“Alright. Thank you.” Atreus heaves a sigh of relief after finally receiving trustworthy confirmation. “Would you like me to send the picture to your burner? Just in case?”

“No, don't send anything from your normal phone to either of the burners,” Edward quickly and firmly shuts down the suggestion. “One thing that Billy was really pushy on was keeping our 'digital footprints' to a minimum. That's why he wanted to hand-deliver the USB with the documents to me in the first place.”

“Fair enough. I'll be available through the afternoon tomorrow, but my shift at Crown starts at 5 PM. I'd like to get at least five hours into it before taking off, so it doesn't look like I'm completely slacking off.”

“You're working at Crown?”

“Only until this Friday. It's just as a favor to my boss's friend.”

“Alright, so you're off limits from five to ten?”

Atreus nods. “Basically. Any time outside of those hours, I'm almost certainly free to meet up. I assume you want me to keep the burner so you'll call me that way?”

“Yeah, we'll talk through the burners.”

“Alright, I'll talk to you tomorrow,” Atreus says as he stands, preparing to depart. “And I know it's difficult, but try and get some sleep.”

“Easy for you to say,” Edward remarks with a dismissive shake of his head. His half-open, tired eyes and slightly gaunt face make him look years older than he is. “I've been sleeping on an inflatable mattress in a room with no air conditioning, and my food budget has been pretty tight. Do I really look that fucked up?”

“'Fucked up' would be putting it kind of lightly, to be honest. Here.” Atreus takes out his wallet and thumbs through all the twenty dollar bills he anticipated giving Dr. Hess for Camlin's autopsy. He retrieves sixty dollars and hands it to Edward. “If you don't want to consider it charity, then consider it as payment for your cooperation.”

“Charity's more than enough of a reason for me to accept a decent meal.” The exhausted Takiyama extends his arm and readily accepts the cash. “Thanks. I appreciate it. And before you leave, is there any reason why you took this whole thing on? Did Mr. Asano tell you to investigate this?”

“No. Mr. Okada actually did.”

“Senior advisor Okada? Really? He got involved in this?”

“There's more at stake here than you might realize. Oh, and one more question before I leave: you don't happen to know if the killer was Japanese, would you? According to the Blue Star vendor, he spoke only English when they interacted.”

Edward shakes his head. “No, I have no clue. When I got to the scene, Billy was... in the middle of trying to beg for his life, but the guy didn't say anything back – just shot him.” He points his gaze downward again with another sullen expression.

“Alright,” Atreus accepts the response, deciding it's best to not pry further for now. “I'm heading home, then. Give me a call when you want to meet up.”

“I will,” Edward gives a response that's somewhat weak, though not due to lack of care, but simply because he's physically and emotionally exhausted.

Atreus turns and walks past the fountain, back towards the sidewalk while using his phone to summon another ride, going the extra effort to walk down the street a ways before stopping to wait. Edward exits the area in a similarly quick but casual fashion, though in the opposite direction, until eventually turning a corner and disappearing from sight.

Soon, a silver sedan arrives to pick Atreus up, and he begins his short journey back to his apartment. He spends the quiet ride contemplating giving Ryuji and Devin an immediate call to inform them of the information he's acquired from the witness who had turned out to be the person they had been looking for since the previous week, but decides against it after noticing the time. With 2 AM fast approaching, the would-be detective is better off sitting on his new discoveries and thinking on how to proceed.

The conversation with Edward had proven to be both enlightening and perplexing. The most obvious thing to take away from the meeting was the sheer fact that Edward is okay and had indeed witnessed the murder. Unfortunately, he was still unable to give any further identification to the killer. He was also able to provide context for what led up to the murder, but his knowledge is still limited and doesn't give anything totally concrete. Finally, he's currently in possession of a USB drive containing important documents that implicate Zephir Industries – a pharmaceutical company – in 'shady deals', which is the catalyst for this string of killings.

While some key questions were answered in talking with Edward, several bigger key questions were also created, particularly regarding Zephir's involvement in this. What are these 'shady deals', and more importantly, who did they make them with? Why are these documents worth killing three people over? What role does Atmos play in them, if any? As always, the identity of the killer is still unknown, too. With luck, the documents in the encrypted USB drive will shed some light on at least some of those things, but it has to be decrypted first.

Atreus spends so much effort quietly theorizing, that it takes the loud, blaring ding of the driverless car's arrival bell to knock him out of his daze. He lost track of time so easily, he seemed to have arrived at his apartment almost instantly. Maintaining his stone-faced expression of deep thought, he exits the vehicle and makes for the second floor veranda and to his front door. After entering his home, he follows the same end-of-day procedure as usual: shedding his clothes and taking a hot shower before spending some quiet time to himself. His mind is loaded with such an indecipherable heap of thoughts about his investigation, his bathing time proves to be more of a distraction than something soothing.

After exiting the bathroom, now dressed in more comfortable cotton clothes, he's unable to decide how to spend the remainder of his night. He ate before meeting Edward, so he isn't particularly hungry, and he's clearly too distracted to either watch something, play a short session of Black Iron VR, or even sleep. He grabs his home entertainment tablet – the centralized interface that controls almost every device in his apartment – and simply begins playing music from his speakers.

He listlessly thumbs through different tracks across different albums, artists, and genres, not necessarily caring about what he lands on. He drifts from post-punk to classical to hip-hop to chamber pop to sludge metal to R&B and so on. By the time he finally looks back at a clock, almost thirty minutes of thoughtless song surfing had passed. He sets his tablet down, leaving it on a random jazz track he settled on, and unleashes a drawn-out sigh.

An obnoxious bell suddenly sounds off, cutting through the music. Knowing the source of the sound, Atreus looks at his front door. He isn't expecting anyone, and it's rare for his friends to make unannounced visits. It's past 2:30 AM, so it may be Reiko, but he couldn't imagine why. He snaps out of his train of thought and wonders why he's trying so hard to justify answering the door in the first place. With everything that's been happening around the investigation, he's become reluctant to simply respond to a sudden visitor.

Atreus stops the music and finally works up the nerve to finally approach his front door. He carefully looks through the peephole, hoping to see someone familiar. Thankfully, he does, but it's not a person he would expect to pay a casual visit. He recognizes the tall, broad-shouldered frame of none other than Detective Terrence Colter. He brings his face away from the peephole, perplexed, but shakes off his confusion to open the door.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“What're you doing here?” Atreus greets with a firm question. “I hope this isn't an 'official' visit or something.”

“No, nothing like that,” Colter denies with a surrendering wave of his prosthetic right hand. “I don't have my badge or my gun on me right now. I'm just here as a normal civilian.”

“What about your cuffs?”

“Don't have those, either. Mind if I come in?”

Atreus shows on his face that he isn't fond of the idea of allowing Detective Colter into his home, but can also imagine what kind of lecture he might receive if he refuses. With his apprehension showing, he moves aside and beckons his visitor to come in.

“Thank you,” the towering police officer says with a nod, and steps into the apartment. Atreus closes the door behind him. “I haven't paid you a visit since some time after the hospital let you go. Place still looks exactly how I remember it: cleaner than I'd expect from a single twenty-something.”

“I wasn't raised in a pig sty,” Atreus snarkily responds as he sits at the foot of his bed. “So, you mind telling me the reason for your visit?”

“I think you have an idea as to why I came here,” Terrence responds while crossing his arms. “I know that you know I don't buy that story you gave about being at Wakiya Heights, at Edward Takiyama's apartment.”

“But it's true,” the gangster firmly insists. “Bessho did ask me to find Takiyama, because he's paranoid about being under the watchful eyes of your drones all the time.”

“Even so, I don't believe that's all of the context for why you were there. I feel like I've run into you one too many times during this investigation.” The detective furrows his brow and adopts a sterner, interrogative expression. “The first time was at the Hoshino family building, but admittedly that wasn't a huge deal. I'm aware of your loose ties to them, so it's understandable you'd be curious and would want to pay a visit. Then I was the one who came to you and Ryuji at the Asano office, so I don't count one against you. But then, suddenly I run into you in the apartment building of a person we had just received an anonymous tip about. That is something too strange to ignore.”

“I don't know who could've possibly given that anonymous report.” Atreus gives a non-committal shrug. “I'm sure you were able to tell by going into Takiyama's apartment that he actually hadn't been around in days, so it was obviously bullshit. You don't think maybe the tip was given in time to make me look suspicious? That it was by design that way?”

“Hey, maybe it was – I don't discount the possibility – but even so, I'd still like to know why someone would want to do that to you.”

“Well, go ahead and ask whatever you want to ask, then.”

“I feel like it's pretty obvious you're holding your own sort of investigation on the murder of Will Camlin, and I can understand why, considering the 'alleged' ties between the Sanada-gumi and Atmos Dynamics. Plus, doing your own sleuthing isn't necessarily something illegal, so long as you aren't interfering with the actual police.”

“And?” Atreus asks, hoping to cut to whatever question his visitor intends to ask.

“Are you? Interfering with police business?” Colter narrows his eyes in suspicion.

“The only time I ever interacted with you – or any cop – since your investigation started was when you came to my place of work and started asking questions to my friends. So you tell me: have I somehow been interfering with police business by staying completely away from it?”

“Hey, if you're conducting your own investigation of this case, either of your own volition or because one of your superiors told you to, that's fine. That's all well and good,” Terrence begins his response by sounding encouraging, but suddenly hardens his tone. “But if you discover something important, something of consequence that could sway its direction, and you withhold that information from the police despite being questioned, then yes, you will be interfering.”

“So you want to bogart my findings, if I have any? Is this why you came here? To shake me down for evidence you don't have?” Atreus, willingly throwing away any sort of attempt at hiding the fact he's conducting his own investigation, argues back. “I thought you were too by-the-books to ask for help from some criminal.”

“I'm willing to ignore the books if doing so gets me the truth. And you aren't a criminal, Atreus.” Terrence goes back to a softer, more patient voice while maintaining a stern expression. “You might think yourself one because of your membership with the clan, but you've never been inside of a cell, and that's a good thing. I wouldn't want you to be thrown into one. But I can't prevent that if you aren't straight with me. If it's ever found out that you withheld crucial information from the police, it'll be too late.”

“Do you seriously expect me to have any sort of information you don't already have? You're the cop here, man. You have access to more resources than I do.”

“Those resources aren't worth shit if the culprit knows how to work around them, and you know they did by the sheer fact they avoided our drones and all the cameras down the road. Besides, I feel like we've been... working with a narrow scope of things.” Colter shifts his body and finally shows some uncertainty in his face.

“What do you mean?”

“Mason's been hounding my ass about looking into the Sanada-gumi since minute one. You know how he is; he always zones in on the first obvious thing he notices.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Atreus utters with a mocking eye roll, totally unsurprised at the news of Detective Howard's tunnel vision.

“So, off the top of your head, what have you found out recently?”

Atreus heaves a sigh and finally concedes. “Well, I spoke to a coworker of Camlin's who went into detail about how important he was to the company.”

“Yeah, we spoke to others on his network security team too.” Colter nods, acknowledging their similar findings. “Apparently he's damn near the only reason their infrastructure isn't up in flames right now. And what exactly do you extrapolate from that?”

“I also found out that he had supposedly been acting strange in the couple weeks leading up to his murder, so I figure he must've known something was wrong or that someone was coming after him.”

“And you think his position in the company has something to do with that?”

“Possibly. I think he knew something was coming and his death came to him while he was in the middle of trying to stop it. Now, I don't really know what it could be, but I have a feeling it might have something to do with Atmos's network.”

The detective narrows his eyes again, unsure of whether he agrees or not. “You think whoever's behind this wants to hack into Atmos's data? For what? Isn't it just information on their customers' health and bodies? Who would want data like that?”

“No idea,” Atreus admits ignorance with a shrug. “I'm just spitballing here. It's one of the first thoughts that came to my mind while talking to the person I met from Atmos; probably why I'm not on the force instead.”

“No, I think it's a possibility, at least one to consider until I get my hands on something concrete. I didn't really think of it that way.”

“Also, since you looked inside Takiyama's apartment and realized he hadn't been there in a while, you know for sure that 'anonymous report' you got about him was a lie now, yeah?”

“Well, I'm not still totally dismissing any possibility he may be involved in things, considering the mere fact it was his name that popped up, but as for that tip specifically? Yeah, it seems a lot less credible now in hindsight,” Terrence admits with a matter-of-fact shrug. “Why?”

“It still strikes me as odd that a couple of organized crime guys would look into a report like that, even with the shit about him being covered in blood,” Atreus comments with his eyes narrowed to a slit. “What was the real reason you two were there?”

The detective sighs. “There a body found in Jeonju this morning – a Blue Star member. The call about Takiyama came in time to make us try to put two and two together. After all, he's a Sanada-gumi member and part of the Hoshino family. It seemed pretty clear cut at the time.”

“It seems like someone's trying to frame him. It'd be pretty convenient, putting the blame on the member of a rival gang, specifically someone who hadn't been around in days.”

“True, but the sign of a break-in and lack of anything suggesting he even owns a weapon doesn't really do any favors for such a framing attempt.”

“No weapon, huh?” the gangster echoes, quietly pleased to hear the news he slyly pried from his guest. “Either way, I think it's worth keeping in mind: someone wants to make it seem Takiyama's the culprit,” the gangster insists, hoping the detective takes his words seriously.

“I will. It definitely strikes me as suspicious.”