Reckless

Had she started all this violence, this horror, by orchestrating Captain Daley’s death?

Had she opened Pandora’s Box?

She’d been so sure of that at the time, so certain. After what Bob Daley did it had felt right. Just. Necessary. But now she’d started to doubt even that decision. It was as if she’d lost the ability to tell right from wrong. What had seemed so clear, so black-and-white, now looked murky and gray.

Was that what it was like for you, Tracy? On the run from the law for all those years? On the run from us? Did you always feel like one of the good guys—like Robin Hood—or did you ever doubt? Wake up in the night and think to yourself, “What have I become? I’m just a liar and a thief.”

Tracy Whitney had changed, of course. Gone straight. Settled down.

But could you ever really escape your past? The dark side of your nature?

“Kate?”

Dr. Lucy Grey’s voice broke her reverie. She wondered how long she’d been sitting there, lost in thought.

“Please let me help you. Tell me what’s happened. You obviously came here today for a reason.”

Kate Evans stood up.

“I can’t. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”

She was about to leave when a sudden, searing pain shot through her head, as if she’d been struck by lightning. With a terrible moan she sank back onto the couch, pressing both hands against her skull.

“What just happened?” Lucy rushed over to her patient. “Are you OK?”

Kate moaned again, a terrible, animal sound, full of anguish.

“I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No! Please.” Panic flashed in the young widow’s eyes. “It will pass. It’s those children. In France. Their bodies, shot to pieces . . . I can’t stop seeing them!”

Lucy’s ears pricked up. This was a clue. This was something.

She was talking about the Camp Paris shootings, at Neuilly. They’d been all over the news.

Kate’s husband, Daniel, had been killed in Iraq, on some mission for the CIA. Probably shot. Had the latest

Group 99 atrocity brought back painful memories? Perhaps the haunting images on television reminded Kate of Daniel’s death? Or the children that the two of them would never have.

“You’ve been dreaming about the Neuilly School shootings?”

Leaning forward suddenly, Kate grasped the therapist’s hands. “Dreaming, yes. But it happened. I made it happen.”

Lucy said, “It may seem that way to you, Kate. But you didn’t cause this. You don’t have that power. No one does.”

“But that’s just it. I do!” Kate wailed. “Daniel’s gone. Those kids are gone. Gone, gone, gone. Dead and gone. Never coming back.”

“That’s right,” Lucy said calmly. “They are never coming back. But you’re not responsible. For their deaths, or your husband’s.”

Kate slumped back again, clutching her head and moaning, as if she were in labor. It was distressing to watch. But Dr. Grey felt on firmer ground now. She’d seen these episodes countless times in her career. Psychotic breaks, brought on by stress, or grief, or a single, traumatic event.

She would call her psychiatrist friend, Bill Winter.

Bill would get Kate on the right meds. After that it was just a question of rest.

“You lay here for a while.” She covered her client in a blanket as you would a sleeping child. “I’m going to make a call.”

AN HOUR LATER, DR. Lucy Grey watched as a heavily sedated Kate Evans was driven away in an ambulance.