I suppose it was a good sign that I was able to do more, but I still needed the file for the basic intellectual memory, the day to day stuff other peo...le pulled out of their ass."Good morning Sam," I said when he walked through the door."You remembered me?" he asked."You popped up on my file under Thursday morning routine. So how are you today?" I asked."I am good. I do have a few things on for today. We are going to be working on a condo project for that old mill complex. If I can land that,. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be stuck here, but if we don’t want to sit around in the darkness, we’re going to have to conserve our batteries,” I said as I turned off our tactical flashlights and switched on the Rayovac lantern to the lowest setting. The smoky white mist of our breath glowed in the lantern’s light, every time we exhaled as a visual reminder of how God-awful cold our shelter was.“Pip pip and cheerio, my dear, would you care for a spot of hot tea before we retire for the. My body no longer belongs to me. It belongs to him."I nodded towards Gary.She eyed him speculatively for a moment before I added, "If you like you can have Jimmie back. Then you can come here and take my place, working off that worthless asshole's debts by showing your ass to all the customers and letting all the employees rape you every day. How about it, Sheryl? Do you want your old boyfriend back?"I had taken my thong off while I was having my mild little tantrum. Now I stood before her. Sgt. Martinez questioned everyone in the neighborhood, but other than John Young, who had seen Chloe’s bruises, no one had any material evidence to offer. John made a formal statement but was not called to testify as Peter Reed and the district attorney’s office reached a plea agreement, and he went to prison on multiple charges of rape and child abuse.Chloe and Anne saw a therapist, of course. They had some post-traumatic stress issues, but on the whole, they had relatively little trouble.