The usually loud room 221 was unusually quiet. Grace sat next to Basil on his beloved couch, head resting in her hands, watching Basil stare into the abyss. She got her team back at the agency to track down the daughter, but she knew the likelihood of it working was low. She theorized that Virg's daughter was most likely the cause of this, perhaps some kind of blackmail, but why?

  "Anything from your team?" Basil said suddenly, his mind was currently empty. Not even data was extracted from Virg's house as he may liked.

  "Not yet..." Grace sighed in defeat, "Honestly, why would anyone want to blackmail Mr. Virg?" She said.

  "An honest question! But I think he did leave us a hint". Then, Basil sprang up from his seat, pacing around, "I think the picture that we saw wasn't originally there."

  Basil then pulled out his phone, showing Grace a picture of the photo. The same, lovely photo of a father and daughter having a picnic, "The sun is clearly shinning down at a top right angle, yet the child's shadow is nowhere to be seen. From the looks of it, they are not in any kind of shade, and natural shadows does exit in other areas of the picture, like the tree in the back, or even in the shed in the back." Closing his phone, he looks at Grace with a grin, "your boss is a genius!" He said.

  Grace's eyes widened as she saw; she knew exactly what Basil was implying. "This was a clue that he left behind." She said, "but to where?"

  As the words dropped, Grace's phone suddenly rang a toon, answering it, she got information, crucial information.

  "My team located the image. The picture was taken from a park east of town." She said.

  "How on earth did they find that out?"

  "Well because unlike you, we police actually have reliable tools.

  Gasping dramatically, Basil looked at Grace with a hurt expression, "rude."

  .

  .

  .

  The trip there was surprisingly far, GPS says it would be an hour drive. A cabbie was out of the question, Grace had spent so much money on cabbies these past few months, and she doubted that Basil was going to pay. Obviously, Grace was driving, she would rather take public transport than sit in the same car with Basil as the driver. But even as a passenger, Basil couldn't sit still. The whole ride was a mix of Basil poking at her, as if to provoke her to crash, making random observations about other drivers, or just making weird faces at people.

  Making weird faces almost got him into trouble. While driving, Basil saw a tall man with ginger hair. He saw the serious face he was making, and decided to copy it.

  But the man saw, not only saw, made eye contact with him. Basil stopped mid-face, staring at the man's face slowly morph into red rage. He could tell the man was cursing at him from his lips but couldn't hear him. Quickly, he bent down from the window.

  "They say actions come back to bite you." Grace said while trying not to laugh. "Maybe you should listen."

  "No one says that." Basil said, looking at Grace with a unamused look.

  "I did. You gonna stop me?"

  They parked outside the park. There was a small gate at the entrance, and a reception stand near it. Hopping out the car, the two detectives walked up to the gate. Entrance was easy, all Grace had to do was flash her badge and tell the receptionist what was going on.

  "We're here to investigate a bombing as well as a missing person." Grace said, giving the receptionist lady a cold, hollow stare. It wasn't long before the gates opened up.

  "It is a wonder how much power you have with a badge." Basil said casually, "the whole police thing really does grant you privileges."

  "No Basil. It's called being professional." She said, "you should try it."

  The banter stopped when Basil stopped Grace in her footsteps. Pointing at a tree, he said, "that's the spot where the picture was taken."

  "How do you know that?" Grace asked in scepticism, "pointing at a random location and stating it's where a picture was taken is quite a bold claim."

  "The tree in the picture had a very faint scar near the bottom of the trunk, even from here I can see it."

  Walking closer, there was indeed a faint gash scar on the trunk of the tree. Pulling out her phone, Grace opened the picture as reference. "Your eyes are somethings scary." She said, "I'll call for some people, you-", but before she could finish her sentence, she realized that Basil had already vanished. Looking around franticly, she sighed, "Not this again."

  Basil's eyes were glued not on the tree, but the small red cabin in the far back. He thought that maybe he'll be nice and give Grace some alone time, but more importantly, he suspected that perhaps this cabin is important.

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  Basil thought, "every other picture on that cabinet was old and tethered, and yet the picnic one looked not only brand new, but altered". Slowly, he approached the cabin. The Cabin looked old but not abandoned, it had a old red paint job that now became a red-brown color, the wood seemed to have faint pictures or stars and skies, clearly an old children's hang out area that wasn't used anymore. "Virg was trying to catch our attention to that picture." He mumbled.

  Circling around cabin, Basil noticed many details. The wooden had been slowly chipping off, there were garbage around the cabin, some looked older than time, others looked brand new. But most importantly, Basil noticed unnatural dirt debris, all spaced out quite evenly, quite consistently.

  But his thoughts were cut short as he arrived at the back of the cabin. To his surprise, a beautiful pond was hidden, shielded by this old, unassuming cabin. The light glistened on the water surface, casting a beautiful view. Stretching his arms, he took a breath of air, calming himself slightly.

  But that calmness didn't last long, for the moment he turned to leave, he saw a haunting letter "Q", painted on the back of the cabin wall. Basil froze, he had a hunch that Q may have been involved, seeing how odd the case was, but he didn't think he'll see it here, out in the open. Q was a man who is an expert at hiding his flaws, meaning any flaw you find is a flaw you were meant to find. His eye's narrowed as he moved back to the front of the cabin, pushing open the old, rotting door, he stepped into the cabin.

  To say it looked abandoned was an understatement. The cabin was not very big but also not very small. There were small wooden chairs and tables, some still standing, others turned over. Bookshelves with old books covered in webs were placed around the perimeter of the place, "looks like a prison of books." Basil said. But what caught his eye was a hatch on the floor, a basement perhaps. It took Basil some strength to open, it looked like it was glued shut from nothing but dust and webs, but eventually, Basil was able to pry it open. Steep stairs stretched a few meters. If it weren't for the small hole on the wall, it would have been pitch black down there.

  "Hello?" A voice, a shaky voiced said. "Who's there."

  Basil rushed down, following the voice he found a hidden room behind yet another bookshelf. "Hello?" Basil said calmly, "this is Basil, I'm with the police."

  "Mr. House." A different voice shot out of the room, this one, Basil recognized, "I see that you solved my clue.

  "Not the hardest I've seen." Bask relied. The sound of wooden scraping on the floor is heard, not that it's loud, but that the atmosphere was too quiet. After pushing the bookshelf aside, Basil saw the door, metal, slightly rusty, but there was a small window on it. Looking through it, he saw Mr Virg, as well as a little girl inside, tied up. "Well, hello Mr. Virg. Glade I found you."

  Virg took a breath of relief, "thank goodness." He said, "where's Grace?"

  "Oh she's outside... somewhere." Basil's eyes shifted to the lock, padlock, thick even.

  Suddenly, Virg's voice grew nervous, "Grace isn't with you?" He said alarmingly.

  "Well not right now, she's-"

  "Mr. House listen to me!" Virg interrupted, "you must get out of here NOW!"

  "Whoa, why are you so worried?" Basil said casually, "you sound like you just go diagnose with Leukaemia or something."

  "Look. He's going to be here any second. You must leave."

  Bask looked up for a moment, "who's coming?"

  Then, Basil felt the cold barrel of a gun, pressed on his head. His eye's widened in shock as he slowly turned around. He know this man, sharp dazzling suit, new hair due, unbearably idiotic.

  "Hi Mr. Basil House." Carwell said with a smile. "I'm impressed by how fast your brain works, too bad you're dead either way."

  "Of course." Basil said, "Carwell I never knew you were this brilliant." He said with his hands in the air.

  Carwell smiled coldly, "flattery doesn't work on me." He said. His hands now on the trigger. "Looks like curiosity finally killed the cat hm?" He looked at Basil with a sense of victory and yet... he didn't see an ounce of defeat in Basil's eyes.

  "Carwell I still think you're an idiot." He said, "now that you're here, deduction becomes painfully simple."

  "Really." Carwell said, tilting his head, "enlighten me."

  "For one, I know that you won't kill me because Q wouldn't allow that." Those words see to hit Carwell like a truck. Slowly, his gun lowered in shock.

  "How did you know."

  "I will give where credits due, you fooled me for the first few times. But I had my suspicions when I saw you infront of Mr. Virg's office."

  "What?"

  "You weren't there to impress Grace. That bomb was never suppose to kill just Virg and Brian, it was meant to kill me. That was Q's game, and the plan he told you, to execute." Slowly, Basil lowered his hands and placed them in his pockets, "that was your role in his little game, to gather information about me, to see what gets me going, and what gets me to react. That is why you acted so unbearable in my first case with Grace, honestly, well played."

  "But you had a fatal issue. An issue that exposed you. During your time in the agency, you have been acting close, perhaps even too close, with Grace, and somewhere in that timeframe, you fell, hard. A fatal blunder, not your fault, but still a blunder. That love made you act unconsciously, when you saw Grace follow me into Mr Virg's office, you couldn't help but stop her, and in doing so, you destroyed Q's perfect plan."

  "Hm." Carwell said without an ounce of expression, it was like Basil didn't even say anything. "I can see why Q likes you so much." He said.

  "I can tell he has faced many detectives in the past."

  "Oh not just face. Killed." But before Basil could say anything else, he watched as Carwell lifted his gun once more, the barrel yet again pointing at Basil, "I'm sure you know by now that, failing to execute a plan is death." He said, "I'm a dead man anyways, might as well finish the work."

  Basil's mind started to race, his eyes widened as he looked around for some kind of escape. Nothing. It was like the world was in slow motion, "where is grace when I need her!" He thought in his head. The gun fired, the loud gunshot echoed in Basil's ears like fireworks, but louder. Instinctively, he ducked in whatever direction his body felt like, the shot missing by a few inches. And just before another shot was fired...

  "FREEZE!" Grace showed up at the last minute, standing at the stairs with her gun aimed at Carwell, "C-Carwell?" Her eyes widened in confusion.

  Taking the chance, Carwell pulled Basil up from the ground, holding him in place and a gun to the head, "drop the weapon Grace." He said, "and he lives."

  Grace doesn't know what to think, how could Carwell out of all people do this. And why? "Why..." she said, "why..."

  But Carwell's eye's didn't flicker, not even one bit. "I said drop the gun!" He repeated.

  She looked at Basil, devastated, seeing him with a gun to his head really isn't a good sight to be seen. But then Grace had an idea. Her eyes quickly looked upward a few times, glancing at the ceiling. Catching this, Basil knew exactly what she wanted to do. He nodded slightly.

  Quickly, Grace pointed her gun towards the ceiling and opened fire, the sudden movement made Carwell instinctively glance upward, giving Basil an opportunity to elbow him in the guts, before running towards and hiding behind Grace. "Grace!" He said in a dramatic deep, superhero voice, "Arrest that man! And also save your boss."