Chapter 2 - The Evidence Bag in the LabI drove straight to the State Forensic Laboratory downtown, my hands steady on the steering wheel, my heart beating with cold, absolute precision.
When I walked through the double doors wearing my white blazer, my ruined, undercut hair exposed to the fluorescent lights, my former colleague Detective Marcus Vance stood up from his desk in shock.
“Claire?!” Marcus gasped, stepping forward. “My God, what happened to you? Were you attacked?!”
“I was humiliated, Marcus,” I said, my voice steady as glass. “And then I was handed the missing piece of a five-year-old murder case.”
I pulled the antique silver scissors from my leather purse, wrapped carefully inside the silk handkerchief, and set them onto a sterile metal tray.
Marcus’s eyes widened in recognition. “Are those... Arthur’s mother's heirloom shears?”
“They vanished from my family’s house the night Adrian was killed in the park,” I said softly. “Vanessa used them to cut my hair thirty minutes ago. Her fingerprints, skin cells, and oil are fresh on the handles.”
Marcus pulled on latex gloves, bringing a magnifying lamp over the metal hinge. His breath caught in his throat.
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“There’s dried residue locked inside the screw joint,” Marcus whispered, his eyes flashing with intensity. “It was preserved beneath a layer of household oil. If there’s DNA inside that hinge...”
“Extract it, Marcus,” I commanded gently. “Run Vanessa’s fresh latent prints against the latent profiles found on Adrian’s jacket five years ago.”
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