Chapter 2 : Hidden Clues

The morning after Sebastian''s death, Liam returned to the apartment alone. The police tape still marked the boundary, but the forensic team had finished their initial sweep. The silence felt heavier now, filled with the ghost of his friend''s presence.

He started in the study, where Sebastian had spent most of his waking hours. The desk was a landscape of organized chaos—stacks of books, folders neatly labeled, a laptop closed but still plugged in. Liam put on gloves, the latex snapping against his skin with a sound that echoed in the quiet room.

He began with the obvious: Sebastian''s recent notes. Most were about Victorian architecture, the history of Ravenwood''s development, property records. But tucked between pages on Gothic revival and industrial expansion, Liam found something else.

A file folder, unlabeled. Inside, newspaper clippings from twenty years ago.

*Walter Lister, 45, found dead in Mayfair home.*

*Police suspect burglary gone wrong.*

*Case remains unsolved.*

The clippings were yellowed with age, but someone had annotated them in Sebastian''s precise handwriting. Circles around certain details. Question marks in the margins. Arrows connecting seemingly unrelated facts.

And then, the photograph.

Liam froze, the paper trembling in his hands. It showed a younger Walter Lister with a woman and a boy. The woman was beautiful, with dark hair and sad eyes. The boy was maybe six or seven, staring at the camera with an expression far too solemn for his age.

But it was the boy''s face that made Liam''s breath catch.

He knew those eyes. That particular set of the jaw.

The boy was Victor Thorne.

***

"Explain this."

Liam placed the photograph on Victor''s desk at Ravenwood CID headquarters. The afternoon light slanted through the windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Victor''s office was as meticulously ordered as the man himself—files aligned, pens in their holder, not a paper out of place.

Victor looked at the photograph. For a long moment, he said nothing. His expression didn''t change, but Liam saw the subtle tightening around his eyes, the way his fingers stilled on the keyboard.

"Where did you get this?" Victor''s voice was carefully neutral.

"Sebastian''s apartment. He was investigating the Lister case. And you..." Liam leaned forward, his palms flat on the desk. "You''re in the photograph. You knew Walter Lister."

Victor picked up the photo, studying it as if it were evidence in an unrelated case. "Walter Lister was my mother''s second husband. My stepfather. He died when I was seven."

The admission came too easily. Too calmly. Liam had expected denial, evasion. Not this flat statement of fact.

"Why didn''t you tell me?" Liam asked. "When I mentioned the case yesterday—"

"It''s not relevant." Victor set the photo down, aligning it precisely with the edge of the desk. "A twenty-year-old burglary has nothing to do with your friend''s death."

"Doesn''t it?" Liam''s voice rose. "Sebastian was looking into it. He thought it was connected to police corruption. And now he''s dead. And you, the lead investigator on his case, just happen to be connected to the very thing he was researching."

Victor stood, moving to the window. His back was to Liam, shoulders rigid. "My personal history is just that—personal. It doesn''t affect my professional judgment."

"Doesn''t it?" Liam came around the desk. "You told me to leave the Lister case buried. Why?"

"Because some things are better left in the past." Victor turned, and for the first time, Liam saw real emotion in his eyes—not anger, but something darker. Something like pain. "Digging up old graves rarely brings peace to the living."

They stood close now, too close for professional colleagues. Liam could see the fine lines at the corners of Victor''s eyes, the slight shadow of stubble along his jaw. He could smell the clean, sharp scent of his cologne—something expensive, understated.

And he could feel the tension between them, electric and dangerous.

"Sebastian was my friend," Liam said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "I need to know what happened to him. And if that means digging up old graves..."

He let the sentence hang, unfinished.

Victor''s gaze dropped to Liam''s mouth, then back to his eyes. The moment stretched, thick with unspoken things. Liam was acutely aware of his own heartbeat, too fast, too loud in the quiet room.

Then Victor stepped back, breaking the spell. "We should examine the rest of Sebastian''s notes. Together. In the apartment."

It was a concession. Not an explanation, not the truth Liam wanted. But it was something.

***

Back in Sebastian''s study, they worked in tense silence. Victor took the desk, Liam the bookshelves. Every so often, their hands would brush as they reached for the same folder, or their shoulders would touch in the narrow space between shelves.

Each contact was a jolt of electricity.

Liam found himself watching Victor more than the evidence. The precise way he handled each document, as if it were fragile. The careful notation in his own notebook, handwriting as controlled as the rest of him. The way his shirt stretched across his back when he leaned over the desk.

It was distracting. And infuriating. And, Liam had to admit, intensely arousing.

"Here," Victor said suddenly, holding up a sheaf of papers. "Bank statements. Sebastian was paying for a private investigator."

Liam moved to look, standing close enough to feel the heat from Victor''s body. "Who?"

"Name''s not here. Just initials. J.S. Payments for the last six months." Victor''s fingers brushed against Liam''s as he handed over the papers. "Substantial amounts. Whatever he was investigating, he was serious about it."

Their eyes met. Victor''s were dark, unreadable. But Liam saw something in them—a flicker of the same attraction he felt. The same dangerous curiosity.

"J.S.," Liam repeated, his voice husky. "We need to find them."

Victor nodded, but didn''t move away. "We will."

The air between them hummed with tension. Liam wanted to step closer, to see if Victor would back away or meet him. To test the boundaries of whatever this was.

But then Victor''s phone buzzed, shattering the moment. He glanced at it, his expression shifting to something professional and closed-off.

"We have to go," he said, already gathering his things. "Another case. Catherine wants us both."

"Now?" Liam protested. "But we''re just—"

"It can wait." Victor was already at the door. "The dead aren''t going anywhere."

He left without looking back.

Liam stood alone in Sebastian''s study, the silence pressing in on him. He looked at the photograph still on the desk—the boy who would become Victor Thorne, staring out with those solemn eyes.

*What happened to you?* he wondered. *And what are you hiding now?*

He picked up the bank statements, tracing the initials J.S. with his finger. A private investigator. Someone who might have answers.

But as he left the apartment, locking the door behind him, it wasn''t the investigation that occupied his thoughts. It was the memory of Victor''s fingers brushing against his. The look in his eyes before the phone rang.

The dangerous, thrilling possibility that the truth he sought might be entangled with desires he hadn''t known he possessed.