Shake My Paranoia

Iris no longer trusted the police in this case, and indeed paranoia began in her. She checked constantly her notes and the facts of the case, verifying each day that what Timeline had seen had indeed occured, even as the security cameras had seen differently. Doubtless she hoped the police were behind this and not a host, for the idea of what Revenant that was to be revealed terrified her at a deep level.

She stepped outside her hotel and took a call from the journalist. "Yes?"

"Hello, Ms. Valentine. We spoke a few days ago. Do you recognize my voice?"

"I do."

"Good. I have two somewhat peculiar things to report to you, and I apologize if neither progresses your investigation. The first is that I have not yet managed to track the Leonard Hoffman you mention, although he appears to be quite the communally known figure, in some parts of town. There is little other information I have managed to find of him, though I will continue.

The second is that, of the peculiar deaths you asked for, I've come across an unusual case that happened... oh, about a year ago. There was a case where a man murdered his lover, after she threatened to expose some of his past financial improprieties."

He gave her the lover's address, though Iris was perplexed.

"Was he a host?"

"No, or so the record states. Yet he has continued to protest his innocence to this day. None believe him, of course; the evidence at the trial was stark and placed him directly at the scene of the crime, with no alibi, and many eyewitnesses who swore they saw him there. He's currently interred at the state prison."

"What's the relevance?"

"The relevance is that you asked me for peculiar cases, Ms. Valentine, and I have found one."

"I seem to remember asking you if you could find the host-on-host death."

The line paused. "…let me..." The shuffling of papers. "…host-on-host... no. I do not recall that being a topic of discussion. I take meticulous notes; if we discussed it I would have noted it."

Iris breathed deeply, then exhaled. She spoke quickly: "Continue on. I'll contact you if I need anything else."

"Yes, but the inte-"

She hung up.

She headed out with Olivia to the address the reporter had given her. The home was still for sale; murder had balmed it against any buyers. She went inside this middle-class home to its living room, and though unknowing of whether she was frittering away time, she asked Olivia to watch over her as she crouched down and focused.

She found the death quickly, and the woman's corpse. She had no wounds, and Iris watched as she moved as she had in life. There were scenes of love-making with a host aura, and argument before her death. She had pulled out a stack of papers to shove in the host's face, until she collapsed and Olivia grabbed the papers as they fell from her grip.

Olivia read it out to Iris, and only one name was present upon it: Franklin Hubert. It seemed an itemized list of various financial improprieties, loans that dated back years from shady sources and fraud. "Looks like the reporter was right. Few shady loans, maybe some money laundering... well, the exact crime doesn't matter. But fuck, it's extensive. How did she even get all of this?"

Iris looked to her weatherspider as it crawled from her leg to her right shoulder. She was reminded of crouching in a living room much like this a few months ago. "…not sure. I've gotta go to the bathroom, but do you mind looking up his name while I'm in there?"

"Sure thing. Don't fall in."

Iris went to the house's bathroom and sat down; she did not actually need to go. She let Kairos crawl onto her chest, softly petting it as she began to cry over Natasha. She had done this occasionally; she would recover for a while and then need to do so before she could feel better.

She was embarrassed to admit that she had missed her spider; it had halved her trauma over her parents' deaths and now could do so with Natasha. There was pressure around Urasaria that to be a host was to endure and be austere; Amelie had been right that sympathy was something Iris felt degrading of herself, pitiable rather than empathizable.

But she viewed her spider with as much love as another woman did her scarabs. She grew to view Kairos' activation as fortunate, for in times of sadness, she would occasionally look at its ethereal strands surrounded by Meteorology in minutia.

Once she finished, Kairos helped unsmudge her eyes and she went out to Olivia on the couch.

"Hey, I figured it out. He used to have an opthalmology practice about thirty minutes from here, until he was arrested for murdering her. Mentions the same thing as the papers, too: he had done some shady financial deals before he became an opthalmologist, and that came out during the trial."

"What happened to him?"

"He was convicted of murder and a few white-collar crimes. Sentenced to twenty years."

"Any mention of him being a host?"

"No, but he would've been sentenced to death if he were."

Iris frowned. "More evidence for a cover-up... well. Shouldn't yet ascribe to malice what stupidity also explains."

"Exactly." Olivia winked. "Maybe, though."

"Seems like we should pay him a visit, though I'd like to talk to him alone. More than one person might distract him."

"Mm. You sure I wouldn't be more charming?"

"That's what I meant by distracting." Iris smirked.