Page 45 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer

twenty-three

. . .

Noah

The precinct buzzeswith its usual chaos—a tangled soundtrack of ringing phones, rapid keystrokes, and shouted updates from the bullpen. Overhead, the fluorescent lights drone like they’re as tired of this place as the rest of us. The air carries the bitter bite of burnt coffee and something faintly rotten. Chinese takeout, maybe. Or guilt.

I sit at my desk, surrounded by case files that haven’t moved since before I got here. They’re sprawled out in front of me like the ghosts they represent—names, photos, timelines. Victims frozen in paperwork. It’s supposed to help me see the pattern, but all I see right now is static.

“Detective Grant!”

The voice snaps me out of my fog. I look up to find the rookie, who I now know to be Martinez, overeager, always two steps ahead of himself. He’s practically vibrating, a notebook clutched in one hand, his other gesturing for me to follow.

“You’re gonna want to see this.”

I sigh—that seems to be his favorite thing to say to me lately—and push back from my desk. My chair squeaks like it resents the movement. “Let’s go ruin my day, then,” I mumble.

He leads me through the rows of desks, past the evidence board for the Finch case—Doug Finch, mid-level contractor, with a headless-corpse found zipped up in the bed of his truck like a bag of lawn clippings.

No obvious motive, no witnesses, no suspects. So far, anyway.

The conference room is half-full of members of my team. Mason’s there, leaning back in a chair with his arms folded across his chest. Sarah’s at the whiteboard, flipping through a file. A few others are scattered around the table, half-focused, half-waiting for something worth caring about.

I step in. Conversations quiet. Mason looks up and jerks his chin toward the table. “We’ve got something.”

I walk over. Evidence photos are spread across the surface—typical wide-angle shots, timestamped stills, corner surveillance frames pulled from traffic cam feeds. I scan them with practiced detachment.

Until I don’t.

One image stops me cold.

Low-res. Slightly tilted. But it hits like a sucker punch to the sternum.

Elle.

She’s blurred, and not totally in the shot, but close enough to the yellow truck—Finch’s. Her head’s tilted, like she’s focused on something near the door. The timestamp is early. Seven-twelve a.m. The body in Finch’s truck was discovered forty-five minutes later, long after he was already cold.

I force my jaw not to clench.

The rookie’s still watching me. So is Mason.

I blink once. Just once. Then lean down and tap the photo casually.

“Where’s this from?”

“Traffic cam.” Sarah slides a folder toward me. “Two houses from where the truck was found. New corner install—we got lucky. Zoomed in when it caught movement around the vehicle. This is just before patrol showed up on the scene.”

“You know who that is?” Mason asks.

I pause just long enough to seem like I’m thinking about it, then shake my head. “Not sure. Can’t really make out the face.”

I don’t say more. Don’t ask questions that might tip them off. Just let the silence hang like smoke.

Sarah shrugs. “She walks up to the driver’s side, lingers a few, maybe tries the handle. Then she’s outta the shot.”

“How long was she there?”

“Fifty-two seconds.”