Archer eased open the door to Reid's apartment, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the cozy, cluttered space inside. What he saw was a full-on cat-human wrestling match; Reid seemed to be grappling with his feline companion, Jill. The cat was momentarily distracted by Archer's entrance. Seizing the opportunity, Reid stuffed a piece of bread into his mouth, his face a portrait of triumphant glee.
Amused, Archer shook his head and set down bags of takeout on the cluttered dining table. The door hadn't even fully swung shut before Averyl stepped through.
"God, it's tiny in here," Averyl commented, looking around as if he were touring a particularly quaint museum exhibit.
"Yeah, well, freelance detectives who moonlight as university lecturers can't all afford penthouses," Reid retorted, picking Jill up and setting her aside so he could make room for the food.
"If you wanted, you know, I could give you a stipend," Averyl offered, casting a glance at the eclectic mix of bookshelves, a battered coffee table, and worn-out furniture.
"I don't need your charity," Reid rolled his eyes.
Averyl grinned, a sly look crossing his face. "Oh, I'm sure Archer would be more than happy to support you."
"I'll have you know, I'm quite capable of taking care of myself," Reid sniped back, shooting Averyl a glare as if he'd suggested something utterly preposterous. "And for the record, Archer is just as much of a spoiled brat as you are."
Averyl held up both his hands, "why do I spend so much time earning money if I am not going to spend it?"
"Sit down and eat."
Reid and Averyl gave each other a face before sitting down on the table.
While they were eating, Jill sauntered over and took her royal seat on Archer's lap. Archer, finding her presence amusing, started to playfully tap her paws. Jill, in her characteristic form, ignored him entirely. Reid shot the pair a look of mock jealousy.
"So, how's the investigation going?" Averyl finally broke the eating silence, which had been punctuated only by the sounds of chopsticks and forks.
Reid's eyes twinkled. "The stage has been set, my friend. Act Three is simply waiting for the curtain to rise."
Archer sighed a little, his eyes meeting Reid's for a fleeting moment before turning back to his food.
"What, you doubt me?" Reid raised an eyebrow, setting down his bowl and locking eyes with Archer.
Archer shook his head slowly, each movement calculated, minimalistic. "You've got the entire map plotted out in that brain of yours. You're just missing the last piece."
"Exactly," Reid smiled, clearly pleased by Archer's assessment.
Averyl, intrigued, leaned forward. "So, do you know who the murderer is?"
Reid smirked, but before he could say anything, Archer spoke. A rarity, and when he did, it carried weight.
"Of course, he knows. But the puzzle isn't complete. That's why he hasn't gone to the police. Yet."
Reid looked at Archer, a bit surprised and yet appreciative that he understood him so well. He then turned back to Averyl, who seemed to be digesting this new bit of information.
"So, you see," Reid continued, reclining in his chair with an air of satisfied enigma, "it's like a chess game where all the pieces are in motion, but the checkmate is still a move away."
"And you're sure you're not the one in check?" Averyl raised an eyebrow, intrigued but skeptical.
"Trust me, when I'm in check, I'll be the first to know," Reid grinned. "But for now, the board is mine. And I intend to play it to the end."
Archer looked at Reid, his eyes saying what his lips didn't need to—complete and utter faith. Reid caught the look and smiled.
"So…" Reid turned to Archer, "what was that sigh for?"
Archer slowly looked over to Averyl who seemed to be deep in thought. Reid's eyes narrowed and waited patiently for one of the brothers to start talking.
"Archer had me look into the communicator."
"You did?" Reid's eyes widened, looking over from Archer to Averyl.
"Archer requested for the surveillance artifice that covered the building but somehow, they were wiped clean," Averyl crossed his fingers and leaned forward, "I had my man hack into the systems around the estate and on the morning you found the communicator, we saw a man entering the estate."
Reid waited patiently for Averyl to continue. However, it was Archer who spoke next.
"In all the recordings we saw, this man was the only abnormality. He appeared only once and we checked at least 6 months worth of recording."
Reid rested his head on his arm. "Well, we can worry about that another day."
Archer's eyes flashed dangerously and noticing a subtle drop in temperature, Averyl piped up, "I will keep looking into this man so both of you can focus on what you need to."
Reid smiled and nodded before noticing the deep frown on Archer. A slender finger reached forward and pressed the furrowing eyebrow on Archer, "don't worry. I have you." Archer relaxed a little.
A loud meow came from Archer's lap and Reid chuckled, "and you too, Jill."
Jill's feline eyes meeting Reid's for a moment before she returned her attention to Archer's lap.
***
Another week slipped through the sieve of Reid's attention span before an unexpected vibration of his wrist-bound communicator shook him from the midst of a lecture on "Behavioral Profiling and Cognitive Bias." He glanced down surreptitiously and then back at his audience, a class at the local university. His lips quirked in a snarky grin as he picked up the narrative thread he'd momentarily dropped.
It was a full house again, an interesting mix of eager minds and fawning sycophants. "Yes, the eyes may be windows to the soul," he continued with a wry flourish, "but you gotta make sure you're not just peering at your own reflection in the glass. We all love mirrors, don't we?"
Once the applause and sporadic laughter ebbed, the bell rang.
"That's all for the lecture today."
Reid began to navigate through the throng of students, their hands sprouting smartphones and dog-eared notebooks as they clamored for his attention. He had mastered the art of politely dismissing overzealous inquiries when his keen eyes caught sight of her.
This one stood out. She was prim, bespectacled, and sported a mane of curly hair, her oversized tote bag screaming 'I'm a walking library.' But it was the book clutched in her hand that clenched his attention: "Gathering" by Michelle Lim.
"Professor Reid, can I give you this?" she asked timidly, pushing her glasses back up her nose.
"Ah, Michelle Lim. Good taste," he said, his fingers deliberately grazing hers as he took the book. A shiver of something—recognition? apprehension?—skated down his spine. He let his touch linger just a millisecond too long, injecting a subtext into the simple act of accepting a book.
"Are you new here?" Reid inquired, his eyes never leaving hers.
The murmurs of other students swelled like a hive of unsettled bees. "Nosy buggers, aren't they?" Reid flashed his crowd-controlling grin, deflecting their collective curiosity.
She nodded, her eyes a fortress hiding untold secrets. "Yes, I just transferred."
"Welcome," he said, handing her back the signed book. She moved away with an air of understated deference, yet Reid sensed the orchestrated precision in her shyness.
The moment she receded into the backdrop of clamoring students, Reid's communicator buzzed again. This time he pulled up his sleeve to read the message. It was Archer. One word glowed on the screen: "I'm here."
Reid's fingers danced on the tiny keyboard. "Wait."
The reply was immediate and quintessentially Archer, a single emoticon, a wolf face. Reid smirked. In the language of their friendship, a thousand conversations lived in that solitary digital glyph.
As Reid pushed through the last of his academic admirers to the sanctuary of the empty hallway, he felt the weight of the moment settle in.
The wolf had shown her snout.
With a last glance at his communicator—still strapped obediently to his wrist despite its Orwellian implications—he made a mental note: 'Maybe send Archer a thank-you basket. What do you get a guy who only speaks in stares and emojis and have so many money he didn't know where to spend?'
Chuckles rippled through him as he pocketed his hands and walked towards Archer's car, armed with more knowledge than he could have in the past one week.
The car door slammed shut with an assured thud, isolating Reid from the outside world as he sank into the plush leather seat beside Archer. The space was saturated in the faint scent of cedar and gunmetal—a very Archeresque atmosphere.
The first thing Archer noticed was Reid's aura of victory, hovering around him like some astral crown. The second? The minute, almost imperceptible tremor in Reid's right hand, a detail that could go unnoticed by anyone else but not by Archer.
Archer's brow furrowed into an Arctic frown. With an abrupt gesture, he snatched Reid's quivering hand, examining it as though it were a clue in one of their inscrutable cases.
"Hey, if you're trying to get engaged, you're doing it all wrong," Reid quipped, trying to reclaim his hand. But Archer tightened his grip, his eyes icy daggers of concern.
"If you hold on any longer, I might start downloading your memories, Arch," Reid jested. Archer's glare could have flash-frozen hell at that moment.
With a resigned sigh, Reid relented. "Okay, fine. But for the record, I'm not shaking because I hasn't been careful and activated my Ability with my students. I purposely tapped into the Wolf's memories."
At this, Archer loosened his grip but didn't let go. Reid noticed Archer's fingers twitch, an action that spoke paragraphs in their own coded lexicon.
"Yeah, I know, it's risky, but it gave me some breadcrumbs to follow. Her name's Wu Jing, a close friend of Michelle Lim. Couldn't get much—mostly just waves of regret and sorrow. Oh, and get this," he paused for effect, savoring the dramatic punctuation, "She was fiddling with the communicator. Not the one who planted it, but she knows about it."
Archer's hand finally withdrew, returning to its native habitat: the steering wheel. A thin layer of skepticism still glinted in his eyes. Reid chuckled. "Not convinced? Hold on, I've got a show-and-tell."
He reached into his coat and extracted the copy of "Gathering" by Michelle Lim, the very one Wu Jing had handed him earlier. As he flipped it open, a folded piece of paper slipped out and floated gently onto his lap. Reid picked it up and unfurled it, his eyes skimming the contents. A grin broke across his face, spreading like wildfire.
"I guess we've got a treasure map," he crowed, waving the paper in front of Archer's face. "Maybe it's an invitation to a Mad Hatter's tea party; maybe it's the cheat codes to life. But we won't know till we get there, will we?"
Archer's eyes moved from the road to the paper and back to the road again, his face unreadable yet subtly charged, as if electricity ran just beneath the surface.
"Get us there, Jeeves," Reid taunted, a playful grin stretched across his face.
Archer's lips twitched, almost imperceptibly. It was the closest he would get to rolling his eyes, and Reid caught it. Archer accelerated, steering them toward the coordinates penned on the mysterious paper. A thrill of anticipation filled the car, mingling with the cedar and gunmetal, elevating it into something altogether different. It was the aroma of an imminent climax, an olfactory prelude to Act Three.
Reid looked out the window, his eyes tracing the blur of the city lights then, he closed his eyes. He was exhausted but invigorated, torn between the ethical dilemma of probing someone's memories and the tantalizing clues that Wu Jing had inadvertently handed him.
Reid looked at Archer, who was focused on the road, but also somehow entirely present, as always. The unspoken dialogue between them continued, sentences formed in glances and paragraphs in gestures.
"Ready for the final act?" Reid broke the silence, his voice tinged with a mix of humor and genuine curiosity.
Archer shot him a brief look, then returned his gaze to the road ahead. His face was still a masterclass in stoicism, but Reid knew better.