The puzzle pieces are all on the table.
Harrison.
Sarah.
The revoked license.
The diary.
The blackmail note.
But they don't fit.
The picture is still fractured.
Incomplete.
"We're missing something," I say, my voice a low hum in the tense conference room. "The 'why.' The motive. Why this elaborate, multi-year takedown? Why use me? Why is he so obsessed with Theo?"
"He's a psychopath," Maya says, throwing her hands up. "Does he need a reason?"
"Yes," I insist. "Men like Harrison, the truly intelligent, narcissistic manipulators… they always have a reason. A core wound. A grand, twisted justification for their actions. We're only seeing the symptoms. We need to find the disease."
Theo has been silent for a long time.
He's been staring at the document on Maya's laptop.
The one detailing Harrison's revoked license in Arizona.
"His patient file on Sarah," he says, his voice rough. "That's the only place the real story would be."
"It's inadmissible, Theo," Ms. Shaw reminds him gently. "Completely confidential. We can't get it, and even if we could, we could never use it."
"I don't care if we can use it," I say, my eyes meeting Theo's across the table. "I don't care about the hearing anymore. Not really. I need to know what he did to her."
It's the truth.
My career feels like a distant, secondary concern.
What matters is the truth of a dead woman whose ghost is now haunting my life.
I need to know what happened in that therapy room.
Theo nods, a silent, grim understanding passing between us.
He picks up his phone.
He hits a single button.
"Dmitri," he says. "I have a new target. Dr. Alistair Harrison's private office. I need a file. Her name was Sarah Jenkins. I need it now. And I need it to be untraceable."
He hangs up.
No one in the room says a word.
We have officially moved from legal defense to espionage.
And I have never felt more certain about anything in my life.
Two hours later, a secured, encrypted file appears in my inbox.
The subject line is blank.
My hands are shaking as I click it open.
It's a scanned copy of a patient file.
The name on the tab is JENKINS, SARAH.
Theo, Maya and I are huddled around my laptop in the empty conference room.
The legal team has been dismissed.
This part is not for them.
This is personal.
I take a deep breath and begin to read.
The first few pages are standard intake forms.
Diagnosis: Bipolar I Disorder, with periods of intense mania and severe depressive episodes.
Then come the session notes.
Harrison's notes.
And as I read, a cold, sickening horror begins to creep up my spine.
He's not treating her.
He's cultivating her paranoia.
I read his notes aloud, my voice trembling.
"Session 12. Sarah expressed feelings of being 'suffocated' by Mr. Raine's attentiveness. I validated her experience, suggesting that his behavior could be interpreted as a form of control, common in partners of highly creative individuals."
"Validated her experience?" I whisper. "He's supposed to be helping her differentiate between a symptom of her mania and reality. Not confirming her delusions."
We keep reading.
Page after page, it's the same thing.
Sarah expresses a fear.
"Theo's constant check-ins feel like surveillance."
And Harrison validates it.
"It's understandable you feel that way. Powerful men often require a great deal of control over their environment, including their partners."
Sarah expresses a desire for her own studio.
"I need my own space to breathe."
And Harrison twists it.
"We discussed the importance of establishing a safe space away from Mr. Raine's potentially triggering influence."
He's a poison.
A slow, methodical poison.
He's taking every insecurity, every symptom of her illness, and he's feeding it.
He's framing Theo's love, his desperate, clumsy attempts to protect her, as abuse.
He's systematically dismantling her trust in the one person she loves.
He's isolating her.
"My God," Maya breathes, her face pale. "He was gaslighting her."
"He was doing more than that," I say, my voice shaking with a cold, clinical rage. "He was using her illness as a weapon against her. Against Theo."
I scroll to the last section of the file.
It's not session notes.
It's labeled: SUPERVISOR'S PRIVATE REFLECTIONS.
These are his personal thoughts.
His motives.
His confession.
And the truth is more twisted than I ever could have imagined.
The first entry is dated ten years ago.
"My license in Arizona was revoked today. They said I blurred the lines. They said my relationship with Catherine was inappropriate. But they didn't understand. She reminded me so much of my own daughter. My sweet Anna, gone all these years. Catherine was my second chance. A chance to save one. And they took her away from me."
My blood runs cold.
He's not just a predator.
He has a savior complex. A pathological one.
Rooted in his own unresolved trauma.
I keep reading.
The entries jump forward two years.
"A new patient was referred to me today. A brilliant, fragile artist named Sarah Jenkins. The moment she walked in, I saw her. I saw my Catherine. My Anna. Another chance. This time, I will not fail. This time, I will save her."
The next entries are a chilling chronicle of his growing obsession.
He sees Sarah not as a patient, but as a project.
A surrogate for his dead daughter.
And he sees Theo as the enemy.
The obstacle.
"Mr. Raine is a corrupting influence. He smothers her light with his money and his demands. He doesn't understand her spirit. I must liberate her from him. She must choose to be saved. She must choose me."
Then comes the final entry.
Dated the week after Sarah's death.
The words are filled with a chilling, venomous rage.
"He let her die. He was supposed to be her protector, but he drove her to it. He took my last chance away from me. He will pay for this. He will lose everything, just as I have. He will have his reputation destroyed. He will have his life's work turned to ash. And I will use the one thing he values most to do it: a brilliant, ambitious woman with a soft spot for broken things. I will find her. I will mentor her. I will make her my own. And when the time is right, I will use her to burn his entire world to the ground."
I stare at the screen.
At my own description.
A brilliant, ambitious woman with a soft spot for broken things.
This wasn't a coincidence.
This wasn't a random act of revenge.
He chose me.
He groomed me.
He has been orchestrating this for years.
I was never his student.
I was his weapon.
I have to face him.
"Elara, no," Maya says, seeing the look in my eyes. "It's too dangerous. We give this to the police."
"The police will bury it in evidence," I say, my voice a low, steady calm. "I need to see his face when he knows that I know."
It's reckless.
It's stupid.
It's a textbook trauma response, confronting the abuser.
I don't care.
I find his private practice address online.
It's a quiet, discreet building in Pasadena.
I go alone.
I find him in his office. It's filled with books and old maps. It smells like leather and pipe tobacco.
He looks up when I enter, a flicker of surprise in his eyes.
"Elara. I wasn't expecting you."
"I think you were," I say, my voice steady.
I don't waste time.
I lay it all out.
"Arizona," I say. "A patient named Catherine. A revoked license."
The color drains from his face.
"Sarah Jenkins," I continue, my voice gaining strength. "You didn't treat her. You manipulated her. You used her illness to isolate her and turn her against the man she loved."
"And me," I say, taking a step closer. "You've been playing me for years. Your perfect little weapon. Waiting for the right moment to aim me at Theo and pull the trigger."
He just stares at me.
The paternal mask is gone.
The sorrowful mentor is gone.
All that's left is a cold, empty void.
He doesn't deny it.
He smiles.
A thin, chilling smile.
"Bravo, my dear," he says. "You always were my star pupil."
The game is over. He's lost.
I turn to leave.
My hand is on the doorknob.
"I'm afraid you can't go just yet, Elara," he says, his voice suddenly behind me.
I turn.
He's blocking the door.
His face is no longer smiling.
It's a mask of cold, unhinged fury.
"You were the perfect tool," he hisses. "But you've become a liability. And liabilities… must be dealt with."
He takes a step toward me.
I see the syringe in his hand.
I open my mouth to scream.
But a cloth is pressed over my face before I can make a sound.
The smell is sweet.
Chemical.
My knees buckle.
The last thing I see before the world goes black is his face, looming over me, his eyes empty of everything but a chilling, triumphant madness.