Evidence.

The man had evidence. Up until he’d said that, Laith had been inclined to believe Pheonix Zamarad’s story. He hadn’t shown signs of dishonesty, though Laith couldn’t help but feel there were things he was still holding back, and he’d looked terrified. Not a lot of people could pull off genuine terror. But the evidence – that would move Laith’s position from inclination to believe to certainty. If he could get his hands on the evidence, he might be able to put everything together and get Lockwood incarcerated for his heinous crimes.

Laith sat in his car, turning over the rest of Zamarad’s testimony in his head as the nightscape passed him by silently. He’d decided to take the normal roads in hopes that he’d have more time to his thoughts. That, and he’d wanted to see more than just the inside of a tunnel for most of his journey. He was getting sick of the A-lanes. As he stared out at the passing cityscape of the Forest, he recalled Pheonix Zamarad’s perturbing revelations. The relevant parts he had insisted were to be completely off-record. Laith had had to hand his Slate to one of the officers waiting outside in the hall, who had taken it from him in confusion but asked no questions. Only then did Pheonix Zamarad tell him what he truly needed to know about Aster Lockwood.

Apparently, while he had been very serious about seeing if he could use the wild herbs and other plants from the Ruins for Greenland Farm’s research and development projects, he’d had an ulterior motive for venturing out into the dangerous lands beyond the walls of the city. He’d been visiting the families, friends, and loved ones of Aster Lockwood’s victims, braving the lawless expanse that was the Ruins in order to collect their testimonies using old-fashioned equipment he’d purchased from not-so-legal markets.

Lockwood preferred to hunt men. Men who were the breadwinners for their households in a landscape that made it difficult and sometimes dangerous to survive. As a result of their murders, many of these men’s families were left in dire straits. Pheonix claimed to have visited them often to help in whatever way he could – in this case, financially. While they weren’t part of the PATET database and therefore digital monetary transfers were out of the question, he’d found a workaround by bringing them food, supplies, and objects that they could barter or sell for other important items. Sometimes, Cassia Grove would chip in. And so, despite their lovely house in The Hills, it seemed that the two of them lived quite frugally on the whole.

“I’d hoped that the research and development project I was working on would create more opportunities for these people, too,” Pheonix had admitted, staring down at his hands. “I was hoping that I could pay people in the Ruins to take care of the procurement for the necessary plants for the Farm, offering jobs that could help them survive. I even have my legal team looking into it, to see if it was possible and how it could work out.” Here, he had paused for a moment and shook his head dejectedly. “I guess it’s a moot point, now. I won’t be able to help them in any capacity, anymore.”

There was nothing Laith could have said in response, so he had prodded him for some more information – the whereabouts of the evidence, what kind of evidence he had collected, and if he had also noted the locations of the people in the Ruins whose testimonies he’d collected. His answers he kept tucked away in his mind, unable to betray the man’s trust and record them in his Slate once it was all over.

And now, here he was.

The Camino Forest pulled to a stop, a silent ghost in the residential streets of the Hills, which were softly illuminated with the otherworldly glow of the bioluminescent trees leaning over them. He gripped the steering wheel tightly, staring at his knuckles under the blue light. He had disengaged the automatic driving feature, preferring to drive here himself as a way to keep his mind focused on something that could stop it from spiraling away. Tonight, he was going to do something he wasn’t supposed to do – something that could potentially place him in a great deal of trouble and danger, if Pheonix Zamarad’s words were true…

He shuddered violently. There was a chill in the air – or maybe he was just feeling cold-skinned at the thought of what it might mean if Lockwood truly was a killer. There was only one way to know for certain. Laith took a steadying breath and stepped out of his vehicle, taking in No. 23. He had not been here since the day he’d been called in. There hadn’t been much to see – but then, he hadn’t known where to look. Now, he stood before it with knowledge he had not had before.

Laith approached the house, glancing around despite himself and going over the story he had in his mind. It was well past appropriate work hours, but it certainly wasn’t uncommon in the police force to work longer stretches when needed – especially among detectives. Certainly, they didn’t often need to, but with PATET being utterly useless and downright confusing at best (and dangerously manipulated at worst), he’d come to the conclusion that even if his visit tonight was logged, it wouldn’t seem out of the ordinary. If anyone asked – they won’t, he reminded himself as he used his Slate to access the front door – but if they did, he could just say that he’d got to a dead end with his case and wanted to see the crime scene again, in case there had been something he had overlooked earlier on. It wasn’t entirely a lie. And it wasn’t exactly forthcoming. He could live with that.

Nevertheless, he wanted to be quick. Maybe it was the rising paranoia that came with his increasing distrust of PATET, but Laith had the strange sensation of being watched wherever he went, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Once inside, Laith turned on the flashlight on his Slate and quickly made for the home offices he had seen when he was last here. Inside the false Lockwood’s office, he swept the room with his flashlight. One of the wooden wall panels was fake, according to Pheonix, and behind that wall panel was every shred of evidence he had amassed about the true Lockwood’s morbid and criminal dealings in the Ruins – and possibly more.

Laith went panel by panel, knocking on each one lightly and listening for a hollow interior. When he finally found it – located right behind Zamarad’s office chair – he followed the man’s instructions on opening it. He felt around the edges of the panel, and towards the bottom of it found a small pressure-activated switch. The panel pushed itself forward with a small hiss, and Laith pushed it smoothly to the left, revealing a mechanical interior with a locked metal cupboard. The key, Pheonix Zamarad had told him, would be below the stones in the potted plant on the other corner of the room. Laith found it just where he’d said, and went back to the metallic cupboard, slipping it into the keyhole and opening the door.

His breath hitched in his throat. There, before him, were stacks of folders, notebooks, an old-fashioned recording device, and various tapes to go along with it – some used, as he could see from the titles scribbled on the labels, and some unused.

This is it, he thought as he flipped through the first folder, feeling a sense of revulsion at its contents and what they meant. This is what I need to take down Aster Lockwood.

☀️ ☀️ ☀️

As Laith sat in his office finishing up a report that might not be there tomorrow morning, the paranoia got the better of him. Everything else – including his Slate – was probably compromised. The evidence was in a safe location for now, but that was only temporary, and it was really only safe because nobody else knew where it was except for him – not even Pheonix Zamarad, who’d put it all together. Laith needed to find a better hiding place for the items and records he’d found, and he couldn’t think of a better place at the moment than where it all sat, hidden in plain view.

He was about to press the submit button and be done with the report – it was getting late and Warda had called him a couple of times to check up on his progress and when he’d be home – when an idea struck him cold. It was probably inviting danger, but… Well, if Zamarad was to be trusted, Laith was already in danger. He added a vague note in his records about having found evidence that may reveal Cassia Grove’s true killer, who Laith suspected had to have been someone who’d just recently returned to the city, but that with his growing concerns about PATET, he hadn’t logged a single shred of the evidence in PATET and was instead keeping it in a secure location outside of the Heliopolis PD headquarters.

If he was right, and Lockwood really was somehow able to manipulate PATET through his connection at the PATET headquarters, then he’d see this as a beacon pointing straight at him.

He’d want to do something to get rid of it.

Laith submitted the report and leaned back, heart thumping nervously in his chest. Hopefully, the man wasn’t mad enough to try anything hasty. Either way, if anything happened, he’d know for certain that someone was monitoring the case through PATET.

He swallowed hard, the anxiety creeping through him.

He’d just painted a big, red target on his own back.