"Thank you for your help, Daphne. Rissa is really lucky to have a friend like you."

She turns and walks out to the parking lot. I watch as she climbs inside a sporty little green hatchback and then pulls out of the parking lot with reckless speed and seemingly no regard for her personal safety.

I turn back to the car. At this point, I really should just give this up and go home. The gentlemanly thing to do would be to let Rissa go on living her life with no interference from me. There's no way I can go through with the plan I was so committed to just a few days ago. Because seeing her the way she was yesterday at the furniture store, her eyes bright with excitement just brought it all back in a way that was too real. She can’t be that girl anymore, that happy laughing girl who used to make me so happy. The only way I’ve been able to survive at all is believing that girl never existed.

And seeing her show up yesterday had been too much.

But then I look down at the catalogue in my hand and suddenly I'm smiling. Each day used to be so routine and mundane. I did the same things with the same results. There were no surprises. No joy. Now each morning I wake knowing I'll see Rissa again. I haven't taken any pain pills at all today. The pain is still there, it's just that I'm so distracted by everything else going on. There's no way that I can give this up. I'm having way too much fun to leave her alone.

I close the door and sit back. Jonah turns around and looks at me expectantly. "Where to, sir?"

"Mercers. The department store."

CHAPTER SIX

RISSA

I roll my neck, trying to get the kinks out.  The floor buffer I’ve been using for the past hour has made my arms feel almost numb. But the floors look shiny and perfect.

“Good night Miss Blake!”

One of my new hires, a teenage mother named Carrie, waves as she passes by. Getting a janitorial contract for a big local department store like Mercers was quite a feat for my little company and it meant that we’d been able to hire new people for the first time in a year. For our largest clients, Tara, Daphne and I were always present but we usually handpicked team members to work with us. Carrie was energetic and easy to be around. It had been an easy decision to bring her with me on this job.

“Night. Get home to that gorgeous baby.”

At the mention of her six-month-old son Caleb, her face lights up. “Yes ma’am. My mom has already put him to sleep but since I’m getting off a little early, it means I can take a nap before his middle of the night feeding.”

“Well, good. Give him a kiss for me.”

I watch as she skips out the door and to her car parked directly in front of the store. This late there’s no cars here except for ours and a dark sedan parked in the middle of the lot. I can’t see what type it is from this far away. I wonder if the owner of the store perhaps got a ride home and left his car here?

I put away the buffer and do my final walk through. Everything looks perfect. This is my favorite part of the day, when the work is done and I can look at what I’ve accomplished with pride. There are a lot of people who look down on janitorial staff but I have pride in what I do. I make things shine.

I punch in the special security code I was assigned to the panel and then lock the front doors behind me with my key. As I’m walking across the parking lot, the door to the sedan opens. A man steps out. My heart speeds up a bit and I start walking faster. Usually Carrie or whomever I’m working with is walking to their vehicles at the same time so I’ve never felt unsafe here.

“Marissa!”

I halt with my hand on the door handle of my car. As the man walks closer, I notice the slight limp right before his face comes into view.

“Finn? What are you doing here? You scared me!”

The parking lot is uneven and there are a lot of potholes. He’s walking slowly, stepping carefully, as he makes his way to where I am. Part of me wants to make it easier for him and just walk his way, close the distance. But the rest of me still remembers his heartless questioning this afternoon. He wants to hurt me by his own admission. So why do I still feel sympathy for him?

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to let you know that I got your message.”

“What message?”

He holds up the catalogue I’d brought back to his place that afternoon. After I’d left, I was so angry. Usually between morning and evening jobs, I go home and rest in between. But I was so stirred up after Finn's interrogation this morning that I drove back to the office to tackle the paperwork on my desk. There were a few invoices that needed to be paid and I was definitely behind on filing. With all that anger energy, I figured if nothing else I'd have a clean desk at the end of the day.

I'd ordered a pair of fur-lined handcuffs from this particular catalogue as a gag gift for a friend's bachelorette party. They still occasionally send me catalogues so when I saw it in my mail, I knew I had to use it. It was too good not to.

"I was just doing what you said you wanted. Being helpful. Wifely and all that."

Finn bursts into laughter and the rumbling sound startles me. It feels like it's been a very long time since I've heard him laugh. Light glints off the head of his cane. This one has a polished silver handle. Considering all that he's been through since he was discharged, I'm guessing it's been a while since he had anything to laugh about.

"A wife that sends me dildo catalogues. Damn, I've hit the jackpot."

Our eyes meet and then we both start laughing.