A Valentine's Algorithm
Copyright© 2026 by Tantrayaan
Chapter 1
The cold slipped past Inna’s coat anyway, settling deep enough that her bones protested.
Winter’s kiss. Right. Some tourist-brochure bullshit.
Fitting, she thought. Tonight deserved that kind of honesty. She’d told herself tonight was about the case. That was true. It just wasn’t the whole truth.
She should have done this days ago. The Ray file was marked cold last Tuesday. She’d been putting it off - paperwork, follow-ups that went nowhere. The real reason sat two blocks away in a bar. And the excuse was the evidence bag under her arm.
She’d been secondary on Elara Ray’s disappearance for eight months. Which meant eight months of watching Vikram Sen. Usually the families blurred together. Grief looked the same on everyone. Not this time.
He brought maps, logs, timelines. His analytical breakdowns were cleaner than the department’s own files. A data scientist. Facts over feelings.
But she saw the cracks. The way he gripped the coffee cup hard enough for his knuckles to blanch. The manner in which he would take a slow breath, and ask for an update anyway. Like he already knew how this would end.
He stayed controlled. Stayed loyal when most people would’ve given up. And somewhere along the way, she’d started caring. And now she liked him more than she should.
Valentine’s night was her last excuse. She should tell him the truth about his girlfriend’s case. That’s why she was here. Mostly. She also wanted to see if those eyes could look at her as something other than Detective Whoever.
The Anchor was warm and dim.
The bar was busier than she’d expected for Valentine’s night. It was loud enough to hide how alone everyone looked. She spotted him in the back corner - shoulders hunched, hands around a glass.
He looked tired. He looked good. He didn’t hear her come in over the door chime.
But she didn’t get to him first.
“Hello beautiful. Can we buy you a drink?”
Two men. Looking eagerly at her for an positive response. A few years ago she would have smiled, said no thank you. Now she had no softness left.
“Really? Do I look like I’m interested in having a drink with you?”
The guys shuffled away, muttering apologies.
Nice. Great job you idiot. Do that all night and you’ll scare him off too.
She was twenty-six, living alone, and she wanted someone. Men noticed her. She wasn’t clueless. The problem was she kept talking them out of it.
She forced her shoulders down, took a deep breath to center herself, and turned toward Vikram.
Don’t do it again. Not tonight.
She crossed the room.
Vikram watched her approach. That hope in his eyes hurt to see.
“Vikram.”
“Detective Sokolov.” His voice was calm. His eyes were not. “Did you find something?”
Her throat went tight.
“Let me sit first.”
She slid into the booth and placed the evidence bag between them.
Vikram’s gaze fixed on the bag, then lifted to her face, searching.
Inna didn’t soften it. She never knew how. “The file’s being archived, Vikram. As of Tuesday, it’s a cold case.”
For a second, nothing. Then his face hardened. Not with sadness, but with raw outrage. He leaned forward, his voice low and precise. “That’s it? We stop? You want me to accept that a woman vanishes with no trace, and the answer is to just ... close the case?”
“We have no new leads. No witnesses. No forensic evidence that goes anywhere.”
“That’s because you’re not looking at the right data.”
He set his notebook on the table and opened it. A finger tapped neat handwriting, diagrams, timestamps.
“Look at this data Detective. She was last seen at 9:47 p.m on Elm and Fifth. The Bank camera was down from 9:30 to 10:15.” He paused. “That’s forty-five minutes.”
He met their eyes. “The Uber driver saw a grey sedan. Lights off. No plates. It’s in the first report. Missing from the second.”
His jaw tightened. “You really want to stop there?”
Inna kept her eyes on his. She let him finish. She owed him that.
“Vikram,” she said. “We’ve seen the file. All of it. We’ve read your notes. Twice. The sedan was logged. It belonged to a neighbor who was out of town. His nephew borrowed it. We confirmed it. The camera malfunction was a scheduled maintenance reboot logged by the security company. We verified the work order. All the existing evidence only leads to a dead end. We don’t have anything new. I’m sorry...”
Each fact landed hard. She watched his shoulders slump.
He looked down at his notebook, at his own handwriting. Then his gaze came back up, and this time he wasn’t looking for procedural flaws. He was looking at her. At the exhaustion she couldn’t quite hide, at the regret in her expression. He saw she wasn’t the enemy.
His anger dissolved.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I just ... I didn’t want it to end like this. In a file cabinet.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”