“Alright,” I said, reaching for my coat. “Let’s go.”
The smell of disinfectant followed us into the hallway as Naomi radioed dispatch to let them know we were en route. The traffic was relentless, a sluggish current of vehicles creeping through the streets like molasses. I’d never really grown accustomed to city life. Peace didn’t exist here. Everything was loud, fast, and chaotic—not to mention the lack of privacy.
After a while, however, the dense crush of buildings slowly started to give way to something more open. Concrete softened into tree-lined roads, traffic lights grew fewer, and sidewalks stretched wider. Something about this route began to feel… familiar.
The sensation started small. A prickle of unease just beneath my skin.
But then—
Recognition struck.
The identical mailboxes lined up in a row, each one evenly spaced. The neatly trimmed hedges and the white picket fences.
I’d been here before.
The house stood as picture-perfect as ever, blending in seamlessly with the rest of the suburban street. In the front yard, water threaded down the fountain in delicate streams, the angel statue caught in a moment of eternal prayer. A stone pathway curved toward the porch, where a single rocking chair sat motionless by the door.
Just another quiet home in a neighborhood where nothingbad ever happened.
The police cars and yellow tape surrounding it shattered the illusion.
It washishouse.
Alfred Thorne’s.
Naomi, none the wiser to the sudden knot forming inside my chest, unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out of the van. I followed after her with quick steps, not knowing what I might find.
I’d never been called to one of my own crime scenes before. Alfred Thorne was supposed to be one of the easy ones—elderly, diabetic, the ideal candidate for an insulin mishap. But something must have obviously given it away, or else we wouldn’t be here right now.
My mind raced backward through the previous night, retracing every step. There should have been no signs of struggle or forced entry. Some other inconsistency, then? What could I have possibly missed?
The questions looped uselessly in my head, but they all slipped away the moment we crossed the threshold. Before I’d even breathed in fully, I felt it at the back of my throat—metallic and stale.
That wasn’t right.
There shouldn’t be any blood.
Yellow evidence markers dotted the floor, forming a trail toward the living room, where a strip of barrier tape sagged across the doorway. Naomi moved aside, and my view cleared.
From a distance, Alfred Thorne appeared almost peaceful, as if he was simply sleeping—if one were to overlook the ashen pallor that had crept over his skin. But then, my gaze drifted lower.
A dark patch was staining the front of his cream-colored slacks, damning enough in its placement to shift the entire tone of the scene.
I stopped just short of the tape. “Is his…?” I let the rest of the question trail off.
“Sure looks like it.”
Detective Sawyer appeared beside me, silent as ever. Her sharp eyes caught the hairline fracture in my composure before I could repair it. She smirked. “Every guy here’s wearing the same expression you’ve got going on right now.”
True as that may be, I highly doubted it was for the same reason.
“It… certainly is something.” I scratched the back of my neck, letting a hint of sheepishness bleed into my voice. On the outside, I kept calm. Inside, I was anything but.
Alfred Thorne was meant to slip away quietly in the night, but instead, he’d been turned into a spectacle—someone else’s signature scrawled all over my work. And as for whose signature it could be…
It seemed that I’d underestimated my so-called friend. If this was their idea of a conversation starter, I could only imagine what else might follow.
Detective Sawyer gestured toward the body. “Take a look, then, Doc.”
