She nods, her lips brushing mine in a kiss that’s slower, deeper, sealing the vow between us. The phone on the table is silent now, Mara’s presence erased, but it’s a reminder that time is running out, that the storm is closing in. She is all that matters. This. Us.
“Good boy,” she sighs serenely, her eyes fluttering shut and her slick, swollen mouth curved in a smile that would make angels weep.
Chapter 25 - Lila
The funeral home smells like lilies and regret. I stand at the podium, looking out at faces that blur together through the haze of professional composure I've wrapped around myself like armor. Casey's family sits in the front row—her mother clutching a tissue, her younger brother staring at his hands like they hold answers to questions he's not old enough to ask.
I shouldn't be delivering this eulogy. Someone who actually loved her should be standing here, someone whose hands aren't stained with the indirect responsibility for her death.
But Casey's mother asked me specifically, saying I knew her work better than anyone, understood what drove her passion for justice.
If only she knew how thoroughly I've perverted that passion.
"Casey Holbrook believed in truth," I begin, my voice coming out so much steadier than I’ve felt in days. "Not the comfortable kind of truth that makes us feel better about the world, but the difficult truth that demands we look directly at darkness and refuse to turn away."
The words feel like glass in my throat. Because Casey did look directly at darkness—at Marcus Chen's sutured chest, at Rebecca Martin's carefully arranged limbs, at crime scene details that should have remained abstract professional puzzles.
She looked, and she asked questions, and she died because someone needed to send me a message about the cost of curiosity.
"I worked with Casey for three years, and in that time, I watched her approach every crime scene with the kind of methodical precision that separates good technicians from exceptional ones. She never cut corners, never made assumptions, never let personal feelings compromise her analysis."
Unlike me. Unlike everything I've done since Kent reappeared in my life.
"But what made Casey truly remarkable wasn't just her technical skill—it was her belief that every victim deserved someone who would fight for their story to be told completely and accurately. She treated each crime scene like a sacred trust, understanding that the details she documented might be the only voice the dead would ever have."
I pause, letting my gaze sweep across the assembled faces. Friends from the crime lab, fellow professionals who worked cases with her, family members whose grief hangs in the air like incense. And in the back, partially obscured by shadow, Dr. Evelyn Shaw sits with her hands folded in her lap, watching me with the kind of analytical attention she brings to interrogation rooms.
The sight of her here makes something cold slither down my spine.
Shaw didn't have any sort of personal relationship with Casey. I'm certain of that. Their professional paths crossed occasionally at crime scenes, but they weren't colleagues, weren't friends. There's no reason for her to be here except to observe my reaction, to study how I handle grief and guilt when I think no one is analyzing my performance.
Except someone will always be analyzing my performance now.
I am a suspect.
"Casey had a way of finding patterns where others saw only chaos," I continue, forcing myself to focus on the eulogy instead of Shaw's presence. "She could look at evidence that seemed random or contradictory and identify the underlying logic that connected everything together. It was a gift that made her invaluable to every investigation she touched."
I pause, allowing genuine memory to surface through the professional facade. "But Casey wasn't just brilliant at her work—she was relentlessly, almost annoyingly optimistic about people. She kept a drawer full of thank-you cards from victims' families, and she'd read them whenever a particularly difficult case started wearing her down. She said it reminded her why giving it all her attention mattered, why getting the details right was worth staying late or starting over when something didn't feel complete."
My voice catches slightly, because I can picture that drawer, can remember Casey pulling out a handwritten note from a mother whose daughter's killer was convicted partly because of Casey's meticulous evidence documentation. She'd read it aloud in the break room, tears in her eyes, saying she never wanted to be the reason someone didn't get justice.
"She brought homemade cookies to the office every Friday," I continue, the words coming easier now that I'm speaking truth instead of careful manipulation. "Terrible cookies, honestly. Burned edges, too much salt, combinations that should never exist. Peanut butter chocolate chip with cayenne pepper. Oatmeal raisin with black pepper. We all ate them anyway because Casey would stand there watching with this hopeful expression, waiting to see if this week's experiment was finally edible."
A few people in the audience chuckle softly, recognizing the kind of endearing quirk that makes loss feel more personal, more devastating.
"Last month, she brought in what she called 'crime scene cookies'—shortbread cut into the shape of chalk outlines, decorated with white icing. They were actually delicious, and when I told her so, she said she'd finally figured out that the secret ingredient was caring about the outcome instead of just following the recipe."
The irony tastes bitter in my mouth now, because Casey's gift for pattern recognition is exactly what got her killed. She saw connections I didn't want her to see, asked questions that threatened the careful balance I've maintained between Dr. Lila North and Delilah Jenkins.
She died because she was good at her job. And because she was good to me, in ways I never deserved.
"I know Casey would want us to remember her not as a victim, but as someone who dedicated her life to seeking justice for people who could no longer seek it for themselves. She believed that every detail mattered, every piece of evidence had value, every case deserved her complete attention and respect."
My voice wavers slightly on the last words, genuine emotion breaking through the professional facade despite my best efforts to maintain control. Because Casey did deserve respect, and justice, and someone who cared enough about her life to ensure her death meant something beyond a killer's psychological game.
Instead, she got me.
Someone who's spent three days crafting explanations for why I can't help investigate her murder, why my expertise isn'tavailable for the one case that should matter most. Probably making myself look even guiltier in the process.
