Page 290 of That Time I Accidentally Became A Serial Killer

Her mother smiles. Stands up to clear dessert plates like she didn’t just blow up Poppy’s world.

“Well, what judge?”

“It’s water under the bridge now. No use digging up old ghosts.”

She laughs again as she walks into the kitchen, humming under her breath.

Poppy turns to me, face pale, like she’s still trying to process what just happened.

I don’t move.

Because I know my Lollipop?—

She won’t be able to sleep until she knows who it is.

Not with a lead dangling in front of her, ripe for the taking.

Sure enough, fifteen minutes later we’re slipping old Al a covered plate of lemon bars, and the ancient night security guard beams at us like we’ve handed him the keys to the kingdom.

He waves us through with barely a grunt.

We’re speed-walking through the dark halls, our footsteps echoing off marble and tile.

Poppy’s practically vibrating next to me—near manic, brilliant, a storm with nowhere safe to land.

“I think I put something together,” she says, words tumbling out fast as her beautiful brain shifts into overdrive.

My hand hovers near the small of her back, ready to catch her if she burns too hot and crashes.

“When I was slicing and dicing that last degenerate, I wanted some info too,” she mutters, voice grim. “He started mumbling about the missing eighty-threes.”

I lift a brow as we turn a corner, heading toward the records room.

“Missing eighty-threes?”

“Yeah,” she says, almost tripping over her own feet in her hurry. “He was delirious. Blood loss. Whatever cocktail I injected into him. But before he started singing Taylor Swift at the ceiling, he said—‘everything you need is in the missing eighty-threes.’”

I bite back a grin.

God, I love her.

We reach the heavy security doors to the evidence archive. I punch in the code while she bounces on her toes beside me, practically sparking like a live wire.

Inside, it’s colder, the fluorescent lights humming low overhead. Rows of labeled boxes line the metal shelving units—organized by case number.

She points upward, her finger trembling with excitement.

I follow her gaze—and feel a low, dangerous thrill run through me.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I murmur.

The serial numbers painted on the rows start with eighty-three.

The eighty-threes.

Sex crimes.

Someone’s been systematically making case files vanish—specifically those tied to sexual assaults.

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