Abnormal (L x reader)

31. Puzzle

The morning started off fine, but now you had found yourself in an awkward situation. Whilst you tried to work, you had L watching you like a hawk. His eyed followed your every movement, remaining silent as he observed.

Trying to ignore him, your eyes focused on the images you had been sent of the evidence. Words had been painted onto a wall, a riddle in a language that was neither English nor Japanese. By the concentrated expression on L's face, you could tell that it was a language that he wasn't too familiar with.

However, you had been put on this case because it was one of the many languages you had put time into learning over the years. You weren't exactly fluent but had enough knowledge to accurately translate it and enough experience in this type of investigation to hopefully help.

You read through the painted words over multiple times, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as you tried to make sense of what was written. But there was something that made it quite difficult. Not only was L watching you constantly, but he also sat in such close proximity, your shoulders touching from how close he was sitting to you.

"Do you speak this language?" he asks, grabbing your attention. Turning your head, you ensured lean back to create some space between the two of you. You nodded, redirecting your attention to the screen.

"Not fluently but I have a good grasp on (language), I worked in (country) where knowing how to speak it was important," you told him, reading through the clue one more time in hopes of finding something.

"What does it say?" L questioned, trying to see if there was anything he could pick up from solely looking at it. You gave your self a moment to translate it before reading it out.

"Into English, it translates to six words. Cliff, hare, uniform, Russia, call and hide," you read. He stared at the words with interest, directing his attention to you as you wrote them down in English and spent a good few minutes reading through them. It was then that your eyes lit up, having found something.

"What did you find?" L asked, pressing further into your side as he looked down at the notebook in your lap. You lifted the notebook to show him what you had written. All six words were written from the top to the bottom of the page, the first and last letters of each were circled.

"When translated into English, the first and last letters of the words form new words. The first letters make church and the last make the word female. Now I need to find the correlation between the two," you thought aloud. L moved closer, to the point where he was basically leaning on your shoulder as he stared down at your notes.

"So a female who works within the church?" you questioned yourself. L hummed, biting at the nail on his thumb.

"How about a female of the church? Because it says church it could be a woman associated with Christianity," he suggested. You nodded, writing something else down on the paper.

"Mary," he readout.

"Yeah, the most well-known female in Christianity is the virgin Mary. I think the target's name is Mary."

"And do you think the other words would have specific meaning as well?" he asked, letting his eyes scan the various words.

"Yeah, first I think the easiest one to give meaning to it Russia. So the target could possibly be a Russian woman named Mary or using that as an alias. But there are five other words that we haven't given meaning to yet."

"How about a cliff? Are there any cliffs in the area?" You gave his questions a moment of thought before you began rapidly typing into your computer. Pulling up a satellite image, you pointed to the cliff where there were multiple houses built.

"Maybe she lives in one of those houses, but there are still four more words. There's hare, uniform, call and hide," you readout. L lent forward, pointing to another point on the satellite image.

"What's this place here?" he asked. You zoomed in on it, having a small tag pop up saying exactly what it was.

"A fur farm..." you trailed off, eyes changing quickly between the notepad and the map.

"That's three words there, if all three words hare, uniform and hide are talking about the fur farm then Mary must have some connection to it. This is a wild guess but I think hare refers to their fur, uniform is specifying that it is being worn and hide... well I initially thought of it under a different definition, like to hide something. But it must be talking about animal hides."

"What about the last word?" L asked, eyeing the final word that you hadn't yet found the meaning for.

"Call... I'm not sure yet but I'll give my contact a call and give them all the information we've collected this far," you told him, slipping your phone out of your pocket.

Dialling their number, you held it to your ear and waited for them to pick up. After the fifth ring, the phone was answered. From there you began relaying the information you had collected with L, also waiting to see what results they got with everything you had given them.

You waited for a few minutes before they got back on the phone, giving you everything you needed, reassurance that the information you had given them had helped with the investigation. Hanging up, L was quick to ask about it.

"What did they say?" he asked, not understanding what you had said due to it being in another language. You couldn't help give a small smile, feeling happy that you had been helpful.

"They used the information we gave and found the target. There is a Russian woman who goes by the name Mary who lives up on that cliff, and she's the owner of the fur farm. They said that because of the information they've found a likely motive for the killer and that they'll tap the target's phone in case the killer tries to contact her. That's all they said they can do with the word call right now but they'll let me know if anything else happens," you told him. He leant back against the headboard of the bed, his eyes shifting from the laptop screen to the side of your face.

He watched as you silently celebrated the progress you had made with your work and how you had finally cracked the code left by the killer. You had helped stop another murder, aiding the detectives in (country) who were so desperate they had turned to you for help. And while you quietly thought all this over, L keep watch over you. Silently admiring how your eyes lit up after solving this puzzle after feeling like you had come to a dead-end with it.

More L is coming and also some past stuff from (Y/n). I initially had all that in this chapter but it kept growing in size until it became 2 chapters so I had to split it up. Sorry it took so long to get this update out, I'm getting to a point in the story where I have the main events planned but I just need to plan everything else between so that it all links up nicely. Thank you.