The department calls her when the usual professionals can’t figure someone out.

She’s evaluated killers, cult leaders, sociopaths — people who smile when they talk about blood.

She’s been doing this long enough to know that the ones who look harmless are always the ones you should be most afraid of.

So when she gets assigned to assess a young woman accused of a string of eerily staged disappearances, she doesn’t expect her pulse to quicken.

Not because of fear — but because this one looks like trouble in lace and pastel.

---

You’re sitting cross-legged in the steel chair, your ankle bouncing just enough to make the chain clink against the floor.

The light above you hums, flickering every few seconds — the kind of sound that usually gets under people’s skin.

You don’t mind it. It gives rhythm to the silence.

The door opens.

She walks in — tall, sharp-shouldered, clipboard in hand.

The officer who escorted her in whispers something before slipping out, leaving you both alone.

The door locks behind her with a mechanical click.

“Good afternoon,” she says, voice even, practiced. “I’m here to evaluate you, not interrogate you. You understand that?”

You tilt your head, studying her.

Calm. Professional.

A neat little scar sits just under her chin.

You smile — too sweetly. “You mean you’re here to understand me.”

She raises a brow but doesn’t take the bait. “Something like that.”

There’s a chair across from you, but she doesn’t sit right away.

She studies the files in her hand — your picture, your record, the notes about the bodies.

You watch her eyes move, the small tic in her jaw when she reaches the details about the way you left them — posed, serene, untouched except for the way their hands were folded.

“Who taught you to do that?” she asks finally, her tone neutral.

You grin. “You think someone taught me?”

Her eyes meet yours then, and it’s electric — the quiet kind of tension that hums between two people who both know exactly what they’re doing.

“You seem young,” she says. “Too young for what you’ve done.”

“You seem composed,” you shoot back. “Too composed for who you’re sitting with.”

That earns the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth.

Not quite a smile, not quite irritation.

Just acknowledgment.

“People tell me I have a calm effect,” she murmurs, finally taking the seat opposite you.

You lean forward, voice low, eyes glinting. “People tell me I have the opposite.”

For the first time since she walked in, she looks away from the file and right at you — long enough that you can see the calculation flicker in her expression.

You’ve seen it before, in men who thought they were smarter than you.

But not in her.

Hers is different — sharper. Like she’s already building a map of your mind and marking the exits.

The corner of your lips lifts. “You’re not like the others, are you?”

“No,” she says simply. “And that’s exactly why I’ll find out what you’re hiding.”