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LETTER ONE
When I began my criminal investigator training, I’ll never forget, one day, while reviewing one of my written tests, the instructor told me to, quote, “always cover your ass.” In other words, never leave anything open for interpretation.
I think that’s why I’m writing these letters.
I think because something in my gut tells me I might need them one day.
So, Kellan, on that note, here I go . . .
It was on our wedding anniversary, of all days, when I told Shepherd about Alyssa Kaing, Macy Swift, and Cora Granger. I don’t even remember how it came up, or why I told him in the first place. We’d celebrated our anniversary at home with pizza and cheap champagne, our favorite way to celebrate anything. We’d both had a lot to drink and were on the back porch reminiscing on the past, which always leads to dark conversation.
I told him everything my therapist, Amber, had confided in me a week earlier after inviting me out for coffee, where she confessed her client’s worst transgressions in hopes I’d be able to do something about them. I told Shepherd that Alyssa Kaing had confessed to witnessing child abuse but did nothing to stop it, that Macy Swift was swindling money from her sick-kid charity, and that Cora Granger was a social worker who’d been fired for complete incompetence resulting in child negligence.
It sickened him.
He asked what I, the town detective, was going to do about it. I explained to him that I couldn’t just go and arrest these people without proper evidence.
After what seemed like an eternity of silence, he looked at me, the moon twinkling in his dark eyes.
He said: “You can’t do anything without proper evidence, huh? That’s what everyone said about us, you know? Think of all the people who could have stepped in and saved us before we were broken, and didn’t because of goddamn red tape.”
And then he said something that I’ll never forget:
“Those children’s blood is on your hands, Rowan, by not doing anything.”
FIFTY-NINE
LETTER TWO
The days surrounding Shepherd losing his job were dark. Very dark. Ever since Shepherd was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder at age fifteen, I have been very careful to keep his life as steady and calm as possible. Change is bad. Change is something that can spin him into an episode almost instantly.
Shepherd’s childhood was much worse than mine. While I was simply cast aside, Shepherd was sexually abused by his father, who, it was later revealed had sexually abused three other children before he was finally convicted. This is when Shepherd was put into the system and treated like every other child who passed through the doors.
But Shepherd was different.
It wasn’t until an FBI special agent, a woman named Darla Thatcher, demanded that Shepherd have full psychiatric testing after having interviewed him several times and established a friendship with him, that his serious mental illness came to light.
Back then, Shepherd went by his first name, Randall. He was called RS, short for Randall Shepherd Velky. I believe that is how Agent Darla Thatcher referred to him.
To this day, Shepherd still talks about Darla. How she was the only person, aside from me, that truly cared for him. The only person to not give up on him.
The only person he trusted.
They kept in touch, Darla and Shepherd, through email, until the day she passed away of breast cancer.
The day after, Shepherd was laid off from work.
SIXTY
LETTER THREE
I found Shepherd’s pills in the trashcan. The bottle was almost completely full, which meant he hadn’t been taking them for weeks, if not longer. When I confronted him about it, and asked why he’d stopped taking them, he said: “I don’t like the way they make me feel.”
I told him this was not acceptable, an argument ensued, which spun into him asking me if I was having an affair.
I said no.
Do you want to know the really messed up thing? My first thought at that moment wasn’t shame, or how my husband knew that I had romantic feelings for my coworker, but instead, it was worry that he might know that the other man in my life is you. I didn’t want you to lose your job. I couldn’t do that to you, the man I truly loved.
