#Chapter 97 - Secrets uncovered

Ethan I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, reached for the paper coffee cup for the third time before remembering—also for the third time—that it was empty. Dammit. The printed text of the case files sprawled across my desk was starting to blur before my eyes. Probably the dim lighting didn’t help; the precinct, in an attempt to save money, was choosy in the lights they kept on after hours. My remote hallway wasn’t one of them, so my faded desk lamp and the dim glow from my laptop monitor were the only illumination on this side of the building. But still, I couldn’t go home. Not yet. Something about these Rossetti crime scenes was gnawing at me, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. The attacks on the Marcello family were brutal, calculated, and relentless, but something didn’t add up. At first glance, the evidence pointed to a Joker-style level of chaos. Witness reports, surveillance footage, and first responder reports from the crime scenes all indicated the same things: