Chapter 23: Canvass

The clouds still had not moved.

They hung low over Grayhaven in one heavy sheet, turning the evening sky above the streets a tired, bruised gray. By the time Cyrus Calder reached The Full Moon Lounge with his backpack slung over one shoulder, the city already looked later than it was.

Inside, Malcolm Baird had finished most of the opening work himself.

The glasses were lined up behind the bar. The counter had been wiped down until it carried the low amber light in a clean strip. Citrus waited in a covered tray. Napkins sat in a clean stack near the register. The lounge had that tucked-away warmth it always carried, the kind that made people forget the weather outside until they had to leave again.

Cyrus had barely stepped toward the back to change when Malcolm glanced up.

"You can head home early tonight," Malcolm said. "If the rain holds off by then, all the better."

"I brought an umbrella."

Malcolm nodded, then looked at his backpack. "How much homework do you have this weekend?"

"There is homework."

"That sounds like an answer from someone who has not checked how bad it is yet."

"I checked enough to know it exists."

A faint smile crossed Malcolm’s face. "If you need to work on it here, go ahead. With this sky, we probably will not get much of a crowd. People like the idea of a drink until they remember they might have to walk home in a storm."

Cyrus accepted that with a nod.

He did not immediately take out his homework. After changing into the lounge’s black shirt, he stood behind the bar with Malcolm and helped with the small tasks that made the place run smoothly. Wiping the counter, checking the water pitchers, making sure the card reader was working, setting clean coasters where customers were most likely to sit. All of it was simple, but it settled him in a way school did not.

Homework belonged to St. Alder.

The Full Moon Lounge belonged to another part of him.

When the work slowed, Cyrus took out the book he had been reading instead of his assignments. It was about performance, acting, and how people used posture, timing, and expression to create belief. He had found it on the lounge shelf, where a few forgotten books lived among old magazines and menus from earlier versions of the place.

Reading, to Cyrus, counted as experience by proxy.

What he saw in books had still happened to someone, or had at least been imagined by someone who understood the shape of it. That was useful. He had not personally lived through most ordinary human situations, which made books a cheap way to practice without getting trapped in anyone’s house, car, office, or bedroom.

This particular book might prove practical.

If he understood performance better, then the next time he faced that woman from his past, he might not be forced into the passive side of things so quickly.

That thought alone made the pages more appealing.

The human world really was good at writing books. The books he had read before escaping had helped him survive. The ones he found now helped him understand how many kinds of survival there were.

Cyrus read until the letters started to blur. He had just covered a yawn with the back of his hand when the bell above the front door rang.

A woman stepped in from the darkening street.

Her makeup was polished, her coat was neat, and she wore the careful expression of someone who had told herself she was only stopping by for one drink. Cyrus recognized her before she chose a seat. She had started coming in last week, and after seeing him behind the bar, she had become unusually persistent.

Or, in kinder terms, she had become a regular.

She ordered quietly and took her drink to a table with a good view of the bar. Cyrus had already mentioned the fake amnesia story in her hearing more than once, sometimes directly and sometimes by letting other conversations carry it. She had not given up. She had settled into a patient, tragic sort of attention instead, as if waiting loyally beside a man with a lost past would eventually become romantic.

Cyrus might have been touched.

Her money did make a convincing argument.

The woman tipped well.

The lounge stayed calm after that. A few more customers came in, glanced at the sky through the windows, and drank as if they were bargaining with the clouds. Most left after one glass, choosing to beat the rain home. The woman with the careful makeup remained in her seat, watching Cyrus in intervals. Every so often, he met her attention by accident, and she turned away with red ears, then looked back again once she thought he had moved on.

Cyrus filed away the pattern without giving it much thought.

A few hours passed like that.

By eleven, even she seemed to accept that waiting under storm clouds would not produce a miracle. She lingered over her empty glass, gave him one last long glance, then finally left.

Ten minutes later, Malcolm checked the time and told Cyrus to close out early.

Cyrus did not argue.

A longer night of sleep was not a luxury he planned to reject.

The rain had still not fallen when he left the lounge. The streets smelled damp anyway, full of salt, pavement, and the metallic pressure that came before a storm. Overhead, the cloud cover had thinned in patches, but not enough to clear the night.

Cyrus walked home at an unhurried pace.

The route was familiar by now. Storefronts with dark windows. A bus stop with one flickering ad panel. A row of parked cars reflecting the streetlights in broken strips. With nobody close behind him, he lifted one hand toward his hair, ready to pull the styled strands back into the low-visibility mess he preferred at school.

His hand stopped before he touched it.

A woman in a dark department jacket walked into the pool of light beneath the streetlamp ahead.

Her cap cast a shadow over her face at first. The closer she came, the clearer the badge at her belt became, along with the radio clipped near her shoulder and the controlled shape of official authority. She carried herself differently from the way she did at the bar. No lazy teasing leaned through her posture now. No drunken softness. Only a steady pressure that made the empty street feel less empty and more watched.

Then she raised her face.

"Cyrus Calder," Rhea Maddox said. "You are off work now?"

Cyrus stared at her for a beat. "Detective Maddox?"

He had expected many kinds of trouble from Rhea.

Seeing her like this was not one of them.

Her mouth curved slightly. "You sound surprised."

"You look different at work."

"That is usually the point of dressing for the job." She adjusted the notebook in her hand. "I am on duty, in case that part was unclear."

Cyrus’s attention moved once over the badge, the radio, and the item at her belt that he did not want to think too much about. "Are you working the case near St. Alder?"

"Among other things." Rhea took a pen from her pocket. "Since you happen to be walking through the area, I need to ask a few routine questions. Standard canvass. You do not mind, do you?"

"I can answer questions."

"That is very cooperative of you."

Her tone stayed professional. That was almost more suspicious than the teasing.

She clicked the pen. "Full name?"

"Cyrus Calder."

"Age?"

"I am eighteen."

"Student at St. Alder Academy?"

"That is right."

She wrote neatly, then asked for a few basic identifying details. Cyrus answered what made sense and watched the pen move across the paper.

The questions were ordinary enough at first. Where he had been that evening. What time his shift ended. Whether he had seen anyone suspicious near the lounge or along the walk home. Whether he had heard anything about the alley.

He kept his answers plain.

He had been at work. He had left a little after eleven. He had not seen anyone suspicious tonight. He had heard classmates mention the case, but he did not know details.

None of that was a lie.

It was simply not every truth he possessed.

Rhea’s pen paused. "Phone number?"

Cyrus gave it automatically, then tilted his head a little.

The pause was slight, but Rhea caught the hesitation immediately.

"Something wrong?"

"The last time I got asked questions, nobody needed my number."

"This is for follow-up contact if needed."

"That sounds official."

"It is official."

He could hear the smile trying to enter her voice.

Cyrus looked at her for another second, then let it pass.

She wrote the number down.

"Address?"

This time, he did not answer quite as quickly.

Rhea lifted her attention from the notebook. The professional calm was still there, but under it, something familiar moved. The same interest she wore at the bar after a drink. The same attention that made him feel like a door she had found locked and did not intend to leave alone.

Cyrus gave his apartment building and unit.

If she was working this area, she could probably find it anyway. Refusing would only make the answer more valuable.

Rhea wrote it down with far too much satisfaction for a routine canvass.

"Oh," she said. "That is not far from here."

"No, it is not."

She closed the notebook and tucked the pen away. "Good. I will walk you back."

"I can get home by myself."

"I am making sure a civilian gets home safely during an active investigation."

"You say that like I would be doing paperwork wrong if I refused."

"You understand quickly."

Rhea turned, then glanced back at him.

The streetlamp caught the side of her face, cutting her features into clean lines beneath the brim of her cap. She looked nothing like the woman who leaned over a cocktail and asked for his contact information with alcohol in her voice. That version of Rhea had been obvious, almost easy to handle.

This one had a badge, a reason, and the right to stand in his path.

"Come on," she said. "It is late."

Cyrus walked after her because refusing would only make the scene louder.

The route back to his apartment passed under a series of dim streetlights. Their reflections stretched across the pavement in pale, uneven circles. Rhea kept a measured pace beside him, neither rushing nor hanging back. Her presence changed the shape of the walk. A stranger might have seen a detective escorting a student home after a local crime. That version would have been clean, responsible, almost reassuring.

Cyrus knew better than to trust a clean version too quickly.

Rhea did not ask many casual questions. She made no joke about his hair, his job, or his refusal to give her his number at the lounge. She only checked the street, then checked him, often enough that he felt the attention without having anything to accuse.

He ignored each pass of her attention and kept walking.

They were one intersection away from his building when another officer stepped out from the side street.

The man wore the same department navy and had a solid build that made the uniform look severe. He slowed when he recognized Rhea, then came toward them.

"Detective Maddox," he said. "Did you finish canvassing your side already?"

"Almost done," Rhea replied. "I am walking a friend home on the way."

The officer’s attention moved to Cyrus.

Cyrus stood quietly and let himself look as harmless as possible.

It was not hard. With the lounge styling still in place, he probably looked too delicate for the hour, too pale under the streetlight, and too calm for someone being escorted by police. The officer measured him with one quick pass and dismissed him just as quickly.

"I can walk with you," the officer offered.

"That is not necessary," Rhea said.

"We are all covering the area."

"I can handle this part alone."

The officer hesitated.

Rhea’s smile was polite, but her tone had no space inside it. "I am the best person on the unit for it. If I cannot handle something, the rest of you will not improve the situation by standing next to me."

The officer opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Cyrus watched the exchange without comment.

The man clearly wanted to argue. He also clearly knew better. Whatever Rhea’s reputation inside the department was, it had weight. Enough that her confidence did not sound like arrogance to the person hearing it. It sounded like an irritating fact.

"Understood," the officer said.

Rhea nodded once and continued walking.

Cyrus went with her because the alternative would have made the moment stranger.

Behind them, the officer remained under the streetlamp. His attention moved between Rhea’s back and Cyrus’s profile, confusion settling into something more complicated.

Rhea Maddox was usually all business on duty. She rejected attention from men without making enemies, kept her work clean, and carried herself like someone who did not need anyone to open a door for her, literally or otherwise. He had never seen her walk this close to a man before.

The young man beside her looked like a pretty thing that belonged behind glass.

Whether being noticed by Rhea Maddox was good luck or bad luck, the officer could not decide.