You dawdle on your way back to Horuss's room, but eventually you're there. Roxy has propped the door open with a rather large… well, you know what it is, and she's inside, digging through horse genitalia like it's her job.

"Did you find anything?" you ask, and she turns around. She smiles brightly when she sees you.

"Yep!" she says brightly. She pulls a piece of paper out of her pocket and unfolds it, her eyes scanning it one more time before she hands it over. You take it from her and read it, frowning.

It's written on the paper that's in all of your rooms, and in a regular blue ink. The writing style is almost aggressively normal – like it knows that it should be distinct but is trying to tone it down for the purposes of the letter. It's regularly capitalized, with a period at the end of each sentence and no signature at the bottom.

Horus –

I know how you feel. Come to the garden tonight. Thank you.

You blink. It's short. It's to-the-point. It's blunt, like maybe…

Like maybe the writer didn't have that great of a grasp on English. On top of that, Horuss's name is spelled wrong, which could be anyone's mistake, because almost everyone here has a weird, wacked-out name, but.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Roxy asks. You press your lips together to try and think before answering.

"I've got to see what the state of the kitchen is," you say. You smile at her, but it doesn't feel like a real smile to your face and you doubt it looks like a real smile to her. "I'll see you later. Thanks for the letter. Are you going to keep looking around in here?"

"Yeah. Just in case," Roxy says. She looks around and blinks a few times, like she's trying not to cry. "It's just… I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this, you know? Investigating… why do they keep doing this? Did someone want to leave so badly that they had to kill someone? There wasn't even a motive this time. I've been trying to use this to make myself better. I'm going to stop. The drinking. I'm going cold turkey, right now. I dumped the rest of what I had down the drain recently, and there's no more. Why can't they… why do they…"

She breaks off, and you're not quite sure what to do. So the two of you stand there in an awkward silence for a bit, and then you nod and dismiss yourself. You need to see if there's a knife missing.

When you get to the kitchen, Damara's in there. She's staring at the knife rack. There only one missing is the one that you saw her take, and you feel a jolt in your stomach. "Took mine," she says. You glance at her, and she turns and meets your gaze. "It is gone."

"Your knife?" you say, and she nods. "Someone took it?"

"Yes. Killer. Killer took knife."

"Can I look around in your room, then?" you ask, and Damara seems to consider it. "Just to see if they've left any clues. When they took the knife."

She nods then, but she still looks doubtful. You follow her out of the kitchen and back to the rooms. You see the door propped open near the end of the hallway, but thankfully Damara's room isn't as far as Horuss's and you don't need to pass the horror that room brings again. You might be bringing it up a lot, but it's really… really… prevalent. It's like there's nothing more to Horuss than his…

Well, you know what it is.

Damara swings open her door, and it looks about the same as last time, at least decoration-wise. The only thing different is that her dresser has been ransacked. Lingerie is strewn across the floor, a few extra skirts have been tossed up to hang from the ceiling fan, extra blouses are ripped up and scattered about everywhere. Her face is set in a scowl. You frown a little at the damage.

There's some blood on the floor. You crouch down, and notice with a bit of concern that it's in the same sort of tracks that you saw coming out of the blood puddle. This is definitely something that you should think a little bit more about. Damara stands with her arms crossed, and you look up and are about to say something, but then the monitor in the corner of the room flickers on.

"Investigation is over. Hurry up, dumbass. All of you. Are dumbasses."

With that, it turns off and you sigh. You think you have enough to make a case for… what? You don't really know what your angle will be. You'll be completely useless without Dirk here. You've got Roxy, and Meenah – and, you suppose, Kurloz and Meulin – but without Dirk making the connections… you don't know if any of your current partners in stopping crime are as good. It's just a simple fact. Dirk was good.

But now Dirk is dead.

And there's nothing you can do about it. Right now you need to find Horuss's killer, and then, hopefully, you'll be okay. You'll be done with all of this.

So you head over to the elevator. Meenah's already there, checking her nails. When she sees you, she nods, but otherwise remains silent.

Damara, who was right behind you, glares at her.

Kankri's next, babbling to Aranea about something. The two of them are talking over each other, trying to beat each other out in sure annoyingness, and you bring a hand up to your forehead and sigh.

Thankfully, Porrim shows up next and shuts them both up with a hand over Kankri's mouth and a glare pointed at Aranea.

Meulin and Kurloz are next, Meulin clutching her drawing of the crime scene and squealing, Kurloz watching her with a faint smile on his face. You think that if he wasn't so creepy, he'd probably be a pretty good boyfriend. And maybe Meulin can see through that, or something.

But you still see the creepiness and barely anything but the creepiness.

Roxy's next. She's got Cronus's laptop, just like the other times. You think she's growing unhealthily attached to that thing.

Last are Jake and Latula. Jake still looks shellshocked, but Latula just looks mad.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" she asks, popping her gum. "Let's do this!"

A chapter or two on the trial, and then our execution, and this time we won't immediately go another murder/trial. Though our next one should be exciting, when it does happen!