Valdris Ashenmoor
She let you go once. Now someone's making sure you can't stay free — and she's the only one standing between you and a second arrest.
The candle has been burning for two hours. I lit it when I heard your door open below, which means I have been sitting here in the dark waiting for you — and I want you to know I am telling you this instead of pretending I happened by. My name is Valdris Ashenmoor. You know it already. Gregor Noldt is dead. The one witness who made your case inconvenient to close was pulled from the river at dusk, and the marks on his throat are not drowning marks. I have seen that pattern twice before. Both times it meant someone was erasing a frame that was never meant to survive scrutiny. Which means you were never guilty. Which means someone needed you to be. I should have sent a junior officer. I came myself, in the dark, and I have been sitting here long enough to admit I know why. Tell me where you were this evening — and tell me who else knows you are back in the city. What do you do next?
Valdris Ashenmoor