None of us wanted to delve straight back into the case the next day, as the morning and afternoon progress into evening timelessly, the skies calm and thick with deep blues. Elias goes straight back into his room, Edith is quieter than usual, nibbling at her lip distractedly, and Emerson taps away on his iPad to Brunsley, waiting for his response and going upstairs to the library. I go to my room after Elias does, and Edith catches up with me, opening her mouth to say something, then closing it, uncertain.

"You're worried," I observ aloud, and she blinks, nodding with a short sigh.

"Yeah... I'm sorry this has all happened. I mean, I know it isn't my fault, of course, but it just makes everything so much harder. If only we'd heard what Clarissa had to say before she..."

"Before she died," I finish her sentence bluntly, and she nods again, downcast. "I'll figure something out, but it'll take me a little while. I know it seems almost impossible to figure out the killer now that there are practically no suspects, but the fact is, someone did kill my parents. And Clarissa Newman."

"And my dad," Edith adds softly, and I watch her for a moment, her eyes set on the floor at the painful memory.

"Yes," I agree quietly, "and your dad."

"I think we're just all on edge," she says, looking back up at me, "because we've been through almost the exact same thing before, and now we're rehashing it. If we don't figure it out this time, it'll break this flow we've all managed to have. I'm worried about Elias too, you know. I know it must be getting to him as much as it's getting to all of us."

"It is. Just give me this evening to go over my casebook, okay? Then, tomorrow, we'll do what we need to do. We've still got time."

"Okay. I'm gonna go check on Elias," she tells me with a half-smile, tapping at her brother's door before easing herself into the room.

I move on to my own temporary bedroom, shutting the door behind me and pulling out my casebook from under the pillow. Then I sit propped up against the headboard, legs bent and up to my chest, the book resting in my lap.

It's such a weird feeling, seeing my old notes about The Case of Paranoia, which takes up the first couple of pages. Back then, when my parents were still alive, when I should have kept pushing my dad to tell me the truth, tell me everything. But it's useless dwelling on that now that he's long gone. It feels like he's been dead for months when it hasn't been, this whole investigation so puzzling and warped and frustrating that I can hardly keep track of time.

Get a hold of yourself.

Back to the beginning I go, my gaze skimming sentences, highlighting some in my head.

Bobby Cassia is certain that he recognised someone who was briefly seen in attendance...

The first sighting of the RoseBlood Killer. Wednesday, at that gathering for work. Were they invited? Probably not, or they would have interacted with others more, wanting to be seen, so questions didn't pop up from their colleagues the next day about not seeing them. And no one from my parents' work would want to get their hands dirty. I think back to the funeral, to that strange, worldly young man, Marcus Sire, who knew my mum. So prim and affected and businesslike. They almost seemed like clones of each other. I couldn't work like that. I wouldn't work like that.

If I crack this case, I'll know exactly what job I'll be choosing.

Past Wednesday, to Thursday, when I tried talking to Dad about his suspected follower. He caught on in the end, always seeming so startled and uncomfortable when he found me analysing him, understanding him more than he thought I could, just by the look on his face, the way he spoke so freely, dangerously so, when someone was there to listen. Maybe I take after Mum, ever so slightly. She was more abrupt, shutting down a conversation she didn't like smoothly and politely, maybe less so with me and Dad, and that was that. It didn't bother her. The killer didn't bother her.

Until they died on my birthday.

I lower my legs down with a sigh, looking out at the woods outside the window. My birthday. They killed them on my birthday. Was it personal, meant for me, to make a supposed best day of the year into the worst one of my life? Or was it something more?

My eighteenth birthday. When you turn eighteen, you're legally an adult.

And when you're legally an adult, you're not a child anymore. Your parents won't treat you like a little kid anymore, and their young adult will eventually move out, and parenthood turns relaxed and unrestricting.

I freeze in my seat for a long moment, a thought going off in my brain that immediately lights up every part of me that's annoyed and tired and almost, almost wanting to give up.

Maybe that's why they chose your eighteenth. Mum and Dad, or Dad especially, wouldn't have to be there for you as much. His responsibilities would ease up, and you'd be more mature to handle something grown-up.

Something grown-up, like a past lover, maybe.

It's a theory that I got from just a few facts, but a theory all the same. I have to be sure of it before I start connecting some new dots, though. But how the hell do I do that? I already know everything about this case. Mum and Dad were killed by someone Dad was a little too nice to, and they're targeting me because I'm their child, maybe because whatever it happens to be is my fault, in their delusional way of thinking. Then Clarissa had to go, because she came too near to the truth. Soon, it'll be my turn.

I need to know more. More about them. I read people's expressions, but at times like these, going deep into their doings and dealings and way of life and killing and feeling is just as good as staring someone down without them even knowing it.

This is the beginning of the case of my parent's death, but there's one other that I have properly, thoroughly considered.

The Tyrels' dad.