My heart swelled. My father had never been a rich man, but he surely was rich in the area of wisdom. I reached over to pat his hand, but before I could, my cell phone buzzed.

“Excuse me.” I grabbed my phone out of my purse.

Shit. It was Ted Morse again.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Talon

So here I was, again, gripping the arms of the green recliner in Dr. Carmichael’s office.

Since I had to stay in Grand Junction until seven p.m. anyway, to meet Shem back over at the body shop, I figured I might as well do something constructive. Dr. Carmichael had been amenable to meeting me on weekends in the past, so I’d given her a quick call. She agreed to meet me for an impromptu session.

“What do you want to talk about today, Talon?”

I shook my head. “Hell if I know.”

“Have you thought about what we talked about last time? About why you wanted to survive even when you thought you didn’t want to?”

“Not really. I mean, clearly I wanted to survive. I did everything they made me do in order to survive. Even though most of the time I wished I were dead.”

“There’s a big difference between wishing you were dead and actually being dead. I know that doesn’t make sense, but the subconscious understands it.”

I let out a shaky breath. “I’m glad. I mean…I’m glad I didn’t die.”

She smiled. “I know you are. I’m glad you didn’t too. You will get through this. You’ve come so far already. I’m amazed at your progress.”

She paused, and I had no idea what to say to that. Thank you? That seemed trite. I desperately hoped she’d start speaking again.

She did.

“So you said on the phone you think you’ve identified two of your attackers now.”

“Yeah. I can’t be sure, but things sure seem to add up.”

“And both those men have disappeared?”

“Yep. And get this. One of them is my half uncle.”

“What?” She raised her brows.

“Yeah. Jade’s boss, the sleazebag district attorney. Larry Wade. Jade did some investigation, and I was able to confirm it. He and my mother had the same father. It was covered up years ago, and I can’t figure out why.”

“That is odd.”

I shook my head. “I’ve been over and over it in my mind, Doc. The only thing I can come up with is that my father and mother somehow managed to cover up our relationship with Larry because they knew what kind of man he was.”

“It’s possible.”

“But if they knew what kind of man he was, maybe they knew…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the words. Had my mother and father actually known the identity of one of my attackers? And had they let him off the hook? No, that couldn’t have happened.

“Are you suggesting that they knew he was one of the men who kidnapped you?”

“I don’t know. But why else would they want to cover up the relationship to him?”

“We can only speculate, Talon. Both of your parents are dead, so we can’t ask them. And unfortunately, you’re going to have to accept the fact that some of these questions may never be answered.”

“I guess. But damn, it sticks in my craw. How could a relative… I mean, I was his nephew.”

Dr. Carmichael leaned forward. “You can’t trouble yourself with those questions. There will never be an answer to satisfy you. It’s highly likely that this man, this Larry, is innocent. There’s no way to know if he indeed was one of the perpetrators. But if he was? These men were psychopaths. It wouldn’t have mattered if you were his nephew or even his son. He didn’t see you as a human being. These men saw you as a toy, a plaything. So don’t try to make sense out of it. It’s senseless.”

“I just want to understand.”

“My point is that you can’t. The only one who can understand a psychopath is another psychopath. It’s better that you don’t understand. Trust me. But you do need to accept that. A normal person with a normal personality can never understand the horrors committed by the criminally insane. They’re not meant to.”

“But why me?”

Dr. Carmichael shook her head. “That’s another question that may never be answered. You were in the right place at the right time. Or rather the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“If only I hadn’t gone looking for Luke.”

“But you did. And you suffered the consequences. ‘What ifs’ don’t do anyone any good, Talon. All you can do is accept the past and move forward.”

I knew that. God, I’d heard it enough—not just from Dr. Carmichael, but from my brothers.

“You say I’ve come a long way. What makes you say that? I don’t feel particularly different.”

“Are you kidding? You’ve come a very long way. You can now talk about this without losing consciousness or sending yourself into a flashback. That’s huge.”

True. The first time I’d come to see Dr. Carmichael, I’d ended up in the ER after a fainting spell. She was right.

“And you’ve opened up. You’ve told Jade you love her. You’ve told your sister about your experiences.”

“And I’ve been able to say I’m sorry.”

“Did that trouble you before?”

I nodded. “It’s not that I wasn’t sorry. And it’s not that I didn’t know when I should be sorry. It’s just that I had to force the words out.”

“And it’s easier now?”

“Yeah, I don’t know why, but it is.”

“I think I know why that is.”

“Why?”

She looked me straight in the eye. “Because you stopped blaming others. You’ve stopped resenting others because this didn’t happen to them. It happened to you.”

I looked down at my hands clenching the armchair. Had I done that? Had I really? I closed my eyes. “That’s a heavy statement to make, Doctor.”

“Yes, it is. And look at how you’re dealing with it. Your fingers are clenched around that armchair, but you’re not storming out of here. You’re not yelling at me that I’m wrong. That’s got to say something.”