As soon as Sherlock returned to 221b, John knew something was wrong. He tried to confront the man about it, but was turned away with an 'I'm fine' as Sherlock headed through the sitting room to his bedroom. John watched in wonder as Sherlock vanished into the room and slammed the door dismissively. He was left sitting in his chair, paper in hand, brow furrowed in curiosity, but he pushed it away. When Sherlock was in this mood, there was no way to get him out of it.

In his room, Sherlock perched on the edge of his bed, his scarf and coat shed and strewn across the floor. His fingers were steepled in front of his mouth, and his brain raced.

Moriarty, criminal network, Carl Powers, villain, consulting criminal, murder, Jeff Hope, sponsor, fan, James, Molly, gay, IT, hollow, cab driver, crown jewels, Adler, staying alive…

Sherlock's mind palace spun around in his head. He sorted every fact, every detail about Moriarty, about his criminal network, about everything relating to the man and his business. Of course it was Moriarty that had something to do with Molly's death, or rather, as Sherlock would like to believe, her disappearance. Surely, she wasn't dead. She couldn't be…

Sherlock stopped himself. He needed to think logically, to separate himself from any distraction. He had to think of Molly as simply another ordinary person.

The morgue! If Molly had disappeared, surely her work would have some record of her not being there. He jumped up again and picked up his coat and scarf again before retracing his steps back out of the door into the sitting room, ignoring the John's questions, and leaving 221b, hailing a taxi.

~xxx~

"How did you know, Mr. Holmes?"

One of the morgue attendants who usually worked alongside Molly had been there today, so Sherlock had (as nicely as he could) asked if Molly had called in sick or if she was on vacation.

"So she is gone?" Sherlock asked impatiently. The conversation had been started with Molly's partner explaining why he had come into work late (his girlfriend 26, pregnant, works in a café had insisted he stay for another hour), so Sherlock was already annoyed with him.

"Yeah, she's been gone since yesterday, I guess. Didn't call in sick or anything, just didn't come to work. I thought it was a bit strange, so I called her up. Some guy answered and said she wouldn't be in for a while. Said she was 'a bit tied up…strange guy…'

Sherlock didn't wait for anything else. He just walked away, leaving the attendant still talking. He made his way down the hallway to the morgue's locker room and scanned the lockers in front of him. Molly's was easy to pick out lab coat caught in the door, smell of cat treats and lavender, picture of a cat hanging out and he picked the lock easily and looked inside. It looked as though she had left like it was an ordinary day lab coat left, no bag, the jumper typically hung was gone, books at the bottom, the top book currently being read. Sherlock spotted a small metal capsule at the top of the locker and picked it up. It was the lipstick Molly had worn the day he'd met John. A quick peek at the cosmetic inside showed it hadn't been used in a while, maybe not even since that day, but still it stayed here sentiment.

Sherlock heard footsteps down the hall and stuffed the lipstick in his coat pocket and slammed the door of Molly's locker shut. He pushed past the man entering the locker room and headed back down the stairs.

Molly had no intention of leaving London that day. She would never desert one of her books. She'd rather die before having to miss her stories. Why, then, would her book still be at the morgue? Why take everything with her except the book?

Sherlock opted out of taking a cab back and simply turned his coat collar up against the brisk autumn air, walking down the street toward Molly's flat. Maybe he could find more answers there.

A/N: Hello again! I sincerely hope you all checked Nyah86Production's video out after last chapter! This chapter starts the plot past the video. It's a bit short, I know. I hope you enjoy! Next chapter will be up next Friday!

All credit goes to Moftiss, Mr. Cumberbatch, Mr. Freeman, and of course, Nyah86Productions