3 ideas
Detectives, like novelists, build a narrative early and then read each new fact as confirming it. Colleagues who want a particular outcome don't need to fake evidence; they only need to supply a compelling storyline and let confirmation bias do the rest. The defense is to keep asking which facts the preferred story forces you to explain away.
Someone who is really harassed by a group starts treating every ambiguous signal as another attack, and that armor makes them misjudge both allies and enemies. Conway's real mistreatment in the squad leads her to see conspiracy where some of it is pettiness and some of it is help, and she nearly pushes away her partner Moran. Paranoia rooted in real injury is still a distortion that others can exploit.
People reshape their whole identity around a private fantasy, often about an absent parent, and then make big life choices to serve that invented story. Aislinn built a new persona partly to draw in a detective she thought could solve her missing father's case, and Conway carries her own story about her unknown father. The fantasy gives life direction but blinds the holder to how others can use it against them.