CHAPTER SEVEN
Kate stood on the pavement for a moment, collar up against the wind, watching her own reflection ripple in the glass.
She could see the people inside — the lunchtime crowd of the city’s overlooked and over-scheduled: delivery boys on break, junior traders with loosened ties, two middle-aged women sharing an omelette and a grievance.
The air shimmered with heat and the smell of frying oil.
It shouldn’t have been comforting. But somehow it was.
She pushed the door open. A little bell jingled overhead, announcing her to the room.
“Coffee, hon?” called the waitress from behind the counter — a blonde in her fifties with a heart-shaped face and a smoker’s laugh.
“I’m just looking for a friend, thanks,” Kate said, scanning the booths.
He was already there, of course. Gabe Levine had never once in his life been late for anything.
He was seated by the window, resplendent in a pale blue three-piece suit and a polka-dot bowtie.
A stack of papers and a leather-bound notebook in front of him, his red-rimmed spectacles glinting under the fluorescent light.
The years had etched themselves gently onto him — faint creases around the eyes, a little more grey in the beard — but he was otherwise unchanged: the same calm, deliberate presence she remembered from her grad-school days.
She slid into the opposite booth.
“Professor,” she said.
He smiled. “You haven’t called me that in years.”
Gabe’s career had been a mirror image of Kate’s: an FBI profiler turned academic, he’d been influential in convincing Kate to quit research for a career in law enforcement.
“Muscle memory.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment.”
He gestured to the waitress. “Two coffees, please. One black, one with extra milk.”
Kate opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. He remembered everything — even her preferred ratio of dairy to caffeine. That simple fact made her throat tighten unexpectedly.
“How long has it been?” he asked.
“Three months, I think.”
He nodded. “Feels longer. You look tired.”
“Is that a question?”
“It’s an observation. The kind of thing old men are allowed to make.”
She smiled faintly. “Then I’ll pretend it’s wisdom, not concern.”
The coffees arrived. The waitress left two small metal jugs of milk and a bowl of sugar that was last filled when the Russians marched on Kabul.
They sat in silence for a moment. The diner’s soundtrack was a tinny loop of old rock — Springsteen bleeding into Fleetwood Mac. Outside in the drizzle, the traffic slid by in a ceaseless grey river.
“So,” Gabe said finally. “How’s the Bureau treating you?”
“Busy,” she said. “Always is.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the official one.”
He smiled, leaning back. “Still dodging questions, I see.”
She took a sip of coffee. It was truly terrible. “You trained me too well.”
“I trained you to seek truth,” he said mildly. “Not to hide from it.”
“I’m not hiding.”
Gabe waited. He’d always been good at waiting — the kind of silence that drew the truth out of people the way gravity draws water downhill.
She sighed. “Fine.” She lowered her voice. “The investigation into Brennan’s murder is going well. We’ve got leads, potential witnesses, cross-references coming in every hour. It’s got Cox’s m.o. all over it, and we’ve got Cox on CCTV.”
He studied her over the rim of his cup. “So he didn’t die, and he’s not using a disciple this time. Which tells you what?”
“He looks weaker. On the CCTV, it’s obvious. But maybe he isn’t.”
“Flip that,” Gabe said. “He thinks he isn’t weaker. But you know he is.”
Kate smiled. It was a poor effort, and Gabe saw it.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
The mask cracked a little more. She looked down at her hands, clasped on the table. “The truth is every clue feels like it’s been left there for me to find — deliberately, mockingly.”
“By him.”
“By Cox. Yes.” She exhaled, long and shaky. “He’s in my head.”
Gabe was silent for a moment. Then he said softly, “Why do you say that?”
She hesitated. The question was simple; the answer was not.
“Because of what we found,” she said finally. “There was a note, or a message, under the drawer in Brennan’s desk. Two words. ‘Green Gables.’”
He frowned slightly. “That means something to you?”
She nodded. “It’s… stupid, really. When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Anne 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.”
“I know it.” 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 something real. 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 to change it. 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 to believe he’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 to Green 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 do you know 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.”
Her lips parted, a protest rising, then fading.
“That doesn’t make you foolish,” Gabe added. “It makes him dangerous. And very, very good at what he does.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke. The waitress refilled their cups, humming along to a song about heartbreak and highways. A finance bro at the counter was explaining cryptocurrency to a woman who looked like she’d rather eat the counter. The world went on.
Kate traced a fingertip along the rim of her mug. “You really think that’s all it is? Just another trick?”
“I think it’s more effective than any weapon. He wants you to see him everywhere. To feel his presence in your most private memories. Because if you believe that, you’ll never sleep again. And eventually, you’ll quit. That’s his goal.”
She stared at him. “To make me walk away.”
“Yes. That might not be all he’s planning, but he certainly wants you outside of the Bureau.”
She swallowed. “And it’s working.”
Gabe’s gaze softened. “Then don’t let it.”
“How?”
“By remembering who you are. And by fighting him with his own tools.”
She frowned. “Meaning?”
“You said the Bureau’s planning a sweep in the Bronx.”
She nodded. “Tomorrow. We’ve got reason to think he was heading up there after the murder.
But honestly? It feels like a needle-in-a-haystack operation.
Hundreds of buildings, miles of footage.
That’s if he actually was heading to the Bronx.
It could have been a false trail. He could have been going to visit his Great-Aunt Wilhelmina. ”
“So stop looking for the haystack,” he said. “Start looking for the thread.”
“Translation, please.”
“Where has Cox spent his last coherent period of life?”
“In the Maine prison system,” she said slowly. “Lewiston Federal Penitentiary.”
“Exactly. And what do people do in prison?”
“Plan. Scheme. Recruit.”
"Right. You think he sat there alone, meditating on the Book of Exodus? Not likely. He would've been talking to guards, to other inmates, to anyone who'd listen. Turning them into followers. That's what he does. That's where you'll find your answers, not in a thousand hours of CCTV."
Kate stared at him, a flicker of energy returning to her face. “You think someone inside helped him.”
“He will have found people he could use,” Gabe said. “Every prophet needs apostles.”
She exhaled, the first real breath she’d taken in days. “Jesus, Gabe. You make it sound so simple.”
He smiled. “It never is. But it’s at least a direction.”
She looked at him — the familiar curve of his mouth, the steadiness of his eyes — and felt the strangest mixture of relief and regret. “I’ve missed this,” she said quietly.
“I’m flattered, but what about your partner?”
“You know it’s different. Marcus is my buddy, my rock. But you…” She shrugged. “You’re my rabbi.”
He laughed. “You can call me anytime, Kate.”
“I know.”
Outside, the light had shifted. The lunch crowd was thinning; the city was moving into afternoon. The waitress cleared a neighbouring table, stacking plates with the weary efficiency of someone who’d done it all her life.
Gabe waved a hand at Kate, bringing her back. “Have you really thought about coming back to academia? I don’t mean just now…” He tapped the table between them. “Not in a moment of panic. In a clear-headed, life-plan kind of way.”
She shook her head slowly. “Sometimes. But I think that door’s closed.”
“Doors reopen,” he said. “You just have to knock.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
They lingered a few minutes more, neither quite ready to end it. When they finally rose, Gabe reached for his wallet, but she was quicker, dropping a handful of bills onto the table.
“My turn,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “I grudgingly accept.”
They stepped out into the wind. The city hit her like a wave — noise, motion, the tang of diesel. Gabe stood beside her on the pavement, squinting up at the grey slice of sky between buildings.
“Take care of yourself, Kate.”
“I will.”
He touched her shoulder lightly. “And remember: he’s not inside your head unless you invite him in.”
She nodded. “I’ll try to keep the door locked.”
“Good.” He smiled, that small, weary smile she remembered from office hours and late-night thesis rewrites.
He hailed a cab, and she watched him climb in, one hand raised in farewell. The cab merged into traffic and was gone.
She turned and started walking south, the wind whipping her hair, the city roaring around her — alive, indifferent, eternal.
Somewhere out there, Elijah Cox was breathing the same air, maybe even walking these same streets.
But Kate Valentine no longer felt hunted.
She felt ready.