“Detective Black,” she said, gesturing to one of the chairs. “Thank you for coming. I know this isn’t easy.”
“Carson. Just Carson.” He sat, feeling awkward and exposed. “I’ve never done this before. Therapy.”
She gave him a warm, understanding smile. “That’s okay. We’ll take it at whatever pace feels right for you.” Dr. Carpenter settled into her own chair. “Why don’t you start by telling me what brought you here?”
Carson had rehearsed this on the drive over. Had planned what to say. But sitting here, the rehearsed words felt inadequate.
“I’m losing the woman I love because I don’t know how to not be a detective,” he said finally. “Because I put the job first. Always. And I don’t know how to change that.”
“Tell me about her. The woman you’re losing.”
So Carson talked. About Nora. About how they’d met. About falling in love while catching her stalker. About the promises he’d made and broken. About watching her walk away because he couldn’t choose her over a surveillance operation.
“And you want to change,” Dr. Carpenter said when he finished. “For her.”
“Yes. No,” Carson corrected himself. “I want to change for me too. Because this—” he gestured vaguely at himself “—isn’t working. Hasn’t been working for years. I just didn’t realize it until I had something worth losing.”
“When did it start? This need to put work above everything else?”
Carson knew the answer immediately. “When my sister disappeared. I was seventeen. Supposed to be watching her. I got distracted, and she—” His voice caught. “She was gone. Seven years old. Never found.”
“That’s a profound trauma.”
“It’s also the reason I became a cop. To find her. To save other people’s sisters. To make up for failing to protect mine.”
“And has it worked? Has saving others made you feel like you’ve atoned for what happened to Lily?” she asked, studying him.
The question cut through all of Carson’s defenses. Had it worked? After nineteen years of throwing himself into the job, of solving cases, of helping victims—did he feel any less guilty about Lily?
“No,” he admitted. “Nothing I do ever feels like enough. There’s always another case. Another victim. Another chance to fail.”
“So you keep working. Keep trying. Keep sacrificing everything else in pursuit of an atonement that never comes.”
Carson felt something crack open in his chest. Because she was right. Painfully, devastatingly right.
“I don’t know how to stop,” he said quietly. “How to not feel responsible for every victim. How to trust other people to do the work without me there to make sure it’s done right.”
“Those are good questions. And we’re going to work on answering them together.” Dr. Carpenter leaned forward. “But, Carson? Change is hard. It takes time. It requires you to face things you’ve been avoiding for nineteen years. Are you ready for that?”
Was he? Ready to face Lily’s disappearance? His father’s death? The guilt and grief he’d been outrunning since he was a teenager?
“I have to be,” Carson said. “Because the alternative is losing Nora. Losing any chance at a real life. And I can’t—” He stopped. “I can’t keep living like this. Half-alive. Just existing between cases.”
“Good. That’s a good place to start.” Dr. Carpenter pulled out a notebook. “I want to see you twice a week for the next two weeks. Then we’ll reassess. Between sessions, I’m going to give you some homework.”
“Homework?”
“Small exercises. Ways to start breaking old patterns and building new ones.” She wrote something down. “First assignment: I want you to go one full day without thinking about work. No case files. No true crime podcasts. No reading about police procedures. Just exist as Carson, not Detective Black. Can you do that?”
The idea made Carson’s chest tighten with anxiety. But he nodded. “I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask. Try.”
***
Nora spent her first full day away from Carson trying to focus on her new business.
She set up her home office in Lila’s spare room. Responded to the contract from her new client. Started drafting proposals for other potential clients.
