I barely make it to my car before the panic attack hits. Fuck, I haven’t had one in years. I may as well have. It devours me like it’s habit.
My hands shake as I fumble with the keys, the memory fragment playing on repeat behind my eyes like a damaged film reel. Professional clothing, analytical posture, someone standing apart from genuine mourners while cataloguing reactions and behaviors.
Someone at my father's funeral.
The thought should feel impossible, a paranoid delusion born from grief and guilt and the psychological pressure of maintaining too many lies for too long. Dr. Evelyn Shaw would have been working on her doctorate while I was helping Kent position my father's body with clinical precision.
But the image won't go away. Won't fade or shift or reveal itself as the false memory it has to be.
I sit in the driver's seat with the engine running, staring at Shaw's business card while my mind races through possibilities that make less sense with each iteration. The woman at my father's funeral was older, more mature, someone with professional bearing and investigative training. Shaw would have been in her mid-twenties—too young for the kind of authoritative presence I remember.
Unless I'm misremembering. Unless years of suppressed trauma has corrupted my recollection beyond reliability, creating false connections between unrelated events.
Unless I'm losing my grip on reality completely.
My phone buzzes with a text from Kent:How did it go? Did you change your mind about me joining you?
The simple question nearly breaks my resolve entirely. Because yes, I want him here. I need him to wrap his handsaround my trembling fists, clutching at the steering wheel. Need someone who understands the weight of carrying responsibility for death, someone who knows what it feels like to destroy innocent lives while pursuing objectives that seem justified until blood starts flowing.
But I can't admit weakness right now. Can't let grief and paranoia compromise the professional facade that's keeping both of us alive.
Don’t need a babysitter. Chill. Will be home soon.
I send the message and immediately regret its coldness. Kent is offering support, offering to be present during the worst day I've experienced since rebuilding my life as Dr. Lila North. He's trying to prove that this time is different, that he won't abandon me when things become difficult. I know…I know this.
And I'm pushing him away because I can't distinguish between legitimate threat and trauma-induced paranoia.
The funeral home parking lot empties around me while I sit motionless, trying to separate rational concern from psychological breakdown. Shaw's presence at Casey's funeral has reasonable explanations—professional courtesy, genuine respect for a colleague's work, the kind of networking that happens naturally in law enforcement circles.
But the memory fragment won't release its hold on my consciousness. Someone standing apart from the mourners at my father's funeral, someone with professional bearing and investigative eyes.
I force myself to drive home, to navigate traffic and parking and the basic mechanics of daily existence while my mind churns through possibilities that grow more frightening with each mile. By the time I reach my apartment building, I've convinced myself that Shaw has been tracking me foryears, studying my transformation from Delilah Jenkins to Dr. Lila North with the patience of someone planning long-term psychological manipulation.
The elevator ride to my floor feels endless. What am I supposed to do here? What am I meant to think?
I unlock my apartment door with hands that won't stop shaking, my mind spinning through evidence that supports this theory despite its fundamental impossibility. I am being a full-on fucking crazy person. Shaw couldn't have known about my father's death unless she had access to sealed juvenile records. Couldn't have tracked my transformation into Dr. Lila North unless she'd been monitoring my life for over a decade. What reason would she even have to do that?
Besides, shecouldn'thave orchestrated the copycat murders unless she possessed intimate knowledge of Kent's historical methodology.
Unless someone gave her that knowledge.
The thought hits like ice water in my veins because it opens possibilities I haven't considered. What if Shaw isn't working alone? What if she's part of something larger, an investigation or conspiracy that extends beyond individual vendetta into institutional manipulation?
What if someone in law enforcement has been using me as an unwitting asset, allowing Dr. Lila North to build professional credibility while planning to leverage my connection to Kent when the time was right?
I walk in and pour three fingers of whiskey just to drink it in two swallows, trying to burn away the paranoid thoughts that multiply faster than I can process them. But alcohol doesn't quiet the fundamental question that's been eating away at my sanity since Shaw first appeared at Marcus Chen's crime scene:
How many people know about my past, and what are they planning to do with that information?
My apartment feels smaller suddenly, walls closing in while shadows gather in corners that should be illuminated by late afternoon sunlight. Every sound from neighboring units becomes potential surveillance, every creak of a settling building structure transforms into evidence of watchers positioned just out of sight.
I'm losing my mind. Has to be. Professional stress and personal guilt combining with legitimate grief to create paranoid delusions that feel more real than objective reality.
Yet, even as I recognize the symptoms of psychological breakdown, I can't shake the memory of someone standing at my father's funeral with analytical eyes and professional bearing. Someone who looked exactly like Dr. Evelyn Shaw, despite the mathematical impossibility of such recognition.
Someone who's been part of my life longer than either of us has admitted.
The whiskey doesn't help.
