The ground was dusted white in the suburbs of Upwater, from a late spring snowfall so fine and watery Rai did not realize it was still falling when he reached the avenue on which he would find the residence of the North parents - Carme and Cadoc’s childhood home.

The first neighborhood item he passed was a guardhouse. It was lit, set with a small heater, fan unit and speaker system - but it was empty. He soon found it wasn’t entirely needed. There wasn’t much for an intruder to see in Upwater township.

The streets were dark and quickly descended into claustrophobic territory. In his search for the right street signs and GPS-indicated turns, he noticed the stretches of night sky and shrubbery slipping out of sight, gradually replaced by large brick and cement walls, too high to be considered ornamental. The walls blocked off both sides of every street, turning them into thin corridors, each a blind turn into the unknown. Except for the occasional streetlamp or metal-barred gate, the walls were continuous, and the further he drove the more he felt like a trapped rat.

Sticking to the GPS like a lifeline, he had to believe he was at least getting closer.

When the numbers on the gates finally reached the address he was looking for, Rai stepped out of his car and into the maze. Once the echoes of his overheated engine finally died, it was silent.

The house of Cora and Rider North was stuck between two other, identical brick cubicles. Through the gate he could a front door inset with a window, and under it a set of small stairs and shaggy hedges - perhaps the ones he and Sao had seen in the North’s childhood photos, where the twins had taken their family snapshot. The house was dark, curtains drawn with only blackness behind them, with just a foggy yellowish glow in one of the upstairs windows - a nightlight. 

It was 3 am.

Rai squinted. Somehow, he wasn’t sure the North’s childhood home was any brighter in the daytime. The walls were tall, and it looked like the kind of self-made sanctuary with deep rooms, and windowless halls. His face against the metal poles, he had an intense recollection Carme’s house by K Lake. Solid brick perimeter, a single gate, dark wood and no view - and that’s how they liked it. He assumed that was the case, anyhow. It was hard to imagine anyone putting up with those kinds of obstruction for some reason other than obscure enjoyment. Even for privacy’s sake, it looked ridiculous. Starting a suburban fortress would only attract more attention. And yet...

He backed away and looked up and down the block - the maze of brick walls, some trimmed with dying ivy, if they were feeling festive. 

A whole neighborhood of houses like Carme’s. No, Rai corrected himself - it was Carme who had brought Upwater’s stylings to her Central lakeview neighborhood.

Over the walls, each home peeked over by one storey, with a single exception - the steeple of the local church in the distance. A pale spire with three outcroppings, starlike, surveyed the scene below, overseeing the maze. Masters of the rats.

He slid into the shadow of wall to hide himself. As Carme had suggested - a spiritual place. Rai had always felt that cults held some of the most dynamic forms of spirituality to be found on earth.

Cults weren’t much fun when you couldn’t see what anyone was up to, though.

As the snow fell, Rai contemplated the area, and began to notice the layering white taking a strange form in the back of the house. Like the snowtops of craggy mountains, it was gathering in peaks, lower buildup dropping out of sight, into valleys and shadows. In some places the piles began to form solid sections of white, but there was no order to be found. Rai pulled out his phone and shone the flashlight between the bars of the gate, and saw that the snow was scattering over the hideous remains of some wild untamed garden, left to grow and grow and then die and rot over several winters. It had become a realm of dry tangles and brush that reached up like mangled hands to the windows on the side of the house.

Rai’s forehead was against the bars when the lights flew on and the house door whipped open. A man with grey hair - of a familiar feathery texture - stepped onto the porch. “What are you doing? Who are you? We don’t want any of you, especially at this time of night-”

“I’m with the police.” Rai drew back, reached for his ID. “Are you Mr. and Mrs. North? I’m here to ask you a few questions about your son, Cadoc.”

“Not so loud!”

“Shh!” hissed a woman in a shawl, sidling up.

“There’s been a serious incident, and he’s suspected to be involved,” Rai said.

“That’s impossible,” the woman said immediately. Both Rai and the man looked at her in confusion. “I mean, we… we haven’t seen Cadoc in years. Decades. You mean to say… he’s here? No, that’s impossible.”

“The incident took place in a town by K Lake. Your son was seen-”

“I doubt he’s behind whatever you’re imagining, officer. But we have no idea what he’s been up to for the last - it must have been 20 years by now - he hasn’t lived with us or even spoken to us. We have nothing to say to you.” The man nodded firmly, finally catching onto whatever it was his wife had meant for him - something Rai had missed. “I’m sorry. I hope you find who you’re looking for. Good night, detective.”

Rai blinked. “You haven’t seen your son in 20 years? How can you be sure of his status? That he couldn’t have committed any offense?” 

Two blank stares and a miserable, mindrending pause, and Rai believed he knew where the North twins had gotten their speech habits from. And their eccentricities - growing up with that kind of silence hanging over you constantly would bend your head out of shape.

He tried on a polite smile. Mr. and Mrs. North looked vaguely disgusted, so he rubbed it off. “Maybe you can at least tell me a little about Cadoc North’s character from his childhood, help us understand his character. I’d appreciate it. Every bit helps.” Their disgust faded slightly as his smile withdrew. “Because he’s suspected to be involved in a serious incident.”

Mrs. North grasped her husband’s shoulder. “Then we really have nothing to talk about. We haven’t been in contact with him for a very long time, this is a surprise for us as much as you - we can’t help. If you need a statement, send it through a real officer, with papers in order.”

“Fine. That’s fair.” Rai set a hand on the gate, tapping it in what he hoped looked like patience. “Before you go, I have some other news that might concern you. Would you like to hear it now, or wait for the Level 2 officers? This part regards your daughter.”

“Is she in trouble as well?” Then, remembering her own warning, Mrs. North continued at a whisper, “Do we need a lawyer?”

“I can’t hear you very well from here,” Rai said, “But I think you should know, so I’ll give you the rundown. Your daughter might have been murdered.”

“I… no, that’s impossible.” Mr. North looked around the walled enclosure, like a confused animal. He finally locked eyes with his wife. “Isn’t it?”

“Yes, we just… I mean, she can’t...”

This time, their silence was inviting.

“Earlier this evening, Carme was heard engaging in some kind of argument, loud enough for the neighbors to make out her voice. The topic and whom she was arguing with weren't clear, but Cadoc was thought to be the only other person to be in the house at the time. Some time later, a member of the police spotted something that resembled Carme’s injured body - part of it - in the background of a video call with Cadoc. Police are headed toward the house now. I have the original picture - maybe you’d like to see.”

“Body!” Mr. North sagged against the doorframe with a wounded breath.

Rigel North continued heaving violently for air, but Rai’s eyes were on the woman behind him. He wondered if Mrs. North might let out a scream of horror - her face seemed to be nearing it, promising it, but at the same time, remained in a shape infinitely far from actual release. Rai felt his hairs stand on end just looking at her.

The gate remained locked, framing the scene as if it could stay that way for eternity. Mr. North desperate for air, Mrs. North poised for a scream that never came. Even the snowfall had stopped. Rai heard his own blood pumping his ears, coldness settling against his skin. His coat was wet.

“Okay,” Rai said. “I can understand if you aren’t ready for this. It’s late. But if you think of anything else that could help, the police will likely be around again with details. Eventually. Sorry to wake you, I’ll just be going now.”

“No, no, hold on.” That was when Mr. North slapped some button on the wall by the entryway, and the gate unlocked.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wait until morning?” Rai stepped through to the lawn anyway. “The images I have may be troubling.”

“Please,” said Mrs. North, “we can discuss this inside.” Her voice was a shrunken whisper, but her face still seemed one twitch away from a shriek.

---

It was a thoroughly homely setup, with faded lace drapery over the furniture and ceramic figures on the mantel, behind a worn couch was a shelf of books that looked like they hadn’t been moved in decades. The light fixture had a stained, yellowish tint. The parents of Cadoc and Carme North fit right into the painting. Mrs. North even had a shawl with the same pattern as her cushions. Their faces just about matched the color of the ceramic rabbits and candleholders sitting above a disused fireplace.

Rai rejected an offer of water, then of tea. There was no coffee. He sat on the embroidered couch, pulled the photo up on his phone and held it out. And the troubles began.

At first, the Norths seemed confused as to what he was offering them, Mr. North shaking his head and pushing the phone away. When Rai tried to be consoling, he was met with irritation. “I don’t know how to use this thing.”

Rai gripped the doily-patterned throw and explained that the picture was shown on the phone. At last, the Norths took the device for inspection, handling it as if it were a bomb.

What came next was equally perplexing.

His expectations seemed in order, at first. Mr. North’s face sharpened, then fell, then fell further and he babbled something to his wife, who took hold of the image and pressed a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no. And this is Carme?”

“That’s the suspicion. The police will be making a full inspection about now. And that-” Rai tapped Cadoc’s face in the image. “Is this your son?”

“It couldn’t be. Oh goodness, Carme... ”

The Norths appeared to be sinking into their couch, as if it were made of quicksand. Mr. North was blubbering, but even more unsettlingly, Mrs. North had gone impeccably still. Rai was sure the scream would come any minute now. 

“When was this taken?”

Rai opened his mouth, and had to hold back some canned condolences. “Uh - about 6.30 this evening. This came shortly after a noise complaint from the nearby house - but when confronted, Carme assured their neighbor there was nothing amiss. But police suspect there may have been some altercation inside the house...”

The Norths looked at each other with empty faces, then resumed their despair. Rai frowned. The gap between the two acts stood out like a crevasse.

“I’d like to ask some questions about Cadoc.”

Mr. North recovered instantly. “Officer-”

“I’m an investigator.”

“Alright, investigator. We only let you into our home because we were worried about Carme. We still have nothing to say about Cadoc - aside from the fact that the person in this picture - this man in the front - is definitely not him.”

“How do you know that? They’re twins, and this person looks a lot like Carme - Carme even claimed publicly that this was her brother. They’ve been working together for the past two years, in relatively public circles.”

“Until this.” Mrs. North’s lip wavered. “Cadoc would never do such a thing. We didn’t… raise him to be like that. Did Carme ever say how she met this person?”

“Out of the blue, in the city.” Rai kicked back onto the couch and almost sank into quicksand cushions himself. “I’ve only heard part of the story, but it seems she had little trouble accepting he was Cadoc.”

“And she stayed with him, even after all the trouble he’s caused?”

Rai pulled himself out of the couch.

“Those kidnapping rumors,” Mrs. North said, her voice like steel. “The man eats for a living, that’s hardly a job. Why there was so much hatred directed at Carme for this man’s own foolishness is the real mystery here.”

“That situation was cleared up, they just took a detour on the way home because Cadoc felt sick.” Rai glanced around the room. “So you know that much about their work. Do you watch competitive eating?”

Both of the Norths stared at him as if he were insane. “No,” Mr. North said, since his wife was too flabbergasted to give Rai a response. “We just caught the news frenzy on the television - there was a riot over it and everything at the convention center, all these rumors of murder. Murder of that - unknown scoundrel, whoever he is - when it was really Carme who was in danger, not that... imposter. Whoever he is.” He coughed. “If we’d known earlier, we would have put a stop to this a long time ago. Put a stop to that… killer.”

It was really Carme in danger. The same suggestion Rai had given Sao, just to spook him. It wasn’t so pleasant played back. “Are you also aware of the kinds of abuse your daughter has been getting online?”

“The… excuse me?”

“Do you own a computer?”

Again, he was regarded like a lunatic. “No,” Mrs. North said slowly. “That was Carme’s specialty, never ours. She went to school for engineering, you know.” And she stared at her hands.

“Okay, so I take it you haven’t seen the people who are speaking out against her.” Rai set his arm against a firm patch of pillow and leaned forward to escape the couch’s vicious embrace. “What I’m trying to get at is, do you know of anybody who might have some sort of grudge against Carme?”

“What are you talking about?” Mrs. North tossed his phone back across the coffee table, and it landed with a crack. Rai scowled. “This imposter obviously has something to do with it. Why don’t you start with him?”

“If this isn’t Cadoc, as you say, then we have the additional problem of having to find out who he is and what he might have been planning.” Rai stared back at the glares leveled at him. “He looks like her twin. He claimed he was Cadoc, and Carme believed him. He apparently knew about a childhood vacation your family took before his… disappearance. On the Gatherer’s Coast, where you did not let them swim because there were too many people.” Rai glanced out the window. It was dark, but he was sure even in the daytime, there would be nothing to see but shadow and bricks. “You like your privacy.”

“It was all to keep the children safe. Just look what happened when Carme was out on her own.” Mr. North shook his head which seemed a bit of an underwhelming gesture toward his daughter’s potential decapitation. “As for the story, I don’t know - there must have been ways for this person to find out. Maybe he forced Carme to tell him, tricked her...”

“Was she always that gullible?”

North’s nostrils flared. “Don’t. She was very smart, always was - she was an engineer, degree and all -  but people make mistakes-”

“Yeah, she seemed to serve as manager to Cadoc - this person - willingly.” Rai’s frown deepened. “Let’s say she was tricked, then. How would he have gotten her confidence?”

“I don’t know. Blackmail.” Mr. North studied the carpet, and gurgled on. “Seduced her.”

“She does tend to do as she’s told,” Mrs. North said in her terrifyingly small voice. “A good girl. But she was smart. She wouldn’t be tricked.”

“So do you think she was or was not in control of the situation?”

The Norths stared at him, and then each other. Rai nearly ripped the lacy throw in his hands in half. “Okay, that's difficult to gauge on the spot. But did you ever contact her about this person or the murder rumors, after you heard about it on the news?”

“We…” Mrs. North drew a finger up to her chin and lowered her brow, scrunching her face like paper. “We tried. But we haven’t been able to get in touch with her for… a while.”

“So you never heard anything from Carme about Cadoc, or the eating contests that they were attending.”

“No.” Mr North shook his head alongside his wife. 

“Were you in contact with her at all in the last two years? According to her, two years was the time she’d spent working with Cadoc.” Rai glanced at the conspicuously impersonal mantel and shelves. “She did say that she took a few photos from home the last time she was here. Seemed like a lot of pictures of Cadoc.”

Mrs. North hesitated. Both Rai and Mr. North were left waiting for her to form a response, North being the more patient one. “Yes, she came to pick up some family photos maybe a year or two ago. She had just bought a place of her own and it made sense, she wanted to furnish it and remember her brother. We didn’t have them up in the house - too painful - so we let her have whatever she wanted.” Mrs. North’s face flattened out again. “You know the reason she was moving was because the corporation had let her go. They took her subsidized apartment, they were going to throw her onto the street. That might have been more than two years ago. But the corporations, you know, they’re awful, they’re always watching and tracking what you spend-”

Recounting the crimes of Central corporations would keep them there all night. Rai folded his fingers, gloves pulled tense. “Carme said she lost her tech job five years ago, not two - which means she kept her place three years after being released. But still, good to know. So either time she dropped by, did she seem off, in any way? I assume she didn’t mention Cadoc directly. But did she mention any new acquaintances, plans, job prospects?”

“Well, she was very upset at the corporation, very emotional. But she’s very smart. Does what she’s told, she can find work anywhere…  she was soon back on her feet - new house and all.”

“Likely funded by her activities with Cadoc.” Rai tried to ignore the Norths bristling as he invoked Cadoc’s name again. “And she really didn’t mention him - she didn’t talk about her new job, anything about competitive eating… any distress regarding her new job?”

Two blank slates.

“If she showed no signs of stress,” Rai mused, “Then she must have intended to hide the facts - and Cadoc - from you. But I guess we knew that already.”

The house began to ring. Rai’s thoughts were momentarily jolted out of place. It was a telephone, a line that connected throughout the house, ringing in five places at once, with five different tones. “Do you need to get that?” he asked.

“Telemarketers,” Mrs. North said. “They’ve been calling nonstop for the past week.”

The phones continued their mangled chorus. Rai hesitated. “I’ll give you a moment.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing.” She shook her head.

“As police, you should really do something about those calls,” Mr. North added. “They’re a real public nuisance, coming at us nonstop.”

The phone stopped ringing before Rai could cobble together a response. Telemarketers were apparently the premium threat to the North house, murderer or no. “Back to the subject of Carme.”

The Norths were appropriately mournful.

“I think we should clarify as much as we can about this person she was working with. The suspect.” Rai tapped his phone, without handing it over this time. “And I’ll need to know more about Cadoc to rule him out.”

The mourning faces became even more pointed.

“What was Cadoc like, as you knew him? Did you ever suspect the reason he ran away-”

“Cadoc disappeared when he was twelve.” Mr. North spoke deliberate as if Rai were the twelve-year-old. “It was the most horrific time of our lives. How is this going to help the current situation?”

“As I said, I’m trying to understand why you think this person is not him, aside from ‘parental intuition’.”

“A waste of time, if you ask me.” The Norths exchanged another dismissive look.

“I didn’t ask what you thought of the process. I asked what Cadoc was like when you knew him.”

“He was a fine boy,” Mrs. North said quietly. “Very lively.”

“So -- similar to Carme?”

“He was… not troubled, but...” Mr. North eyed his wife for support, but she was focused on the grain of the coffee table. “Like she said, he was more lively, he didn’t always listen to what he was told. But children make mistakes, we know. It’s just a shame that...” He fell silent.

Mrs. North nodded, at the table. “You understand why this is a painful subject for us.”

Rai folded his arms. “Why did you give up looking for him so early?”

“We didn’t - we put out word in the newspaper, I still have the original paper somewhere…”

“I saw. But you never took it to the police officially.”

“The police…?” As if she’d forgotten who she was talking to, Mrs. North shriveled. “Oh, no… it was just too difficult, to think we’d be pulled into that world… searches, and interviews and... and we didn’t think he’d be far. At church they always said - please don’t be upset - that the police rarely managed to find anybody. There are so many missing children a year, and our friends said the city cases ate up all the police resources. There wasn’t time to come down here and search the forests. And we weren’t the first in the town to lose a loved one. I don’t know if our decisions were right in the end - please understand - we have regrets listening to them. We don’t go to service anymore.”

“We still believe in God,” Mr. North assured Rai, “and we know Cadoc is out there somewhere. But he’s not… this professional eater, whatever they call him. He’d never harm his sister.”

Their heads were shaking again, like spring-loaded toys in the back of a car, hands enveloped. Stiffly, like the L.E.A.C. logo, Rai thought. He watched the pantomime with growing tension. He wondered if Sao would have been open mouthed at the dissonance before him - the misread of seemingly predictable Cadoc had already put him off, but the parents were even more dedicated to their hollow act. Rai himself had his teeth grit so hard his jaw hurt, a fake smile he had forgotten to remove. There was nothing exceptionally out of place, they were sorry, they were in pain, but the whole thing gave him the feeling of talking to a particularly frustrating cashier. Oh no. Oh yes. Sorry you feel that way. We don’t have any here, would you like something else...

“Everyone deals with things differently, maybe you weren’t sure what the procedure would be. We do try as hard as we can, and retain cases indefinitely - but I guess that’s all past now. A little more about Cadoc himself, then. Were he and his sister close?”

A genuine smile almost knocked him back into the clutches of the couch. “Yes, they were quite close,” Mrs. North said. “They spent almost all their time together - not much interest in other children.”

“Sometimes I suspect Cadoc copied Carme’s work for school. But she didn’t mind. And in the end, what harm done? They were there for each other.” Mr. North stared at the low ceiling dreamily. “Kids. They make mistakes, but they would have been alright.”

“So it’s possible that Carme would have quickly accepted work with him, even after not seeing him for years. Sentimentality.”

“Maybe, if he really were to appear. She did take all his photos, and we wondered why, but...” Mr. North chewed the side of his mouth. “But that wasn’t him. And that sort of work - eating - no, Cadoc would never even think...”

“Never,” Mrs. North agreed.

This was punctuated by the phones throughout the house ringing again. The Norths still made no move to answer it. The total lack of reaction was astounding to Rai. He stood.

Mr. North flinched, but Mrs. North remained in her own world. “It couldn’t have been him. He was so different - maybe Carme was desperate, and in a moment of weakness, she let this stranger in… You know how it is, thinking you’re with family, those you love...”

“I can’t say I understand perfectly. Not all families are up to your standards.” Rai tried to sight the nearest phone. It was probably in the kitchen. “Do you mind?”

Mr. North stood, and headed for the kitchen before him. “Let me. Do you want some water?”

“I -- sure.” Rai folded his arms to stop himself from balling fists. “Those telemarketers are real parasites, huh?”

“Yes. I’ll handle it. Sorry for the interruption.” North vanished into the kitchen, and the phones stopped their ringing. Rai tilted back to see into the kitchen entryway. Mr. North was running a cup under the faucet in a remarkably empty kitchen. There was not a dish in sight. The counter may as well have been that of a morgue.

“Cadoc left in the middle of the night when he was twelve. The morning after, Carme seemed shellshocked,” Mrs. North said. Rai turned to her in surprise. He realized it was the first time he was seeing her act outside of her wife-husband unit. There was a needling of nostalgia, seeing her sitting on her own. “Of course, she still went to school without him. School was very important to her. She was always quiet, but she never asked questions. She saw how difficult it was and didn’t want to worry us...”

“And that was a good thing?” Rai frowned. “She was close to her brother, she could have been strongly affected... Did you ever think she might have known where he went when he first disappeared? Seen him go?”

“No… no, she didn’t. Carme wasn’t even the type to stay up late. And if Cadoc wanted to sneak out of the house without anyone knowing, he would… he was the kind to stay up late.” As if that were damning evidence. “You don’t think she’d hide something so important…?””

“Do you think it? I didn’t know her outside of one meeting earlier this week. But we’re talking about her childhood here - I assume she was in the house at the time. That’s why I ask.” They sat in silence, and Mr. North, slippers dragging, returned with the water. Rai sipped it. It tasted faintly metallic. “Did you know anything about Carme’s old job? The tech one. Something to do with healthcare equipment...”

“Oh, no. It was beyond us.”

“Does the name L.E. & A.C. sound familiar?”

“Not at all. What’s that spell -- leak?”

There was genuine naivety there. They knew their daughter was an engineer, wronged by the Corporation, but the Corporation was just an unknown entity, a dragon in a castle for all they knew. But their picture of obliviousness wasn’t quite complete. Sipping tap water beside an aging couple in their kitschy diorama of a living room, Rai felt some mounting, shaky energy about to break. Inexplicably, he thought he’d go for the ceramic rabbits and horses first if he lost his temper.

That didn’t have to happen. Sao would laugh.

“Oh, investigator. Your phone is ringing.”

Rai blinked and felt for his phone, which he had dropped in some inner pocket. It was Sao - not exactly a balm to the moment, but a distraction at this point was welcome. “It’s my colleague.” He picked up and was met with a wall of static.

“Carme always said the reception’s better upstairs,” Mr. North said. “Could it - could it be news of her…?”

 Mrs. North, in a shocking display of movement, swiveled to face her husband, her head screwed nearly at a right angle. Once again, for reasons he couldn’t explain, Rai thought this was nostalgic - no, it was something less dreamy. Deja vu? Rai waved the phone around the room to no avail. “You’re right. Could be developments in the case. Mind if I go upstairs?”

This time, Mr. North waited for his wife’s approval. She nodded. “Yes. Just up there on the landing should be enough.”

Rai left the two seated on the doily-covered sofa like a pair of haunted dolls. He’d just have to hope they were there when he came back. As Mr. North (or rather, Carme) had suggested, he managed to scrounge up two bars of telephone service, and dialed Sao back.

At that moment, the phones throughout the house began to ring again. The dolls on the couch fidgeted, exchanged some murmurs just low enough not to be heard.

Rai continued up the stairs past the landing.

---

“What’s that noise?”

“It’s the North’s landline,” Rai said, as the plastic receivers rang themselves raw.

“What are the parents doing now?”

“Waiting for me to go back down to finish grilling them. Reception is garbage in this area, so let’s keep this short.”

“I’m still amazed you made it to Upwater so quickly,” Sao said, disregarding Rai’s request entirely. “I heard it started snowing, too. And you’ve already questioned the parents. Will wonders never cease?”

The second floor was formed of one thin hallway with a nightlight plugged into low socket. Rai padded across a carpet caked stiff with time, and peered into the nearest room. It was the master bedroom, which had a window facing the front of the house and the curtains pulled back. How long had they watched him at the gate? The covers were undone in the topmost corner, as if the Norths had both carefully squeezed of that one corner to meet him.

“And it’s quite a story we heard from the lady next door to Carme’s place. I wonder if she’s one of those crass commenters on the videos…? Although, I suspect--”

Rai blew air through his teeth. “Why don’t you tell me what you actually found?”

“Why so hushed?” Sao paused. “You didn’t break in, did you?”

Cool, as if they were discussing the weather. Rai’s first thought was to punch a few holes in Sao’s cheer, but closed his eyes and exhaled again. “No, they woke up to let me in. They aren’t being too forthcoming - but they’re totally sure of one thing. Cadoc, as Central knows him, isn’t actually their son. They won’t let me forget that. Now, you?”

“Hm?”

Rai exhaled again. Sao hadn’t been well. He’d seen a body. And it was 3am - patience was going to be required. “Did you ever get to the North house? Presumably someone dug the head - body, or whatever - up from the box where it was sitting during your call, and took a look?”

“Right.” He could hear the smile. “Strange thing. First of all - it wasn’t Carme.”

“What?” Rai nudged open the next door in the hall. It was a closet full of stale-smelling towels and mothballs. More hospital than home. It occurred to him that the house lacked food smells entirely. Even downstairs, what he’d seen of the dining room and kitchen - nothing but dust, detergent and ammonia. After a week of meaty aromas, the dryness of the air was staggering. He closed the door.

“It wasn’t Carme’s head. Although it did look a lot like her. It was... well, I can’t say for sure, but it looked like Cadoc’s...”

“But when you spoke to Cadoc, the head was already in the box.” Behind the next door was a very large bed. Pushing the door wider, Rai saw that it was two beds pressed against each other. The room had two dressers nailed to the walls, and two desks. A room equipped for two, but one side had assimilated the other. The drawers were packed with plastic bags, filled with clothing. “You’re sure that head isn’t Carme?”

“I’m sure. There were distinctive marks…” Sao sighed. “I haven’t been in the best shape recently, I know I haven’t been much help. Cadoc and Carme really had me grasping for answers. But it all became clear once I saw the crack in the head.”

“The what?” Rai tugged open the closet and immediately slammed it shut before the tower of paper inside could come crashing out.

“Are you alright? Did they find you?”

“No, but I’m trying to check the house with a phone in one hand.” Rai shoveled the escaped papers off the ground and placed them on the desk, over a pile of similar documents. On it, there was a familiar logo. “So Carme isn’t dead, I guess is what you’re trying to tell me. But it doesn’t sound like you found her, so she’s missing again. Is that the point? Am I even close?” He flipped through the papers.

“Well, yes - we still don’t know where she is. Or where Cadoc is… sort of.” Sao dawdled. “Rai, remember when we were discussing Chimera’s possible contribution? They weren’t a competitive eating sponsor, but Carme’s old company was indeed connected to Cadoc. That makes the topic somewhat sensitive. But about the mysterious L.E.&A.C. My landlord pulled up a few records - and found L.E.A.C. is still technically in service. Can you guess what the initials meant?”

He too pronounced it Leak, which made Rai feel like his head was going to implode. The papers before him were taunting him with the same question. Against the throbbing of blood in his temples, Rai smiled as he read the first line of the document. “Yes, I think I know.”

“Oh. Really?”

“I do now.” 

His game spoiled, Sao went quiet for a moment. “So -- the police are going to have to be keeping an eye on the trains and roads out of town. Looking for - what was it - a black sports car. All we have to go on is Cadoc saying they were headed out on vacation...”

“And you believe that?” Rai grinned harder and tugged the curtain aside to look out the window of Carme’s bedroom - the bedroom that she must have once shared with Cadoc. The children’s room looked out over to the second storey of another dark house, but more prominently, the overgrown tumbleweed of a garden. The snow was still fighting to cover it, fill all the cracks and brambles. “Do you think Cadoc decided to take a midnight train down to the beach?”

“No.” 

A rare straightforward answer. Rai’s smirk hardened. Sao was not bent from trauma or exhaustion at all - Rai did not have to see him to know that he was more composed that he’d been all week.

Sao continued. “When I spoke to them - no, when I spoke to Carme - I believe now that she was on the edge of revealing something important. She was confiding in me, if only I had just hung in there for her. But I made the mistake of trying to understand Cadoc’s motivations at the same time. Only, Cadoc was never relevant. If I had only considered Carme, it would have come to me quicker… but I got the sense of this from her: there’s a lot the parents really don’t know - but something very significant that they do. Cadoc wasn’t avoiding them at all - it was Carme who had reason keep him away. Now...”

With the small black divots on the snow-covered garden staring up at him, blinking with the snowfall, Rai listened.

When Sao reached the end of his spiel, there was the thud of a car door closing on his end. “Rai. The police will be headed there soon. But it’s a long way - good thing you’re there. If you could make sure they don’t flee...”

“Oh, I will.” Rai pushed Carme’s papers back into place on the desk, resisting the urge to smack them straight. “They’re a… funny pair. I can see how Carme came out of this place. And to some extent Cadoc. This will be interesting.”

“Am I going to be grateful that I didn’t come along with you?” Sao must have really made a full recovery from whatever oddity the Norths had plagued him with. (Rai was still not entirely sure the lunchtime soup was innocent either.) “Leave them with enough energy to answer the officers, please. This is going to be a hard night for the family, if this ends the way we’re suspecting.”

“Probably not the hardest night they’ve ever had in this house.” Rai pulled the curtains shut.

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing.” Elsewhere in the house, the phones were ringing again. “Glad to hear you’re feeling better. Gotta go.”

He took off his gloves so he could crack his knuckles. The burning blue sparks that came from them lit the documents on the desk, the name and product patent of L.E.A.C. Rai smiled again, to himself. With Sao back on the horse so to speak, a certain pressure had returned - and while he wouldn’t admit it in such precise words, there was something tantalizing about being back at their ridiculous little game. 

---

“Good news,” Rai announced when he tramped down the steps to see Mrs. North seated, her spine straight as a post, without her husband. “It was not Carme’s head in the photo I showed to you.”

The phone rung to an end, unanswered. Around the same time, Mr. North charged out of the kitchen with two cups of tea in hand.

“Goodness,” Mrs. North exclaimed. “But… who’s was it then?”

“I’ll let you know when it’s confirmed. In the meantime, I just want to let you know this means the focus of the case has shifted, but Carme is still a person of interest. Police still can’t reach her by phone, and her car is gone.” 

Mrs. North grew stony. “Just a minute - you don’t mean to say that she’s suspected of killing this… other person, do you?”

“Well, a head was found in her house. And she’s conspicuously missing. It looks like she made an escape from a crime scene, right?”

“What about that strange man she was with? Is there no interest in him at all?”

“You mean Cadoc?” Rai asked.

He let the indignance linger. “We’ve told you time and time again,” Mr. North said, setting the teacups down. “That was not our son.”

“And I keep asking you, how are you sure? The man looks like Carme’s twin. He knows of Cadoc’s past. Carme was too smart to be tricked. So what exactly confirms this for you?”

Mr. North advanced, mouth open. But when his wife let out a nervous plea, he froze in place. “We just know. As his parents, there’s just--”

Rai looked the man up and down. In his slippers and flannels, he was not particularly threatening, the picture of an old family man. Something taken for granted. “People make mistakes.”

The phones began to ring again. Rai watched Mr. North pace about the room, while his wife sat like a mannequin on her flowery quicksand cushions. He waited for the caller out, the ringing rattling the air around them, until it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun.

“Telemarketers, huh?” Rai asked.

The Norths did not respond.

“They won’t stop calling, until you tell them to quit it. But you gotta do it firmly,” Rai advised, taking up a post right in front of the doorway, taking a peek at the garden through the porthole window in the door. There was no view but walls and the grid of the iron gate. Nobody could enjoy that. “So... about this stranger Carme was passing off as her brother.”

“Why,” Mrs. North breathed, “do you say it like it’s her fault? Clearly, this man was the manipulator. You don’t know who he is or where he came from - why are you ignoring the obvious?”

“You don’t have to worry about him anymore. The question of the stranger’s identity is already answered.”

The house itself seemed to tense up. Mrs. North was almost swallowed by her cushions.

“Confirming his identity,” Rai continued, “also confirmed that the noise complaint earlier today - the argument Carme had - could not possibly have been with him.”

“You aren’t making much sense here,” Mr. North said. “Was there another person involved...?”

“I guess I can tell you what was heard. Carme’s neighbor caught something out of the ordinary earlier today, and put in a noise complaint with the police. The neighbor spoke to her afterward, confirming she wasn’t harmed during the argument...” Rai crossed his arms. “But Carme seemed to be responding to a threat, and threatening someone in return. Only her voice was heard. So it makes sense that she was on the phone.”

There was no reaction to this, so he continued.

“Carme and Cadoc - I mean, her lodger - were typically quiet. Some loud machines, the occasional call - they had sponsors to handle - but this was out of the ordinary. And you know what else has been out of the ordinary recently?”

“None of this sounds ordinary,” Mr. North cut in. “Strange arguments, neighbors listening in to conversations - why are you not out now looking for her or the man she was with? I don’t know what kind of trick he’s pulled but don’t you think it’s suspicious at all?”

“Carme worked with this lodger for two years. It’s on record - on video, online, etcetera. But what’s changed in the last week was-” Rai pointed a glowing finger from one furrowed face to the other. “The supposed kidnapping. Mainline news. You two finally found out about her work in the eating world.”

Mrs. North stood up at last. “That’s enough.”

“I’m not done yet.”

“We’ve told you everything we know.”

“No, you haven’t.” Rai set his back against the door. “I want to know what happened to Cadoc.”

Once again, the North’s phone line began to ring, walling the conversation. Rai rested against the door and watched the Norths arrange themselves. A rare thought crossed his mind; the thought that Sao would not like them. Sao liked almost everybody if he was left to marinate by them long enough, like it was an obligation to feel for them. But these people were intentional blanks - without passing judgment, they hoped you’d do the same. The fact that they hadn’t booted Rai out was testament to that. What made it worse was that they did seem to care for Carme. His theory hinged on that, and that’s what made it difficult. There was no fun in knocking over, negotiating or seducing a neutral force.

No wonder Sao had disliked the hologram servant Gene, the coming of a new and gentler era. Where people would be beautiful and servile without any sort of thought behind it, it was both competition and dilution of everything Sao had. He must have seen himself in a purely losing game.

Rai had never considered himself blessed with any of the above qualities, not even willpower to empty his mind, which might let him get a full night’s sleep. If Sao and his ilk were going to be competing with virtual angels, Rai wouldn’t just have a losing game on his plate, it was to be a forfeit from the start. And still, he both admired and loathed the impending soft life and all its furnishings, its shimmering citizens and blind servility. Its lack of judgment.

Because, what a joke that was. As if humans would ever outpace the need for judgment.

Especially a couple of humans in a faded old house with high walls, and not a hint of modern technology in sight. They’d be wallowing in the ditches with him. Neutrality be damned. 

Rai smiled, in a way that made the Norths fidget.

The phone rang off.

“Carme told the police in no unsure terms that she didn’t want us talking to you about Cadoc. By all accounts, it looked like her work was supposed to be a secret - from you, specifically. She must have known your lifestyle and tastes meant you wouldn’t notice. Or maybe, she didn’t suspect that Cadoc would become such a big celebrity.” Rai made a show of looking out the window again. “So I’m guessing you initiated contact. Her call today was with you, wasn’t it? I’m sure the logs can be dug up.”

The Norths exchanged furtive glances, but were not close enough to exchange words.

“It was only a brief conversation,” Mrs. North said, nearly in a whisper, as if she’d already let out a throat-rending scream without anyone noticing. “Are our calls really recorded?”

“Nothing happened,” Mr. North said, with sudden firmness. “She was hysterical, but we were only worried about her safety. That stranger, you see.”

“Carme also did not paint a very positive picture of you two. Neither did Cadoc - let’s just call him that for now. From what Carme’s neighbor overheard, there was some information being tossed around that would bring both you and your children down.” Rai tapped the doorframe. “Correct me if you’ve got any suggestions, but the biggest scandal I can think of is the matter of Cadoc’s disappearance. The first one. When he vanished from home at age 12 - this was the house he ran away from. You haven’t moved since.”

“No. Can’t afford to.” Mr. North took a hurried sip of tea.

“I’m guessing he never contacted you. Even once you found out what Carme was doing, and made your presence known.”

“Never,” Mrs. North said, hoarsely.

“We wouldn’t have spoken to the man anyway, because that wasn’t our son,” Mr. North added.

“And you gave up quickly on looking for him...” Rai held up a finger, his hands flickering, an unwelcome neon among the sandy beige room - but the Norths did not comment. “So it sounds like Cadoc both ran away from home and avoided you from then on. It’s the former choice I’m more interested in. A 12 year old running away from home isn’t normal. This house looks perfectly fine to me, so I’m forced to suspect the actions of the people within it.”

Mrs. North’s lips formed a silent, tiny o. Mr. North’s, meanwhile, was flapping frantically. “How can you say that? You’re thinking we abused him? Never - we loved him, we were devastated when he disappeared that night. We have no idea-”

“Of course you’d say that.”

“We only ever wanted the best for him. He and Carme were our-”

“Carme was avoiding you too.” Rai pressed a hand to his chin. “But you’re right, that alone wouldn't have scared her. Parental abuse might tarnish your good name, but it wouldn’t mean much to Carme and Cadoc, who were coming into national renown. Hell, their video audience would eat up a sob story like that. So why would they worry, unless there was some extra risk in revealing it - perhaps it involved the church?”

“What in the world are you talking about?”

“Would you throw your children under the bus for the church?”

“We stopped going!” Mr. North spluttered, tea dripping down his chin. “There was nothing there but rumors and talk when Cadoc left. They were saying the exact same things you’re accusing us of, that we beat him or locked him up, but that was never the case. If you want to look into that sort of thing, just check the Grey family three houses down, because God knows those children are more in need, or-”

“Rigel!” Mrs. North gasped.

“It was all just talk. And they also said he’d never come back, that missing persons were never found, how children would end up dissected or prostituted. As if it were our fault. As if Carme were next - but you saw her, she’s...” Mr. North wound down, and collapsed into a dining room chair. “We were sick of all the needless judgment.”

“I can see this is a painful subject,” Rai said blandly, “so why don’t you just tell me what it was you were holding over Carme’s head. Or what she was holding over yours. Was it money?”

“No, no. We just… wanted her to be safe. From that stranger.”

“The stranger.” Rai tilted his head. “Alright. I’ll give you that much. The man I showed you - the person who called himself Cadoc North - he isn’t your son.”

The Norths were wise enough not to breathe their sighs of relief just yet.

“The rising celebrity eater named Cadoc North was, as you suspected, not what he claimed to be. The truth is that Carme never worked with her brother. I know this because of the call I just received. The question I have is, how did you know?”

“We just knew,” Mr. North said, daring another sip of tea. “As parents.”

“I don’t believe that. Primarily because you won’t give me one solid reason why you knew, right away, despite all similarities and the word of your daughter herself, that the competitive eater Cadoc was not your son. I’m no parent, but I’ve been through dozens of missing persons cases - and your entire treatment of Cadoc’s disappearance at age 12 was less than parental. You gave up on him so quickly. You refused to believe he had resurfaced for any apparent reason. The clearest description of the disappearance I’ve gotten was from Carme herself. The problem is… I do think you loved your children. Are you starting to understand how this looks?”

The phone began to ring again, a despairing wail.

“As you said - Carme’s bright. She’s the one who orchestrated Cadoc’s eating career. She wasn’t forced into it - not at first, anyhow, but things blew up. Then she was trapped by a celebrity of her own making. In any case, it wasn’t Cadoc’s doing, because he couldn’t have done a thing. Carme was just too talented for her own good. But that doesn’t change how the story began. The reason she was able to draft up the story of the new Cadoc was because she knew what happened to the old one. Did you think you kept it hidden from her?”

Porcelain rabbits’ eyes watched Rai open the front door. The Norths, however, were doing their best not to look at him.

The air was frosty. “I used to hear it all the time on TV, when I was a kid. The first 72 hours of a disappearance are crucial - detectives used to say the chance of finding the person being cut in half after the first 48 hours. Yeah, system's changed, technology improved, the math isn’t perfect - but the point is, Cadoc’s been gone way longer than even that.” Rai breathed a cloud of white smoke, which reminded him of Trae. “Life is predictable sometimes - well, I don’t know if ‘life’ is the word to use here. For Cadoc to resurface after 20 years, back with good health, limbs intact, inexplicably well-spoken, with a clean - completely blank record - it was a miracle. And miracles don’t happen. I should have all known better the instant I heard it.”

Snow had covered the lawn. It was as if springtime had never come at all.

“Some more old wisdom. The culprit behind a disappearance, especially of a child, is most often someone close to them. Excuse the assumption, but it doesn’t look like many others manage to get close to your household.”

He stood on the porch, turned back toward the house. The doorway glowed tiredly against the dark. Just a meter off from the raised deck, the hellish tangle of the unkempt garden was encroaching on the hedges that had been so squarely trimmed in Carme’s old photos. He wondered how long the back of the house had been left to run wild.

The Norths trundled up to the door, as if to see him off, but found themselves trapped in the doorway. Still staring out at the walls, Rai took his final swing. “You didn’t believe the miracle for a second. You knew Cadoc could never appear again, because he was dead.”

The phone continued its valiant alarm.

“He never ran away, did he? I don’t know how it went down, but Cadoc died that night at the age of 12, and the fact that you opted to cover it up makes me believe that one or both of you were responsible. And maybe you didn’t realize it at the time - you wanted to believe she was not part of it - but Carme knew what happened.”

The collapse was gradual, like melting ice, with a certain smoothness. Mr. North went first, as Rai thought he would. He coughed, leaned against the doorframe, and rested an arm on his wife’s stiff shoulder. “She knew everything,” he said, and only then did Mrs. North also begin her decline. “We should never have - the window--”

“Something happened out there?” Rai stared into the dark mass of the back garden. Overlooking it silently was the children’s bedroom window.

“It was an accident,” Mr. North said, through deep, wheezing breaths. His wife was quiet, hardly breathing at all, but instead blinking rapidly. “Cadoc shouldn’t have… shouldn’t have been eating in the.. Eating them…it was an accident.”

“An accident,” Rai repeated. “Miracles can’t happen, but accidents can and will. Pretty unfair, right? And I was not lying when I said that I believed you cared for Carme. You got in touch with her out of concern over this person she was with… the person who was attracting all that slander, putting her name in the public news. The deadlock came when you called to demand an explanation about said stranger. I don’t think you knew who he was, only who he was not. But this was an attack on Carme’s plan, and she retaliated with threats to out you as the ones behind Cadcoc’s death, 20 years ago.”

Over it all, the phone continued to ring and ring. Falling off their script had sent the Norths' act into chaos. Wheeze, ring, word, ring, another wheeze and then another cycle. Finally, unable to take it any further, he returned to the house and the gaze of the ceramic figurines, chasing the Norths back in too, onto the lap of their floral settee.

“I’m sure you’re still curious about the head and the identity of this stranger. You’ll be able to see the answer for yourself soon. The police are headed toward Upwater.”

After all their troubles, the couple were still cagey, and appeared to be interested in nothing more than melding together with their couch. Rai watched them, listening. There was only one noise in the house now.

“Telemarketers aren’t allowed to operate at 3 in the morning. Do you mind?”

Perhaps they did, but did not stop him. Rai entered the colorless, odorless kitchen and immediately spotted the phone, ringing itself hoarse. It was the only object on the counter. He picked it up.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Rai said. “I was speaking with your parents.”

“Ah.” Silence, then a sigh. “You’re the investigator.” Even in surprise, her words were spaced out like army formations, not faltering for anything. “I should have known. I said too much to him - your partner. I couldn’t help it.”

“Yeah, he got his head around your message in the end, intentional or not.”

“He really is something.”

“He’ll be glad to hear that. You actually had him doubting himself for a while.” Then, loud enough to be heard from the living room: “Are you still on your way over? I think your parents are finally ready to see you. And Cadoc.”