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I leave out the part where she’s the only friend I have in a 2,307-mile radius.

That I would rather die than not be there for her right now.

We were never really that close in college, but I learned the hard way how fleeting friendships can be, even when you think they’ll last forever.

Two years ago, I made Emily a priority in my life—probably more of one than she ever wanted to be. I hadn’t been there for her in the ways I should have been when she lost her grandfather. Or when her dad was arrested for his murder. Or when he died in prison not long after.

I’ve since learned how fucking hard it is to navigate grief on your own.

I think most people just don’t really know what to do in those kinds of situations, but it shouldn’t have taken something like losing my best friend to cancer to show me what a shitty friend I’d been to everyone else, but life is the greatest teacher.

Laurel was my everything. We were codependent, unhealthily so. Having her ripped from my life made me a shell of a human for a long time. Only recently have I felt like I might be clawing my way back from the depths of despair, but I don’t think I’ll ever be the same person I was before losing her.

I’ll be damned if I let Emily go through something else like that alone.

The fact that I’ll have the opportunity to secretly do some investigating of my own is just a bonus.

Theo may have lost the first trial, but he’s the only person in existence who knows this case better than I do.

And maybe the only person in existence who wishes it had gone differently more than I do.

Whoever killed Henry Mayfair four years ago is the same person who killed Emily’s mother last week. My gut’s been screaming it since the second I heard the news.

Two eerily similar murders in the same family? That cannot be a coincidence. And after spending way too many sleepless nights convincing myself Peter never should’ve gone to prison for the first one, I’m pretty damn sure whoever killed Henry is still out there—maybe even planning to work their way through the rest of the Mayfairs.

If there’s a single trace of evidence connecting the two murders, I will find it.

I have to.

Because if I don’t, there’s a good chance someone else in that house is going to die.

What if that someone is Emily?

And I can’t bear the thought of losing a second friend.

Another thing about chasing the truth? Sometimes it stares back at you, sharp and unrelenting.

And sometimes, it’s six-foot-three, grumpy as hell, and makes you seriously reconsider your stance on shamelessly begging.

I go for bribery instead, yanking out a case file stuffed with scribbled notes and printouts, the pages freckled with coffee stains—just messy enough to pique his curiosity. Tucked inside are a few pieces of information the public doesn’t have access to. The kind that’ll make it impossible for him to resist.

I slap it down on his desk.

He doesn’t reach for it right away, but I see the way his eyes flick to the folder, his hand twitching like he’s already itching to open it. Neither of us says anything, and he seems to debate whether indulging his curiosity is worth whatever trouble I’m about to pull him into.

Then he flips open the file, his eyes skimming over the toxicology report. I watch as his face twists, his fingers tightening slightly on the page.

I know exactly what he’s seeing—the traces of hellebore in Victoria’s system, a dangerously high concentration for a compound that doesn’t linger long. It must have been administered repeatedly over days. Weeks, even.

The results leave no room for doubt. She was already dying before anyone laid a hand on her. The evidence points to cumulative hellebore toxicity, not just strangulation.

His gaze flicks up to mine, then back down as he continues scanning the report—a report I happen to know was never officially logged into the system.

Then, finally, he exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose before leveling me with a look. “You broke into the lab.”

We both know how easy it would be for me to break into the forensics lab in Bellwood, especially as a forensics adjacent professor at the university.

Sure, I teach in a field that merely brushes up against forensic science—behavioral analysis, investigative interviewing, courtroom dynamics, offender profiling. All the grim greatest hits.