Page 23 of (My Accidental) Killer Summer (Summers in Seaside)

twenty-three

. . .

Noah

The precinct buzzes with 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.”

Long enough to do something. Long enough to see something.

Mason raises an eyebrow. “Could be a witness. Could be involved. You want to run her through facial rec?”

I feel something tighten in my chest.

“Quality’s too low,” I say quickly. “It’ll flag ten thousand possibles and eat up the system for half the day.”

He squints at the photo. “You think it’s nothing?”

I shrug, casual. “Could be a dog-walker. Could be someone curious. Nothing about her posture says she’s panicking.”

“Still,” Sarah says, flipping another photo to the top of the stack, “it’s weird timing.”

I glance at the new photo. Another angle. Elle again, but this time her face is turned slightly more toward the lens.

My stomach drops.

They’re going to figure it out. Not today, maybe, but eventually. And when they do, she’s going to be dragged into something she might not walk out of.

Unless I do something.

I pick up the traffic cam folder and flip through it, lingering on the one image that’s clearest. I angle it under the light, nodding slowly like I’m analyzing.

Then I make my move.

“Let me take a closer look at these,” I say. “I’ll cross-reference time stamps with the canvass logs, see if any neighbors spotted her. Could give us a lead.”

Mason glances at Sarah, then shrugs. “Sure. Just keep us posted with whatever you need.”

I give him a nod and tuck the file under my arm like it’s routine. No big deal. Nothing to see here.

They move on to the next topic—coroner’s estimate on time of death, potential motive. I slip out of the room before anyone notices I’ve taken more than I should have.

Back at my desk, I drop into my chair and stare at the photo again. Elle. Wind-blown hair, dark pants, a sweatshirt I think I recognize from a drawer that used to be half mine.

What the hell were you doing there?

It doesn’t make sense.

Unless it does.

I pull open my bottom drawer and slide the file inside, beneath a stack of outdated warrants and junk paperwork. It’s not gone, not shredded, not erased—but it’s hidden. Out of rotation. For now.

I lean back in my chair, rubbing the bridge of my nose, already calculating next steps. I’ll go by her place tonight. Play it casual. Ask questions I’m not supposed to. Pretend I don’t already know the answer.

And if she lies to me—if I catch even a flicker of guilt in those eyes—I’ll figure out what she’s hiding.

But if someone else gets to her first…

No.

I won’t let that happen.

I get up, head down the corridor toward Records, and tell them I’m pulling additional footage for case cross-checks. Just covering my bases. No one questions it.

No one ever does.

By the time I return to my desk, the precinct’s energy has shifted—noisy, alert, the scent of fresh coffee now replacing the old. But I don’t hear any of it. Not really.

And that makes this dangerous.

Because if she’s involved? If she killed someone?

I’ll be the first to find out.

And the last person who’d ever be willing to turn her in.