Guardian of Justice by Carol Steward

“Knock it off, Garrett, he’s a cop. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”
    Dallas touched her arm and they headed down the street. “You don’t really believe they’re going to let you off the hook, do you?”
    “No, but maybe Dad’ll send them back to work. I need more time to decide what I want to tell them.” Kira looked over her shoulder to make sure none of them had followed. “I know I have to tell them something, but I don’t know how much they need to know. Isn’t it confidential or something?”
    “Not if it happened to you. You can tell who you want. You don’t have to, but you can. Kira, you can’t make all of this go away by ignoring it. What happened was not your fault. I’ll make sure they know that.”
    “You keep saying you know what I’m going through,” she said. “You can’t know. You can’t know how it felt to be trapped with a lunatic after me,” she insisted, fighting her inclination to raise her voice. She expected Dallas to interrupt, but he remained silent, probably waiting for her to calm down again. “I could have been the one going into that house alone, without a gun, without a radio to call for backup.” She pointed to herself.
    He didn’t argue.
    “I thought I was fine, but when I got home…” Her voice gave out. She couldn’t explain how difficult this week had been for her.
    “The shadows start talking, don’t they?”
    She was afraid to look at him and let him know he was right. “I can’t tell them what happened, Officer Brooks.”
    “Call me Dallas. You seem to forget that you’re the victim here, not the guilty party.” His voice was calm and quiet. “I blame myself every bit as much as you do for leaving you in harm’s way. And you’re probably going to be even madder at me, because I told your brothers some of what happened in order to get them to understand my concern that your condo looked suspicious. I wanted them to stop acting like this was some lover’s spat. Before you, your dad and the narcotics officer arrived, the detective and the hothead thought I broke your heart. Right about now, I wish it wasjust a personal fight between us.”
    “What?” Had this guy lost his mind, too?
    He took hold of her hand and she spun to a stop in front of him. “I do, because then you wouldn’t be hearing shadows talking. Because then we wouldn’t have so much in common. Because then I wouldn’t be afraid for your safety.” He let go of her hand and stared at her. Kira backed away, stopped by the granite sign of the subdivision. “I know you don’t want anyone to know how afraid you are, Kira. You want to be the same strong woman you were before that night. I’m going to tell you that isn’t going to happen. Especially not in a matter of a week or two.”
    “That’s really comforting.” She looked at him in disbelief as he stood with his arms crossed over his broad chest. He looked every bit as sturdy as the granite rock she leaned against.
    “No, it’s not. Neither is ignoring it. Or denial. I’m not sure yet where you’re at with what happened, but it’s not going to get any better until you face it. I should have followed my sergeant’s advice that night. He told me to go get you and bring you back, but I was being selfish. I wasn’t about to have to admit to anyone that I’m not a tough ex-cop from Phoenix. It’s taken me over three years to get here tonight, to admit that I live with post-traumatic stress disorder. You’re the first and only person besides my supervisor that I’ve ever told. So you’re wrong, I know exactly what you’re going through.”
    She didn’t know what to say. “What happened?”
    “Too much to go into right now, but I want to tell you about it sometime so you can realize I do know what you’re going through. You can hide, but the shadows keep coming back. The sooner you deal with it and let your loved ones help you through it, the sooner you’ll get better.” Dallas pointed behind him. “You