Aisha

By the time the board started making sense, the room already felt different, heavier somehow, like the case had finally shifted from scattered pieces into something intentional, something that had been waiting for them to catch up.

Quinn stood in front of it, arms crossed, her gaze moving slowly across the victims, their photos pinned side by side with timelines and notes bleeding into one another. At first glance, it still looked like chaos, three different men from three different cities with no obvious overlap, but the longer she looked, the more that absence itself began to feel like the pattern.

“There’s something we’re not seeing,” she said, her voice calm but edged with focus.

Damian, who had been pacing behind her for the last ten minutes, stopped mid-step, his attention snapping back to the board as if the thought had been circling in his head already.

“No,” he said, shaking his head slightly as he stepped closer, “not something we’re not seeing. Something we’re not looking for.”

Mark leaned back against the desk, arms folded, watching the two of them with quiet interest. “That sounds like the same thing.”

“It’s not,” Damian replied quickly, already reaching for one of the files. “We’re focused on who they were recently. Jobs, money, business connections, all the obvious stuff. But whoever did this didn’t pick them because of who they are now.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed slightly. “So what, we go backwards?”

Damian nodded, more certain now. “Yeah. Way back. Before the money, before the cities. Before they became whoever they are on paper.”

Mark let out a quiet breath, glancing at the spread of files. “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

“It’s also the only place left to look,” Quinn said, already pulling another file toward her.

For the next hour, the room filled with the quiet rhythm of pages turning, notes being scribbled down, and the occasional frustrated sigh when another lead turned into nothing. Damian moved constantly, sometimes pacing, sometimes leaning over Quinn’s shoulder to point something out, his earlier nervous energy now sharpened into something more useful, more deliberate.

It was Quinn who found it first. She stilled mid-page, her eyes locking onto a detail she almost would have skipped if she had been moving any faster.

“…hold on,” she said quietly.

Both Mark and Damian looked up immediately.

“What is it?” Mark asked.

Quinn didn’t answer right away, her gaze scanning the line again as if confirming it hadn’t changed.

“Blackwood transferred schools when he was sixteen,” she said finally, turning the file slightly toward them. “Small town. Not mentioned anywhere else in his profile.”

Damian stepped closer, leaning in to read. “Which town?”

Quinn turned the page fully. The moment he saw it, something in his expression shifted, subtle but noticeable.

“Check the others,” he said quickly.

Quinn caught that, the way his tone changed just slightly, but she didn’t call it out, not yet. Instead, she reached for the second file, flipping through it with more purpose now, her focus narrowing.

It didn’t take long.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mark muttered under his breath.

Quinn didn’t respond.

She didn’t need to.

All three files were open now, laid out side by side, the same detail circled in each one.

Same town.

The room went quiet, not the comfortable kind, the kind that settled when something finally clicked into place.

“This isn’t coincidence,” Damian said, running a hand through his hair again, though this time the movement lacked its usual frantic edge.

“No,” Quinn agreed, her voice steady, controlled, even as something tighter settled in her chest.

Mark straightened, pushing himself off the desk as he looked between them. “Does either of you know this place?”

Quinn didn’t answer immediately.

Her eyes were still on the file, but she wasn’t reading it anymore. The name sat there, familiar in a way she hadn’t expected to feel again, not here, not now.

“Yeah,” she said finally.

The word felt heavier than it should have.

“I do.”

Before Mark could respond, the door opened, and a woman stepped in, pausing just inside as she took in the scene. She was dressed sharply, tablet in hand, her expression composed but curious as her eyes moved across the board and then landed on Quinn.

“Am I interrupting something, or is this just your usual chaos?” she asked.

Mark exhaled lightly. “Perfect timing, actually. This is Aisha Rao, forensic analyst. She ran the toxin report. She can analyse anything.”

Aisha gave a small but excited smile, stepping further into the room. “And I came to tell you that your case just got more interesting.”

Quinn shifted her attention to her. “It already is.”

Aisha raised an eyebrow slightly before holding up her tablet. “The toxin used on Blackwood? It’s rare, but not untraceable. It’s been flagged once before in a restricted database.”

Damian leaned forward immediately. “Where?”

Aisha’s gaze flicked briefly toward Quinn before she answered.

“A small town lab, about ten years ago.”

The room stilled again.

Quinn’s jaw tightened, the connection settling in deeper now, heavier.

Damian looked at her, more carefully this time, his voice quieter when he spoke.

“That’s not a coincidence either, is it?”

Quinn didn’t look away from the screen.

“No,” she said.

And this time, there was no space left to pretend otherwise.