Chapter Three — Sleuth Hound, Inc.

  The office was small enough to be honest.

  One room, one desk, two chairs that had seen better decades, and a file cabinet that stuck on the third drawer no matter how many times Kael threatened it. The lock on the front door was older than the building’s last coat of paint, and the blinds had permanent bends in their slats from being forced open and snapped shut too many times.

  The walls were bare except for the faint ghosts where old frames used to hang—rectangles of cleaner paint, edges of dust that refused to settle evenly. Evidence that there had once been an attempt at comfort, or pride, or both.

  He’d taken them down years ago.

  It was easier to work without faces watching him.

  Outside, Noctra poured itself into morning traffic. Vendors shouted prices with the same cadence they used on good days and bad. A street hawker somewhere below Kael’s window sang the virtues of hot oil pastries as if sugar could fix anything. Drones drifted overhead in slow, bored patterns, their lenses rotating lazily in indifferent arcs. Somewhere nearby, a siren rose and fell like a tired animal calling for attention.

  Noctra wasn’t mourning.

  It was simply continuing.

  Kael sat with his jacket still on, the city’s light filtering through the blinds in narrow, striped bars that cut his desk into pieces. The stripes crossed his hands, his wrists, the edge of his throat—making him look partitioned, as if even sunlight refused to touch him without rules.

  His tail lay tucked close to the chair leg, quiet as a held breath.

  On his screen, the file waited.

  TALY, SHAE — MISSING.

  He stared at the word again.

  Missing.

  It sounded like a mistake. Like a misplacement. Like a child might turn up behind a curtain or under a bed, blinking sleep from her eyes, confused by the attention.

  Noctra didn’t misplace things.

  Noctra swallowed them. Chewed the evidence. Buried the echoes under paperwork and silence.

  Kael’s hand hovered over the touchpad. He didn’t open the file right away—not because he didn’t know what was inside, but because opening it meant committing to the performance. Stepping into the role he’d built and worn until it almost fit. The one that let him keep breathing without tasting iron on his tongue.

  Private investigator.

  Good man.

  Helpful citizen.

  Sleuth Hound, Inc.

  A name that promised retrieval, even in a city that specialized in erasure.

  He let the silence sit long enough to become familiar again, listening to the hum of the terminal and the faint drip of water somewhere in the building. The drip was steady, irritating, almost comforting in its persistence. A small problem. A solvable one. The kind the world used to offer him.

  He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out a slim notebook.

  Paper. Ink. Something that couldn’t be altered with a keystroke or “misplaced” by someone with jurisdiction. Something that could be burned, sure—but not quietly edited.

  He flipped it open and wrote a heading he’d written before, in different cities, under different names.

  Rules.

  He didn’t number them. Numbers made them feel negotiable. Like you could stop at two and pretend you’d done enough.

  He wrote the first one the way he always did.

  No blood for convenience.

  The second came slower. The pen hovered, as if the tip remembered things his mind refused to hold.

  No cruelty as method.

  He paused again, longer this time. His thumb pressed into the spine of the notebook hard enough to crease it.

  Then he forced the third line onto the page like it cost him something.

  If you can walk away, walk away.

  Kael stared at the list. Three lines. Three anchors. Not promises. Not absolution. Just the shape of what he wanted to believe about himself.

  He could feel the lie in it. The thinness. The way rules only mattered when someone still had choices.

  He closed the notebook and slid it back into his pocket. The motion was smooth, practiced—like hiding a blade where no one would think to look.

  Then, finally, he opened the file.

  The screen filled with photographs first. It always did.

  Photos were clean. Quiet. Deceptive in their stillness. They took a moment and tried to make it permanent. They turned living things into artifacts.

  A townhouse exterior in a wealthy district that pretended it didn’t have crime.

  A security gate with polished hinges and a keypad that looked more decorative than functional. A marble walkway. A front door shaped like it had been designed to impress someone who needed impressing.

  Then the interior shots: polished floors, tasteful art, the soft kind of luxury that didn’t scream money but whispered it. Furniture arranged like a showroom display. Air that looked too still to be lived in.

  Kael clicked through them, eyes steady, expression neutral.

  Then—

  A child’s room.

  Not messy. Not lived-in. Carefully arranged. Curated. A crib converted into a little bed. Stuffed animals lined up like witnesses. A blanket folded into a perfect rectangle, as if someone had been terrified of leaving a wrinkle.

  The room didn’t look like it belonged to a child.

  It looked like it belonged to an idea of one.

  Kael’s throat went dry. A tightness settled behind his sternum before he could stop it. His hand paused on the touchpad.

  He blinked once, slow, then clicked to the next section as if speed could erase sensation.

  CLIENT: Cyras Taly

  OCCUPATION: Executive Liaison / Civic Development

  SPOUSE: (redacted in public record)

  ADDRESS: (listed)

  CASE SUMMARY: Child removed from residence during night hours. No forced entry visible. Staff present but uncooperative. Security logs incomplete.

  Incomplete.

  Kael’s mouth twitched without humor.

  On Solana, nothing went missing unless someone wanted it to. And nothing became “incomplete” unless someone with access had decided the record didn’t need to be whole.

  He opened the witness list.

  Names populated the screen. House staff. A nanny. A private security lead. Neighbors who “heard something.”

  None of them had filed a proper report.

  Kael checked the timestamp on the official complaint.

  Filed just before dawn.

  Not by the mother.

  By Cyras.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  He leaned back and laced his fingers behind his neck, eyes drifting to the ceiling crack again, tracking its jagged path. If he looked long enough, it almost resembled a map.

  A way out.

  The office door chimed.

  Kael didn’t move. Not immediately.

  He let the sound hang in the air. Let the person on the other side wait just long enough to feel unwelcome. His tail shifted once against the chair leg, then stilled again.

  Then he called, “Door’s unlocked.”

  The door opened cautiously.

  Cyras Taly entered like a man stepping into a room he didn’t believe should exist.

  He was dressed too well for the hour—tailored coat, clean lines, a pin at his lapel that marked him as someone tied to city infrastructure and money. His hair was combed back with obsessive care. His eyes were the kind that had learned how to appear calm even while something inside them screamed.

  Behind him, a woman hovered at the threshold.

  Kael didn’t look at her first.

  He looked at Cyras’s hands.

  No tremor. No wringing. No obvious panic.

  A man who’d trained himself not to show weakness.

  “Mr. Taly,” Kael said, standing. “You’re late.”

  Cyras blinked, his pudgy frame uncomfortably shoved into his probably-expensive suit. “You’re… Kael Varros?”

  “That’s what the sign says.” Kael gestured to the chair opposite his desk. “Sit.”

  Cyras sat stiff-backed. The woman remained standing near the door, eyes scanning the room like she was measuring it for threats and exits.

  Kael let his gaze flick to her—just long enough to register: security posture, not spouse posture. Not family.

  “Your guard?” Kael asked.

  Cyras hesitated. “Mara. She’s… with us.”

  Mara didn’t introduce herself. Didn’t offer a hand. Didn’t soften. One hand rested near her waist, not reaching for a weapon—just acknowledging one existed.

  Kael sat down slowly. “You filed a missing child report.”

  Cyras’s jaw tightened as if the words themselves offended him. “Yes.”

  “You understand why no one wanted it.”

  Cyras’s gaze sharpened. “If you’re going to refuse, do it quickly. I’ve already wasted enough time—”

  “I didn’t refuse,” Kael said. “You’re here.”

  Cyras swallowed. The first visible crack.

  Kael watched it without expression, like the crack in the ceiling. Like a flaw you noticed only when the light hit it right.

  “Tell me what happened,” Kael said.

  Cyras exhaled through his nose, controlled. “Shae was in her room. She went to bed at the usual time. The staff—”

  “The staff,” Kael repeated, and the way he said it made Cyras stiffen.

  Cyras’s eyes flashed. “Yes. The staff. Our home is secured. We have a gate, private guards, interior wards—”

  “Wards,” Kael echoed, flat.

  Mara’s eyes flicked to him.

  Sharp.

  Kael didn’t smile.

  Cyras’s voice tightened. “Sometime during the night, she was taken. No signs of forced entry. No one heard anything. In the morning—” His voice fractured on the edge of the phrase and he forced it back into place. “In the morning, she was just gone.”

  Kael let a beat of silence pass.

  Not for drama.

  For measurement.

  Then he asked the first question a good investigator would ask.

  “Any note?”

  Cyras’s mouth twisted. “No.”

  Kael nodded as if that mattered. Then he asked the question he actually cared about.

  “Any enemies?”

  Cyras hesitated too long.

  Kael watched him do it. Watched him calculate whether admitting enemies made him look guilty or vulnerable. Watched him decide which lie would cost him less.

  “Not… in the sense you mean,” Cyras said.

  Kael’s gaze slid to the pin on Cyras’s lapel.

  Civic Development.

  A neat title for a job that moved money, displaced neighborhoods, rewrote borders, and called it progress.

  “If you can answer a question with a paragraph,” Kael said, “it’s because you don’t like the answer.”

  Cyras’s cheeks tightened. “I’m not the problem here. My child is missing.”

  Kael leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the desk. “And you think I’m judging you.”

  Cyras’s eyes narrowed. “Aren’t you?”

  Kael’s gaze drifted past Cyras, toward the window, toward the city that had already made up its mind. “I don’t have to judge you,” he said. “Noctra already did. That’s why no one took your case.”

  Mara’s fingers flexed once near her waist—subtle, controlled.

  Kael didn’t react.

  He slid the tablet across the desk, pulling up the photo of Shae’s room.

  “Tell me about her,” Kael said.

  Cyras stared at the image like it was a wound.

  “She’s… bright,” he said finally. “She—”

  “How old?”

  “Four.”

  Kael nodded once. He didn’t write it down. Writing would look like interest, and interest was part of the mask. He kept his face calm, his voice neutral, as if children weren’t things that sank hooks into the body when you weren’t paying attention.

  “And her mother?” Kael asked.

  Cyras’s eyes hardened. “What about her?”

  “Where is she right now?”

  Cyras’s jaw worked. “At home.”

  “In the house where the child was taken,” Kael said evenly.

  “Yes.”

  Kael watched him. “And she didn’t come here.”

  Cyras inhaled sharply, hands tightening at his lapels. “She’s… not well.”

  Mara shifted, her gaze now openly hostile.

  Kael kept his voice level. “Not well because her child is missing,” he said, “or not well because she was never well?”

  Cyras half rose, anger flaring. “Watch your mouth.”

  Kael didn’t move.

  Didn’t blink.

  “I’m watching your story,” Kael said.

  Cyras froze, realizing he’d shown too much.

  Kael held his gaze. “If I’m going to find Shae,” he said, “you’re going to stop protecting your image long enough to tell me the truth. Starting with your home.”

  Silence—long and deafening.

  Even the drip in the wall seemed louder.

  Cyras swallowed. “What do you want to know?”

  Kael reached for his notebook—not the rules page, the other one—and wrote a single word as if it were neutral.

  Mother.

  “Her name,” Kael said.

  Cyras hesitated, then said it.

  Kael wrote it down, neat and small.

  “What is her relationship with the staff?” Kael asked.

  Cyras frowned. “Professional.”

  “And with you?”

  “We’re married.”

  Kael nodded like that answered anything. “Is she loved?”

  Cyras stiffened. “That’s—”

  “Not my business,” Kael finished. “I know.”

  Cyras stared at him, and for the first time Kael saw fear underneath the indignation.

  Not fear of losing Shae.

  Fear of being seen.

  Kael’s voice stayed calm. “Someone took your child without leaving a mark,” he said. “That means either your security is a joke, or the person who took her didn’t need to fight it.”

  Mara’s eyes narrowed. “Our security is not—”

  Kael cut his gaze to her.

  It wasn’t a glare. It was a measurement.

  “Then someone let them in.”

  Mara’s mouth tightened. “That’s impossible.”

  Kael looked back at Cyras. “Who has keys? Access codes? Ward permissions?”

  Cyras’s lips pressed thin. “Staff. Security. Me. My wife.”

  Kael nodded. “Any recent dismissals? Disputes? Threats?”

  Cyras hesitated again. “There was… a former nanny.”

  Kael’s pen paused.

  “Name.”

  Cyras gave it.

  Kael wrote it down. “Why was she dismissed?”

  Cyras’s eyes flicked away. “She—overstepped.”

  “Define overstepped.”

  “She spoke to my wife about… inappropriate things.”

  Kael’s gaze lifted. “Inappropriate as in immoral,” he said, “or inappropriate as in inconvenient?”

  Cyras’s jaw flexed. “Inconvenient.”

  Kael’s mouth twitched—a trace of something that wasn’t humor.

  “Good,” he said. “Now we’re talking.”

  Cyras leaned forward, voice tight. “Are you going to find her?”

  Kael held his gaze.

  “Yes.”

  The word came out too clean. Too fast.

  Mara watched him like she didn’t believe him.

  Cyras exhaled shakily—relief, desperation, maybe both. “Thank you.”

  Kael stood. “I’m going to your house.”

  Cyras blinked. “Now?”

  “Now.” Kael shrugged his coat on, the movement smooth. “If you want the city to forget about this, you wait. If you want your child back, you move before the story hardens.”

  Cyras rose as well, reluctantly.

  Kael nodded, already reaching for the bottom drawer. “And don’t tell anyone we’re on the way.”

  Cyras flinched. “I won’t.”

  Kael’s gaze sharpened. “You sure?”

  Cyras’s voice went colder. “Yes.”

  Kael didn’t press it. Not yet. He had to look like he was hunting the kidnapper, not watching the parents.

  He pulled a small kit from the drawer—gloves, a compact scanner, a lockpick set he told himself was for emergencies even though he’d never stopped carrying it.

  On the way out, his eyes flicked to the file cabinet. Third drawer stuck as always.

  He didn’t tug it open. Didn’t need to.

  The things he kept in there weren’t evidence.

  They were reminders.

  Kael locked the office behind them and followed Cyras and Mara down the stairwell. He preferred to keep them in front of him. People were easier to read when they thought you weren’t watching their backs.

  Noctra’s air hit him like it always did—metallic, warm, alive with the scent of fuel and perfume and wet stone. The street was already crowded, already moving as if a child hadn’t vanished from the world overnight.

  Cyras’s private car waited at the curb.

  Polished.

  Dark.

  Too clean.

  Kael paused before getting in, gaze sweeping the street out of old habit.

  A street vendor looked up and then looked away too quickly.

  A drone hovered a little too long over the corner before drifting off.

  The city was watching.

  Kael slid into the car.

  As it pulled away from the curb, he kept his expression neutral, his posture relaxed, his breathing steady—the same calm he used to wear before he did things he couldn’t take back.

  He told himself he was going to a crime scene.

  He told himself he was going to find a missing child.

  He told himself he was still a good man.

  Outside, Noctra glittered, indifferent.

  And somewhere in the city, behind doors that would never open for Cyras Taly again, the life Kael had tried to bury waited patiently for him to return.