In the noon, sun was barely visible through the clouds as Shuhi and Utaro made their way to the fourth house.
They didn't expect much if anything but part of chasing the clues and which meant looking in every dark corner, even disturbing the large family once more.
The previous woman named Sae Danao opened the door again.
"Oh aren't you the investigators from a few days ago?" She asked.
"Yes we would like to search again. We think we are missing something here, so can we enter?" Utaro said with a warm tone.
"Yes sure."
She welcomed them in again, a little more curious this time, a little more trusting. It helped that Utaro wore his tired detective face well, and Shuhi didn't speak much.
They split up this time.
Shuhi took the back rooms Their plan was Shuhi will search study, the tiny library.
Utaro on the other hand search for the other clues. After searching, they will switch rooms. The rooms Shuhi searched will be searched by Utaro and Utaro's searched rooms will be rechecked by Shuhi. It was an effective plan because if one failed to spot something at the first attempt, other person will find it.
She moved slowly, fingers brushing over shelves, curtain hems, desk drawers. Nothing was looking suspicious.
While taking another hallway of the house, Shuhi noticed Utaro's bad lying on the sofa. It was the perfect chance for her to peek into real life detective's bag.
"Just what can be in that? Gun? Magnifying glass? Case files?"
Just the thoughts of peeking into a real detective's bag made her curious.
Shuhi heard somewhere that the biggest weapon of a genius is curiosity.
Looking at the hallway and predicting Utaro's action, also how much time may take for him to return in an instant, Shuhi grabbed the bag and opened the chain.
Inside there was a bundle of papers, pens of different colors, a knife and a small glue pack. Before she could dig deeper, Utaro shouted,
"You found something?"
Shuhi let go of the bag and closed the chain.
"Not yet" Shuhi replied.
Later after two hours of searching, she spotted something.
Some books were stacked beside a reading chair. Not too many, maybe six or seven but worn, like someone actually used them. She started flipping through them. One by one. Nothing in the text itself stood out. But then she noticed something odd.
Page numbers. Some circled in red ink. Some underlined in black. No notes. Just marked numbers.
She took pictures of the pages with her phone.
"Utaro," she called out, "come take a look."
He peeked from the hallway. "Find something?"
"Maybe. These books have numbers marked. Red and black pens. No patterns yet, but it feels deliberate."
He crouched next to her, looking at the pages she pointed to.
"Isn't marking pages a normal thing for people to do? This could be a reading list," he muttered.
"Or a code. Or… nothing."
"Exactly. That's the problem." Shuhi said.
Utaro also took photos of every marked page and closed the books gently, not wanting to disturb anything more than necessary.
As they left, the sky was already dimming, a reminder that time didn't wait, not even for investigations that involved serial murders and riddles.
"Let me walk you to the bus stand," Utaro offered.
But Shuhi shook her head. "No. Keep working. I'll think tonight. Maybe we missed something."
He nodded.
—
That night, the weight of unsolved numbers and dates pressed down on her again. She sat on her bed, knees up, staring at the notebook filled with jumbled math, scribbled lines, and riddles that still didn't fully make sense.
The date was approaching, December 20th. If their calculations were right, someone had not more but a week to live.
"But who? And where?"
And then her thoughts jumped. The online chat. That deleted Facebook account.
"Maybe we're not looking at the right thing," she murmured to herself.
She picked up her phone and messaged Utaro.
"That FB account that got deleted. You said it was linked to some old group? Can you check if any traces remain? Not just that group. Check the victim's profile. Comments. Shared links. Old photos. Anywhere someone could've slipped in without being noticed."
He replied with a thumbs-up emoji.
Shuhi wasn't able to think properly as the entire day's heavy works of searching made her exhausted. Also her complex thinking burns a lot of calorie. Even after having a large dinner, she knew the lack of calorie wasn't going to clear anytime soon.
Now, the best course of action for her was to temporally remove the thoughts and sleep.
12th December, morning
The next day, Shuhi stayed home.
Not because she was tired but for lack of clues to follow. It would be pointless to go search mindlessly in the houses. But the was also thinking for another reason not to leave home.
"I think it would be best to stay home today. Maybe I can avoid causing suspicion in mom-dad's head. If I leave home everyday in morning, they can even strike me with questions."
She sat on the floor with her laptop, data sheets open, tabs piling up. Bookmarks, photos, archives. Dead ends.
Her phone buzzed in the late afternoon. It was a message from Utaro.
Utaro had sent a screenshot. Just a chat.
A text between Mintaro's wife and someone unknown. No name. Just a grey profile picture, like the account had been scrubbed out.
But the words in the chat made her freeze.
Dead Logic © 2025 by Muntasib_Ihshan789 is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International