Emptiness filled Danny’s chest. He wanted to go to her, to comfort her the way she had soothed him the night of Jed’s attack. But she didn’t want anything to remind her of what had happened, and that included him. She wanted to move on, but Danny knew firsthand that the ostrich approach to handling trauma didn’t work. Hiding the horrors in his own head had come back to bite him on the ass, big-time. Pretending everything was fine didn’t make it so. At some point, everyone had to face his personal demon.

Whether it was an explosion that shattered a Humvee and a dozen men or a psychotic killer wielding a knife in an alley on a frigid winter night.

Still, everyone processed things at different speeds. Maybe with some time, she’d be able to talk about the attack. Maybe with some time she’d be able to…

No. Don’t even go there.

Rubbing his achy forearm, Danny watched her run across the grass, open the garage door, and wrestle with a ladder that was much too heavy. She dragged it around the far side of the house, out of sight. Her slight, feminine body wasn’t cut out for heavy chores. Instinctively, he reached for the car door handle.

A pickup pulled into the lot and parked by the garage. Danny stopped. The thin man who stepped out looked familiar. A sixty-watt lit up in Danny’s head. The skinny dude was Jed Garrett, Mandy’s boyfriend. Danny had only seen him unconscious, but Jed’s face as he lay bleeding out on the snow was imprinted in Danny’s mind like everything else from that night. Another man climbed out of the passenger side. He was huge and blond and walked with an awkward, coltish gait. Mandy’s brother.

The two men walked in through the back door, marked PRIVATE, without knocking. Obviously, Mandy and Jed were still together. Danny swallowed his disappointment and started the engine. Jed could help Mandy with her task. Danny had upset her enough for one day, and he had no desire to see Mandy and Jed together. Not yet.

Everyone processed things at different speeds.

Danny drove out onto the street and turned toward the main drag. A few blocks down he passed through the main intersection and the empty lot where the municipal building had burned down in December. Cleared of debris, the empty lot was a sad reminder of the town’s losses. Next to it, the diner that Nathan owned sat vacant and forlorn on the corner. Someone crossed the adjacent alley, the same alley where Danny had come across Nathan attacking Mandy and Jed. What used to be the hub of town life had been rendered useless by the events of one night.