Page 21 of Trusting a Warrior

“What about him?”

“He’s military, too. Air Force special ops.”

“A pararescueman?” When Lani nodded, Maura went on. “He must’ve been gone a lot.”

“He was. All the time.”

“Is that why you broke up?”

“No.” To her horror, Lani felt tears sting her eyes. “We broke up because all I did was let him down.”

“What do you mean? How did you let him down?” There was no judgment in Maura’s tone, only gentle inquiry.

“Because I couldn’t cope.”

“With what?”

“With everything,” Lani said harshly. “With his absences, the things he tried to share with me—”

She broke off, unable to go on. After a beat of silence, Maura said, “About what he saw on deployment?”

“That, and—and about my brother. Rhys is the one who found him.”

“Oh.” There was a wealth of understanding in that one breathed word. “Tell me.”

Lani did, about hearing the gunshot, about Rhys rushing downstairs and then back up, how he’d refused to let her go see, too.

“He called the cops, and when they got there, they handcuffed us and treated us like criminals.”

Maura winced. “That’s actually standard procedure. They need to ascertain it’s not a murder made to look like a suicide.”

“My parents fell apart. They blamed me—”

“Why do you think they blamed you?”

Lani grit her teeth as the memories clawed to the surface. “Because I’m the one who missed all the warning signs. Everything.”

“Like what?”

Plopping her cup down on the table again, she clasped her trembling hands between her knees. “He’d quit his job out of the blue. He said ‘Fuck Dad’ when I knew he idolized our father. His eyes were distant and sad.”

“And did the thought ever cross your mind, even for one minute, that he was going to kill himself?”

“No!” Lani gasped. “Oh, my God, no! If it had, I would have—”

“You would’ve done everything in your power to stop him,” Maura said softly. “But you didn’t know.”

“I should have—”

“You. Didn’t. Know. You cannot accept responsibility for that.”

The last of Lani’s tenuous control slipped away. “Yes, I can,” she shouted. “I was the last one to see him alive. I could have stopped him! Don’t tell me I couldn’t have.”

Leaping to her feet and grabbing up her purse, she strode toward the door, her whole body shaking with a combination of rage and confusion. Therapy was supposed to be helping, not ripping her skin off layer by layer.

“How do you know you didn’t?”

The quiet words stopped her in her tracks. “What?” She dashed the back of her hand over her cheeks. “What the hell are you talking about?”