My feet are cemented to the floor.
My brain is a frantic scramble of mismatched files.
Mentor. Professor. Advisor. Threat.
Dr. Alistair Harrison.
He hasn't changed.
The same kind eyes.
The same tweed jacket with worn leather patches on the elbows.
The same air of gentle, academic authority that I once found so reassuring.
Now, it just feels menacing.
The timing is too perfect.
The coincidence is too loud.
"Elara," he says, and his voice is exactly as I remember it.
Calm. Paternal.
A voice that could soothe nations or start wars.
"I was in the neighborhood," he says, a lie so blatant it's almost insulting. "I saw the news. I was worried."
He smiles a sad, disappointed smile.
The kind he used to give me when I'd miss a key diagnosis in a case study.
I feel a flush of my old student insecurity.
The irrational need for his approval.
"Dr. Harrison," I say, my voice tight. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you," he says simply. "May I?"
He gestures toward my office door.
It's a power move.
A request that is actually a command.
The old dynamic kicks in before I can stop it.
Student and teacher.
I step aside and let him enter my sanctuary.
He walks into my office and surveys the room.
He runs a hand over the back of the patient couch.
"I remember when you were designing this space," he says, his voice soft with nostalgia. "You were so specific about the couch. The texture, the color. You said it had to be a soft place for hard stories."
He remembers.
He's here to remind me of the clinician I was.
Before all this.
Before Theo.
"I read about your marriage," he says, finally turning to face me. "In a gossip column, of all places. It seems… out of character for you, Elara."
"I'm not the same student I was ten years ago, Alistair."
"No," he agrees. "You're one of the leading trauma specialists in the country. You've published groundbreaking work. You've built an impeccable reputation."
He pauses, letting the compliment land before twisting the knife.
"Which is why this is so deeply, deeply troubling."
He sits down in one of my patient chairs, a look of grave concern on his face.
"This man, Theo Raine," he says, his voice dripping with disapproval. "I've read his file. Not just the public one. The whispers from the business world. He's volatile. A classic narcissist with a history of impulsive, destructive behavior."
"You don't know him," I say, the defense automatic.
A reflex.
I'm defending a man I barely trust myself.
But Harrison's judgment feels like an attack.
An intrusion.
"I know his type," he corrects. "I've spent forty years treating men like him. Men who are black holes of need. They find the brightest light in the room and they try to swallow it whole. They see a healer, and all they want to do is break her."
His words are too close to my own fears.
The ones that kept me up at night three years ago.
"Why do you care so much?" I ask, my voice sharp.
"Because I invested in you, Elara," he says, his paternal tone returning. "I saw your potential from the very beginning. I have been watching your career with immense pride. And I will not stand by silently and watch you throw it all away on a damaged, dangerous man who will inevitably destroy you."
The intensity in his eyes is unnerving.
It's not just concern.
It's… obsessive.
This isn't about me.
This is about Theo.
"Your disapproval is noted," I say, my voice cold. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot to deal with."
I need him to leave.
His presence is suffocating.
"I don't think you understand the gravity of your situation," he says, his voice dropping. He leans forward, his expression urgent.
"I think I have a fairly clear picture, thank you."
"No. You don't," he insists. "You don't know what he's capable of. The damage he can inflict."
"And how, exactly, would you know so much about Theo Raine?" I challenge him.
The air in the room shifts.
He looks at me, his eyes full of a strange, sad wisdom.
As if he's about to deliver a fatal diagnosis.
And then he delivers the hook.
The line that connects all the broken pieces of this story in a way I never could have imagined.
"Because I knew Sarah Jenkins," he says, his voice barely a whisper.
My blood turns to ice.
"I was her therapist."
The room tilts.
The floor drops out from under me.
Dr. Harrison.
My mentor.
My professional idol.
Was the therapist for Theo's dead fiancée.
The coincidence is too great.
It's not a coincidence at all.
It's the heart of the mystery.
He's not just a ghost from my past.
He's a ghost from Theo's, too.
"You… you were her therapist?" I stammer, my clinical composure gone.
"For two years," he says, his face a mask of sorrow. "Right up until the day she died."
My mind is reeling.
The implications are staggering.
He knew Theo through her.
He knew about their relationship.
He was there for the whole tragic story.
I fall back on my training, a desperate attempt to find solid ground.
"Her suicide," I say, my voice trembling. "It must have been a deeply traumatic event for you as her clinician."
Dr. Harrison looks at me.
The sadness in his eyes is replaced by something else.
Something cold and hard.
Pity.
He stands up and walks toward me, stopping just a few feet away.
He lowers his voice, as if the walls themselves are listening.
"That's the thing, Elara," he says, his tone heavy with a terrible secret.
"That's the official story."
"The narrative that Theo Raine's money and power so carefully constructed for the police."
He leans in closer.
His eyes are burning with a righteous fire.
"Sarah Jenkins didn't commit suicide."