City of the Lost (Rockton 1)

during my interviews. Whenever he has to leave, Anders stops by, and I suspect that's no accident. Dalton isn't taking chances. There's a killer in town and so his injured detective is under full-time guard.

It's Dalton who's there when Petra comes by partway through my interviews. I hear them talking and I sit upright. One thing I haven't had so far is actual visitors, so while it's possible Petra just needed to talk to Dalton, I'm hoping ...

Light footsteps sound on the stairs and then a head peeks through the half-open door. "Hey, heard you're playing hooky, faking a knife attack."

"It's the only way to get out of work around here."

"No kidding, huh?" She sits on the edge of the bed and puts a rolled-up sheet of paper on the night stand. When I glance at it, she says, "Look later. I hate being around when people see my work. There's that really awkward moment where they have to look excited no matter how much they hate it."

"Doesn't that go for any gift?"

She laughs. "If you're a nice person, I guess it does. So, how are you doing?"

"Healing. As knife attacks go, it wasn't too bad."

She shakes her head. "And otherwise? How are you doing?"

"You mean..."

"Diana."

I sigh and lean back against the pillows. "Besides feeling like a complete idiot? My best friend gets back together with her abusive ex, and I don't realize it? They steal a million bucks, and I don't know it? They have my lover shot, and I never suspect a thing? Some detective I am, huh?"

"I think you're wearing that whip out."

"I just feel so stupid. It's like reading a detective novel and you hit the end and the killer is a complete surprise, but when you re-read, you realize all the clues were right there. Given what I do for a living, I should have seen them."

"You did. I know you did."

I shift position. "And doesn't that make it worse?"

"No, it makes you human. She was your friend. You wanted to think the best of her. You saw flaws, but we all have flaws. It's not as if she befriended you a few months ago to put this all in motion. You were friends. It just may not have been the healthiest friendship."

"To put it mildly..."

Petra continues. "I've had toxic friends. I've even been the toxic friend, when things were bad, really bad, and I needed so much and I..." She stops and swallows. "And this is about you."

I look at her. "It doesn't have to be."

She manages a smile. "It will be, for now. I know Isabel would say confession is good for the soul ... though I suspect she means so she can use your secrets against you, rather than because it's therapeutic."

I laugh softly. "Probably."

"But sometimes confessing trauma just feels like reliving it, you know?"

I think of all those times in a therapist's chair, retelling my story. It wasn't just about confessing. It wasn't just about that magical thinking, testing fate to see if I deserved to be caught. It was about flagellating myself, exactly like Petra said. Reliving it so I could torment myself with every excruciating moment.

Petra says, "I think my ten minutes are up, which means Eric will come tromping up those stairs at any moment. You need to mourn Diana, Casey. Let yourself mourn her. She was your friend. No matter what."

We hear Dalton's footsteps then and Petra leaves, and while she's talking to him downstairs, I open the sketch. It's me on Cricket, racing Anders back to the stable. I'm grinning and I look so happy, hunched down in the saddle with my hair blowing back. There are others in the picture. Dalton on Blaze, following at a normal pace--I swear I can see him shaking his head at us. Petra's there too, on the sidelines cheering us on with others from our bar group. Diana's with them. She has her arms raised, pumping the air and shouting as I take the lead. I see her face lit up and I know that isn't fake. There'd been no reason to pretend anymore--we were in Rockton and she'd gotten what she wanted from me and yet she'd still cheered me on in that race.

"Ready for the next interview?" Dalton calls up, and I wipe away a tear, quickly reroll the sketch and yell back, "Send her up!"

When my interviews are done, I nap. I have to--I'm still exhausted. I dream of the forest and of Jacob, and even asleep, my mind works the case. It's possible that paranoid delusions drove Jacob to kill Abbygail, Powys, and Hastings in the forest. Irene could be a separate case, like Mick. But Abbygail died two months ago, and Dalton says Jacob was fine a few weeks ago.

I'm thinking of that and then dream I'm back in the forest, Jacob with the knife at my throat, and I feel his hand on my shoulder, and my eyes open, and I see his grey eyes right above mine, and I lash out, right hook catching him in the jaw, the left in the gut, and he falls onto me ... onto the bed with me, and I realize it's not Jacob I've hit. It's Dalton.

He backs up fast, wincing.