“Hello?” A young lady asks, partially opening the door. “If you’re here for my parents, they’re currently at work.” She says cautiously.

“I am looking for a Marianne Sullivan, in regards to a case involving Briar Shore,” Siyu responds with a slight bow.

“Ah! I’m Marianne Sullivan. Are you with the city guards?” Marianne asks, opening the door.

“I’m from a military branch in charge of investigating the case involving Briar Shore. My name is Siyu Grey; a pleasure to meet you.” Siyu says, reaching out for a handshake.

Marianne quickly shakes Siyu's hand before saying, “Please, come in.”

…

…

“Briar? I guess you could say he was… ambitious? He would never admit it, but he wanted to be the best in everything he set out to do. That’s why he worked so hard. Chess, singing, his grades; he worked as hard he could for the things he wanted… even me...” Marianne says with a smile tinged with melancholy. “I got to know him through the Chess Club, and he bothered me for months, but I never accepted his advances. Before I said yes to going on a date with him, he told me, ‘Until you give me a reason to, I won’t stop chasing you.’ I thought it was kind of romantic in a funny way, so I said yes, and everything was great. We got along great and he made me happy. But it wasn’t long before he started to drift away, which I could understand because he was involved in a lot of school activities, but… for some reason, it just felt like he was done; like he did what he set out to achieve, and was now focusing on other things. I confronted him and told him that this wasn’t how relationships worked, but it seemed he wanted to shrug me off. He told me that he would see me later that night and we would talk, but… that’s when…” Marianne says, trying to continue with tears streaming out of her eyes.

Siyu hands Marianne a handkerchief, fully feeling the bitterness of how this story ended.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

After a moment, Marianne comes back to the present and says, “I’m sorry. If there’s anything else you needed to know, please ask.”

Siyu's eyes focus, trying to process the details of the story, before asking, “When Briar said that he would see you later; describe the scene to me. Where you were, who was there, or any objects that you noticed; please.”

Marianne takes a moment to remember before attempting to describe the scene, “We were in the student council office. The Treasurer and some people I don’t know were there…”

Siyu watches as Marianne tries to remember anything else, before asking, “Any objects?”

“Hmm…” Marianne hums, before saying, “One of the people nearby was holding an envelope. But I’m not sure how that’s important.” Marianne says, before giving up. “That’s all I can remember.”

Siyu looks down, thinking of his next step. Nothing is clicking, Siyu thinks to himself. Nothing comes to mind; no pushing or pulling. Siyu decides to give up and says, “Thank you for your time, Marianne. I’ll be in contact if I need anything further.”

…

…

“What did you learn?” Siyu asks, taking a sip of tea.

“Not much. If the textile factory owner was worth killing, the only reason I could think of is that he was a blatant liar to his loom workers.” Frey says, setting his cup down with slight annoyance. “He would promise all his workers promotions in return for working extra hours, and after multiple years of working, all they managed to achieve was maintaining the status quo. But it was not long ago that the workers discovered that the owner had, at least at one point during their stay there, tempted each of them with a promotion in exchange for working longer. What an asshole.” Frey says dismissively.

“And you?” Siyu asks Elizabeth.

Elizabeth sets her cup down and answers, “It was quite a sad story. The gambler used to be a teacher but lost his job. He mostly did manual labor after that, but he struggled to keep those jobs too after asking for too many pay advances. He’s been gambling much of what he’s earned, leaving his family to deal with it. One day he left his house, telling his son and wife that he would buy breakfast, but he never came home."

Siyu takes another sip of tea as his mind ponders the connections.

…

…

The next day, Siyu went on to learn the story of the city guard’s wife.

The man sobbed, struggling to tell the story. “She was acting strangely during the last few weeks before the incident. She was going out with her friends more often and would come home later than I would. She said she was looking for work but I’d often find that she came home with the slight smell of alcohol. I told her to stop hanging out with her friends so much if all they did was get drunk but she told me it was fine. One day, we were supposed to go out on a date but hours after coming home from work, she never showed up. I went to find one of her friends to look for her, but she wasn’t there. Her friend told me that she’d most likely be at the Night Light Inn and that she has been spending a lot of time there recently. That’s where… that’s where they found her body. My co-workers were already there investigating the issue when I arrived, and even Councilperson Seizi was gracious enough to become involved, but then, the murderer targeted him too. Councilperson Seizi was found dead a day later.”