Page 16 of Sachie's Hero

Teller rested his chin on top of her head while rubbing her arms in an attempt to warm them from the instant chill she’d received while listening to the message.

When she finally calmed, but remained pressed into his chest, he squeezed her body gently and eased her away from him so that he could see her face and gauge her grasp on what was happening.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” he assured her, his hand on her lower back, circling gently. All the questions he had could wait until she was able to answer them.

A few minutes later, she drew in a deep, slightly shaky breath and let it out slowly, deliberately. Then she stepped back.

Not until she was out of reach did Teller lower his arms. “Are you okay?”

“As okay as I can be, after seeing and hearing a ghost.”

His brow pinched. “Huh?”

“At least, I thought I was seeing things. But now...” She tipped her head toward Teller’s hand, which was holding her cell phone. “...I’m hearing things. The thing is, you heard it, too.”

He didn’t quite understand where she was going with her words. “I heard a male voice message from someone threatening you. What does that voicemail have to do with ghosts?”

“Exactly,” she said with a soft snort. “Nothing. But you heard it, too. I didn’t hallucinate the message likeI thought I was hallucinating seeing a certain face on the streets of Honolulu, or outside the window of my office there. And now here.”

“A certain face? You know this person?” Teller asked.

“That’s the problem,” she said, her eyes welling with more tears. “The face I keep seeing is that of a former patient.”

“And you think it’s him stalking you?”

“Yes... No.” She met his gaze. “You see, he committed suicide in my office. In front of me.”

“Wow.” Teller shook his head. “Not something you want to experience ever in your lifetime.”

She nodded, her gaze on the floor in front of her. “One minute I’m talking with him. The next, he pulled out a gun, pressed it to his head and pulled the trigger.”

He’d been with battle buddies who’d been mortally wounded. He’d held a good friend in his arms as his lifeblood and life flowed out of him. Watching a friend die had had a profound and lasting effect on him. He couldn’t imagine the trauma of watching a patient shoot himself. “Are you sure he was dead?”

“I had brain matter and blood on me. When the emergency medical technicians arrived, they didn’t even try to revive him. His face was basically gone.” Sachie turned away, burying her face in her hands. “Ican never unsee that image. Luke was only seventeen. He had his whole life ahead of him. Because I failed him, his life stopped.”

“Sachie, did you pull the trigger?”

With her back still to him, she shook her head. “No. But I might as well have. I didn’t do enough to help him understand that he was worthy, that his life mattered and that he could make anything of his future if he set his mind to it. He didn’t see a way forward or an alternative to his pain and frustration. I could have—no,should have—been able to help him.”

Teller tucked her cell phone in his pocket, gripped her shoulders and turned her toward him. “I’ve been in situations on the battlefield where, if I only made a different decision or been there a second earlier, one of my buddies wouldn’t have died. Long afterward, I’d go over and over the scenario, wondering if I could’ve changed the outcome. Do you know what I learned?”

She shook her head.

“That no amount of second-guessing would bring them back.”

“And the nightmares?” she asked.

He snorted softly. “I still have them. Just not as often.”

“The nightmares are still so real,” she said, her haunted gaze met his. “And when they happenedduring the day, I thought I was going crazy or hallucinating.”

“How do you mean they happened during the day?” he asked.

“I’d be walking along the street, see a face so much like Luke’s, and it would hit me so hard I couldn’t breathe. When the face appeared in my window tonight, even though it was shadowed, it looked like him.” She stared at Teller’s chest. “I knew it couldn’t be him because I was there when they carried him out of my office in a body bag. Then, the voice on the recording...sounded just like Luke.” Her gaze returned to his. “How can that be?”

“Could it be someone’s messing with you?” Teller brushed a strand of her hair off her cheek. “Did Luke have a friend or family member who looked like him?”

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