Rain kept the city punctual. It arrived late enough for the anchors to mention it and early enough to dampen shoe leather in the alleys where debts were collected. For Arman Vale, the rain was a neutral fact, like a bruise that turned the same color whether you watched it or not.
He watched Ashfield through a window that hadn't been washed in months. Across the street, red brick glowed with cigarette embers; down by the river, a barge cut a clean crescent of neon. Two cups of coffee had gone cold in the sink, three unsent emails blinked on his screen, and a file folder refused to stop speaking even when he slid a stack of unpaid bills over it.
The folder read: RAINES / HOMICIDE / 3-14. He didn't touch it. He'd touched it enough once—the way a man picks at a scab, telling himself it'll knit if he just watches.
Someone knocked. One careful rap—not the kind that expected company, but the kind that let itself be measured.
He opened the door to a woman in a cheap, soaked coat. Her umbrella dripped like a slow faucet. She stood under it as if shelter were both fragile and precious.
"Mr. Vale?" she said. Her voice wavered, like an unpracticed speaker's when the lines won't hold emotion steady.
He stepped aside without a smile. "Who wants to know?"
"Leyla Hossam." She slid a photograph across his chipped table like an offering. "My brother's missing. He's been gone three nights."
He looked at the picture: a young man, thin, hair swept forward, laughing as though the camera had caught him unarmed. Freckles dotted his cheeks. A bandaged ear. The photograph was ordinary and therefore stubbornly real.
"How much?"
Leyla closed her hand on the umbrella as if it were a talisman. "I'll pay what I can. I heard you used to be on homicide."
He wanted to tell her that "used to" was a kindness the world gave men who'd fallen. He wanted to say things that excused him from caring. Instead, he folded the photograph and slid it into his inside pocket. Rain drummed softly against the window.
"Tell me everything," he said.
She did. Her brother's name was Malik Hossam. He worked unloading freight at Eastworks Pier. A week ago, he'd gone to a shift and not come home. Leyla had checked the station, two shelters, a clinic. The nurse there had whispered about signs: bruises, the way people talked to him. A man had been asking after Malik. The nurse mentioned "Hale" and then looked at Leyla like she'd shared something dangerous.
"Hale?" Arman echoed. The name sounded clean—on plaques, on ribbon-cuttings, on glossy plans that paved over cheap housing with boutiques. Hale Developments.
Leyla swallowed. "Victor Hale. My brother said they were hiring temporary security for the docks."
Arman rested his hands on his hips. "You don't strike me as someone who hires private eyes for chit-chat, Ms. Hossam."
Her fingers worried the umbrella handle. "He left his keys, his wallet. His phone's dead. And that tattoo—" She rolled up her sleeve, revealing a small, faded crescent under her wrist: an arc, plain, like a private brand. "He had it since he was fourteen. He never showed anyone."
The crescent tugged at a buried memory in Arman: a detail from a photograph he'd tried to forget. He'd seen that curve before.
"I'll take it," he said. "Partial up front."
She fumbled a crumpled envelope into his palm. It wasn't much—enough for a week's pocket money and little else. But the look she gave him wasn't about cash; it was the particular trust you hand a stranger when you've run out of options.
"You sure?" she asked.
He stared at the rain. "I used to be sure about other things."
"You still look like a man who solves things." There was no flattery in her tone. Only need.
He told her what he told all clients: he'd try, but there were no promises. She left under her umbrella, a small silhouette beating the wet street. He padlocked his old desk out of habit—the sort of tiny ritual that kept small betrayals from growing.
Then he sat with the Raines folder on his lap. Outside, the city continued its ritual of water and light. Somewhere, a radio read the weather as if announcing it could alter fate.
He opened the folder.
Beneath brittle depositions and pleated photographs was a small typed note he hadn't noticed before: EVIDENCE TRANSFERRED — DO NOT DELETE. Signed: —E.H.
The initials felt like an echo. His thumb brushed the ink, and he tasted something metallic: not blood yet, but the old flavor of consequence.
Leyla's photograph warmed against his chest. He felt how small facts become evidence, and how evidence becomes traps.
He rose. He had one client, a bad city, and a self he didn't much like. He cracked the window a hair and let the smell of wet pavement in.
He knew two things: first, he had to go to the docks. Second, and worse, he'd have to dig into the Raines file and see if the paper still burned his fingers.
Outside, the rain washed the city clean of nothing.