Chapter 46 - The Husband I Buried

Now

The office was warmer than the lobby, the lighting softer. Wood instead of marble. Bookshelves instead of glass. The kind of room designed to make you forget you were being assessed.

Large enough to house a boardroom meeting table. The office of someone important.

Dr. Avery stood when I entered.

He was older than I expected. Late fifties, maybe early sixties. Neatly dressed in an open-collared shirt, wire-rimmed glasses perched low on his nose. He had the calm authority of someone used to being listened to – and obeyed.

‘Mackenzie Morgan,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘Thank you for coming.’

His grip was firm but brief. Controlled.

‘Of course,’ I said, taking the chair opposite his desk.

Keith hovered in the doorway, looking like he’d prefer to be back in the lobby with Tess. Dr. Avery glanced past me once, taking him in, then returned his attention to me as if Keith had already been dismissed.

‘Your colleague is welcome to wait outside,’ he said pleasantly. ‘This conversation may be . . . personal.’

Keith looked at me. An unspoken question.

I nodded once.

Keith cracked his knuckles and left.

When the door closed behind him, the room felt smaller.

Dr. Avery sat, folding his hands. ‘You accepted our invitation?’

‘I did,’ I said, wondering if he was the one who had sent it.

‘It says a great deal,’ he said. ‘That you came.’

I smiled politely. ‘I’m curious by nature.’

‘So is everyone who finds us,’ he replied. ‘Curiosity is often the first sign of readiness.’

‘Readiness for what?’ I asked.

He tilted his head, studying me. ‘Before we get there, I’d like to understand what brought you to us now.’

I met his gaze. ‘Because you invited me here?’

He looked perplexed. Whoever sent the invite, it wasn’t him. Was it Luis?

‘Your Institute took over the Phoenix Reentry Program,’ I said, glossing over any misunderstanding.

‘Yes.’

So this must be where Luis had come when he left the army. If Dr. Avery had been around since the Phoenix Reentry Program, maybe he remembered him?

‘I think my husband was involved with Phoenix,’ I said. ‘After he returned from deployment.’

A flicker. Small. Almost imperceptible.

‘Luis Tyndale,’ he said.

The way he readily spoke Luis’s name was unsettling. I wondered what else they knew about me, and about Luis.

‘You worked with him?’ I asked.

‘Briefly,’ Dr. Avery said. ‘Luis was . . . exceptional.’

‘In what way?’ I pressed.

‘He struggled,’ Avery said evenly. ‘But not in the ways most men do. He wasn’t fractured. He was . . . unfinished.’

Unfinished. My pulse quickened.

‘Phoenix failed men like Luis,’ Dr. Avery continued. ‘It treated trauma as something to be soothed, medicated, filed away. We believe pain is instructive.’

I kept my expression neutral. ‘That’s a controversial position.’

‘Progress often is,’ he replied.

I leaned back. ‘My husband died four months ago,’ I said, watching his response the way I would a witness on the stand.

‘Yes,’ he said softly.

The air shifted.

Avery looked at me, more interested in my reaction to Luis’s death than his own. ‘Loss is destabilizing. Particularly when it’s . . . unresolved.’

I felt the weight of the word settle, but I couldn’t be sure it meant what it seemed to mean.

‘Unresolved?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean?’

He studied me carefully. ‘Have you found closure?’

‘No,’ I said honestly.

A faint smile touched his mouth. ‘What if I told you that you didn’t need to?’

My heart kicked hard.

‘You’re suggesting—’

‘I’m asking,’ he corrected.

I bit back a retort. Condescending prick.

‘We have a process here,’ he continued. ‘A way of tapping into our thoughts and beliefs. Of confronting the parts of ourselves we’re taught to suppress. Of becoming who we were truly meant to be.’ He slid a glossy brochure across the desk.

I picked it up and skimmed it.

THE FOUR STAGES OF ALCHEMICAL TRANSFORMATION

Nigredo (Blackening) – Confrontation with the Shadow Self: Explore hidden fears and unresolved trauma to prepare for new growth.

Albedo (Whitening) – Purification and Awareness Elucidation/Illumination: Cleanse the psyche of negativity. Illuminate unconscious material.

Citrinitas (Yellowing) – Illumination and Insight Education: The stage of dawning wisdom and integration.

Rubedo (Reddening) – Completion and Rebirth Transformation: Consolidate personal transformation. The old self dissolves. The new self emerges.

Each stage was paired with a symbol, and the final one stopped me cold. Two serpents devouring each other’s tails.

The double ouroboros.

I realized, with a dull thud, that I recognized it. All of it.

‘This is Alchemical Psychology,’ I said. ‘I studied it in college before I knew law was my calling.’

‘Very good,’ Dr. Avery said. ‘Carl Jung used it to describe the process of individuation . . . this is about breaking down the ego to rebuild the self.’

I looked through the brochure again. ‘Is this what you teach here?’

‘Some of what we teach, yes,’ he said.

I reread the last stage. Transformation. The old self dissolves. The new self emerges. This wasn’t just therapy jargon. It was doctrine. There was structure, a belief system.

I thought of Luis’s death. Not a literal death, but metaphorical.

An architecture.

What would the dissolution of the old self look like? A few lifestyle changes. A new perspective.

A death?

A feeling settled in my stomach. The symbols. The language. The timing. The way Luis’s life had seemed to narrow before it vanished altogether.

All of it came to a head as I realized that my feeling had been right.

Luis wasn’t just involved in some illegal business deal, like I’d thought.

Before the crash, there had been so many small things that didn’t look like much on their own, but which, taken together, formed a shape I couldn’t ignore.

The time he spent at ‘work’. Meetings at all times of the day, night and everything in between. If I asked where he’d been, he’d answer – but never directly. Enough truth to stop the question, never enough to satisfy it.

Then there was the woman.

I never caught them together in a way I could prove, but I’d seen her name pop up on his phone more than once. Messages deleted before I could read them. A number saved under a single initial. He had said they worked together. When I asked about her, he didn’t deny it – he deflected. Told me I was reading too much into things. That I was letting my job rot my instincts.

And I believed him, because I had Carl, and we worked outside work hours too. That was when he’d started closing parts of himself off. Becoming guarded. Careful with his words. Watching me the way people do when they’re figuring out how much someone else knows.

After that, I found the document.

A case file I wasn’t supposed to see – restricted access, flagged and rerouted before it hit the general system. Luis’s name buried halfway down the page, glimpsed just before the screen went blank. When I asked Elizabeth about it, she didn’t even look surprised.

‘It’s nothing,’ she’d said calmly. ‘A misunderstanding. A business deal gone wrong. Luis’s name was mentioned in passing. Nothing even worth mentioning, really.’

She’d smiled when she said it. The same way she smiled when she was reassuring clients about something they didn’t need to understand.

I’d wanted to believe them both. I had no reason not to trust them, but Luis’s behavior after that conversation was a little guarded. I hadn’t realized he was bracing for impact.

I hadn’t thought cult then.

I’d thought manipulation. Something operating just outside the law, protected by money and silence.

Something I couldn’t afford to be adjacent to.

I hadn’t thought Luis might be directly involved, or I might have pushed Elizabeth for more, instead of taking her at face value.

‘Mackenzie,’ said Dr. Avery, bringing me back from my thoughts.

‘I’d like to invite you to stay.’

I smiled politely. ‘Why?’ I asked, hoping to jar him into a truthful answer.

He returned the smile. ‘I would like you to experience what our facility has to offer. I think it will make it easier to understand when I tell you what really happened to your husband.’

I tried not to react, keeping my arms still and my hands at my sides. He thought he had the upper hand, that I would jump at the opportunity to find out what happened to Luis, but after coming to the Coterie Institute, I had no doubt he was alive. All I needed to know now was why he had hidden it from me.

‘I have a few conditions,’ I said.

‘Of course. I’m open to discussing those,’ he said, unaffected by my request.

‘My friend outside, he stays, too,’ I said, waiting for him to agree before I continued.

‘That shouldn’t be a problem,’ said Dr. Avery. ‘What else?’

‘I want to speak to Luis,’ I said. ‘No games.’