Gonzo had about twenty—or maybe it was thirty—unanswered calls from the department shrink, reminding him he needed to make his next appointment. Like the last time Gonzo had seen him, Trulo would make him talk about it when that was the last freaking thing he wanted to do. How in the hell would that help anything? Let’s tear the scab off the wound and poke a sharp stick in it because that’ll surely make everything better. So he was avoiding Trulo and all the other do-gooders who wanted to “help.” As if there was anything anyone could do.

“Tommy.” Christina’s soft voice jarred him. He hadn’t seen her coming. His reflexes weren’t what they used to be if she could sneak up on him in the dark.

“What?”

“Are you coming to bed?”

“No.” It wasn’t her fault. None of this was her fault. He told himself that a thousand times a day as she hovered over him, her care and concern wearing on his already-frazzled nerves. It was hard to believe that only a few short weeks ago, they’d been talking about making time to get married. And now he wanted to tell her to leave him alone. He wished everyone would just leave him the hell alone. But they didn’t. In addition to Christina, he had his family and colleagues around his neck too.

If Cruz called him one more time to “check in” he was going to tell him to fuck off. What did they want from him anyway?

“Will you please come to bed? You need to sleep.”

“No, I don’t need to sleep.” Sleep brought nightmares, and the last fucking thing he wanted was to relive it—again. “I need to be alone.” On the outer edges of his mind, in the place where the man he used to be lived, he knew he was making an extraordinary mess of the most precious relationship in his life. But he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Christina knelt on the floor in front of him, her hands flat against his thighs. There’d been a time, not that long ago, when that would’ve been enough to fire him up. Now he felt nothing for her or his son or his family or his friends. He felt absolutely nothing but pain.

“You’re scaring me, Tommy. You can’t go on this way. You need help. You have to let us help you.”

“I don’t have to do anything. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I can’t possibly know what you went through that night, but the Tommy I know and love—”

“Is dead. That guy died on a sidewalk right along with his partner. So if you don’t like the new and improved Tommy, maybe you should cut your losses and get out.”

Her face went slack with shock, tears flooding her eyes. “You don’t mean that.”