Rai sat on the steps of Eggers Hall, thinking and soaking up the cold. There was a slight overhang above the steps that held the security camera, and kept the snow from falling directly onto his head.

The middle of campus was crawling with students, more in the last hour, like animals coming out of hibernation. If they weren’t already at the brunch they were probably headed to the library or the cafe. The Row was still glowing but the afternoon snow had gotten too heavy for anyone to want to linger. Passerby tried to avoid him but he got a couple of squinty, baffled looks from those who had to pass him to go into the Hall, probably because he was drinking a slushie outdoors in a temperature below freezing.

Sao was resting in a hotel in town. That was an assumption. Rai had no proof; finding a hotel was what Sao had said he was going to do, which made it even less likely. Rai wasn’t going to chase him on it. There was nothing worth chasing. He was galled by his own neutrality. Knowing that Sao was susceptible to disastrously public love triangles even made him feel a little better about his own story, that botched college romance he kept coming up with like fits of vomiting.

Another assumption.

What was actually said in front of the grill before it flipped?

Rai stretched his legs and walked to the side of the Hall. The path ahead led out one of the arches in Murnau’s wall, the northeast exit. Turn right before the arch and, rendered almost invisible but the carpet of snow over it, was the thin alley that went behind the hall.

He went under the arch and threw away his cup in a rectangular green dumpster. It was more than half full already. Rai figured the morning garbage collection had missed it, or maybe the service was suspended because of the snow.

But then, the dumpster was right outside one of the dormitories within the walls, right next to one of the doors with the ubiquitous student ID scanners. If Rip and Omy’s residence had been any indicator, a lot of kids could be packed into that thin space. And some of them went through a lot of junk food. Trash piled up fast.

Rai took a step back. The door on the opposite site had two dumpsters. Looking back, it did seem like there was a conspicuous space besides the single can he’d used. He headed left the arch and looked up and down the street. Who’d want to steal a dumpster?

They had wheels, but those wouldn’t be a ton of use with all the snow piles.

But the night of Triad’s disappearance, the weather hadn’t been as bad. He remembered sticking his head out of the tall window behind Triad’s desk and seeing trash scattered up and down the alley, not yet covered by the then-feeble snowfall.

There was only one small light behind the building, and plenty of shadowy corners. An unpleasant place to meet for a drink with friends. A great place to conceal something, though.

Triad’s window was big enough for a guy to fall out of. Snow would mask the thump - it would be over in an instant.

And a dumpster - that was big enough to hide in. Big enough for Rai, for sure. It might accommodate someone a lot bigger, if it was emptied out beforehand. Bottles and cans just upturned on the snow, easily mistaken for the remains of some private gathering.

Nobody would care if a dumpster was rolled in and out of the campus. Rai had run into them on the outer street, even across the street a few times, shoved into empty lots and on the edges of neighboring lawns.

Rai continued his stroll out of the campus. The smoothest path was straight ahead. There was a small lot allocated for temporary parking just across the street. All six spaces were occupied.

If the dumpster’s load was supposed to be a secret, there was no need to park so close. The delivery was on wheels itself; the transfer could be done somewhere far away from any drunk spies and security cameras.

He took a left turn and headed into the residential area. He circled the blocks around the miniature parking lot and the streets in between. There were a lot of thin alleys, and every turn he thought he saw a shadow, the ends of a black coat flying around the corner. Any minute, he would turn and run facefirst into a ghostly giant, who would pull back and deliver an uppercut that would send him flying all the way back to campus.

That would have been great.

But he didn’t see another living soul. As he came around the second to last block, he saw a familiar rectangle of green plastic; the cover down and weighed closed with a pile of snow.

The missing dumpster, next to a skinny side road. Rai leapt at it like a cat, flinging the snow off and throwing back the cover. Empty.

The whole scheme was implausible if Triad had fought back at any stage. Rai’s spine stung at the memory of hitting the windowsill after Triad, with the casual swing of one huge arm that sent him ragdolling out of the office. Getting a thrashing Triad out the window would take a heavyweight pro, and even then he would have left marks on the walls, might have dragged the curtain rod dragged down or grabbed a book or some hair, left behind some signs of a scuffle. If he was still conscious after being dropped, a moaning dumpster would almost definitely attract attention, even if everyone who crossed its path was falling over drunk.

But all it took to make the theory run smoothly was one easy fact: there had been no struggle.

A strong wind whipped over Murnau. Rai ducked behind the dumpster. The wind blew its cover over, the edge slamming down inches from his face. His ears rang. He was starting to feel the cold.

—

A police car picked Sao up in front of the hotel. It was one in a standard chain, on the smaller side, but the rooms were warm and the sheets were clean, and the lobby supplied a hot water station with teabags and powdered coffee, free of charge. Sao thought it suited him well enough. Still, Rai looked over the building with apparent surprise, one arm hanging out of the front passenger window.

Sao had the whole back seat to himself. The car was cold and the unfamiliar patrolman in the driver's seat was sniffling. Rai didn’t seem to notice and kept the window open.

“Sorry for the rush. The man who contacted us has an important conference call to take at four, so he said if we wanted to talk to him, we should come as soon as possible,” the driver said, nasally.

“And he said Professor Triad didn’t live nearby?” Rai asked.

“Nope. Showed him a picture to make sure; he actually knew the Professor from the school and said if he lived nearby, he would know.” A reinforcing sniffle. “And he didn’t see the Professor himself. It was his girlfriend that got spooked by ‘this giant white-haired man outside the garage’, while he was out of town at work, a day or two ago - he wasn’t specific. The sergeant said the Professor is your case, that’s why I let you know, but the bigger concern for our guy is that he hasn’t seen his girlfriend since getting home, and he can’t reach her by phone either. You see, there’s the blood...”

“But that call of his takes even higher priority, huh?”

“Perhaps he thought giving us a time limit would get the police there quicker,” Sao said.

The driver snorted, not with derision, but for a stuffed nose. “He also said that if his meeting started before we got there, we should check his shed without him. He left the door closed after hearing the rattling inside but has been keeping an eye on it, nobody’s come out. The blood stains were found around the shed.”

“Not a lot of it, though,” Rai said. Over his shoulder Sao saw him open the photo on his phone. This photographer had a steady hand and he could count five distinct blood drops on a low wooden block that served as the doorstep to the aforementioned shed.

Rai stuck his head out of the window again. “Hold on - this guy, does he live on a corner? And he wouldn’t have happened to just be back after a week long business trip?”

“So you've met him?”

“We tried.” Rai dropped back into the car, making the suspension lurch. He caught Sao’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Looks like Tinsel’s ex didn’t manage to evade us after all.”

—

Irving was a trim man with a handsome, weightless smile and a long deep scar winding down his right cheek to under his chin, which he clearly intended for all to see.

“This?” He chuckled. “A silly story - I got it in a knife fight in high school. It was the other kid who had the knife, as you can probably tell. But I made it through.”

“I can’t imagine,” Sao said, reflecting the smile.

The house was a suburban dream. White and cream all over, with pale wood and sheer curtains to let in the sunlight, if it were a day with any sunlight to offer. The cushions were plumped, the books all straight on their shelves, the milk-coloured carpet was immaculately brushed. Sao doubted Irving spent much time there.

Only the lights of the foyer and study were on, leaving the rest of the house bathed in an eerie but strangely vibrant blue twilight. The smothering darkness was making Sao lightheaded. It was only three in the afternoon.

“Uh, hey, the shed is out this way,” Irving said with a nervous grin. His teeth were pearl white.

Sao blinked out of the trance that had taken him toward the middle of the house and allowed Irving to reroute him back out the front door. Rai and the accompanying officer had already finished their introductions and gone ahead to check on the blood that had put Irving on alert. Supposedly - the man seemed calm now.

Irving’s back lawn was smaller than Marsh’s, but surrounded with an unnervingly high fence, forming a basin which was quickly filling with snow. “Sorry,” Irving called out. “I haven’t had time to shovel. My folks bought me this place when I was still getting my degree at Murnau but I didn’t end up working in the area. They didn’t stop to think that I might not be a student forever.”

“Can’t imagine it,” Rai said drily. “Are you going to join us?”

“You don’t need me getting in your way.” Irving had not come out with them and had instead wandered through his house to observe proceedings from a back window. So he was more worried than he looked, or more cowardly. “Is the door still - er - rattling? You can break the lock or window if you need to. Shoot it off, or whatever.”

The raised window lowered a little in anticipation of a shot that never came. After counting up the blood drops on the step, and trying to see anything through the small porthole crusted with grime, Rai gave the door a tap. It creaked open.

A widening beam of light fell across the far wall. There was a glint of dirty metal, the thump of weight on wood.

Rai jolted back. A shadow leapt off one of the counters and flung itself at his legs. It swerved around at the last possible moment and plowed into the snow, coming to stop against a particularly hefty snowbank. All they could see was a long orange stalk poking out of the snow.

Two pointed ears emerged from the whiteness, along with two yellow eyes, bulging like marbles. The large cat took in its predicament with alarm and make another flying leap, landing in the snow again. Seeing this the only way out, the cat continued to spring along until it reached firmer ground by the fence.

“Chase!” Irving shouted, throwing the window open again.

“No thanks,” Rai muttered, hiding a smirk.

“That’s his name. He’s mine. You don’t have to go after him, he hates being inside anyhow.” Irving slumped down to the windowsill. “Well, don’t I feel ridiculous. He must have snuck in through the space under the shed. Or maybe the roof. I don’t know.” He seemed not to know what to do with his hands. It was a habit Sao had seen in Tinsel too. “I’m really sorry for the false alarm, officers.”

“But what about the blood?” Sao asked.

Irving shrugged. “Maybe it was from the previous owners. It’s just a lot more noticeable when everything else is white.”

Rai disappeared into the shed and reappeared holding a chainsaw. Everyone sucked in a breath.

“There’s no way this thing works,” Rai said, setting it down. Sao approached the machine as if it might spring to life of its own volition, but the cat would have been more of a threat. The plastic casing was cracked and the bar bent; the chain had come loose and most of the teeth were broken off, some so long ago that the stubs had rusted over.

From the wall hooks, Rai also retrieved a hacksaw, the rough brown blade snapped through, and a small axe with the wooden handle entirely rotted away. Lying flat on the counter was a pair of shears in only slightly more serviceable condition. Sao could still see a bit of metal on that one.

“A lot of the stuff there’s actually from the old owners,” Irving called out to them. “I don’t use anything in there but the mower.”

“I can tell,” Rai said, and attempted to test the shears. The hinge was so rusted they failed to close, by about an inch. He placed them on the floor with the rest.

Irving pushed himself off the windowsill and dusted his hands as if he’d been the one doing the inspection. “Alright, I’d offer you tea or coffee, but I have to prepare for my meeting.”

And they might have just walked out if the officer had not piped up. “Did your girlfriend call you back?”

“No. But since she’s not chained up in there with a lunatic or something, it’s not an emergency after all.” Irving laughed. “I remember she said she was grabbing lunch with her friends. That doesn’t happen a lot. They probably have a lot of girl talk to catch up on.”

“It’s Valentine’s, though,” Sao said. “You two didn’t have plans?”

“You’ve caught the Murnau fever, huh? I didn’t know for sure I was getting back today. And anyhow - Saki was never really into fake romance. That’s one of the reasons I like her.”

The humor of the cat and chainsaw had worn off and Rai’s frown was carved back in. “Your girlfriend is called Saki? Is she the one who works at the bar in the Atrium?”

“That’s a funny way of putting her job, but yes. You’ve met her then?”

“Yeah. We also saw her a couple hours ago at the school’s Valentines brunch.” Rai strode through the knee-high snow, up to the window, and pressed against the hedges so he could look Irving in the eye. “Working with Tinsel. That’s your ex.”

“Oh.” The window was slowly moving down. “Yeah, I dated Tin for my last year or so at Murnau.”

“Dated them both for a while, is the story.”

“Did Tinsel say that? Or Saki?” Irving sighed. “Look, I’m not proud of what I did. I was under a lot of pressure at the time too, finishing my thesis and all that. I cleared things up eventually. Saki was just the better choice, she has a better head on her, and she really listens. Of course, I still cared about Tinsel – is she still volunteering to do all those club events solo, getting dolled up and surrounding herself with mobs of drunk guys? I told her I didn’t like it, I knew something would happen to her eventually…”

“You saw the pictures on Neocam then.”

“But I never took part in anything. I’m telling you now, I never got off to that crap, and never wanted her to be one of them. Okay, so I cheated on my college girlfriend. Am I under arrest for that?”

“No. I just thought you might want to know, you were originally a suspect in a series of revenges made after she was attacked.”

“Attacked?” The window was almost shut, Irving reduced to just a voice drifting from within. Sao had to take a few steps closer to hear it. “I told you,” said the dark space, “I was never into that kind of stuff.”

Rai lunged over the hedge and grabbed the bottom of the window. “Sorry. One more thing.”

“God! I could have broken your fingers.”

“Why would Saki go help out at an event held by Tinsel? We heard Tinsel freaked out at your breakup, there’s no way they were friendly. Did Saki ever show remorse? Did you ever know her to do things for Tinsel like that, despite the lousy introduction?”

“That’s more than ‘one more thing’,” the disembodied voice complained. “I don’t know, maybe they made up? And you’ve got things backward - they didn’t meet through me - I met Saki at one of Tinsel’s cultural buffet things. Saki and Tinsel have been friends since they were freshmen.”

“Until you got between them.”

The bottom of the window was hovering over Rai’s outstretched hand. The fingers did not move, wrapped snugly in their glove. Stupidly, silently, Sao willed Irving to try; to lash out in front of a police officer and be put in his place. With all the aura in them, Rai’s hands were the one part of him capable of repairing in seconds, so it would be literally no skin off him.

But while Irving was an irritant, he was too civilized to be drawn into such a trap. “Alright, you can stay out there as long as you want. I really have to get to my meeting.” Sao saw his shape behind the glass float away from the window, leaving it open that small gap, with Rai’s fingers sitting on the sill below like a stubborn stain.

—

Naturally, Rai could not really stand clinging to Irving’s windowsill all day. When he peeled off, the first person he spoke to was the officer who would be driving them to their next destination; a lengthy back and forth. Then he turned to Sao and said only, “let’s go.”

Watching their backs in front of him, both on the street and from inside the car, Sao wondered if he was finally being shut out for his earlier idiocy. Or perhaps Rai was reluctant to tell him where they were headed, which in all likelihood was to the Alumni House barbecue. Sao couldn’t decide which was worse.

But instead, the officer let them out at the police station.

They were given one of the windowless interview rooms, and Jin was brought in. Before the door closed, Ayer breezed in behind him.

Rai gulped his way through a cup of the station’s instant coffee while the two arranged themselves in the chairs. “They’re just letting you roam freely?” he asked Ayer.

“I asked to be here. Jin’s fine with it.”

Jin just nodded. They were back to their old roommate routine, Ayer having the first and last say. But he kept his chair out to the side, there was no shoulder-grabbing and frog-leaping. And Jin had not yet found a replacement for his confiscated sweatshirt and was still bare-armed. The two facts might have been linked.

“Unless he wants me to leave, of course,” Ayer added.

Jin tipped his head up but didn’t look Ayer in the eye. “No, please stay. In case these guys try anything. There are cameras but, you know, I don’t think the ones in a police station are recording for my sake.”

“A second set of eyes and ears. That’s why you drag him around, right?” Ayer nodded in Sao’s direction.

Rai gave Sao an appraising look as if he had forgotten he’d brought anyone with him at all. “That’s fair.” He swiveled back to Jin. “I should warn you in advance that this might bring some trouble onto Tinsel.” He gave Ayer a moment to bristle, but there was no tangible protest. “I want to know about Saki’s involvement.”

“What about her?”

Ayer had looked on the verge of speaking, but with Jin’s question he shut his mouth.

“We’re going back a little in time,” Rai said. “You've been a friend of Tinsel’s since before college. You’ve been keeping an eye on her even since you guys had a falling out. Was that before or after Saki made off with Tinsel’s cheating boyfriend?”

Ayer couldn’t help himself. “Her what?”

“Saki is another old friend of Tinsel’s. I should have seen it when I heard Saki refer to her as ‘Tin’, like you do. We got confirmation from the boyfriend. Sorry, ex-boyfriend.” Rai flashed a curt smile at Ayer. “Apparently their break-up a year ago was messy as hell. Ayer was double-dipping and when forced to choose, he chose Saki. Tinsel got kicked out of the guy’s house with all the neighbours watching and had to make an urgent move into the Alumni House. Around the same time, Saki dropped out.” Rai tilted his head, wide eyes almost sympathetic. “I guess with those two at odds, you just drifted away. Did you think it was all too pathetic?”

“No. I just tried not to get involved. It was too… touchy.”

“Not a man of action, huh?” Rai sat back, arms folded. “Well, after what you did to Rip I guess that’s not entirely true. But what a coincidence, that makes you a group of three. There was a third person called to Triad’s office the night he disappeared. Someone who was let in.”

Jin might have been able to hold off Sao and Rai; he’d done so before. But the same pattern would repeat itself - it was Ayer’s curious stare that broke him. “We’ve known each other since middle school.” He shook his head. “Saki was always the one who stood up for us and handled any kind of trouble. I don’t know if you can tell, but her family’s actually loaded. She doesn’t like people to know, but everyone does.”

“Some kind of industrial farming corp, right?” Ayer asked.

“Think more like an empire,” Jin said. “They’re international. They even own one of the R Islands.”

“Let’s get back to Triad,” Rai said. “The Professor is still missing. And I’m pretty sure Saki was the one who helped you get the body out.”

“Body?” Jin shivered. “Did you find him?”

One of Rai’s monstrous glares had Jin locked, but Ayer’s eye strayed and caught Sao’s reaction. It wasn’t more than a small twitch, but he saw it and went pale. “You found him. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Rai frowned. “We haven’t found him yet.”

“Shit. Saki.” Jin pressed his arms against his sides to ward off the sudden chill. “I didn’t want to call her but Tinsel insisted. And Saki said she would take care of everything in her usual way. Like she already had a plan, maybe even knew that was going to happen way before it ever did. But I don’t understand what she did.” He unwound his long frame against the table, pushing it into Rai’s chest with his weight. “I know how convenient that sounds, that it was just her. But when I left the office, Triad was still there. And so were Tinsel and Saki.”

“Tinsel didn’t tell you what happened?”

“She said that she didn’t know.”

“How about Saki?”

“I never contacted her outside of that room. If something went awry with Triad, worse than what I already did, I don’t think she’d tell me anyway.” He shook his head. “Maybe they thought I couldn’t keep my mouth shut.”

Nobody had the heart to tell him he might be right.

—

While they walked, Rai laid out his theory about the trash can, the drop out the window, the dark alley, and the only way it would all have worked out. Sao didn’t seem too surprised to hear Triad might be dead, which was a relief. But then, he might have been distracted by the route they were taking.

“Saki isn’t a student anymore but everyone seems to just accept her, maybe because of the family reputation,” Rai blathered. “You should have seen Zed groveling... and get this, I check the video from the camera under the northeast arch from the night of Friday the 13th, and there were two different people shoving full-looking trash cans out onto the street.”

They sidestepped a throng of students headed into town. The pack slowed, dropped their voices to whispers. Were their stares drawn to Sao because pictures of the barbecue spill had hit Neocam, or was it the usual, mostly-innocuous admiration?

Rai cleared his throat. “One of the kids pushing the dumpster was swaddled up like our third man. Or woman, if it’s Saki. There were people drinking on the stairs under the arch both times and they kinda waved or overlooked the people rolling through.”

They were coming up under one of the archways into the school as he spoke. Sao was staring ahead, zombified. Rai took a few long strides to get in front of him, and stopped.

“We nee– I need to talk to Saki and Tinsel. I just want to check that you’re onboard.”

Sao blinked and smiled. Rai had seen it hundreds of times before; just a pretty, empty reflex. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“We’re going back to the brunch. Well, it’s more like a really late lunch now…”

“I’m not uncomfortable with that.” Sao’s smile softened, gaining back a drop of substance. “It would be hypocritical to let my personal mistakes stand in the way of an investigation.”

“Alright.” That sounded resentful. “That’s good.” Rai shut his mouth; nothing good was coming out of it.

Despite the snow the campus had never been busier. Hundreds of lines streaked over the white field in every direction and just as the tracks were filled in, another group would slash through. Death by a thousand cuts, Rai thought. Every ten seconds they passed by another cluster that suddenly went mute and slowed to watch them like drivers eyeballing a crash in the oncoming lane.

Sao ambled along like he didn’t have a care in the world.

But it wasn’t until they were in front of the Alumni House that Rai felt things were really alright. The brunch was over, and only Tinsel had stayed behind to clean up. The front door was propped open to let the smell out of the living room and Rai found her on her knees, scrubbing the stairs where he had slapped a burger into the lap of an unsuspecting student.

“I thought you’d be back,” she said, standing up. She was in the same orange party dress, but she shed the chunky cardigan so she could pull on elbow-length rubber gloves. Her hair was tied up in a high ponytail that looked like a miniature palm tree.

“Need any help?”

“No. We ended early, I have more than enough time.” She began lugging a huge trash bag toward the kitchen. “We ran out of burgers and everyone started to clear out.” She flung it at a mountain of identical bags which immediately began to tip. “It might not have been the burgers, to be honest.”

“Well, Saki did say the brunch would end when stock ran out.” Rai helped her steady the pile. “I’m here to ask about her, actually. I know she was the third person to enter Triad’s office last night. You called her for help and let her in, since she didn’t have a valid student ID anymore.”

Tinsel grabbed a broom and pushed past him out to the yard.

“Why did you call her?”

Tinsel began raking the floor around the tables with the broom, pushing fallen napkins and tableware into a corner. The scraping of bristles on tile in place of an answer set Rai’s teeth on edge.

“She was an old friend of yours, but also the one who more or less stole your boyfriend. And still you still ran to her for help, trusted her to clean up after you and Jin. A pretty good bet, it turns out. Triad’s gone and Jin doesn’t have a clue where. And I couldn’t tell you and her were ever friends at all.” He watched her bare shoulders turning white in the cold. “Where’s your jacket?”

“In the kitchen.” She forced herself to face him. “So you have this whole story written up in your head already. You don’t need me to tell you anything else. Why are you here?”

“Get back inside first. You’re going to catch a headcold.” He stepped away to make room, but she remained outside, unmoving. “I need to know what you and Saki did with Triad.”

“What she did. I don’t know.”

“That won’t do it. You were with her all day, and you didn’t think to ask her how she solved the big bulky problem you left for her in that office?”

“No. If she was going to tell me, she would have told me. Saki’s like that.”

“Like she told you that she was dating your boyfriend?”

She stood shaking in the cold like a withered shrub. The flapping tablecloths threatened to whip her away. The glass roof, heavy with snow, creaked. Feeling a little monstrous, Rai stepped back from the door again.

He saw Sao was in the kitchen. That wouldn’t have been overly strange if Sao wasn’t gripping a cleaver, pulled from the big wood block holder. He seemed to be checking his reflection in it.

The slap of Tinsel’s feet in slippers re-entered the house and Sao let the knife drop back into its slot. He stood, the brown cardigan in his other hand, and he held it out to her as she wandered in, looking lost. She gave him a look that was almost tender and took it, wrapped it around her.

“I’m really sorry about today,” Sao said.

“Saki was the one who told me that Irving was two-timing me,” Tinsel said, standing in the corner with the bags of trash, so nobody else would have to. “It doesn’t change that she was seeing him for so long behind my back. But sometimes, you have nobody else to rely on.”

“You could have called an ambulance for Triad.”

“And not even try to help Jin out? They would never forgive me. Neither of them.”

“All three of you were already on bad terms thanks to Irving. It took a damn criminal incident to patch things up.” Rai couldn’t keep the strain off his throat. “Why did you decide you needed people like that to forgive you?”

“I think of something I learned in a class once: sunk cost.” Tinsel dribbled out the words, her own throat audibly tightening in immediate regret. “She’s my oldest friend. I met her in the first grade. She always seemed so… together. Do you have anyone like that?”

“No,” Rai said.

Sao didn’t say anything, but he wasn’t smiling anymore, either. Rai had no doubt who surfaced in his mind when he heard Tinsel’s description.

“She didn’t say anything about Triad. And I really can’t imagine how she would have gotten him out of that building without being seen,” Tinsel murmured in a voice so faint Rai had to step closer to hear, which only made her try to shrink herself further into the pile of crinkling bags. “If you’re here, then you don’t have proof, do you? Why don’t you just ask her what happened yourself? The Atrium should be opening for dinner soon. She’s always there.” Her eyes were glazed with tears. “She always is.”