She nodded.“It’s… stupid, really.When I was a kid, I was obsessed withAnne of Green Gables.My dad built me a treehouse, and I called it that.It was a secret between us.”
Her voice trembled.“And now this man — this killer — leaves it for me to find, like an ugly great big fingerprint on my childhood.How the hell could he know that?”
Gabe’s gaze was steady.“You think he’s been watching you.”
“Iknowit.”She looked up at him, eyes wide, raw.“For years, maybe.If he knows about Green Gables...then what else does the bastard know?”
“The thought sickens you.”
She nodded, swallowing hard.“So much that I—”
She stopped.
“That you what?”he asked gently.
She looked away.“I don’t know.The thought just popped into my head.That maybe… maybe I should walk away.From all of it.The Bureau, the cases, him.”
“And why don’t you?”
She laughed softly, bitterly.“Because I’m an idiot, apparently.”
He didn’t rise to the bait.“Try again.No, try another question.Why did you join the Bureau?”
She stared at the window, watching the light slide across the chrome trim of a passing taxi.“Because I thought it mattered,” she said at last.“Because I believed I could make a difference.I told myself that after Dad, after everything, I wanted to do somethingreal.Not sit in a library translating Sumerian king lists while the world burned outside.”
Her voice cracked.“But lately I keep wondering why I ever left.Why I didn’t stay in your department, keep working on dead languages instead of dead men?At least the Hittites didn’t look back at you.”
Gabe smiled, but it was the kind of smile that carried weight.“Because it wouldn’t have been enough for you, Kate.It never was.”
She looked at him sharply.
“You’ve always needed to wrestle with the living,” he went on, his tone gentle but firm.“You could never be content just describing the world.You wanted tochangeit.That’s what made you remarkable — and what makes you miserable.You think you’re in control of that impulse, but you’re not.It’s in your bones.”
She gave a low laugh, half-resentful.“You make it sound like a disease.”
“In a way, it is.The compulsion to fix what’s broken.But it’s also your gift.And that’s exactly what Cox is trying to poison.”
Her eyes flicked up.“What do you mean?”
“He wants you tobelievehe’s inside your head,” Gabe said.“He wants to make you doubt yourself.That’s how manipulators win.They convince you that fear equals intimacy — that because they can hurt you, they know you.”
He leaned forward slightly.“Tell me something.This reference toGreen Gables— are you absolutely certain you’ve never mentioned it?To anyone?In any context?”
“I…” She hesitated.“I don’t think so.”
“Not online?Not in a message?No Facebook likes, no interview where you talked about childhood heroes?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it.“There was a cartoon rerun on cable a few years ago,” she said quietly.“I might have posted something about it.I can’t even remember.”
“Exactly.”Gabe spread his hands.“That’s how it works.The old mind-reader’s trick.They throw out a detail, see what sticks.He could’ve picked it up from anywhere — a careless post, a conversation overheard, a name in an old file.How doyouknow who your Dad might have told?You’ve told me he spent 99% of his time at work.You think stem cell researchers only ever talk about stem cells?That they never talk about their daughters, their wives?There are dozens of ways in which Cox could know something… note the word,something… that connects you to Green Gables.And now he’s using it to convince you he’s omniscient.”
Her jaw tightened.“So you think it’s a con.”
“I think it’s theatre.And Cox is a master showman.He’s done this before, hasn’t he?He does this with his followers.Makes them believe he sees into their souls, when all he’s really doing is collecting data — watching, listening, nudging.”
She nodded slowly.“That’s how he recruits them.He tells them things about themselves they’ve never told anyone.Secrets they didn’t even realise were visible.”
“Precisely,” said Gabe.“It’s a magician’s trick.You think he’s reading your mind, but he’s only reading the shapes you leave in the bedsheets.The tragedy is that he’s made you believe you’re special to him — that you’re the main character in his story.”
