Ella added baby Toby and his mother, Nicole Harris, the victim Sara had just mentioned, to her watch list. Just in case.

The meeting ended shortly afterward. Feeling overwhelmed, awed and ready to do her part, she put her folder in her bag, slung her satchel over her shoulder and was on her way out the door when she felt a tap on her other shoulder.

Sara Havens stood there, a welcoming light in her eye. “I’m Sara. Lila told me to make sure we meet.”

“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you,” Ella told the counselor in return. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“You’ll need to meet Lynn Bishop, too. She’s our resident nurse and chief medical officer. Lila told her about you at our last staff meeting.”

Ella had heard about Lynn—she and her husband lived at the Stand along with his brother and sister-in-law, who were both mentally challenged. The number of people she knew in town—and wanted to know—was growing.

In a very short time, Santa Raquel was becoming home.

Sara told Ella about a couple other staff members as they walked together out of the police station to their cars. As Ella said goodbye and turned toward her own vehicle, Sara touched her arm again.

“Can we chat a minute?” She motioned toward a bench on the edge of the sidewalk.

Curious, Ella followed her. Clearly Sara had a favor to ask. Ella hoped it was one she could grant.

“It’s about your sister-in-law,” Sara said as soon as they were seated. “She’s not my client, and I haven’t spoken with her, but Lila told me about her situation and asked that I keep an eye on her for you.”

Ella hadn’t known. But... “I can’t thank you enough for that,” she told Sara. “She’s so vulnerable right now, and I’m holding my breath every day that she doesn’t go back to Jeff before he gets help. He’s never hit her, so she doesn’t think she’s as at-risk as the other women were...”

“I understand that he bruised her pretty badly, though.”

A vision of Chloe’s injuries two weeks ago sprang to mind. “Yes.” Ella swallowed, looked away and then back. “My brother’s not the stereotypical abuser,” she said. “He’s so easygoing...I can hardly remember him ever being angry when we were growing up. I don’t know what’s gotten into him...”

Sara said nothing as Ella paused. But her gaze showed that she was completely focused on Ella and Chloe’s situation. “I think that’s part of what makes it so hard for Chloe. Jeff’s normal demeanor...he’s like that dog that lets you hang off his ear. He’s gentle. Soft-spoken. Kind.”

Sara was nodding, and Ella stopped, worried that she wasn’t painting an accurate picture, that she was protesting too much, or not enough.

“It’s easier to wall your heart off to a mean person” was all Sara said. “Or one who has a hair trigger and keeps you constantly alert to potential danger.”

The sun was setting in the late-afternoon sky, practically blinding Ella if she glanced to her left. Feeling her eyes grow moist, she looked away from its brilliance.

“My ex-husband...he was a victim of domestic violence,” Ella heard herself saying, though this wasn’t about her. They were talking about Chloe.

About helping Chloe...

But she continued, anyway. “He described his home as a minefield. He said he never knew—whether he was getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, or coming down to dinner when he was called—if he’d tip off an explosion.”

“Was it his mother or his father?”

People came and went several yards away from them. One or two at a time.

“His father. The way he tells it, for the first ten years of his life, his dad was a great guy. The best. But then they found out his sister had leukemia, and his dad lost his job. I don’t know which came first, the drinking or the beatings, but they both came. And for the next eight years, my ex was on alert every day, setting himself up as his mother’s protector. He intervened whenever he could. And bore the brunt of his father’s outbursts when his mother wasn’t around.”

Ella stopped short of giving Brett’s name. And then wished she hadn’t mentioned him at all. His anonymity at The Lemonade Stand had been the one sticking point for him. He’d been unwilling to compromise on that. Period. He’d felt, erroneously in Ella’s opinion, that if people knew the founder was a victim, they’d be less likely to take The Lemonade Stand seriously. He’d also once told her that he couldn’t stand the idea of being scrutinized as a victim everywhere he went. But that had been long ago.

And Ella had been protecting his secrets for so long...

“In cases like that, fear, either of retribution or of an inability to make it alone, is often what keeps someone there. And while it’s a horrible, criminal situation, it’s also sometimes easier to treat. Assuming you can get the victim safely away.”

Which was the purpose of their team.

Sara waited, as though allowing Ella time to continue. She’d already said too much.

“Cases like Chloe’s, in some ways, can be a lot tougher to help,” Sara continued after many seconds of silence had passed. “The bond of trust between your brother and his wife is still intact. Her sense of safety, while somewhat breached, has not been broken.”

Two sentences, and Ella’s perspective crystallized in a way she could grasp. Work with. “She’s not afraid of him.”

“She hasn’t built walls against him. More likely, at this stage, she’s trying to understand, to empathize, in an effort to be able to help him herself.”

“She makes excuses for him.”

“That’s her way of trying to make sense out of something she doesn’t understand. She’s trying to find a way to justify actions that are out of character without accepting that maybe the man she fell in love with has changed.”

“Is that what you think? That the Jeff we all know and love has suddenly become a monster?” She blurted out the words without stopping to consider how she sounded.

“No.” Sara’s quick covering of Ella’s hand brought her back to the current situation. They were there to help Chloe.

“I’m only saying that Chloe is probably too confused to be able to act rationally at the moment. Her head tells her one thing while her heart is telling her another.”

“I do agree with that.” Which was why Ella was living second to second, always worrying that she’d get a call at work telling her that Chloe was on a bus back to Palm Desert.

“Good, because you need to understand her struggle to be able to deal well with what else I have to tell you.”

Her chin fell. “What?” Was Chloe gone already? Was that why Sara asked for this chat? Had Chloe said something at lunch that day? Or not shown up at the Stand at all?

“Our residents’ cell phones are taken away when they arrive at the Stand,” she said. “They’re kept at the local precinct...”

Just in case, Ella surmised, based on what she’d read, but also on what she’d heard that day. The police would need to be able to listen to messages. And wouldn’t want them traced to the Stand, either.

“Every resident is given the option of having a prepaid cell while she’s with us. They aren’t prisoners, and if they have other loved ones who can help them once they resume their lives, we find that it helps for them to be in contact during the recovery process...”

Ella hadn’t known that. It made sense. But what did it have to do with Chloe?

“Our residents are made aware of the danger of being in touch with their abusers during their recovery process. If he continues to control her mind, she’ll never heal. If he reminds her of who she was, fills her head with ‘abuse talk,’—you know, telling her it’s her fault, or reminding her that if she leaves him she’ll have nothing, she’ll lose everything...”

Ella nodded, familiar with the material.

“Because of their heightened awareness, a couple of the women who work with Chloe in the kitchen came to me this morning. They said that Chloe’s husband has been calling her.”