Matt paced the room.

“This has to be it,” he said. He couldn’t seem to stop shaking his head, his voice feverish. “This has to be what Ed found. He went looking into party guests, some light-hearted nothing job and then boom. Dead, dead, dead, dead. He was a genius, he would’ve seen the pattern, he would’ve made the connection instantly.”

Jane nodded her agreement. “But what the hell does it mean?” she asked quietly. She glanced down at one of the scraps of paper in front of her, an obituary notice, Mr Brian Kitchener, who’d reportedly died last year in his sleep. He’d owned the Coal Point bakery. “Is someone murdering these people?”

Matt shook his head. “It has to be,” he said, “It’s too much of a coincidence.”

“Murdering and making it look like natural causes. Like accidents.”

“Or suicide.”

They looked at each other.

“How is this possible?” demanded Jane, “How is this not national news, how has nobody figured this out before now?”

“They’re old,” muttered Matt, staring at one of the files, “Captain Dawn’s pushing sixty now, everyone he knew growing up is at least that old.” He shook his head bitterly. “Do you really give it a second thought when some eighty-year-old math teacher slips and dies from a fall? Accidents happen all the time. It’s just coincidence this was a group of people someone was actually looking into.”

“But why?” asked Jane.

“And how?” agreed Matt, “All these deaths, all these different causes? You’d have to be some kind of evil mastermind to pull this off.”

“It’s got to be a group,” declared Jane, “A group, an agency, some… I don’t know, secret society? No one person could do all this, it’s not possible.”

Matt was silent.

“It’s Dawn,” he murmured finally, “It’s all about Dawn.”

“What do you mean?”

Matt turned to her. “Think about it,” he said, “Dawn’s practically invincible, right?”

“Well, yeah,” replied Jane, as if that went without saying, “Even the Black Death could barely scratch him.”

“Right,” said Matt; “So how do you hurt someone who’s invincible?”

It took a few seconds, but Jane’s eyes widened. “You hurt the people around them,” she murmured. She looked up at him, her face white. “They’re killing these people to get to Dawn.”

“More than that,” Matt said savagely, “This isn’t just personal, it’s systematic.” He grimaced bitterly. “These aren’t just people, they’re pieces of Dawn’s past. Put together, they ARE his past. Where he came from, who he grew up with, his place in the world. Without them, he’s got no one. They’re destroying Captain Dawn’s entire history.”

“Holy crap,” whispered Jane. She put her hand over her mouth – then took it away again and stared up at Matt.

“We’ve got to tell him.”

Matt shook his head. “Maybe he already knows. You ever wonder why he’s such a recluse? Maybe he’s figured it out. Maybe he knows someone’s out there targeting people in his life and he doesn’t know how to stop them. So he keeps his distance, shuts himself away on purpose, so that no one else gets hurt.”

He turned to Jane. “Answer me seriously. How close are you to Captain Dawn?”

Jane brushed the question away like an elephant shaking off flies. “Don’t worry about me.”

“I am worried about you!” Matt cried, throwing up his hands, “Jane, if we’re right, whoever this is, they’ve killed dozens of people. Maybe hundreds! They’re smart, they’re slick, and they’re good enough to kill Ed right in the middle of Morningstar!” He clenched his teeth, biting back his frustration. “This isn’t a game, this isn’t some training exercise. You. Could. Die.”

But Jane wasn’t backing down. “I’m not running,” she declared, adamant, “I’m not going anywhere.” She looked defiantly at Matt, then glared at the whiteboard. “We just need to figure out who’s doing this before they make their next move.”

Matt opened his mouth to argue – but at the look on Jane’s face he stopped and swallowed what he was about to say, resigning himself to merely shaking his head.

“Fine,” he said, “So how do we do that?” He glanced at the notes scattered all over the floor, then looked up at Jane, but she didn’t seem to have heard.

“What’s the motive?” she whispered. Jane stared forward, unwavering, the tired rings under her eyes the same colour as her tattoo. “What does someone get out of this?”

Matt rubbed his face with the butt of his hands. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “Why does anyone murder anyone?”

“Anger,” Jane stated, still staring at the board, “Provocation. But this isn’t spur of the moment.”

“Agreed.”

“Then there’s profit,” she continued, “Killing because you think it’ll get you something.”

“Hard to see how anyone would make money out of killing Dawn’s old dentist.”

“Maybe it’s blackmail,” Jane suggested, “The Captain’s rich, so is the Academy.”

“Could be,” admitted Matt. “Except killing everyone someone knows is pretty ineffective blackmail. Seems more like something you’d threaten, rather than do. It doesn’t leave any leverage.”

Jane pursed her lips. “That leaves idealism – killing for a belief – or revenge.”

Matt pondered for a moment. “How about: someone hates superheroes so much, they’re so against what Dawn stands for-”

“What, peace, justice, freedom? How can anyone be against that?”

“I don’t know,” Matt sighed, exasperated, “Some people just suck. Work with me. They can’t kill him themselves, so they take away all his friends and loved ones, in the hope that Dawn will get really, really sad and off himself.”

Jane stared at him, her expression deadpan. “That’s a terrible plan,” she said bluntly.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Matt conceded, “It’s stupid.”

“If someone did that to me, I wouldn’t kill myself. If anything I’d want to live more because I’d be really, really mad.”

“Yes well, not all of us instinctively react to every obstacle with rage,” replied Matt, struggling to think. The fact that he hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours was starting to hit home. “But yeah, point taken, idealism’s tough. So that leaves revenge.”

“Revenge seems like the best fit,” said Jane.

“It makes sense,” Matt agreed, “I mean if your only goal was hurting Captain Dawn, if you only cared about causing him pain, this seems like a pretty smart way to do it. Psychotic, but smart.” He paused and looked at Jane. “So the question is, who wants revenge on Dawn?”

“Could be loads,” she admitted, “Dictators, communists, supervillains. Anybody with an axe to grind against the Legion. Or it could be entirely unrelated. Maybe someone he crossed paths with we don’t know about.”

“So we’re back to square one,” sighed Matt, frustration tinging the edge of his voice, “Trying to find some mystery person from Captain Dawn’s past, when everyone he ever knew is dead.”

He closed his eyes.

“Ok,” he muttered, rubbing his fingers into his temples, “Let’s go back.” He opened his eyes and looked at the board, at their mountains of notes. “There’s got to be a clue. Something we’ve missed.” Jane murmured indistinct agreement, and the two of them stared in silence at the whiteboard, Jane biting at her knuckle, Matt chewing his thumb.