A/N: I couldn't wait any longer to post this; gomenne, Elodie, that you don't get to read this one before everyone else. (:

To my guest reviewer: Glad I caught your attention! I hope you'll keep coming back for more! (:

This little guy: (*) - I don't know if this is true in Japan, but it's true in the USA, and I wanted to use that line, so... Yeah. (:

Disclaimer: I will seriously pay you to translate the fifth volume of Hyouka for me. That being said, I obviously don't know Japanese, which obviously means I didn't write Hyouka to begin with.

Have fun playing detective! And good luck. ;)

Chapter One
Disappearance

"I wonder where Oreki is today," Mayaka muttered, staring at the empty seat in the club room.

"Maybe he's ill?" Chitanda suggested hesitantly.

"Hm. It is kind of strange," Satoshi mused. "I can't remember the last time Houtaro missed because of illness…"

"Chii-chan does have a point, though; what else could it possibly be?"

"Dunno." Satoshi stretched as he stood up. "But I'm willing to bet that if I go over there I'll find out. I'll call you when I find out, Mayaka."

She nodded, glancing to the other girl to her right. "And I'll pass it on to you, Chii-chan."

Chitanda nodded as they all stood to leave. The walk to the front gate was shrouded in silence and, once they had said their goodbyes and headed in different directions, remained in relative silence.

Satoshi stopped outside the Oreki residence and rang the bell. Glancing around as he waited for someone to answer the door, he noted the absence of only one vehicle belonging to his friend's family. It wasn't unusual for both cars to be gone – in fact, Satoshi found it almost strange that one of them remained as that meant either his father or mother was actually home for a change. He frowned, ringing the bell for a second time; if someone was home, why was no one answering the door?

He turned to leave when he heard a sound from inside – the sound of a phone ringing. Once, twice, three times. After the fourth, he knew, it would switch to the answering machine. The phone rang once more before the house returned to silence. So no one was home then? If Houtaro wasn't at school and he wasn't at home, then where had he been all day? What about his parents? And his sister? She could be at class, it was true, but that didn't explain why one vehicle was at home yet no one was there. True, they could have all ridden in the same car, but that didn't explain why Houtaro had missed school. Satoshi could clearly remember one day in junior high when Houtaro had come to school when he had, clearly, been ill, yet Houtaro had told him that his father wouldn't stand for him to miss school if it could be helped. So surely they hadn't just left on a vacation… Surely Houtaro would have told them the day before if that were the case, as well…

Satoshi groaned running a hand through his hair. It didn't add up… But, then again, he didn't have the reasoning skills of his friend – of any of his friends, actually.

"If you're looking for Houtaro-kun," an older woman's voice pulled Satoshi from his thoughts, "I'm afraid they aren't at home."

Satoshi turned to the woman – graying hair, face full of laugh-lines, kind eyes. "I was," he responded. "Houtaro was absent from school… I came by to find out why. Do you know where they are?"

"I'm afraid I don't. I was watering my flowers last evening when I saw them leave in a hurry. Considering the packed bags, I guess I should have asked, but…" She shrugged. "Normally they ask me to watch the house when the whole family goes somewhere. Strange that they didn't this time. And, with the awful hurry they appeared to be in, I didn't dare delay them."

Satoshi's frown deepened. "That does seem strange. Well, thanks anyway, ma'am." As he turned back to the sidewalk to head home, he pulled his phone from his school bag, scrolling through the contacts to find the one he wanted.

"Mayaka? I think we have a problem."

"So basically Houtaro has gone who-knows-where for who-knows-how-long for who-knows-why and we have nothing to go on."

"Something like that, yes."

Mayaka leaned back, falling to the floor, groaning in frustration. After Satoshi had called her, she had called Chitanda, who decided they should meet right away at her home. The tea on the table in the front of the group had been forgotten as soon as Satoshi had arrived bearing the news. "How is it that the only person capable of solving mysteries out of the lot of us is the mystery this time around?"

"Then we'll just have to solve it ourselves," Chitanda declared, adding quietly, "Somehow…"

"How can we even hope to solve it, Chii-chan? Oreki is the only one out of us who has ever been able to come up with a correct solution…"

"I have to agree with Chitanda-san," Satoshi spoke up. "Houtaro isn't here, so we'll just have to do it ourselves. Somehow."

"You're one to talk, Mr. 'Database,'" Mayaka scoffed.

"Well, we can't just sit here and wait for something to happen, can we?" he countered.

"Yes, we could, actually. Maybe we're over-reacting, and nothing is wrong. Or maybe a family member passed away, and they had to rush off for the funeral. We don't know that there is even a definite mystery to solve."

"Yes. We do – or, at least, I do." Satoshi's frown deepened, brow furrowing in thought. "I know something is wrong here, Mayaka. Maybe I can't draw conclusions like most people, but I do know that something is wrong." He ticked off the reasons on his fingers. "No one is home. They left frantically, not even bothering to ask the neighbor to watch their house like they, apparently, normally do. And," Satoshi pulled his phone out of his pocket, setting it on the table, "he's not answering my calls or my texts. When I call, it goes straight to voicemail every time. You can't tell me that's not strange."

"Maybe they flew somewhere, and it's still off from the flight?" Chitanda suggested. "Or maybe the battery died?"

"If they left abruptly, then they probably didn't catch a flight anywhere," Mayaka countered. "Most of the time it's difficult to get tickets on short notice – especially for four people. And unless they had a bunch of long lay-overs, they should have reached their destiny long before now."

"Houtaro's also not one to let his phone die, just in case there's an emergency." He sighed. "And there's the fact that I tried Tomoe-san's cell phone, too, with the same result."

"How do you have his sister's number?" Mayaka couldn't help but ask. "That's… a little stalker-ish, Fuku-chan."

"Houtaro is actually the one who gave it me," Satoshi countered. "After that time… Iie, that's not important. But he gave it to me in case of emergency. I'm not sure what he was thinking could happen, but…" He shrugged. "Either way, isn't it strange that when I called her I got the same result? It just doesn't sit right with me…"

Mayaka sat back up and leaned on the table. "I suppose it couldn't hurt to look into it…"

"You know," Satoshi grinned, "I'd be willing to bet that the extra key is still hidden by the front door…"

"You want to search his house?" Mayaka asked, eyebrow slowly rising.

"How else are we going to get any clues about where he is?"

"Isn't that breaking and entering?" Chitanda asked. "That's illegal…"

"Nah, just entering if we use the key," Satoshi grinned wider. "So what do you guys say?"

"I'm still not so sure about this, Fuku-chan…"

"Do you have a better idea, Mayaka?"

"Not really…"

"Then hush up while I find the key."

"What if it's not there anymore?"

"Then we'll just have to come up with another plan… AHA!" Satoshi held up the small piece of metal triumphantly. "Told you it would be here!"

"Let's just hurry up and get this over with before a neighbor calls the police on us…"

"Hai, hai, hai…"

The trio quickly stepped inside as soon as Satoshi had the door open. Slipping off their shoes, they quietly made their way further into the house.

"It seems normal enough," Chitanda murmured.

"Maybe we should split up," Satoshi suggested. "I'll look around down here, and you two take the bedrooms upstairs?"

Mayaka and Chitanda nodded, heading for the stairs, while Satoshi moved into the den. Everything appeared just as it always did (well, the few times he had been in the Oreki residence, anyway). A pile of mail sat innocently on the table in front of the couch. Absently, he flipped through the stack, finding nothing more than a couple of bills and junk mail. Moving towards the kitchen, a red, blinking light caught his attention from the corner of his eye. Abandoning his path to the other room, he turned to where the phone sat in its cradle next the desktop computer in the corner. "Fifteen missed calls?" he muttered, scrolling through the list of numbers. "All from the same number… I guess whoever it is doesn't know they aren't here." He frowned. "What could be so important for this person to call fifteen times in the last two days?" Filing away the information in his brain, he continued to the kitchen.

"Fuku-chan?" Mayaka called, coming down the stairs with Chitanda close behind.

"Kitchen." (Actually, he was still standing in the door way, but that was a mere technicality.)

"Nothing especially abnormal upstairs," Chitanda reported. "The bedrooms were a bit of mess, like someone packed in a hurry and had to decide what was most important to take and had to throw everything else to the side, but we already knew they left hastily…"

He nodded. "Same down here – except the fifteen missed calls all from one person seemed a little strange…"

"All from the same person?" Mayaka furrowed her brows in concentration. "Did you recognize the number?"

He shook his head. "No idea. Whoever it was didn't leave any messages either."

"Then it wasn't the school calling about his absences," Chitanda concluded. "So they must have been informed that Oreki-san wouldn't be coming to school…"

"Maybe the number is written down somewhere? Someone calling so frequently must mean it's important," Mayaka theorized.

"There's a contact book here, next to the phone," Chitanda chirped.

"And a phone bill on the table in there, too," Satoshi added, nodding towards the table on the other side of the couch. "I saw it earlier."

"We're already breaking the law," Mayaka sighed, heading around to the other side of the couch. "Why not add the Federal offense of opening someone else's mail* to the list?" She pulled out the bill as she sat down on the couch. "What's the number, Chii-chan?"

"Uhm… The last four digits are 8725."

"I'll check the kitchen, then," Satoshi spoke as he turned back to the other room for the second time in ten minutes.

"It's not in here," Chitanda sighed. "Too bad… That might have made this a little easier…"

"But it is listed on the phone bill!" Mayaka suddenly exclaimed.

"Hontouni?" Satoshi was immediately looking over her shoulder at the bill as was Chitanda, as he had yet to make it more than two steps into the kitchen.

Mayaka nodded. "See? Right here – it's the same number, but this time the conversation lasted for a couple of minutes."

"So someone must have picked up the phone that time," Chitanda declared. "When was that phone call?"

"Five days ago – the last day of the month; the posting date for the bill is only three…"

"Five days," Chitanda mused. "Wasn't that about when Oreki-san mentioned the strange call from an uncle he didn't know?"

"You're right!" Satoshi exclaimed.

"Do you think it has something to do with why they left?" Mayaka asked, eyes wide.

"But if they left because of him," Chitanda reasoned, "why would he still be trying to call them?"

"Unless," Mayaka's face darkened. "Unless this person is someone they don't want to meet with. Maybe… Maybe he's not actually related? Or he did something to them in the past to hurt them?" She shook her head. "Or maybe he's just the uncle that mooches off of everyone and never pays them back. My family has an uncle like that…"

"Somehow I don't think that would be reason enough to run," Satoshi countered. "But regardless… the two things might not even be related. Let's keep it in mind but not jump to conclusions just yet." He turned back the kitchen – again – as the two girls nodded, Mayaka folding the bill back up and placing it back in the envelope on the table. He hadn't made it far into the next room, however, before he stopped short next the kitchen table.

"Hey, guys… I think I know why Houtaro and Tomoe-san didn't answer their cell phones." The two girls turned to him as he held up four, slim, electronic devices, two in each hand, for them to see. "They never had the chance."

~Postcards from Nowhere~