“You are the strongest person I know.” Lance reached out and tucked a hair behind her ear, his knuckles brushing her cheek. “But this—” He gestured toward the building. “This is hard enough to handle even when the victim is a stranger. I’m here if you need someone to lean on.”

She closed her eyes and turned her face into his hand for a few seconds. But when he shifted forward, as if to embrace her, she straightened. If he held her right now, she’d break down, and she couldn’t handle the emotional storm that would follow. Grief was a quagmire that would pull her under until she suffocated. She could already feel the familiar heaviness, ready to settle its crushing weight on her chest, making each breath harder to draw than the last, as if the simple act of drawing air into her lungs could crack her wide open and leave her in pieces.

She couldn’t go there again, not after she’d just fought her way out from under it.

“Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate the offer. I do. But what I really need is to get back to work.”

Ignoring his disapproving frown, she turned toward the door and away from him.

Back in the war room, Sharp brought her a green smoothie, and she forced herself to drink it while scanning the murder board. Using magnets, he’d organized photos under headers like Crime Scene and Suspects. He’d also written bullet points and drawn connections with arrows. He’d put a photo of Tessa at the top of the board.

“The visual presentation helps you see connections,” she said.

“That’s the idea. What do we know so far?” Sharp picked up his marker and started a timeline on one side of the board. “Nick and Tessa attended a party at the lake. They arrived at approximately nine p.m. The police have identified eleven other teens who attended the party.” Sharp listed their names. “As far as I can tell, only Jamie, Robby Barone, Felicity Weber, and Jacob Emerson were still at the lake at the end of the party.”

“Jacob is the ex-boyfriend?” Lance asked.

“Not exactly. Jacob and Tessa went on a few dates last April,” Morgan clarified.

Sharp stretched his arms over his head.

“Do we know who took the video?” Lance asked.

“Yes.” Morgan sifted through a few papers. “A kid by the name of Brandon Nolan.”

“Did Brandon say why he didn’t post the video sooner?” Sharp asked.

Morgan sorted through the police interviews. “Yes. He missed his curfew Thursday night, and his dad grounded him and took his phone for a week as punishment. The police didn’t have Brandon on their initial list of partygoers. He’s not in Tessa’s inner social circle. The police did interview him after they became aware of the video. He said he left right after the fight.”

Sharp snorted. “So the second he got his phone back, he posted the video without thinking it could be related to Tessa’s murder?”

“Yes, he did.” Morgan sighed. She’d prosecuted enough teens that the lack of forethought didn’t surprise her. “Let’s finish the timeline. Nick and Jacob fought shortly after the party started. By nine thirty, Nick and Tessa went off in his car. According to Nick, they had consensual, unprotected sex in the backseat. When they returned to the party sometime around ten, they had an argument. Nick says Tessa broke up with him. This is verified by the text Tessa sent Felicity at 10:43 p.m. The party broke up between ten and ten thirty. Nick says he left Tessa there. She had her own car.”

“Did anyone confirm this?” Sharp asked.

“Yes. Robby Barone and Felicity both stated that they left after Nick.” Morgan continued, “Nick says he drove around until about midnight. His phone was dead, so we have no GPS data. His father was asleep when he came home.”

“So Bud can’t even back him up on that,” Lance said.

“Right.” Morgan jotted times and events on her timeline, then pulled out the autopsy report. “Tessa died between 10:30 p.m. Thursday night and 4:00 a.m. Friday morning. She was stabbed nine times, but the ME thinks she died quickly. Considering the extent of her wounds . . .” Morgan shuddered as she looked at an autopsy photo. “One of the initial wounds was a deep puncture to the heart. If she’d lived through the entire attack, there would have been more blood.”

Wounds didn’t bleed much after the heart stopped beating.

Morgan flipped to the next page in the autopsy report. “The autopsy also shows bruising and abrasions consistent with sexual assault. Semen recovered from Tessa’s body and blood scraped from under her thumbnail matches Nick’s DNA. The ME also found traces of condom lubricant. The DA theorizes that Nick tried to use a condom, which shows premeditation and the desire to not be caught, but the condom broke.”

Sharp went to the table and rifled through some papers. “In your interview with Nick, he said he had a bloody nose from the fight with Jacob and that Tessa cleaned him up. Is that in his original statement to the police, or did he say that in response to the blood being found under Tessa’s nail?”

Morgan found his initial police interview. “Unfortunately, he did not include that information in his original statement. But the police didn’t ask him any questions that would have prompted him to reveal that. Overall, Nick’s statements are consistent.”

“Did they offer him a polygraph?” Lance asked.

“No, but we should consider it.” Morgan made more notes, and then returned to her narrative. “The knife recovered from Nick’s yard matches Tessa’s wounds, but that DNA test is still pending. There were no fingerprints on the knife. There was a T-shirt with blood on it in Nick’s hamper.”

“From his bloody nose,” Lance said.

“That would be my conclusion. That DNA test is also pending.” Morgan looked up. “The DNA on the shirt should be Nick’s. I assume the blood on the knife is Tessa’s. The DA refuses to expedite those tests.”

“Why would he? He already has his suspect locked up,” Sharp said.

“And maybe he’s used up all his favors,” Lance added.

Morgan nodded, frustrated. “Things the police did not find at Nick’s house or at the crime scene: a broken condom, bloody pants, or bloody shoes.”

Lance interrupted. “So Nick managed to dispose of the condom, his pants, and his shoes, but he tossed his bloody shirt in his hamper and buried the murder weapon behind his shed? That makes no sense.”

“There is no way he stabbed that girl nine times without getting blood on his pants and shoes,” Sharp agreed. “The knife had to be a plant.”

“Meaning Nick was intentionally framed,” Morgan said.

“Right. Make a note to check the forensic reports when they come in, to see if any semen was found under the body or in Nick’s car,” Sharp said. “Was she raped and killed in the same place?”

Morgan returned to her chair and shuffled through more papers. “The forensics reports aren’t in, but I see notations about blood being visible under and immediately around the body. There is a notation of the black light picking up a small amount of semen on the backseat of Nick’s car.”

“Which is consistent with Nick’s statement.” Lance studied the board. “But the DA will argue that Nick could have raped her in the car, then dragged her out to stab her.”

Sharp closed his marker. Holding it in both hands behind his back, he paced back and forth in front of the whiteboard. “She could have gotten away from him and ran. Then he chased her down and stabbed her.”