Laith awakened with a gasp, leaping up in an effort to distance himself from the nightmare that had caught him in its insidious snare, wrapping itself around him until finally he had not been able to breath or speak or do anything but pray for it to end. And it had, eventually.

“Bismillah,” Warda’s voice said, slightly startled. She was just settling into her desk, her jacket hung on the back of her chair and her purse on the smooth table. Her eyes, round with worry, watched him from across the room. “Are you okay?”

Laith took a moment to adjust, tugging at his crumpled up shirt in an attempt to fix it. “Yeah,” he said groggily. “Bad dream, that’s all. I think it’s just all the stress of this case. It’s getting to me.” He didn’t even remember what the dream had been about; just that it had scared him, and he’d been conscious for the last part of it.

Warda pulled a fabric lunch bag out of her purse and set it on the table. “Nothing that a good breakfast won’t help with,” she said with a warm smile, and he moved to take the breakfast gratefully, opening the bag to find a bread and cheese sandwich wrapped in a hand-sewn napkin and a boiled egg in a small cylindrical bamboo container. A bright yellow vacuum flask of hot tea stood alongside them. His stomach growled in approval, and he took a seat on the sofa again, digging into the sandwich with its thick and delicious Edam cheese slices, though not before giving her a thankful kiss on her cheek.

“You look like you need some more rest,” his wife told him, her chin resting on her palm as she watched him scarf down his breakfast hungrily. “You need to take better care of yourself, you know. Try to make it home tonight, okay? Oh, and before I forget, I also brought you a change of clothes, so make sure to get changed. We have showers, too, if you want to wash up.” As she spoke, she pulled out a familiar indigo shirt – which he’d made himself, and was very proud of – and a pair of pants he’d had a seamstress make the year before.

“Thank you,” he said, feeling extremely fortunate to have such a caring person to share his life with. “Is it okay if I stay here until Lockwood wakes up?” he asked. “I want to be the first to speak to him – any information he might have may be extremely important.” That was true, but there was also another reason he didn’t want to go back to the Heliopolis PD’s headquarters: Captain Fox was not going to be in any better a mood today if it was true that higher-ups in the chain of command were breathing down her neck about the case, and he didn’t need her intense glare and direct questions right now. He was onto something, he was sure, but he wouldn’t know exactly what it was until he spoke to Aster and tried to get everything to make more sense.

“Sure,” Warda said, checking the time on her watch, which was powered purely by body heat. “I have to go now, though. I have some rounds to make, patients to check in with. Are you going to be okay, or do you need anything?”

“No, I’m good,” Laith said lightheartedly. “Go do your job and save lives, Dr. Daher. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“In that case, I won’t,” she replied with a wide smile. “You just make sure you’re home in time for dinner this time around, and I think we’ll be fine.”

Left to his own devices, Laith locked the office door and quickly got changed, folding his shirt and pants and leaving them on the sofa to take home later. Then he took a moment to wash up in the bathrooms before returning to Warda's office to complete the morning prayer - as well as the evening prayer he'd missed the night before - using the prayer mat his wife kept in her office. It came as a welcome moment of peace, a much-needed balm for his spirit, and when he was finished, it was back to work again.

He’d learned yesterday that PATET had also detected Aster Lockwood a couple of hours before Warda had called him with the news. If he’d checked all of his notifications – which he had meant to do as soon as he was seated in his office and ready to face the day – he would have known about the man’s presence in the hospital, either way. But that wasn’t what concerned him.

What concerned him was the fact that PATET recognized Aster Lockwood – something he’d completely overlooked in his exhaustion the night before. This man had been recognized as Lockwood. Not the one in the photograph. His fingerprints. Which meant that Aster Lockwood couldn’t possibly be the one whose fingerprints were on the murder weapon, because PATET would have recognized them, even retroactively, assuming that it was possible to erase someone’s fingerprint identification and then reinstate it at a later time. And so it left little doubt in Laith’s mind that Lockwood did not kill his wife, despite how cold as their relationship seemed.

Well, maybe. He’d have to ask someone about the whole retroactive recognition thing, but he was pretty sure he’d heard about it in one of his school lessons about PATET. Everyone studied the main elements of the system in broad detail in school, and he’d been no different as a child. Some even went on to do specialized studies in PATET and what it entailed – and many of those followed the path to PATET HQ. Whoever wasn’t taken was still knowledgeable enough to be hired in other cities, trained to work with other systems. But Laith hadn’t specialized. He’d only learned what everyone else knew, and it had been so long since he’d needed to recall that information that he wasn’t entirely certain his memory could be trusted. Maybe Haize could give him some more insight, if he got the chance to speak with her again.

Besides, with Captain Fox’s insistence that he get his hands on a suspect as soon as humanly possible and find the killer – two things that he was beginning to feel she thought of as synonymous – Laith was concerned that despite his potential innocence, Lockwood might go down as his wife’s killer regardless. Unless Laith found evidence pointing to the opposite.

No pressure whatsoever.

But it didn’t change that something strange was going on with him, and Laith’s gut instinct told him to keep picking at it. He was on the verge of something groundbreaking. He knew it. He just needed to keep digging, keep working on it. Whatever it was, it was something huge.

☀️ ☀️ ☀️

It was about an hour after he’d woken up that Warda returned to her office with the news. Aster Lockwood was awake – and coherent. Coherent enough to maybe answer questions.

That was all he needed to hear. Laith sprang into action and rushed to the secure room they were keeping Lockwood in, greeting the guards stationed outside with a quick jumble of words he’d completely forgotten by the time he was inside, the door closing silently behind him. Aster Lockwood was awake, and a nurse stood over him, checking his vitals on the monitor and jotting down some notes on a hand-held tablet. The notes, Warda had told him, were a backup measure in the off chance that PATET went offline for whatever reason, or in case there were errors in the data collection that human nurses and doctors could pick up on.

The nurse hardly looked at him as he came in, and he took a seat on an armchair that had been positioned just a few feet away from the patient’s bed, meeting the man’s curious but groggy gaze. Laith watched the man, took in everything he could about the man’s features, his behaviour. Despite being tired and weary, Aster Lockwood’s eyes held an alertness that reminded Laith of the look in Saba’s face when he heard something interesting but wasn’t quite sure what it was yet, frozen mid-motion, watching to see what might happen. Maybe Aster Lockwood was waiting to see what would happen to him here.

Stolen story; please report.

When the nurse finally left, Laith decided to get started, making sure his Slate was recording what might be his most important interview yet. “My name is Detective Laith Alazraq, from the Heliopolis PD. Do you know who you are?”

There was a small moment of hesitation, as though the man was considering his words. “Aster Lockwood,” he croaked at last. “My name is Aster Lockwood. But I imagine you already know that.”

“Yes, but you suffered a concussion, according to the doctors, and you weren’t very coherent yesterday,” Laith explained. “I just want to make sure you’re thinking clearly enough now to answer my questions. Do you know why I’m here?”

With a deep, resigned sigh, Aster nodded his head, his straight brown hair set aflame by the sunlight streaming in from the window curved above the head of his bed, the bright light making the strands almost looked red. “I think so,” he said, “but I can’t help you much, Detective. I don’t know who kidnapped me. I don’t remember much of anything.”

Laith had to keep his brow from raising. Kidnapped. That was new.

“Can you tell me what you do remember?” Laith asked curiously.

Aster Lockwood cocked his head and leaned back, falling against the pillows. Above him, the curved glass window showed him the sky above, bright and blue and awe-inspiring. “I was leaving work,” he began, and his tone made it clear that he was trying to recall the incident. “I walked to my car, but when I got there… That’s really all I remember of that moment. I guess someone attacked me, probably from behind. Never saw them coming.” He shook his head, still staring at the sky, the sun now throwing a rectangle of light on his legs, covered by the thin hospital blanket. “They must have got me good, because I don’t remember much of anything at all after that. Flashes here and there. A dark room, I think. There was food and water – I figure I must have eaten or drank something, or else I wouldn’t be alive now, several days later. I just don’t remember doing any of it. It’s all a haze.”

He turned his head, meeting Laith’s inquisitive gaze again. “I remember a locked door, though. I couldn’t get it open. In my mind, it feels like I was there forever. I don’t remember how many days, exactly, and I didn’t know for sure until the nurse told me what day it is today. Whoever it was that took me was keeping me alive, but I have no idea what they wanted out of me.” He inhaled, as though to add something else, but thought better of it, closing his mouth shut for just a moment before continuing. “I’m not sure… I can’t tell how I got out, in the end. I just did. That’s all a haze, too. I must have stumbled my way to the hospital.”

“Do you have anyone who might want to harm you?” Laith asked.

Aster Lockwood seemed to find the question somewhat amusing. “Well, I have a lot of competitors, but I’d like to think they’re above kidnapping me to get me out of the picture,” he said, then seemed to remember something. “Have you spoken to my wife?”

Laith leaned back, clasping his hands together. “Mr. Lockwood, in truth, I am not here because of your kidnapping,” he admitted. “Well – your disappearance has been of great concern, but my main priority is something else. I am a homicide detective. On the day that you went missing, Ms. Cassia Grove – your wife – was found murdered in your home. That is what I am currently investigating.”

The color drained from Aster Lockwood’s face. “What are you talking about?” he asked, almost choking in the process. “Cassia was killed? By who?”

“That is what I am trying to find out,” Laith replied. His shock seemed real, but it came with something else – something that unsettled Laith. As if there was a kind of… recognition in the news. Something not entirely expected, but not entirely unexpected, either. “Did your wife have any enemies?”

Lockwood hesitated for a moment before shaking his head. “No, I don’t think so,” he said, his eyes shifting away. “Not that I know of.”

Something told Laith that Aster Lockwood was not being completely honest with him. His instincts were screaming at him, but he could also see that the man was keeping something. Either he was horrible at it, or this was something that had caught him so off-guard that he wasn’t prepared to face it. Whatever it was, Laith resolved himself to keep digging until the man told him what he knew.

“But you do have enemies,” Laith said. “You might not know who they are, but someone was ready to hit you over the head and lock you up somewhere, and probably for a reason. It’s possible whoever did that to you also attacked your wife.”

“It must have been just some criminal,” he muttered quickly, looking up at the sky. “Just some guy looking for some easy money. Maybe they were going to hold me for ransom.”

“Would your wife have paid the ransom?” Laith ventured.

Narrowing his eyes, Aster Lockwood glared at Laith, his gaze challenging. “What is that supposed to mean?” he demanded. “What are you implying?”

Laith held up his hands. “Calm down, Mr. Lockwood,” he said patiently, noting his defensive tone. “I’m not trying to insinuate anything. I simply have to ask all of the pertinent questions. If someone was going to hold you for ransom, I imagine it’s your wife they’d contact, isn’t it?” Lockwood didn’t respond, and Laith continued. “If it was your wife, then what would have had to happen for her to get murdered so soon after your kidnapping? Maybe she didn’t want to pay, and whoever it was that attacked you also attacked her.”

Lockwood seemed to release some of the tension in his muscles as he considered Laith’s words. “Maybe something went wrong,” he admitted grudgingly. “Cassia and I had our problems, but she wouldn’t have withheld ransom money. We’re partners, after all. She wouldn’t let them do this to me. Maybe she thought they were bluffing. Or maybe they wanted too much, and she couldn’t get it to them.”

Laith studied the man in the bed carefully. He was readily going along with his theory, which was somewhat surprising. How did he know it was someone who’d held him for ransom, in the first place? That hadn’t been established. It had been a suggestion – his own suggestion, come to think of it – and yet here he was, speaking as though that had always been the case. That, in and of itself, was telling. Laith figured that Lockwood was probably hiding something, and he was trying to throw Laith off the scent by leading him astray.

He’d also noted how Lockwood had spoken about his wife. The two of them were partners. The way he’d said it, Laith didn’t get the implied “romantic partners” – only partners. It felt… Sterile was a word that came to mind. Bland was another. As if they were partners in a group project, or partners at work. Not lovers, or a couple, or husband and wife. Lockwood’s tone had kept it all very matter-of-fact. But it wasn’t an observation he could use. It was more perception than anything else, and Laith couldn’t trust that his own biases against the man weren’t at work, readily painting the picture for him. After all, he had read the messages between Lockwood and Grove on her Slate. He’d made a pretty solid picture of what their relationship was like back then. Maybe that was bleeding into how he perceived Lockwood now.

“Tell me, Mr. Lockwood,” Laith said, changing tactics completely. “I was looking into your profile and information on the PATET databases recently, and there seems to be a bit of an interesting... anomaly there. Photographs missing before a certain date. Would you happen to know anything about that?”

Lockwood retained his pale pallor, and Laith noticed that by now his brow had excreted a thin sheen of sweat. Pressing his lips together, Lockwood shook his head. “I can’t say that I do,” he said. “It’s probably just some kind of glitch, right?”

“Perhaps,” Laith said, nodding. “But there have been some other issues related to your identity. Someone else was recently identified as Aster Lockwood, too. Someone who looks nothing like you.”

At this, the man’s face positively blanched. This time he said nothing, though Laith could see his hands ball into fists under the covers, the tension once again returning to his body so that he lay rigid like a statue. The minutes passed. Clearly, Lockwood had no intention of telling him anything more, despite his evident fear.

“Mr. Lockwood, please understand. Your wife has been murdered, and I have found an alarming set of discrepancies related to your identification. That, along with the fact that your Slate places you at the crime scene at the time of the murder itself, places you in a very difficult position.” Laith watched the man as he spoke, trying to see whether he was ready to crack or not. “It’s obvious you know more than you’re letting on, which also doesn’t bode well for you. Tell me what you know, and perhaps it can exonerate your – provided that you are, in fact, innocent.”

“You think I killed Cassia?” he demanded, sitting up quickly and turning his body to face Laith. “You think I killed my wife?”

“I think that it could be seen as a very real possibility,” Laith said.

“I didn’t murder her!” Lockwood all but yelled, his voice a half-growl of desperation. Whatever thin veneer of control was finally cracking, and Laith could see it in his eyes. “I wouldn’t kill her. If anyone killed her, it’d be that bast--” He cut himself off with a start, his eyes widening. His eyes fell to Laith’s Slate, still recording, and he seemed to reconsider his words. “I didn’t kill her,” he muttered, deflated, and his voice trembled slightly, his dark eyes staring at the floor. “I didn’t do it.”

“You are withholding information, Mr. Lockwood,” Laith said curtly. “I should warn you, that doesn’t bode well for you, either.” When the man didn’t respond, choosing instead to cross his arms and look away, Laith heaved a sigh. “Well, then, the least you can do is tell me what you know about Invidia.”

At this, Lockwood’s head swiveled around again. “What did you say?”