Detective Mara Sinclair knelt beside the body and studied the scene with practiced patience. The old chemist lay slumped over his workbench, his hands still curled as though reaching for something just beyond his grasp — something no one else could see or name.
She surveyed the room methodically. Glass tubes, scattered notes, a broken lamp. Then she spotted it near the edge of the desk: a small glass flask, its narrow neck sealed with a cork stopper. A faint residue clung to the inside walls, colorless but catching the light in an oily way that made her instincts sharpen.
Mara bagged the flask carefully and turned to her partner. "Get this to the lab tonight."
"You think it's poison?"
"I think someone knew exactly what they were doing." She began to apply the same logic she'd used in the Hartwell case two years prior — trace the object, trace the knowledge, trace the person capable of using both. Whoever had left that flask understood chemistry. Whoever had left it also understood how to make a murder look like exhaustion.
She walked to the window and looked out at the rain-slicked street below. A neighbor stood under an awning, watching the building with an expression that was almost — but not quite — grief.
Too composed, Mara thought. Too rehearsed.
She stepped away from the window and reached for her notebook. The flask would tell its story in time. For now, she had a neighbor to question and a very careful killer to find.