Chapter Nine
Bailey woke with a start, her heart pounding and her eyes wide as she sat up straight in bed.
The dream that had just plagued her was still fresh in her mind.
She could almost see them crowding around her, the four of them staring down at her, not knowing if she was going to be able to get away.
The flash of the knife had played in her mind’s eye, the shock and fear of it.
She had closed her eyes, ready for the end, only to open them again back in her temporary bedroom in Warrior Peak, right where she had fallen asleep.
She rubbed her eyes and planted her feet on the ground, doing her best to pull herself back together. It had been nearly three weeks since the attack, and she had been having nightmares about it nearly every night since. When were they going to go away?
When she put those guys behind bars where they belonged.
That was when the nightmares were going to stop.
After just over two weeks here, she was still no closer to actually tracking them down and exposing them for what they had done, and it was driving her crazy.
She couldn’t just sit around doing nothing.
Yes, she was healing, but her mind was a mess, and she didn’t know how to sort through everything going on inside of it.
She got to her feet and wandered out of the small room that had been assigned to her—nothing special, but it did the job.
She was just glad to have somewhere to stay where she didn’t have to be looking over her shoulder the entire time.
This place was hardly ideal, though. She was surrounded by people she didn’t know, still trying to figure out how many of them she could trust. But it was a place for her to rest, recuperate, and get back to full strength again.
Plus, Aaron was here, and they seemed to have finally started breaking down some of the barriers between them.
There was so much history there that she knew it would be a while before they were anywhere close to normal, but she could work with that.
At least he seemed willing to help her out with the crooked cops after them, if only to keep her out of trouble. She would take that.
She knew she could handle it all by herself if she needed to, but she was glad to have Aaron’s help.
She padded quietly along the corridors, toward the common room, where she knew there was a computer.
She wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep after that nightmare, and she needed something to keep her mind occupied until she could have breakfast. She had never been much of a morning person, but it turned out all it took was a terrifying encounter where she feared for her life to get her ass up and out of bed first thing. Who’d have thought?
She took her seat at the computer, which was set aside for residents to check emails and make video calls.
It wasn’t exactly high-tech, but she didn’t need it to be.
She just needed it to work. Before getting started with her search on Ziegler and the rest of the group, she sent her captain a message checking in and stating she needed a little more time before she returned to work.
She had originally contacted him upon arrival after getting settled, feigning an unexpected emergency.
He’d always been kind to her and agreed to her request as long as she kept him updated.
Once that was completed, she started to search for any information she could about Ziegler and his friends—anything at all that might hint someone else knew what she did.
It was a long shot, but there had to be something out there.
A mention in an article, an old report filed about them, any halfway coherent explanation as to how they had managed to get away with what they had for so long.
Nothing. There was nothing. She tried every search term she could, every approach she could think of, tapping in to every database she could imagine, but she couldn’t find anything.
An hour passed, and she gnawed on the inside of her mouth, trying to figure out the best way to get to the bottom of this.
What she really needed was interdepartmental information.
Any notices that might have been passed back and forth between cops about what they were doing.
She wouldn’t be able to access them without arousing suspicion or even drawing attention back to Warrior Peak.
Aside from the fact that’d be dangerous and risky, she didn’t want to expose the people here like that.
This was a sanctuary, a safe place for healing, and these people were kind and helpful.
They didn’t deserve that type of evil brought to their door.
But if she could find someone who was already working within a department in some official capacity, who wouldn’t look too strange delving into this stuff, it would be a start.
Maybe someone nearby? She started searching for sheriffs in the local area, trying to use her intuition to find one who looked trustworthy. Though, after what she had found out about the men she worked with, maybe she shouldn’t trust herself on that front.
Eventually, she stumbled across the smiling image of a sheriff for the small town nearby.
He was a little older, and his bio said that he had been serving the same small community for his entire career—over twenty years.
Was that a good sign? It meant he had either earned the trust of the people around him, or he’d hung on to his position through more nefarious means.
She wasn’t sure. She would have to ask Aaron about it.
He knew more about this place than she did.
All at once, she looked up and realized that sunlight had started to filter through the window in front of her.
She had been so lost in her research, she had almost forgotten that there was still a day ahead of her.
A few people were moving around upstairs, and she could hear one of the cooks humming to themselves as they passed by the common room on the way to the kitchen.
She quickly deleted her search terms and turned off the computer. For some reason, she didn’t like the idea of anyone seeing what she had been looking for. Better to keep it to herself for now, until she was sure she could trust everyone around here.
She felt a little guilty for even thinking about them like that, when everyone had been nothing but kind and welcoming to her.
By the sounds of it, everyone here had a story of their own, some of them probably a whole lot wilder than hers.
Maybe she would get around to hearing them one day, once she had dealt with this mess of corrupt cops.
“Hey.”
She whipped her head around as though she had been caught doing something she shouldn’t.
Cade stood in the doorway smiling at her, and she smiled back.
Seeing him made her wonder if River was already around.
She hadn’t seen her in a few days and should probably touch base with her soon.
River’d asked her to keep her updated on her therapy with Carter, and she needed to do that before she came looking for her on her own.
“Hi,” she replied, her cheeks turning red. She didn’t even know why.
“I see you’re up early,” he remarked. “I could use some help in the kitchen, if you’re up for it.”
She parted her lips, about to turn him down, but then she stopped herself. Everyone around here worked to keep the place running, and it would have been pretty rude if she’d just expected not to have to pull her weight.
“Sure,” she replied.
He grinned. “Thanks.”
“Is River up yet?” she asked as she looked around him. “I’ve been meaning to check in with her.”
“Yeah, she’s still at the cabin. She’ll be down in a bit. Ready?”
“Yep. Put me to work.” As she got to her feet and headed over to join him, he eyed her thoughtfully.
“What is it?” she asked, a little more defensive than she had intended to be.
“I just know that if you’re up early, chances are it’s not just because you’re a morning person,” he replied. “People get restless here. And I know a restless spirit when I see one. Come on, you’re on bacon duty.”
She followed him down to the kitchen, hoping he wasn’t going to ask her anything too invasive about what brought her to Warrior Peak.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem interested in much more than setting her to work.
As he chopped vegetables, he got her to man the stove, cooking pancakes and bacon until there was a heaping pile of them on the plate ready to be taken out to everyone.
“You’ve got a mean pancake-flipping arm,” he remarked.
She laughed. “Hey, I guess you’re never too old to learn new tricks, right?
” she replied. She felt comfortable in his presence, which surprised her.
She had been a little nervous around new men after what had happened, but Cade seemed to know not to go delving into her past. He had probably dealt with plenty of people like her over his time here, and the practice was obviously paying off.
“Okay, let’s start plating up,” he told her as people started to file into the cafeteria.
The place was starting to fill with a warm chatter, and Bailey felt a million times more relaxed than she had when she had woken up.
That seemed to be the magic of this place: It was meant to be a safe place for those who had nowhere else to go.
Even though she had already stayed longer than she intended, she was glad to be here.
They began to carry the food out into the communal area, and she spotted Aaron sitting at the far end of one of the long tables.
He grinned up at her when he saw that she had been put to work, and she couldn’t help but smile back.
God, it was still so strange to see him again, but she was glad to have a friendly face staring up at her among this sea of people she didn’t know.
Once they had set out the food for everyone, she took a seat next to Aaron.
Her mouth was watering now—all this cooking for other people had made her hungry.
She hadn’t been eating a whole lot since she’d gotten there, not wanting to take advantage of their generosity too much, but she tucked into breakfast like a starved animal.
“It’s good to see you eating,” Aaron murmured to her.
She glanced up, her heart flipping when she caught his eye.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what he had said to her the other day, when they had been out at the paddock together—that all he had wanted when he was back in Kings Mountain was her.
If she had known back then that he felt that way, would it have changed things?
Would she have made a move, or would she have forced herself to hold back because he was her superior? She didn’t know.
“I’ve been up for hours,” she replied through a mouthful of food. “Been looking into…well, you know.”
He nodded.
“You should give yourself some time to heal,” he reminded her gently.
She knew he was just trying to help, but he must have been aware that she wasn’t going to let go of it that easily.
Maybe she could find some middle ground, instead of trying to shut him down again.
They weren’t going to make any progress if everything ended in a battle.
“Maybe we could go out to the paddock again today,” she replied. “I’d like to see how Wheatie is doing.”
“I’m sure she would be happy to see you,” he told her, and she grinned.
She loved that horse. Heck, maybe she was starting to like it here more than she cared to admit. She never would have imagined she would feel safe anywhere after what had happened to her back in Kings Mountain, but she felt more comfortable in this place with each passing day.
As though he could see what was going on inside her head, Aaron leaned forward and lowered his voice. “See? It’s not too bad here, once you get settled.”
“Eat your breakfast,” she said on a laugh, but he was right. This place had a lot to offer—and the longer she stayed here, the more she saw that.