Page 81 of Carved
"Call me every week," she says, holding my face between her hands. "Let me know how you're adjusting, if you need anything, if you want to come home for a weekend."
"I will," I lie, because what she needs is reassurance that this separation is temporary rather than permanent. That Lila North will maintain the same connection to family that Delilah Jenkins once treasured.
But connection requires vulnerability, and vulnerability creates opportunities for abandonment. Lila North doesn't make that mistake.
The train to New Haven carries me away from everything familiar into a future I've designed with architectural precision. Psychology degree, advanced study in criminal behavior, professional credentials that will give me access to crime scenes and case files and the kind of institutional authority that opens doors.
By the time I graduate, I'll understand predators better than they understand themselves. I'll be able to identify theirpatterns, predict their behavior, recognize their signatures even when they think they've been clever about hiding them.
And if I ever encounter someone whose methods match those I learned about in careful correspondence with a killer, I'll be ready. Not as a victim seeking rescue or a girl needing protection, but as a professional with the power to decide what happens next.
The train crosses into Connecticut as sunset paints the landscape in shades of fire and shadow. Behind me, everything I used to be fades into memory. Ahead, everything I'm going to become waits with infinite patience.
Delilah Jenkins is dead. Long live Dr. Lila North.
And if Kent Shepherd thinks forever apart will be long enough for me to forget what he taught me about the necessity of carefully applied justice, he's about to discover how wrong a man can be about the woman he abandoned.
Some lessons, once learned, are never forgotten.
Some debts, once incurred, compound interest until they can only be paid in full.
Chapter 18 - Kent
OCTOBER 2025
The hotel room feels smaller each day, suffocating in its anonymity. I've memorized every water stain on the ceiling, counted every thread in the worn carpet, traced the pattern of city lights that filter through thin curtains. But none of that distraction changes the fundamental mathematics: someone is using my methods to kill innocent people, and the only person who might understand why has reached out with carefully coded language that could mean salvation or trap.
It’s only a matter of time until it came to this. Today, I make the decision that's been inevitable since I saw her name in my inbox.
I'm going to her apartment.
The drive through morning traffic gives me time to process what I'm about to do. See her again after nine years of silence. Face the woman she's become after I walked away from the girl she was. Discover whether the connection we shared survived my abandonment or if she's spent nearly a decade learning to hate me with the same precision she once applied to understanding me.
I park three blocks away from her fancy building and approach on foot, noting the security cameras positioned to cover all angles, the controlled entry system that requires key card access.
Dr. Lila North has built herself a fortress. Smart woman.
I position myself across the street, using a coffee shop window as cover while I study the building's patterns. Residentscoming and going, delivery people buzzed through by doormen, the casual flow of urban life that provides perfect camouflage for someone who knows how to blend in.
At 8:47 a.m., she emerges from the underground garage in the same black BMW I've seen in my surveillance photos. But seeing her in person hits differently than watching from a distance. She's taller than I remembered, moving with the confident stride of someone who's learned to command respect. The dark hair is shorter now, styled in a way that suggests both professionalism and careful attention to appearance.
She looks like someone who could testify in courtrooms, consult with police departments, analyze crime scenes with academic detachment. She looks like someone who's built exactly the kind of successful life I told myself she deserved when I left her crying in that hotel room.
But underneath the professional polish, I catch glimpses of the girl I knew. The way she checks her surroundings before getting in the car, the careful route she takes through residential streets rather than main arteries. The hypervigilance that comes from understanding how predators think, because she learned it from corresponding with one.
Pride and apprehension war in my chest as I watch her disappear into traffic. Because she's magnificent—everything I hoped she'd become and more. But she's also dangerous in ways the seventeen-year-old never was. Professional authority, institutional access, the kind of credentials that open doors and close them with equal efficiency.
If she wanted to destroy me, she has all the tools necessary to do it.
The question is whether she wants to.
I spend the day mapping her routines, confirming details from my earlier surveillance while building a complete picture of her current life. Work, apartment, the careful patterns of someone who's learned to protect herself through predictability and control.
By evening, I've run out of ways to postpone the inevitable.
Her apartment is 15-C, according to the building directory I accessed by following another resident through the lobby. Fifteenth floor, corner unit, probably with views of the city that remind her how far she's climbed from the girl who used to live in her father's house of horrors.
The elevator ride feels eternal. I count floors, breathing exercises, anything to keep my heart rate steady as I approach a conversation that could change everything. When the doors open on the fifteenth floor, I step into a hallway that's all muted colors and expensive fixtures.
