Page 74 of Revere

On top of that, I’m not ready to leave Jacob behind.

I watch him scan the room, and I wonder if he even cares. He might be attracted to me, but I don’t live here. He walked into this knowing there would be no attachments. It’s temporary, and I’ll be gone soon.

“Just because we’re almost done, doesn’t mean you should stop trying. I expect your best work at this point. Anything less and you won’t receive my recommendation.” He dips his hands into his pockets, and I have no doubt he means it. “And for one of you, I’m going to ask you to stick around a little longer after the program ends, to help with the interview.”

Students perk up around me.

“Now that your assignments are turned in, I’m happy to announce who I’ll be interviewing. Does anyone know who Vance Osentago is?”

My hand shoots into the air, but I don’t wait for him to call on me before answering. “The most notorious serial killer on the West Coast from the past decade. The police are still sorting through the body parts they uncovered in his basement, and they think they haven’t even discovered all the graves on his property yet. But he’s better known as the Puzzle Killer in the media for hacking up his victims into such tiny pieces that it’s nearly impossible for the cops to determine how many of them there are.”

All eyes in the room are on me, and I realize I sound a little too excited about a serial killer. But Vance Osentago is a criminalpsychologist’s dream interview. I’m not surprised Jacob was chosen for it.

“Very good, Ms. Lancaster.” He smirks, and my stomach flutters. “He’s finally agreed to speak, and I’ll be the one conducting the interview. Along with one student, who will be chosen to join me.”

Whispers kick up in the room. Excitement dances in Violet’s eyes as she crosses her fingers and smiles at me.

“I’ve had a chance to review your research papers on the Irsite case, and I’ll be awarding this opportunity to the person who correctly identified how I tied Haven Matthews to Ms. Irsite’s murder. While most of you were focused on the hair found in the hallway, that was irrelevant. As some of you might have guessed, I left pages out of the report on purpose, including the dates we gathered certain pieces of evidence. The hair was found after Haven already confessed.”

Grumbles stir around the room.

“You didn’t think I’d make it easy on you, did you?” Jacob smirks. “If there’s one thing you need to remember when working with criminals, it’s that things are rarely as they seem. You should always assume someone is lying.”

His eyes land on me, and my mouth dries.

“So what was it if it wasn’t the hair?” A fellow student speaks up. “How did you figure out he was involved?”

“The toxicology report.” Jacob holds my stare.

He gave me such a hard time about dissecting the toxicology report, knowing I was right.

“Ms. Irsite’s hCG levels were elevated, indicating pregnancy.”

“But she wasn’t pregnant,” the student points out.

“She wasn’t pregnantanymore.” I speak up. “She had an abortion the day before her overdose. It was left out of the report.”

“Then how did you know?” Sophia glares at me.

“After I noticed her hCG levels and determined they wouldn’t have been elevated because of anything that might have been laced in the heroin, I went back to her bank statements. I wanted to see if she’d seen a doctor recently, thinking she might have had a miscarriage. That’s when I found the transaction to a clinic, and I made a guess based on the doctor’s specialty.”

“A guess?” She hitches an eyebrow. “That’s very lucky of you.”

It was, especially after Jacob tried to steer me away from digging into Molly’s blood work. The hair in the hallway was a stronger guess. But I always knew he wouldn’t make it that easy for us. There’s always more than meets the surface when it comes to Jacob.

“It was creative thinking on your part,” Jacob says, turning to the rest of the class. “And it was correct. Ms. Irsite had recently been pregnant. And when we searched video footage from the clinic, we saw Haven was the one who brought her in. After we established his involvement, we began to question him, and he confessed. Good catch, Ms. Lancaster.”

“But I didn’t have any proof,” I argue, even though I got it right.

“You found as much as you could have given the resources provided. And as the only student who did, the seat beside me at the Vance Osentago interview is yours should you want it.”

I can’t form words. I can barely think, so all I do is nod.

“Then congratulations are in order. Great investigative work, Ms. Lancaster.”

Jacob lifts off the desk, and Violet nudges my arm.

“Congratulations,” she whispers.