Aldric's eyes swept across the room again, moving from the lifeless figure of Havelrath Cain to the meticulously arranged scene. The initial shock of Cain's staged suicide had faded, replaced by a meticulous, analytical clarity. Most would see only a dead man and a murdered woman. Aldric, however, saw the story behind every line, every mark, every imperfection.
He crouched beside Cain's body. The gun was cold, but that wasn't the detail that caught him. Most investigators would stop at the obvious—the trajectory of the bullet, the angle, the empty chamber. Aldric noticed something subtle: the slight indentation along Cain's left wrist, almost imperceptible.
A mark.
A message.
A finger-length scratch, clean, deliberate, like a symbol scratched into flesh. He tilted his head, studying it, then leaned closer. Cain's wrist had been placed under the body at just the right angle to make it invisible to casual observation. A cruel signature. But it wasn't a warning for Aldric—it was an invitation, or a clue.
His mind raced. He remembered every encounter with Cain, every anomaly he had seen in the files, every move that didn't fit the pattern of a man planning his own death. Aldric's photographic memory flickered over every report he had read about high-level anomalies, criminal masterminds, and old intelligence networks. Then it clicked: the scratch wasn't random. It was a timing mark. A subtle note meant to indicate when Cain expected the next move to be made, not for him personally, but for someone far higher on the chain—a master he was serving.
Ms. Vos approached, eyes scanning, silent. Aldric motioned subtly for her to observe without touching.
"Do you see it?" he asked quietly.
Her eyes followed his, narrowing. "A scratch?"
"Not just a scratch. A calculated mark. Cain wanted the next player to know the exact window. It's almost… ceremonial." Aldric straightened, his gaze sweeping the room again. Every detail was layered with meaning—the positioning of the woman's body, the angle of the gun, the note, the Old Norse phrase, the watermark. All deliberate. All precise.
"Ceremonial?" Ms. Vos repeated, her voice tight with tension.
"Yes," Aldric said, his tone measured, almost reverent. "This is part of a sequence. The first move was public, the next moves… will be more personal, more precise. Cain's death is not the end—it's a signal. And this mark…" He touched the scratch lightly with a gloved fingertip, careful not to disturb it. "This is the signal that someone else is already watching, waiting for the next chess piece to fall."
Ms. Vos' jaw tightened. "The anomaly… the one you've been tracking. The one that even the LCO can't touch… he's already active."
Aldric's lips curved faintly, a mix of frustration and fascination. "And he left us a breadcrumb through Cain. Just enough for me to see it." His gaze drifted upward, through the surveillance cameras, as if piercing the walls themselves. "He's clever. Patient. Calculating. He's not the type to be cornered easily. But this… this mark? It's arrogance disguised as humility. He wants us to notice something, but not enough to find him."
The sound of Ms. Vos' footsteps softened behind him. "And the woman?"
"She was a message," Aldric said flatly. "An announcement that anyone who interferes—anyone who observes—will be marked. She wasn't a random casualty. She was deliberate. Her death ensures fear spreads without evidence. No one can trace it back to him directly. Only someone who understands the pattern would see it."
Aldric's hand went to his pocket, retrieving a small magnifying glass. He studied the scratch under its lens, memorizing its subtle curves, the angle, the pressure. Every detail was a statement.
Ms. Vos, quiet, studied him carefully. "You're… sure this isn't coincidence?"
He smiled faintly, almost grimly. "Nothing in Cain's methods is coincidence. Every movement, every death, every message… it's all orchestrated. And this… this is just one layer of the puzzle. Someone is playing a game decades in advance."
Aldric's mind raced, reconstructing Cain's last movements before death. He noted the position of the office desk, the direction of the bullet, the angle of the shadow cast by the overhead light. Then he leaned closer to the body again, pausing. Something else caught his eye—an almost invisible thread of red along Cain's collarbone.
It wasn't blood.
It was a fine wire.
He followed the wire carefully. It disappeared into the folds of Cain's jacket, perfectly hidden. Aldric's heart quickened. This wasn't just a mark for observation—it was evidence of communication. Cain had left a trace, a micro-signal, potentially an active device, but only detectable by someone who knew where to look.
Ms. Vos noticed the tension in his posture. "A device?" she asked.
"Yes," Aldric said softly. "A signal. Cain wasn't acting alone. He's a pawn. But this… this wire… it's either a tracking device or a beacon. And I know exactly what it's pointing to." He straightened, eyes blazing with a calculated intensity.
"Where?" Ms. Vos asked, voice low.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he surveyed the room, piecing together everything—Cain's movement, his patterns, the stairwell, the entrance, the exit routes. He pictured the city in his mind like a three-dimensional chessboard. And at that moment, clarity struck him like lightning: the device, the mark, the note, the Old Norse phrase… all pointed to a location only I would understand. A safe place for the next move.
"Cain wanted me to find this," Aldric murmured. "Not just to know it exists, but to trace it. To realize someone is still active. Someone bigger. Someone smarter."
Ms. Vos' eyes narrowed. "And you think you can find him?"
Aldric's gaze returned to Cain's lifeless eyes, icy yet almost purposeful in death. "It's not about finding him yet. It's about understanding the message. And understanding the message… is about surviving the game he's set in motion."
He paused, letting the words sink. Then, almost casually, he added: "He underestimated me. Just one mistake—and he left a breadcrumb tailored for me. That's arrogance… and opportunity."
The faint hum of monitors and computers filled the room. Aldric's mind was alive, mapping every possibility, running simulations against patterns he had memorized over decades of study.
Then his gaze flicked back to the note, and he noticed something else—almost too subtle to see without focus. Tiny symbols etched along the edges of Cain's handwriting. Dots, slashes, and angled marks.
A code.
Another layer. Another message buried within the first. Aldric's lips curved into a small, knowing smile. Only someone with years of language study, history, and cryptography could even notice it.
He leaned close to Ms. Vos. "This wasn't meant for the world. It wasn't meant for the LCO. It was meant for me."
She exhaled softly, incredulous. "How do you know?"
"Because," Aldric said, fingers tracing the edges of the paper, "most people don't notice the invisible details. They see a dead man, a murdered woman, a note. They miss the thread connecting all three. But I noticed. And that means," he paused, eyes sharp, piercing, "…he knows I'm capable of following it."
Ms. Vos let the weight of his words sink in. She had trained for anomalies for decades, but Aldric's perception, intellect, and depth of understanding were leagues beyond anything she had encountered.
Aldric stepped back, straightening his suit. "The corpse that breathes," he whispered again. "It's not Cain. It's not the woman. It's the pattern. It's the signal. And now… I've seen it."
Ms. Vos' lips parted slightly. "Then what now?"
He folded his arms, eyes narrowing toward the exit. "Now… we follow it. Carefully. And we prepare for the next move."
Outside, the city continued unaware, the streets alive with people oblivious to the chessboard unfolding above and beneath them. But Aldric had seen the first real thread in the web. And he knew, without a shadow of doubt, that every move from this point forward would be life or death—for Cain, for the LCO, and for himself.