The resolution
What happened so far:
Mia Novak works at the restaurant “Frost & Flamme” and, after working a double shift at a charity dinner that turns into a crime scene, becomes involved in a police investigation. After finding a threatening message in her locker, Mia realizes that both songs and witnesses can be silenced. The next day, she sees the name of an acquaintance in the newspaper as the “alleged perpetrator” and feels complicit. Plagued by a dream and the fear that someone innocent will be punished, she talks to the investigator and reveals details that could clear the wrong suspect and endanger her own safety.
The interrogation room was now familiar to her, almost too much. She knew the cracks in the tabletop, the slight shadow on the wall where a calendar must have once hung. Today it was quieter than usual. No hustle and bustle in the hallway, no hasty steps.
Mia told me about the night for the third time. This time without omitting, without smoothing. From the stage, from the song, from the moment when she was looking for something behind the bar and saw the narrow corridor in the corner of her eye. From Jonas' posture, the hectic grip on his partner's arm, the clumsy thrust. From the dull impact and the interruption of the music, it was as if someone had pulled the current from the scenery.
She also spoke of the note in the locker. Of the fear that had settled in her chest since then like an uninvited lodger. And about how much she hated the thought of paying her rent in silence.
The investigator took a lot of notes and asked fewer questions than usual. In the end, she put the pen aside and looked at Mia for a long time. It was not a pitiful look. Rather one in which recognition and regret had found a place side by side.
When Mia later left the presidium, a Christmas market was burning in the distance. Lanterns, fairy lights, a Ferris wheel that turned slowly. She stopped for a moment and breathed in the cold air.
She no longer had a job; she had been soberly told that in the morning. "Inopportune timing," someone had said. Maybe. But for the first time since the night of the murder, her chest felt a touch lighter.
Beneath all the frost, she thought there was something else left.
Something that was called truth.
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