I

  “Charlie, are you feeling any better?” a voice asked through the phone.

  “More or less, Commander. Enough to get back to work.”

  “Good.” He answered quickly, not even waiting for my reaction. “Can you come to headquarters?”

  It sounded less like a question and more like an order, but I understood the urgency. The situation was abnormal — even by our standards.

  “I’m on my way,” I said after a brief pause. “Give me twenty minutes.”

  Morgan hung up immediately.

  He’s under a lot of pressure, I thought.

  The kind you get from above — the kind that crushes people. Especially if someone had decided to connect this case to the rest of the chaos. If that was true, the hole he’d fallen into — and dragged me into with him — was much deeper than I’d expected.

  As I walked through the city, it took me a moment to notice just how empty it was. That almost never happened here. After a while, I finally spotted someone — clearly in a hurry.

  “Hey! You there!” I shouted. “What's with that hurry”

  The man looked around, confused, before noticing me.

  “City hall,” he said shortly, already moving away.

  “Great,” I muttered. “Another problem.”

  I picked up the pace toward the station.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  ---

  II

  Morgan was waiting for me at the entrance, as usual.

  “Took you long enough,” he said before I even reached him.

  “I think I’m allowed that much.”

  We went inside without another word. In his office, I dropped into a chair. Morgan sat across from me and got straight to the point.

  “We caught someone,” he said. “Snooping around our case.”

  “You’re sure?” It sounded like too much of a coincidence.

  “Yeah. He was interested in the book. You can thank your sister for that.”

  “She got herself involved again,” I muttered.

  Morgan disappeared into a cabinet for a moment. When he came back, he was holding a stack of documents and a dusty book.

  “Time to get to work,” he said. Then added, “We checked the fingerprints on the book.”

  “And?”

  “Only the four of us. You, me, the administrator, and Susan.”

  “So we’re stuck.”

  “For now.”

  I leaned back, staring at the ceiling. Our main piece of evidence was useless.

  “Any ideas?” Morgan asked.

  “Two bodies by a covered window. A wound in a place that didn’t even make sense. A moon symbol on the book…” I paused. “I’ve got nothing. Not a damn thing.”

  “What about the guy we caught?”

  “The one you arrested?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Definitely not the killer. Whoever’s behind this isn’t stupid enough to get caught that easily.”

  “So either someone sent him… or he got curious.”

  “Or both,” I said. “The underworld’s too organized for things to happen without someone knowing.”

  “So what do we have?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Show me the kid,” I said, standing up. “Let’s take a closer look.”

  “One more thing,” Morgan said.

  He lowered his voice.

  “A mole?”

  “Someone high up,” he confirmed. “And that might be our biggest problem.”

  “Why would they do it?”

  “That,” he said, “we probably won’t figure out.”

  ---

  III

  We entered the interrogation room. As soon as the door closed, I looked at the suspect — and froze.

  He was young. Very young. Maybe fourteen.

  It shouldn’t have surprised me, considering the state of the city and how easily he’d been caught — but it did. He was dressed neatly, far better than me in my repeatedly patched hoodie.

  “This is our guy,” Morgan said. “Susan picked him up this morning.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “No.”

  I stepped closer, leaned over the table, and grabbed his chin.

  “Well, kid. The mission failed. The notebook’s still with us. Your boss thought he could ignore us. Tell me — what was so important about it?”

  Silence.

  I straightened up.

  “Alright. What did they promise you?”

  For the first time, he looked up.

  “Money? Protection?” Morgan tried a softer approach. “Tell us. Maybe we can work something out.”

  “Something you can’t give me,” the boy muttered.

  “If that were true, you wouldn’t be sitting here,” I snapped. “Talk.”

  “A way out of the city.”

  Morgan pulled me aside.

  “What do we do?”

  “We either squeeze him until he breaks, or you get him a pass out.”

  “I thought you avoided that kind of solution.”

  “You see another one?” I shot back. “It’s this or nothing.”

  “Give me a minute.”

  Morgan walked back to the boy and — unexpectedly — offered his hand.

  “You want to make a deal?”

  “What do I get?”

  “First — you don’t go to prison. And trust me, you wouldn’t last long there. Second —

  I’ll get you a job.”

  “A job?”

  “Transport work. Off the continent.”

  The boy understood immediately. Without hesitation, he shook Morgan’s hand.

  “Okay.”