Page 134 of What Goes Around

Detective Moreno opened the file and began walking me through the facts.

“The residence showed clear signs of a violent struggle,” he said. “Most of it was concentrated in the bedroom. Furniture displaced. Items knocked over. This was not a quick assault. It escalated.”

“No forced entry,” Detective Holt added.

That detail mattered.

It suggested my mother had known her attacker, or at least opened the door for them.

The first photograph slid across the table.

It was a wide shot of the bedroom. Yellow evidence markers dotted the floor, each numbered. A large bloodstain spread across the wood. Bedding was torn and half dragged from the mattress. A nightstand lay overturned. A handgun was on the floor.

“That was hers,” Holt said, tapping the photo lightly. “It wasn’t fired.”

The gun meant there had been a moment. At least one. A moment when my mother believed she might need it, or reached for it and never got the chance.

“The scene suggests movement,” Moreno said. “The struggle didn’t happen in one place. It ended on the floor.”

Then Holt looked at me carefully. “Do you want to see the photographs of your mother?”

I said yes.

Moreno slid another photo toward me.

“This is how your mother was found.”

I didn’t flinch. I had pictured this moment too many times.

“She was face down,” Holt said gently. “Blunt force trauma consistent with repeated strikes. She also sustained multiple stab wounds.”

Moreno added, “The murder weapon was never recovered. We searched the residence, the yard, the surrounding area. Nothing. Whoever did this took it with them.”

Holt pointed to a mark visible in the image. “There was also a bite mark on her right forearm.”

“Defensive injuries were present,” Holt continued. “She resisted. She did not submit.”

“She fought hard,” I said quietly. She had done everything she could to stay alive. To stay with me.

Everything about the scene suggested a personal, intense attack.

Another photograph followed, a close-up.

“That’s the bite mark,” Moreno said.

I leaned closer.

“It was swabbed at the time,” he continued. “Preserved correctly.”

Holt picked up from there. “The amount of biological material was extremely small. And back in the early 2000s, forensic technology simply was not sensitive enough to work with a sample that size. The testing kits available then needed far more material to generate a usable DNA profile.”

“So it was sealed,” Moreno added. “Logged. Stored.”

Waiting for science to catch up.

“Years later,” Holt said, “DNA analysis improved. Samples that were once unusable became viable.”

Hope flared in my chest before I could stop it.