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Detours that weren't really detours, passing through places where she wasn't but where she could have been. I don't know if I was looking for her or if I was trying to confirm that it was nothing more than worry.

And then I saw her, just a few hours ago, in a hallway, and I couldn't help but speak to her, and only then did my heart ease. Now I wait, because she said she would come, and because I know she will.

I watch the door without really looking at it. And I find myself thinking that seeing her disappear has made me understand something. The way she leaves without really asking to be held back. The way she acts as if being understood is already a form of suffering.

Sad blue eyes, empty and begging to be looked at.

I think… I think if sorrow were given a body, it would borrow her eyes and cry endlessly. And for some strange reasons, this thought leaves a weird taste in my mouth.

I catch the small firefly etched on the wood of the table, half-erased, and remember when she drew this during one of our sessions here. I touch it with my fingertips and then bring it to my mouth. The taste of my skin lingers on my lips for a second, and only then do I realize what I've just done.

I remain motionless, surprised by something I never felt, and by the fact that it seems both natural and utterly forbidden

The door opens and I watch her enter without moving. She pauses for a second, as if checking once more that she can be there, then she sits down next to me.

“Are you okay?”

She nods and places her hands on the table. “Yes.”

“You sure?”

She looks up at that moment, breathes in slightly, as if choosing what she’s willing to show. “What have you discovered these past few days?”

Her voice puts everything into perspective. The setting, the case. Us. I push the file toward the center of the table and finally open it, never taking my eyes off her.

“We’ve identified the victim,” I say.

And from that moment, she’s already turning the pages.

I let her read the file without interrupting, and she takes her time, lingering on the details: the date, the name, the position of the body, then the photos. I see that her mind is no longer following a single line but several at once.

“Nineteen…” she finally says. “She was only nineteen.”

“She was supposed to start this year with all of you,” I replied. “but she died the day before classes began.”

She nods slightly, as if she’s already integrating this information into a larger picture, then she lingers a little longer on the marks around the neck, the chains visible in the report, before putting the file down more slowly.

“Why here, and why now?” she says finally, without looking up. “He was inactive for twenty years, and he came back to this island to kill a student? It doesn’t make sense. Not with a signature like that. It’s not something that disappears for twenty years only to reappear unchanged, unless the underlying logic has never shifted. And why is there no quote carved anywhere?”

I watch her work, connecting effortlessly, without seeking my approval.

“Go on,” I say simply.

“Maybe this one was pure rage, like he lost control because of something.” Her eyes move toward the picture, then the victim’s face. “He didn’t start somewhere else and then come back here,” she adds, “he started again here because he’s connected to this place. Maybe we’ve misunderstood everything from the beginning.”

I don’t answer right away, until she finally looks up at me.

“He didn’t take refuge here,” she says more slowly, “he never really left this place.”

I nod slightly, as she leans a little closer to the file, like something has just fallen into place.

“He was here,” she continues. “He grew up here, or he was trained here. And if he was able to disappear off the radar for years on the mainland without being detected, it’s because he had perfect cover. In an era when serial killers were already under surveillance, how could someone like that go unnoticed?”

I gently correct her, without directly contradicting it, “Because he had something that inspired confidence. Status maybe, a structure. A badge, a position… something that made people believe he was one of those who protect.”

She remains silent for a second, but I can already see the next piece forming in her mind.

“That explains the structure,” she says more quietly. “The precision, and also the repetition. It’s not improvised, it’s like he was trained here.” She pauses, then adds almost to herself: “So, the academy.”