A few days later while Samantha was in the middle of enjoying a lovely, mediocre microwave meal, her doorbell rang. Before she could get up and wipe her mouth with her napkin, she heard the door open and clicking heels on the stone floor.
Lilith.
She didn’t even bother getting up and rolled her eyes when the other woman stuck her head through the doorframe. “Evening!”
“Why do you ring the bell if you’re not going to wait for me to open the door?”
“To let you know I’m here.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“But you knew it was me, didn’t you? So it does work,” Lilith countered with a cheeky grin. She pulled a mug from the cupboard like she was right at home and threw a brown file on the kitchen island. “Autopsy results.”
“Oooh.”
Samantha eagerly pulled the folder towards her, any thoughts of the trespassing Lilith banished to the back of her mind. This was way more interesting.
Just before she opened the file, she paused. It had been so long since anyone had brought her a report and the familiarity awoke a feeling from deep within. After she retired, she thought she’d never get to do any of this again. She hadn’t even realised how much she missed sitting at home with a crappy meal and reading a summary, statement, or whatnot.
The nostalgia made her hand shake as she pulled the file towards her, the paper coarse under her touch. What a lovely sensation.
“You okay?” Lilith asked.
Quickly, Samantha blinked any threatening tears away and cleared her throat. “Y-Yeah, I’m great.”
“Good.” The other woman finished making herself a coffee and sat down on the free bar stool. “I don’t know how to read it, so you’ll have to make sense of it for me.”
“With pleasure.” Sam chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“I never thought I’d get to do this again.” She looked up at the other woman, overcome with affection. “Thank you.”
“Don’t get all mushy on me.”
“Shut up.” Sam pushed her sad half-eaten plate away and flicked through the detailed pages. “Rex did a good job.”
“Did he?”
“Yes, this is extensive. I have to admit, I’m not completely fluent with the terminology, but I’ll do my best. Who are we starting with?”
“Let’s do him first.”
“Right. Let’s see…” Samantha flicked to his autopsy and scanned the document. “Human male, estimated age between thirty and forty, blablabla… Oh, this is interesting. There’s slight bruising on his knuckles and a hairline fracture on his skull, both concurrent with the estimated time of death which is… About ten hours before we discovered the body. Hmm…”
“What are you thinking?”
“How did we discover the body? That field looked pretty abandoned. Who found him?”
Lilith clicked her tongue. “Good question… Honestly, I have no idea. Boss told me to go there so I went.”
“Can you find out?”
“I can ask around.”
That didn’t sound very reliable and anyone else might have accused Lilith of exactly that, but Samantha was oddly sure she could count on her. Maybe some of her trust had already been won back after all.
“Great, do that. Maybe there was an eye witness or something that called it in. That would really help put the pieces of this puzzle together.” She flicked through the rest of Oliver’s file, scanning the rest of the information. “Ah, here it is. Cause of death…”
“Yes?”
“Suffocation. Ouch. He has bruising on his neck and a crushed windpipe, suggesting a lot of localised pressure.”
Lilith winced. “Ouch indeed.”
“Those bruises don’t look like they were made by hands or a ligature. The assailant must have used something else.”
“We can just ask Finnegan how he did it.”
“He might lie.” Samantha patted the flimsy paper. “This won’t.”
“Fair point. What about the woman?”
Samantha rubbed her throat as she closed Oliver’s file and pushed it away. After all the cases she worked, she could never stop imagining the kind of agony the victims felt right before they died. She didn’t want to stop. Their pain motivated her.
Before she analysed the next file, she stared at Lilith’s cup of coffee. The bitter, slightly burned smell was distracting. She contemplated making herself one, but decided on leaving it for later.
“Let’s see.” She flicked to the next autopsy and scanned some of the details. “OH.”
Lilith perked up. “What? What is it?”
“Our female might not be human.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Rex writes that he’d need additional tests to confirm, but he suspects she’s half and half. What did you call those again?”
“Noxies.”
“Right. He doesn’t specify, but that’s fascinating. I assumed they were both human.” She tapped her chin, trying to work out what she was missing. “What were a human and a Noxie doing together in that field? What does this have to do with Fickle? What’s the connection?”
“Maybe we should talk to Fickle again?” Lilith suggested. She sipped from her coffee and sighed. “Mmm, you have lovely beans.”
A chuckle escaped Samantha, breaking some of the tension. “Romantic. That’s what every woman wants to hear.”
“I suspected so. How did the Noxie die?”
“According to the report, a lot of her bruising was defensive… Oh, interesting. Rex speculates they could have been inflicted by Oliver, our male victim.” Samantha rummaged through the two autopsies and grabbed pictures from both. She put them next to each other to check for matching injuries, but that didn’t confirm or deny anything for her. Without extensive testing, it would remain a mystery. Rex was right to just speculate.
“So case closed,” Lilith chimed happily, clearly not following the same train of thought. “Oliver killed her and Finnegan killed Oliver. Solved.”
“That’s pure conjecture and even if it were true, we have no idea why.”
“Does that matter?”
Sam rested her hands on the cool marble of the island. “Of course, it does. Hard evidence is only part of the story. To really understand what happened, we need to find the truth.”
“This detective stuff is exhausting,” Lilith pouted.
“It is, but it can be very rewarding.” With a nod, Samantha studied the female’s files again. With even more glitter removed, her face was even clearer and as she stared at her features, the same sense of familiarity came over her.
She was great at remembering faces, so why couldn’t she place this woman? Had she only met her in passing or seen on a picture? Why did she look so…
“The picture!” she exclaimed, turning to look at Lilith. “The one that you picked up at Fickle’s mansion with the couple. Maybe our female is a relative to Fickle.”
“Fascinating train of thought.”
“We should definitely talk to him again. If we bluff, maybe he’ll tell us something by accident.”
Lilith yawned. “Good idea. Can we do something fun in the meantime? All this chasing and questioning is bad for my skin. Let’s go to the beach. Or dancing. Oh, I know. Paintball.”
“Paintball?” Samantha refrained from looking the other woman up and down but failed miserably. She scanned Lilith from top to toe, not able to keep the disbelief out of her tone. “You?”
“I’m really good at it.”
“Really?”
“Really.” With a grin, Lilith made finger guns and blasted invisible items in the room. “Pew, pew, pew.”
Samantha couldn’t stop staring. That was the most out of character thing she’d ever seen. She didn’t even realise Lilith knew how to make finger guns and she hoped she’d never have to see it again. And yet, affection rushed through her as she watched Lilith make a fool of herself. She looked like she was having a great time.
Lilith’s eyes flickered. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re looking at me funny.”
“I’m not,” Samantha denied. She averted her gaze and pretended to focus on the files in front of her. “Hey, it looks like our female gave birth three or four years ago.”
“You’re avoiding my question.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. You were looking at me.”
“I wasn’t,” Sam lied.
The other woman chuckled throatily. “You can look all you want, Samantha. I don’t mind.”
The intensity in her voice made Sam look up just in time to find the other woman inching closer. Her cheeks heated at the same time as the embers in her stomach flared up. She gulped, unsure what to do or say. Why was Lilith suddenly coming closer? Was she going to kiss her? Did she even want to be kissed by her?
One look at the other woman made her heart skip a beat.
Yes, she did. She’d been wanting to since Lilith organised the autopsy. No, even from before that.
She didn’t dare breathe in fear she’d shatter the tension hanging in the kitchen and break the moment. With every passing second, the anticipation grew until it was almost unbearable.
Instead of waiting for something that might never happen, Sam wished for five seconds of bravery as she threw caution to the wind. She leaned forward, catching the other woman off guard.
Lilith’s eyes flew open as their lips met, a moment of shock that passed as quickly as it came. Her gaze softened as she leaned into the kiss. Her hand brushed up against Sam’s cheek, burning a trail wherever she touched her.
They broke apart, neither daring to break the silence. Samantha couldn’t remember a time when Lilith had been so quiet and thought about making a joke but decided against it. Sometimes it was better to say nothing.
Lilith’s eyes shimmered blue and a smirk stretched across her face. For a moment, all her defenses were down and she looked so genuine and vulnerable, it made Sam ache. She hadn’t realised how much she missed and yearned for intimacy until right now.
The two women locked eyes as they gravitated towards each other again. A hesitant butterfly rose up in Sam’s stomach and she smiled against Lilith’s lips, allowing herself to feel all the things she’d locked tightly away. The fear of heartbreak, the worry about rejection, the age difference, they all faded into the background. None of those mattered. Nothing else mattered except her, Lilith, and the beautiful moment.