Into the Fire (30 page)

Dave had stayed with her that night, and the next few nights after, sleeping on her sofa. He’d somehow known that the nightmares of Dimitri’s death would come rushing back, and with it the irrational, smothering fear of being alone.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” Dr. Heissman said now to Sophia.

The beginning.
One of the first times I talked to Murphy—really talked to him—he told me he was engaged to be married. He positively sparkled when he talked about Angelina. God, he loved her so much…

“It was a dinner party,” Sophia told her instead, because when Dr. Heissman said beginning, she meant the beginning of the evening that Angelina was shot. “Casual. Pizza.” Surely the doctor knew this already. “Kelly—my boss’s wife—called me, last minute. Murphy and Angelina were bringing the pictures they took on their honeymoon. There was also a blind date element—well, not really a
blind
date. I’d met the man before—his name was Cosmo—when he came into the office. He was one of Tommy’s SEALs. It was pretty clear, though, when I got there, that Kelly was trying to set us up and…” She shook her head. “She meant well, but it was a little awkward. I wouldn’t have come if I’d known. Murphy knew that and…” She trailed off, remembering.

Angelina had been too much of a walking party to be aware, but Murphy had taken note of Sophia’s discomfort immediately.

He’d pulled her aside, moments after he and Angelina had arrived.
You okay?

I think I’m most disturbed by the realization that now, whenever someone invites me over, I’m going to have to worry that they’re trying to set me up with some friend.

Murphy’d hugged and noogied her, his knuckles against the top of her head.
Angel and I will never do that. I’m making a promise to you right now. I meet George Clooney on the street, he wants to come over for dinner—I’m absolutely
not
calling you.

Sophia had laughed—Murphy could always make her laugh—but she’d also gotten tense because Tom and Cosmo had come in from the deck. And Murphy had whispered,
Say the word, and I’ll help you play the stomach flu card. You know, “Sophia thinks she might be coming down with that bug everyone’s getting. Me and Angelina’ll drive her home.”

Sophia had wanted, so badly, to say
Yes, please. Get me out of here.

She’d wanted to go home. Instead, she’d smiled at Murphy and said
I’ll be fine.

Sophia now looked up at Dr. Heissman, who was just sitting quietly, watching her.

“Sorry,” Sophia said.

“Remembering one of those minutes that might’ve changed everything?” Dr. Heissman asked, with a perception that was uncanny.

“Murph saw that I was uncomfortable and offered to drive me home,” she said. “So yes, it might’ve. Or it would have ended Angelina’s life that much sooner. The shooter was believed to have followed Murphy up to Tom and Kelly’s. He may already have been in position.” She needed a sip of water—her throat was so dry. “We’ll never know, because I stayed.”

“You stayed,” the doctor echoed.

“Which is why Murphy cut all ties with me, because maybe, if I’d said yes…” She shook her head as she put her bottle of water back on the table. “He blames me. He blames everyone. I know exactly what that feels like. Because, see, mostly he blames himself. Although he has no clue what it’s like to
really
be responsible for…” She stopped. Took another sip of water.

Even though she hadn’t finished her sentence, she knew she’d opened a door.

Sure enough, Dr. Heissman came inside. “You feel responsible for your husband’s death.” She said it as a statement, not as a question.

“I
am
responsible,” Sophia squared her shoulders and told her. “I trusted business partners I shouldn’t have. I walked us into what was supposed to be a lunch meeting with the man who killed him.
Lunch.
With a man I knew was dangerous. What was I thinking? And yet, to this day, I cannot talk to a friend who tried to convince us to leave Kazabek after the coup. Our world was dissolving around us. I remember she said those words to me and I laughed at the melodrama, because I just didn’t believe it. But she was right. And I still sometimes think, why didn’t she try harder? Why didn’t she insist we leave, too? It’s absurd, I know it. It’s juvenile. It’s not even
close
to her fault. And yet, I don’t answer her e-mails. I…can’t face her. As Murphy can’t face me, because I didn’t ask him to drive me home.”

“Maybe you should,” Dr. Heissman said slowly, “talk to this friend who has reached out to you. You could ask her forgiveness—for not listening.”

Sophia shook her head. “That’s not what I said.”

“Isn’t it?”

“I’m the one who can’t forgive
her.
”

“Those were the
words
you said,” she agreed. “That’s your reasoning for why you didn’t try to reach out to Murphy. But what I
heard
was that, after all this time, you can’t forgive yourself for your husband’s death.”

Sophia laughed her surprise. “Why
I
didn’t try to reach out…?”

“Did you look for Murphy? After he left the hospital? After Angelina’s memorial service?”

“No,” Sophia admitted.

“You just…made up excuses for why he’d never come talk to you?”

Made up? Sophia was silent, because she couldn’t deny it.

“Did anyone at Troubleshooters reach out to Murphy?” the doctor asked, not unkindly.

Sophia nodded. “Dave did. He was always trying to find Murph. Always.” Thank God for Dave.

“It’s okay that you didn’t,” Dr. Heissman said, leaning forward slightly, “reach out to Murphy. You know that, right? Having lost—” She stopped herself. “Having a spouse die violently, in front of you, and then being witness, again, to another violent crime in which your friend’s wife was killed…? You’re certainly allowed to keep your distance from Murphy’s pain. I just think you should be honest—with yourself—about why you do the things you do.”

Sophia nodded again as tears flooded her eyes. “I lied,” she whispered, blinking them back. “When we started the session. I was glad Murph wasn’t there. I’m so afraid to see him.”

“And yet you came all this way, to be present, in case he was here,” Dr. Heissman pointed out. “That makes you pretty courageous.”

Sophia just shook her head. “I’m not.”

“Maybe,” the doctor suggested, “Murphy can be the person you talk to. Maybe you can tell him the things you haven’t been able to tell anyone else—about Dimitri’s death. Maybe he can help you forgive yourself. It really doesn’t matter, Sophia, if you’re truly responsible or if you just think you are. Either way, you deserve to forgive yourself, and to stop punishing yourself. Do you know why most people hang on to anger and blame after a loved one is violently murdered?” She answered her own question. “It keeps us feeling connected to our loved ones. Because with forgiveness comes release. When we finally start to let go of the anger, it can feel scary and even wrong—as if we’re losing that final piece of our loved ones—until we realize that we already have the ultimate connection. We loved them. We love them still. We carry them always in our hearts.”

“I wish I could tell Dimitri that I’m sorry,” Sophia whispered.

“Did he love you?” Dr. Heissman asked.

Sophia nodded. “Very much.”

“Then I’m pretty sure,” Dr. Heissman said, “that he knows.”

They sat for a moment in silence, then the doctor spoke again. “This may seem like too much all at once, but…I really need to ask you some questions about an incident that happened several years ago. With Lawrence Decker? In Kazbekistan. It must’ve been just a few weeks after your husband died.”

Sophia sat very still. “Did he talk to you about…what happened?”

“He brought it up,” the doctor said. “Yes.”

She could only imagine what he’d said. “Deck still blames himself,” Sophia told her. “I see it in his eyes. He thinks it was this terrible, awful thing. And maybe it was, for him. But for me?” She shook her head. “At that time, after what I’d lived through—Dimitri’s murder and…For me, it was just another day, another meaningless blow job. By that point, I’d used sex, for so long, just to stay alive…I used Decker’s attraction to me to try to distract him—so that I could kill him. At the time, neither of us realized that we were both on the same side. And I
would
have killed him, I tried—because I thought it was him or me. If
I
could forgive myself for that, why can’t
he
?”

Dr. Heissman just sat, quietly, listening.

Sophia leaned forward. “You know what’s
really
stupid?”

The doctor shook her head.

“I barely remember it. The sex. I remember that he managed to follow me back to this abandoned hotel where I was hiding. I remember talking to him, and being afraid. I remember crying so that he’d put his arms around me. And I know what I did. I know that I kissed him, and I unfastened his pants and…But I really don’t remember it. I remember him hitting me—knocking me down to get the gun out of my hand after I fired it. And I remember waiting then, for him to kill me. But he didn’t. Instead, he…”

Sophia couldn’t say it. Her throat tightened and she couldn’t get the words out. And the tears that she’d successfully fought while talking about Dimitri overflowed her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

Dr. Heissman just waited. Patient. Respectful.

Decker had paid her. Five dollars, American. He’d tossed the slightly tattered scrip onto the floor, next to her. Like she was some low-rent whore.

“He paid me for the sex,” Sophia whispered, “and he left.”

S
ACRAMENTO
, C
ALIFORNIA

They parked around the corner.

It wasn’t so much that Murphy was afraid the police would come investigate if a neighbor noticed a strange car in Steve and Paul’s driveway. They owned a repair garage with three huge bays, which meant there were always a half dozen or so strange cars parked there.

It was more of an escape option—which was just as ridiculous because they hadn’t been followed. Murphy had made damn certain of that.

Still, he positioned the car on the street, beneath one of Steve and Paul’s living room windows. Of course, the apartment was on the second story, which would make an escape out that window problematic. More so for Hannah who definitely needed to restrict her jumping for a while.

She was silent as she got out of the car, as she shouldered the bag of clothes they’d left locked in the back during their foray into the woods.

Murphy lifted the strap off her shoulder, taking it from her as he gave her a look. She wasn’t fooling him. Her ankle was hurting her badly, and he knew it.

She was trying not to limp, but enough of that bullcrap—he didn’t ask, he just looped her arm around his shoulders, held her around the waist, and supported most of her weight.

They headed down the back alley, toward the wooden stairs leading up to Steve and Paul’s kitchen door, with Hannah trying not to reveal just how much her ankle hurt, and Murphy trying not to think about his right hand, which had accidentally slipped up beneath the edge of Hannah’s T-shirt. He tried not to think about the smoothness of her skin, the soft curve of her waist.

They made it to the stairs, which were easier for Hannah to navigate on her own, holding the railing with her left hand and bracing her right against the side of the building. Murphy let her go first, ready to catch her if she faltered.

“Still smells like french fries,” she said, and it did. Steve had always been something of a mad scientist, and he and Paul had a business converting cars to run on bio-fuel. They lived above their garage, and the entire area smelled, indeed, like cooking oil. They collected vats of used oil from restaurants and used it to power their cars.

The super-size-me odor didn’t permeate the apartment though, thank God, even though they had a plastic container for collecting used oil under their kitchen sink as well. Hannah jimmied the lock and opened the door like a pro.

“Not bad for a cop,” he said.

“Former cop,” she reminded him.

“Being a cop’s like being a Marine,” Murphy said. “There’s no such thing as former.”

It was cool and dim inside with the shades already pulled down.

He closed the door behind him, putting on the chain—like that would help—and dropped their bag on the kitchen floor.

“Anyone home?” Hannah called, looking to Murph to see if there was a response.

He shook his head. The place was as silent as a tomb.

It would’ve taken him forty-five quick seconds to thoroughly check out the apartment, but that would’ve meant leaving Hannah alone in the kitchen, and he wasn’t making that mistake again. Instead, he looped her arm, again, around his shoulders, this time being more careful—pulling her T-shirt down before he held her at the waist.

Together they slowly went through the place. It was clear that Paul had made an effort to tidy up before leaving. And it was definitely Paul’s work. Steve was one of those guys who filled whatever space was available, and left a trail of clutter behind him.

But right now, their bed was neatly made.

No one was home. Not even their cat. The litter box sat empty in the master bathroom. Hannah saw it, too, and briefly met Murphy’s eyes.

They must’ve dropped Hercules at a friend’s.

“How did you know they wouldn’t be back?” Hannah finally spoke, as they went down the hall to the back rooms, one of which was Steve’s office. “I thought you didn’t get through when you called.”

Steve obviously hadn’t let Paul anywhere near the little room where he kept his desk and computer. It looked as if a bomb had gone off, with papers and files cluttering every available surface, and piles of books everywhere else, many of which had grown too high and tipped over.

“I didn’t,” Murphy said. “There was an article, I must’ve read it online. About some conference…”

“The Grassroots Alternative Energy Symposium?” Hannah said, and he looked at her in surprise.

She gestured with her chin to the corkboard that hung on the office wall. Where, sure enough, there was a flyer about a conference being held in Boston—featuring a special appearance by one Dr. Steven Downes.