Chapter 25 - Daniel & Sylvia Lane

Emma woke up in the morning, drunk her coffee and left the house to her destination.

The flower shop smelled like damp earth and wilting petals. The bell jingled softly as Emma stepped inside, scanning the rows of bouquets with an absent gaze.

"White lilies," she said to the florist without hesitation. "Two arrangements."

The woman nodded, wrapping them in thin, crinkling paper. Emma handed over the cash without waiting for change.

She knew the way by heart.

The cemetery was quiet. The grass was damp from last night's rain, leaving muddy patches along the worn stone pathways. The headstones stretched before her like forgotten memories, some polished, others cracked and nameless.

She stopped in front of two graves.

Daniel & Sylvia Lane.

No words of love engraved. No poetic inscriptions. Just their names. Their lifespans. A beginning and an end.

Emma knelt, brushing away stray leaves that had gathered on the cold marble. She placed the lilies down carefully, adjusting them until they looked perfect.

Then, she sat back on her heels, staring at the names.

"Not a car accident. Not a murder," she muttered to herself. "That would've been too simple, huh?"

No, her parents had suffered something worse.

They had been alive when they died.

Daniel Lane was a man who believed in things. He believed in honesty. In truth. In fighting against the system no matter the cost. He was a journalist, one of the good ones. The kind who dug too deep, asked the wrong questions, and refused to back down.

Sylvia Lane was different. She didn't believe in truth, she believed in survival. She begged him to stop. She saw the signs before he did. The late-night calls. The strange cars parked outside their house. The whispers at his job that turned into threats.

And then, one day, Daniel Lane lost his job. Not in a dramatic, career-ending scandal. No. Just… suddenly. The calls stopped coming. His friends stopped returning messages. Doors that were once open slammed shut.

Then came the debts. The lawsuits. The mysterious accusations that painted him as something he wasn't.

And then- finally, the silence.

By the time Emma was fifteen, she no longer recognized them.

Daniel, once a man with fire in his eyes, became hollow. He sat in the dark, rereading old notes, convinced there was something he had missed. Sylvia, who had once been the strongest person Emma knew, shrank into someone fragile, always glancing over her shoulder, flinching at every knock on the door.

They weren't murdered.

They were erased.

Until one day, Daniel took his own life.

And Sylvia followed a year later.

Emma had found them both.

She closed her eyes, exhaling slowly. She wasn't here to mourn. She had stopped mourning a long time ago.

She was here because it was routine. Because even after all these years, she couldn't bring herself to break it.

Emma stood, dusting off her jeans. "See you next time," she murmured before turning away.

And just like that, she left it behind.

By the time Emma stepped into the office, she was someone else entirely.

The slight slouch in her shoulders was gone. Her face held the same relaxed smirk she always wore. Her confidence was effortless, like she had no doubts about anything in the world.

She was Emma Lane again.

"Morning, losers," she called out.

Kath rolled her eyes. "You're late."

"I was buying flowers."

Kath paused, her brow furrowing slightly, but Emma had already moved past her. She wasn't going to elaborate.

Instead, she dropped into her chair and grabbed the first case file from the stack on her desk.

"Alright, what do we got?"

Kath handed her a folder. "Simple one. Man found dead in his apartment. No signs of forced entry. No defensive wounds. Just… dead in his bed."

Emma flipped through the report. "Cause of death?"

"Unknown. No fingerprints on the scene. No drugs in his system. No bruises, no wounds. Nothing."

Emma's brows lifted. "So, what, he just died?"

Kath shrugged. "That's what it looks like."

Emma leaned back, tapping her fingers against the desk. "That's what it looks like," she echoed. "But that's not what happened."

She pulled up the crime scene photos. The apartment was neat. No signs of a struggle. The victim, a man in his early forties, lay in bed with his arms resting at his sides. Peaceful. Too peaceful.

"Neighbors hear anything?" Emma asked.

"Nothing unusual," Kath replied. "No screams. No struggles. Just… silence."

Emma's eyes narrowed. Silence.

Something wasn't right.

She scanned the room in the photographs. It was clean. Immaculate, even. But there was something off.

Something missing.

Then she saw it.

The nightstand.

There was a faint outline of dust where something should have been.

"Killer took something," Emma murmured.

Kath leaned over. "What?"

Emma pointed. "See that space? Something was there. And now it's not. Whatever it was, it was important enough to take but not obvious enough for anyone to notice."

She flipped to the victim's personal records.

"Divorced. No kids. Worked in finance. Lived alone."

Her fingers drummed against the paper. "Tell me, Kath. What do people always keep by their bedside?"

Kath frowned. "Alarm clocks?"

Emma smirked. "Or…" She turned the page.

Bingo.

"A phone," she said. "Where the hell is his phone?"

Kath blinked. "It wasn't logged as evidence."

"Exactly," Emma said, standing. "That's because whoever killed him took it. And people don't take phones unless there's something in them worth hiding."

She grabbed her coat. "We're going to the apartment."

The crime scene was just as sterile in person as it was in the photos.

Emma stood by the bed, scanning the room with sharp eyes.

"Check the outlets," she muttered.

Kath gave her a look. "What are we looking for?"

"A charger."

Kath frowned. "What?"

Emma turned to her, smirking. "Think about it. Guy lived alone. No signs of forced entry, no struggle. That means he probably knew whoever came in. Maybe even let them inside. So if someone took his phone, it wasn't a robbery, it was to hide something."

Kath sighed but checked the outlets anyway. And then-

"...Shit," Kath muttered.

She held up a charger.

No phone.

Emma grinned. "Bingo."

She paced the room. "Alright. So let's assume our guy had something on his phone. Something bad. Maybe blackmail, maybe evidence of something illegal. Whatever it was, someone wanted it gone. But here's the problem."

She pointed at the bed. "He's lying too peacefully. If he saw something threatening enough to get him killed, he wouldn't have just… gone to sleep. He would've been terrified."

Kath's eyes widened. "Wait. Are you saying he was killed before he even knew what was happening?"

Emma nodded. "Exactly. No fear. No struggle. No marks."

Kath's breath hitched. "Poison?"

Emma shook her head. "Would've shown in the autopsy. No, this was something clean. Something that doesn't leave a trace."

She turned back to the bed. The pillow.

The missing phone.

Then, the realization hit.

She grinned. "Suffocation."

Kath's eyes widened.

"Whoever did this," Emma continued, "sat right beside him, took the pillow, and pressed down. No noise. No struggle. Just… sleep."

Kath exhaled. "Gosh."

Emma smiled. "And now we just need to find out who wanted him silent."

She turned to Kath.

"Let's go check that apartment."