Chapter 14 Case File Overload #2
And then I freeze.
“Theo,” I whisper. “I… I think I found something.”
He leans in over my shoulder, expectant. “Please don’t be pornographic images of Baryn in nothing but—”
“It’s worse,” I say, flipping the first page for him to see.
He blinks. “Wait. Is this…?”
I nod, wide-eyed. “Erotic haikus.”
We both stare, dumbfounded.
He reads aloud: “‘Your eyes undress me. Like taxes in early spring. I am so exposed.’”
I clap my hand over my mouth. “There are pages of these.”
Theo takes the folder from my hands almost reverently. “This one’s titled Lust in a Boardroom.”
“Oh my god.”
“There’s a whole subfolder labeled Seasonal Horniness.”
I’m wheezing. “Read one.”
He clears his throat markedly. “‘Pumpkin spice thighs, babe. You are the latte I crave. Whipped cream? Say my name.’”
I lose it.
Whatever lingering adrenaline I had is obliterated in a fit of laughter I have to bury in the crook of Theo’s elbow, clutching Marshmallow as he huffs in dramatic indignation. Theo’s shaking too, trying to keep it together and failing miserably.
When we finally calm down, I’m still wiping tears from the corners of my eyes.
“Well,” Theo slides the folder back into place, “at least we know Baryn’s been busy with something other than murder.”
“Very in touch with himself,” I mutter. “I think this means we have to move him to the bottom of the suspect list.”
Theo straightens at that, turning a bit more serious. “We’re laughing now, but I still want to know what this guy’s really hiding.”
I tap the folder. “Maybe the key to everything is in his cognitive backchannel.”
“Or in his receipt for a stuffed capercaillie couriered from Vienna,” Theo rifles through more papers. “What is it with rich douchebags and their affinity for taxidermied roadkill?”
We search every drawer, every shelf. Even the ones that seem too obvious, too boring, because Baryn’s the type who’d absolutely hide secrets in plain sight.
Like behind a row of decoy books, all with titles like Speak to Win: Mastering the Spotlight and Unmute Yourself.
As if Baryn has ever shut the fuck up as day in his life.
Theo makes a disgusted noise and starts shifting spines.
“That man has too many opinions for someone who probably says ‘grindset’ without irony,” I shake my head.
Theo snorts, then pauses, his hand hovering in midair. “Wait.”
He pulls one book out just a little too far and—click. A tiny mechanical sound echoes from the drawer beneath. A hidden latch.
It pops open to reveal a locked box inside.
I nudge Theo with my elbow and nod toward it. “Think you can get into that?”
He arches a brow. “You say that like I didn’t open your locked file cabinet with a bobby pin.”
“Oh my god. I forgot about that.”
He shrugs, all false modesty. “You forgot because you swore me to secrecy. Something about not wanting your students to know their forensic psychology professor locks her research with a glorified paper clip.”
“Because it was embarrassing,” I hiss. “I bent the real key trying to open the damn thing one-handed while eating a slice of cold pizza I peeled the cheese off of.”
He opens it with another one of his lock picking magic tricks—at this point, I’m not convinced he wasn’t a spy in a past life—and inside—
Drives.
A whole drawer full of USB drives. Each labeled.
Victoria C. – 08-04
Mayfair – 06-17
Witness Report – Redacted
All the warmth drains out of me in one sickening wave.
“Plug them in,” I say, already knowing this is going to wreck us.
Theo’s ahead of me. He has his laptop out in seconds, the soft glow of the screen throwing eerie shadows across his face. He moves with precision, hands steady. Calm. Which only makes the storm brewing inside my head feel worse.
One by one, we insert the drives.
Each one a digital bomb.
Audio recordings.
Surveillance footage.
Files full of witness statements, scanned documents, medical charts, email chains, metadata, forensic results so detailed it makes my stomach turn.
It’s all here.
Everything about Victoria’s death.
And Henry’s.
Most of it I recognize from our own files, bits I had to fight tooth and nail to get.
There’s a video feed labeled Compound – Night South.
I hesitate for half a second, then click it.
The footage loads: low-res, timestamped, the angle trained on a stretch of pathway I’ve walked a half dozen times during the day. At night, it looks foreign. Haunted.
Theo leans in close. “He has cameras all over the compound.”
“Which means he has to know what happened to Victoria,” I say, barely breathing. “Maybe even to Henry.”
My heart pounds in my ears.
Based on everything I’ve studied about offender psychology—particularly the behavioral patterns of organized serial offenders—this has all the hallmarks of a trophy box.
Not in the pop-culture sense where killers stash dramatic souvenirs, but in the behavioral-evidence sense: curated items that reinforce control, commemorate the act, and help the offender relive whatever emotional peak they hit during the crime.
It’s intentional, ritualistic, and meant to serve a psychological function long after the event itself.
There’s no time to go through everything—we’d need hours, days—and we can’t risk staying here much longer than we already have.
We drop all the drives into the empty pocket of Theo’s bag.
Marshmallow lets out a tiny squeak that somehow sounds like agreement.
We’re just about to make our exit when something else catches my eye, tucked innocuously beside the door.
A laptop bag.
Black. Zipped. Monogrammed.
I freeze. “Theo.”
He turns, following my gaze. The look on his face shifts. There’s a moment of hesitation. Then he takes half a step toward it.
It feels too easy. Too weird that he left it behind.
Then I remember where Nora said he was headed, and it clicks that electronics aren’t exactly part of a silent retreat. He wouldn’t need a laptop there.
“Are we taking it?” I ask, quieter than I’ve been the entire night. It feels like it’s drawing too much attention, even though we’re alone. Taking something he left in plain sight, something he will no doubt notice is missing right away, feels more risky.
Then again, we did shove his entire murder trophy collection straight into our pockets, so maybe not.
His eyes scan the bag for a beat longer than necessary. “Hell yeah, we’re taking it.”
He grabs it without another word, slinging it over his shoulder. We move in sync, backing away from the desk, careful to leave the other things as they were before we arrived.
We find our way back into the basement, and I leave Marshmallow to his fate. Poor guy deserves an owner who’s not possibly implicated in two murders.
The house above us doesn’t stir. Cameras still down. No alarms. No pastel-clad security brigade storming the hedges.
We’re seemingly in the clear.
For now.