“You need me to remember.” Then, on the heels of that thought: “You’re not here as my partner, are you, Phil? This isn’t cop to cop. You need to know what I saw that night, detective to witness.”

He didn’t say a word. Alex continued to run the ball of his thumb across the ridge of her knuckles.

She stared at her coffee mug.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I totally understand. And of course I’ll help. I’d do anything to help.”

Former detective D. D. Warren, she thought. And tried to remind herself that in her heart, she knew she was lucky, even if her brain couldn’t accept it yet.

Chapter 3

ONE P.M. MONDAY, I confronted my newest patient and knew immediately that Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren was a born skeptic.

It didn’t surprise me. I’d been in the pain management business long enough to have assisted numerous first responders—police officers, EMTs, firefighters. People drawn to jobs that demanded the most of them, physically as well as mentally. People who thrived on being in the thick of things, calling the shots, running the action, controlling the plays.

In other words, people who didn’t do well sitting on the sidelines, while a therapist in a thousand-dollar suit explained how the first step to managing her pain was to get in touch with it. Give it a name. Develop an ongoing relationship.

“Seriously?” Detective D. D. Warren asked me now. She sat rigidly, perched in a simple wooden chair versus the low-slung sofa that was also available. Without even examining her medical charts, I could tell she suffered from acute neck and shoulder pain. It was written in her stiff posture, how she rotated her entire body to take in the room, versus simply turning her head. Not to mention the tight way she held her left arm tucked against her side, as if still protecting herself from an incoming blow.

I suspected the blond detective was rarely described as a soft-looking woman. But now, with her dark-rimmed eyes, grim-set mouth and thinly drawn cheeks, she appeared harsh, a woman well beyond her forty-four years.

“The basis of my practice is the Internal Family Systems model,” I explained patiently.

She arched a brow, didn’t say a word.

“One of the basic assumptions of IFS is that the mind can be subdivided into a number of distinct parts. First and foremost of those parts is the Self, which should serve as leader of all the parts. When your Self is clearly differentiated and elevated from the other members of the system, then you are in the best position to understand, manage and control your own pain.”

“I fell down the stairs,” D.D. said flatly. “If my self was supposed to manage that, it’s a little late now.”

“Let me ask you a different question: Are you in pain?”

“You mean, like, right now?”

“Like, right now.”