The scratching of Tristan's pen filled in the gaps between the ticking clock on the opposing wall. Time steadily nudged nearer and nearer to four o'clock, yet rest seemed more a faraway, impossible thing with every second that passed. He seemed to have moved beyond tiredness and into an attentive haze, one that sharpened his thoughts and spooled his mind out further.

The harsh amber of his desk lamp spilled over the scrap of paper and over his carefully-looped letters, casting it in a yellowed hue as if worn by age and not simply squares torn from various letters he had lying about. He liked that. Perhaps that was what the dark did: lend a mystical atmosphere to the mundane, filling the air with a distinctly enticing energy that gave life a little more meaning. Some part of him wished now that he hadn't turned the light on to view Seth's body, though he supposed that way he wouldn't have gotten to examine it properly. And the others were likely afraid of the dark, given how unadventurous people could be.

He finished with a swish of his pen and set it down, rising from his chair and adjusting the lamp to pan upwards as he skirted the corner of his desk. Its light now better illuminated the wall to the right, one previously left bare with chipped cream paint but now hung with a makeshift noticeboard, complete with wooden frame and wispy black fabric. He'd purchased it at a car boot sale specifically to fulfil a purpose like this. The pins hadn't come with it, but they were cheap enough. He swiped a yellow-capped one from their plastic container, pressed his paper scrap into the board, pierced it in place and then stepped back, sweeping his parted hair out of his face to admire his work.

Admittedly, there wasn't much to look at, but every investigation had to begin somewhere, and he did have a reasonable start. The suspects had names, occupations, faces, depth of personality and an ocean to explore within their eyes. Not every case had the luxury of that knowledge, he knew. It helped to know the game's pieces.

For ease of organisation and because he could think of no better way, he'd numbered them.

One was Constance Clark. He'd made note of her cross necklace, her nerves, the local university she had to be studying at. There wasn't much to write, but a lot to ponder about her.

Two was Otto Ratliff. Empathetic, he wrote, emotional, yet simmering with violence's potential fire. A danger.

Kordyn Jha and Quinn Fox occupied three and four respectively. The snarky computer scientist and the artist, the colourful wildcard. Neither of those he could read just yet, but they intrigued him.

And five.

He reached forward, fingers brushing the corner of his most recent pinned note before he pulled away again with a shake of his head. At number five, his own name stared back at him, and four o'clock in the morning wasn't a good time to analyse how he felt about that.

For completeness, he reasoned as he tidied the desk, nudged the stack of remaining paper squares into a neat pile, placed his biro pen in his stationary holder. It would be wrong of him to exclude himself. It would go against the pure, simple, factual mathematics of the situation.

His gaze snagged on another spot on his desk, one that now lay empty. The phantom tightness in his chest was oddly sudden and uncomfortably powerful, rendering the world around just slightly tilted, like some unreal hand of a deity had scored reality with a dirty fingernail and left a scar behind. It was insignificant, yet it consumed everything. He couldn't help but run a finger over the desk's wooden grain, inspecting its pad as if he expected to find a grey layer of dust, though of course there was nothing of the sort.

Dust had clogged the air of his office for a long time. He felt it every time he breathed, that twitching, jittery silence, that invisible crawling sensation of decay. An emptiness he had to fill with something, anything.

That was what that call had promised, after all. A freedom from the emptiness. Some work. He'd always wasted away when there wasn't work to be done, and there had been nothing for far too long.

That decaying dust tasted of failure, and he wasn't allowed to fail. He didn't fail.

His gaze drifted to the board again, the pins and the paper, and the briefest, tiniest sliver of a smile tugged at his lips. He wouldn't fail. There was a job to be done, a case to investigate, an office to properly dust, and a bed waiting for him in the next room. The latter could do with some attention.

He switched off his desk lamp and exited the room, soft footsteps echoing through crisp, clean darkness.

•┈┈┈••✦♧✦••┈┈┈•

Though yesterday's weather had hung grey and dark enough to be torn from the depths of winter, the sun beat down with forceful cheer this morning, as if it was convinced that glowing brighter now would cause everyone to forget its previous cowardice. Spring could be irritating like that: swinging one way then the next with very little warning. As yellow beams sliced over Moorwell's eastern rooftops, Tristan shielded his eyes and quickened his pace. The light was steadily spreading over his right side, kindling an unwelcome sticky warmth beneath his jacket.

What didn't help was the steadily increasing hum of noise. Moorwell itself was small and had its quieter spots, but it was after all a suburban town, and the thrum of car engines and screeching brakes that made up the morning's rush hour traffic filtered in the closer to the city's outskirts he got. Cities had a heartbeat, one that jarred with his own pulse, and an unclean breath that scratched at his senses. He inhales shallowly through clenched teeth, grateful at least that today's task didn't demand him to travel as far as the centre. The more intense a concentration of people became, the more they brought their filth and clamour and heat.

Yes, it was certainly a relief that the University of Huxholm's campus cowered in the suburbs, where there could be some scraped element of peace. He rounded a bend and came face to face with the old sandstone building.

At this time in the morning, gaggles of students spilled onto the walkway beyond the building that led to the other departments. Their chatter made Tristan comb his fingers through his hair, agitated enough to flick at his ear as if that would shove the bundle of voices away, though their crowded presences continued to swarm. Walking past this place always reminded him what a hell communal education had been.

He paused on the pavement opposite and watched. A double-decker bus pulled up alongside the main building, doors swinging open, a tap that poured another crowd into the sea of people. Colourful backpacks and elaborate hair ties and textbooks clutched to chests made up the noisy flow. Pushing his glasses up his nose, Tristan picked over each face, his agitation calming as focus imbued a cold steel in his veins.

He need not have tried so hard. Though she now wore a more casual combination of a long-sleeved white t-shirt and pastel yellow skirt, Constance stood out like the ghost he'd first labelled her to be, pale in both complexion and spirit. Her auburn hair washed down her back in flat, joyless waves. Her face was hidden from him, her focus on the blond boy that scurried a step behind her.

Tristan barely remembered to check the road before striding across. He held in a tense breath as the crowd drew nearer, voices cresting around him, and wove between them with precise purpose, ignoring the few halfhearted apologies of those who brushed past him.

He reached out a hand to tap her arm, but she'd already spotted him. She whirled, dodging the touch, her eyes widening to the shape of buttons. Whatever the other boy had been saying to her drained out of earshot from them both.

"Constance Clark," he began.

She worried her lower lip, silent. Her arms stuck out at stiff angles at her sides as if she'd been caught by an unexpected spotlight.

"I thought I might ask you some questions."

Before either she could reply or he could continue, the blond boy barged in from her side, throwing an arm out in front of her. "Oi. She ain't answering any of your questions."

Distaste spiderwebbed through Tristan. He drew back a little, fixing the boy with a stare. "I'm fairly sure she can speak for herself."

"Not to you." The boy lifted his chin, returning a glare of his own. He was, unfortunately, an inch or so tall enough to exert some kind of authority. Constance looked small and fragile beside him. "Get out of here, weirdo. Stay away from us."

"Jack," Constance urged softly, her voice hitching, clamped tight around the name. Panic still shimmered in her expression.

Jack ignored her. Without removing his intimidatory stare from Tristan, he snatched up her wrist and stepped aside, pulling on it. She gave way, head ducking to shield her expression from view. "Come on, Conny," he said, a firm bite to his words. "This guy won't bother you long as I'm around."

A protest rolled over Tristan's tongue, but the hum of muttering people around them coupled with the cocky gleam to Jack's eyes dried it beyond use. By the time he'd figured out what to say, the two of them were already gone.

Frustration performed somersaults in his chest, knocking his heart into a faster beat than he liked. He tucked his hands into his armpits with a strained sigh. Oddly enough, this truly had been a fitting reminder of school.

The crowd around him slowed to a trickle, then cleared the pavement entirely. This bus pulled away with a droning rattle. He stood alone in the resulting quiet, sifting through what to do next. He couldn't follow her into the campus without arousing suspicion, nor did he particularly fancy waiting for her to return and simply hoping Jack wouldn't be present. Maybe he'd started off too direct.

An amused snort broke into his awareness, and he realised with a shot of ice up his spine that he was being watched.

Lounging dead centre of a bench a few paces away, teal hoodie unzipped and splayed out either side of them, was Quinn. A digital tablet perched atop their crossed legs, and a smooth, metallic pen, coloured an unnaturally shiny maroon, was caught between their fingers, hovering just above the tablet's screen. Their smile was slanted as they met his gaze.

"You know," they said, pen bobbing up and down as they flicked it in his vague direction, "for a detective, it took you a disappointingly long time to notice me."

Suspicion bubbled to the surface of Tristan's thoughts. He moved closer to the bench, scrutinising Quinn. "Are you a student?"

"No, no." They clipped their pen to the side of their tablet and leaned back. "I was never the academic type."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"I like the crowds." There was a sly edge to their smile, as if they were aware that Tristan felt the exact opposite. "An artist has to observe. It's a good spot to draw." They propped up their tablet and spun the screen around to face him. "See? That's you."

Jagged pencil-sketch lines formed what Tristan assumed was intended to be a stylised version of his face, with wild brown hair sticking up at impossible angles and eyes coloured a shade too yellow. The mouth was little more than a single flat line, angled downward. His frown deepened. "That doesn't look anything like me."

Quinn mock-gasped. "Are you insulting my work?"

"You already insulted mine."

"Fair, fair." They flipped the tablet back around, tucking it in atop their knees. "You were doing a terrible job, though."

"I barely got to--"

"Harassing some poor shy girl seems like a bad idea to me."

"Shyness doesn't equal innocence." He threw a glance at the campus's opening, wondering again if there was some way he could slip in after her. "There's something not right about her."

"You're the expert, I suppose." With a shrug, Quinn dropped their gaze to their tablet. They tossed him a side-eyed glance, a poorly-hidden smile curling their lips, before their focus settled on swiping the screen. "Still, let me... Ah, yes." They cleared their throat. "Hey, what's the weather like today?"

Confused, Tristan opened his mouth to ask why they couldn't just look at the sky and get the answer for themself, but another voice cut him off. This one reverberated from the tablet itself.

"It is sunny today. Average temperature twenty-three degrees celsius."

It was female, unnaturally cheerful, monotone, and it sounded like puzzle pieces clicking together. Quinn's grin was jarring accompaniment. "Sound familiar?"

Rather than respond, he snatched the tablet from their hands, ignoring their squawk of protest. The purple flip case dangled as he tipped it onto its side to examine it. He peeled it away with a thumb and placed it on the bench's armrest, relaxing his grip to something more delicate once he held nothing but the shiny metallic slab of the tablet itself. He turned it so the screen sat against his palms and read the white inscription on its back, processing it, just in time for Quinn to leap up from the bench and lunge towards him.

He saw the attempt coming and yanked the tablet out of the way, spinning on his heel. "This is an interesting way to play."

"I do need that back." Quinn's indignance had a strained edge, just barely desperate.

"Are you admitting to making that call?"

"No!" They skidded in front of him, sweeping back dangling dyed strands of hair. A frown creased their rounded features, though they dragged back up their mocking smile soon enough. "Of course not. It's a clue, Triscuit. Get with the program."

Tristan bristled. "Do not call me that."

"What? It suits you."

He calmly dropped a hand from the tablet, holding it precariously with a few fingers. Quinn tensed. "Okay, okay, fine. Tristan, my good friend, would you hand me back my tablet and admit that my genius has helped you out?"

"Don't call me friend, either." Still, he passed it back; the leverage wasn't necessary. Quinn's lies were difficult to detect amongst their flamboyance and the masked sparkle in their eyes, but nonetheless he found no sign of one now. But that robotic voice the tablet spoke with was one he knew: it was the very same that had delivered those instructions by phone, shaping the promises that had paved his way to Seth's mansion, now spattered with blood. And now he had a new place to start.

Tigertronics, the tablet had carved into it in cartoonish lettering, coupled with the company's telltale white pawprint and gleaming with familiarity. He knew the name would be scribbled on his investigation board at home. It screamed the number three.

He needed to pay Kordyn a visit.

Chapter Wordcount: 2481

Total Wordcount: 11792

I had to give Tristan a dot board. He demanded one. And we have already begun collecting our dots!! Quinn is very cool for handing us one like that. Especially cool for letting me make Triscuit canon because that was necessary.

Oh and you know how some characters require a million years of research to name and some just waltz into existence in 0.2 seconds?? Yeah the latter was Jack. I put zero effort into him and tbh that's probably a good thing.

Anyway see you next time :D

- Pup