Never had Grace seen the bakery so sad. She saw Ms Anderson practically worried out of her mind, pacing around at the bottom of the stairs. Apparently, Basil hadn't made any sound since he came back, nor had he been out of his room. This, in and of itself, was extremely odd for the detective. But Grace wanted to see for herself what was going on. Going up the stairs, she thought of all sorts of theories, perhaps he was grumpy in the morning? But it was nearly 11 AM. Maybe he got rejected? How ridiculous. Honestly, at this point, the reason could be anything. It would not be surprising for Grace if the reason was something trivial; what was unexpected, however, was that the moment she opened the door, an arrow came flying at her, missing just barely and getting stuck in the wall.

  "Ah!" Basil exclaimed, "Grace! You're here!" He said, lowering the massive bow that he was holding, god knows where he got it.

  "Basil..." Grace said as she slowly pulled the arrow out of the wall, "WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING?!"

  Marching towards him, she snatched the bow out of his hands like a teacher taking away a toy. Basil could tell she was angry; honestly, it doesn't take a genius detective to tell. Her face was nearly red, her finger aggressively pointing and poking at his chest, all while yelling at him. It gave him a sense of daja vu from their first case, after he humiliated Carwell. But she suspected that she didn't come here just to yell at him. Seeing how she looked before nearly dying, her lips were pressed together, her body closed off, and her eyes down. It couldn't be sadness or sorrow because there's no reason to be, therefore, Worry. But why? Basil thought to himself, a looming question.

  Putting the Bow and arrow to the side, Grace sat down on the messy couch, looking at Basil in the eyes, "Is something wrong?" she asked. She tried to study Basil like how he studied her, she saw that his dress shirt was loose as always, his trench tossed carelessly to the side like always, his hair messy as always. Everything is normal, or at least the most normal someone like him would get; nothing was useful.

  "I'm fine," Basil said plainly, "what's not fine is you comparing me to that pathetic attempt at a detective."

  "Really?" Grace said, sighing, "That too! You flicked his nose!" she yelled.

  "Yeah? So?"

  "Technically, that's assault."

  "Technically, he's mentally challenged." Basil clapped back, "And to my defense, he liked murder scenes a bit too much."

  "YOU LIKE MURDER SCENES TOO MUCH! AS A MATTER OF FACT, I WOULD ARGUE YOU'RE WORSE!"

  Basil sat down on the long couch and lied down, stretching his arms out like a cat, making those weird, high-pitched noises, "fair, but unlike him, he's a fanatic, not to detective work, but to killing itself," he said, "I can tell by his body, his fingers are quite long and lanky, his neck protrudes, and his he squints his eyes when he looks at things at a distance, this tell me he spends his time at a computer, he uses his keyborad a lot, and he mainly uses it at night. Why? To research, to look, to see."

  "You do that to." Grace said while pinching her nose, "Though your fingers aren't lanky, and your neck doesn't protrude. You do exactly what he does. Just look at your room. It's either Sherlock Holmes, logic books, or some weird mystery books."

  "They're not weird." Baqsil said firmly, as if being oddly offended by what she said, "and for your information, unlike Brian, I actually have the brains and eyes to play detective, so you can go argue with the wall," he stated, turning around and getting into a fetal position on the couch.

  "You-" Grace said before being rudely interrupted by her phone ringing, "ugh... hold on," she said, answering it.

  "mhm, yeah... got it."

  With a long sigh, she walked over to Basil and used her feet to gently kick him a few times, "Get up," she said, Mr. Virg called."

  "So?"

  "He wants to see me..." she paused, "... And you."

  .

  .

  .

  This was quite odd. Why would Mr. Virg want to see Basil and Grace? Well, thinking of it logically, it wasn't hard to guess. Basil had assaulted a man, and Grace was with him; it doesn't take much of a genius to know. But it seems like Basil is the only one confused in the matter. Grace was practically dragging Basil like a dog who disobeyed their owner; she was crying inside. She didn't know what might happen: Basil might be forced to leave, her career might take a turn, and god knows what else might happen. To make things worse, the moment they entered the building, Mr. Virg was standing at the front, ominously, like a boss battle waiting to happen. Not only that, but Brian was also nearby, saying something to Mr. Virg before walking away, likely to wait in his office.

  "Oh no.." Grace silently said.

  "Detective Grace...." Mr. Virg said, "Have you any idea what your partner did? battery against a newbie? Do you have any idea how bad this makes us look?"

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  "Oh, calm down, it was a light flick." Basil said, "It's not like I killed the guy-"

  "Hush!"

  "ok.."

  Mr. Virg watched the two talk like children, sighing and pinching his temple as if he were babysitting high school couples. He told them to just follow him in this, defeated, almost dad-like manner, taking them to his office like bringing children to detention. The trip was quite awkward. Mr. Virg was ahead of the two, walking with authority, and Grace was walking in the middle, trying her best to compose herself, her hands grabbing onto Basil's wrist so that he wouldn't run off because he "saw something interesting."

  "Grace, can you please loosen your grip?" Basil said in a whiny voice, "I can feel my veins popping every second that goes by."

  "Oh, shush!"

  The walk was gruesome for two minutes, the longest two minutes Grace had ever felt in her life. Grace saw Mr. Virg's dreaded office get closer and closer with each step; perhaps she's being slightly overdramatic, but for a woman who has never gotten into trouble (aside from that one time), this was like the walk of shame. Finally, they stopped. Mr. Virg turned with a serious expression. Taking a deep breath, he spoke softly to them.

  "I'm going to go in first and speak with Brian so that things don't get heated. You two wait here until I call you in," he said, eyeing both Grace and Basil.

  "Understood."

  entering the office, Basil could see a glimpse of Brian's expression, "he's gonna spew some nonsense..." he said with a sigh.

  "Shut up!" Grace cried, "it's your fault for putting us in this situation!"

  "As I said, it was a small tweak to the nose."

  "YOU!"

  "Uhh..." a familiar voice spoke from behind them.

  Turning around, they saw that it was Carwell, wearing a flashing dark blue suit, sharp and clean, as well as a brand new haircut, completely different from his old hair, which looked like it had difficulty deciding if it wanted to be clean or messy. This was clean, styled, and proper.

  "Ohhhh ~" Basil said, "If it isn't our favorite Grace lover," he said with a mocking grin on his face.

  "yes..." Carwell said, side-eyeing Basil, then his face completely changed as he turned to Grace, "You looked beautiful as always."

  "Just when I thought you were improving..." she replied, rolling her eyes, not wanting to deal with him. "What do you want?"

  "Right. I came here to show the boss the case file of that, Red John case-"

  "copycat." Basil interrupted, "The killer of that case isn't red John but a copycat, and you're lying. You just wanted a reason to show off your new look. Who would wear such a flashy suit and crisp hair just to hand Mr. Virg some paper?"

  "ugh..." Carwell looked at him with an annoyed look, "Can I just pass?"

  "You also seem to discover some new- AH!" Grace pulled Basil to the side with a strong tug on his arm. Basil, surprised, was completely awed (quietly) by how strong Grace was. Oddly, he didn't mind it.

  But then Basil smelled something off. He smelled what smelled like burned almonds, a faint smell, but he could smell it. Then, as if the sun flashed infront og his eyes, the door to Mr. Virg's office exploded in a ball of fire. Grace and Basil were pushed back by the explosion at least a few meters away; even Carwell, by some miracle, survived. The explosion left a deafening ringing sound in their ears as they fell to the cold marble floor. As the explosion ended, everything around the office doors was reduced to rubble, and the walls were stained with black ash. Slowly pulling herself back up, Grace heard the sounds of officers rushing in and the fire alarm going off.

  "Basil..." she said, "BASIL! WHERE ARE YOU?!" he screamed, looking around in the smoke to find the detective. At the corner of her eye, she saw a glimmer of a thumbs-up, poking out from what seemed like a piece of the ceiling.

  "Here!" Basil said, slowly getting up, "I'm fine. But..." Basil slowly dragged Carwell out; he seemed to be unconscious, expected, but still not good.

  Basil's head also started to hurt; he wasn't a trained officer, so he couldn't just recover as fast as Grace did. The ringing in his ear was killing him, and his eyesight was blurry from the smoke. Trying his best, he looked into what was left of the office. He couldn't even see Brian and Mr. Virg, not even their body. His eyes teared up as his focus shifted to Grace, alive and kicking like she wasn't even hurt.

  "Grace!" Basil shouted, groaning in pain, "A little help!?"

  "Oh, man up!" She shouted back, pointing her gun at the now destroyed office.

  Carwell followed, "Clear!" he said, moving in deeper.

  Getting a better look at the office was indeed blown into pieces. Black soot covered most of the office. There were bits and pieces of clothing, likely from the two victims. Although Grace was hesitant, she slowly lowered her weapon. The smoke was mostly gone, almost all has excaped through the now-opened window. Her arms and legs were shaking, not from fear but from pain. Looking behind her, she saw Basil slowly get up on his feet. Can't blame him. He's not a cop, he's a private detective who, by the looks of it, never even had any experience in police stuff.

  "You alright?!" her eyes now shined with worry. She watched Basil slowly, like an old man. Basil, on the other hand, was already focused on the situation. He wasn't confused; there wasn't much to be confused about. An office exploded, and two people died... almost.

  "Where's Virg?" he said, his eyes looking around the office.

  "What do you think?" Carwel asked in a irretated voice, "Isn't it obvious? Are you blind?"

  Basil turned to Carwell, smiling at the irony he just heard. "Carwell, I believe the first day I met you, you were trying so hard to impress Grace that you disregarded obvious clues that the victim died from murder and not suicide." his look screamed mockery, and his body leaned towards Grace, almost teasing him. "And YOU, out of all people, want to talk about blindness?"

  "oh thats bullshit, what you said was-"

  "Both of you quiet!" Grace cried out, "Can we please focus?" Then she gave Basil a mean look, the same glare, "and you. Hush!"

  Basil raised his hands in the air like a guilty child. Turning around, he gave Carwell one last look, one last ounce of pettiness. "Basil.... like you were saying?"

  "ah yes!" he turned back around, face as bright as ever, "explosions usually make everything into dust, especially cloth, but the fact that we can see Brian's remains, pieces of clothing remain, meaning it wasn't a very powerful," he said, making his way to a corner of the room far from Mr. Virg's desk, "Mr. Virg sits at his desk the moment he walks in his office, the explostion happened a few seconds after they walked in meaning Virg would have been the furtherest from the bomb."

  "And?" Carwell interrupted, "This is an explosion, not a gunshot. They would have died either way."

  "wrong. The fact that Brian's clothes, somewhat, survived, proves that logically, Virg's clothes should also survive, even a bit." He slowly paced back to Grace's side, resting his arm on her shoulder, "This means Virg likely survived, or at least, wasn't in this office."