Michael's silence was his sharpest tool. While Célia pressed Arthur and Michell deciphered the psychological layers of fear, Michael mentally deleted the folder of the "Origami Architect." He was not a man of distractions; if the board now presented a new element — the Gravedigger, as the sensationalist headlines were already beginning to blare on police radios — Michael would dedicate his processing capacity exclusively to this new threat.
The "Gravedigger" worked with earth, lime, and silence. It was an aesthetic different from the geometric precision of origami, but Michael stored a mental note in an isolated directory: in the world of shadows, rarely do two monsters occupy the same room without greeting each other.
Célia's Confrontation:
Célia held Arthur's arm, preventing him from recoiling. She ignored the mud that splashed on her expensive shoes.
— Arthur, fear is a chemical reaction, but survival is a choice — she said, her eyes fixed on the accelerated pulse in the man's carotid. — You say they have your family. If you don't give us a name, a location, or how that map got to you, you will be digging their grave along with your own.
Arthur sobbed, a dry and desperate sound.
— He doesn't use names. He uses the radio... the guardhouse radio. He gets on the frequency. He knew what I had for dinner yesterday, ma'am. He said that if I didn't call the police at exactly 08:15, the construction site would have three graves, and the fourth would be at my house.
Michell stepped forward, intercepting Michael's gaze.
— Time is his trigger — Michell analyzed. — The "Gravedigger" doesn't just want to hide bodies. He wants to control the moment they are discovered. It's a spectacle of punctuality.
Owen's Inertia and Foxy's Insight:
At HQ, Owen's climate of frustration was almost palpable. He drummed his fingers on the desk, his eyes red from staring at static screens.
— It's a total blackout, Foxy — Owen complained. — The guy isn't just a hacker; he's an electronic ghost. He didn't delete the images, he replaced them with a "loop" of white noise that fools the server. There are no movements on the cameras because, for the system, time stopped at that location two hours ago.
Foxy, however, was not looking at Owen's screens. She was with the preliminary autopsy reports and the photos Michael had sent from the field.
— Owen, forget the security cameras — she said, her voice hoarse but firm. — Look at the inclination of the bodies. They were buried at 45-degree angles. No one buries someone like that to hide them. This is ballistics.
She picked up a pen and traced lines over the aerial photo of the site.
— If you follow the line of these victims' spines, the three converge to a single geographic point outside the city. An abandoned quarry in Virginia.
Michael's Silence:
Michael, still at the site, collected the last soil samples. He observed the interaction between Célia and Michell with the impartiality of a satellite. He noticed that Arthur, despite telling the truth about the radio, was hiding a physical detail.
Michael noticed that the watchman was clutching something inside his coat pocket. It wasn't a weapon, nor a cell phone. It was the bulk of something small and rigid.
Without saying a word to the agents, Michael walked to the forensics car to store his tablet. He knew that the "Gravedigger" was now the absolute priority. The origami man seemed to have evaporated, vanishing from the radar as if he had never existed, leaving Michael free to focus on the fresh earth and the lime.
But, as he closed the vehicle door, Michael looked at his own reflection in the tinted glass. He knew that, in the game he was playing, "disappeared" rarely meant "out of the game." It only meant that the strike was being prepared in silence.
Michael turned on the car's internal radio, tuning into the frequency that Foxy had just opened at HQ.
— Archive Unit listening — he said. — Quarry coordinates received. Initiating relocation.
The "Gravedigger" had a name given by the press, but for Michael, he was just another variable to be nullified. And he intended to do it before the lime dried on the next victim.