Chapter 3 003

IRIS POV

Two months had passed since the funeral, and I was at some forensics thing. More of a habit now, so I didn't even care about it. I'd dumped the lab coat for a plain gray jacket but couldn't help scanning the room, trying to read folks, their smiles, handshakes, the usual small talk, but I was miles away.

I couldn't shake that night in the lab. That DNA report. The thing that screwed everything up. The instant I wiped that match, relief washed over me, but it was mixed with total panic. A selfish joy 'cause Dad wouldn't take the fall, but horror at what I'd done.

Now, he's gone.

I wanted to be okay. Cry, move on. Let my work fill the void. But what I ended up feeling was a whole lot heavier than simple grief. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that blank screen, the vanishing DNA. Felt my dad's hand, then nothing.

I drifted around, pretending to look at bones, looking at software. My head spun with choices, right and wrong, the cost of lies. I'm supposed to be a scientist. Facts should guide me, but I trashed them.

I must've been fixed on one display for a solid while when I heard a voice.

“Dr. William?”

The voice snapped me back, sharp but leveled. I looked up and standing there, was some guy with a strong presence. Dark eyes, dark hair, seemingly put together.

Vale Creed.

I froze. My head swam. He was just standing there, looking at me, but it felt like the universe had stopped.

“Yes,” I managed, my voice too quiet.

“I caught your talk earlier,” he said. Seemed indifferent but it felt like a setup. “Very precise. Very careful.”

I nodded. I didn't know what to say. Those words used to mean something, but now they taste bland. They made me think of that choice in the lab, that deliberate lie.

“Thanks,” I said finally, looking across the hall, like that could stop him from looking through me.

He smiled a little. Not friendly, but enough that my stomach flipped. He wasn't just chatting me up. He was trying to figure me out.

“Interesting work,” he said, and it had way more weight than just an empty compliment, “Do you always look at everything so…carefully?”

I swallowed hard. “I do my job.” It sounded hollow, even to me since I couldn't say what I did. What I had done.

He nodded, his eyes on mine, like he already knew what I was going to say and didn't give a damn.

A beat of silence came and I wanted to say something, anything, but my throat closed up. I couldn't tell him jack. Not about the erased match, not about my dad, not about the lie eating me alive.

So I said nothing.

“Want to see the lab?” he asked, out of the blue, he didn't sound thrilled to ask. Still, I knew what he meant. A suggestion. An opening. “Just a quick look. Our methods might be…eye-opening.”

I hesitated. Something in me screamed no. But the stuff in my head, the lies, what happened, my dad's face when I last held his hand, it all made me move so I trailed after him, almost without thinking, like I was being pulled.

The lab was shiny. Clean. Glass and metal everywhere, but I barely registered it. My head was somewhere else. Replaying the last two months. My dad, coughing in the hospital, my hands on the keyboard, fingers shaking as I hit delete.

He said something about a scanner, about piecing things back together. I nodded to be polite, but I wasn't listening. Back in the lab, two months ago, I had stared at the DNA and those digits that could have locked my dad away. The machines here now sounded like they were counting down to disaster.

I should have hated him for showing up, for messing with my carefully constructed loneliness. But I didn't. He was sharp. Knew his stuff. Almost dangerous in the way he held himself. Dangerous enough to make me see every messed-up thing I'd done.

“You're good with bones,” he said suddenly, staring at my hands. “I wonder how good you are with people.”

I froze. My heart stuttered. He wasn't supposed to read me like that. Not then. Not when I was standing here, a pro, a scientist, a woman who'd just lost her dad and was hiding something that could take me down.

“I…” I started, but the sound dried up in my throat.

“Do you always give folks the third degree?” I asked, trying to get it together.

“Only the ones worth it,” he said, straight-up.

And that was it. He’d said his piece, done what he needed to do. We were back in the crowd, and no one had noticed the loaded moment we'd just shared.

I stepped back, trying to focus on something, anything, but my mind kept going back to the lab. My fingers itched to touch the keyboard, to undo it all, to fix what I'd messed up, but it couldn't be done.

I remembered holding my dad's hand as the machines went silent. I remembered his eyes shutting, the last breath. And now, every choice, every step, felt like it was being measured against that one moment.

This Mr. Creed had only been there for a handful of minutes but he had stuck. I couldn't stop thinking about the weight of his stare, the way he said things, like he already knew the truth about people. The secrets they kept, the lies they told to survive.

I ducked out early, skipping the drinks and the chatter. The city lights reflected on the wet ground as I pulled my coat tight, but it barely touched the mess in my head.

I should have hated him for turning up when I was at my lowest, for making me face my mistakes, my guilt. But instead, I felt…aware. Every choice, every lie, every messed-up bit of my past seemed heavier, sharper, because he had been there to see it, whether he knew it or not.

I knew I'd see him again.

Not because I wanted to. Not because I needed to but because something about him had already marked me and he was impossible to forget.

I walked home quietly, replaying everything, imagining talks I'd never have, truths I’d never tell. And in my silent apartment, I realized the world I'd tried to protect, the dad I'd tried to save, had left me alone to deal with the fallout.

The truth, the lies, the sadness, all heavy, a load neither caring nor sharing. Back there in my head was a whisper, and it wondered whether Mr. Creed would ever see that guilt and use it against me.

I really hoped to hell that he wouldn't because I just wasn't sure I could survive it.