Chapter 13

The inside of Adrian’s car smelled faintly of rain, leather, and something darker underneath — cedar, maybe, or old cigarette smoke trapped deep in fabric years ago.

Neither of them spoke immediately after Evelyn shut the passenger door.

Rain moved softly across the windshield while traffic lights bled red and gold through the wet glass ahead of them. The heater hummed quietly near her legs, warming skin that still carried the cold from outside.

Adrian remained motionless behind the wheel.

One hand resting loosely near the steering wheel.

The other against the gearshift.

Controlled.

Always controlled.

Evelyn stared straight ahead instead of looking at him.

“You were waiting outside her building.”

Not a question.

“Yes.”

The calmness of the answer irritated her instantly.

“You followed me.”

“I knew where you were going.”

“That’s not better.”

Beside her, Adrian exhaled slowly through his nose.

Rainwater slid down the side windows in uneven silver trails.

For several seconds the only sound inside the car came from windshield wipers dragging rhythmically through the storm.

Evelyn turned toward him finally.

“Elise was afraid of you.”

The words landed harder than she expected.

Not because Adrian reacted strongly.

Because he barely reacted at all.

A small tightening near his jaw.

Nothing more.

“She told her mother you frightened her.”

“She wasn’t wrong.”

The honesty caught Evelyn off guard.

She had prepared herself for denial.

Manipulation.

Deflection.

Not this.

“You admit it.”

Adrian’s gaze remained fixed on the rain beyond the windshield.

“I think fear and danger are different things.”

“That sounds like something dangerous people say.”

A faint shadow of exhaustion crossed his face then.

“Probably.”

The answer unsettled her enough that she looked away again.

Streetlights reflected across the dashboard in blurred amber streaks while the city moved restlessly around them. Somewhere nearby, a siren wailed briefly before dissolving into distance.

Evelyn folded her arms tightly across herself.

“You knew Elise.”

“Yes.”

“You treated her.”

A pause.

Then:

“Yes.”

Something cold settled heavily into Evelyn’s stomach.

Patient.

Not seminar attendee.

Not acquaintance.

Patient.

“She came to me six months before she died,” Adrian said quietly.

Rain tapped steadily overhead now.

Evelyn studied him carefully.

“You never mentioned that.”

“No.”

“Why?”

This time Adrian did look at her.

And for the first time since getting into the car, she saw something beneath the composure that resembled genuine fatigue.

“Because every answer I give you makes things worse.”

The frightening part was that he might have been right.

Evelyn swallowed slowly.

“What was wrong with her?”

Adrian’s fingers tightened slightly against the steering wheel before relaxing again.

“She believed someone was following her.”

The words tightened every muscle in Evelyn’s body.

“Was someone following her?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re a psychiatrist. Isn’t that your job?”

“My job was determining whether her fear matched reality.”

“And?”

Adrian looked back toward the windshield.

“She became increasingly unstable during the final month.”

Unstable.

The word sat sharply in Evelyn’s chest.

Because she had started hearing it everywhere lately.

In comments.

In police reports.

In herself.

“She told me she was losing time,” Adrian continued softly. “Small gaps at first. Entire conversations she couldn’t remember having. Places she didn’t remember driving to.”

Evelyn’s pulse slowed abruptly into something colder.

Rain hammered harder against the roof.

“She thought she was blacking out,” he said.

The city disappeared briefly behind a blur of water across the windshield.

Evelyn’s voice came out quieter than before.

“And Lena?”

Adrian didn’t answer immediately.

That hesitation told her enough.

“She was seeing you too.”

Another silence.

Then:

“Yes.”

The word hollowed something out inside her.

For several seconds Evelyn simply stared at him.

Five years.

Five years of police reports, missing memories, anonymous recordings, panic attacks, and grief —

and Adrian Cross had been standing somewhere near the center of all of it the entire time.

“You treated both of them,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“And now me.”

“No.”

The answer came immediately.

Sharp enough to surprise her.

Adrian turned slightly toward her now, expression unreadable in the dim light inside the car.

“I would never treat you.”

“Why not?”

Something shifted behind his eyes then.

Not panic.

Something closer to restraint.

“Because objectivity stopped being possible a long time ago.”

The sentence landed between them with dangerous softness.

Evelyn felt heat rise unexpectedly into her throat.

Outside, thunder rolled low across the city.

She hated that part of her still reacted to him this way.

Still noticed:

the steadiness of his voice

the quiet precision of his movements

the way he never touched her without warning

Even now, sitting inside a car full of secrets, some instinct inside her still registered safety before suspicion.

That realization frightened her more than Ruth Ward’s warning had.

“What happened to Lena?” she asked quietly.

Adrian looked down briefly.

When he answered, his voice sounded rougher than before.

“She became afraid of you.”

The words hit like impact.

Evelyn stared at him.

“No.”

“She thought you were deteriorating.”

“No.”

“She came to me because she was worried about your memory gaps.”

Evelyn shook her head immediately.

“That’s not true.”

But something inside her had already started unraveling.

Fragments.

Rain.

Lena crying.

A bridge.

Missing time.

“She said you were losing hours,” Adrian continued carefully. “That sometimes you looked at her like you didn’t recognize where you were.”

The car suddenly felt too small.

Evelyn pushed a trembling hand through her hair.

“She thought I was dangerous.”

“I think she thought you were frightened.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No,” Adrian said quietly. “It isn’t.”

Her breathing had started turning uneven again.

Not a full panic attack.

Something lower and more dangerous.

The slow collapse of certainty.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she whispered.

Adrian didn’t answer.

Rainwater streaked heavily across the windshield now, distorting the city outside into abstract light and shadow.

Evelyn looked at him again.

And suddenly she understood the real reason he frightened her.

Not because he knew secrets.

Because every time he spoke, parts of her own memory shifted around his words like unstable ground.

“What happened on Blackwater Bridge?” she asked.

Adrian’s jaw tightened slightly.

For one terrible second, she thought he might actually answer.

Instead he said quietly:

“You were not in your right mind that night.”

The sentence hollowed the air inside the car.

Evelyn felt herself go very still.

Not because she believed him.

Because some unbearable part of her already feared it might be true.

Silence settled heavily between them afterward.

Then Adrian moved.

Just slightly.

His hand lifted from the steering wheel toward her instinctively, like someone responding to visible pain before thinking better of it.

His fingers stopped inches from her wrist.

The hesitation lasted only a second.

Then he pulled his hand back.