Page 6 of Borrowed Pain
Respectfully,Dr. Miles McCabe, PsyD, Licensed Clinical Psychologist
I read the email three times.
It was meticulously worded, careful to avoid liability.Lost a clientinstead ofmy patient died.Circumstances raise questionsinstead ofsomething's wrong.Conventional channelsinstead ofthe cops won't listen.
Underneath the clinical precision, desperation bled through. And what kind of therapist emailed an investigative podcaster at midnight on a Sunday?
Potentially one struggling under eighteen months of guilt.
My pulse quickened. I swiveled toward the filing cabinet behind my desk. The metal drawer shrieked. There it was. Manila folder, thick with details: "Delacroix, I. - Suspicious Circumstances."
I spread the contents across my desk. Newspaper clipping with her photo—a young woman with intelligent eyes and a smile that didn't know what was coming. Police report, frustratingly brief. Timeline I'd constructed from public records and social media archaeology.
Iris Delacroix, 29. Software engineer. Survived workplace mass shooting three years prior. Making documented progress in therapy. Then—gap. Three weeks of radio silence on all social platforms. Then dead on the sidewalk outside her Capitol Hill apartment.
The holes in my research stared back at me. I'd never been able to access her therapy records, and I'd never found the Riverside program she'd mentioned to her coworkers before disappearing.
Now, her therapist was in my inbox.
I sat back and rubbed my eyes, feeling the grit of sleeplessness. The warehouse hummed on, wires and drives buzzing like a hive.
Something about Dr. McCabe's phrasing—circumstances raise questions—aggravated a memory I'd been trying to bury for more than six years.
Baltimore field office, August 2019. Case file stamped "Healing Horizons Wellness Retreat - Investigation Suspended."
The taste of stale vending machine coffee flooded my mouth. I drummed fingers against the desk in sequences of four. The federal building's fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Suddenly, I was 29 again, staring at a case board that looked disturbingly similar to the one hanging behind me now.
Dr. Aiyana Blackhorse, 26 years old. Pueblo heritage, military veteran, Purple Heart recipient.
Her photo was crystal clear in my memory—dark hair pulled back, eyes that had seen too much but could still appreciate humor. She'd survived an IED blast in Syria that killed three members of her unit—suffering from PTSD, survivor's guilt, and the standard cocktail of trauma that came home with too many soldiers.
Aiyana was a fighter. Six months of therapy with a VA counselor. Real progress documented in her file. She'd started painting again, reconnected with her sister, and even began dating someone from her art class.
Then, someone called her.
"Specialized program," they said. "Cutting-edge treatment for veterans. Fully funded. Just two weeks to the breakthrough that takes years of traditional therapy."
Healing Horizons nestled in the Virginia mountains like a luxury spa for broken minds.
I'd interviewed her sister, Rosa, after they found Aiyana's body in the Potomac three months later. Rosa's voice still echoed in the warehouse around me, sharp with grief and fury.
"She came back wrong, Agent Ashcroft. Like they'd scraped out pieces of her and forgot to put them back. She couldn't remember things—good things. Our grandmother's stories. Thesongs she used to sing. But the nightmares? Those got worse. They amplified every terrible memory and muted everything else."
My supervisor had been crystal clear: insufficient evidence for federal charges. The Bureau shrugged. Consent forms. Congressional connections.
"You know what your problem is, Ashcroft? You think justice and law are the same thing. They're not. Law is what we can prove in court. Justice is a luxury we can't afford."
Six months later, I turned in my badge.
I'd tried. Fuck it all, I'd tried. But Aiyana was still dead, and Rosa Blackhorse still called me every few months asking if there were any updates.
I stood abruptly, chair rolling backward into the filing cabinet with a metallic crash. The evidence wall riveted my attention. Eight faces stared back at me, connected by red string that mapped a conspiracy I'd been tracking piece by piece for three years.
Healing Horizons wasn't an isolated incident. It was a beta test.
My hands shook as I reached for my box of pushpins. I pinned Iris at number nine and drew red string to Aiyana, Devon Reeves (Phoenix), and River Baptiste (Austin). The pattern coalesced like stars forming a constellation—a network of facilities promising revolutionary care, leaving behind a trail of damaged minds and dead bodies.
The scope of it stole my breath. How many cities? How many programs? How many Dr. McCabes out there were carrying eighteen months of guilt for clients they couldn't save?
