“If you tell me, I can help you,” I said through gritted teeth.
Archer glared for a moment, giving me a long, assessing look before sighing as he relented. “My knife.”
All this over a knife? “What’s it look like?”
He chewed his lip as he looked skyward and inhaled deeply, as if seeking patience and composure. “Switchblade,” he said after exhaling. “Pale wood handle.”
“Alright,” I said, stepping forward to look. Maybe once he had the damned thing he’d calm the fuck down so I could ask him about Henrik.
We searched the living room, the kitchen, and despite telling me it had to be there because he didn’t go anywhere else in the house, we searched the other rooms too. Still no knife, and the longer that passed without it, the more I could see him unravel.
“What’s so important about it anyway? Can’t you just get another one?”
“No!”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because fucking why, Arch? I’m trying to help you here. Can you stop being so fucking unreasonable?”
Apart from the most recent fight night at the pier, I rarely had reason to be confrontational with Archer. He clearly didn’t like it, but at least this time the words sank in instead of bouncing off.
“My father gave it to me,” he said after a moment, and the words were soft, like an exposed wound. “It’s the only thing he’s ever given me. And it’s lost.”
I knew very little about Archer’s father, except that the man was still alive. I wondered what kind of father would only ever havegiven his kid a knife, but if I could assume Archer and Henrik were products of their environment, I’m not sure I wanted to know.
“Where else might it be?”
“Nowhere.” Archer ran his fingers through his hair, leaving it sticking up in every direction instead of the purposefully styled waves he was always meticulous about. “I’ve searched everywhere else. It’s gone.”
The panic and rage burned away, revealing something vulnerable and raw he never let anyone see, and given the conversation I’d had so recently with his brother, I wasn’t sure I deserved to see it either.
It lasted only a moment before he pulled those walls up again. “Doesn’t matter. Just a knife, right?” he said clearing his throat. “Bigger things to worry about.”
“Arch…”
“No. It’s fine.” He exhaled, slow and measured. “It’s fine,” he repeated, and I knew it wasn’t me he was trying to convince but himself. “Listen… I know I haven’t been around as much lately. I’m slipping up, I am, and I know that. But I’m trying. Just… just give me a little more time. I’m sorting everything out. Then it can all go back to normal.” That part was harder for both of us to believe.
“Is it the Drakes?”
He scoffed. “You could say that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means they know things they shouldn’t know, and I’m trying to find out why.”
“You think one of us is working with them?”
“Do you have the money?” he asked, changing the subject.
“What money?”
“The money I asked you to get from Phillips.”
“I gave it to Henrik. He said he’d give it to you.”
Archer’s face did something complicated before the mask slid back into place. “Fine.”
