FIRST MEETING — MERCER STREET
Blüdhaven had a particular way of looking innocent after dark.
From a distance, the city could almost pass for peaceful. The last traces of daylight had dissolved behind the buildings, leaving the streets washed in a muted blue-gray that made the windows of the apartment buildings glow warmer than they actually were. Traffic murmured somewhere beyond the residential blocks, tires hissing against damp pavement. A dog barked twice behind a wooden fence before falling silent again. Someone was laughing on a balcony. Somewhere farther away, a siren rose and disappeared into the city.
Mercer Street was ordinary.
That was precisely why Dick Grayson had spent the last forty-five minutes walking it.
Three blocks away, a private biomedical research facility had been broken into sometime between two and four in the morning. Nothing had been vandalized without purpose. No safe had been emptied. No expensive equipment had been taken at random. Whoever had entered the building had known exactly what they wanted, exactly where to find it, and exactly how long they had before the security system became a problem.
The stolen equipment was strange enough on its own, but the thing that had bothered Dick was the surveillance footage.
Someone had been watching the facility before the break-in.
Not once. Several times.
Different locations. Different nights. Always far enough away to avoid attracting attention, always positioned with a clear view of one of the approaches to the building. One of those locations had been Mercer Street.
So Dick had started knocking on doors.
Most people had nothing useful to offer. A retired couple had remembered a delivery truck that turned out to belong to a local grocery store. A university student had heard something loud around midnight but couldn't say what. A woman walking her dog had noticed a dark sedan parked near the corner, although she couldn't remember whether it had been there for ten minutes or two hours. None of it was enough to build a timeline.
Still, Dick knew better than to dismiss useless information too quickly.
Sometimes a case didn't break open because someone remembered the important thing.
Sometimes it broke open because six people remembered six apparently meaningless things that happened to fit together.
He stopped in front of the next house and glanced down at the address written in his notebook.
Then he looked at the number beside the door.
Correct.
He tucked the notebook against his palm and climbed the short path to the front entrance. His eyes moved automatically over the surroundings—the neighboring house, the street beyond it, the windows, the parked cars—before settling on the door.
He knocked three times.
Nothing.
Dick waited.
He could hear movement somewhere inside.
He knocked again, this time slightly louder.
The door opened a moment later.
And there she was.
For half a second, Dick simply registered the fact that someone had answered. His brain was still operating in the familiar rhythm of the investigation: address, resident, approximate age, possible witness, establish whether they were home that night.
Then his attention settled properly on her.
He gave her an apologetic smile.
"Hi. Sorry to bother you this late."
His voice carried the easy warmth that made him sound less like someone who had arrived to ask questions and more like someone who had accidentally interrupted a perfectly normal evening.
Then he reached inside his jacket and produced his badge.
"Detective Grayson. Blüdhaven PD."
He showed it briefly before lowering it again. There was no need to wave it around. The identification was enough.
"I'm investigating the break-in at Helix Biomedical a few blocks from here. We're talking to everyone on the surrounding streets, just trying to establish a timeline."
His gaze flicked briefly past her shoulder, not because he expected to find anything suspicious, but because observation had become second nature to him. Doorways. Windows. Exits. The ordinary details people stopped noticing once they saw them every day.
His attention returned to her.
"Would you mind if I asked you a couple of questions?"
He waited for permission before continuing.
"Were you home Tuesday night?"
The question sounded simple.
It was.
At least for now.
Dick shifted his weight slightly, keeping the notebook closed rather than immediately writing down her answer. He had learned a long time ago that people behaved differently when they felt like they were being recorded. A conversation produced more useful information when it still felt like a conversation.
If she said yes, he would ask what time she arrived home, whether she went to sleep immediately, whether she heard anything unusual, whether she remembered seeing unfamiliar vehicles or people on the street. If she said no, he would ask when she left and when she returned. Nothing about her, at this point, made her anything more than another potential witness. Another address. Another door. Another person who might have seen something without realizing it mattered. And yet, as Dick stood there beneath the porch light, he had the strange feeling that he would remember this particular conversation long after he forgot most of the others.
He didn't know why. He certainly wasn't going to admit it to himself. Not yet. For now, he was Detective Grayson, standing on a residential doorstep at 6:47 in the evening, trying to solve a burglary that looked increasingly like something much bigger. And Nahomy was simply the next person on his list.