Page 42 of A Pen Pal for Christmas

“Just do it. Please.”

She pursed her lips as her eyes flitted around my room. “Bed. Boots. Christmas painting. Frilly pillows.”

I smirked, still not used to my bedroom containing so many frilly pillows. “One more.”

Her eyes landed on mine again. “You.”

“Good girl. Four things you can touch.”

“Chair. Jacket. Floor. My hair on my cheek,” she rattled off, and then she looked down at my hand in hers—something I hadn’t even realized I’d done until she brought it to my attention. Her gaze came back to mine, slowly this time. “You?”

I chuckled and squeezed her hand. “Uh, yeah. Good. Three things you can hear?”

She took a shaky breath, swallowing hard. Then, a small smile crept up, and she returned the squeeze on my hand. “You, you, and you. Can we be done? I think it passed.”

Narrowing my eyes at her, I grinned. “Done that before?”

“It’s a classic. Pretty much Therapy 101 if you start going because your boyfriend went to prison and you don’t know how to deal. What’s your excuse?”

I swallowed hard. “My… Uh, hmm. That friend I told you about? The one who…”

She nodded, and I was grateful I didn’t need to finish that sentence. It wasn’t fun to say out loud.

“His parents were psychologists or something. Always made sure he had tools for when he needed them, and I needed them once on our first deployment together. Guess it stuck.”

Her lips pulled into a line, and she nodded. “Thanks for that.”

“Of course.” I took a deep breath. “You ready to tell me what happened?”

She squared her shoulders, and even though I still hadn’t heard what brought her to my room on the verge of a panic attack, I was unbelievably proud of her.

“Someone trashed my room,” she whispered, her voice tight and barely audible. “And they left… this.” Her hand only shook a little as she held up a crumpled piece of paper.

I took it gently, trying to get ahold of my anger as I unfolded it. I was still wrapping my head around someone being in her room, and who knew what I would find on this paper.

The handwriting was clean, familiar— And… something snapped into place that I would definitely need to examine later to confirm, but I pushed it out of my mind to focus on the here and now.

I skimmed the letter, and it wasn’t long before I pieced together what it was: one of the letters she’d written to Dane while he was in prison.

I folded it along the worn creases and met her eyes. “Do you need anything right now? Water? Tea?”

She shook her head quickly. “I don’t… I just—” Her hands rose to her temples, pressing lightly as though her head ached. “I don’t understand. Why would he?—”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, gently removing her hands from the sides of her face. I needed to see her. Needed to make sure she was okay, or at least on the way to being okay. “We’ll figure this out. Where were you tonight?”

“Girls’ night at Robin’s.”

I frowned, checking my watch. “And you just got back?”

She nodded.

“What time did you head over there?”

“Around six,” she replied.

“Okay. I got home from Ida’s around seven, and since I didn’t see or hear anything in the last two hours, I think that must mean it happened between six and seven.”

She snorted. “Trust me. If you’d been in here when it happened, you would’ve heard it. Unless you have some seriously good noise-cancelling headphones.”

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