on her job. Letting things like Lisette’s news and silly high school mistakes that her dead husband may have made in the past interfere with her present-day life was a huge problem. What was happening to her?
She heard Gretchen’s voice in her head. You can only push trauma down for so long before it starts coming out in weird ways and at weird times.
Closing her eyes, she took in several deep breaths. She would calm herself down, get control. Then she would take all these strange, cumbersome feelings threatening to overtake her and push them down as far as they would go into some black hole in her mind. She would move on. Go back to work.
“Josie.”
Noah’s voice startled her. She jumped to her feet, swiping at the back of her jeans, brushing off dirt and grass. He stood several feet away, hands jammed into the pockets of his khaki pants.
She said, “What are you doing here?”
He stepped closer until there was only a foot between them. “You didn’t come back. I was worried.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
He shrugged. “You come here when something has really gotten to you, especially when it’s something from your past. Since you just saw Ray’s name on that fingerprint report, that made it a little easier to guess where you’d gone, but to be honest, with what’s going on with Lisette, I would have bet on you being here regardless.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m ready to go back to work.” She hated that her voice quavered.
“Let’s get it out in the open before you go back to work,” he said. “It’s just you, me, and Ray here. Say whatever it is you need to say and then we’ll go back.”
She wanted to punch him. “Why do I always have to say things?”
He smiled. “That’s how talking works. Seriously, it might help.”
“It’s not going to help.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Then just say things to hear yourself talk.”
In spite of the tension knotting her shoulder blades, Josie laughed. Then it turned into a strangled cry. She clamped a hand over her mouth. When she was certain she wasn’t going to sob, she took her hand away. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. I’m so emotional. Everything is just getting to me.”
“It’s been a horrific week, Josie. Our city is damn near destroyed. You found a dead body. You got shot at. You almost died in the river with Vera Urban. Add Lisette’s news to that and it’s a lot to adjust to.”
“But Gram’s news doesn’t matter,” Josie said. “Even finding Ray’s stupid fingerprints on that receipt and his jacket on Beverly’s body doesn’t matter.”
Noah raised a brow. “How does it not matter?”
“None of that should affect me or my work.”
“But it is, and maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s okay for you to have a period of time where you need to mentally process big, difficult things like a normal person.”
“I’m not normal,” she muttered.
“Because of all the messed-up things that happened to you?” Noah asked.
“Not just that,” Josie said. “Because I should be hunting down Beverly Urban’s murderer right now and instead, I’m in the goddamn graveyard where my ex-husband is buried because when we were in high school he might have cheated on me and gotten Beverly pregnant. Who cares?” She threw her arms in the air and began pacing.
“You do,” Noah said. “So let’s go there. What if Ray was seeing Beverly behind your back? What if they were sleeping together, and he got her pregnant? How does that make you feel?”
Josie paused long enough to roll her eyes. “What? Did you take a crash course in psychology or something? Are you serious right now? How does it make me feel?”
When he didn’t respond, staring at her in a way that made it clear he expected an answer, she said, “It makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel sad and alone and like my whole life was a lie.”
“Your whole life?” he coaxed.
She shook her head as though that could clear it. “Noah, nothing about my life was what it seemed. My mother wasn’t really my mother. My dad wasn’t really my dad. He didn’t really kill himself. My grandmother wasn’t really my grandmother. My goddamn name wasn’t even Josie. Don’t you get it? The only thing that was real, that was true, that was consistent in my life was Ray. Since I was nine years old he was…” She searched for words, for the right metaphors.