The elevator carries me down through the building's abandoned floors, and with each level I descend, I can feel the professional mask dissolving completely. My breathing changes, becomes deeper, more controlled. My hands steady into the kind of calm precision that Kent taught me through letters written in careful block script. The rage that's been building since I found Marcus Chen's body crystallizes into something cold and focused and absolutely lethal.
By the time the doors open onto the loading dock, Dr. Lila North is gone completely.
What emerges into the parking lot is Delilah Jenkins—grateful, dangerous, and finally free to be exactly what she was born to become. My reflection in the BMW's window showssomeone I recognize from old photographs, from memories of a girl who could look at a killer and see salvation instead of threat.
I slide behind the wheel and start the engine, muscle memory guiding me through movements that feel like coming home. Twenty-seven minutes to reach Shaw's location. To finish what began nine years ago in a different kitchen, with a different monster, and a different version of myself who didn't yet understand her own capacity for beautiful violence.
Shaw wanted to create a killer.
She's about to discover she succeeded beyond her wildest research fantasies.
Chapter 32 - Kent
The front door opens with a soft click that cuts through Shaw's monologue like a blade, and I know without turning that Lila has arrived exactly as Shaw planned. The timing aligns perfectly with Shaw's psychological manipulation—she's been orchestrating every element of this confrontation, ensuring that all her subjects would be present for whatever final experiment she has designed.
The house at 1247 Oakmont Drive looks exactly as I remember it from nine years ago—modest two-story colonial with white siding and blue shutters, the kind of middle-class respectability that Janine worked her entire career to achieve. But something fundamental has changed in the months since I last saw this place. The windows glow with warm light that feels wrong somehow, too deliberate, too staged, like a movie set designed to evoke comfort while hiding something darker underneath.
Janine sits rigid in the passenger seat, her hands clenched in her lap as she stares at the house where she once provided sanctuary for a traumatized sixteen-year-old girl. The same house where Delilah Jenkins spent sleepless nights writing letters to a serial killer, where she first learned to articulate the darkness that most people spend their lives trying to pretend doesn't exist.
"Shaw's inside," I say unnecessarily, though the certainty in my voice seems to provide some comfort to the woman beside me.
"How do you know?"
"Because this is where it has to end," I reply, checking my phone one more time for any message from Lila. Nothing. Either she's still trapped in whatever scenario Shaw constructed at the warehouse, or she's already figured out the same thing I have about Shaw's real location. "Shaw isn't just recreating crime scenes—she's completing psychological circles. This is where Lila's transformation began, so this is where Shaw wants to document its completion."
We approach the front door with the careful movements of people who understand they're walking into an elaborate trap. The porch light illuminates details that make my blood run cold with recognition—not just the familiar features of Janine's old home, but newer additions that speak to Shaw's obsessive preparation.
A kitchen chair sits visible through the front window, positioned exactly as Harry Jenkins's had been nine years ago. The same angle, the same relationship to the overhead light, the same plastic sheeting spread beneath it that once caught a corrupt cop's blood.
Shaw has recreated my crime scene with meticulous accuracy.
The front door stands unlocked, an invitation that we both recognize as another element of Shaw's psychological theater. Inside, the familiar layout has been transformed into something that belongs in a museum of violence—or an academic's twisted research laboratory.
The living room furniture has been pushed against the walls, creating an open space that directs attention toward the kitchen, where Shaw's real performance is about to take place. But it's not empty—Aliyah sits bound to a chair near the entrance, very much alive despite Shaw's claims about explosive devices at the warehouse location.
" She's been waiting for you both. This whole thing—the warehouse, the rehabilitation center—it was all misdirection to get you here," she whispers as we enter, her voice hoarse but steady.
Relief floods through me at seeing her alive, but it's tempered by the understanding that Shaw's deception runs deeper than either Lila or I calculated. The explosive threats, the impossible timeline, the choice between saving Janine or Aliyah—all of it was elaborate psychological manipulation designed to force us into this moment, this place, this confrontation.
"Where is she?" I ask, though I already suspect the answer.
Aliyah's eyes dart toward the kitchen, and I can see fear there mixed with something that looks like anticipation. "She's been setting up for hours. She—she has tools. The same onesyouused before, she said, replicas of them. She knows everything about how you work."
The violation runs deeper than simple research. Shaw has studied my methodology so thoroughly that she can recreate not just the physical elements but the entire ritual framework that once gave my kills meaning and purpose.
From the kitchen comes a voice I recognize from phone calls and professional consultations, cultured and calm despite the circumstances.
"Mr. Shepherd, Ms. North. Please, join me. We have so much to discuss, and our timeline is somewhat compressed now that everyone has arrived ahead of schedule."
Shaw's tone carries the satisfied confidence of someone who believes she controls every variable in the equation. She's spent nearly a decade planning this moment, cataloguing every response and reaction that might allow her to predict how Kentand I will behave when confronted with the culmination of her research.
But there's something she doesn't know, something that no amount of surveillance or psychological profiling could have revealed: what happens when two people who've learned to love each other's darkness decide to work together against a common enemy.
I step in front of Janine, pushing her out of view, towards her wife. Alone, I approach the kitchen where Shaw's final experiment is waiting.
Shaw has added her own academic touches to the recreation. Video cameras mounted in multiple corners, digital recording equipment arranged on the counter like scientific instruments, and thick folders containing what looks like years of documentation spread across every available surface.
And there, standing near the kitchen island with predatory stillness, is Lila.
