Well…Dr. Amat had told me long ago that I should get one of your kind. He said it was a good way to sort my thoughts. Why do I suddenly feel as though I’m exposing myself? Oh well, not like I have much of a choice. Dr. Amat is long gone, died actually. Yea…I know I sound rather non-chalant about that but he’s just another casualty of the city. I’ve come to reconcile myself to that sordid little detail about the place I call home. I learned early on that Hathian is not the place you turn to if you are wanting daisies and home owners associations, it isn’t the place you choose to raise your kids in. It chooses you…if you have something to hide or hiding from something that is.

That’s much the way my sisters and I came to be here so long ago. Rox and I had something to hide and we needed a place to hide. We didn’t realize it at first but we had more in common with most of the citizens than one would think. It’s nothing to find someone here who’s taken another life. Yea…surprised? Dr. Amat had been when I divulged that little piece of information. It was time to tell someone else though. I needed to get the skeleton of my father out of my closet. He deserved to die…really he did.

What? Yes…I know. Dr. Amat had said the same… “But Kate it isn’t your place to play god or judge and jury. You can’t decide when it’s time for someone to leave this earth.” Yea…let’s go back 15 years to that last night he had come into my room. Tell me that again when the bastard is pinning to me to the bed while personally giving me a hands on lesson in the birds and bees. Or better yet, let’s go back even further than that to when I had to lie in bed and listen to my sister’s sobbing while he did the same to her. Or perhaps you’d like the pictures of my mother’s beautiful face bruised and battered. Michael Pera was a mean son of a bitch who deserved exactly what we gave him. The one good thing that came out of our “Fine, upstanding private catholic school” education was the fact that it made us a little smarter than the kids in the ghetto just down the street.

Sure, I have a conscience. We took his life but it was in exchange for our own. He would have killed us much like he had our mother. Ok, sure I know it was cancer in the end but she had been dead long before that. He had beat everything out of her. She was a shell…but she did love us girls. She took most of the punishment on herself to spare us but in the end even she could not save us from the devil. That’s what he was you know…the devil. So, I guess I can say I’ve already survived hell. Probably why I’ve been able to survive for so long here. Michael would have loved Hathian. The place is crawling with those who prey upon women and children. We have criminals of every ilk, crimes that are far worse than anything he or I have ever done. But then, the citizens seem to get by just fine. Us cops are able to do our jobs…well…when we choose to.

Another surprise? Yea, go figure…me a cop. After every thing I’ve done yet here I am, a Lieutenant and over Criminal Investigations no less. Don’t get me wrong…I do my job. Most would say I obsess over it but honestly, I just love what I do. The Beetles said it right I think…Happiness IS a warm gun, at least it is for me. Oh well. I hear the children up and about so I really must go for now. We will talk again….soon, I promise. I think you’re a little better than Amat. You don’t really criticize much…I like that. I need to get things off my chest but really don’t need the useless babbling that comes with a real head shrink. Either way, take care till next session…