The phone call came at 11:47 PM on a Tuesday, which should have been my first warning that nothing good was about to happen.
I was sitting at my kitchen table and calling it a kitchen was generous, considering it was basically a hotplate and a mini-fridge crammed into a corner of my studio apartment staring at my laptop screen. The cursor blinked at me in the student loan payment portal like it was mocking my entire existence.
Balance Due: $140,328.67
Amount in Checking Account: $847.23
I'd been staring at those numbers for twenty minutes, trying to make the math work. Spoiler alert: it didn't work. It never worked.
My phone vibrated against the chipped Formica countertop, the sound harsh in the silence. Unknown number. I almost didn't answer because telemarketers had gotten aggressive lately, calling at all hours, but something made me pick up.
Maybe desperation has a sixth sense.
"Dr. Reeves?" A woman's voice, crisp and professional, the kind that didn't waste time on pleasantries.
"Speaking."
"This is Jennifer Walsh from the New York State Court Services. I apologize for the late call, but we have an urgent case that requires immediate placement."
I sat up straighter, my heart doing this stupid hopeful leap in my chest. Court-mandated therapy cases paid triple my normal rate. Triple anything right now would be a miracle.
"I'm listening."
"The patient is high-profile. Very high-profile." She paused, and I could hear papers shuffling. "He's been charged with aggravated assault and accepted a plea deal. Fifty mandatory therapy sessions with a licensed criminal psychologist, or he serves eighteen months in prison."
My stomach did a complicated flip. High-profile meant money, which meant expensive lawyers, which meant someone who'd figured out how to game the system. I'd seen it a hundred times. Rich people didn't go to prison. They went to therapy.
"What's the timeline?" I asked, trying to sound professional instead of desperately grateful.
"First session needs to be tomorrow. Two PM. His legal team is very insistent about starting immediately."
Tomorrow. Jesus. That was aggressive, but aggressive meant desperate, and desperate meant they'd pay whatever I quoted.
"My rate for court-mandated cases is five hundred per session," I said, holding my breath.
"His team has already approved one thousand per session."
I actually felt my breath catch in my throat. One thousand dollars. Times fifty sessions. That was fifty thousand dollars. That was more than a third of my student loans. That was my car payment for a year. That was my mother's mortgage for six months.
That was my father's cancer treatment.
"I'll need to review the case file first," I managed to say, trying to keep my voice steady and professional instead of sounding like someone who was about to cry from relief.
"I'm emailing it to you now. Dr. Reeves, I need to be very clear about something." Her voice dropped, became more serious. "This patient isn't like your typical court-mandated case. The assault was severe. The victim is still in physical therapy, and the prognosis isn't good. And the patient has shown absolutely zero remorse."
"What's his diagnosis?"
A pause. Long enough that I knew the answer was going to be bad.
"He was evaluated as a child. Antisocial personality disorder with psychopathic traits."
My hand tightened around the phone. A diagnosed sociopath. Wonderful. Just wonderful.
"Send me the file," I said. "I'll review it tonight and confirm by morning."
"Thank you, Dr. Reeves. His name is Zachary Hale."
She hung up before I could respond, which was probably good because I'd just frozen completely, my entire body going still like I'd been dunked in ice water.
Zachary Hale.
Everyone in New York knew that name. Hell, everyone in America probably knew that name. Tech billionaire, thirty-five years old, self-made fortune estimated at eight billion dollars. He owned half the startups in Silicon Alley, had his fingers in everything from cybersecurity to data analytics to financial technology. Princeton graduate. Never married. Notoriously private, the kind of private that money bought you.
And apparently, he'd beaten someone nearly to death.
My laptop dinged with the email notification. I opened it with hands that were shaking slightly.
The case file was extensive. Police reports, medical records, witness statements, psychological evaluations. Crime scene photos.
I shouldn't have opened the photos. I really, really shouldn't have.
But I did.
The victim's name was Marcus Chen, forty-seven, business consultant. In his driver's license photo, he looked normal. Smiling. Human.
In the crime scene photos, he was unrecognizable.
His face was a swollen mass of bruises, dark purple and black and red. His nose was clearly broken, pushed to one side at an unnatural angle. Both eyes were swollen shut, the skin around them so puffy he looked like a grotesque balloon. Stitches ran across his forehead, his cheeks, his jaw. The medical report listed the damage in clinical detail: broken nose, fractured orbital bone, shattered jaw, three broken ribs, internal bleeding, severe concussion.
The report noted that Zachary Hale had done this with his bare hands. No weapons. Just fists.
At a charity gala.
In front of two hundred witnesses.
And then he'd walked away smiling.
I read the police report three times, trying to make sense of it. Chen had apparently approached Zachary during the event, they'd exchanged words, and then Zachary had just attacked. Methodically. Brutally. Efficiently. Security had pulled him off eventually, but not before the damage was catastrophic.
Zachary's statement to the police was chilling in its simplicity: "He threatened my business interests. I responded appropriately."
Appropriately.
He'd nearly killed a man and called it appropriate.
I kept reading. The psychological evaluation from his childhood made my blood run cold. At age ten, Zachary Hale had been tested after concerning behavior at school. The results were clear: antisocial personality disorder with psychopathic traits. Lack of empathy. Manipulative behavior. Inability to form genuine emotional connections. Superficial charm masking complete emotional emptiness.
The psychologist's note at the end made me want to close my laptop and never open it again:
"This child understands emotion intellectually but does not feel it. He has learned to simulate appropriate responses, but they are performances, not genuine reactions. He is aware of his difference and has become adept at hiding it. Recommend ongoing monitoring and intervention. Prognosis for developing genuine empathy: poor."
I sat staring at my laptop screen for a long time after I finished reading.
This was dangerous. This was a man who'd hospitalized someone without remorse, who'd been diagnosed as a sociopath at ten years old, who had billions of dollars and the best lawyers money could buy.
I should say no. Any rational psychologist would say no. This was a lawsuit waiting to happen, a dangerous patient, a man who saw people as objects and therapy as an inconvenience.
I should absolutely, definitely say no.
But rational psychologists weren't three months behind on rent with an eviction notice sitting on their passenger seat. Rational psychologists didn't have fathers dying of cancer because insurance companies had decided that life-saving treatment was "experimental" and therefore not covered. Rational psychologists didn't lie awake at night doing math that never, ever added up.
I pulled up my bank account again. $847.23.
Then I pulled up my mother's last text message. I'd read it so many times I had it memorized, but I read it again anyway:
"Honey, I hate to ask, but Dad's treatment... insurance denied the claim again. We need $12,000 by next month or they'll stop the chemotherapy. I'm so sorry. I know you're struggling too. I don't know what to do."
Twelve thousand dollars. To keep my father alive.
I looked back at the case file. At Zachary Hale's cold, perfect face in his booking photo. At the crime scene photos of what he'd done to Marcus Chen. At the childhood evaluation that labeled him a sociopath.
I thought about my father, who'd worked three jobs to put me through college. Who'd never asked me for anything. Who was dying because the system had decided his life wasn't worth twelve thousand dollars.
I thought about my student loans, about my eviction notice, about my broken-down car, about eating ramen for dinner four nights a week because that was all I could afford.
I thought about every criminal I'd ever treated who'd gotten better deals than their victims. Every wealthy client who'd bought their way out of consequences while poor people rotted in jail for lesser crimes.
I thought about being good. About following rules. About doing everything right—good grades, scholarships, advanced degrees, ethical practice—and still drowning.
Being good had gotten me nothing.
Maybe it was time to try something else.
I typed my response to Jennifer Walsh: "I accept the case. I'll see Mr. Hale tomorrow at 2 PM. Please confirm receipt."
I hit send before I could change my mind.
Then I sat back and stared at my ceiling, which had a water stain shaped like a question mark. How fitting.
I should have felt guilty. Should have felt like I was making a terrible mistake. Should have felt something other than desperate relief.
Instead, I just felt tired.
And underneath the tiredness, something else. Something that felt almost like hope.
Fifty thousand dollars. A way out. A chance to save my father.
All I had to do was spend fifty hours with a diagnosed sociopath who'd beaten a man nearly to death.
How hard could it be?
I spent the next hour researching Zachary Hale online, falling down a rabbit hole of articles and interviews and profiles.
The man was everywhere. Forbes lists, tech conferences, business journals. There were hundreds of photos: Zachary in expensive suits, Zachary shaking hands with politicians, Zachary at charity galas (the irony wasn't lost on me), Zachary accepting awards for innovation.
In every single photo, he was devastatingly handsome. Dark hair styled perfectly, strong jawline, expensive suits that probably cost more than my car used to. But it was his eyes that caught me. Even in photographs, even through a computer screen, there was something unsettling about them. They were dark, intelligent, focused.
And completely empty.
Like looking into a mirror and seeing nothing reflected back.
I found an interview from two years ago in Tech Weekly. The journalist had asked him about his success, about how he'd built an eight-billion-dollar empire by age thirty-five.
Zachary's response: "I see patterns other people miss. I understand what people want before they know they want it. I'm not limited by sentiment or attachment. That gives me an advantage."
The journalist had laughed, thinking it was a joke.
It wasn't a joke.
I kept reading. Found another interview, this one from Forbes. They'd asked him about competition, about rivals, about the cutthroat nature of the tech industry.
"Empathy is an evolutionary weakness," Zachary had said. "It clouds judgment. It makes people predictable. The future belongs to those who can think past it."
The article had positioned it as bold confidence, as the mindset of a winner.
I saw it for what it was: a confession.
Then I found the article that made my hands start shaking.
It was from a psychology journal, written fifteen years ago. A case study on childhood psychopathy, anonymized but clearly about Zachary based on the details. The psychologist who'd evaluated him had written:
"Patient presents with classic psychopathic traits: lack of empathy, manipulative behavior, superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth. At age ten, patient is already aware of his difference from peers and has begun consciously simulating emotional responses to appear 'normal.' When asked if he feels bad about hurting others, patient responded: 'I don't feel what other people feel. I've learned to simulate it. It's like learning a foreign language—you can speak it fluently without understanding why the words matter.' Prognosis: Patient will likely become highly functional but remains fundamentally unable to form genuine emotional connections."
I stared at that quote for a long time.
"I don't feel what other people feel. I've learned to simulate it."
He'd been ten years old when he said that. Ten years old and already aware he was different. Already learning to fake being human.
What must that be like? To grow up knowing you didn't feel what everyone around you felt? To learn emotions like vocabulary words, to practice facial expressions in the mirror, to study people like they were a foreign species?
And now, twenty-five years later, he'd perfected the performance. Built an empire. Become one of the most powerful men in the world.
All while feeling nothing.
My phone buzzed. A confirmation email from Jennifer Walsh. Tomorrow, 2 PM, at my office. Zachary Hale's first session.
I looked at the crime scene photos again. At Marcus Chen's destroyed face. At the medical report listing injuries that would take months to heal.
Then I looked at my mother's text. At my father's treatment cost. At my bank account balance.
Tomorrow I was going to sit in a room with a man who'd done that. A man who felt nothing. A man who'd learned to fake being human so well that he'd fooled everyone.
Everyone except the psychologists who'd evaluated him as a child and written their warnings that no one had listened to.
I was a criminal psychologist. I'd treated murderers, rapists, violent offenders. I'd sat across from people who'd done terrible things.
But I'd never treated someone who'd been diagnosed as a sociopath at ten years old and then spent twenty-five years perfecting his mask.
I'd never treated someone who was that self-aware about what he was.
I'd never treated someone who'd looked at a psychologist at age ten and said, "I don't feel what other people feel. I've learned to simulate it."
My hands were shaking as I closed my laptop.
I told myself it was fear.
But underneath the fear, there was something else. Something I didn't want to examine too closely.
Curiosity.
Because I'd spent my entire career trying to understand why people did terrible things. Trying to find the humanity in monsters. Trying to believe that everyone could change, could be reached, could be helped.
And tomorrow I was going to meet someone who'd been studying his own monstrosity since childhood. Someone who knew exactly what he was and had built an empire on top of it.
Someone who'd looked at the world and decided that empathy was a weakness and feeling nothing was an advantage.
I should have been terrified.
I was terrified.
But I was also more curious than I'd been in years.
I went to bed but didn't sleep. Just lay there in the dark, thinking about Zachary Hale.
About his empty eyes in those photographs.
About his quote: "I don't feel what other people feel. I've learned to simulate it."
About the fact that in less than fourteen hours, I was going to sit across from him and try to treat him.
Try to help someone who'd spent twenty-five years learning to fake being human.
Someone who'd nearly killed a man and called it appropriate.
Someone who had eight billion dollars and zero empathy.
Someone who saw therapy as an inconvenience and me as just another person to manipulate.
My phone buzzed one more time. A text from an unknown number:
"Looking forward to our session tomorrow, Dr. Reeves. I think we're going to have fascinating conversations."
I stared at the message, my heart pounding.
He'd already started.