"How do you know that?"
"Because people who care about cats usually know other people who care about cats. Because someone who brings coffee to colleagues and shares stories about their pet is someone who builds connections. Casey wasn't as alone in the world as you think."
The observation seems to provide small comfort, because her breathing starts to even out slightly. But she's still crying, still processing grief that's too large for intellectual analysis.
"I thought I could handle this," she says, her voice small in ways I've never heard before. "I thought I'd become someone strong enough to protect the people I care about. But I can't even keep a twenty-six-year-old crime scene tech safe from my own poor choices."
The self-recrimination in her voice makes something protective and violent rise in my chest. Because she's not responsible for this. She's not the one who chose to kill innocent people or leave them arranged like grotesque art installations.
She's just someone who tried to protect the people she loved, and got punished for caring.
"Look at me," I say, turning to face her fully. "This isn't on you. You didn't choose to become part of someone else's psychological experiment. You didn't ask for your professional expertise to make you a target. And you sure as hell didn't deserve to lose someone you cared about because you made the mistake of trusting a killer."
"I did trust you," she whispers, and there's something approaching wonder in her voice. "I trusted you enough to obstruct justice, to risk my career, to put other people in danger. After nine years of telling myself I was over you, I still chose you over everything else."
The admission hits deeper than accusation or anger, because it reveals the core of her anguish. Not guilt over Casey's death, but recognition of her own capacity for making choices that prioritize personal connection over professional obligation.
Recognition that she's still the girl who helped position her father's body, still someone whose moral compass points toward protection rather than justice when the two conflict.
Still someone capable of loving a killer and meaning it.
"You chose someone you cared about," I correct gently. "That's not a character flaw."
"It is if it gets innocent people killed."
"Then we make sure it doesn't happen again." The words come out with more certainty than I feel, but she needs to hear them. "We figure out who's doing this and why, and we stop them before anyone else gets hurt."
"How?" The question carries nine years of exhaustion, nine years of trying to be strong enough to handle whatever the world throws at her. "How do we stop someone who knows our history, who has access to crime scenes, who can kill people and arrange them to send us messages?"
"The same way I stopped everyone else who needed stopping." My hand finds her face, thumb brushing away tears she doesn't seem aware she's still shedding. "Carefully. Precisely. With complete commitment to seeing it through."
Something shifts in her expression—not hope, exactly, but recognition of the man who once killed her father because it needed doing. The man who spent two years removing predators from the world with surgical precision.
The man who won't let anyone hurt her and walk away from it.
"We'll figure out who did this to Casey," I continue, letting steel creep into my voice. "And when we do, they'll understand exactly why it was a mistake to make this personal."
She studies my face, reading the promise there, the commitment that goes beyond comfort or professional obligation. Then, without warning, her control completely disintegrates.
The sobs come from somewhere deep and primal, the kind of crying that shakes the entire body. Nine years of carefullymanaged emotions pouring out in a flood that threatens to drown us both. She collapses against me without conscious decision, her face pressed against my chest while her hands fist in my shirt.
I hold her while she breaks apart, one hand stroking her hair while the other rubs circles on her back. She cries for Casey, for the innocence she lost at sixteen, for nine years of building walls high enough to protect herself from exactly this kind of pain.
She cries like someone who's finally admitted that, despite all her professional success and emotional armor, she's still capable of being destroyed by caring about the wrong people.
Still capable of choosing love over safety, even when she knows better.
"I've got you, sweetheart," I murmur against her hair, meaning it in ways that go beyond physical comfort. "I'm not going anywhere. We'll handle this together."
She doesn't respond with words, just presses closer, using my body as an anchor while the worst of the storm passes through her. Her tears soak through my shirt, but I don't care. Don't move or adjust or do anything that might disrupt the first honest emotional release she's allowed herself since I walked back into her life.
For twenty minutes, we sit in the wreckage of her dining room—broken plates around our feet, the scent of cold steak mixing with the aftermath of what we did to each other—while she processes grief that professional training never prepared her to handle.
When the crying finally subsides, she doesn't pull away immediately. Just stays pressed against me, breathingin unsteady rhythms while she rebuilds whatever internal structure keeps her functional.
"We need to see the scene," she says finally, her voice hoarse but steady. "We need to understand what message they're trying to send."
I nod, recognizing the shift from personal grief back to professional necessity. It's what she needs right now—purpose, action, something concrete to focus on instead of the hole Casey's death has torn in her carefully ordered world.
