He found the building on Mercer Street without difficulty it had cream curtains in the third floor window, a small brass plate beside the door ,he took the stairs, there was a door at the end of the corridor with a small sign.
He knocked.
"Come in."
He opened the door.
The office was smaller than he expected and warmer a lamp in the corner, a candle on the windowsill, two chairs angled toward each other at the center of the room, there were books on the shelves but not arranged for show, a desk to one side with neat stacks of files and a diary open to today's date.
The woman behind the desk stood when he came in.
He had spoken to her once on the phone. Just a voice warm and steady on the phone.
She extended her hand.
"Dr. Voss,"
"James yes detective James,"
Please sit down."
He sat in the client's chair.
She sat across from him.
The room settled into a quiet which was quite awkward.
"Thank you for making the time," he said.
"Of course" She folded her hands in her lap. "I want to help in any way I can, nadia was" A she paused "she worked very hard and deserved better than this."
"How long did you treat her?"
"Six months actually and we finished about two months ago ,she made significant progress."
"How did she seem at the end?"
"Stronger," Elena said "More settled Nadia had come to me struggling with anxiety and a general difficulty trusting people, by the end she had made real progress with both."
James wrote in his notebook.
"Did she mention anyone who made her uncomfortable? anyone in particular she was worried about?"
"Not directly" Elena considered this carefully, "she spoke about relationships that hadn't served her well you know past ones mostly."
"A boyfriend?"
Something moved across Elena's face. gone before he could fully read it.
"She mentioned being in a relationship," Elena said carefully "She didn't go into detail."
"Did she ever mention feeling watched? after your sessions ended?"
"No," Elena said, "not to me."
James wrote something.
The room was quiet.
"Professionally," James said, "The kind of person who would plan something like this execute it carefully, arrange the scene afterward what does that tell you?"
Elena looked at the middle distance.
"That they are controlled," she said. "Organized, really organized they don't act on impulse everything is considered,the arrangement suggests the scene needed to be look at a particular way not for practical reasons
"Then for what?"
"Personal ones" She paused "Like finishing a sentence, more like completing something that felt incomplete."
James looked at her.
She was looking at the middle distance still. Hands folded. The lamp throwing warm light across the side of her face. A woman choosing every word with great care.
Like someone walking across ice.
"That's helpful," he said.
She looked at him then.
"I hope so," she said.
He closed his notebook.
Stood.
She stood too.
"If anything else comes to mind about Nadia," he said. "Anything at all."
"I'll call," she said.
She walked him to the door.
He was almost through it when he stopped.
Turned back.
"One more thing," he said. "Did Nadia ever mention anything about moths?"
He watched her face.
He was very good at watching faces.
Elena Voss looked at him with those careful dark eyes.
"Moths?" she said.
Exactly the right amount of confusion.
Not too much. Not too little.
"Something that came up in the investigation," James said. Casually. "Probably nothing."
"No," Elena said. "She never mentioned moths."
"Thank you Dr. Voss."
"Elena," she said.
He looked at her for just a moment.
"Elena," he said.
He left.
She closed the door.
Stood with her back against it.
The office was very quiet.
She looked at the chair where he had been sitting.
Then she went to her desk.
Sat down.
Opened her diary.
Picked up her pen.
Put it down.
Sat for a long time without doing anything at all.
She was thinking about the question.
Not the question itself.
The way he had asked it.
The way people asked the questions that actually mattered sideways, at the last moment, as though it had just occurred to them.
It had not just occurred to him.
She knew that the way she knew things about people. From the texture of the moment. From the quality of the pause before the answer. From the particular stillness of a man who was watching her face very carefully while pretending he wasn't.
James had walked into this room with that question already in his pocket.
He had simply waited for the right moment to take it out.
She looked at the inside of her wrist.
Clean. Nothing.
She picked up her pen.
Put it down again.
Looked at the door.
Outside on Mercer Street Ashford Hollow went about its Thursday.
Elena sat in the middle of it.
And felt, for the first time since this started, that the ice beneath her feet had developed a crack she hadn't put there.