The examination room where Casey's body waits feels like a chapel dedicated to systematic violence. Fluorescent lighting strips away any possibility of softness, revealing every detail with harsh clinical precision. The smell hits me first—antiseptic and something metallic that makes saliva pool in my mouth with the threat of vomiting.
Then I see her.
Casey Holbrook lies on the steel table like an offering to whatever dark god demands payment in innocent blood. Her auburn hair is carefully arranged around her face, no longer pulled back in the messy bun I remember, but spread across the metal surface like liquid copper. Someone took time with the presentation, treating her corpse like art rather than evidence.
Like something beautiful instead of someone beloved.
Her body is positioned with the mathematical precision I've come to recognize as Kent's signature—arms extended at perfect ninety-degree angles from her torso, head tilted exactly fifteen degrees to the right, legs straight with feet positioned twelve inches apart. Every measurement exact, every detail replicated from crime scenes I've studied obsessively.
But seeing the methodology applied to Casey's body makes me understand something fundamental about the difference between abstract analysis and personal loss. Those precise angles aren't just evidence of obsessive attention to detail—they're deliberate desecration of someone who brought coffee and gossip and genuine human warmth into my world.
Someone who deserved so much better than becoming a message.
The chest cavity has been opened and sutured closed with the same amateur precision I noted in Chen and Martin's cases. Black surgical thread crisscrosses her sternum like a zipper, each stitch deliberately placed despite the lack of professional training. Someone who understands the concept but learned from studying photographs rather than hands-on experience.
Someone who's been analyzing Kent's work with academic thoroughness.
"The positioning matches the other cases exactly," Finch observes, watching my face for reactions I'm trying desperately to suppress. "Same surgical precision, same attention to detail. But this time…."
He trails off, noting something in my expression that probably reads as professional analysis rather than personal devastation. I force myself to breathe steadily, to catalog details with clinical detachment despite the way my chest feels like it's being crushed.
"This time, what?" I ask, though part of me doesn't want to hear the answer.
"This time it feels personal. Like the killer wanted to send a specific message to someone who'd understand the significance."
The observation hits exactly where he intends it to, because he's not wrong. Casey's death isn't just another escalation in the copycat's pattern—it's a direct attack on me. On someone I cared about, someone who mattered enough that her loss would cause exactly this kind of devastation.
Someone whose death would demonstrate that no one connected to me is safe.
I move closer to the table, forcing myself to study Casey's face with the kind of professional detachment I've spent years perfecting. Her skin has the waxy pallor of recent death, but there's something peaceful about her expression. No signs of terror or struggle, no indication that she suffered during whatever happened to her.
Small mercy in an ocean of horror.
"Time of death?" I ask, proud of how steady my voice remains.
"Preliminary estimate puts it between eight and ten p.m. last night." Finch consults his notes, not noticing the way the timeline makes my knees go weak. "The scene suggests she was taken somewhere else initially, then brought to her apartment and positioned post-mortem."
Nine to ten p.m.. While I was having dinner with Kent, while we were playing power games and pretending our biggest problem was nine years of unresolved tension. Casey was dying because she'd trusted me with information that made her a target.
Because she'd been kind to someone who didn't deserve kindness.
"Any signs of sexual assault?" The question tastes like ash in my mouth, but it needs to be asked.
"None that we can determine from preliminary examination. This appears to be purely about the message, not gratification." Finch pauses, studying my face with uncomfortable intensity. "Dr. North, are you all right? You seem…affected by this case in ways that go beyond professional concern."
The observation sends ice water through my veins, because he's not wrong. Iamaffected in ways that go beyondprofessional concern. I'm affected like someone whose poor choices got an innocent person killed, someone whose secrets are being used to terrorize people who don't deserve to become pawns in psychological warfare.
Someone who's been lying to law enforcement for weeks to protect a killer.
"Casey was more than just a colleague," I admit, which is true enough to satisfy his curiosity while revealing nothing that could destroy me. "She was someone I considered a friend. Seeing her like this is…difficult to process professionally."
"I understand." Finch's voice carries genuine sympathy, the kind reserved for people who've lost someone they cared about to senseless violence. "Take whatever time you need. But I do have some questions about your previous interactions with her, things that might help us understand why she was targeted."
Questions about my previous interactions. The phrase sits heavy with implication, because if he's asking about our conversations, it suggests he knows something about what we discussed. About the information she shared that should have remained classified.
About the recording device that's probably hidden somewhere in this room, waiting for me to discover whatever message the killer wants me to find.
"There's something else," Finch says, his voice carrying the careful neutrality of someone who's learned to deliver devastating news without emotional inflection. "Something that changes how we understand this case."
