She’d spent over a week at her parents’ house. It was time to go back to living: back to her job at the radio, her history class, even her so-called apprenticeship at LaTour’s. A week ago, when she’d awakened in her old bedroom at her parents’ home in Hillsborough, her father told her Paavo felt she was in his way and didn’t want to have to deal with her as he tried to find Chick’s murderer. She’d been stunned. She remembered that Paavo had found her at Klaw’s and had taken her to the hospital, where she’d been given a sedative. She rarely took medicine, and it hit her hard. After that, nothing but a faint memory of Paavo’s warmth lingered before it all blurred together. Somewhere in the back of her mind, though, a vague memory of Paavo telling her to leave made her father’s words ring true. As the days passed, though, the memory of those last hours with Paavo came back to her, filling her more and more with the sense that she’d been safe. Yet her father told her Paavo didn’t want her there, and Sal wouldn’t lie to her.
