Chapter Seven
Church stood at the table in the security office, his mind a jumble of questions and a hell of a lot of scenarios he didn’t want to think about.
Not when it came to anyone, let alone Zee.
Theo slid a report across the surface toward him. “We already pulled the police report.”
Church picked it up and read the first page, skimming incidental details such as vehicle information and time of response.
“And these”—Theo passed him another sheet—“are photos pulled from all the security cameras we can access in the area.”
He stilled as he stared at the photos. A man in a ball cap appeared near the truck. Not close enough for a clean angle, and he kept his head down and shoulders hunched enough to keep his face hidden from the camera.
“No face.”
Theo shook his head. “Nothing usable.”
Church’s jaw ached from clenching as he tried to make out any features on the face. “He knew how to evade the cams.”
The guy had kept his head turned at exactly the right moments. He approached from the side facing away from the street and the store as well, ensuring the cameras didn’t pick him up.
He met Theo’s gaze across the table. “This has happened to her before?”
“At least four times.”
Theo’s statement rocked his head back, and he closed his eyes briefly. Jesus Christ. Zee. Anyone but Zee. She’d already lived through so damn much.
“This explains why she kept moving. It wasn’t the jobs or the cities. This isn’t a woman who couldn’t settle after Matt died.” His throat worked on a hard swallow, the lump that formed at speaking his friend’s name jagged.
“This is a woman who hasn’t felt safe enough to stay. Anywhere.”
Theo gave him a grim look. Church knew the things Theo had seen—that every man on the Black Heart Security team had seen. Their women stalked by people from all walks of life.
He wasn’t going to let Zee be one of them.
He shifted his gaze to the end of the table where Gabe was taking it all in. “Bring her in.”
Gabe pushed back his chair and crossed to the door where Zee was waiting on the other side. When he opened it, Church saw her, hands intertwined, head down.
She looked small. So vulnerable.
Gabe leaned in and said a few low words, and she looked straight at Church. His chest flexed in his chest, hard enough to hurt.
She paused inside the doorway, her stare flicking down to the paperwork on the table.
“Come sit down.” Theo knew how to use his voice to soothe his significant other, the wards he worked with and any animal on the Black Heart. It got Zee moving.
She lowered herself into a chair. He noticed how she didn’t place her back to the door, and she sat close enough to it that she could run out if she had to.
She folded her hands in her lap and unfolded them again. She looked guilty, and that alone made heat bleed through Church’s chest.
Theo kept his voice level. “We pulled the police report and footage from the businesses around the parking lot.”
Church never took his eyes off her. And he was tuned into her enough to notice every miniscule move she made. Though she was frozen, her eyelashes washed downward in the slightest twitch.
“The footage shows a guy in a ball cap who approached the truck. We couldn’t get a face, but we know he used a tool to break the glass. Then he searched the truck.”
The guilt didn’t disappear from her face. It shifted into something worse.
Weariness.
Church slanted a look at Theo. If he questioned Zee, she might clam up, but she might answer Theo.
“How long has this been going on?” Theo lowered his voice to the same soothing one he used before.
Zee stared at the report for a beat before answering. “After the funeral.”
Church felt the words like a blow.
She didn’t meet his eyes as she continued. “I was only permitted to stay in the house on base that Matt and I lived in for a short time after. Then I had to vacate for another military family. I got an apartment in town for a while.” She pulled in a breath.
“How long did you stay there?” Theo urged.
She lifted her shoulder in a small shrug. “I was in shock for a long time. Time seemed to blur into one endless day.”
“What made you decide to leave?” Church’s own soft tone felt raw in his throat.
Her gaze shot to his, shadows swirling in the depths of her eyes. “At first I thought maybe grief was making everything feel wrong. But I didn’t feel safe there by the end.”
He clamped his hands into fists under the table. “Can you tell us what happened, Zee?”
Again, she shrugged. “Just little things. The feeling that someone was watching me.”
Nobody interrupted.
“The next place, I got a job at a yoga studio. I thought it would be calmer than office work. Different.” A humorless breath escaped her.
“One afternoon after teaching a class I went back to the locker room and found my locker broken into. Everything inside had been dumped on the floor. Clothes, toiletries, my purse. All of it.”
“Did they rifle anyone else’s locker?” Church asked.
“No. Just mine.”
“Did they take anything?”
She shook her head. “I had a little cash, and all of it was there. Not a penny stolen.”
The room went on alert.
“Then it was my car.” Her voice came out a little stronger, as though something was beginning to stir inside her. “Several times.” She lifted her eyes and looked at them, and Church saw the strain there. The exhaustion. The kind that didn’t come from one bad day or even from grief.
The kind that came from being hunted.
“They could have broken into the Porsche I was parked next to. Or the Land Rover. But they broke into my old Ford.” Anger threaded through her calm, showing them all just how hard she was working to hold herself together.
“All they took were Matt’s dog tags.”
A knife lanced through his chest, and it was echoed in Zee’s face.
“They were hanging from the rearview mirror. But they rifled through everything else I had in there.”
Not cash or electronics, which were easily sold. The dog tags.
“So I moved on.”
Church could picture it too clearly. Zee packing up what little she could carry, telling herself that a fresh start in a new town would fix what the last one hadn’t. Starting over again and again because staying had become its own kind of risk.
“Then it was the Airbnb. After that, a hotel room.”
Theo issued a noise that sounded like a curse under his breath. Gabe’s spine went rigid.
And Church saw red. Blood. Seas of it. Spilled by him when he found who was scaring Zee. Church’s jaw tightened. None of this was random—not even close. Several incidents in different places, all with the same target.
Nothing had been taken except one thing tied to Matt. This wasn’t someone looking for quick cash—they were looking for something specific.
She gave a small, defeated shrug like she hated saying any of this out loud. “The cops thought I was crying wolf or doing it myself for attention.”
The humiliation in her words was impossible to miss.
Now he understood why she’d looked guilty and why she kept apologizing for the broken window, as if any of this was her fault. For years, people had been teaching her not to expect help, and that killed him.
“I bought security cameras, door wedges. Portable locks for hotel rooms.”
Gabe slanted a look at Church. They’d both seen those boxes delivered to the training center. No wonder Zee ordered that gear. No wonder she looked tired all the time.
And grown thinner, sharper, more tightly wound than the woman he remembered from years ago.
She’d been hurting…and afraid.
Guilt moved through him with a hard twist. He should have been there for her.
Matt was gone—Church couldn’t change that. But after the funeral, after everyone had gone back to their own lives, Zee had been left alone with this.
Alone with fear. With cops who didn’t believe her. And alone with repeated violations that hollowed her out from the inside.
He hadn’t known—but worse, he hadn’t looked close enough to ask.
She sat there in the harsh office light, fighting to keep her voice steady while describing how her life had been whittled down to temporary places and security gadgets and the constant question of where she might be safer next time.
He thought of the woman in the old volleyball photos, laughing, hair shining copper in the sun. She’d been full of life.
She was still beautiful and strong. But now she was worn down.
She hadn’t only been struggling to move on with life without Matt.
She was fighting to survive.
That felt worse than anything he’d imagined.
* * * * *
The quiet after the meeting felt louder than any drill sergeant she’d heard on base.
Church didn’t speak when they stepped out of the security office. He simply nodded toward the door and started walking. Zee followed a step behind him, unsure what to say or do now that everything was out in the open.
She should feel relief after telling someone. But the truth hung between them like a fragile bird, caught in the wind, unable to safely fly or land.
The ranch was winding down after a long day of work. Shadows stretched across the pasture and the mountains were turning that deep purple color they took on just before sunset. The air smelled of pine and dry grass.
Church kept pace beside her in silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. He was just…contemplative.
She’d been bracing herself for an interrogation like the ones that cops had performed in the past. She held her breath in the office, waiting for the men’s looks of disbelief. But it never happened.
They crossed the drive and kept walking, following a fence line instead of heading straight for the loft suite. She didn’t feel in any rush to go to the place they stayed, and was grateful for the cool air on her face and the chance to breathe after everything she’d said.
He slowed and turned to the fence, resting his forearms on the top rail. She stepped up beside him.
Beyond the fence, several horses grazed in the pasture. The last rays of sun brushed their backs with a warm glow while their tails flicked lazily.