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Jamie turned, offering a weak smile. “I did too, Rom. She knew that, right?”
“Oh yes. Oh, Jamie, and she was so in love with you too.”
Jamie turned quickly away, hiding his face, and Rom sat down next to him, reaching over and grabbing him in a tight embrace. He returned it awkwardly.
“I can’t think straight, Rom,” he said after the hug. “It’s like now she’s gone, she’s taken a piece of me with her, and I’ll never be the same again.” He looked at her with reddened eyes, grief lining his face. “She was my soul mate. My everything. Every moment I spent apart from her—working late, out with friends, getting pissed with Adam—that was wasted. I should have been with her.” He paused. “Don’t let that happen to you, Rom.”
She felt tears prickle behind her eyes, and nodded quickly. She couldn’t answer. She’s always felt the same way about Adam. That being next to him, loving him, is as natural as breathing. That they were part of the same person, implicitly understanding each other and what they’ve been through. She hasn’t felt that same contentment since she lost him, and now he is back in her life, she feels the wave of devotion growing again.
She tries to explain this to Dr. Jones, the words coming out muddled and messy.
“I can’t imagine how I’d feel if that had been Adam,” Romilly says. “I’d be utterly destroyed. And now all I can think about is how I screwed up our marriage.”
“That was your fault, was it?”
“I slept with that man. I was unfaithful.”
“And what led you to that point?” the doctor asks.
Romilly frowns. Adam’s increasing distance, his pulling away that left her confused and alone.
The doctor places her notepad to her side. She leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees, looking straight at Rom. “It seems to me, Romilly,” the doctor says, “that you’re to blame for a lot of what’s gone on lately.”
Romilly feels the doctor’s words physically, like a blade through her skin.
“The end of your marriage with Adam,” the doctor continues. “Your argument with Phil, because you insist on seeing the ex-husband you’re clearly still in love with. Even Pippa’s death. That was your old house where she was held. Your father that the killer is in awe of, or else he’s following his orders.”
The tears that have threatened for so long start to come, running down her cheeks. But despite this, she feels a wave of indignation.
“I didn’t kill Pippa. It’s not my fault these people are dying.”
“Exactly. So, I’m wondering, why do you feel that it is?”
Romilly blinks, astonished, through her tears. The therapist sits back in her seat, crossing her legs again.
“When I say it out loud, it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?” Jones continues, smooth and calm. “You got annoyed. Angry. So why, when your own internal voice says that, do you believe it? Romilly?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“You need to tell yourself that. Regularly. Talk to your reflection in a mirror. Speak to yourself in the car. Whatever. But you have to make sure you repeat it and you listen. You did not kill those women, back in 1995. You are not responsible for the deaths now. Right?”
Romilly nods. Dr. Jones passes her a tissue, and she blows her nose.
“And speak to Adam. It’s not too late to make amends. However it turns out.”
Romilly walks away from the appointment, her mind reeling. The doctor’s words repeat in her head. “You are not to blame.” Up to this point, her whole life has been lived in service. Desperately trying to atone for the sins of her father.
But it’s been a Sisyphean task. As a doctor, there’s always one more person to help, another life to save.
“You are not to blame.”
She wants to believe it. She does. How nice would it be, to release the boulder and let it all go. But how can you? her brain spits back as she gets in the car, as she goes to drive home. How can you, when you know it’s not true?
CHAPTER
44
“YOU SHOULDN’T BE here, Bishop,” Ross says the moment he walks into the mortuary. “You have a personal relationship with the victim.”
