Hello, dear readers! Welcome to this chapter. Thanks for all the support I've gotten on the previous ones. I really appreciate it!

I'd like to give a special shout-out to Joe-Kerr001 who private messaged me. Thanks for your lovely words about the story J-K.

Thank you to all the silent-readers-turned-reviewers out there, especially FifteenFathomsCounting. You guys are all really awesome and I can't tell you how much I enjoy hearing all the comments you have on the story.

I'd also like to give a shout-out to JonesEffectStories. You, my friend, are quite brilliant.

And, of course, thank you to all those who I didn't mention in this little author's note. I'm really appreciative of anyone and everyone who takes the time to read this story.

Anyway, on with the mystery!


The victim was forty-year-old Monica Walters. She, like Natalie Calhoun, was murdered in her own home. Ms. Walters' flat was consequently swarming with officers when Ellie and Sherlock arrived at the scene.

"The body is in the bedroom just over there," Lestrade informed the duo. "She was killed just like the others. The note's a bit funny on this one, though. It's not really like all the other rhymes."

"Well, then," Sherlock said, clapping his hands together. "Let's take a look, shall we?"

Ellie followed him into the back bedroom and saw the victim sprawled out on the floor just beside the bed. As she crouched down to better examine the unfortunate corpse, a feeling of recognition overcame her. After a brief moment of deliberation, she soon realized that this dead woman was in fact the horrid honey-stealer from the previous day at the shop.

Sherlock noticed his companion's pause and asked, "Is something wrong?" He already knew the answer, of course, but he felt that it would be better if he pretended to be in the dark on this one. This victim was clearly meant as a message or a taunt, and it was obvious that the killing was directed at Ellie. She and Sherlock spent nearly all of their time together, the only exception being the day before when she had gone out to pick up the shopping. Because she recognized the corpse and he didn't, he felt safe in his assumption that this body belonged to someone Ellie had encountered during that brief excursion. Judging by Ellie's tetchy mood when she got home from the trip, she and the victim had not had a pleasant exchange.

"I…well, I know this woman," she explained, unable to take her eyes off the body. Monica Walters' fear was still evident in the cold, set lines of her face. "We, uh, we had a bit of a run-in at the shop yesterday." Ellie finally glanced up at Sherlock and noticed the barely covered concern in his expression. She misinterpreted it as a manifestation of Sherlock's worry that she would let her association with the victim affect her judgment on this matter. "Don't worry about it. I won't let my row with her get in the way."

Sherlock nodded and turned away. He knew that Ellie would still be professional. What he was actually worried about was whether or not this meant the killer would be targeting Ellie soon. Her acquaintance with Monica Walters strongly suggested that this was more than just another murder, and instead it was more of a taunt or a warning of what was to come. Sherlock did not want one of his only friends to be put in harm's way, and he most certainly hoped that he could catch the Terror before anything more extreme happened.

"Anything interesting?" he asked.

"Well, her throat was slit," Ellie replied. "But it doesn't look like the killer beat her like he did with the others. There are no new bruises or signs of trauma anywhere. The knife wound looks sort of different on this one, too. The angle looks off here. Take a look."

Sherlock knelt down to examine the body. He nodded. "Yes, I'd say she was killed from behind rather than from the front. That doesn't fit the Terror's usual pattern." He turned to Lestrade. "You said the note was different this time, didn't you? An unusual note, no bruises, and a different means of killing: none of that coincides with what he's done so far."

Lestrade furrowed his brow. "What does that mean? Is this a copycat or something?"

Sherlock shook his head. "No, no, that's very doubtful. But the Terror is a creature of habit. He's meticulous, precise, and he truly thrives off the fear he causes. He killed Monica Walters from behind, which must have caused much less horror than he usually does. He didn't taunt her before he did anything, which again means that she wouldn't have been as scared."

The consulting detective looked around the room, taking everything in. The whole place was neat. No sign of a struggle. He glanced at the windows. No sign of forced entry through there. He used the door then.

"He picked the lock on the door, snuck in quietly, didn't make a big fuss, and slit her throat from behind," Sherlock mumbled. "This murder wasn't about causing fear in Monica Walters. It meant something else."

"What does it mean then?" Lestrade asked.

Sherlock looked up at him. "No idea."

Of course, he already had several ideas, but he wasn't keen on sharing any of them with Ellie in the room. There was, obviously, always the possibility that Ellie's connection to the victim was completely random, and that this unusual method of killing was merely the Terror shaking things up, but that was all highly unlikely. As Sherlock had already theorized, this murder was quite possibly a message to Ellie, meant to frighten her like the poems Natalie Calhoun had received. It was a warning, signaling a change in the game that was about to come. There was also the likelihood that Ms. Walters' death was meant as nothing more than a stab at Sherlock. By suggesting harm to someone that he cherished, the Terror was proving his dominance in their game. No matter which of these thoughts he entertained, Sherlock had no concrete proof to support any of them.

"Now," he said, "what about that note?" He extended a hand expectantly.

Lestrade pulled a paper within an evidence bag out of his pocket and placed it in Sherlock's outstretched palm. The poem was indeed much stranger than the previous ones. It read:

Bye-bye, Miss American Pie.
Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.
And that woman on the Tube made you whimper and cry.
And soon will be the day that you die.
Oh, yes, soon'll be the day that you die.

Sherlock looked up quizzically and found that Ellie had already read the note. She seemed to understand its significance more than Sherlock did. She had gone a touch paler and her eyes had widened fractionally. She was afraid—she understood that this was the killer's message to her and she was frightened by it. That was exactly what he'd been hoping to avoid. Ellie's fear was more than a bit not good. Not only did she not deserve to be terrified in this way, this also increased the likelihood that she would soon desire to move out.

But what could those scrambled lines mean and how did they manage to scare her so immediately? Sherlock knew that it must have something to do with Ellie's encounter with Monica Walters, as well as her displeasure from the previous day after doing the shopping. The killer must have somehow seen the two women interact and took a liking to Ellie. By coming after her, he would be killing two birds with one stone, as the expression goes. He would get his next victim while simultaneously crushing Sherlock in the game.

"What's so important about this poem?" he asked Ellie. "It worries you to see it, but why?"

"Remember how I mentioned that Ms. Walters and I got into a little fight at the shop?" she said. "Well, it didn't really end there. She sat next to me on the Underground on my way home and made some snarky comment when my phone's music player went off. It was playing that song," she explained, gesturing to the note. "Some of the words have been changed there, but that's definitely 'American Pie' on that paper." She focused her gaze solely on Sherlock and did her best to hide the fear she was feeling. "I think this means he's after me. I'm next."

~oOo~

Sherlock was frantically analyzing every scrap of everything. He had concluded his investigation of the bedroom and had now moved out into the living room. He needed to find something. This murderer wasn't allowed to threaten Ellie and then not leave anything behind. Sherlock spun around and pressed his hands together in front of his face. He could read Monica Walters' entire life story from that one room alone, but he couldn't tell a bloody thing about the killer.

In the bedroom, Ellie had finished her second examination of the body. When Lestrade had asked her why she was looking over the corpse once more, she had claimed that she wanted to be thorough. In truth, she just needed something to do, something to distract her from the very real possibility of a fast-approaching death.

As she stood from her secondary assessment, Donovan sauntered over and said, "I see you're still hanging around with the Freak. He's the reason this killer is targeting you in the first place."

"Yes, well," Ellie mumbled in reply. She didn't honestly blame Sherlock for any of this, and it was ridiculous for Sally to suggest that he was somehow at fault.

"He doesn't care about you, you know," Donovan continued.

Sherlock, who had been about to walk back into the bedroom, heard the topic of their conversation. He stepped just outside, behind the doorframe, which kept him out of sight but within earshot.

"In fact," Sally added, "I'll bet he'd give you up in a heartbeat if he thought it would give him more evidence. He might even be the killer himself for all we know. I wouldn't put it past him to do something like this."

Sherlock was about to interrupt right there. He didn't need Sally to scare Ellie off when the Terror was already doing such a great job. Plus, it was ludicrous to believe that Sherlock would let her get killed so that he could continue to play the game. Sally was way out of line in her suggestion of this, and he wanted to set the record straight, so to speak.

However, the consulting detective didn't have to say any of this quite yet as Ellie quickly stepped up to defend him. "With all due respect, Sergeant Donovan," she said calmly, "you are an absolute idiot. You might be right about Sherlock not caring about me, but I care about him. He's one of my closest friends, and I really hate hearing people mindlessly slandering a friend like you just have. You're so intent on proving that he's a bad man that you never even bothered to check if he has an alibi—which he does, at least for Calhoun's murder." Ellie wasn't looking at Sally as she spoke, but rather she was staring evenly at the opposite wall. She kept her voice level but there was a certain undeniable intensity to it. "So please, stop trying to scare me away from him with these accusations, because I can assure you that it's not going to work. He's brilliant, and sarcastic, and secretly caring, and I wouldn't trade any of that for whatever safety you think I might have without him. Sherlock is the greatest, most complicated, most remarkable, and most infuriatingly overwhelming man I know, and if you think he's some heartless killer, then you really don't know him at all."

A spell of stunned silence followed. Sherlock, still remaining just out of sight, felt something upon hearing those words. He wasn't exactly sure what it was, but he ultimately concluded that he was happy. But not just happy—no, he also felt sort of warm. It was a rather pleasant sort of feeling, and he found that he could get quite used to it. As he replayed the conversation in his head, his lips twitched upward without his consent. No matter how hard he tried, he could not seem to remove that growing smile from his face. It was odd, not being able to control something like this, but he was so pleased by what Ellie had said that he was almost willing to suffer the consequence of that ridiculous grin.

He went through her rant over and over and over again, and the effect did not wear off. He eventually noticed one of the things Ellie had said. You might be right about Sherlock not caring about me. How could she think that? Of course he cared about her. Hadn't his keeping her around proved that enough? Didn't his vulnerability with her after Calhoun's murder show just how important she was? Well, he thought, still with that un-squash-able smile. I'll just have to do better at showing her that I care.

But before he made any plans on how to demonstrate his affinity for her, he relived what Ellie had said once more, and then once more after that, until he was completely sure he had committed it to his hard-drive. For whatever reason, he found himself incredibly unwilling to ever forget everything she had said just then.


Remember to review! I should hopefully have another chapter up within the week, but school's been so hectic lately that I'm not sure if I'll be able to. I will, however, attempt to get up a new chapter as soon as humanly possible.