Page 19

Chapter eighteen

Devil In a Dress

Kenny eased his Discovery into a staff parking space, the engine idling low as he surveyed the quiet campus. The university hadn’t quite woken yet. Perfect. He hoped to catch Dr Pryce off her guard. She wouldn’t be expecting him. Certainly not suited in his pristine, dry-cleaned navy ensemble, as if he was strolling back in to work. She thought he was gone. Got rid of.

Also changed back into his own clothes, Aaron went to open the passenger door, but Kenny grabbed his arm.

Aaron dropped back into the seat. “You all right?”

“Yeah.” He glanced into his rearview mirror at the car parking behind. Inside a uniformed officer, their presence a quiet reminder of everything hanging over them. “I mean it when I say just go to your room, then your lecture. That’s it. I’ll call you later and we’ll get some of your things and you’ll stay at mine.”

Aaron tilted his neck. “Do I get a drawer?”

“You can have the whole damn wardrobe if it means you staying with me.”

“Then where would your nice dapper suits go?”

“On the floor.”

Aaron arched a brow. “Wild guy, huh? Don’t worry, doc, that nice suit you’re wearing will be on the floor later.” He winked, then reached for the handle again.

“I mean it, Aaron. Don’t do anything stupid.”

Aaron clasped a hand to his chest and mouthed, who me?

Kenny raised both brows, staring at Aaron in challenge.

“I have police following me.” Aaron hitched his thumb behind them. “What am I likely to do?”

Kenny gave him a stern look beneath his lashes. One carefully measured and meant to convey not authority, but understanding .

Because he knew Aaron. Down to the very wiring of his mind, the impulses sparking before even Aaron realised they were forming. He thrived on defiance. Pushing against the edges of control. He defied authority not for its own sake, but because no one ever gave him control freely. Others always imposed it on him. Dictated by others, whether through his parents’ legacy or the expectations placed on him simply for existing in the wake of it. So, naturally, he fought it. Every instinct in Aaron demanded action. To do something, anything , to claw back a sense of autonomy. Sitting still went against everything in him. Kenny understood it. Loved it, even. That unruly, unpredictable nature was part of him, the very thing that made Aaron so impossibly alive.

But there was a difference between being alive and being reckless.

Kenny couldn’t lose him to recklessness.

So, even if Aaron hated it, even if it made him bristle, made him itch to push back, Kenny needed him to understand.

“Being safe means not doing anything other than what you’re supposed to do,” Kenny said. “Or told to do. I know you struggle with that.”

Aaron cocked his head. And, in complete demonstration of that reckless impulsivity, he leaned across the car and kissed him. With morning commuters drifting in, professors and faculty climbing out of their cars, colleagues who worked alongside Kenny walking just within sight. And Kenny didn’t stop him. Didn’t pull away. Instead, he glided a hand around Aaron’s head, threading his fingers into his hair, gripping to keep him in place, not just allowing it but deepening it.

Because Aaron’s raw, unapologetic nature, ignoring every consequence in favour of the moment, was precisely why Kenny had fallen in love with him.

Aaron dipped away, licked his lips. “Go talk psycho to her, doc.”

Kenny breathed through a laugh. “I’ll see you later.”

Aaron winked, then Kenny finally let him out of the car and watched him through the rearview mirror as he sauntered across campus, slinging his bag over his shoulder. The officer fell into step behind him, a silent shadow, but Aaron didn’t seem to care. Didn’t even acknowledge it. He just walked, confident, unrushed, throwing a few flashing grins at people who turned to stare. Aaron hid his trauma exceptionally well. He was too used to it. And that killed Kenny a little more.

So only when he disappeared into the Halls did Kenny shift his gaze back to the front windshield. Through the glass, standing in the distance, arms crossed over her chest, was Gail. The faculty secretary. Giving him that look. The same disapproving stare she reserved for students who handed in late assignments and expected her to overlook it. Kenny sighed.

Then, without breaking eye contact, he put the car in park, straightened his tie, and stepped out.

“Morning, Gail.” He kept his voice amiable, as if he hadn’t just been caught with his tongue down a student’s throat in the staff car park.

“I was told you were on leave.”

“I am. Officially. But I need to speak to Dr Pryce. Where has she burrowed herself?”

“In your office.”

Kenny rolled his eyes. “Of course she has.”

“I thought you were one of the good ones, Dr Lyons.” Gail shook her head. “Never did I ever think you’d be the one sleeping with a student.” She peered back to where Aaron had tailed off. “Especially one like him .”

Kenny read the emphasis behind her words, the quiet betrayal in her tone. Disappointment was a powerful emotion. One that reinforced social norms, demanded accountability, and shaped reputations in ways outright condemnation never could. And right then, Gail’s perception of him had shifted. A year ago, he’d have hated that. Defended himself. Tried to explain and win back her favour.

But he didn’t want to anymore.

He wasn’t interested in playing the role of the untouchable academic, the composed professional whose personal life existed in tidy, acceptable parameters. What he wanted was exactly ‘one like him’. Aaron .

“We all have a dark side.” Kenny buttoned his jacket. “Maybe I’m finally giving into mine.” He then strode off, unwilling to pander to her disapproval of what was essentially none of her fucking business.

The psychology building loomed ahead, familiar yet suddenly unnervingly restrictive. But he burst inside, up three flights of stairs—the same stairs he’d climbed a thousand times before—and this time, the quiet certainty that it could be the last time gnawed at him. But he shoved the thought aside, focusing instead on the glow of his office light spilling into the hallway.

The door was open. Dr Pryce had made herself comfortable. Kenny didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward, rapped his knuckles on the doorframe, and let his presence fill the space. “Settling in, I see?”

“Dr Lyons.” Her voice was smooth. Clipped. Practiced . A perfect balance of polite acknowledgment and measured distance. Professional, but not warm. “I thought you were taking leave.”

Kenny shut the door behind him. “I will be.” He stepped forward. “But first, I was hoping to pick your brain about something troubling me.”

“Of course.” She gestured toward the leather couch opposite her desk. A therapist’s invitation, positioning herself in the chair of authority. “What can I help with?”

Kenny lowered onto the couch, exhaling a humourless chuckle as he rubbed a finger across his brow. “To be honest with you, Laura, what’s troubling me… is you.”

A flicker of reaction. Not quite surprise. Not quite amusement. Something measured. Controlled.

“Oh?” She shifted, subtly adjusting her posture, leaning back. Not retreating, but creating space, a controlled distance from his scrutiny. “How so?”

Kenny tilted his head, watching her. “You never did explain how you came to be here.”

She crossed her legs, smoothing an invisible crease from her dress. “Oh.” A light shrug, casual but calculated. “As Ellie mentioned, I’ve transitioned into academia and research rather than direct patient work. I’m sure you, of all people, can appreciate how… taxing clinical practice can be.”

Her words were carefully chosen, designed to invoke mutual understanding, camaraderie. A tactic. Kenny let a smile crawl across his lips. Not one of agreement, but of recognition.

“Especially where I was. Success was scarce there.”

And there was the tell.

Dr Pryce never said things without intention .

“Yes, I can imagine.”

Success meant changing people’s mindset. Influencing their behaviour. Curing them. Allowing them back into society. All those things that were almost impossible when dealing with the minds of deeply disturbed and deranged individuals. Especially children.

Kenny shuffled forward. “And tell me, Laura… is it just a coincidence that you’ve found yourself here, at Ryston? The same place where one of your former patients has also resurfaced? A patient you personally signed off for release?”

He let the question hang in the air. An open invitation for her to slip up.

Because Kenny already knew the answer. He’d known it long before he stepped foot in this office. The moment Dr Pryce had arrived in Ryston, he’d started pulling threads, unravelling the carefully constructed web she’d spun. Every record, every psychiatric evaluation, every signature leading back to her. And if Aaron hadn’t coaxed him away from that rabbit hole yesterday afternoon, he would have asked these questions sooner. Maybe Taylor wouldn’t be dead.

Or maybe those wheels had been in motion long before.

But Kenny didn’t waste time on what-ifs. He didn’t blame Aaron. Not for a single second. The blame belonged elsewhere. And he was going to make damn sure it landed exactly where it should.

“I’ve released many patients, Dr Lyons. You’ll have to be more specific.”

Kenny let out a breath, steady and measured. She wanted him to react. Wanted emotion to betray him. It was a tactic. One she had likely honed on the stand, in case reviews, in psychiatric hearings where the power of perception meant everything.

So he didn’t bite.

“You signed off on Child A. The Howell daughter. You approved her release despite the obvious psychopathy indicators, the callous-unemotional traits, the complete lack of rehabilitative progress.”

Pryce leaned back, expression placid. “I signed off on her based on the official psychiatric evaluations.”

“And I suppose you had no hand in shaping those evaluations?”

“Are you accusing me of malpractice, Dr Lyons?”

“There would be no other word for it if you knowingly released a dangerous individual back into society. What I’m more interested in is why you would do that?”

“You do like to know the why.”

“Isn’t that something we both seek?”

Pryce folded her hands neatly. “And what, exactly, do you think my motives were? You obviously already have a theory.”

“This isn’t about the Howells,” he said. “This isn’t about rehabilitation, or justice, or the system’s failings. This is about me.”

A pause.

Then Pryce leaned forward. “Well, look at that. You are good. You don’t always get things wrong.”

Kenny’s stomach clenched, but he didn’t react.

She wanted him to react.

“What did I get wrong for you?” Kenny asked carefully.

She inhaled sharply, then opened a drawer of her desk. His desk. Retrieving something that, okay yes, he had put in there, but he’d never opened it. The bottle of Glenlivet single malt had been a gift from the faculty for his fortieth a couple of years back, and he’d tucked it away, having forgotten about it. And here she was helping herself to it. This early in the morning. Kenny let her peruse the label. A quiet, insidious trespass. Still, if it got her talking, Kenny would allow it.

“The same system that allowed you to build your career failed my sister.” Pryce twisted the cap off the whisky bottle, pouring a measure into a mug. His mug. The one also gifted by the faculty, emblazoned with the words: Keep talking, I’m diagnosing you.

Kenny kept his breath even, though a creeping unease itched at the base of his skull. “How did I fail your sister?”

“ You let her killer walk out of Ravenholm.” Pryce picked up her bag, rifling through it. “Ryan Fisher stabbed a young boy when he was twelve. Was sent to Ravenholm for his sentence where you worked at the time. You thought therapy and medication would be enough. At eighteen, you let him leave. And do you know what happened?” Her lips curled. “Two years later, he murdered his pregnant girlfriend. My sister. My nephew. My parents’ youngest daughter and their first grandchild.”

Silence.

A leaden, suffocating silence.

Pryce leaned back, exhaling softly, the sound almost delicate. As if she’d just set down a burden too heavy to carry. But it still pressed into every syllable, her words woven with resentment, yes, but also something worse.

Certainty.

The kind that leaves no room for redemption.

“Then I had to watch you climb that career ladder. Profiling the most prolific serial killers of our time, building a name for yourself, becoming this lauded figure in forensic psychology. When all along, I knew the truth.” She gave a sharp, cutting smile. “That you were flawed. That you weren’t always right. And soon everyone will know just how flawed you are.”

Kenny’s instincts screamed danger. But he didn’t know why. Something was off. Felt wrong. A whispering unease at the back of his skull. A profiler’s gut feeling twitching just beneath the surface. Kenny shifted, just barely, a subtle tensing of his muscles, preparing to stand and get moving. Hand all this over to Jack. But something else nagged at him.

As always, the need to know why took over all else.

His time at Ravenholm had been brief. A detour in his early career. When he’d still believed he could change something. That rehabilitation was possible. That with the right interventions, even the worst cases could be salvaged. Children were children, after all. And even those who had committed unspeakable crimes deserved the chance to prove they could be more than their worst impulses.

But that time had been short-lived.

Because Ravenholm hadn’t been his real mission.

Back then, his purpose had been Jessica’s killer. His obsession, his failure, the thing that had haunted his every waking moment. The years spent chasing shadows had ultimately pulled him back to Ryston, back into criminal profiling, police investigations, real justice. He met Jack. Built a career. Then the Howells happened. A string of bodies, disappearances, overlapping patterns no one else had pieced together. He threw himself into the case, into unravelling the mind of two of the most prolific serial killers of the decade. That had been his focus.

Not Ravenholm. Not signing off on releases.

He had barely been out of university when he worked there. Young, eager, a small cog in a much larger machine. He’d been part of a team, his recommendations filtered, reviewed, rarely carrying the weight Pryce was implying. It hadn’t just been his responsibility when assessing patients.

So why the hell was she singling him out now?

Why him ?

It didn’t make sense.

Unless—

It had never been about Ravenholm at all.

“So you released her to prove a point?”

Pryce tilted her head, a bird-like motion, assessing him. “I merely provided an opportunity for her to prove it herself,” she said as if she was discussing research, not human lives. “The rest unfolded as nature intended. And some of it I couldn’t have predicted. That you, Dr Lyons, the man who put an end to decades of horror by leading the police to the Howells, are now sleeping with their son!” Her eyes flashed with cold amusement. “That really is quite something. I almost couldn’t believe it when Mable told me.”

Kenny narrowed his eyes. “Mable?” He thought back, then realised how much that name made sense. Child A. “How could she have known?”

“Roisin. At first. I’ve been conducting their little meet and greets in Ashbridge for a while now. Part of her rehabilitation. Then it was corroborated by Mable herself when she became a cleaner at your mother’s care home. You do like to talk when you think no one’s listening. Not even your mother.”

Kenny leaned back, covering his mouth with his hand.

“I didn’t believe it at first. So I had to see for myself.” She cocked her head. “Did you use faculty funds for that dirty weekend in Barcelona? I’m sure the Dean would be interested to know how you used her research budget to fuck your student.”

Kenny clenched his hands around the edge of the couch. “You set her up to fail.”

Pryce’s expression didn’t waver. “I set her up to be who she is.”

“And what is that?”

“A killer, Dr Lyons. Certain individuals are beyond saving. Some people are born killers. And no amount of therapy, drugs, or rehabilitation will ever change that. And people like you—” she exhaled, almost pitying, “—with your na?ve optimism and blind faith in redemption, you’re the ones doing the real harm.”

She let it sit. Waiting for him to falter.

He didn’t.

Instead, he dissected her. Peeled her down to her raw, ugly truth.

“All this just to discredit me?” Kenny gritted his teeth. “And the bodies piling up? My mother ? What are they? Collateral damage?”

“You, more than anyone, should understand,” she said, her voice calm, rational, the kind of voice that had once soothed psychiatric patients into compliance. “True research demands application. Observation. Variables. We can theorise in endless papers, write model after model about the pathology of violent offenders. But until we observe behaviour in its natural state, it’s all just guesswork, isn’t it?”

Kenny’s stomach twisted.

“The world is rife with willing participants, Dr Lyons. Or, if you prefer, unwilling ones. Either way, they serve their function. We must test a hypothesis.”

“You have blood on your hands. She’s killed. You’ve proven your hypothesis. So tell me where she is, and we can put an end to it.”

Pryce’s smile widened. “Oh, no, no, no, Dr Lyons. You really aren’t as clever as you think you are.” She reached into her bag with unsettling ease, as if she’d done this a hundred times before, and with a quick flick of her wrist a syringe was already in her palm, hidden by her grip, needle glinting faintly in the office light.

Kenny barely had a second to react.

Pryce lunged. The needle bit deep into his thigh, a sharp sting cutting through fabric and skin. Too fast. Too practiced. Too fucking precise. He jerked back, hand clutching hers, trying to twist away and wrench her grip from the syringe, but she’d already pressed the plunger down, her thumb steady, smooth. A doctor’s hand administering a lethal dose of inevitability.

The burn hit first.

A rush of liquid fire spreading through his muscle, into his bloodstream, crawling up his spine. He tensed. A natural response to the foreign substance. And he let go of Pryce’s hand for her to pull out the needle.

“This was never about her.” She loomed over him with menace. “It was always about him .”

Kenny’s limbs went heavy. His fingers, curled into the couch, didn’t uncurl when he willed them to.

Fuck .

“You think you’re protecting him.” She stepped away, watching. “But you’ve done the exact opposite. You’ve just made sure he’ll never escape what he is.” She tilted her head, appraising him, like a scientist watching a test subject respond to stimuli. “You’ve reinforced every fear he’s ever had, every dark little thought whispering in the back of his mind. That he’s tainted. Destined for it. That people like him don’t change.” Her eyes glittered. “Just like I did with Mable.”

Chest rising sharply, breathing already slacking, pulse struggling against the pressure pressing down on him, Kenny’s thoughts were clear. Furious . Screaming for movement. But his body refused to respond.

Pryce dropped the empty syringe into her bag.

“ What —” Kenny’s tongue felt thick, jaw locking, own voice foreign to him.

“That would be the scopolamine first,” she said. “Disrupting your motor function. Confusion settling in now, I imagine?”

Kenny gritted his teeth, tried to push forward, get up, but his legs refused to respond. His vision faded, tilting, warping at the edges. He knew this feeling. A benzo. Something strong.

Fuck. Fuck.

“You always thought you were above the rest, didn’t you?” she mused. “The profiler. Expert . The one who understands killers, studies them, helps prevent their destruction. But in your arrogance, you ignored the most fundamental principle of all. You let your own bias corrupt your judgment. You let your desires dictate your reason.”

A strangled noise caught in his throat as his limbs gave up entirely, a deep, numbing heaviness seeping into his muscles. His fingers finally loosened. But not by choice. His hands wouldn’t listen. Legs wouldn’t listen. And his entire body was no longer his to control. And Pryce just watched him. Cataloguing his response as if he was another patient on her clipboard.

“Let this be your lesson, Dr Lyons. Killers are born .” Her tone was almost pitying. “And you’re about to witness that firsthand.”

Kenny’s head swayed. Not by choice. The room lurched, his vision narrowing, his heartbeat too slight. Pryce then reached for the bottle of whisky and Kenny tried to jerk away, to fight back, but his muscles failed him, his breath too sluggish, his mind stuttering beneath a thick, suffocating fog.

“Soon the world will know what you are. A fraud.” She spoke as though she were delivering a diagnosis rather than condemning him and she tilted her head, eyes narrowing in fascination, studying a specimen that had finally cracked under pressure. “Your reputation, your carefully cultivated legacy, all of it undone . And why?”

Leaning over him, Pryce prised his mouth open and Kenny tried to clench his jaw, to fight back, but her grip was firm, digging her fingers into his cheeks as she poured the bottle of whisky down his throat. Liquid flooded past his lips, burning down his throat as she forced him to swallow or choke. His body convulsed, gagging against it, but it was too late. The drug already had him. Reflexes too slow. Body too distant.

“Because you let yourself be tempted.” She sighed, almost pitying. “Did you even realise what was happening? Notice the cognitive dissonance creeping in? The subconscious erosion of your own principles? You built your career on objectivity, on the belief that you could separate reason from emotion, but in the end—” she tsked, shaking her head. “You fell into the very trap you’ve spent your life warning others about.”

She crouched, levelling her gaze with his as he struggled to stay upright.

“What was it, Kenny? The thrill? The psychological paradox of the forbidden fruit? Did you convince yourself you could fix him? That your love could override nature? Did you mistake his trauma for malleability? His darkness for something you could shape into a redemption arc?” She clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “Or was it you just wanted to put your dick into something dangerous? How predictable . Men are so very predictable.”

She stood and marched over to the door, curling her fingers around the handle as she threw one last look over her shoulder.

“I sincerely hope you haven’t fallen in love with him, Dr Lyons. Because if you have, you’re about to find out what my sister learned the hard way. What it really means to love a psycho.” She yanked open the door. “Gail!” she called, feigning distress with cruel ease. “Could you get security up here? Dr Lyons has passed out drunk. They should take him home.”

Kenny tried—so fucking hard—to move .

To speak.

To do anything.

And if Gail hadn’t seen him in the car park earlier, hadn’t watched him kiss Aaron. Not witnessed the dishevelled intimacy of it. She might have questioned Pryce’s claim. Might have hesitated. Known better . But she had seen. And that would be enough for her. Enough to shift her perception. To plant doubt where certainty had once stood. And even if there was doubt, it wouldn’t matter. She’d already condemned him the moment she’d discovered he’d been sleeping with a student.

A student like Aaron .

So he sank into the void.

And as darkness closed in, the last thing he saw was Pryce’s satisfied smirk, a perfectly executed checkmate. At least she was right about one thing.

Sometimes Kenny did get things wrong.