Page 34 of Inferno

“After I lost the baby.”

He nodded.

“Angry at me?”

“It seemed unfair to be angry at you. Being angry at God was a lot easier, because I knew He could absorb how I felt at the time. When it would have been the wrong thing to lay it on you.”

Samantha couldn’t help thinking they had dealt with it completely wrong. Even if at the time they both felt that going their separate ways was the right thing. But how could she have done anything else? She’d been in so much pain.

Pushing Julio away had been about self-preservation more than anything else.

Still, she said, “Maybe we were supposed to deal with it alone and then come back together, but we never did. Maybe we missed what we should’ve done.”

They might have missed a whole lot more than that.

But she didn’t want to live in all thecould have beensandshould have beens. Life just happened that way, and wishing it was otherwise would be pointless. She’d rather deal with reality.

“I think maybe we did miss something,” he said. “But we can’t say that it was right or wrong at the time. Not when we were both hurting.”

Samantha looked out the window, watching buildings pass beside the truck as Julio drove through Benson to the address GPS was directing him. Richard Sylvana’s son might prove a fruitful source of intel. Or, at least, she hoped he would.

Or he knew nothing.

Or he might turn out to be their arsonist.

Right now, she had no idea.

She sighed. “Sometimes I feel like everything I want is out of reach. Maybe I did the wrong thing somewhere along the way and missed it. And I lost my shot.”

“I don’t believe it’s ever too late. You and I have been through more than most people do in a lifetime, but that doesn’t mean we can’t stick through the rest together.”

Samantha glanced at him. “But can you guarantee it isn’t going to be worse than what we’ve already been through? Because I don’t think I can survive that again.”

As far as she could tell, it was safer to stick with what she knew—what she could control.

“I don’t have any more answers than you do.” Julio sighed. “We can’t know what’s going to happen. We just have to pledge to stick together through it.”

“Because I didn’t do that last time? I drove us apart because I couldn’t handle what was happening?” Was that what he was saying?

Julio hit the brakes and pulled over to the side of the road. Someone honked, but he ignored it and put the truck in Park. He turned in his seat to face her. “If you want me to blame you, I’m not going to. You had no idea that one shift would put you in a situation where you lost the baby.”

Tears gathered in her eyes, the hot sting of regret and grief. “I talked to my sergeant as soon as I showed up for that shift, asking about getting put on desk duty. He was going to put the paperwork through that day.” She wouldn’t have continued to walk a beat during a pregnancy. But then, she hadn’t been super happy about desk duty either. Still, she would never have put the baby’s life at risk just so she could do whatever she wanted.

“It was a tragedy that no one could’ve anticipated would happen. You shouldn’t blame yourself, and you should know that I don’t blame you.”

Maybe it would be better if he did, but that would only mean she could focus on him rather than dealing with her own pain and the need to find some healing. She’d been pushing away her need to deal with it for two years, shutting people out. Focusing on work. Keeping her head down. Pretending she was fine.

She wasn’t sure it had worked.

“I don’t know what to do.” Samantha shifted. “I don’t know how to make it not hurt.”

“Sometimes I think it’s supposed to hurt. Because if you feel nothing, then it means you didn’t care.”

Tears rolled down her face. So many tears. She’d not only lost the baby, but she’d also lost him. In the blindness of her grief, she’d pushed him away.

Julio reached over and touched her cheeks, swiping at the tears with his thumbs. “You don’t need to feel like you’re the only one in pain. You aren’t alone.”

She’d always thought it was easier to just deal with her problems by herself. Maybe that meant she closed herself off to everything and everyone. But it didn’t work. And she wasn’t sure it had been easier, either.

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