It wasn't like she hadn't lost people before. There had been others she, and a company of well–trained firefighters, couldn't save. Mostly they were like Tory, dead long before the fire even reached them. But dead was dead. It was never easy no matter how many times it happened.

It wasn't even the first time she'd lost someone she'd known. Mr. Esposito, the butcher from the next street up in her neighborhood, had fallen asleep with a cigarette in his hand. She wouldn't even have known it was him if she hadn't known it was his place.

And there had been her third grade teacher, Mrs. Ann Foley. She liked to light candles to her dead husband. One got tipped over and caught her drapes on fire. She'd climbed in the bathtub to stay safe instead of just getting out of her apartment.

Stella wiped away old tears with those memories as she finished her Coke. It was funny how you thought things didn't bother you anymore until something happened that brought all the hurt back. She hadn't planned for something like that here. There was no one she could talk to. Everyone was back home.

She stumbled back into the kitchen and got another Coke. She off her smoky clothes before she got in the hot tub to let the hot water ease her aching shoulder.

"I'm just feeling sorry for myself," she said to the crickets and the little bat that liked to swoop around the deck at night. "It's stupid, but there it is. I need to go home. I'm in good shape now. I can go back to work. I don't have to see Doug. I don't have to be here for this either. This wasn't part of my job description."

"Cutting out already?" a deep, male voice asked.

Stella dropped her Coke bottle into the hot tub bubbles. She used her foot to feel around for it. "Get out now and I'll forget you've been playing all these practical jokes on me."

"I knew it! You can hear me!"

Great! He wasn't impressed by her threats. "Leave now!"

He laughed. "I wish it were that easy. And I wouldn't call turning on the light when I know you'll be home late a practical joke. You can have a bad fall if you don't get up the stairs safely."

"Look, I don't know who you are or why you've decided you're my guardian angel, but you should leave now. I'm expecting a police officer in a few minutes. I don't think he'd be too happy to find you here."

The porch was in darkness but Stella could make out the man's shadowy shape in the rocking chair she'd just left.

How did he get in?

She'd locked the door. He had to have a key. That's what gave him access whenever he wanted to move things around or try to scare her.

She didn't recognize his voice—he definitely wasn't one of her rejected recruits. She didn't know what else to do to get rid of him. She could hardly step out naked and threaten him. Even in the shadows, she could see he was a big man.