Chapter 7

The projector hummed in the precinct's tech room, casting a harsh blue light against the whiteboard.

Tech analyst Alex Stone tapped his keyboard, bringing up the files Justice requested.

Leland stood in the back corner, his arms crossed over his chest, a mocking smirk plastered on his face.

Kylee stood up from her chair. She walked to the front of the room and pointed at the projected medical records.

"Look at the dates," Kylee commanded.

The screen showed Dana's emergency room visits over the last three years.

"A fractured radius. A bruised orbital bone. Severe insomnia and panic attacks," Kylee read off the screen. "The official reports say 'clumsy falls' and 'stress.' But look at the X-rays."

She swiped to the bone scans. "These are spiral fractures. They only happen when a limb is violently twisted. These are textbook defensive wounds from severe domestic abuse."

Justice's face drained of color. He stared at the dates, his stomach twisting with guilt. He had met Damion. He had never seen the signs.

Kylee gestured to Alex. "Pull up the chat logs."

A massive word cloud appeared on the screen, compiled from thousands of text messages Damion had sent Dana.

The words were massive and aggressive: OVERREACTING. CRAZY. YOUR FAULT. WORTHLESS WITHOUT ME.

"This is extreme gaslighting," Kylee said, her voice razor-sharp. "He systematically destroyed her reality and her self-worth."

Leland rolled his eyes. "So he was a scumbag. That doesn't prove you didn't kill him to avenge her."

Kylee didn't even look at him. "Alex, put up the crime scene photos of Darius and Cinnamon."

The bloody footprints and the 'LIAR' note appeared.

"Damion was a possessive narcissist," Kylee explained, pacing the room. "He found out Dana was allegedly sleeping with Darius. He went to the penthouse and strangled Darius in a rage. While he was there, he discovered his own mistress, Cinnamon, was involved. So he lured her to the warehouse and caved her head in."

"And then he went home and drowned himself in a bathtub covered in rose petals?" Leland scoffed. "That contradicts the psychological profile of a rage-driven annihilator."

Kylee stopped pacing. She turned her head and locked her dead, cold eyes onto Leland.

"Because he didn't commit suicide," she said.

She looked at Justice. "Justice, close your eyes. Picture Damion's bathroom. Where were the pills and the whiskey glass?"

Justice shut his eyes. The image of the steamy bathroom flashed in his mind. "The pill bottle was on the left. The whiskey glass was on the right."

"Damion Hatfield was profoundly left-handed," Kylee stated. "I noticed it when he signed the dinner check three months ago. It's a glaring anomaly. A left-handed man does not instinctively hold his final drink in his right hand as his motor functions shut down. The scene was clearly tampered with, but circumstantial at best. We need the digital footprint to lock the timeline."

Leland stepped forward, his face flushed. "Exactly! You staged it!"

Kylee reached into her trench coat pocket. She pulled out a high-resolution printout of the wine glass from Dana's apartment.

She slapped it onto the whiteboard.

"Look at the white powder on the rim," Kylee said. "It's crushed Ambien. But Dana died of cyanide poisoning."

She turned to face the room, her eyes burning with a dark, terrible realization.

"Dana didn't just take the pills. She crushed them into the wine and gave it to Damion," Kylee said, her voice echoing in the silent room. "She drugged him. She dragged him into that bathtub and held him under the water until he stopped thrashing. She wrote 'Game Over' on the mirror."

Justice stopped breathing.

"She forged the evidence of her affair with Darius to trigger Damion's rage," Kylee continued, outlining the nightmare. "She used Damion as a weapon to kill the people who tormented her. And when the weapon had served its purpose, she destroyed it."

Kylee pointed at the photo of Dana's body. "Then, she went home, drank the cyanide, and set herself free."

The tech room fell into a suffocating, absolute silence.

The weak, abused victim wasn't a victim at all. She was the architect of a flawless massacre.

Justice stared at Kylee. The logic was airtight. It was terrifyingly brilliant. But he knew the law.

"Kylee," Justice whispered. "We need hard proof. We need a confession."