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I give him a shut-the-fuck-up look, which only makes him shake harder.

“I’ll send you pictures tonight, okay? I have to go, it’s time for chanting fundamentals.”

“Oh that’s very important, dear. Make sure you⁠—”

“Okay, Mother. Love you, bye,” I rush out, cutting the call before she can finish her sentence.

Simon finally allows his laughter to burst free.

“Go ahead, get it all out, ass hat.” I glare at him. “It’s really not that funny.”

When he finally catches his breath he asks, “When are you going to stop lying to her?”

“Never.” I tap my fingers against the steering wheel, eyes focused on the door that leads into the medical examiner’s office.

I’ve hidden my day job from my family for a long time, but I’m more resolute about it now than ever. There’s not a chance in hell I’m letting them find out I did an episode on my true crime podcast about our own family. My mother would kill me, and there would be no exposé on my murder, because she wouldn’t bother to report me missing and no one would ever find the body.

Over the years I’ve told them I’ve been on silent retreats, digital detox weekends, various conferences, meditation workshops, writing residencies, and one ill-advised lie about a pottery class that resulted in my aunt asking to see the vase I made. I’ve claimed spotty cell service in rural monasteries, long hikes with no reception, and a baffling number of mindfulness seminars that all seem to require complete isolation.

At this point I’m fairly certain my family thinks I’ve either undergone a spiritual awakening or finally snapped. Both are safer assumptions than the truth.

It’s simpler to be written off as a trust-fund fuckhead than to explain to my mom where I’m actually spending my time, because I’m fairly certain she’d chop me into tiny pieces and feed me to her goats.

And the whole charade hinges on the hope that not a single one of them will stop treating the internet like a confusing utility, something you use to check the weather or pay a bill—not a place where your son builds a career out of dissecting the worst days of people's lives.

“How long does this actually take?” Simon cracks his neck.

We’ve been waiting in the car for over an hour since being escorted out of the building, and we’re both growing impatient. “A preliminary assessment takes a few hours. Anything reliable takes days. Confirmation can take weeks in a place like this.”

I’ve been obsessively following this cold case for years like any good true crime junkie. Just a little past the healthy line.

I’ve compiled timelines, maps, witness statements that contradict each other in interesting ways. I’ve watched old footage until the frames blur. I feel—dangerously—fairly certain about what happened to Casey.

When the news broke that remains had been found, Simon and I didn’t debate it. We got in the car and drove.

The problem is, certainty doesn’t mean anything without confirmation.

Law enforcement won’t have anything to do with me outside of telling me to fuck off. But I don’t need their buy-in. I just need someone to tell me whether any of this holds up, whether the hours I’ve poured into this are insight or fixation.

The people called in to examine the remains seem as good a place to start as any.

If I’m wrong, I need to know. And if I’m right—then someone else does too.

The M.E.’s door opens and she steps out.

The woman from last night.

I recognize her immediately.

She’s fucking beautiful today. Her hair falls long and black around her shoulders, the white streak through her bangs stark against it. Everything about her seems designed to pull my attention in and keep it there. She’s dressed entirely in black, which feels consistent with everything else about her—controlled, deliberate, a little severe.

And covered in tattoos.

They curl around both hands and disappear under the sleeves of her shirt. I take them in the way someone might approach a museum wall: slowly, thoroughly, with the distinct urge to inspect each one up close.

Preferably very up close.

I shut the thought down before it can take root. It’s a reflex now, a mental kill-switch I’ve spent the last three years perfecting. Three years of keeping sex firmly off the agenda. It started as a way to clear the noise after my last relationship imploded like a dying star, but it turned into a survival strategy.