“I’m really okay,” she assured him, wondering if she was trying to convince herself.
Dr. Sutton didn’t comment, just held the door open for her again when they reached the third floor. She walked with him down the corridor to a set of doubledoors with his name on it. Since it was late, there was no one in the reception area. They walked through another door into his office with a large window that looked out over a greenbelt behind the hospital. The trees were gently swaying in the breeze. For a moment she got lost in the simple and pretty scene.
“Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Water?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine, thank you.”
“You’ll probably find yourself saying that a lot over the next few days and even weeks before you actually do feel that way again.” Dr. Sutton waved for her to take a seat on the small sofa. He took a seat across from her in a comfortable-looking club chair.
“A lot happened before tonight,” she admitted.
“You lost your sister. She was murdered.” The bluntness made her flinch. “Is it hard for you to hear that said out loud?”
“It shouldn’t be. I know that’s what happened. I knew the second I didn’t find her at Rad’s place. I never believed Rad’s story that she left him. I knew for a long time if I didn’t get her out of there, he’d kill her. I felt the inevitability of it in my bones and down to my soul. That’s why I tried so hard to get her to leave him.”
Dr. Sutton’s head tilted. “Do you believe it’s your fault?”
“No. Yes. No. Rad killed her,” the angry words burst out of her. “I know that. I just feel like if I’d tried harder, or forced her to leave, none of this would have happened.”
“Do you think Rad would have just let her go and that would be the end?”
“No. But maybe it wouldn’t have come to this.”
“It’s difficult to watch someone you love get hurt by the choices they make. It’s not easy to see the train wreck coming and not be able to stop it ahead of time.”
“I understand that it was her choice to stay. But she decided to leave. I was supposed to pick her up the next day. We were going to live together. She would work for me. We’d raise her daughter, Lana, together. We’d be happy. He didn’t just take her from me, he took that joy we could have shared. He took Lana’s mother from her. He took the future Lana would have had with her mom and me. He erased any possibility that he could redeem himself and be the father Lana deserved. And for what? Why?” She really wanted an answer that made sense.
“There is no answer that justifies what he did or will give you an adequate explanation for why it happened.”
She hated that, because she wanted it to make sense.
Dr. Sutton continued. “It’s a tragedy that has a ripple effect on everyone who loved and cared about your sister. For those closest to your sister, like you and Lana, those ripples will feel like a tsunami crashing into your life, altering it irrevocably. You’re already feeling it and seeing its effects. If not for what Rad did to your sister, what else might not have happened?”
“So many things.”
“Hunt told me a bit about what you’ve been through and had to face recently.”
The memories flooded her mind. Drowning. Staring at that poor hiker’s dead body, seeing her sister, but knowing it wasn’t her, but it was her sister’s fate, too. The relief and anguish that she hadn’t found Angela washing over her again even now. Rad shooting at her.The flames growing and the smoke choking her as she faced certain death. Looking down the barrel of a gun at a man who lived on the edge and held little regard for anyone outside those he cared about. Rad shooting Hunt. The fear of thinking she might have lost him raced through her again. She hadn’t paid attention that he wore a bulletproof vest under his uniform.
“I really thought he was mortally wounded,” she confessed. “I didn’t think. I just grabbed his gun and I shot Rad because I hated him for killing my sister and taking Hunt from me. I wasn’t going to let him take Lana, too.”
“That is a very real reaction to what you thought happened. Rad was a threat to you and Lana. You didn’t know what he’d do next.”
“I do. He would have killed me and taken her. He didn’t deserve her. I would have given my life to keep him from taking her.”
“How do you feel about shooting him?”
She didn’t even think, just blurted out, “He deserved it. But it makes me sad.”
Dr. Sutton tilted his head and studied her. “Why?”
“Because it didn’t have to be that way. Because like my sister, he made all the wrong choices. In the end, she finally made the right choice to leave for Lana’s sake. I wish Rad had done the same and turned himself in. That I would have respected. Maybe I’d have even forgiven him one day for what he did. Instead, he forced me to do something I never wanted to do. But I did it for Lana. For Hunt.”
“Do you feel justified in shooting him?”
She didn’t know if that matched her feelings or not. But she did know one thing. “If not for his actions, Iwouldn’t have had to do it. He came after us. He gave me no choice.”
“Have you had, or are you having, any thoughts about harming yourself after all you’ve been through?”