..Somehow, I had managed to make it to Yuffie's before Yuffie did. I knocked on the door for a little bit, and tried the handle after waiting a minute or two. It was locked. My conscience restrained me from picking my way in. I'd been waiting in front of her door for about ten minutes or so, when a man with a set of keys that dangled nearly as long and loud as his beard did walked by and approached me.

.. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir," he said. "You must be that new boyfriend of Yuffie's." I nearly contradicted him, but I knew he was going somewhere with this. He continued, "She had to stay later at work, the poor thing, and on what was supposed to be a day off, too. But that's just the way work is sometimes." He then jumped a little, and shook his head. "Oh, where are my manners today? You must be cold. I'll let you in, sir." I tried waving him off, but he refused be swayed. "No, no, it's okay. I'm the building supervisor, you know. I own all the flats on this street. I'm sure Yuffie won't mind."

..I was sure she would mind, though. That was part of the reason why I let the man open the door for me; I needed to get back at Yuffie, anyhow. The other reason was that Costa del Sol got surprisingly bitter at night. I think it had something to do with being so close to the ocean.

..When he had the door open, I said, "Thank you, sir. I'd give you a tip, but I'm afraid I'm not carrying any money."

..He waved this notion aside before it had finished leaving my mouth. "Oh, that's fine," he said. "I'm just glad to help a friend of Yuffie's. She doesn't really have anyone in the area, for company. She gets lonely, you know. It's nice that she found someone polite like you. And so well-dressed."

..I thanked him again and entered the flat. After the super had walked far enough away so as to not seem rude, I locked the door. Despite myself, I started thinking about Yuffie, trying to picture her as the lonely type. To keep my mind off of this, I did a quick scan of her exposed things to see if my delicates were visible. That pesky conscience that had already foiled me once in the past hour decided not to let me root through her belongings in my search, so when I didn't see anything immediately, I stopped looking.

..I heard a jingle of keys at the front door and watched as Yuffie entered. For her part, the girl did nothing more than blink in surprise when she spotted me inside. She did say, "You've gotten better at picking locks," though.

.. "Yeah. I found a pick with a big black beard."

.. "Ah."

..I watched her eyes, hoping they'd stray to where she was keeping my money or underwear, but they stayed fixed right on me. It occurred to me that she probably wanted to know why I came back to her flat. I decided to oblige her.

.. "What can you tell me about the other murders that have taken place in Costa del Sol, recently?"

..This time she moved her head back a little when she blinked. She shook it afterward, too. "I don't know what you're talking about. What other murders?"

..She didn't seem to be lying, and I figured she'd have no reason to, since I didn't think she had anything to do with the original murders either. I said, "I've been told that there were murders that have taken place in town recently. A different set, and there's a chance that these are linked to the ones we suspect Ghaleon killed."

..Yuffie was stunned. She shook her head a little more. "I haven't heard anything about a second set of murders. That had to have been kept even from the tourism committee."

.. "Huh," I said. "I guess the police force at Costa del Sol is pretty good at keeping things under wraps. Wanna go break into their headquarters?"

.. "All right."

..We left immediately. It only took a few minutes to reach the police station. It was a large stone building that had lights on inside, because even a relatively small town like Costa del Sol wanted police available at all hours of the day. Apparently, they had reason to. Yuffie and I didn't think it'd fly if we walked into the station asking to look at their records. It wasn't that we thought the police would mind having a private investigator working with them on a case they couldn't solve. It was more about me not wanting Ghaleon to find out I hadn't gone away like he implied that I should. We entered through a fire exit.

..I wondered where the police kept their case files for all of the two seconds it took me to read a little sign that said "Case Files" and had an arrow pointing downstairs. I guess it was there for the rookies or something. We took the stairs without much noise, and followed a few more signs until we found a big room that was loaded with filing cabinets. They were alphabetized, but there was another one that had "recent" written on the front of it, so I had Yuffie crack that one open.

..While she was working, Yuffie said, "Who told you about these other murders, anyhow?" Damn. I was hoping she wouldn't ask me that.

..I wasn't about to betray Phacia's confidence, so I said, "A little bird told me." A little blue bird with incredible silver hair, and long, gorgeous legs.

..When she'd finished, I dug through the folders. They mostly detailed smaller crimes, like petty theft and property damage. It didn't take long to find the folder I needed. I skimmed the reports that were inside. They didn't say much past finding people dead. The reports had all said that the bodies were found cut up around the same time, and that there was a suspected serial killer on the loose. I could imagine how bad the tourism industry would suffer if these rumors got out, in addition to the Ghaleon rumors which Yuffie was trying to stifle. I passed the papers to Yuffie when I was done with them.

..Then I moved on to the photographs. At first, I wasn't able to make much of them. They were just people who had been violently killed, their bodies laced with cuts and stab wounds. I didn't see how this could possibly be relevant information, or even related to my case at hand, but after about the fifth picture, I started to see a connection.

..The bodies had all been carved up exactly the same way. Cuts all across the bodies, rough abrasions on the ankles and wrists. I sifted back for the first few photos and scrutinized them once more. There was no mistaking it.

..Cold, terrible realization began to flood my system, and I think I caught myself shaking, though there was no way I could stop this. I felt a shiver go up my spine that told me that as much as I didn't want to be, I was absolutely right. I slowly lowered the photographs.

.. "Yuffie," I said. I was hoarse.

.. "What? What is it, Face?"