Page 17 of Take This to Your Grave

If he realizes I’m working the case, that changes immediately. Someone like him wouldn’t leave that alone. He’d start asking questions—carefully phrased, deceptively casual—looking for details he could turn into part of the story. Facts, timelines, anything that might enhance the episode.

I hadn’t factored in the hotness level. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe someone who looks like they still live in their mom’s basement? It wasn’t this, that’s for sure.

I assumed avoiding him would be easy. Now it feels like it’ll have to be intentional in a way that’s going to require effort.

Ugh. I’m compromised. I’m overworked and undersexed, and one brief encounter with a hard chest and competent reflexes is enough for me to begin generating hypotheses I have absolutely no intention of testing.

PROFESSIONAL DETACHMENT (ALLEGEDLY)

SERENA

There is a particular kind of anticipation that comes with an unidentified set of remains. Not excitement, exactly, though pretending there isn’t some element of it would be dishonest. A question has been placed in front of me, and somewhere inside the evidence is an answer.

This morning, that instinct feels harder to justify.

Because the remains waiting for me in town might be Casey’s.

I should want them not to be.

I don’t want them to be.

But beneath that is something more difficult to admit: the same pull I feel every time the dead leave me a question. The need to see. To measure. To understand.

Seventeen years ago, Casey disappeared without telling any of us where she went.

If those bones are hers, she may finally be able to.

I feel prepared for the work, but not the place or whatever comes after.

I’m used to bones that end up behind glass—cataloged, climate-controlled, accompanied by placards and careful lighting.

The museum is familiar territory.

Medical examiner offices sit adjacent to my work. I consult when asked. I step in, I step back out.

Still, the pull is the same.

Whatever else this trip brings—awkward reunions, unwanted conversations—this part is simple. There are remains. I get to inspect them, maybe give them a name and a face.

I love my job in a way that never feels complicated, even when the circumstances are.

Bones don’t care where they’re stored or who’s standing over them. They just tell the truth, if you know where to find it.

I get ready without thinking too hard about it, letting habit take over. The routine is familiar, almost meditative, each step narrowing my focus until my thoughts settle back into place.

Getting dressed requires no emotional investment. I line the items on the counter automatically—brush, hair tie, mascara—nudging them into a straight line before I start. Hair, makeup, audiobook playing at 2x in my ears. My foot taps a pattern against the tile floor while the narration speeds along, a quiet rhythm I barely notice.

All of it safely procedural.

I don’t invite the thought, or even leave much room for it, but he surfaces anyway—the stranger from last night who saved my ass and then made himself scarce before my mind had time to catch up.

Except he isn’t technically a stranger anymore.

I mentioned the encounter to Lila last night, mostly because the combination of sandy-blond hair, glasses, and being conspicuously unfamiliar in Stillwater had narrowed the possibilities considerably. Her response was immediate.

That definitely sounds like Baryn.