Treasure [Klance/Leith]

13 & 14

Tick tick. Tick tick. The ticking of the clock echoed through his mind as Keith stared at his computer quietly, Tick tick. There was something bothering him as he stared at the translation of the Russian writing he had sitting in front of him. The words were a riddle rather than the answer he was looking for, something that Pyxis was trying to make into a trend for Keith to figure out

I am a bird, I am sand, and I am the sun. What am I?

The silence of the building was putting the young detective on edge as he stared at his computer blankly. Why was the killer communicating through riddles? It had nothing to do with him at all so why go through the hassle of finding riddles for him to solve? This wasn't some stupid comic or story where Keith was the hero and Pyxis was that weird villain who spoke solely through riddles and laughed like a madman with a mask over his face. This was real life where any wrong step meant death and he had learned that tonight as he visited the crime scene of Kouki's family.

"You are a bird." Tick tick. "You are the sand and the sun." Keith quietly repeated the riddle out loud as he leaned back in his chair to stare up at the ceiling above him that had water stains from the years of leaky pipes and old age.

What is the answer? Who was Pyxis anyways? Where was the vase? Why was Pyxis targeting Keith? Questions plagued his mind as he covered his face with his hands in annoyance and frustration. Why couldn't god send him a little package with all the answers to his questions? Something simple like that would work wonders for him since it was now currently three in the morning, the office completely deserted except for him and the lights dimly lit the main area where cubical offices laid scattered about with various decorations that complimented the worker that sat there. The police were tracking down the gardener who is now a suspect for fleeing the scene of the murder but something nagged at Keith; Pyxis seemed too skilled to not cover his face like the gardener did. He was doubtful that the man was their killer, it didn't fit Pyxis to make a mistake of showing his face especially since the damage on the inside of the house was devastating, why would he risk going through a fight like that and not conceal his identity in case he wasn't able to kill the family; which he didn't since Kouki lived through the attack.

The quietness of the building reminded him of how his home was before Lance moved in with those two cats he had. The thought of Lucifurr and DaFuzzy made his heart ache, they had a mutual hate for each other but he did kind of miss the fluff balls that Lance called his babies. He sat up and stared at his computer screen for a moment before he cleared his throat and went to Google to look up cat pictures to soothe his aching heart. It was about ten cat pictures later when he received a text message on his phone but he chose to ignore it, assuming it was Lance being Lance and wanting to talk about himself or about what had happened in the car. Keith had destroyed any Christmas spirit that the Latino had, he crushed it right in front of his eyes but did he feel bad about it? No, he let out his stress and it lifted a weight from his body that he didn't think would be lifted so easily.

The phone buzzed again as he scrolled to a cat pun, his eyes narrowed slightly as he ignored it again and decided to be more productive by searching up the vase description on the back of the photo. It was described as a Waterford House of Wicker piece so he typed it in just like that. He scrolled through the various shopping websites until he came across one in particular that caught his eye. It was a vase that looked exactly like the one stolen but the website it belonged to look like it was in some sort of sketchy business. At the top there were big red letters on the black background that read, 'No refunds, no credit card purchases.'

Pretty weird... Keith thought to himself as he wrote down the website address on a piece of paper on his desk when his phone buzzed again. This time instead of ignoring it he rolled his eyes and unlocked it to find he had three messages from Allura. It was three in the morning, she wouldn't be texting at an ungodly hour like this unless she had a reason to. Keith opened his texts quickly and read them just as another message came through.