TWISTED ꜜ LOUIS PARTRIDGE

⟾ 4 | ASH'S ALIBI

LOUIS 🗡

Wednesday, 2:23pm

_

IT'S TOO QUIET FOR A WEDNESDAY.

There's a tricky little system I've noticed about the week, and that's that Wednesdays are the worst of the lot. It's the middle of the week. You can't say the week is almost over, but you can't say it's far from done. It's just a boring day that puts everyone on edge.

So it doesn't make sense that it's quiet.

Tucking my pen behind my ear, I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt and kicked my feet up onto the desk. Working on the Ash case was proving to be more difficult than I thought, because I had little to no leads. William wasn't any help either—he avoided me out of spite ("you're obsessed, Partridge, just arrest them and be done with it")—so I couldn't rely on him for help either.

It was clear what I needed to do.

But getting it done was tricky.

Circling back to the present, I cast a wary look out of the window of my office. I could see the top of the London Eye spinning slowly through the waking sky, turning, and turning, and turning like the gears in my own mind. I needed something to do—someone to catch. Sitting around in an office and scrounging the world for details was proving to lead me nowhere.

I needed a motive.

A clue.

A—

"What the hell are you doing?" William spat out, throwing open the door to my office, "get on your feet and go!"

The pen fell off of my ear and tumbled to the floor at the rush of the man storming in. Picking it back up, I sent my partner a questioning glance.

"Go?" I asked.

"A bomb just went off on Oxford Street," the man said, his eyes flaring red, "didn't you get the alert?"

"No, I didn't get an alert."

"So bloody irresponsible, sometimes," Will mumbled under his breath, turning on his heels, "get a move on it', Partridge."

I knew it. It was too quiet for a Wednesday, and I somehow happened to miss the sound of an explosive from the other side of London. As I grabbed my suit coat from it's hanger, I slipped it on as I followed after my partner, checking the watch on my wrist in confusion.

Why didn't my alert go off?

I must have missed it, somehow, although that's nearly impossible. I'd need to ask the people down at Tech to look at it after I'm done with this detonation case. But as I brushed through the marbles hallways of headquarters, I felt a creeping suspicion playing in the back of my mind.

I think I know who's responsible for this.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

"ANY CASUALTIES?" I asked William, bending down to inspect a piece of rubble.

The explosion was surprisingly small for what I expected—not even taking out the back part of the building—which explained why I didn't hear it from my office. But it was still of huge importance. A bomb set off randomly, no motive, murder, or madness involved.

From the looks of it, it was hand-made. No melded-metal scraps littering around, and no traces of industrial oil.

"Shop closed at noon," Franklyn-Miller said, handing me a report, "no deaths or injuries."