After the calm, cool-headed barista named Isaac had left the café, Benedict only then realized how late it had actually become. The café had such a gentle, almost enveloping atmosphere that time had slipped past him unnoticed. Otherwise, he had only ever been able to concentrate so intensely while working at the office at night—during those hours when no one but him was present and the world seemed to stand still.

  Only now did he notice the school pupils and university students sitting around him, murmuring quietly to one another or poring over their assignments. Earlier, he hadn’t even been aware of them. But now, as his gaze swept over his surroundings, all the voices, movements, and small everyday noises crowded back into his consciousness.

  So much for the peace and quiet—though he really had made good progress, despite his fatigue.

  Benedict packed up his documents, paid, and finally left the cozy café. He had to admit that he had managed to research a surprising amount. And yet, his gaze had repeatedly wandered to his surroundings of its own accord.

  The young man with white hair and striking red eyes—Isaac—seemed to be in his early twenties. Benedict had noticed how Isaac’s expression had briefly hardened when he had examined him a bit too closely. It was in Benedict’s nature to observe the people around him carefully; after all, it was his job to overlook nothing. But when he realized how uncomfortable it made the young man, he had looked away. Isaac was, after all, just an employee in a café, not a suspect.

  The older man—Kieran—presumably in his mid-thirties, seemed to be his boss. It wasn’t really relevant to his current case. Still, he memorized their names. You never knew when someone with customer contact might become important for questioning.

  The coffee had tasted good, and he had been able to concentrate wonderfully in the café. Everything else was irrelevant.

  Besides, he greatly appreciated that the man named Isaac hadn’t disturbed him and had gone about his work discreetly. He much preferred that to having a constantly chattering waiter hovering around him, chewing his ear off or asking for the hundredth time whether everything was to his liking or if he wanted anything else.

  Even if this Isaac would probably have preferred to get rid of him a bit sooner.

  But now the pressing question arose of what he should do next.

  Everything in him recoiled at the thought of returning to his apartment and sleeping there, lonely and alone. The apartment had become a cold place, devoid of any warmth—the warmth that was now so bitterly missing. Since Dan was no longer there, he no longer wanted to be there either.

  He thought of the evenings when they had cooked together, of movie nights on the old sofa, of the soft laughter that had once filled the rooms. He missed all of it more than he wanted to admit. And the more he thought about it, the less he wanted to go back there.

  Maybe he should go for a walk a little longer. Maybe go somewhere else—anywhere—just so he wouldn’t end up where no one was waiting for him anymore.

  Grief tried once again to take hold of him, like a cold hand slowly closing around his heart. But Benedict swallowed it down with effort. He had sworn to himself that he would only give this feeling space once he had avenged Dan. Until then, he was not allowed to falter. He needed the anger, the burning rage inside him, to keep going—to find the perpetrator who had taken from him what he loved most.

  Yet with each passing day it became harder to resist the grief, even though Dan had already been dead for four months. Four months—an eternity, and yet far too short a time to truly comprehend that someone simply no longer existed. Dan had simply died in a dirty alley, far from any eyes that might have helped him.

  Dan had been an exceptionally well-trained police officer, one of the best on their team. He had never neglected his training; he was disciplined, alert, almost unshakeable. And above all, he would never have surrendered without resistance. Yet there had been no signs of a struggle on his body. Not a single scrape, apart from the fatal wound: a precise, clean stab straight into the heart. Through the chest. From the front.

  Dan hadn’t even drawn his weapon.

  If Dan had known the attacker, it was conceivable that he might have lowered his guard for a fatal moment. But Benedict did not believe that. It did not fit with the other victims, all of whom had had no connection to one another. No motive, no pattern, no shared circle of acquaintances. Only the same silent, perfect method of killing.

  Benedict simply could not wrap his head around how it had been possible.

  Especially without leaving behind even a single trace.

  He rubbed his eyes wearily. The afternoon sun burned relentlessly in them, and on top of that it was quite warm.

  No wonder—it was already May.

  He headed toward his apartment. Even though everything in him recoiled from the idea, it was the only place where he could continue his investigation in secret. Besides, he needed to compile everything he already knew about this phantom thief.

  Hopefully all of this would distract him enough that he wouldn’t see his deceased lover everywhere he went.

  But deep inside, he feared that there was no place left where Dan did not follow him—not with accusation, but with the quiet echo of what might have been.

  ___

  Around midnight, he examined what he had gathered over the past six hours.

  The new magnetic whiteboard covered almost the entire wall. On the left side, he had pinned up everything he had related to Dan’s murder: photos, printed reports, handwritten notes, excerpts from the crime scene analysis. Illegally, he had put together a file consisting of copies of the case documents he had still had access to up until his last official day at work. The folder tabs were already slightly worn, as if he had opened them too often—and he had.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  The right side of the whiteboard, by contrast, was dedicated to the phantom thief. According to the press, he had long since become a celebrity—the notorious Ink Phantom. In Magnolia, there was probably no one left who didn’t know that name. Benedict himself had heard about him and his spectacular “shows” again and again over the past few years.

  The phantom thief announced each of his heists days in advance—bold, almost arrogant. And every single time, he appeared exactly at the announced moment, put on a bizarre, visually breathtaking performance, and when the smoke of the illusions cleared, the object of his desire had vanished without a trace.

  He was called the “Ink Phantom” because his illusions looked like drawings that had come to life—as if they had escaped from a comic book or a sketchpad. How he did it was as much a mystery as the thief himself.

  No one knew where he came from, why he stole, and above all how he did it.

  If one tried to explain it logically, there would have to be an organization behind it, responsible solely for the special effects. Yet neither technology nor projection drones nor anything else that might point to complicated illusion machines had ever been found. Security forces had always kept a vigilant watch, and yet the thief remained a phantom—one who seemed to obey none of the laws of physics.

  If he was even real at all.

  It was as if the phantom thief truly commanded magic.

  Because even when there was always sufficient security personnel present, the announced object was invariably stolen. Right under their noses—and supposedly no one had ever seen anything.

  Thus, Benedict had only compiled the previous thefts in which Ink Phantom had been active and recorded the items that had been stolen. In the thin file Jasper had given him, he had otherwise found only the floor plans of the exhibition venues and a list of all security measures, including patrols and technology.

  Apart from that, there were only the reports from forensic investigation, which contained absolutely nothing useful.

  For it was as if a ghost had broken in and vanished again unseen, along with his loot.

  Without seeing everything on site himself, he would get no further.

  He stretched and rubbed his tired eyes. He had managed to distract himself well with all of this, yet his body was still screaming at him to simply disappear—to leave the apartment and never come back.

  At the same time, he couldn’t.

  Not while all of his things—and Dan’s—were still here.

  He refused to use the bedroom, so he quickly went in, grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a shirt he could sleep in, and made himself comfortable on the couch. He was tired, and yet he couldn’t fall asleep.

  Maybe he should have drunk less coffee. If he didn’t even know how many cups he had had over the past twenty-four hours, then it had definitely been too many.

  Benedict lay there, staring at the ceiling for another hour. He wanted to sleep—his body needed it, and he needed the strength to keep going. He didn’t just have one, but two rather tricky cases to solve, even if only one of them was officially assigned to him.

  Annoyed, he rolled onto his side. If only he were allowed to go into the office the next morning, at least he would have something to look forward to. As it was, he wasn’t officially permitted to work on the new case yet.

  So he would unofficially, in his free time, simply visit one of the museums and form his own impression of the whole situation.

  Besides that, there were still a few reports he wanted to read online.

  He closed his eyes as fatigue seemed to finally overtake him.

  Benedict decided that he would simply go back to the café. There, he had his peace and quiet and could do a bit more research on “Ink Phantom” online.

  After all, the coffee there really wasn’t bad.

  ___

  Soaked in sweat, Benedict jolted awake from his sleep.

  Just a nightmare, he told himself. Nothing more…

  Yet his heart was pounding wildly against his ribs, and his breathing was so shallow it felt as though someone had forced him underwater. He simply couldn’t calm down.

  The images wouldn’t leave his mind. Once again, he had seen him—bloody, dead, and completely cold, lying on the floor. Dan’s eyes had stared lifelessly at the ceiling…

  …and then his head had tilted to the side, the dead eyes suddenly staring at him instead of the ceiling. His bloodless lips had hoarsely whispered Benedict’s name over and over again. Dan’s voice sent chills down his spine.

  Stressed, he ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. With the other, he grabbed his phone to check the time.

  It was five in the morning. At least he’d managed a full four hours of sleep. That was still not enough, but more than he had slept in total over the past two days. You had to see something positive somewhere.

  His heart was still hammering in his chest. Slowly, Benedict exhaled.

  Sleep was out of the question now. He threw back the blanket and sat down on the edge of the couch. The museum he wanted to examine first wouldn’t open until around ten o’clock.

  What was he supposed to do until then?

  He could clean his apartment and finally do the laundry again. His gaze wandered through the diffuse darkness of the apartment. The light from the streetlamp illuminated his furniture. He had to swallow as his heart grew heavy once more.

  He didn’t want to stay here.

  If he wasn’t mistaken, the café opened at six o’clock. A truly unusual time for a café—but he wasn’t complaining. He could sit there in peace and do his research until it was time to go to the museum.

  Theoretically, he could even stay there until noon and then head to the museum.

  That sounded like a solid plan. With that, the matter was settled for him. He got up and went to take a shower. For the first time in a long while, he had a bit of time. Stress was pointless at this hour. Just because he rushed didn’t mean he’d be sitting in the café any earlier—no matter how quickly he wanted to flee the apartment.

  The warm water ran over his skin, washing the tension from his body. The inner cold that had been creeping into his bones gradually faded until he felt a little better.

  Benedict closed his eyes and enjoyed the brief moment of calm—until the image of his dead lover flashed before him again. He tore his eyes open, bracing himself against the tiles of the shower with one hand as his breathing quickened once more.

  Damn it… he would probably never recover. Not as long as that murderer was still walking free.

  He finished showering quickly and stepped out, drying himself off in haste. He wanted to get out of the apartment as fast as possible, but when he caught sight of his reflection, he stopped in shock.

  Slowly, he moved closer to the slightly fogged mirror and studied his reflection. It was as if Benedict were looking at a stranger, not himself. Sebastian had been right—he looked like absolute shit.

  Dan would lose his mind if he saw him looking this disheveled.

  He would scold him, then cut his hair himself, because Benedict wouldn’t go to the barber anyway unless Dan personally dragged him there.

  A tear slid down his cheek.

  He quickly wiped it away and grabbed his razor. He trimmed his beard and took a bit of time to care for his skin, which he had neglected far too much over the past few weeks.

  He wasn’t going to catch Dan’s murderer looking like a damn caveman. He would catch him with style—so that Dan would be proud of him. He would put on a show for his lover, one he could watch from the afterlife with a huge bag of popcorn. His revenge would be sweet.

  His obsession with catching the murderer sparked with a tiny flicker of renewed fire.

  First, he would catch the thief—and then the murderer. He absolutely had to work on the case officially, so he could do everything to that asshole that needed to be done.

  Even if he wouldn’t exactly mind taking his revenge on that man unofficially as well…