Page 77 of Criminally Yours

Joyce smiled. “It’s nice having young’uns around, even ones as stressed as you both.” Strike raised his eyebrows. “I see more than people presume. It’s no coincidence your car has blacked-out windows and your wife hasn’t got a wedding band. And I recognise a perimeter check. If anything’s out of place, I’ll let you know.”

Strike rubbed his forehead, the friction making his skin burn with unresolved emotions, but he couldn’t stop.

“Enjoy your honeymoon. You’re both safe here, and Merryn has told the town we have a honeymoon couple we need to take care of,” Joyce said.

“Thanks.” Strike returned to the house. He paused by Millie’s door.

He’d potentially destroyed her relationship with her family as well as her security in the past. And for what? She’d wantedto know the truth, but there would be a fallout because of him.

Strike strode to the home gym, grabbing his kit from his room, but all it took was one look at the well-equipped workout room to convince him that testing his body until it screamed under a ball of pain and sweat wouldn’t fix him.

He typed a brief message on his phone.

Strike: I told her. Can we chat?

He waited for three dots, but instead, his phone rang.

“Hi, Pam,” he said when he picked up. “I told her everything.”

His therapist replied in the clipped way he appreciated. “Everything? Including how your past impacts you?”

“No, not that. I can’t show her that side. I told her everything about why I left.”

“How did she react?”

Strike glanced around, checking for sounds, but there was nothing except the hum of the lights. He briefly shared the conversation and Millie’s responses as Pam checked her understanding with additional questions.

“So now what?” Strike asked as he fiddled with the wristband he’d worn since Millie had returned to his life. It matched the one he’d gifted her ten years earlier.

“Now you wait.”

“But I don’t want to. That’s not an effective solution.”

His therapist took a breath. “This isn’t something you can dominate with a solution-focused mindset. Millie needs time to come to terms with what happened. How would you feel in the same situation?”

“I don’t do empathy,” he grunted.

“If you didn’t ‘do empathy,’ you wouldn’t have sleepless nights because of what you’ve seen and done. You wouldn’tworry about the families of the dead. You have empathy, but you try to ignore it or dominate it until it becomes something you can’t control so that you end up anxious and closed off.”

He set his jaw. “So I do nothing?”

“What would you want Millie to do if you had to work through revelations about your family and past?”

“Cook for me, be available if I need to chat, and not force her presence on me. Is that what she wants?” He kicked one of the weight benches aimlessly.

“I don’t know what she wants, but those are helpful things. Besides wanting to fix things, how are you feeling after sharing everything?”

“Free but scared.”

“Scared?”

He yawned, his soul weary. “I asked if she wanted to meet up after all this is over. I don’t know why when I can’t give her the sort of future she needs. She’s too perfect for me, but for a second, I entertained the idea I could be the kind of guy she’d want a relationship with.”

“That’s positive.”

“Only a therapist would say that.”

“You’ve been adamant during the years we’ve spoken you’d never be in a relationship. That you’ve let a morsel of hope enter your consciousness is growth.”