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“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?” asked Robin.

“No, man, like, you being here with us. At the garage. In person.”

“Oh!” A brief pause. “I can’t do that. Sorry!”

“Why the fuck not?” Alex spat. “How do we know you ain’t some loser, trying to troll us for shits and giggles? Why don’t you come and join us, so we know you ain’t some bitch?”

“If I did, then Mr. Cop here would arrest me on the spot! And then none of you would get to know my tragic backstory.” Robin giggled again.

Jun faced the wall, pressing his lips together—hard. Something about the absurd cheerfulness that crackled through all that static made him want to laugh, and laughing felt like the most dangerous thing he could do right now.

Ken sighed as he rolled his eyes. “Are you confessing you’re wanted?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” said Robin firmly. The static hummed, and no one in the room was smiling anymore. “I do apologize, but I’d like to keep my identity anonymous for personal reasons,” Robin continued. “Sunshine Hills is such a small community, so you never know who knows who. I’m not trying to one-up anyone here, but apparently, I have a lot of enemies.” They laughed nervously. “I’m sure at least one of you understands that, right?”

Hal snorted. Alex’s eyebrows went up, and he looked away—the closest he’d ever come to admitting someone had a point. “Aight, what’s your game? You’re the one that started this whole thing by dragging our little princess here. And you say this cop can help us? How?”

“I’m not a cop anymore,” Ken huffed through gritted teeth.

Alex took out the gun again and aimed at Ken’s head.

Jun and Matt jumped with their hands up, taking a step back.

“Can you just shut the fuck up about that already?”

“Woah, easy there,” Robin said. “Please don’t shoot him yet, Alex. Let me do the talking. Please?”

Alex tilted Ken’s chin up with the barrel, studying him like something he’d found on the bottom of his shoe. He pocketed the gun and stood over Ken, glaring.

Ken rolled his eyes and averted his gaze to the laptop’s screen. “So what do you want?”

“I should be asking you that, De—tec—tive I—shi—ka—wa,” said Robin.

Ken grimaced.

“You had such a highly esteemed track record back in the force, so why go rogue now? It’s obvious you’re here for your own personal gains.”

“Explains the stalking,” Alex berated, leaning down and sticking his tongue out at him. Ken ignored him.

“I was trying to gain information related to my previous assignment before I was…” He bit his lip, his ears flushing a bright shade of red. “Let go.”

“What did you do to fuck things up?” asked Kana.

“I wish I could give you a simple answer.” He strained against the rope to face her. “The truth was, the deeper I dug, the less sense it made. And I don’t leave cases that don’t make sense.” A muscle in his cheek twitched. “However, it was related to someone you know very well.”

“Sunny?” she whispered.

“I was in charge of her disappearance case.”

“Then why didn’t you continue?” Kana’s fists clenched and shook, as if she was holding herself back from punching something—perhaps Ken.

Ken straightened in the, arms still pinned behind him. “Trust me, I wanted to. More than they were comfortable with.” His jaw tightened. “That’s why they let me go.”

“Why?” asked Kana with a shuddered breath.

“We treated it as a standard missing-persons case at first. My partner and I ran the usual channels—family contacts, last known location, social media activity.”

Ken grew tense as he went on. “But once the surveillance photo surfaced, linking her to the Garras, the case got flagged. Higher-ups said it was no longer missing persons—it was organized criminal activity. They reassigned it. Gang and Narcotics, maybe even federal task force. Either way, it left my hands.”