15. Conner
CONNER
The truth is, long before I found my calling in forensic science, I thought I’d wear a badge. Serve, protect, uphold justice. All that idealistic crap they feed you in school.
I learned quickly: there’s only so much you can do from inside the system. And I meant it when I said I’d kill Marcus. I can’t do that when I promised to protect and uphold all citizens, because that includes the scum, doesn’t it?
I push through the front doors and make a beeline for the front desk, where a woman with pencil-thin eyebrows and a glossy smile looks up from her chipped acrylics. Her name tag reads “Trina,” and her perfume hits me before her voice does—overly sweet, like candied fruit doused in rubbing alcohol.
She bats her lashes. “Can I help you, sir?”
I flash a smile I’ve practiced to perfection. Not too friendly. Just clinical enough to make people uneasy. “That depends. You think you can get me into the back without alerting your supervisor?”
She giggles. Giggles . “Depends what I’m getting in return.”
Trina’s tongue runs over her teeth in a manner that I am assuming is supposed to be flirtatious, but it only makes me want to continue to analyze her.
Her left eyelash is starting to lift. Her piling foundation doesn’t match her neck, and she’s got lipstick and chocolate on her teeth.
I inwardly sigh, because only one of those things can be used to my benefit.
I lean in slightly, lowering my voice. “Trina, do you still have a love of Parisian chocolate?”
She leans across the desk, an acrylic nail running aimlessly across my chest. It takes everything in me not to snap her finger cleanly at the bone. “You know it buttercup,” she sings in an almost nasal tone.
I slide a smirk onto my face—the one I perfected watching Landon work a room. My eyes skim down her body like I’m thinking about sex. Really, I’m thinking about how she hasn’t swallowed once since I walked in.
Her throat’s tight. Pulse ticking at the base of it. Pupils dilated just enough to give her away.
“Well, lucky for both of us. I still know your favorite shop.” I whisper, and she fucking squeals.
I inwardly groan trying to keep myself from clawing my own eardrums out as I slide a case of chocolates from the infamous Edwart’s .
“Why are you buttering me up Conner Kilgore?” She coos.
“Because it is faster than wasting my time filing paperwork and waiting for approval I already know I’ll get.” I wink, the first truth of this entire interaction spilling out.
“You’re right about that,” she wiggles her eyebrows, digging into the box of truffles and moaning when one passes her lips. With a mouth full of chocolate she speaks behind her hand. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m consulting for SAC Kilroy,” I add, slipping my clearance pass across the counter. “I want access to the lace murders.”
“Consulting for SAC Kilroy doesn’t get you into the Lace murder files, or evidence.” She quirks an eyebrow.
“That’s why I brought chocolate.” I lean against the counter and smirk in a way that makes most people think I am letting them in on a dirty secret.
She hesitates for half a second too long—then buzzes the side door open with a mutter, “Fine, but if you get caught, you snuck in while I was in the ladies room.”
“Of course,” I nod my thanks and walk past, not looking back.
I know this building like the back of my hand.
Knew it even before they let me ghost in and out for crime scene consults.
The labs are toward the back—sterile, humming with cold white light and the sound of machines too old to trust but too expensive to replace.
Regardless, that doesn’t hinder me from my job.
I don the gloves waiting at the prep station and approach the workstation marked “ACTIVE — CASE 4087.” Serial killer. North Dallas.
She slips in and out of crime scenes without leaving a trace. No fingerprints. No DNA. No hair, skin cells, sweat—nothing. They call her Lace, named after the only clue that ever suggested she might be a woman: a single leather lace shooting glove found discarded miles from the nearest victim.
She must have been meticulous—wiping down everything, maybe even wearing a full barrier suit under street clothes. Not one usable print. Not even a partial. You’d think she was a ghost. If it weren’t for the fact that she gunned down most of the Cartel like it was nothing.
I’m almost impressed.
I slide open the lead tech’s notes and sigh at the fucking mess of scribbles. Sloppy. Barely legible. Basically unusable. What a waste.
What I need is pattern .
Something in Lace’s movements, her method, her rhythm. Anything that tells me where she’ll go next—and more importantly, how I can aim her. Because that’s the plan: get Lace to kill Marcus.
It was a no brainer after I cleared my head on mile two of my morning jog. She’s already carving her way through the Cartel. Wouldn’t take much to pivot her toward the Raiders. Different syndicate, same rot. Same brutality. Same killer. No one would bat an eye.
I spend the next forty-five minutes combing through kill patterns. Locations. Time stamps. Ballistics. Calling cards. Eyewitness statements that don’t line up. Detective suspicions that go ignored.
She’s methodical, sure—but there’s emotion here. Rage. Each hit is deliberate, but the spacing between them? That’s not tactical. That’s personal , and when things are personal, they get messy.
I scan over a single entry buried in a chain of supplemental DNA reports. A degraded sample pulled from under the fingernail of a cartel enforcer who bled out behind a club off Harry Hines.
It wasn’t enough to build a full profile. But that’s not the part that makes me lean in.
The real prize is buried deeper in the genome breakdown.
A corrupted blood trace, tagged and half-ignored—lifted from none other than Xavier King’s Raider vest.
I double-check the chain of custody. Same crime scene. Same night.
My mouth tightens.
I grab the vial from the evidence filing tray and slide it into my inside jacket pocket like it’s nothing.
Because Xavier King doesn’t just know of Lace.
He knows who she is.
And now, all I have to do is make that connection worth my while.