Have been choosing personal loyalty over innocent lives.
"I think I need to contact my attorney," I say, because it's the only rational response to accusations that could send me to prison for the rest of my life.
"That's certainly your right," Finch agrees, but his tone suggests the damage is already done. "But before you do, I'd likeyou to consider something. Three people are dead, Dr. North. Marcus Chen, Rebecca Martin, and now Casey Holbrook. All killed using methods you've demonstrated extensive knowledge of, all positioned with precision that suggests either professional training or obsessive study."
He moves closer, close enough that I can see the exhaustion in his eyes, the weight of investigating murders that seem to have no logical motive. "Someone with your expertise, someone with access to crime scene documentation, someone who's been systematically misdirecting analysis away from productive theories. Someone who benefits from keeping the real perpetrator from being caught."
The implication is clear: He thinks I'm involved in the murders directly, not just obstructing the investigation. He thinks Dr. Lila North has been killing people while using her professional position to cover her tracks.
"I didn't kill anyone," I say, though the words feel hollow given everything else he could legitimately charge me with.
"Then help me understand who did." Finch's voice carries the kind of desperate reasonableness that comes from working a case that defies logical explanation. "Help me understand why someone with your training and access would risk their career to protect a killer. Help me understand what I'm missing."
What he's missing is nine years of history with the man currently sitting in my car, counting down minutes until he decides my safety matters more than operational security. What he's missing is the weight of shared secrets and dangerous love, the way some connections transcend conventional morality.
What he's missing is that some choices can't be explained through professional frameworks, only through the terrible mathematics of caring about someone who kills people.
But I can't tell him any of that without destroying both our lives.
"I want my attorney," I repeat, because it's the only protection I have left against questions I can't answer honestly.
Finch nods, disappointment clear in his expression. "We'll arrange that. But Dr. North? Whoever's doing this, whoever you're protecting—they're not worth throwing your life away. They're not worth Casey's death or the deaths that are going to follow if we don't stop them."
The words hit exactly where he intends them to, because he's not wrong about the consequences. Casey is dead because of the choices I made, and more people will die if this continues. My protection of Kent has created exactly the kind of situation I joined this field to prevent.
But he's wrong about one thing: Kent is worth it. Worth the risk, worth the consequences, worth whatever price I have to pay for choosing love over law. Some connections transcend rational calculation, some bonds survive even when they probably shouldn't.
Some people are worth burning the world down to protect.
As Finch leads me toward whatever legal process comes next, I catch sight of the morgue's parking lot through a high window. Kent's silhouette in my BMW, completely still, waiting with the kind of patient attention he once brought to stalking predators.
He'll be counting down the minutes now, calculating when my safety becomes more important than maintaining cover. When protecting me becomes worth exposing himself to law enforcement scrutiny.
Part of me hopes he'll wait, hopes he'll let the legal system run its course while I figure out how to explain nine years of poor choices. But another part of me—the part that's still Delilah Jenkins underneath all the professional armor—hopes he won't.
Hopes he'll remember that some people are worth saving, even when they don't deserve it.
***
The drive home passes in silence that feels like drowning. Kent's questions hang in the air between us—what happened, what did they find, how bad is the situation—but I can't form words around the devastation in my chest. Every time I try to speak, I see Casey's face arranged with mathematical precision, hear my own voice contradicting itself through digital playback.
See the end of everything I've built over the past nine years.
"Talk to me," Kent says as we sit in my parking garage, his voice carrying the kind of careful concern reserved for people balanced on the edge of complete breakdown. "Whatever happened in there, we'll figure it out."
The gentle reasonableness in his tone snaps something fundamental inside me.
"Figure it out?" The words come out like broken glass, sharp enough to cut. "They have recordings, Kent. Recordings of me lying to Casey, recordings of me telling Shaw the truth about your methods. They know I've been obstructing justice."
He goes very still beside me, processing the implications with the same methodical precision he once brought to planning murders.
"How extensive are the recordings?"
"Extensive enough." I laugh, the sound harsh and bitter in the confined space. "Shaw's been surveilling me, probably for weeks. She knows everything—about my knowledge of your work, about my contradictory analysis, about the fact that I've been protecting you instead of helping catch you."
"Then we disappear," Kent says, like it's the simplest thing in the world. "Tonight. I have resources, contacts, ways to get us both new identities and clean papers. We can be gone before they issue warrants."
The offer hangs between us, loaded with possibilities that make my chest tight with something that might be hope or might be terror. Because he's not just offering escape—he's offering partnership. The kind of permanent alliance that would make us both fugitives, both dependent on each other for survival.
