I found a hotel near the bureau.
Two blocks away. Cheap. Clean enough.
The kind of place where no one asked questions.
I ate an apple at the desk.
Drank coffee from a paper cup.
Then I slept.
No dreams. No ghosts.
Just a tired thought: someone powerful is definitely pulling the strings behind all this.
Siver was gone when I woke.
He came and went. I never asked where.
It was nine in the morning.
The bureau was already loud when I arrived.
Voices in the hallway. Phones ringing. The smell of burnt coffee.
A young woman stood by my desk.
Late twenties. Dark hair pulled back. Sharp eyes.
She held a file in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
"You Andres?"
"Yes."
"Ayra Thorne."
She didn't offer to shake.
"Voss said you were assigned to me."
"That's what I was told."
She studied me for a moment.
"You looked at the Vance files yesterday?"
"I did."
"And you signed out evidence."
"An earring."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"You found something, didn't you."
It wasn't a question.
"Blood on the clasp," I said. "CO poisoning doesn't cause external bleeding."
She set her coffee down.
"Can you show me."
She had a shocked expression.
The evidence room was quieter in the morning.
Pol let us in. Ayra took the earring and held it under the light.
"Could be transfer," she said. "From the person who found her. Or the paramedics. No investigator would miss something as crucial as this."
"It could be," I agreed.
"But you don't think so."
"I think the file says no struggle. No signs of violence. But there's blood on her jewelry and the case was closed in three days."
Ayra set the earring down carefully.
"What do you want to do?"
"Reinvestigate the car."
She nodded slowly.
"The car was impounded. Hale's lab was destroyed in the explosion, but the car from Vance's scene is still in storage. We can check it out."
"Let's see it."
The impound lot was on the edge of the city.
Chain-link fence. Gravel. Rows of wrecked and forgotten vehicles.
The attendant led us to a corner where a sedan sat under a tarp.
Dark blue. Dust thick on the windows.
Ayra pulled the tarp back. I walked around the car.
"Engine was running when they found her," she said. "Garage door closed. It was standard suicide setup. At least that's what it looks like."
I opened the driver's door.
The interior smelled stale. Old upholstery. Nothing else.
I checked the door seals, the windows, the floor mats.
Then I knelt and looked under the dashboard.
"There," I said.
Ayra crouched beside me. "What?"
I pointed to a small mark on the steering column.
Barely visible. A scratch in the plastic.
"Someone forced the ignition," I said. "The key wasn't turned. It was jammed."
Ayra leaned closer. "Could have been from before. Car theft, maybe."
"Check the passenger door."
She moved to the other side. Opened it. Ran her hand along the interior panel.
"Nothing."
"Look at the lock."
She examined the lock mechanism. Paused.
"It's been replaced," she said quietly. "The housing doesn't match the driver's side."
I stood up.
"Someone had a key to the passenger door. They forced the ignition to make it look like she started the car herself. Then they left her inside with the engine running."
Ayra looked at me. "You're saying she was put in that car after she was already dead."
"Or unconscious. The CO levels in her blood were high. But if she was unconscious beforehand, she wouldn't have fought. No defensive wounds. No struggle."
"The blood on the earring—"
"Happened before she was placed in the car."
Ayra stood up slowly. She looked at the car, then at me.
"You saw all of this from a file and an earring?"
"I saw inconsistencies," I said. "The autopsy report didn't mention bleeding of any sort. The physical evidence confirms them."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Why would someone kill a journalist and make it look like suicide?"
"Because she was asking questions someone didn't want answered."
Ayra's expression shifted. Curiosity, maybe. Or recognition.
"You've been in Riverdark two days," she said.
"That's how long it took to find the ignition scratch."
She almost smiled. Almost.
"Let's see the Hale scene."
The lab had been on the second floor of a commercial building.
Now it was a black scar on the brick facade.
The owner let us in reluctantly. "Insurance already paid out. Nothing left."
We climbed the stairs.
The door to the lab was gone. Inside, the walls were charred. The floor was covered in debris.
Ayra stopped at the threshold.
"Gas leak explosion. That's what the report says."
I walked inside.
"Gas explosions are diffuse," I said. "They follow the path of the gas."
I pointed to the burn pattern on the far wall.
"This is concentrated."
Ayra stepped closer. "Accelerant?"
"Or a directed blast. Someone wanted to destroy evidence. The body was burned beyond dental ID."
"They confirmed through records."
"Records that could have been altered."
Ayra pulled out her phone and took photos of the burn pattern.
"Who would have access to a forensic consultant's lab?"
"Someone who knew what he was working on."
I moved through the debris.
Most of it was ash and melted plastic.
But near the center of the room, I found something.
A fragment of metal. Curved. Part of a container.
I picked it up with my gloved hand.
"What is it?" Ayra asked.
"Part of a storage case. Reinforced. Heat-resistant."
I turned it over.
"This was designed to survive fire."
Ayra knelt beside me. "What was inside?"
"Paper, probably. Or something that burns. The case was meant to keep it safe, but the fire was too hot."
I held it up to the light.
"Whoever set this didn't just want to destroy the lab. They wanted to destroy whatever Hale was working on."
She looked at the fragment.
"There's a marking on the side."
I turned it. Small. Etched into the metal.
A crest. Three symbols intertwined.
"I've seen that before," Ayra said quietly.
"Where?"
She hesitated.
"House Valerius. One of the ruling families. They mark their property. Their contracts. Their people."
I looked at the fragment again.
Valerius.
My father's family.
The family I hadn't called.
"Hale was working for them," Ayra continued. "Independent forensic consultant. Private client. The file redacted the name."
"But the case didn't survive."
"No." She looked at me. "What does a forensic consultant find that gets him killed?"
I pocketed the fragment.
"Something someone wanted buried."
On the way back to the car, Ayra was quiet.
Then: "You're not surprised."
"About what?"
"The Valerius connection. Most people would be. They don't get involved in things like this. Or they do, and it never comes out."
I opened the car door.
"I've learned that things buried tend to surface."
She got in. Started the engine. But she didn't pull out immediately.
"You're not from here," she said.
"No."
"But you know the families."
"I know of them."
She studied me for a moment. Then she started driving.
Siver appeared in the back seat.
"She's smart," he said. "She's already watching you."
I didn't respond.
Ayra drove in silence. But every few blocks, I caught her glancing at me.
Curiosity.
Or suspicion.
Either way, she was paying attention.
And somewhere in Riverdark, someone else was too.
The fragment in my pocket felt heavy.
Valerius.
I still hadn't made the call.
Tomorrow, maybe.
But first, I needed to find out what Marcus Hale had been investigating.