The Third Glance (Infinite Mirror, #2)

The Third Glance
A Captain Monroe short story from the world of Infinite Mirror
The case is closed. The scene is processed.
So why is she still watching the footage—on loop?
Captain Monroe has seen dozens of crime scenes, hundreds of hours of bodycam footage. She trusts the process. Trusts her instincts. But the Marchand case... something doesn't fit.
Lucas Hale was on-site early. Too early. He claims he touched nothing. But the blood smear says otherwise. So does the mirror.
At first glance, it was just a detail.
At second glance, a hesitation.
But at the third? There's something behind his eyes that doesn't belong.
When she isolates the timestamp and slows the video frame-by-frame, Monroe starts to see the cracks: a sentence said in a voice just slightly wrong. A glance that doesn't match a blink. A reflection that doesn't follow orders.
She doesn't want to believe it.
She doesn't even want to write it down.
But one conclusion keeps surfacing, no matter how she tries to bury it:
He wasn't alone in that room.
Series Context:
A slow-burn psychological thriller told through the eyes of the woman who's trying to trust what she sees, The Third Glance expands the Infinite Mirror universe by pulling the camera back—from Lucas Hale's fractured perception to Monroe's growing unease.
Set in the liminal space between procedural clarity and psychological horror, this short story explores the cost of watching too closely—and what might blink back when you do.
For fans of The Sinner, Mindhunter, and Gone Girl, The Third Glance adds another layer of obsession, identity, and suspicion to a series where no mirror tells the same truth twice.

Edward Wiggins is a first-time novelist who didn't set out to write a book — he set out to unravel a question: What happens when identity fractures under pressure? That question became the seed of his debut work and the foundation for the dark, emotionally charged stories he now tells.
With no formal background in writing, Edward stepped into the world of fiction with nothing but a fascination for psychology, memory, and human resilience. His work blends grounded psychological realism with slow-burn tension, drawing readers into characters who are as flawed and haunted as they are believable. His debut novel, Shards, was born after surviving the darkest chapter of his life — in the aftermath of personal and professional collapse during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Writing became his path forward. Now, Edward channels his experience into layered characters and slow-burning suspense that respects psychological realism.
Shards, marks the beginning of a larger thematic exploration — one that continues through his ambitious Infinite Mirror series. Whether working on a self-contained thriller or a layered, long-form narrative, Edward writes with one goal in mind: to make you question what's real, and who we are when the mirror cracks.
He lives in South Africa and spends his days somewhere between overthinking and outlining — usually with far too much coffee and not nearly enough sleep.