Kayne watched Chloe move through it all with focused energy, her tablet in hand and ponytail swinging as she pointed out machine placement with precise, confident gestures.There was something fierce about her when she was in her element.She was calm, decisive, and unshakeable on the surface.She looked like herself again.Almost.
“Okay,” she said, pointing.“Treadmills along the windows.We want airflow, not a traffic jam.Racks go here—no, actually—” She paused and rethought it.“Shift them six inches left.”
The crew listened.They always did.
Kayne stayed close.He tracked movement and memorized faces.Every time someone passed behind Chloe, his shoulders tensed.
She noticed.
“You don’t have to hover,” she murmured without looking at him.
“I do,” he said quietly.
She didn’t argue.
Equipment was wheeled in and bolted down.The space began to look like a future rather than a crime scene.
“Two inches left,” she told a delivery guy as a cable machine was lowered into place.“Trust me.You’ll thank me when no one clips their elbow.”
The man laughed and adjusted it.“You’ve done this before.”
She smiled.“A few times.”
Kayne’s lungs seized.Pride had no business feeling this dangerous.
His phone buzzed with Tyler Redmond’s ringtone.He stepped away to answer.
“Kayne.”Tyler’s voice was grim.No preamble.No wasted breath.None of the usual joking around.“We’ve got a situation.”
His stomach dropped.“Talk to me.”
“A body washed up along the Mississippi this morning.Female.Early thirties.”
Kayne closed his eyes.
“Identification just came through,” Tyler continued.“It’s Robin Day.”
The world narrowed to a pinpoint.“How?”Kayne asked, though he already knew he wouldn’t like the answer.
“Strangled,” Tyler said.“Marks are consistent with a chain.”
Kayne’s grip tightened on the phone until his knuckles went white.“Time of death?”
“Water complicates things.They don’t know yet.”
Kayne glanced at Chloe.She was laughing now, talking with one of the crew, light catching in her hair.She was completely unaware that the ground beneath her had just shifted under her feet again.
A sudden thought struck.
“Tyler,” he said slowly, “I need you to pull everything on Joel Erickson’s death.Full reports.Scene photos.Autopsy.All of it.”
“Wasn’t that ruled an accidental overdose?”
“Pull it anyway.”
Another pause.Then, “On it.”
The reports came through less than a minute later.
