A/N: Thanks to Metempsychosis (friend of mine from another site) for being my beta. I know it's short, but please bear with me, I'll have the final prologue up tomorrow to make up for the brevity. And for making you all wait for the story to reach the present, eh?

Disclaimer: I'm not associated with the Doyle Estate, so Holmes and Watson are not mine.

Prologue II

Five Years Later...

Elizabeth, now six years old, stared wide-eyed at the drama unfolding outside the closet her mother had hidden her in, just before that terrible man forced his way into her mother's bedroom.

"Margret, you are a hard woman to find," the man growled, looking around the room for something--or someone.

"I didn't want you to find me, John," Margret pointed out. "Now leave, before--"

"Before you what? Call for your brother?" snarled John. "Read the newspaper lately, Margret? Your dear brother is dead!"

Tears blurred Margret's vision for an instant before she managed to reign in her emotions.

"He chose to break the law," John continued to rant, oblivous to the effect his words were having on his wife. "He chose evil, and it killed him."

"Why should you care about what happened to James?" Margret cried out suddenly. "You never cared anything about--"

"Because I didn't know he was a criminal mastermind, Margret," John interjected, turning his back on Margret to inspect the contents of her writing desk.

What happened next happened so fast, Elizabeth didn't know what had occured until it was over. And even then, she wasn't sure what exactly had happened.

Instinctively, she knew that she didn't want to stay in that closet any longer...

~*~

excerpt from the Times, May 31, 1891

Last night, around eight P.M., Scotland Yard was called to the scene of what is believed to be a domestic disturbance turned murder. According to Inspector Arthur Pennington, Mr. John Mackenzie was fighting with his wife, Mrs. Margret Mackenzie, when she grabbed a loaded pistol and fatally shot him in the chest, before turning the gun on herself. When asked about the current whereabouts and health of the Mackenzie's six year old daughter, Elizabeth Veronica Iris Natalie Mackenzie, Inspector Pennington refused to comment...