'I'm not saying another word. You can believe me or not.' Aurora folded her arms over her chest. 'Any other questions you have can be directed to my attorney.'

She tried for another twenty minutes, but got no further than if she'd been trying to move Gibraltar with a toothpick. When Aurora and Minerva were escorted out she just sat there, trying to get herself together because she knew it wouldn't look good if the primary investigator had a nuclear meltdown in the middle of the interview room. She gathered her things and in her mumble-grumble state

'Who the hell does that bitch think she is? Who does she think I am? Do I look that that stupid? I know she's up to something and I am spending my night away from my husband and children listening to her play keep-away with...with...argh!'

She let out a little screech and stalked to her desk, Esposito hot on her heels. 'When you're done breathing fire, you will be very interested to see what our friendly neighbourhood fingerprint tech found out.' He held up the file with the printout. 'You are not going to believe this.'

'What!' Beckett hisssed at him, thumping her files down on her desk. 'Please, for the love of God, I am sick to death of all the liars in this frickin' case! '

Esposito said nothing, handed her the paper. 'If you're going to spew, may I suggest the break-room, that way everyone will think the shrieking is the milk-steamer on Brewster.'

Beckett just glared at him, and because it was Esposito's night to be entertained. She handed the paper back to him and he watched with glee while she went into the breakroom and close all the doors; she did indeed turn on the milk-steamer on Brewster the handy-dandy cappuccino maker then stood in front of the refrigerator as though searching for the skim-milk and let out a loud scream. He couldn't help but chuckle as she straightened up, turned off Brewster and marched out with a bright pink face.

'Are you kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me?' Beckett looked positively apoplectic as she yanked the paper back out of his hand once more. 'How the hell would Minvera's prints match Elaine Hammond's? Elaine Hammond is on suicide watch!'

'She was released on a day pass for twenty-four hours into the custody of Aurora and Judah White. Her pass expires in-' he checked his watch '-forty-five minutes.'

'Fuck me.'

'No thanks, that's a Castle-only zone.'

Beckett snarled at him. 'Tell another joke, I dare you.'

'Get the blood out of your eye or you'll miss what else I gleaned from Jackie in the print and DNA lab.' Because he needed something to do, Esposito headed towards the break-room where he turned Brewster on fully to make them each a double latte. He let the coffee brew, then looked at her. 'Remember how we found three set of DNA on the knife?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, it turns out that the prints are wrong.'

Beckett swore she could actually hear the neurons frying in her brain. 'What the fuck do you mean the prints are wrong.'

'Aurora told us that she went to visit Elaine and she was in the kitchen using a knife, right? Aurora eased it out of her hand.'

'Right.'

'Only Jackie and I discovered another little something.' Esposito pulled out a glossy photo, this one taken under UV light. 'Take a look.'

Beckett sighed, and looked at the photo for herself. She saw two sets of purple prints, the natural colour for body oil in ultra-violet light - and a second set almost directly beneath in bright yellow.

'What is that?'

'That is a very messy situation.'

'I'm all ears.'

'Okay, we knew there was three sets of DNA on the knife, right? Victor's blood, Elaine's body oils and Aurora's body oils. This tells us one very crucial thing - when Elaine was handling the knife, she had some kind of substance on her fingers that would be transparent to the naked eye,' Esposito replied, 'and would just show up as regular prints if someone did a dusting like Jackie did. Since Jackie is the thorough sort, she had this ready and waiting for me in the lab when I asked her to run Minvera Dickinson's prints against our two leading ladies.'

'She marked the knife,' Beckett breathed. 'She marked the knife so that when the killer came into the house, all they needed was a UV pen-light to see which knife they were supposed to use.'

'Yep. Suddenly this fragile little flower thing doesn't fit so well, huh?'

'My brain needs a break.'

'Agreed. Latte?'

They took their coffees back to Beckett's desk, where they studied the murder-board and the stills they'd printed from the various traffic and security cameras. Esposito took the time to look at the financial records and he squinted, looked up at the board. 'Beckett?'

'Yeah.'

'We truly are that stupid if we missed this. Remember what Riley said about the boots, how expensive they were?'

'Mm-hmm,' Beckett said absently, trying to mull it over and make sense of it.

'He said the custom jobs run to about four-thousand, right? So why does only pair cost almost double the top of the line?'

'Because she had two.' Her head whipped around, the pieces suddenly clicking into place as an idea galloped through her brain. 'How did we miss that? Is Riley in the lab tonight?'

'Yeah, Andrews is out of town at a conference so he's working nights until Tuesday.'

'Excellent.'

Beckett waited the four humming seconds until she heard his sunny 'Cheese Whiz, what's your beef?'

'Riley, Beckett. You've still got the tapes from the hotel security footage on Elaine Hammond and Aurora White, right?'

'Yeah.'

'And the credit card info about the shoes we examined?'

'Yeah,' he repeated warily, 'why?'

'Can you pull up the individual credit card sale record on the shoes, or is that out of your wheelhouse?'

'Normally out of my purview but since you asked nicely I'll make an exception.'

Beckett closed her eyes in relief, blew out a quiet breath. 'Can you have it ready in about twenty?'

'Sure.'

'Great. Detective Esposito will be down to pick it up at...' Beckett looked at her watch. 'Seven pm on the nose. If he waits until seven-oh-two, your ass is grass and I'm a lawnmower.'

'Yes sir.'

She hung up, looked at Esposito. 'She set her up.'

'I'm not sure I follow you just yet.'

'Come on, keep up Espo, you're the one who figured out the shoes, right?' Beckett picked up a black dry-erase marker and circled Elaine's feet blown-up on the traffic cam and hotel cam stills. 'When we took Aurora White into custody, I noticed she was wearing the shoes and she said she was given these as a Christmas gift by Elaine when she had to hand them over as evidence in Booking. The lab told us those were the shoes worn by the killer, right?'

'Right.'

'So look at that picture.' Beckett tapped a third one, the image of Elaine and Aurora walking down the hallway together, and Esposito cursed.

'They're wearing the same damn shoes.'

'Not just the same, those are identical.'

The desk phone rang and they both jumped a foot in the air. Beckett took a moment before she answered. 'Beckett.'

'It's Riley. Just thought I'd tell you that credit card purchase on the Dante Brunetti shoes, there's two pairs listed on the date of sale.'