Chapter 1 Latent Print #2
I hesitate. Because the truth is, I don’t know. I just know that my gut—the same gut that told me something was wrong with Peter’s conviction—won’t let this go. “I’ll know when I find it.”
His eyes lock with mine, but I don’t flinch. He’s the first one to look away, spinning his chair around to face the wall behind his desk. His head falls back against the leather, and he releases a long, frustrated breath.
If he thinks ignoring me will make me go away, he wildly underestimates my commitment to being a nuisance when it comes to getting what I want.
While he gathers his thoughts, I take the opportunity to glance around his office. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a man who spends his days dissecting legal ethics—bookshelves crammed with case law, neat piles of papers, not a single personal photo in sight.
It’s very put-together, but cold.
Just like him.
The only thing even vaguely humanizing is a half-empty coffee cup sitting next to the keyboard, but even that feels like it belongs in a museum labeled Exhibit A: Evidence That He Occasionally Consumes Sustenance.
I wonder if he ever eats real food.
Probably not. He seems like the type to subsist entirely on caffeine and quiet resentment.
I shift in place again, suddenly aware that I've been standing still too long. My fingers twitch, restless, so I drum them against my thigh. The movement helps keep my brain from feeling like a live wire in the silence.
Theo spins back around and leans forward, elbows resting on his desk, fingers steepled in front of his face.
He opens his mouth to speak.
Closes it again.
Rubs his right temple with his index and middle finger.
“Exactly how do you know Emily Mayfair well enough for her to invite you to stay with her whole family for an entire week immediately following the murder of her mother?”
“We shared a dorm during my first year of undergrad.” I shrug, nonchalant.
I leave out the part where she’s the only friend I have in a 2,307-mile radius.
That I would rather die than not be there for her right now.
We were never really that close in college, but I learned the hard way how fleeting friendships can be, even when you think they’ll last forever.
Two years ago, I made Emily a priority in my life—probably more of one than she ever wanted to be. I hadn’t been there for her in the ways I should have been when she lost her grandfather. Or when her dad was arrested for his murder. Or when he died in prison not long after.
I’ve since learned how fucking hard it is to navigate grief on your own.
I think most people just don’t really know what to do in those kinds of situations, but it shouldn’t have taken something like losing my best friend to cancer to show me what a shitty friend I’d been to everyone else, but life is the greatest teacher.
Laurel was my everything. We were codependent, unhealthily so. Having her ripped from my life made me a shell of a human for a long time. Only recently have I felt like I might be clawing my way back from the depths of despair, but I don’t think I’ll ever be the same person I was before losing her.
I’ll be damned if I let Emily go through something else like that alone.
The fact that I’ll have the opportunity to secretly do some investigating of my own is just a bonus.
Theo may have lost the first trial, but he’s the only person in existence who knows this case better than I do.
And maybe the only person in existence who wishes it had gone differently more than I do.
Whoever killed Henry Mayfair four years ago is the same person who killed Emily’s mother last week. My gut’s been screaming it since the second I heard the news.
Two eerily similar murders in the same family?
That cannot be a coincidence. And after spending way too many sleepless nights convincing myself Peter never should’ve gone to prison for the first one, I’m pretty damn sure whoever killed Henry is still out there—maybe even planning to work their way through the rest of the Mayfairs.
If there’s a single trace of evidence connecting the two murders, I will find it.
I have to.
Because if I don’t, there’s a good chance someone else in that house is going to die.
What if that someone is Emily?
And I can’t bear the thought of losing a second friend.
Another thing about chasing the truth? Sometimes it stares back at you, sharp and unrelenting.
And sometimes, it’s six-foot-three, grumpy as hell, and makes you seriously reconsider your stance on shamelessly begging.
I go for bribery instead, yanking out a case file stuffed with scribbled notes and printouts, the pages freckled with coffee stains—just messy enough to pique his curiosity.
Tucked inside are a few pieces of information the public doesn’t have access to.
The kind that’ll make it impossible for him to resist.
I slap it down on his desk.
He doesn’t reach for it right away, but I see the way his eyes flick to the folder, his hand twitching like he’s already itching to open it. Neither of us says anything, and he seems to debate whether indulging his curiosity is worth whatever trouble I’m about to pull him into.
Then he flips open the file, his eyes skimming over the toxicology report. I watch as his face twists, his fingers tightening slightly on the page.
I know exactly what he’s seeing—the traces of hellebore in Victoria’s system, a dangerously high concentration for a compound that doesn’t linger long. It must have been administered repeatedly over days. Weeks, even.
The results leave no room for doubt. She was already dying before anyone laid a hand on her. The evidence points to cumulative hellebore toxicity, not just strangulation.
His gaze flicks up to mine, then back down as he continues scanning the report—a report I happen to know was never officially logged into the system.
Then, finally, he exhales, pinching the bridge of his nose before leveling me with a look. “You broke into the lab.”
We both know how easy it would be for me to break into the forensics lab in Bellwood, especially as a forensics adjacent professor at the university.
Sure, I teach in a field that merely brushes up against forensic science—behavioral analysis, investigative interviewing, courtroom dynamics, offender profiling. All the grim greatest hits.
I’m not the one in a lab coat swabbing bloodstains, but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone at Bellwood who gives a flying fuck, or even cares enough to wonder what I’m up to.
The lab’s security is basic, and the staff is overworked, underfunded, and sometimes too distracted to lock up properly.
It’s housed in a nearby facility that partners with local law enforcement—part classroom, part crime lab.
Which, conveniently, makes it absurdly easy for me to get my hands on materials and equipment for more than just teaching.
All I need are my keys, my credentials, and a decent poker face.
A couple of well-placed detours, and no one questions a professor poking around in the name of academic interest.
I quirk my head to the side in mock contemplation. “Broke in is a strong term.”
He glares at me. “Did you use a key?”
“No,” I admit.
“Did you have permission?” he presses.
I curl my lips over my teeth, releasing them with a pop. “We both know the answer to that.”
He gives me the flattest look imaginable. “That’s breaking in.”
I fold my arms. “Okay, first of all, the door was unlocked. Second, it’s not my fault if site security underestimates my commitment to forensic accuracy.”
“You teach forensic psychology.” Theo scrubs a hand over face. “Do I even want to know how you got access to an active case file?”
No. No you do not. “Probably not. But look at this—” I shuffle the papers and tap the highlighted section.
“The strangulation marks in the original Mayfair case? They’re nearly identical to those in the second murder.
Same pressure pattern, same bruising around the throat, and the lack of defensive wounds tells me it was likely someone the victims knew and—”
Theo lifts a hand, cutting me off. “Stop. I know how strangulation works.”
"Right, because of the whole ‘former hotshot defense attorney turned disgraced professor' thing.”
His expression flattens even further, which I wouldn’t have thought possible if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own two eyeballs. “Thank you for the reminder, Lila.”
“Anytime.” I give him the broadest grin I can muster. And then, because I can’t help myself, I poke him in the arm—a casual touch that definitely lasts half a second too long. “Admit it—you love this. The chase. The mystery. The chance to prove everyone wrong. Finally.”
He looks down at the file, then back at me, something severe and unreadable in his gaze. “You’re so much trouble.”
I smirk. “So I’ve been told.”
Most people in this field pick a side and cling to it, bending the facts until they fit the narrative they want to believe.
Cops convince themselves their gut is gospel.
Prosecutors convince themselves that justice is whatever keeps their conviction rate high.
Even forensic scientists—people who should know better—pretend that evidence is always irrefutable, never flawed.
But Theo? He knows better.
He knows the system is broken because he’s been broken by it. He knows what it’s like to fight for something, to believe in it, only to have it rip itself apart in his hands.
He was the last person who stood between Peter Mayfair and a prison cell, the only one who fought for the truth when the rest of the world just wanted a verdict.
And it cost him everything.
I don’t know if he wants to find the real truth anymore. Maybe he gave that up the second the Mayfair case swallowed his career whole.
But I do.
And if there’s even the smallest part of him that still cares, still wants to know—then I’m taking him with me.