Kylee stood frozen in front of the white sofa. Her eyes were locked on Dana's face, cataloging the cherry-red lividity pooling at the jawline.

Justice moved past her, his service weapon raised. He sliced the pie around the hallway corner, checking the bedroom and then the kitchen.

"Clear!" Justice shouted, his voice tight.

He holstered his gun and grabbed the radio clipped to his belt. "Dispatch, this is Detective Potts. I need Crime Scene Unit and the ME at my location. We have a 10-54."

Kylee didn't touch the body. The forensic pathologist inside her took over, slamming an iron door down on her grief.

Her eyes began to scan the room like a laser.

On the glass coffee table, less than two feet from Dana's limp hand, sat a half-empty glass of red wine.

Kylee leaned in close. A fine, powdery white residue clung to the rim of the glass.

She straightened up and began to walk a slow circle around the sofa.

Her gaze dropped to the expensive Persian rug.

Right at the edge, near the armrest, the thick fibers of the rug were pressed down. It was a subtle indentation, but it was fresh. Someone had stood there recently.

Kylee reached into the pocket of her blazer and pulled out a small, tactical UV flashlight.

She crouched down and clicked it on.

Under the purple glow, the faint outline of a muddy footprint appeared on the rug.

Kylee used her fingers to estimate the length. It was large. A men's dress shoe, probably a size eleven and a half.

Justice walked back into the living room. He followed the beam of her UV light and saw the footprint. His jaw tightened.

Kylee stood up and walked straight to the entryway. She pulled open the tall shoe cabinet.

Rows of stilettos, flats, and running shoes stared back at her. All women's. There was absolutely no trace of a man living in this apartment.

The heavy footsteps of the CSU team echoed in the hallway. A technician carrying a metal kit walked in, immediately raising a camera to photograph the scene.

Kylee stepped back, pressing her shoulders against the wall to avoid contaminating the area. Her eyes never stopped moving.

A CSU tech knelt by the sofa. He wedged a pair of long tweezers deep into the crevice between the leather cushions.

He pulled out a heavy, metallic object.

He dropped it into a clear plastic evidence bag. It was a custom, matte-black Zippo lighter.

Kylee stared at the bag. "Dana has severe asthma," she said, her voice flat and loud in the busy room. "She has never smoked a day in her life."

Justice walked over and took the bag from the tech. He held it up to the light.

Engraved on the bottom of the lighter were two letters: D.C.

Kylee's mind raced through Dana's recent social circle. A name clicked into place.

"Darius Cash," Kylee said. "The tech billionaire. He's been aggressively pursuing her for the last month."

Justice pulled out his phone. "Hey, run a background and current location on Darius Cash," he barked to the precinct operator.

Another tech walked out of the master bedroom holding a large paper evidence bag.

"Found these shoved in the back of her closet," the tech said.

He pulled out a pair of men's handcrafted Italian leather shoes. The deep treads were packed with dry, chalky red clay, an exact geological match for the soil found near the Palisades.

Kylee looked at the tread pattern. It was a perfect match for the footprint on the rug.

She recognized the distinct red stitching on the welt. "Those are from a bespoke workshop in Milan. They only take top-tier VIP clients."

Justice hung up his phone. He looked at Kylee, his expression grim. "Darius Cash is one of their biggest clients."

The illusion of a quiet suicide shattered completely.

The wine glass. The lighter. The shoes. It was a staged scene, clumsily put together by someone who thought their wealth made them invisible.

Kylee looked back at Dana's peaceful face. A cold, physical rage began to burn in the pit of her stomach.

She turned to Justice. "I want the autopsy. I need to open her up and find the exact cause of death."

Justice's face hardened. He stepped directly in front of her, using his broad chest to block her view of the body.

He shook his head. "No."

Kylee stared at Justice's chest.

She didn't argue. She simply turned on her heel and walked away from the sofa, heading straight for the apartment door.

Justice cursed under his breath. He caught up to her in the hallway, his large hand wrapping firmly around her wrist.

"Kylee, stop," he said.

She yanked her arm back. Her eyes were like shards of ice. "No one in that building knows Dana's medical history better than I do. I know every baseline in her body."

"And if you do the autopsy, any defense lawyer will tear the report to shreds on the stand," Justice countered, his voice rising. "They will claim conflict of interest. They will throw out the evidence, and the bastard who did this will walk free."

The words hit Kylee's logic center like a hammer.

Her physical resistance stopped instantly.

She closed her eyes. She took one deep, controlled breath. When she opened her eyes again, the anger was gone, replaced by a terrifying, dead calm.

"Fine," Kylee said. "Transfer the body to Dr. Vance."

Justice let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He turned and waved down the hallway.

Detective Mickey Nowak, a young cop in a cheap suit, jogged over.

"Mickey, drive Dr. Mcdonald home," Justice ordered. "Make sure she stays there. Do not let her out of your sight tonight."

Kylee let out a short, humorless laugh. "This isn't protection, Justice. It's house arrest."

Justice didn't deny it. He just looked at her, his eyes heavy with warning, before turning back to the crime scene.

Kylee walked to the elevator. Mickey followed her like an anxious puppy.

They rode down and got into Mickey's beat-up Ford cruiser. The smell of stale fast food and cheap air freshener filled the cabin.

Mickey started the engine. The silence in the car was suffocating.

"Do you, uh, want to stop for some coffee?" Mickey asked, gripping the steering wheel tight.

Kylee didn't look at him. She stared out the passenger window at the blurring streetlights. "No."

Her brain was moving at a million miles an hour. She mapped out the timeline of Darius Cash and Dana's interactions in her head.

She turned her head, locking her piercing, analytical gaze onto Mickey. "Officer Nowak, if Darius Cash is the prime suspect, his financial footprint over the last week will be entirely digital. Pull up his peripheral banking flags on your terminal. Now."

Mickey glanced over, swallowing hard under the weight of her cold authority. "Doc, you know I shouldn't be running unauthorized queries on an active case..."

"I am not asking you to hack the mainframe, Mickey. I am instructing you to verify a suspect's digital heartbeat. If I am wrong, it takes two seconds. If I am right, you just saved the department a massive tactical error," Kylee stated, her voice devoid of any emotion, presenting pure, unadulterated logic.

Intimidated and outmatched, Mickey typed the query into his police dashboard.

He typed in Darius Cash's name.

The financial flags popped up. Darius owned a shell entertainment company. But what caught Kylee's eye was his personal spending.

For a billionaire who lived on his phone, Darius had zero credit card transactions in the last seven days. No food deliveries, no car services, no online purchases.

A tech mogul doesn't just stop using digital currency for a week.

"Take a screenshot of that financial dead zone," Kylee instructed softly, her eyes narrowing. "Send it directly to Justice's encrypted channel. Tell him to watch his six."

The Ford cruiser pulled up to the curb in front of Kylee's standalone house.

Mickey put the car in park and reached for his door handle.

Kylee unbuckled her seatbelt. She turned her head and locked eyes with Mickey.

"Stay in the car," she commanded, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Do not step one foot on my grass."

Mickey swallowed hard. He slowly pulled his hand away from the door handle and nodded.

Kylee got out. She walked up the concrete steps and unlocked her front door.

The house was pitch black.

She didn't turn on the lights. She walked straight to the kitchen island, grabbed a bottle of whiskey, and poured a heavy measure into a glass.

She drank it in one swallow. The alcohol burned its way down her throat, fracturing the perfect wall of calm she had built.

Her phone buzzed on the granite counter.

It was a text from Justice: Got it. Pinned his penthouse location. Moving in to breach.

Kylee gripped the edge of the counter. Her knuckles turned white. She walked to the front window, hiding in the shadows, and stared at the police cruiser parked outside.

She was waiting for the kill.

It was 2:00 AM.

Justice stood in the carpeted hallway outside Darius Cash's penthouse. He was strapped into a heavy tactical vest, his hand resting on the grip of his Glock.

He raised his left hand and gave two sharp chops in the air.

The SWAT officer beside him swung the heavy steel battering ram forward. It smashed into the custom wood door with a deafening crash.

The lock shattered. The door flew open.

"NYPD! Hands in the air!" the tactical team screamed, flooding into the foyer.

Justice stepped through the doorway.

Instantly, a smell hit him like a physical blow to the face.

It was a thick, sickly-sweet stench of rotting meat. It coated the back of his throat and made his stomach heave violently.

This wasn't a suspect apprehension. This was a tomb.

Justice tapped the comms unit on his helmet. "Masks on. Watch your step."

He pulled his gas mask over his face. The filtered air barely cut through the stench.

The penthouse was massive, lined with floor-to-ceiling windows. But the central air had been turned off. The apartment was a greenhouse, baking in the residual heat of the city, accelerating the decay.

Justice followed the smell down the long hallway.

He pushed open the ajar door to the master bedroom.

A cloud of green blowflies erupted into the air, buzzing furiously against the glass windows.

Justice shined his tactical flashlight onto the massive circular bed.

A male body lay in the center.

It was bloated to the point of bursting. The skin was a dark, mottled green, tight and shiny. The facial features were completely erased by the swelling.

Justice walked closer, his boots squishing slightly on the bodily fluids that had seeped into the mattress.

On the nightstand sat a framed photograph of Darius Cash.

Justice looked at the wrist of the corpse. A limited-edition Patek Philippe watch was cutting deep into the swollen, green flesh.

It was Darius.

Justice keyed his radio. "Dispatch, we have a DOA at the Cash residence. Get CSU and the ME down here now."

He backed out of the bedroom, needing to escape the flies.

In the living room, he found a massive glass liquor cabinet shattered across the floor. The pungent smell of dried whiskey mixed with the rot.

"Detective!" an officer called out from the study.

Justice walked over. The officer pointed his flashlight at the floor in front of an open wall safe.

Small, bloody footprints tracked across the hardwood. They were definitely female. The safe was completely empty.

Justice pulled out his phone. He stood in the middle of the putrid living room and dialed Kylee's number.

She picked up on the first ring. "Did you get him?" Her voice was cold and sharp.

Justice took a deep breath inside his mask. "Darius is dead, Kylee. Judging by the bloat and the smell, he's been dead for at least a week."

Silence stretched over the line. Five full seconds passed.

"That's impossible," Kylee finally said. Her brain was tearing the timeline apart. "If he's been dead a week, he couldn't have dropped his lighter in Dana's couch yesterday."

"Someone planted his stuff at Dana's place," Justice said. "They framed a dead man."

"I am coming to the scene. I need to see the body," Kylee demanded.

"No. Dr. Vance is already on his way. You stay put," Justice ordered.

The line went dead. Kylee had hung up on him.

Justice sighed, sliding the phone back into his pocket.

The CSU team arrived, their heavy boots tramping into the pristine penthouse. Dr. Vance walked in behind them, looking miserable as he smeared Vicks VapoRub under his nose.

Vance leaned over the bed. "Deep ligature marks around the neck," he mumbled. "Strangled."

Justice stared at the green corpse. This wasn't a crime of passion anymore. This was a labyrinth.

Suddenly, the radio on his shoulder crackled to life.

"All units, we have a 10-54 at the abandoned rail warehouse in Queens. Female victim."

Justice closed his eyes. The nightmare was just starting.