“I never thought…”

“Of course you didn’t. This would’ve been on an entirely subliminal level. Look at your brothers, for example. You love them, and you never thought you blamed them for any of this. But deep inside, you resented that it had to happen to you instead of them.”

“That’s not true. I’m really glad this didn’t happen to either of my brothers. I mean that.”

“I know you do. That’s not what I mean. You wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I absolutely believe that. But in the back of your mind, you were resentful. You were resentful that it was you. Why not someone else? Why not some other kid you didn’t even know? You may be thankful that it wasn’t Ryan or Jonah, but in the back of your mind, you wonder, why not one of them? Why did it have to be you?”

Could she be right? “And you think that explains why I had such a problem saying I was sorry?”

“I think it explains it very well. Don’t you?”

I shook my head, my lips trembling. “God, I never meant to…”

“I know. The subconscious mind is very powerful, though. And the good news is that you’re healing. Now you can tell people you’re sorry. You’re moving forward. You will heal.”

“I hope so. I’ve been carrying this burden for so long. I never thought I would ever be free of it. I don’t know that I ever can be totally free of it.”

“No, you’ll never be completely free of it. It will always be part of your history, part of your psyche, part of what makes you Talon Steel. But what you can do is let it stay in your past, move forward, let yourself love and be loved. You’ve come such a long way already. I know it may not feel like you have, but just the fact that you can say you’re sorry to someone. That’s huge.”

Was she right? And then something dawned on me—like a light bulb moment. I was amazed I hadn’t realized it before now. “Wow,” I said aloud.

“What is it?”

“I can’t remember the last time I went to the kitchen at night to stare at a glass of water.”

 

The experts I’d retained before I went to Dr. Carmichael’s met me at Shem’s body shop at seven. We entered around back, and Shem let us in the locked gate.

“The car’s over here,” Shem said.

He led us to a black Bentley. A fucking Bentley. I was no stranger to nice cars, though I preferred my old pickup to my Mercedes-Benz.

“Shem,” I said, “thanks for letting us in. This is Bill Friedman and Clark Tyson. They’ve agreed to take a look and see if the airbag was tampered with.”

“Go right ahead,” Shem said.

“Thanks.” I handed Shem some bills. “For your trouble.”

“I’ll just be over here looking the other way.” He ambled back inside the shop.

The two guys looked at the car for about half an hour and then came back to me.

“I wish we had better news for you, Mr. Steel,” Friedman said. “Because the car has been completely rebuilt since the accident and a new airbag put in, there’s just no way to tell if the original was tampered with. Do you think Shem in there has the original airbag? The one that didn’t deploy?”

“I don’t have a clue, but we can ask him.”

I motioned to Shem through the window.

He came out. “Yeah?”

“The guys here can’t find any problem with the airbag. Nothing indicated it had been tampered with.”

“I was afraid of that. I mean, we completed the work. We had no reason to suspect any wrongdoing, so we didn’t look for anything.”

“Do you have the original airbag? The one that didn’t deploy? I assume you put in a new functioning airbag.”

“We sure did. I’ll have to look around and see if we still have the old airbag. It was trash. I don’t know why we would have kept it.”

“Do you remember anything odd about the airbag when you removed it?” Friedman asked.

“Can’t say that I do, but again, I wasn’t looking for anything.”

“Sensor could’ve been bad, or the airbag could’ve been an old airbag with holes in it,” Tyson said. “Anything like that?”

Shem shook his head again. “I wish I could help you fellows. But like I said, we weren’t looking for anything.”

“Likely you’d have noticed if the airbag was bad itself,” Friedman said. “I’m going to have to assume it might’ve been a faulty sensor. And now that the new one’s been installed, we have no way of proving the sensor was faulty in the first place. Even if it was a faulty sensor, that doesn’t mean someone put it there. It’s a machine. Parts go bad on their own sometimes.”

I sighed. “Do normal people off the street know how to put in airbag sensors?”

Shem laughed. “Are you kidding? We get so many doctors and lawyers in here who don’t have a clue. I used to work as a mechanic before I got into bodywork. It’s amazing how the most intelligent people in the world know nothing about cars.”

“Then it’s doubtful that the owner of the car could’ve fiddled with the sensor himself.” I was thinking aloud. I’d have to find out who had serviced this car in the past. I turned to Friedman and Tyson. “Gentlemen, I appreciate your time. Very much.” I handed them each an envelope full of cash.

“Thank you, Mr. Steel,” Friedman said. “I wish we had better news for you.”

“It was a long shot. I appreciate you coming out on a Saturday evening.”

I said my goodbyes to all three and got in my car. Somehow, I had to figure out where that car had been serviced in the past. And if Nico Kostas was who I thought he was, and if he had done what I thought he’d done, the trail would be difficult—damned near impossible—to pick up.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Jade

“Hello, Ted.”

“Jade, how is your mother?”

I didn’t think for a minute that he gave a damn about my mother. “She’s doing well. Out of the woods.”

“Good, good. Glad to hear it. I suppose the cops have talked to you by now?”

“I’m sure you know that they have. I’m sure they’ve given you a full report.”