After seeing Mia off, and the brief and irritating exchange of words she’d had with Fleur, Annalise seeks the haven of her bedroom. She has a strict beauty regimen which she now begins. She cleanses her skin and puts on a face mask and then she lies down on the bed and closes her eyes.
The last few months have been challenging, sometimes draining, especially with Fleur going rogue.
Then there is her operative Elliot. A promising man, with good abilities. Beth Cane was just Elliot’s type, which was why Annalise had picked him for the job. Submerged in his pathologist role – a career he’d trained for with her money – Elliot had lost his way. He’d begun to believe he could keep the job and just feed Annalise scraps of information. He’d begun to fall for Beth. Annalise had recognized the signs. Since their phone call last night, he hadn’t been in touch. In the end even the best of spies could make stupid choices. Elliot wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last, but Annalise hoped his training would kick in and spur him to make the right choice in the end and kill Beth Cane like she’d ordered him to do.
Life is full of hard choices, Annalise thinks.
She gets up out of the bed and goes to the laptop on her dressing table. Elliot had sent her the autopsy reports of the killings he was working on with Archive.
She opens the folder now and looks at the photo gallery of the women: each before and after death. Even with Annalise’s constitution the murders are hard to look at. Especially the woman in the stable. Annalise knows death: sometimes for necessity but never for pleasure. These kills serve a purpose only the killer can understand.
She scans the autopsy report. Elliot was supposed to send her Michael’s profiling on the killer too, but so far, he hasn’t been able to gain access.
Annalise looks at the photographs again. Then she closes the laptop. It looks to her as though Fleur is pursuing a goal that doesn’t suit Annalise’s plans.
Annalise’s mind follows a path of memory. One she tries not to recall too often, but today it’s somehow important to draw on. It reminds her that difficult decisions are sometimes crucial and that she has more to make herself soon regarding both of her daughters.