They found Isla at a café in the Pearl District, sitting by the window with a cup of tea and a sketchbook. She was more beautiful than her photographs—pregnancy suited her, filling her sharp features with a soft glow. She looked up as they entered, and her face went through a cascade of emotions: shock, fear, anger, and finally, resignation.
"You found me," she said. Not to Asher. To Arora. "You must be the psychiatrist."
Arora slid into the chair across from her. "How did you know?"
"Because he's never brought anyone to see me before. He's never had anyone to bring." Isla's eyes, dark and knowing, fixed on Asher. "You look terrible. Worse than when I left."
"I need your help," Asher said. No preamble, no apology. "Caleb is using my designs. He's killing people. And he knows about the baby."
Isla's hand went to her stomach, protective and automatic. "How?"
"I told him. Before I knew what he was. I was—" Asher stopped, the words sticking. "I was lonely. I thought he understood me. I didn't know he was collecting information, building a case, preparing to become me."
"To become you, or to expose you?"
"Both. Neither. I don't know." Asher sat, suddenly looking younger than his years, vulnerable in a way Arora hadn't seen before. "I need you to hide. Properly this time, somewhere even I can't find you. Until this is over."
"And if it never ends? If this is who you are, who you'll always be—chasing monsters, designing deaths, drawing people into your orbit and watching them burn?" Isla's voice was gentle, sad, the voice of someone who had loved him and learned the cost. "I can't raise a child in your shadow, Asher. I won't."
"I know. That's why I'm not asking you to come back. I'm asking you to survive. To let me protect you one last time, and then—" He reached into his pocket, withdrew an envelope. "Divorce papers. I've signed everything over to you. The loft, the investments, my legitimate work. You'll never have to see me again."
Isla took the envelope but didn't open it. "Who is she?"
Asher glanced at Arora. "My psychiatrist."
"Your psychiatrist who drove through the night to help you find your ex-wife? Who looks at you like you're a project instead of a patient?" Isla smiled, small and knowing. "Be careful, Doctor. He collects saviors. He'll make you believe you can fix him, and when you can't, he'll make you believe it's your fault."
"I'm not trying to fix him," Arora said. "I'm trying to understand him."
"Same thing. Different vocabulary." Isla stood, gathering her things. "I'll go to my sister's in Bend. But Asher? This is the last time. Whatever happens with your brother, whatever happens with her—don't come looking for me again. I can't be your conscience anymore. I have my own child to raise."
She left without touching him, without looking back. Asher watched her go, his face perfectly still, and Arora watched him, trying to see what he felt beneath the mask.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes." Automatic response. Then, surprising them both: "No. I thought—I thought seeing her would clarify things. Confirm that letting her go was right. Instead, I just feel..." He searched for the word. "Hollow. Like something's been removed that I didn't know I needed."
"That's grief," Arora said. "It's normal."
"I don't do normal."
"You're learning."
Asher looked at her, and his smile was fragile, new, like a child learning to walk. "Session two," he said. "The patient is experiencing unfamiliar emotions. What is the treatment?"
"Time. And presence. And the willingness to feel without designing an escape."
"That sounds dangerous."
"It is. That's why most people avoid it."
They sat in the café, surrounded by strangers living normal lives, and planned the trap for a killer who wore their faces. And beneath the planning, beneath the strategy, something else grew—a connection forged in shared danger, in the willingness to see and be seen, in the fragile hope that understanding might be enough to change the design.