Chapter Five:

Chapter Five:

            And soon, they were on their way.  Kris was letting Jill drive the Cobra.  She was very pensive.  Thoughts were jumbling up in her head.  The number one thought was how to keep Jill from finding out about her nightmares.  Mixed in with that were worries about her career as a detective.  She'd totally blown it by simply not being able to deal with a case.

            Jill kept stealing glances at her sister.  Kris wasn't saying anything.  She was just sitting there.  Meanwhile, Jill was trying to decide how best to handle the situation.  Pushing Kris to talk would probably backfire, although Jill was more determined than ever to get at what was wrong.  They had time.  Jill had cleared her schedule and Charlie had said to take all the time they needed.  He'd still pay Kris's salary.

            And then they were there.  It was quite a place, very rustic looking, but once inside it was very elegant, even if it was small.  There were only two bedrooms.  "Pick the one you want," Jill said.

            Kris was dismayed to find out that they were right next to each other.  "I'll take this one," pointing to the door on the left. 

            "Okay.  Listen.  Are you hungry?  The kitchen's fully stocked."

            "It is?"

            "Sure.  It's always prepared."  Jill didn't tell Kris that she'd asked Hank to stock it when she had called to ask permission to use the place.  Kris might feel that she was being ambushed by everybody.  That would certainly not help the situation.

            "I'm not really hungry right now."

            "Oh come on.  There's good stuff in there."  Jill was trying to gently persuade her to eat.  She didn't want to come on too strong, but Kris looked terrible.

            "Alright.  Let's go."  They went together to the kitchen to eat some stew.  Or rather, Jill was eating.  Kris was picking. 

            "What's the matter?  You don't like my cooking?" Jill joked.

            "No, it's not that.  I told you that I wasn't really hungry."

"I know.  Come on Kris.  Why don't you please talk to me?"

"There's nothing to talk about.  I'm fine.  Why doesn't anybody believe me?"

'Because we can see with our own eyes that something is very wrong.  Because anyone that knows you can see that this isn't you.'  Jill didn't voice these thoughts.  For now she wasn't going to push it.  They were just going to spend some time together.  They had a pretty good day talking about a lot of subjects, except the one Jill wanted to talk about.  But she kept cool, and when it got to be around eleven o'clock, they both retired.

Kris wasn't happy.  'Jill doesn't believe I'm okay.  It seems that nobody does.'  So what would Jill do when her sister woke up screaming in the middle of the night, as was happening nightly as of late?  Well it wouldn't happen tonight.  She wouldn't let it.  Besides, she had some hope that having Jill around would keep the nightmares at bay.  With that, she went to bed.

The next thing she knew, she was bolt upright in bed, screaming.  Jill was there, shaking her.  Kris! Kris!  What's wrong?  It's okay, honey.  I'm here."

Kris looked all around.  "I'm okay.  Just a stupid dream."

"It sounded more like a nightmares to me.  What was it about?"

"I don't know.  I can't remember."

Jill didn't believe her, but now was not the time to press.  "Are you sure you're okay?  You don't want to talk about it?"

"I don't want to talk about it, and I told you:  I don't remember."

"Alright.  So do you want to go back to sleep then?"

"Yes"

"Okay, goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Neither sister was destined to get anymore sleep that night.  For Kris, the last semblance of denial was stripped away.  Now Jill's suspicions were confirmed.  She wouldn't let up until the secret was out.  And it would be confirmed once and for all that Kris wasn't as good a detective as Jill.

For Jill, her suspicions were indeed confirmed.  It was much worse than she'd feared, so whatever was bothering Kris was giving her nightmares.  God, why couldn't she just talk about it?  And how bad was it?  Jill's confidence was shaken.  This was so serious.  Could she even help her sister?  She only knew that she wanted to try.