But the Atrium’s doors were locked, with a sign pasted up behind the glass saying they wouldn’t be open until six thirty. The bar and register were unattended and everything dark, except for the thin vine of holiday lights stuck up around the entryway, blinking with mock cheer.

“The Atrium closed early last night,” Rai mused. “And Saki was one of the first out the door. Lucky for her, she didn’t have to make any excuses to dash out.”

Sao was bunched into a chair opposite him, swiping at his phone. “She arrived within less than half an hour of Tinsel. She must have left immediately when called. Perhaps like Tinsel she had been longing to reconnect all that time…”

That was a pretty generous way of framing Tinsel’s logic, Rai thought. “Well, she paid back her debt in full for the boyfriend stealing debacle. Just – what the hell did she do with Triad?”

They had dropped in at the hospital for what would be lengthy additions to a series of letdowns. Rip’s condition had improved enough that he had both the strength and lucidity to reject any attempts to speak to him. Rai, having spent so much time in Mainline hospitals, managed to ‘casually’ saunter all the way up to Rip’s floor (despite Sao’s warnings) where he was spotted by Happy, who had apparently been playing watchdog all day. Happy called up a nurse with a grip like an industrial vice, who escorted Rai back to the lobby.

Sao had marginally better luck asking about stab wound victims who might have checked in in the last twenty four hours, but the luck was entirely that he didn’t get manhandled. There was no new information to be gleaned.

“She was aghast that I would even suspect such a thing might happen in Murnau,” Sao reported.

They were settled down in the waiting area by the entrance. A floor-to-ceiling grid of windows gave them a clear view of the parking lot and darkening sky, as well as any new visitors.

The town might not have been a hotbed of violent crime, but the hospital was still having a busy night. Ambulances went blasting past the front of the building every twenty minutes or so. Three people staggered in within the hour, visibly nauseous, and one had even puked while waiting for triage.

“Looks like students, huh?” Rai said. “Alcohol poisoning? Or maybe they ate something bad at the brunch. Do you think the patties were stale? The one I got was really wet. And last night, the waitress did say they were bringing the food to the Atrium because the fridge or oven or something was acting up at the Alumni House…” He grinned. “Maybe they just threw all the floor patties back on the grill?”

Color drained from Sao’s face. “You seem to be alright.”

“My stomach would absorb arsenic without complaint.” Rai realized too late that might not have been the best thing to tell someone who was feeling queasy. “What did you eat, in the end?”

“I didn’t eat anything but that walnut cake we shared, later on.” Sao crossed his legs and tried to relax a little in the hard plastic seat. “Did you find anything of our trio on Neocam?”

“Yeah, but there’s not much.” Rai took his phone in both hands, his filthy gloves lying on the chair bolted down next to his. “Tinsel’s the only one who seemed active online at any point, but it looks like her activity’s crashed in the last year. I got the feeling she deleted a lot of posts around then. There were a couple pictures of her back at home, with family and the like. Jin never posts, and I couldn’t find Saki’s account, if she has one.” He inspected his phone screen. That was getting pretty grimy too. “I did some searching for their names and they come up in the high school records for the same school. A town up in North Interstate - farming country. But not small town ranches and sustenance farmers. It’s zoned for huge factory farms. Like there’s this one facility with 200,000 cows, all packed together, no room to lie down or turn around. It looked pretty heinous. But that’s the kind of thing we’re talking about.”

Right on cue, another student entered - practically crawled - through the doors. Vomit crusted his chin. This one got to skip triage. A stretcher came rattling over, pulled the limp body aboard and rattled away.

Sao watched the stretcher disappear behind a pair of automatic doors and ran his hand over his face. It was something he didn’t do often, and he was pressing down under his eyes like he intended to strip off his delicately painted mask. Rai hoped he hadn’t caught some kind of regional flu instead of a simple cold. Some of the viruses that crossed the mountains from C-East were brutal.

He was wondering how to broach the topic when Sao spoke.

“Rai, I need a favor.”

“Anything?” Rai was unable to stop the end of the word flipping up in a question. The face that had surfaced after the savage massage was unusually sharp. He wasn’t going to be fed a platitude or a joke, and Rai hated how tense it made him.

But Sao remembered to smile. “Do you mind if we circle back, one more time? There’s some place I want to look at again.”

—

With roofs and cars all frosted and windows starting to light up, the neighborhood was looking painfully festive. The snow was thick but the wind was weak, so the flakes were falling in loose lazy swirls, building up evenly in piles against fences and hedges.

Rai admired a row of perfectly formed icicles attached to the gutter that ran around Irving’s roof. They caught the light from the house and sparkled like crystals in the darkness, an oddly satisfying piece of accidental decor.

A few feet down the street, Sao was sifting through a trash can.

Rai filled his lungs with crisp, chilly air and went to join him. “I can take over, or check some other cans. What are you looking for?”

“I’m not really sure yet.” Sao emerged with a plastic tray held cautiously between two fingers. “I’d like evidence of Triad being here, I suppose. But all I see are an awful lot of these plastic packages.”

Rai peeled off a glove and stuck it into the depths, holding his breath. The light of his hands glanced over what looked like a barcode attached to some wrapping, and he pulled it out. “Minced beef, one kilo. Sk___ Farms.” He dropped it back. “That’s Saki’s family company. Guess she has the connections to be supplying meat for the restaurant. And the barbecue.”

Sao dropped his tray back into the darkness too. “That explains why she was ready to end me for putting all the burgers to waste.” He turned to look at the house - Irving’s house - almost wistfully. He was about to go up and knock, but changed his mind. Swiveling back to the trash can, he grabbed the edge with both hands and flipped it on its side. It thumped softly against the snow, but Rai still took a step back.

Sao knelt down. “I need to make sure.”

A wave of plastic wrap and tissue paper splashed over the snow. Rai forgot to hold his breath and got a nose full of rotting beef and onions. And Sao was crawling around in the swill. “Okay, you need to tell me what we’re looking for,” Rai gasped. “Bloody towels? Arms in a bag?” He grabbed the now-half-empty trash can and heaved it back upright. No wheels on this one.

“I don’t know, but I do suspect something happened here. This is where Saki lives. If Triad was spirited away from campus as you described, then where else would she have brought him?” Sao stood, slipped a little and steadied himself against the trash can. His normally clear eyes were strangely frantic. Once again, they flashed toward the door. “You’re right.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“He’s evidently not in here.” Sao began picking pieces up and dropping them back into the can. “Unless his blood’s mixed in with this, but even then, it’s not enough to say…”

Rai almost gagged when Sao pulled up the front of his formerly-fashionable jacket to use as a pouch. He grabbed a razor-edged metal can away before Sao could jam it against his gut along with all the mincemeat packaging. “Take it easy. You’ve had a rough day.”

“I’m fine.”

Rai almost laughed. “You haven’t eaten anything, and you’re covered in hamburger grease and trash. On top of having a cold.” The can went clattering into the plastic bin. “Running around like a lunatic this isn’t going to force her to take you back, even if we crack the case.”

“Who?” Sao still had the front of his jacket full of trash, hands cupped around the load like a fruit carrier.

“What I don’t get is you going through this garbage.” Rai reached down to dislodge a wad of cellophane that had almost disappeared into the snow. There was a little red worm of meat still clinging onto it. “You think Triad’s dead. But then, why the rush?”

Rai had managed to suppress his laughter, but Sao didn’t, now. The laugh he tossed out was a harsh, spasming sound, completely humorless. “You’re the one who’s always telling me not to let things go so easily.”

Rai felt his face getting hot.

“What in the world are you doing?”

They both turned, a plastic tub flying loose from Sao’s makeshift sling. The front door was open and Irving stood in the doorway. He was dressed exactly as they had left him hours earlier, but with the tie loosened.

Sao dumped what he was holding into the trash and threw down the lid. “Mr. Irving, I was wondering if I could take a look at your kitchen?”

—

Despite the smell, despite the grease matting his wooly jacket into a solid slab, despite looking like he had been thrown in a blender, something about Sao would not let Irving say no. Rai followed them into the foyer, past the living room and into the kitchen, feeling like he was the one with the headcold.

It wasn’t unusual for strangers to assume Sao was the boss of their little arrangement. With his fitted jackets and ironed shirts, and typically impeccable grooming, he tended to look the professional one; the overseer, the supervisor. He preferred to let Rai correct any misconceptions, but keeping his mouth shut while the crony stuttered in protest only lent him even more authority. Rai had come to accept this. He could think of it as a trick they were playing, as a team.

To see Sao’s magic still worked without any of his usual neatness staggered him. Was a nice smile and the right tone really all it took?

Rai might have been compelled to throw himself into one of the dumpsters out of shame, if the first thing Sao went for was not the knives.

“I’m only looking,” Sao said, cradling the long thin boning knife like it was a living creature. “Mr. Irving – Saki hasn’t come by yet, has she?”

Irving was gaping at his handling of the knife from behind the kitchen island. “N-no. I still can’t seem to reach her.”

“The event she was helping to staff is over.”

“Maybe she’s over at her restaurant, then. She always seems to be there when she’s not at home.”

“She was the one who told you she saw Professor Triad, or someone who looked like him, lurking near the house last night.” Sao put the knife back and pulled out another. “You haven’t noticed any large objects moved into the house since you were last here, have you? Do you have a big icebox in the basement, or something similar?”

Irving laid his bulging eyes on Rai for comfort. Now that wasn’t something that happened often. “What does he think – does your partner think there’s a body in here?”

Rai didn’t bother to correct him. “It seems unlikely, but we’re making sure there isn’t.” For added reassurance, Rai went on, “You’d probably start to smell something if there was a body sitting around. Assuming it wasn’t in a fridge.”

“You don’t think Saki…?” Irving dove across the counter for his phone.

Having finished with the knives, Sao began raiding the drawers. His forehead was glistening, he was actually beginning to sweat. That afternoon was just full of aberrations; Sao didn’t like to sweat. It made his makeup melt. He also didn’t typically like touching things, but today he was touching everything, bringing cutting boards and forks and napkin holders right up to his face.

Sao picked up the sink drain cover, and put it back. “The smell. She was keeping meat here, but this isn’t the place.”

A sickening realization began to form in the pit of Rai’s stomach.

“Right, she prepped some patties for the Valentine's thing here,” Irving said. “We always have so much extra beef. She gets bulk discounts from her folks. The supermarkets just drop off crates of the stuff.” His smile dissolved when he stared at the dead screen of his phone. “You don’t think Triad got her, do you? Oh god, and I told her she was seeing things when she mentioned him. You don’t think he broke in and killed her…?”

“No,” Sao said. “I don’t think there’s anything that indicates someone was killed here.” He slowly slid a glance at Rai. Maybe he sensed Rai was picking up on his hints. Or maybe Rai’s face was going green.

“Outside,” Rai said. “We should check the shed again.”

They padded out the door and around to the back. Once again, Irving opted to watch them from his back window. The going was slow; the snow in the yard was up to their knees. Rai led the way, punching a trench out for Sao. He was only vaguely aware of the icy water soaking into his pant legs.

He pushed open the door to the shed as far as it would go. The saws, the axe and the shears were exactly where he had left them. He picked up the chainsaw first and it knocked all the others askew, and then he saw it.

Hefting the decrepit pair of shears, Rai looked under them, then held the hinge under the flashlight of his phone. “Hey, hold this.”

Sao did so. His grip was shaky. Was he getting tired? Rai cursed him silently, then cursed himself for not seeing the truth sooner. He couldn’t bring himself to scream at Sao for withholding such a theory. He wouldn’t have wanted to believe it; at the same time the nauseating possibility must have been cooking his assistant’s brain into mush. And it showed.

Rai managed to surface a half-used pack of tissues from his jacket and whipped out one sheet to run over the floor. Not enough. He turned to Sao, and gave the blades a light wiping. Of course, he was left with a line of rusty powder, but mixed into that–

“Blood.” Rai held it out for Sao to see. “I saw a drop on the floor where the shears were. Still a little gooey, so I’m guessing this is recent. Not some remnant of the old homeowner after all.”

Sao leaned close enough to smell the oil on him. “But who’s blood is it?”

“It’s suspicious enough that we can take it to get tested. We can let Irving know, I doubt he has any urgent need for these things.”

Sao tried feebly to push the shears closed. “These don’t seem usable at all. I doubt they’d even cut grass.”

“That clipper’s the most functional thing in here, though.” Rai looked over the useless collection on the floor. An axe without a handle. chainsaw without a chain or a saw. “If you urgently had to take apart a body, you might try. Just touching the rust could draw a little blood. But like you said - nothing in here was going to cut through anything.” He spread his hands wide. “So there was no more blood than what we see now.”

Sao lowered the shears until they scraped the ground.

“There’s nothing here, or in the kitchen, that could really take apart a body.” Rai dropped his voice to a murmur. “You were looking for body parts in bags, weren’t you? In a way.”

Sao didn’t respond.

Rai folded his arms and looked over Sao’s shoulder. The window was open wide, Irving had his head protruding out. Rai lowered his voice further. “You remember last year, when we were at that food convention with Trae and watched that eating contest?”

“I do. The burgers were sabotaged.” Sao winced. “With glass shards.”

“And rat poison, don’t forget that. We might have a similar case on our hands.”

Did Sao’s face light up, or was it just the night lamps buzzing to life?

“But you were thinking that already, weren’t you? Back then, we found a lot of revealing stuff in the trash.” Rai paused, tilted his head, but even in better light Sao’s expression remained ambiguous. “Also, for that case, the burgers were prepared in one place and tampered with elsewhere.”

“I looked over the Alumni House’s kitchen.” There was definitely a more comfortable cadence to Sao’s voice now. And his usual courtesy was back in place. “I suppose I wasn’t very thorough.”

He suddenly looked very tired, and weirdly vulnerable, despite the bloody shears in his hands. All the grime and strain of the day seemed to catch up with him at once and Rai thought he would collapse.

“It was too small, though,” Sao said. “Small and there wasn’t enough blood, in any of those places, to indicate any… any preparation happened there. Not with someone the size of Triad.”

Snow was beginning to push its way into the shed. Rai wondered where the cat was. He also wondered how Tinsel was faring, how much she knew. He wondered about Triad.

“The burgers passed through one more kitchen that we know of,” Rai said. “It’s time to talk to our favorite third wheel.”

—

Rai called a patrol car to take them back to town, along with their rusty piece of evidence.

The Atrium was open for dinner, with a Valentine's special offer of free-flow wine. The staff were getting in on the fun. A bottle of white was being passed back and forth between three waiters at the bar. The customers around them didn’t seem to care. The mood was light as feathers, the chatter loose and easy.

At the end of the bar, Saki’s stool was empty.

Rai leaned over the counter to make sure she hadn’t ducked under when she saw them coming. When Dee sauntered behind the bar to help himself to some of the communal bottle, Rai slapped the counter to get his attention. “Where is Saki?”

“She didn’t come in today.” Dee’s entire head was tomato red.

“But she was with you all at the brunch. Can you call her?”

“We have a group chat. I’ll get someone– hey!” Dee waved to a group of equally tipsy waiters who were returning from the dining room with orders. “Can someone message Saki?”

“Why don’t you do it yourself?” Rai hissed. All Dee did was look mortified. Rai groaned and pulled himself off the bartop. “Can we just talk to your manager, or something? This is pretty important. She might have been involved in a serious crime.”

The Atrium’s circular lobby went silent. Rai was thrown back to the night, the night when Ayer had performed his hideous, overblown ritual on Ace. The photo had been sent out, and had filled the stuffy room under that pathetic cobweb-like ceiling window with infectious, useless silence. And he had caught a whiff of blood over Saki’s shoulder and was infected right along with them. Now here they were.

Or weren’t, in her case.

The sight of the empty stool burned itself into his retinas. She had never provided any kind of service while sitting there bent over her phone. As the heiress to a global factory farming empire, she didn’t have to worry about a crummy waitressing gig. But why would she have taken on the job in the first place?

It was Irving, of all people, who came to mind. He said Saki would be at her restaurant. Irving wasn’t such an adoring boyfriend that would just credit her like that on impulse.

“You boss,” Rai said slowly, “isn’t here. Because Saki is your boss, isn’t she? What the hell? Does she own this place?”

Dee nodded, the redness subsiding with relief that Rai was finally catching up with everyone else without help. “Her dad and her own half each. She’s not that bad–”

“That’s why all of you are always kissing her ass.” Rai leered and Dee went quiet. “And let me guess, she’s the one who suddenly decided you were closing early yesterday.”

“Well, yeah. She was busy with the Valentine’s stuff, and she’s helped at events in the past,” Dee said quickly. “It’s not that outrageous. It was a student thing; she was helping a friend at the school.”

“But two things have changed since last year. She’s not a student anymore. And her relationship with the girl who hosted the event, that ‘friend’, was in the shitter thanks to a cheating boyfriend.” The hard rock of disgust in Rai’s stomach had rematerialized with a vengeance. "Was anyone else here last night when the preparation for the barbecue happened, or did she mysteriously volunteer to take it all on herself?”

“She didn’t want to stress any of us out, it was a last minute decision.”

“Of course it was.”

Dee reached for the bottle, shaking his head. The rest of him was shaking pretty bad too. “I don’t get it. What do you think she did? What can we do now?”

Sao, who had been waiting patiently for the moment to strike, finally did so. “We’d like to have a look at your kitchen.”