Maggie didn't know how long she had slept, but it didn't feel like long. She awoke to thudding footsteps around the flat outside. Mrs. Hudson's muffled voice could be heard through the closed door of Sherlock's room, and Maggie could plainly hear the worry in it. She suddenly began worrying when she also could hear Detective Inspector Lestrade. She sat up and rubbed her eyes and head. The boys just went after a murderer, she thought. Why were the police there? Unless…
She was out of the bed in an instant, the door flying open as she ran into the flat. Unless something bad happened.
She froze as she saw all the officers in the flat, searching different areas.
Lestrade was turning in a circle in the living room, speaking to every officer. "Find whatever else he may be hi-" The man stopped and stood stock still when he saw Maggie. She hadn't made it farther than the hallway, standing there with obvious fright in her eyes. Her hair was a mess since it half of it had come out of the ponytail, and she hadn't dried it before lying down, leaving it wet. It was also painfully obvious that she whose clothing she was wearing. Lestrade's eyes widened slightly at the sight of her.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"I could ask you the same thing," Lestrade said quietly, obviously in shock. "You just came from…"
"What's going on?" she asked again, more forcefully.
The detective blinked a few times. "Uh," he stuttered, trying to regain his composure.
Just then Sergeant Donovan walked around the corner, carrying a box of papers which she subsequently dropped the moment she saw Maggie. Papers flew everywhere.
"He's shagging her?" the woman said in disbelief. Every officer turned to look.
Maggie's jaw dropped. "What?" She looked down at her appearance.
"I don't have to be Sherlock to make that deduction," a voice said. Maggie looked up to see looking her up and down with a smug look on his face. "Although I didn't see him as the type to-"
"Anderson, shut up while you're ahead," Lestrade said, cutting him off as he watched the fury grow on Maggie's face.
"Not that it concerns any of you," she said with a pointed look to Donovan and Anderson, "But no I am not shagging Sherlock Holmes."
"Then why-" Lestrade began.
"I didn't have anything to wear, so he gave me these," she said, gesturing to the clothes. "And I had no where to go, so he offered me his bed to sleep in while he and John went out."
The officers turned back to their work, which seemed to be searching the flat.
"Now that's settled, what the hell is going on?" she asked, closing Sherlock's bedroom door and walking to Lestrade.
"Drugs bust," he said.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "Wrong."
Lestrade sighed. "He does that too, but usually through a text." He looked around. "That," he said, pointing to the suitcase, which was still on the coffee table between the armchairs, "is why we are here. We may call Sherlock in on cases but that doesn't mean he can go off on his own. We need to know if he has any other evidence."
"Or if he killed her," Anderson cut in. Lestrade gave him a dark look that made him turn back around.
"So you host some bullshit drugs bust?" Maggie yelled, her anger getting the better of her.
"Yes," Lestrade said.
Suddenly a yell could be heard from down the stairs. Sherlock.
"Mrs. Hudson! Doctor Watson will be taking the room upstairs!"
"Well," Lestrade said, sitting in Sherlock's armchair,. "He's back."
Maggie moved to the doorway of the flat. Downstairs she could hear Mrs. Hudson speaking to Sherlock, finally just telling him "Upstairs." After that, his form could be seen rushing up the steps. He looked from Maggie in the doorway to Lestrade inside, who was once again ordering his officers.
"What's are you doing?" Sherlock asked, storming toward the other detective. John came rushing inside shortly behind the other man, nodding in Maggie's direction as he entered the door. She looked down the stairs to see Mrs. Hudson standing on the bottom landing, looking worried. Maggie made a placating gesture with her hands, mouthing that everything would be fine. The woman nodded, biting her lip before going back to her own flat.
"Well, I knew you'd find the case," Lestrade was saying. "I'm not stupid."
Maggie turned and leaned against the nearby wall, crossing her arms to watch Sherlock and the other man go at it.
"You can't just break into my flat," Sherlock said.
"And you can't withhold evidence," the detective retorted. "Also, I didn't break into your flat."
"Then what do you call this then?" Sherlock asked, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he gritted his teeth.
Lestrade looked about at his officers before looking back to Sherlock, an innocent look on his face. "It's a drugs bust."
John's eyebrows scrunched together. "Seriously?" he asked. The men looked at him. "This guy? A junkie?"
Sherlock turned and walked a bit closer to John, speaking quietly as he bit his lip. "John…"
John ignored the man, still speaking to Lestrade. "I'm pretty sure you could search this flat all day, and you wouldn't find anything you could call recreational."
"John, you probably want to shut up now," Sherlock said.
"But come on," John said, looking to the man and stopping whatever he was about to say. Sherlock looked extremely serious, and Maggie's eyes widened as well.
"No," she said. Sherlock looked over to where she was standing nearby.
"What?" he asked angrily.
"You?" John asked.
Sherlock looked back and forth between the two of them. "Shut up!" he said, irritation obvious in his voice. He turned back to Lestrade. "I'm not your sniffer dog," he said.
"No, Anderson's my sniffer dog," the other man said, nodding toward the kitchen.
"What?" Sherlock asked, turning. "And-"
The forensic scientist gave a sarcastic wave from the other room.
Sherlock's rage was growing, and it was obvious. "Anderson, what are you doing here on a drugs bust?"
The man gave a hard smile. "Oh, I volunteered."
"They all did," Lestrade said. Sherlock turned back to the man, biting his lip, though anger was still in his eyes. "They're not on the drugs squad, strictly speaking, but they are very keen."
Maggie moved to the couch and sat as Sergeant Donovan came into view, poking around the doorway to the kitchen and holding a jar full of round, white objects.
"Are these human eyes?" she asked, looking disgusted.
Sherlock turned, waving his hand at her. "Put those back!"
"They were in the microwave!" she said.
"It's an experiment!" Sherlock answered.
"Keep looking guys," Lestrade cut in, standing up and facing Sherlock. "Or," he said. "You could help us properly and I'll stand them down."
Sherlock began pacing to get out some of his anger. "This is childish," he told the detective.
"I'm dealing with a child," the other man said plainly. "Sherlock, this is our case. I'm letting you in, but you do not go off on your own. Clear?"
The taller man stopped right before Lestrade and glared at him. "Oh, what, so-so-so you set up a pretend drugs bust to bully me?" Maggie was surprised to hear the detective stutter.
"It stops being pretend if they find anything," the other man said, the threat obvious in his voice.
"I am clean!" Sherlock yelled.
"Is your flat?" Lestrade asked. "All of it?"
"I don't even smoke," the detective said, unbuttoning the cuff of his shirt and rolling it up to show the nicotine patches that still rested there.
"Neither do I," Lestrade said, doing the same to show a singular patch on his own arm.
Sherlock rolled his eyes, turning away as they both put their sleeves down.
"Let's work together," Lestrade said. "We've found Rachel."
Sherlock turned back, immediately intrigued.
"Who is she?" Maggie asked.
Lestrade looked to her. "Jennifer Wilson's only daughter. Who are you, by the way?"
"Maggie," she said.
"She's with me," Sherlock said.
"With you?" Lestrade asked, obviously thinking back to when she had come from Sherlock's room.
Sherlock wrinkled his nose. "A colleague, Lestrade. You know me, that's not what I'm like." He waved a hand. "Not important right now. Rachel was her daughter? Why would she write her daughter's name?" he mumbled to himself. "Why?"
"Nevermind that," Anderson's voice came from the kitchen. "We found the case," he said, pointing at the object on the coffee table. "And according to someone, the murderer has the case. And we found it in the hands of our favorite psychopath."
Sherlock turned around faster than seemed humanly possible, whirling on Anderson.
"I'm not a psychopath, Anderson. I'm a high functioning sociopath. Do your research," he said angrily, before turning back to Lestrade.
"You need to bring Rachel in. You need to question her. I need to question her."
"She's dead," Lestrade said.
"Oh, excellent!"
John and Maggie stared at Sherlock in shock.
"How, when, and why?" Sherlock asked. "Is there a connection? There has to be."
"Well, I doubt it, since she's been dead for fourteen years," the detective said, crossing his arms. "Technically she was never alive. Rachel was Jennifer Wilson's stillborn daughter, fourteen years ago."
John and Maggie grimaced, John turning away. Sherlock looked confused.
"No, that's… That's not right," he said quietly. "Why would she do that?"
"Of course, why would she think of her daughter in her last moments?" Anderson asked from the kitchen, a sarcastic tone in his voice. "Yup, sociopath - I'm seeing it now."
"Shut up, Anderson," Maggie said. Sherlock turned to the man in the kitchen.
"She didn't think about her daughter. She scratched her name on the floor with her fingernails. She was dying. It would have taken effort. It would have hurt." On the last sentence, he began to pace again, biting his lip as he thought.
"Sherlock?" Maggie said. He looked at her. "You said that the victims took the poisons themselves, that the murderer makes them take it. Well, I don't know… Maybe he talks to them? Maybe he used her daughter's death to make her want to kill herself?"
Sherlock gnawed on his lip. "But that was ages ago! Why would she still be upset about it?"
Everyone in the flat seemed to stop, the room growing silent. Maggie put her head in her hands. He just didn't understand.
Sherlock was looking rather awkwardly at John. "Not good?" he asked.
John glanced around the flat. "Bit not good, yeah."
Sherlock shook his head, stepping closer to the two people. "If you were dying, if you'd been murdered, in your last few seconds, what would you say?" he asked.
"Please, God, let me live," John answered.
"It's too soon," came Maggie's.
Sherlock groaned. "Oh, use your imagination!"
Both looked at him. "I don't have to," they both said, although John was a bit louder, and managed to keep eye contact with Sherlock as the words came from his mouth.
Sherlock saw the pain in John's eyes, and looked at Maggie, who was staring dejectedly at her own hands in her lap. He paused for a moment, blinking a few times before shifting his feet and looking at the two of them, a small apology in his eyes. Maggie looked up and nodded once at him, twisting her mouth as she looked away again.
"But if you were clever," Sherlock said quietly, the thought of them gone once again, "really clever… Jennifer Wilson was clever, running all those lovers…" he trailed off, pacing again. "She's trying to tell us something."
Mrs. Hudson suddenly rushed up the stairs and into the living room, stopping just beyond the door and pointing over her shoulder. "Isn't the doorbell working? Your taxi's here, Sherlock," she said, looking around at the officers, a worried look growing once more on her features.
"I didn't order a taxi," Sherlock snapped, continuing to pace. "Go away."
Mrs. Hudson frowned a bit at him before looking around. "Oh, dear. They're making such a mess. What are they looking for?"
"It's a drugs bust, Mrs. Hudson," John said.
Mrs. Hudson looked at him, shock forming on her face.
"But they're just for my hip," she said. "They're herbal soothers."
Before John or Maggie could react to that comment, Sherlock stopped dead in his pacing, throwing up his hands.
"Shut up!" he yelled. "Everybody, shut up! Don't move, don't speak, don't breathe. I'm trying to think! Anderson, face the other way. You're putting me off."
"What?" Anderson said. "My face is?"
"Everybody quiet and still," Lestrade ordered, looking intrigued. "Anderson, turn your back!"
"Oh, for God's sake!" the forensic analyst exclaimed. Lestrade looked at him sternly.
"Your back, now, please!" Lestrade ordered again.
The analyst shook his head in exasperation as he turned slowly.
Sherlock was mumbling to himself quietly. Maggie scooted down the couch to get closer to him and hear what he was saying.
"Come on," he said. "Think!" He hit his temple with the butt of his palm.
Mrs. Hudson was biting her lip. "What about your taxi?" she asked quietly.
Sherlock turned, obvious fury on his face. "Mrs. Hudson!" he yelled. The woman jumped in fright and hurried away down the stairs. As she did, Sherlock suddenly stopped, looking around in wonder. He realised something.
"Oh!" he said, smiling in delight. "She was clever! Clever, yes!" He walked around the table, stepping in front of Maggie and looking to the rest of the room. "She's cleverer than you lot, and she's dead. Do you see? Do you get it? She didn't lose her phone, she planted it on him."
Maggie stood up from the couch, suddenly understanding what Sherlock was saying. "Oh!" she yelled. Sherlock whirled on her, and she took a step back, not realising how close he had been.
"When she got out of the car, she knew she was going to her death," she continued, walking around to the table and to Lestrade, "She left the phone in order to lead us to her killer!"
Lestrade looked over the shorter woman's head at Sherlock. "But how?"
Sherlock stared at him. "What do you mean, how?"
Everyone was still staring at Sherlock and Maggie, blank looks on their faces.
"Rachel!" they both said.
Sherlock looked around, triumphant. Still, no one else understood.
"Don't you see?" he asked. "Rachel!" Everyone just continued to stare. The two geniuses looked at each other in disbelief. It was obvious. Sherlock looked at Lestrade. "Look at you lot," he said. "You're all so vacant. Is it nice not being me? It must be so relaxing."
Maggie gave him a stern look. "Rachel is not a name," she said, trying to explain.
John was looking at them in the same way the police were. "Then what is it?"
"John, on the luggage," Sherlock said as he moved toward the desk, sitting in front of his laptop. "There's a label. E-mail address."
John got up and went to the object, reading the address aloud as Maggie moved to Sherlock's side. "Er, jennie dot pink at mephone dot org dot UK," he said.
Sherlock began typing. "Oh, I've been too slow," he muttered. "She didn't have a laptop, which means she did her business on her phone, so it's a smartphone. It's e-mail enabled." He pulled up the MePhone website and typed in the e-mail address. "So," he continued. "There was a website for her account. The username is her e-mail address, and all together now: the password is…"
"Rachel," Maggie said from next to him.
Sherlock nodded, entering the information and logging in.
"So we can read her e-mails," Anderson said. "So what?"
"Anderson, don't talk aloud. You'll lower the I.Q. of the whole street," Sherlock said, not answering the man's question.
"We can do much more than read her e-mails," Maggie said, turning toward the man in the kitchen. "It's a smartphone. It's got GPS, which means we if you lose it you can locate it online."
"She's leading us directly to the man who killed her," Sherlock said.
"Unless he got rid of it," Lestrade said, crossing his arms.
"We know he didn't," John said.
Sherlock was looking impatiently at the screen. "Come on, come on," he muttered. "Quickly!"
Mrs. Hudson came trotting up the stairs again, concern etching her features. "Sherlock, dear, this taxi driver -"
Sherlock stopped her there, turning from the computer and getting up to walk to her. "Mrs. Hudson, isn't it time for your evening soother?"
Maggie took the seat he had vacated as John moved closer, looking over her shoulder. A clock was spinning round on the screen, a countdown saying that the phone would be located in three minutes or less. Maggie bit her lip.
Sherlock turned to Lestrade. "We need to get vehicles, get a helicopter."
Mrs. Hudson was still there, looking around anxiously. A man walked up behind her, staying just out of the light. Sherlock continued to talk.
"We're going to have to move fast. The phone's battery won't last forever."
Lestrade gave him a confused look. "We'll just have a map reference, not a name."
"It's a start!" Sherlock yelled.
A map opened on the computer, beginning to zoom in.
"Sherlock…" Maggie called.
The man hurried across the room to look over her shoulder opposite John. "What is it? Where?"
The map finished zooming.
"It's here," John murmured. "It's in two-two one Baker Street.
Sherlock straightened. "How can it be here?"
"Maybe it was in the case when you brought it back and it fell out somewhere."
"And I didn't notice?" Sherlock asked. "Me? I didn't notice?"
John looked to Lestrade. "We texted him and he called back."
Lestrade sighed, turning to the officers.
"Guys, we're also looking for a mobile somewhere around here. It belonged to the victim. Most likely pink or in a pink case."
Maggie looked up to Sherlock, who was looking around the flat. It was obvious to her that she had tuned him out, and was remembering something. The man no one had noticed had reached the top of the stairs behind Mr. Hudson. Sherlock was standing in the middle of the flat, looking rather lost. Maggie would have chuckled had she not realised the gravity of the situation that they were in. On the landing just outside the door, the man was typing something into a phone. A phone with a pink case. Suddenly Sherlock's phone buzzed. He pulled it out and read whatever message he had gotten, although Maggie couldn't see it. Sherlock turned to the door just in time to see the man turn and calmly begin walking down the stairs. Maggie turned as well, but was too late. Also, while sitting, she couldn't see down the stairs as Sherlock could - she didn't see anyone.
"Sherlock?" she asked. "You okay?"
He didn't look at her, still watching the stairs. "What? Yeah. Yeah, I'm… fine."
"So," John said. "How can the phone be here?"
Sherlock shrugged. "Dunno," he said.
Bullshit, Maggie thought. He was on to something, though she didn't know what.
John stood up and pulled his own phone from his jeans pocket. "I'll try calling it again."
"Good idea," Sherlock murmured, only half listening as he drifted toward the door.
"Where are you going?" Maggie asked, suspicious.
"Fresh air," he said. "Just popping outside for a moment. Won't be long."
She frowned as he left the room. "Sure you're okay?" she called, standing up.
Sherlock was hurrying down the stairs. "I'm fine." he called.
She had her doubts. She stood and moved to the window, looking outside. Sherlock exited the building, where a cabbie stood, leaning against his taxi. They talked for a few moments, and Sherlock looked up at the window. Maggie stared back. Sherlock shook his head despairingly before turning, getting into the door the cabbie opened for him. The cabbie shut it behind him and turned, getting into the driver's seat. Maggie's eyes widened as her mind raced and she realised who that cabbie was. She turned and took off through the flat, grabbing her coat from the hook as she passed. John saw and looked out the window, seeing Sherlock's cab pull away.
"He just got into a cab," John said. "Sherlock. He just drove off in a cab."
Maggie had just made it out the door downstairs, running as if to catch it. Knowing it was pointless, she stopped, calling a cab of her own and climbing in.
"Follow that cab!" she yelled to the driver, pointing.
The cabbie looked at her. "I've always wanted someone to say that," he said, a smirk on his face as he began driving after the other cab.