The Captain I Married by Chance novel Chapter 432

Nora paused, staring in sheer disbelief at Nathan's spotlessly clean plate, then down at her own barely touched food.

Was the man secretly practicing some sort of culinary dark magic?

"Eat up."

Noticing her shock, Nathan reached out and affectionately ruffled her hair.

Nora froze, a furious blush creeping up her neck.

Doing that in front of the entire Special Task Force was an incredibly bold move.

Sure enough, the rest of the detectives suddenly found their shoes absolutely fascinating, desperately burying their heads to hide their massive grins.

Nora felt the detached, hyper-professional image she had spent years cultivating within the Forensics Division crumbling to ash.

She cleared her throat aggressively, burying her face in her food and ignoring the smirks around her.

Nathan shot her a teasing smile before shifting his attention back to the whiteboard.

"This case is moving way too fast."

"It's going so smoothly that it feels like someone is actively feeding us the answers."

It had been a long time since the precinct had handled a case that practically solved itself.

Every time they hit a roadblock, a shiny new clue was immediately dropped right into their laps.

The rest of the team nodded in agreement.

They felt the phantom guidance, but the "why" was baffling.

"Is it a provocation, or is there an endgame here?"

They had dealt with sociopathic killers before.

Arrogant monsters who loved leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to taunt the police, only to slip away like smoke right before the cuffs came out.

"We don't know yet."

Nathan said, "What we do know is that these incidents are absolutely connected. We stay the course. If we keep digging, we're going to hit the bottom."

"So, the working theory is that someone was illegally occupying 2901. Maisie accidentally walked into the wrong room, saw something she shouldn't have, and the squatter panicked and shoved her out the window to silence her."

It was a perfectly logical deduction.

It also aligned seamlessly with the forensic evidence.

Maisie had clearly struggled with her attacker right before she fell, but she had been overpowered and pushed over the ledge.

But then Nora thought of the deep gouge beneath the coffee table in 2801.

Her gut screamed that the scratch was no accident.

"Did we pull anything useful from the cameras on the 28th floor?"

The officer shook his head. "It's peak tourist season. The hotel is packed to the brim. It's a constant stream of people coming and going. We couldn't isolate anything suspicious."

Even as he said it, he cued up the security footage on the projector.

Nora casually glanced up at the screen, her eyes instantly locking onto a figure in the crowd. "Stop the video!" she shouted.