Page 113 of Mirror Image

But I refuse to give him an inch.

“We know you had a sexual relationship with Sam,” I say. “And before you call it consensual—she was fifteen. That’s rape.”

The kettle whistles. Julian turns it off, buying himself a moment. When he faces us again, he’s settled into an eerie calm.

“Is that what she told you?” He waves a hand. “Samantha was lost. Unstable. I gave her stability. I gave her . . . affection. In her troubled mind, it became something more.”

“She got pregnant, Julian,” David says.

He flinches, then shrugs.

“Unfortunate. She didn’t want to disclose the father,” he responds easily, the lie obviously practiced. “She certainly wasn’t equipped to be a mother. So I did what I had to—I ensured the child was adopted into a loving family.”

“You took that baby from her,” I say quietly.

“She wasn’t capable of raising it. I did what was necessary for her progress—and mine.”

“So a DNA test would prove the child’s not yours?” David asks.

“Of course.”

A beat.

“Though it was a sealed adoption—out of state. No trail.”

Kellogg leans in, that familiar sneer curving his mouth.

“You’d be surprised what I can get done,” he murmurs.

Julian blinks. Fear flickers, then vanishes behind bluster.

“You’re bluffing.”

David straightens with a shrug.

“You know what your problem is, Julian? Well—aside from the whole ‘evil genius’ thing . . .” He gestures broadly. “It’s your hubris. You always assumed the rest of us were too dim to uncover your little mind games. And while we may not have filled in every blank yet, we’ve got a lot more this morning than we did last night.”

He steps closer.

“And even as we speak, officials are combing through every page of every file of every patient you ever had. Internal investigators, ethics committees, the child-welfare division, licensing boards—hell, even adoption-placement partners. They’re all being notified. Every sealed record you manipulated? Every placement you influenced? It’s all being unraveled.”

His voice drops.

“I will find that little girl. And when I do, a DNA test and a calendar will be all we need to prove you raped a minor. A patient.”

Julian’s voice rises, cracking. “You think this ends me? You have no idea who you’re dealing with. My research will—”

“It’s over, Julian,” I cut in, low and sharp. “Forget about saving your career—you won’t have one by the time the sun sets. Not after today.”

That lands. A small, sharp fracture appears in his mask.

Kellogg steps in beside me, voice flat and professional in a way that makes it infinitely more threatening. “We notified the detectives this morning,” he says. “They’ve secured a warrant. Police are en route to execute it at this address.”

Julian goes very still.

Kellogg continues, “Every journal, every draft, every scrap of documentation you’ve ever taken home—they’ll seize all of it. You won’t get a chance to destroy anything. Not this time.”

A pulse kicks hard in Julian’s temple. The color drains from his face only to come flooding back in ugly patches.