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.