Faint winced when the male genasi gave voice to the thoughts she had kept to herself. [i]Gods, man! Have some tact![/i]

To the question posed to the group, she simply droned, “Perfect strangers.” She would have left had that not been the case.

Her thoughts returned to the previous topic as the next person stepped forward. It had to be said, even the necromancer, who should have been the most interested in discussing the topic of the victim’s death, showed a modicum in delicacy in approaching the subject.

Thankfully, the rest of the group did not seem keen to dwell on the subject. In fact, the diminutive kobold and towering Warforged were so quick to pledge their service it made Faint feel the slightest twinge of unease. She had to suppress a light shudder at the metal giant’s proclamation that they would bring the perpetrators to ‘justice’, and she realized the being carried what passed for a badge of office for authorities around these parts. 

It took her a moment to remind herself she had committed no crimes in this land.

What about her, then? Was she ready to offer her help to this stranger, now that she was fairly certain this was largely a chance meeting? Perhaps in another time, she would have agreed right then and there. Now, however, the thought of simply agreeing, no matter how noble the cause, scared her. How was that any different than how she had lived her life until then, doing as she was told again and again, as if tossed by the waves?

A favor of this magnitude was too much for her at that point. A transaction, however, was easy to understand. As the female genasi brought up the matter of payment, and Abraham produced the notes, Faint only balked at the amount offered so casually for a moment before quickly taking her share.

[i]My hiring fee,[/i] she told herself. As a mercenary, she supposed, or a detective. It was somewhat disheartening that her best assets for such an occupation would be the same skillset she had learned for her previous one. 

She shook her head slowly. If she had been ready to discard that side of hers so readily she would already have found a place at a bar or diner, or perhaps even a hospital. But she had waited until someone had reached out for her instead. She did not want to think about what that attachment meant. ”It’s a first step for myself either way,” she muttered in a low voice.

The first genasi in the room stepped out soon after taking her payment. The otter, however, took the chance to ask about the state of affairs with the town’s authorities. Faint didn’t like Abraham’s answers. Undermanned and stuck. In the meantime, the bounty would be giving rise to multiple motley crews of hooligans — much like this one — interested only in the money and likely to cause trouble of their own. It seemed to her like the stability of Forsaken was poised to deteriorate rapidly.

So distracted was she by her brooding, she barely noticed when the otter excused himself and stepped out. A moment later, realizing that something was off, she pushed herself out of her corner, blinking at the otter and genasi’s exit. They did not seem like they intended to walk out of the job, but those lines of questioning had seemed lacking.

“W-wait, aren’t we forgetting something?” It seemed bizarre to her that they would agree to find the man’s wife, then fail to ask for any details surrounding the wife’s disappearance. 

Perhaps now that they had been given their upfront payment, the matter of solving the criminal mystery as a whole, the one worth a bounty of $30000 weighed more heavily on their minds than the man’s initial request. After all, he had never promised payment upon completion of [i]that[/i] task.

[i]Are they putting the cart before the horse on purpose?[/i] she wondered.

Pulling herself together, Faint turned to Abraham. “Mr. Garrick, I imagine you already went through this with the guard, but do you mind if I ask some questions about Mrs. Garrick’s disappearance?”

The old man nodded. “Of course not. What do you want to know?”

Faint had been half expecting to be rebuffed, but now that she’d been given room to talk, she realized she’d never imagined she would be on this side of such an interview. A part of her couldn’t help but feel like a sham leading the gentleman on even as she gave him a thankful smile.

“Thank you. Let’s start with the last time you saw Mrs. Garrick. Could you tell me when and where that was?”

"It was exactly three weeks ago. We had our normal morning routine, ate breakfast together, and then I went to work. When I came back, she was gone. There were signs of struggle inside the house, and that's it. There were no strange tracks outside, no blood, nothing."

Faint blinked. “She was taken from your home?” The wheels started turning in her mind. That was not what she had expected given her initial impression of this case. She imagined victims would have been picked out randomly from the streets, but that didn’t seem to be the case here. “At what time did you return? Do you have any servants, or relatives living with you that might have seen her after you left?”

"I returned at my usual time, around four or five in the afternoon. We do have a few servants, but they didn't see anything. The maid heard some banging, but when she went to check it out there was no one there. She assumed someone dropped a few things and didn't think any more of it."

[i]And, being the maid, she likely immediately cleaned up any evidence.[/i] She resisted the urge to groan. As if following a three week old trail wasn’t difficult enough.

It seemed all too possible that Mrs. Garrick had been targeted. Money could be a motive, given the old gentleman’s apparent wealth, but there was something missing from that interpretation. “Given that you haven’t mentioned it already, I assume you haven’t received any ransom notice,” Faint noted.

"No, I have not," He confirmed. 

“Is that servant still working for you?”

“Yes, she is. Been working for our family for several decades, and feels terrible, poor thing. She keeps blaming herself, but it's not her fault."

“It isn’t,” Faint agreed, though in the back of her mind she tagged an [i]I hope[/i] to the end of that thought. She paused to organize her the information she had been given, dimly noting how tenuous all the leads the conversation had revealed thus far had been. Though, she admitted, she supposed that if the case was clear-cut, no one would have approached them.

“Did you notice anything odd before the disappearance?” Faint chanced. “Perhaps a stranger loitering around the estate? Maybe your wife mentioned something, or she behaved oddly at some point? Please try to remember. The smallest detail could be a vital clue.”

He shook his head. “No, there was nothing out of the ordinary. I mean, we were all worried about the disappearances around town, so all of us were a little on edge, but besides that everything was normal."

Faint sighed, a bit of her frustration seeping through. She bit her nail. She thought there might have been something there, but... [i]the way he makes it seem is almost as if she got magicked away[/i]. “That’s not much to go on,” she admitted. “Has it been like this for all the missing? Taken from their home with barely a trail to follow?”

"Yes, it has. I believe I already mentioned a little something about that, but all of the cases are like this.” Faint couldn’t tell if the hint of vexation she caught was aimed at her or at the situation in general. “People plucked from their homes, on the street, at work, really anywhere. No so much as a footprint, and no witness."

Faint frowned, “What about the supposed clues to the west, then? Where do those come in?”

"There were a couple of very vague clues leading out into the wilderness. Some pieces of fabric, dropped items that were identified as belonging to some of those who went missing, and small things like that. Not a lot, but enough to spark some suspicion."

She was about to ask for more details, perhaps going as far as to ask if any of the discovered items had belonged to his wife, but stopped herself. Something told her she bad pursued the topic far enough in front of the husband. She would be better served by looking into those herself. Regarding the search, there was still one matter she wanted to address before she was satisfied with this interview. “Can I see that photo again, please?”

"Sure," He replied, holding out the photo. The woman in the frame had graying blonde hair, a beautiful, expensive looking dress, and was smiling brightly towards the camera. [i]Or[/i], Faint amended a moment later, [i]at something beyond it.[/i] When Abraham spoke again, he seemed to have been transported to somewhere else. “This was supposed to be a serious photograph, you know. It was our 35th wedding anniversary, and we were commemorating the event. I tripped and fell into a water trough a few seconds before the photograph got snapped, and it came out with her smiling."

“She looks gorgeous,” Faint said, a touch hesitantly. She’d had to force herself not to say ‘looked’. Fortunately, the wistful look on the old man’s face told her he had not caught her reservation. Emboldened, she asked, “Could I hold onto it for the investigation?”

Abraham started briefly at the question, as if waking from a reverie. He looked at the picture briefly, a touch possessively, Faint thought, before a brief smile crossed his features. He handed it to her. “You can take the picture... But please make sure to bring it back to me, if at all possible.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking the photo and studying it more closely. There was something truly radiant in the woman’s smile, but even then, Faint couldn’t pick out anything that might make her the target of a kidnapper. A thought suddenly occurred to her as she studied the picture. “I just realized,” Faint noted, guiltily. “I never asked her  name.”

The old man nodded, taking a deep breath. She could tell from the creak of the floorboards that he was putting more of his weight over his cane. “Her name was Sarah. Sarah Merian Garrick."

Faint’s eyes snapped up from the photo and onto the man’s tired face. The ‘was’ in his answer broke her heart. 

She averted her gaze, speaking tightly past her constricted throat. “If at all possible, Mr. Garrick, I’ll bring back more than a picture.” She paused to slide the photo into one of her pockets. The act helped her find her center again and she sighed, loosening some of her tension. “In any case, thank you for answering my questions. I might stop by your estate later to speak with your maid, and to look for clues where the disappearance took place, but for now I need a moment to digest all this.”

Glancing aside at some movement, she was startled to find that other members of the party still remained in the room. She tried to hide a light flush of embarrassment as she took a step away from Abraham. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m going to look for the others. They should hear some of this if they’re going to try to untangle this mess.”

Her piece said, she inclined her head lightly in a perfunctory bow, and stepped out. As it turned out, once she had glided down the stairs only took a single to locate both the genasi and the otter. Not particularly inconspicuous costumers, these.

She took a moment to consider these two, then, remembering how the little otter had been gleefully talking the ear off a random patron before he had gone upstairs, decided he was the more approachable of the two. Not to mention softer-looking one.

She pulled out the chair next to him and sat, signaling to the person manning the bar. She chanced a glance at the Genasi, trying to make eye contact, but after a moment she turned to the otter in its quiet pondering. 

“You left before we could ask anything about the wife’s disappearance,” she noted. It sounded even more chiding than she had meant, and she grimaced. “Sorry, don’t mean anything by it.” Her eyes trailed over the otter’s glossy fur, and a part of her wondered if it was supposed to look like that even while dry. She stopped herself from reaching out to feel it. Instead, she asked, “What do you think about this? Ever seen anything like it?”