“I think I can handle it. Thanks, Howie.”
“I’m right here if you need me.”
Finn parks the cart against the wall and heads to the front desk, where sure enough he sees the familiar hulking figure of Detective Aziz standing in front of theLIBRARIAN’S CHOICEdisplay. He’s holding the back cover ofThe Viscount Who Loved Meinches from his face, his glasses pushed up on his forehead. Finn tries to keep his breathing steady. Just because the detective is here doesn’t mean there’s any news about Autumn’s case. In the past year, Aziz has called to update him and let him know that he is still looking into her murder, but he’s never come by.
“Big Bridgerton fan?”
Aziz turns, looking flustered. “Wife is. Not me.” He slips his glasses back into place and quickly reshelves the book. “You have a minute?” Without waiting for an answer, he walks out the front door.
Finn follows him outside, where they sit down as far apart from each other as possible on the wooden bench near the door. Aziz sits with his legs spread wide, and instinctively Finn mimics his body language. It’s a habit he’s had his whole life. One of his first memories is of standing next to his dad at the bathroom sink while he shaved. Finn would wrap a towel around his waist just like his dad did, but instead of a razor like the one his dad used, he’d tape a Lego block to a pen and scrape away the foam on his face.
“How are you doing, Finn? We’re coming up on a year soon.” Aziz looks even more tired than usual, the heavy bags under his eyes more pronounced than the last time Finn saw him. But he might just be getting older.
“I know. I’m all right. Is there anything new?”
“I promised I would reach out to you if we got anything, right?”
Finn nods.
“Well, you know that we collected some blood from the crime scene. From that dresser.”
Finn holds his breath. This is it. The big break he’s been waiting for. He knows all about how whoever killed Autumn sliced their hand on a crack in the corner of a mirrored dresser. They must have been rushing to open all the drawers when they cut their hand, leaving a trace amount of blood.
“Were you able to get a DNA profile off it?” he asks, barely able to get the words out.
“Yup.”
Finn exhales loudly and leans back. This is something. The first new development that he is aware of.
“That’s good news,” Aziz says. “We weren’t sure there was enough blood to get a profile. It was only a few drops. But we did. And we ran it against the profile in our databases. Nothing yet.”
“But you must know something.”
Detective Aziz frowns. “You know I can’t tell you that.”
“Fair enough.”
“But we’ve uploaded the profile to open-access genealogy databases in the hopes of findingfirst- andsecond-degree relatives. You probably saw in Virginia a few months ago, they solved a cold case that way. There’s real potential there.”
“That’s great. I mean, it’s the first real new information we’ve had in a long time.”
“I wanted you to know. I promised to keep you updated and that’s why I came.”
“Would it help if you had the DNA of people in this neighborhood, to compare it to?”
Aziz fixes him with dark, hooded eyes. Finn recognizes this as his intimidating stare, and it would be if Finn didn’t know a little about Aziz. That he had a tender heart he tried hard to hide. That he was devoted to his three daughters and kept a picture of Autumn pinned to his corkboard at work to remind him her case was still active. That he stayed in touch with Finn even though he didn’t have to. “Don’t even think about it. I’m serious. I appreciate that you want to get justice for your friend. But do not go around committing felonies, which taking someone’s DNA and testing it without their consent is. Let us do our job.” He juts his chin up. “You’ve stopped that dog-walking stuff, right? You said you would stop.”
Finn made the mistake, months ago, of telling Aziz that he’d done some snooping while dog-walking.
“Of course I stopped.” He can’t meet the detective’s eyes when he tells this lie, so he stares at the ground. “And I wouldn’t collect people’s DNA without their knowledge. But people throw things away. Straws, bottles, tissues. All kinds of things have DNA on them.”
Aziz curses under his breath. “Don’t make me regret telling you about this. We’ll catch whoever did this. Criminals screw up, that’s what they do.”
Finn knows the detective thinks that Autumn was killed in a robbery gone wrong.
“It wasn’t a burglary. It’s one of the neighbors.” That gut instinct is a certainty honed by years of reading rooms for safety. It means he can spot what others miss.
Aziz makes an expression that’s halfway between a smile and a grimace. “Have you thought about moving out of the neighborhood, Finn? Moving on with your life? Is this what your friend would want for you?”
