"She sounds like she was a good friend."
"She was. And she deserved better than what I gave her." The guilt tastes like bile in my throat. "She deserved honesty, or protection, or at least the courtesy of being warned that knowing me had made her a target."
Kent rinses conditioner from my hair, his touch remaining steady and soothing despite the weight of my confession. "Guilt is a luxury we can't afford right now. Someone killed Casey to manipulate us, and the best way to honor her memory is to stop them from using her death for whatever they're ultimately planning."
The practical reasoning should comfort me, but instead it highlights how far I've drifted from normal human emotional responses. Where others would process grief naturally, I'm calculating strategic advantages and potential threats.
Where others would mourn, I'm planning counter-moves in games I don't fully understand.
"I want to visit my aunt tomorrow," I say suddenly, the decision crystallizing with unexpected clarity. "Janine was at my father's funeral. She'd remember who else was there, what they looked like, whether my memory of Shaw's face is accurate or just trauma-induced delusion."
Kent's hands still in my hair. "That's probably wise. If Shaw has been tracking you longer than we realized, Janine might have insights we need."
"And if I'm losing my mind, she'll tell me that too." I lean forward, wrapping my arms around my knees. "Either way, we need to know what's real before we make any more decisions about how to respond."
Kent helps me stand, wrapping a towel around my shoulders like a shield against whatever threats wait beyond the safety of warm bathwater and gentle care. "We'll figure it out," he promises, his voice carrying the kind of quiet conviction that's kept me anchored through the worst days of this nightmare. "Whatever Shaw is planning, whoever she's working with, we'll understand their game before they can finish playing it."
I nod, clinging to his certainty because my own has been shattered by memory fragments and paranoid possibilities. Tomorrow we'll visit Janine, and I'll learn whether my recollections are accurate warnings or symptoms of a complete psychological breakdown.
Tonight, I'll let Kent take care of me, and try to remember what it feels like to trust someone completely.
Chapter 26 - Kent
For the last nine years, I've imagined what the woman raising Delilah Jenkins would look like.
In my mind, she was someone weathered by the weight of taking in a traumatized teenager, someone who'd aged rapidly under the pressure of trying to heal damage she didn't fully understand. I pictured tired eyes and nervous energy, the kind of guardian who meant well but struggled with the magnitude of what she'd inherited when Harry Jenkins died.
I was completely wrong.
Now, sitting in Lila's passenger seat as she navigates residential streets toward her aunt's house, I realize how much those imagined scenarios revealed about my own assumptions rather than any actual insight into Lila's life. Because the woman who helped her rebuild from Delilah Jenkins into Dr. Lila North had to be remarkable in ways I never considered.
"You're nervous," Lila observes, her voice carrying the kind of gentle teasing that's become easier between us since last night.
She's right. My hands are clenched in my lap, and I've been staring out the window without really seeing anything for the past ten minutes. Meeting Janine North feels more significant than any of the dangerous reunions I've navigated recently—more significant than facing Detective Finch's questions or Shaw's surveillance or even Lila pointing a gun at my chest.
This is meeting the person who saved the most important woman in my life.
"Tell me what she's like," I say, needing something to focus on besides the tension of this introduction.
Lila glances at me, and something soft crosses her features. "Warm. Protective without being suffocating. She has this way of making you feel like whatever you're carrying isn't too heavy to bear." She pauses, navigating a turn with careful precision. "She saved my life, Kent. Not dramatically, not with grand gestures, but by showing me what normal looked like until I could pretend to be it."
The admission makes my chest tight because it highlights everything I wasn't for her. When Lila needed someone to model healthy relationships and emotional stability, I was busy convincing myself that staying away was protective rather than cowardly. While she was learning to trust again under Janine's patient guidance, I was building furniture and telling myself that isolation was noble.
"She's going to hate me," I say, the certainty settling like ice in my stomach.
"Why would she hate you?"
"Because I hurt you. Because I left when you needed someone to stay. Because I'm the reason you're sitting in therapy rooms talking about abandonment issues instead of—" I stop, realizing how presumptuous that sounds.
"Instead of what?" Lila's voice is carefully neutral, but I can hear the edge underneath.
"Instead of being with someone who deserves you."
She pulls into a driveway in front of a modest two-story house with a well-maintained garden and warm light spilling from the windows. For a moment, neither of us moves. Then Lila turns to face me fully, her expression serious.
"Kent, I need you to understand something. Janine doesn't hate people for the mistakes they've made—she judges them by what they do when they get the chance to make different choices." Her hand finds mine, fingers intertwining with steady pressure. "You're here now. That's what matters to her."
I want to believe that. Want to trust that the woman who helped Lila transform from a traumatized teenager into someone capable of professional success might be willing to extend similar grace to the man who once abandoned her.
