"Julie! Hurry up!" Clara Evangeline called to one of her foster children, her dark brown eyes glistening in the early morning. The little girl hopped down the stairs, straightening her plaid skirt. Clara tutted.

"Can you tuck in Julie's shirt tail, Mary-Kate? There's a dear." A sixteen-year-old girl with hauntingly dark eyes and black hair nodded blankly, tucking the back of the six year old's shirt in.

"Why do we have to go to school?" Julie complained as the butler handed her a bowl of porridge. "Ryan doesn't have to!"

"Ryan is older than you, and he will be going to school." Clara replied soothingly. "Mary-Kate, can you be a dear and go make sure that Katherine and Karen-"

"GET OUT OF THE BATHROOM!" A high pitched scream sounded from three floors above.

"Too late." Mary-Kate muttered, before Clara hurried up the staircase to discipline the twin girls who were now screaming at each other over the bathroom.

"Katherine! Karen! That's enough bickering out of you!" She said, tone filled with annoyance. Both immediately turned around, placing their hands behind their backs after straightening their matching dresses.

"Hello Miss Evangeline." They said respectfully, Katherine ending her sentence a half second after Karen.

The twins looked exactly alike, identical almost down to their finger prints. They had the same blonde hair that was usually French braided back, the eyes the color of rich dark chocolate. They had the exact same eyeglass prescription, the same dental problems, and they even got sick at the exact same time.

"We didnt know you would be here this morning." Karen said cautiously. With her business dealings and appearances as a socialite, Clara was never at home as much as she liked.

"You never know when I'll show up." She replied. "However, I've a reason to be here today. I've got to escort Ryan to Oxford in about..." She glanced at her watch. "Six hours." She glanced up and smiled as the sandy haired youth hurried towards her. "Ah, heres the man of the-"

"Hi, mom." Ryan called over his shoulder as he rushed past her and into his bedroom. The door slammed behind him.

"What's the rush?" Clara muttered, escorting the twins downstairs so that they could take their places at the long table. She took her own seat and watched as her children were served breakfast.

"He probably forgot to pack something." Katherine said, digging into her chocolate chip pancakes. Soon after, Ryan came out of his room behind them, ready to eat.

"Ah, there's my beach boy" Clara said warmly, gesturing to the seat to the right of the head of the table. The nickname was a reference to his hair color; it reminded her of the beach, and so she called him her beach boy. Clara herself sat at the head, and Herbert, her butler, brought her her usual breakfast: A small omlette with cheese and chives and a small strip of bacon. She placed her napkin in her lap and smiled at her odd family.

Each of these children had some sort of a gift or a bad hand dealt by life. The twins were both very intelligently gifted; Karen had a very high IQ for a thirteen-year-old and Katherine was a math whiz. Little Julie always saw more than what others could see; she was a budding psychic. Mary-Kate and Ryan had the most similar issues; the previous year, Mary Kate had witnessed her parent's double suicide, and when Ryan was twelve he had witnessed his parent's murder.

"Good morning, Ms. Evangeline." Susan, the children's live-in psychologist, said as she came down the stairs.

"Good morning." she replied. After she sat down, Clara addressed the therapist again. "So, Susan, what are your plans for the day with our ladies?" Clara said, crossing her ankles.

"Well, after they get home from school I thought we'd go out for ice cream." Everyone's faces lit up, except for Mary-Kate, who left her near permanenet blank expression on her face. Clara almost sighed; Mary was getting better very slowly, but she was leaps and bounds behind how Ryan had recovered.

Clara thought back to when she had taken Ryan into her care; he was an average twelve year old that had just gone through a large psychological trauma. She was in emotional shambles at that point in her life; the last member of her family was dead, and she had been left Evangeline Manor and well over one billion pounds from her parent's oil fortune. She had needed somebody, and Ryan was just that. Now, they were as close as mother and son.

"Ready for Uni?" She asked almost sorrowfully.

"Almost, mum." he replied, and she grinned when he called her mum.

She was only twenty six when she had adopted him- far too young to be his biological mother- but the fact that he called her his mother anyway always made her happy. She ruffled his sand colored hair, and he returned the favor by messing up her dark waves. She couldn't exactly stop him- he was two heads taller than she was and his arms were much longer than hers. Their family breakfast ended as the antique grandfather clock struck nine.

"Oh." she said, standing and brushing any stray hairs off of her pant legs. "Make my breakfast to go, Herbert; I need to go run a few errands and speak with the CEO of BROC today to see if he'll increase our allowance." She said, and one of the maids handed Clara her purse. "Susan, get the children off to school. Ryan, I'll be back in three hours to take you to Oxford. Alright?"

"Yeah, I understand." He said, standing up to give her a hug. She pecked his cheek, and then said goodbye to the rest of the children. Susan ushered them into the coat room as Clara slipped on her expensive designer trench coat.

"If I'm not back tonight, cancel my Wednesday and Thursday appointments."

"Yes, Ms. Evangeline. Your car is waiting."

"Thank you." She said, removing a fifty pound note from her purse and setting it in his hand. "That will be all."

"Yes, Miss Evangeline."

"John!" Sherlock Holmes moaned as he flopped against his couch cushions.

"What?"

"Well, for one, don't you dare throw away those phalanges. It's an experiment." John Watson rolled his eyes, setting the bowl of finger bones back into the counter.

"What could that possibly be for?"

"I'm measuring how long it takes certain household agents to break down bone." He replied. "Is there a case?"

"No, Sherlock." The army doctor said gruffly as he settled down in his chair. It was close to ten o'clock in 221B Baker street, and a certain sociopathic detective was getting very bored without a case.

"I'm sure something will turn up." John said. "Didn't you just finish that case with the Gypsy and the Old Well?"

"That was this morning!" he replied hotly. "Bored!" he shouted at the ceiling.

"Sherlock." John warned.

"John, would you like to be turned into a human marionette?" Sherlock asked, eyes turning excited as he sat up.

"No." John replied quicker than lightning. He open the book he had been reading earlier.

"Were out of milk again." He muttered.

"Mmm."

"We could-" a sudden buzz echoed through the flat.

"Client!" Sherlock cried joyously, jumping out of his robe as he rushed down the stairs.

"Couldn't have come too soon." John muttered as Sherlock led someone wearing heels up the stairs. When he stood up to greet the client, he almost fainted.

"Hello!" Clara called as she stepped through the front door of the mansion, kicking off her stilettos. "Ryan?" there wasn't a sound in the entire house. "Ryan!" she called. There was no answer. "Ryan David Hope-Evangeline, you'd better get down here before I come up there!" it was silent. Herbert hadn't even greeted her.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up straight. The manor was never this quiet. The kids were at school, Mary-Kate should be working with Susan, and the cleaning staff should have been working in the attic of the mansion.

To calm herself, she quickly ran up the stairs to make sure that Ryan wasn't playing around. The afternoon sun shone through the windows, illuminating the path ahead of her.

"Ryan?" she called, heading towards his room and opening the door. She stepped back in shock.

Ryan's room had been ransacked. Someone had knocked the lamp over and set it back upright, the huge bookshelf had been re organized, most likely due to someone tipping it over. The entire room seemed to be a little off. The books were slightly out of place, the furniture had been moved, certain areas of dust had been disturbed... The room looked perfectly normal, as clean as anything could get, but Clara remembered exactly where everything needed to be.

"Ryan?" She called out once more, now in full panic mode. She ran throughout the house, looking for her son. But she could find no trace. She shook as she ran to her bedroom. She quickly unstopped the brandy and poured herself a glass, throwing it back. She repeated this task before chocking back a sob. Her fingers were shaking so badly that she could barely press the right buttons on her cell phone, but eventually the call on her went through.

"999, what's your emergency?"

"Hello, Scotland Yard?"

There were many things that Clara Ecangeline, at this point, had never done.

Clara Evangeline had never gone running through the pitch black night after a murderer.

Clara Evangeline had never killed a man.

Clara Evangeline had never been afraid of her own shadow.

Clara Evangeline had never fallen in love.

Clara Evangeline had never met Sherlock Holmes.