“You have any trouble sleeping?” Corolla threw out. “Nightmares?”

“No more than usual.”

“How about substance abuse? Ever worry you might be drinking too much?”

How much is too much? I wondered, but shook off the worry to shrug at her pointedly. “Listen, I don’t really buy the whole talk-therapy thing. No offense. I’m here because I have to be.”

“I’ve worked with a lot of clients who have trauma to process,” she went on, unfazed. “My early training was with combat soldiers and shell shock. A lot of retired soldiers become cops. They think the stuff they saw and did back then is long buried, all in the past. They drown it. Numb it. Have bad marriages. Become alcoholics. But then something happens to trigger the trauma. And then boom, they snap.”

“Why are you telling me this? I’ve never been in the military.”

“There are other kinds of battlefields, Anna.” She brought her fingertips together in front of her face, letting her point sink in. “On your intake form, you noted you grew up in foster care. You had siblings, too. What happened to them?”

“That has nothing to do with my job.”

“Maybe not. It depends on how much work you’ve done to deal with what you’ve gone through. What you’ve already been carrying. What can you tell me about your parents? Do you remember them? Why couldn’t they care for you?”

Her questions felt too rapid-fire, and far too loaded. I turned my body in the overly soft chair, wishing our hour were finished, but we’d barely begun. “I don’t want to talk about this. And anyway, how will spilling my guts to you help me at work? I’ll only feel worse.”

“It might be a relief to talk, actually. Have you considered that?”

“No.”

There was a long pause as she looked at me. “Humans are resilient, Anna. I have no doubt that you’re incredibly adept at your job. You’re holding it together really well. But maybe a little too well.”

“What does that mean?” I’d begun to breathe heavily. My shoulders were tight and clenched.

“Just that sucking it up isn’t a long-term solution. You might be thinking you can just go on this way indefinitely. But the things you’ve seen don’t really go away. They build up inside you and start to take a toll. And then there’s the older trauma you haven’t really come to terms with. No one’s bulletproof. Asking for help doesn’t mean you’re weak.”

Weak? Where had that come from? “I’m fine. Ask anyone I work with.”