Page 63 of Deadly Force
When he said he had “a Delilah special,” I thought he was joking. But it’s not just special, it’s incredible. The screen flashes. No password prompt. Just a stripped-down interface.
Caleb types in the case number Zack sent: 2024-0309-MOR.
The screen loads fast. One hit. Eliza Moreno.
With a look at the door, Caleb opens the autopsy file and starts copying it to a second drive.
I don’t wait for the progress bar. My eyes go straight to the report.
Female. Nineteen. Acute opioid toxicity. Initial classification: accidental overdose.
I check the margin notes, scanned in.No opioid history. No prescriptions. No needle marks. No paraphernalia. No signs of recreational use.
“Go check the hallway,” Caleb says. “I’m almost done.”
Reluctantly, I walk to the door and duck my head out. I hold my breath. Listen harder. No voices. No footsteps. Just the mechanical, impersonal heartbeat of a building built for the dead.
“Brooke, there’s something else here,” Caleb says.
I shut the door and hurry across to the desk. He’s staring at the screen, jaw set tighter, shoulders rigid. “Did you know Eliza was seven weeks pregnant?” Caleb says.
The air sucks out of the room.
My vision blurs, throat tightening with grief. I stumble back half a step, catching the edge of the desk.
“She didn’t tell you,” Caleb says quietly, but his voice is closer now. Steadier. Like he’s holding the ground I just lost.
I shake my head and force myself to focus so I can read the final page. Dr. Ruiz’s conclusion stares back at me, final, unforgiving:
Toxicology levels consistent with forced ingestion. No defensive injuries. No sign of voluntary consumption. Manner of death inconsistent with overdose classification.
Eliza didn’t commit suicide. Someone drugged her—maybe forced her to take it, maybe slipped it into something she trusted. Either way, she didn’t choose this.
The realization crashes over me in waves, and I press a hand to my mouth, horrified.
Beside me, Caleb’s quiet for a beat, jaw tense before he removes the drive, types something I don’t follow, and wipes the access clean.
“We got what we came for,” he says, voice low. “Time to go.”
I nod, but it takes a second before my legs agree to move.
We retrace our steps through the empty hallway, past the quiet hum of overhead lights, down the stairs, past the still-distracted receptionist, none of it really landing.
It’s not until the door swings shut behind us and the desert heat hits my face that the weight of it slams into me.
Eliza Moreno was pregnant. She tried to do the right thing. And someone silenced her.
Caleb
The sidewalk radiates heat, warping the air in front of us like a warning. It presses in, thick, heavy, matching the tension in my gut as we step outside.
Eliza’s death wasn’t suicide. But the staging was sloppy. Like someone panicked—threw it together without a plan and hoped it’d pass for clean.
Brooke’s a pace behind me when a cruiser rolls up to the curb. White and blue, dulled by desert dust and years of wear. The Crown Vic idles with the rough growl of a car long past retirement.
Could be just another cop, maybe picking up or dropping off evidence. But when a second vehicle slides in behind it—sleek, black, unmarked—Tucson PD, I jump to the same conclusionBrooke does.
She squints into the sun, her jaw tightening. “Do you think someone called the cops on us?”
