But no amount of security can protect you from ghosts that materialize in hallways, carrying the weight of shared secrets and abandoned promises.
The door opens, and I'm looking at him for the first time in nine years. Kent Shepherd, the man who taught me that love could look like violence if you understood the context. Who showed me what justice looked like when it was delivered with surgical precision. Who walked away from the most honest relationship of my life because he thought I deserved better than the truth we shared.
And I'm pointing a gun at his chest.
The Glock is steady in my hands, held in the Weaver stance that's become muscle memory after years of training I never thought I'd need. Professional grip, proper sight alignment, finger positioned alongside the trigger guard with the discipline of someone who's received formal instruction in the application of controlled violence.
Because Dr. Lila North knows how to kill someone. The knowledge sits in my posture, my breathing, the absolute stillness of someone who's calculated the mathematics of violence and found them acceptable under the right circumstances.
Kent's eyes move from my face to the weapon, taking in the professional way I hold it, the lack of tremor in my hands despite what must be the shock of seeing him on my doorstep. His expression doesn't change—no surprise, no fear, just that analytical assessment I remember from watching him work.
For thirty seconds, neither of us speaks. Nine years of silence condensed into the space between heartbeats, between the woman I've become and the girl he abandoned, between the muzzle of my gun and his chest.
Then I find my voice, steady despite the way my pulse hammers against my ribs: "I will not think twice before blowing your fucking head off.”
Something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, or the first hint of understanding about why I'm armed and dangerous at my own front door. He looks older in the hallway's harsh lighting, more weathered, like someone who's spent years carrying weight that can't be shared.
"You have five minutes to convince me it isn't you who's been doing this."
"I am insulted," he says quietly, his voice carrying the same controlled precision I remember, "you feel the need to ask."
The response hits exactly the way he intended it to. Because the Kent I knew would be insulted by the suggestion that he'd kill innocent people, that he'd corrupt his own methodology by applying it to victims who hadn't earned death through their own cruelty. His work had meaning, purpose, a twisted but comprehensible logic that separated necessary killing from random violence.
"People change," I say, keeping the gun trained on his center mass. "Maybe you got sloppy. Maybe you got bored withyour careful criteria. Maybe killing corrupt cops wasn't enough anymore, and you decided to expand your victim pool."
Kent's jaw tightens, and for a moment I see a flash of the man who once spent an hour extracting truth from my father with surgical implements. Controlled violence barely held in check, fury that could be channeled into precise action if circumstances required it.
"Is that what you think of me?" he asks. "That I'd throw away everything I believed in to kill people like Marcus Chen and Rebecca Martin? An investment banker and a nurse? What justice would their deaths serve?"
The question carries genuine offense, as if my suspicion has wounded him on some fundamental level. Because even serial killers have their pride, their internal logic that makes sense of the violence they inflict. Kent's always been different from other predators in that regard—he kills with purpose, with careful consideration of whether death is deserved.
At least, he used to.
"I don't know what you think anymore," I admit, lowering the gun slightly but not holstering it. "I haven't heard from you in more than nine years. People change, Kent. Sometimes they become exactly what they swore they'd never be."
"Have you?" The question is quiet, loaded with implications that make my chest tight. "Become what you swore you'd never be?"
The words hit deeper than they should, because he's not wrong. Dr. Lila North is everything Delilah Jenkins swore she'd never become—someone who uses professional credentials to manipulate investigations, who obstructs justice to protect a killer, who feels excitement rather than revulsion when analyzing crime scenes that match her darkest memories.
Someone who sent coded emails to murderers and felt disappointed rather than relieved when they didn't respond immediately.
"We're not talking about me," I say, deflecting because I can't answer that question honestly. Not here, not with a gun between us and nine years of silence that needs explaining first. "We're talking about you showing up at my door after Marcus Chen and Rebecca Martin turned up dead using your signature."
Kent studies my face with uncomfortable intensity, and I can see him processing details—the way I hold myself differently, the confidence in my voice despite the weapon, the expensive apartment behind me that speaks to professional success. Reading me the same way he once read crime scenes, looking for patterns that reveal underlying truth.
"You became exactly what you said you would," he observes. "Dr. Lila North, forensic psychologist. Studying violent offenders, analyzing their methods, building profiles that help catch killers."
The irony isn't lost on either of us. The girl who once helped position her father's body has built a career around understanding people who do what he does. I've spent nine years learning everything there is to know about predators and their victims, developing expertise that makes me uniquely qualified to recognize his work.
And to hide it from people who would use that knowledge to destroy him.
"I became someone who understands how monsters think," I correct. "Someone who can identify their patterns, predict their behavior, recognize their signatures even when they think they've been clever about hiding them."
"And my signature is all over Chen and Martin."
"Perfect positioning, surgical precision, chest cavity opened and sutured closed. Everything except the confession recordings." I let him process that detail, watch understanding dawn in his eyes. "Whoever's doing this knows your methods intimately but doesn't understand their purpose."
Kent's expression shifts, analytical mask slipping enough to reveal the man underneath. Not the careful killer who once carved truth from my father, but someone genuinely disturbed by the corruption of his work.
