The dead woman on the TV screen had been beautiful once. Now her blonde hair was matted with dried blood, her blue eyes vacant as the medical examiner cataloged the violence that had ended her. Evelyn Sinclair leaned forward on the couch, watching with an intensity that would disturb most people. The clock read 6:17 AM. The rest of the condo sat in pre-dawn darkness, the only illumination coming from the television's cool glow that painted Evie's striking features in a ghostly light.
"The victim shows evidence of defensive wounds on her forearms," the medical examiner on the screen explained, "indicating she fought her attacker before succumbing to multiple stab wounds to the neck and torso."
Evie's ice-blue eyes narrowed, mentally cataloging details others might miss: the angle of the wounds, the spray pattern of blood on nearby surfaces, the timeline reconstructed through lividity and body temperature. She wasn't watching with morbid fascination but with analytical curiosity, her mind arranging and rearranging puzzle pieces as naturally as others might hum along to a favorite song.
Behind her, the bedroom door opened with a soft creak. Joseph Sinclair emerged, his athletic frame silhouetted in the doorway, hair tussled from sleep. He squinted against the television's glow, concern etched across his features as he spotted his wife curled on the couch instead of beside him in bed.
"Jesus, Evie," he muttered. "The stabby shows again?"
She didn't turn, eyes still fixed on the screen. "The husband did it. They're acting like it's a mystery, but he has a fresh cut on his right hand he keeps hiding from the camera. Plus, the blood spatter on the kitchen ceiling means the killer was taller than her. He's claiming it was an intruder, but the dog didn't bark, and they mentioned earlier it goes crazy whenever strangers approach the house."
Joe shuffled to the kitchen, flicking on the light above the sink. The sudden illumination made Evie blink, momentarily breaking her connection to the murdered blonde. "Did you sleep at all?" he asked, filling the coffee maker with water.
"Couple hours," she answered, though they both knew it was probably less. Insomnia had been her companion recently. The white noise of true crime documentaries had become her lullaby, though they rarely delivered on their promise of sleep.
Joe measured coffee grounds. "You've got to be exhausted. Your shift starts at noon, right?"
"Mmm," she hummed noncommittally, still tracking the detectives' investigation of the crime scene.
The coffee maker gurgled to life. Joe leaned against the counter, watching his wife instead of the television. At twenty-four, Evie's beauty remained startling, even in baggy pajamas and her blonde hair piled messily atop her head. Sometimes he still couldn't believe she had chosen him, this extraordinary creature.
"One of these days," he said, "I'm going to wake up to find you standing over me with a kitchen knife, reciting statistics about husbands who never saw it coming."
Evie finally turned from the screen, a smile breaking across her face. "Sleep with one eye open, Joseph Sinclair." The playful threat was their long-running joke, born during their first date when he'd discovered her true crime obsession. "Besides, I'd never be that obvious. You'd go missing during a hiking trip, your body never to be recovered. The perfect crime."
Joe poured coffee into two mugs, adding cream to hers. "That's oddly comforting. At least I'd be married to someone competent enough to get away with it."
"Damn straight." She accepted the mug he offered, their fingers brushing in the exchange. "How'd you sleep?"
"Like the hypothetically murdered," he answered, settling beside her on the couch. His weight created a familiar depression in the cushions that naturally drew her toward him. "Collins is riding my ass about the Westlake project. Apparently, my designs aren't innovative enough for their budget constraints, which is code for please violate the laws of physics and materials science to save them money."
Evie tucked her feet beneath his thigh, seeking his warmth. "Want me to kill him for you? I know at least three ways to make it look accidental."
"This is why I love you," Joe said, taking a long sip of his coffee. "But I need the job more than I need Collins dead. At least until we build up more savings."
On screen, detectives were now interviewing the husband, whose performance of grief struck Evie as rehearsed, each sob calculated for sympathy. "Look how he keeps checking the female detective's reaction," she pointed out. "Classic manipulation. Wants to make sure she's buying it."
Joe glanced at the TV, but his eyes quickly returned to his wife. "You know it's creepy how good you are at this, right? Like, clinically concerning."
"Says the man who memorizes load-bearing calculations for fun."
"That's different. My obsession builds things. Yours just..." He gestured toward the bloody crime scene photos now filling the screen. "Dwells on the worst of humanity."
Evie's expression grew momentarily distant. "Understanding the worst helps you recognize it before it happens to you." The words emerged with a weight that briefly altered the comfortable morning routine into something heavier, dragging the ghost of her father's murder into their living room.
Joe squeezed her ankle gently, acknowledging the unspoken memory without forcing her to elaborate. This was the rhythm they'd established over six years together, knowing when to push and when to let things lie. "What's on your schedule today?"
The question successfully lightened the moment, drawing a groan from Evie. "Mrs. Hoffman's coming in for her monthly 'nothing fits me anymore' tantrum, where I'll spend an hour convincing her that it's the designers who've changed their sizing, not her body."
"The sacred lies of retail."
"The very foundation of my career," she agreed.
Joe stood, stretching. "I'm making eggs," he announced. "You want some, or are you too busy solving crimes from our couch?"
"I can multitask." She uncurled from her position, following him to their small kitchen. The condo wasn't much, two bedrooms, one bath, just under a thousand square feet, but it was theirs, or would be after twenty-seven more years of mortgage payments. Joe had painted the walls himself, Evie had chosen the furniture, and together they'd created this space that represented their shared life: comfortable, predictable, safe.
As Joe cracked eggs into a bowl, Evie leaned against the counter beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. He automatically shifted left as she reached for plates. She handed him the salt before he asked for it.
"I had that dream again," she said quietly, watching him whisk the eggs. "The one with my dad."
Joe's whisking slowed but didn't stop. "The crime scene one?"