staircase, his fingers ghosting over the damaged wall with clinical precision. “Although the structural integrity of the wall doesn’t seem to be compromised.”
Theo appeared with spackle and tools. “Got it covered. We’ll patch it up good as new.”
Joy stood in the middle of it all, watching in stunned silence.
“This is ridiculous,” she finally muttered, more to herself than anyone else. “I didn’t ask for a full-scale home renovation.”
“You did text me,” Sloane reminded her without looking up from a stack of old bills. “And you sounded like you needed someone.”
“Someone. Not a damn cavalry.”
Sloane finally looked up, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah, well. Word got out.”
Joy narrowed her eyes. “You mean you told everyone.”
Sloane shrugged, unrepentant. “Maybe.”
Scarlett popped her head out of the kitchen, a wooden spoon in one hand, an empty cereal box in the other. “I knew you needed help when you still had expired Fruity Pebbles in your pantry. Those things have a shelf life of forever, and they still went bad.”
Joy crossed her arms. “I was going to get to it.”
Scarlett snorted. “Uh-huh. Sure.”
Callum glanced up from where he was wrestling with a scrub brush. “You’d do it for any of us. We’re willing to do it for you.”
“I am grateful,” Joy admitted. Then, softer, “I just…didn’t expect this.”
“That’s your problem, Davis. You still don’t get it.” Theo smiled at her.
She frowned. “Get what?”
He tossed her a rag. “That you don’t have to do everything alone.”
Joy caught it automatically, fingers tightening around the fabric.
She wanted to argue. To tell them that facing the ghosts in this house was her battle, her responsibility.
But then she looked around.
At Sloane, making order out of chaos. At Callum, who had real police work to do but was here scrubbing. At Scarlett, who was probably reorganizing the kitchen as she purged it. At Lincoln, logical and methodical, carefully mixing spackle to patch her wall. At Theo, grinning at her like this was just another ridiculous adventure.
She didn’t have to do it alone. And Callum was right; she would’ve done it without hesitation for any of them.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of movement. Dust flew, floors were scrubbed, rooms were cleared. The dent in the wall was meticulously patched, Lincoln working with mathematical precision to smooth the fresh plaster until it was impossible to tell where the damage had been. Theo followed behind with a roller, covering the newly repaired surface with soft cream paint that brightened the entire stairwell.
The broken chair was replaced, and the house— her house—began to feel like something she could breathe in again.
By the time the sun set, the place was clean. Fresh.
Hers .
She was under no illusion that there wouldn’t still be hard moments, but her house was no longer permeated with ghosts.
Sloane leaned against the doorway, a hand on her pregnant belly. “I think that’s as good as it gets.”
Lincoln nodded, surveying the place. “The wall repair is structurally sound and aesthetically pleasing. The paint color choice was optimal.”
Scarlett grinned. “And the kitchen was only a little traumatic.”
All Joy could do was shrug, looking around at all of them. “Thank you. I literally couldn’t have done it without you guys.”
Callum squeezed her shoulder before helping Sloane put on her coat. “You would have. We just made it faster.”
As they filed out, Joy stood in the center of her living room, inhaling the scent of pine cleaner, fresh paint, and clean air.
For the first time in a long time, the house didn’t feel like a crime scene.
It felt like home.
And tonight, she was staying right damn here.