Aaran's Point of View
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Perfection was a lie.
Aaran had learned this early in his career. People crafted illusions of it - in their homes, their marriages, their crimes. They stitched it together with routines and polite smiles, hoping no one looked closely enough to see the threads fraying beneath.
Rhea stitched hers with precision. But no mask was seamless, not under the right gaze.
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The Scene Revisited
He sat alone with the files again. The scene. The victim. The timeline.
Her.
The evidence hadn't shifted since the last report. No forced entry. No fingerprints. An empty house except for one man who had bled out alone.
And yet...
A cigarette butt found outside the back entrance. Smudged, half-burnt, no traceable DNA yet. The victim didn't smoke. Rhea didn't either. Aaran had already checked. But one of the victim's so-called friends? Possible. Convenient, even.
The brand wasn't common. That was something. A thread to pull on later.
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Her House, Her Story
He visited her again. Routine, he told the others. Follow-up questions. Due diligence.
Routine didn't explain why he lingered longer than necessary, watching her more than listening.
> "You've been writing less lately," he said casually, his gaze flicking to the untouched typewriter in the corner.
"Creative block?"
> "Not exactly." Her smile didn't waver. "Some stories take longer to finish."
Careful words, measured like drops of poison in tea. Writers knew how to control narratives. That made her dangerous in a way the others hadn't realized yet.
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The Bracelet
Today, a bracelet circled her wrist. Thin, silver, barely noticeable unless you were looking. He'd seen photos. It had belonged to someone else once.
> "Your sister's?" he asked, watching how her fingers paused over the teacup.
> "Yes." Just that. No elaboration.
But in the silence that followed, something flickered.
Loss? Rage? He couldn't tell. But there was depth there, hidden beneath layers of practiced calm.
---
The Sister They Didn't Mention
The reports barely mentioned her sister now. A tragedy closed long before this mess began. But Aaran hadn't forgotten.
The victim had known people. So had his friends. Circles overlapped. Histories tangled. He hadn't connected the dots fully, not yet, but something in Rhea's silence spoke of wounds deeper than grief.
Sometimes people broke in loud ways. Sometimes they broke in silence, rebuilding themselves with sharper edges.
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Aaran's Quiet Suspicion
He asked about the cigarette. Casually. She didn't flinch. Said she hadn't noticed anything unusual.
Lies, maybe. Or truth wrapped in careful ignorance. Hard to tell with her.
Still, it was something.
> "Do you believe," she asked suddenly, "that some people are drawn to violence? Not by choice, but by... nature?"
He studied her for a long moment.
> "What do you think?"
> "I think people underestimate how far others will go to protect what's theirs."
That smile again. Sweet. Soft. Sharp beneath.
---
Behind the Glass
He left her home that evening with nothing new in his files, but too much in his head.
The cigarette. The placement of broken objects at the scene. The injuries sustained without a fight. The timing of her café alibi - too neat, too accounted for.
He wasn't sure what fascinated him more anymore: the crime, or her.
Through glass, everything seemed distorted. Her life, her lies, her truths. He didn't care which it was anymore. What mattered was this:
He couldn't look away.
Not from the crime. Not from her.
Some women waited to be saved. Some didn't need saving.
And some... some wrapped their violence in silk and poetry, daring you to come closer.
Rhea wasn't innocent. He hadn't believed that from the start.
But innocence was never what drew him in.