Page 52 of Sachie's Hero

“You won’t learn if you don’t do it yourself,” she said. “Now, you do it.”

Teller had to choke back laughter at the doctor’s incredulous expression.

But the man fiddled with the mouse and the keyboard until he sat back and nodded. “I did it.”

“I always knew you could,” Sachie said.

“I still don’t want to be without a receptionist,” he mumbled, then pushed back from the desk and stood. “What can I help you with?”

“You said you had a stack of mail for me,” Sachie reminded him.

“Yes, yes. So I do.” He turned to a credenza behind him, grabbed a stack of envelopes and handed them to Sachie.

“Some of it’s junk mail, but I’ll let you decide. “Have you had any luck chasing down your troublemaker?” he asked.

“Not so far,” Sachie said.

“Let me know if you need anything else. I’ll be here another hour before I call it a day.” He walked into his office, calling out over his shoulder, “In the meantime, I need to make notes and prepare for my next patient.”

“Thank you, Dr. Janek.” Sachie gathered her mail and left the building.

Teller opened the car door and waited for her to slide into her seat. Then he closed the door and got in the other side. “We still have all day before we have to be at the bar. Are there any other patients who might be angry with you?”

Sachie shook her head. “My patients are usually happy to see me. It’s the family members of the children I recommend to be removed from their homes who have the biggest beef with me. Luke was an anomaly—a tragic one at that. I feel compelled to discover his reason for feeling like he had to die to find peace, and compelled isn’t the right word. I’ve moved on to obsessed.”

“Like you, Mrs. Randall felt a strong sense of responsibility for what happened with Luke,” Teller offered.

“Guilt is a huge emotional factor for me. I should’ve done more.”

“You couldn’t have guessed what he was about to do. Just like Mrs. Randall. How many of her foster kids have committed suicide?”

“None, until Luke,” Sachie said.

“And how many of your patients have committed suicide?” Teller asked.

“Luke was my first.” She closed her eyes and squeezed her hands together. “Please let him be the last.”

As he sat with his hands on the steering wheel and no direction to go, Teller nodded toward the stack of mail in Sachie’s lap. “You want to go through those letters while we stew on where we’ll go next?”

“I almost forgot.” Sachie sat up straight and flippedthrough the junk mail, tossing some envelopes onto the dash, unopened. The sender of the next letter had handwritten the street, city, state and zip code, and addressed the envelope to “Miss Sachie.”

A faint smile lifted the corners of Sachie’s lips as she carefully opened the envelope. Inside was a card that appeared to have been drawn by a child using colorful crayons.

A big heart graced the front of the card, colored in with red.

Sachie opened the card.THANK YOUwas spelled out with large capital letters in blue crayon. The author and artist had addedfor being my friendand then signed itEmma.

“A fan of yours?” Teller asked.

“Apparently.” Sachie stared at the card, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Emma was having nightmares when her mother brought her to see me. In fact, her mother and father weren’t doing much better. Emma’s little brother had gotten off the bus before Emma. He ran across the street without looking first. A car hit him. Emma witnessed it.”

“Did the boy survive?”

Sachie shook her head. “They went from being a cute little family of four to a family of three heartbroken people. I saw Emma for several months, helping her work through her feelings.”

“She felt responsible, didn’t she?” Teller guessed.

Sachie nodded. “She was the older sister and should’ve been holding his hand. However, Dalton was a force to be reckoned with—headstrong and in constant motion. If the driver hadn’t been looking down at his cell phone, he would’ve seen the bus had stopped and the lights were blinking red. Vehicles are supposed to stop when school buses are loading and unloading.”

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