Kai spent the next morning with the twenty-year-old photograph flat on the kitchen table.

A moment long from before gates and classes and systems had existed. Back when the city had been just a city, and the people in it had not yet been assigned numbers.

He moved through the faces one by one. People who had been important then, some of whom were still important now, some of whom were dead, and some of whom had left the city. He noted the ones still present and still reachable.

Then he looked at Adrian standing at the edge of the frame, watching. Everyone else in the photograph looked like they belonged there. Adrian looked like he wasn’t surprised to be there.

Mina came into the kitchen with a yawn. She greeted him before pausing and then tilting her head at the photo.

"That guy looks creepy."

"Which one?"

"The one standing at the edge."

Kai looked down, and she had pointed at Adrian.

"That’s true... Does he look out of place?"

"More than out of place, he looks fake." Mina said with a shiver before heading to the coffee machine. "Oh, are you still not touching any dungeons till Sera is fine?"

"Sera is almost fine. The hospital is making her stay longer than she should."

"So once she is fine, you plan to–"

"No, all the C-Rank dungeons don’t come back for another week and two days."

"Ahh, that’s true. And you guys don’t gain much experience from D-Ranks or lower." Mina said as she started making the coffee.

He slowly nodded before folding the photograph and leaving.

...

The construction company was in the western district.

One of the surviving businesses from the photograph, still operating, still owned by the same family. The man who had been in that photograph was in his sixties now, successful enough that his office was on the top floor of his own building with a view of the city he had spent decades building things for.

Kai did not go through the front entrance.

The stealth cloak settled over his shoulders, and the world adjusted around him, not ignoring him exactly, just sliding its attention elsewhere. It was not perfect invisibility. It had never been. But against ordinary people in ordinary spaces, it was more than enough.

He went in through a side entrance, past the reception area, past two conference rooms with their doors open, past an assistant who looked up from her desk and then looked back down without registering why she had looked up in the first place.

The owner was in his glass office, a phone to his ear, looking out the window at the city. Kai stood beside the wall and listened.

The conversation sounded like business for the first two minutes, but then the owner’s voice changed. "No," he said, his voice flat as his hand tightened around the phone. "I haven’t heard that name in twenty years."

Kai couldn’t hear the words. The owner never got a chance to interrupt.

"Yes... I’d like to keep it that way," he said, and ended the call.

The owner set the phone down.

Then he checked the office door and the window, like he expected someone to come through them. Only after that did he sit down again with a look like someone who had been reminded of something he wanted forgotten.

Kai memorized the reaction and left.

...

The retired city official lived alone in a small house near the river. Kai went through the front door on this one, no cloak. She answered after the first knock, a woman in her late seventies with sharp eyes and the straight posture of someone who had never entirely retired from paying attention.

She looked at him for a moment. "You’re younger than I expected," she said.

"Can I ask you something?" Kai said.

"You’re already here," she said and stepped back to let him in.

Tea appeared on the table between them through a process Kai did not observe. He opened the notebook, turned it around, and placed it in front of her.

One name.

Her eyes moved to it and narrowed immediately. She recognized the name immediately.

"That’s a name I haven’t heard in a while," she said.

"What do you remember about him?" Kai said.

She laughed, softly. "Depends on what you’re looking for."

Kai waited.

She looked at the name for another moment. "He knew everyone," she said.

"What does that mean specifically?"

"It means he knew everyone." She picked up her tea. "Every room that mattered. Every conversation that mattered. He was in them."

"What did he do?"

She looked toward the window. Thinking, or deciding how much of what she was thinking to say. "Whatever needed doing," she said finally.

Kai looked at her.

She looked back at him, and the humor that had been in her face when she opened the door was gone now. "You should stop asking," she said.

"Why?"

She paused before sighing and giving him a troubled look. "Because nobody who kept asking ever got answers," she said. "Even with your strength... You can’t catch someone who stopped leaving footprints twenty years ago."

The room was quiet after that.

She looked at the window while he looked at her. He thanked her and left with more questions than he had arrived with.

...

Back at the apartment, he spread his notes across the table. The photograph, the names, the companies, and the two conversations from the morning. The pieces were starting to fit.

His eyes moved to another name in the margin. Marcus Vale was a Business investor. Present in the photograph are three people standing to Adrian’s left. Still alive in the city, and currently in the northern district.

He circled the name. Then he went to sleep because the next morning was going to require his full attention, and his full attention required more than four hours.

...

The neighborhood felt wrong before he reached the house.

He could not name why immediately.

The street was quiet, and the houses around were all well-maintained. The front gate stood open by a few inches, as if someone had recently left. The mailbox was full of two or three days of uncollected mail.

Kai approached the front door and knocked.

But then the door swung open.

He was a bit surprised the owner didn’t lock the door, and then became suspicious as he stepped inside. He summoned Mirror Life and checked for life signatures.

There was none.

But that was the weirdest part.

Tempest Fang was summoned out of his inventory as he glanced around the house. The television in the living room was still running and displayed a broadcast he recognized from this morning’s news cycle.

A coffee mug sat on the side table near the pushed-back chair. Kai touched it and found it was still warm, like it was recently made.

He moved through the house and found a wallet on the kitchen counter. Keys hanging by the door, phone charger plugged into the wall with nothing attached to it, and medication on the bathroom shelf.

Everything a person needed was here.

Except the person.

Kai stood in the center of the living room and looked around. People did not leave like this, even if they were forgetful. Not unless they needed to make an escape or had been taken.

He left through the front door and knocked on the house next door.

An elderly woman answered. She looked at Kai and then at the house across from hers with the mild curiosity of someone who paid attention to her neighborhood.

"Do you know the man who lives there?" Kai said.

"Sure," she said.

"Have you seen him today?"

She nodded. "This morning."

Kai went still. "When."

She thought about it. "Maybe an hour ago. A little less."

"What happened?"

"Two men came," she said. "Black car and parked out front."

"Did you hear what they said?"

"No, I was inside. Just saw it through the window."

"Did he seem worried when they arrived?"

She took her time answering. "Not worried," she said. "Surprised. Like he wasn’t expecting them."

Kai thanked her and walked back to the street.

Sixty minutes before he arrived. Someone had come in a black car, and Marcus Vale went with them without taking at least his keys or wallet.

...

He was back at the apartment by afternoon, two hours before Mina or Leo would return home. He spread everything across the table and looked at it.

Three people are connected to Adrian’s photograph and their three different responses. It was fear, a warning, and now a person missing. He drew a line through Marcus Vale’s name.

Someone got to Marcus first.

Which meant they noticed Kai’s actions or always planned to deal with Marcus. The trail was moving. And for the first time since he found the photograph, Kai wasn’t sure he was the one leading the investigation anymore.