She picked up the glass of water, took a single sip, and set it down with a soft click.

She paused at the door, looking back at the dark screen of her laptop.

She turned the key over in her fingers. The rain against the window seemed to grow louder.

"I'm doing something," Bethany continued. "Something that needs to be recorded. Not for evidence. For… I don't know. A receipt. Proof that I chose this."

"Bethany 02," she murmured. "Take three. I'm coming in."

Mara sat in the dark of her office. The file had no GPS metadata. No timestamps that weren't deliberately stripped. Forensics had verified that the video was real, unedited, and that Bethany's fingerprints were the only ones on the memory card.

Bethany touched her collarbone now.

"So?"

"This is Bethany 02. Take one was boring. Take two is goodbye."

Mara had watched it forty-seven times. Her captain said she was obsessed. Her partner, Detective Felix Cross, said she was haunted. Mara didn’t disagree with either.