Chapter Thirteen

A/N: Hi everyone! I'm back with the latest installment. Just a brief note, there is some mention of religious extremism in this and some of the following chapters. To be clear, I am NOT condemning any particular religion, and I do not by any means wish to offend or insult anybody, but the story required something along those lines, so I went with it. My apologies in advance if anyone is made uncomfortable, but I think it's pretty mild. Again, I'm not targeting any religion in particular (or religion in general either!) Anyway here's Chapter 13! I hope you like it.

John was seething. It was so obvious that Toby belonged there! And that woman had been so close to going along with him! Why was it as soon as she learned Sherlock had nothing to do with it, she didn't want him to do anything—anything that she would happily have allowed Sherlock to do? Why was John so inadequate? If he'd said Sherlock had sent him to find information, would she have let him in?

Not fair!

And that she could look at Toby plastered against the door, and hear his plaintive waling, and doubt the authenticity of his story—what kind of woman was she? Poor Toby was now scratching at the lobby door and barking.

Why? Why was he so much less important than Sherlock Holmes?

"That does it," John said to himself. Hang the law; he was going into Kelly' apartment. He was going to solve this mystery. And he was going to do it without the help of dear old Mr. Holmes or that bloody receptionist!

John gently pulled Toby away from the door and walked around the building, looking for another way in. The room had been on the second story, so it would need a fire escape. Alright; he'd dealt with those before, or rather, he'd watched Sherlock deal with them.

Toby whimpered as John led him away from the door. "It's okay, Toby," John said. "We're going to find her."

John walked around the building and into an alley complete with dumpsters, trash cans and litter. Why is it always an alley? he wondered. Why can't it ever be a nice, sunny side of the street? Oh well, at least he wouldn't be seen.

He looked at the tall, three-story-high wall, with its criss-crossing pattern of fire escapes, and tried to remember which door Toby had smashed himself against inside. It had been on the right-hand side of the hallway. Alright—he was on the right-hand side of the building. Which door had it been? The second down. John craned his neck to look up at the row of windows on the second story. How on earth was he supposed to know where one apartment started and the other finished?

Well, at least he'd found the fire escapes. The ladders were up, as usual, but Sherlock had been able to pull one down once.

Right—by jumping up and grabbing it! John thought. He didn't know if he could do that. John had never bought into the suggestion that he was abnormally short, but Sherlock was certainly taller than most people. How could he make that jump when even Sherlock had had some trouble doing so?

Toby fussed again and John tried to shush him. He gazed up at the windows and tried to find some clue as to where Kelly's apartment began. Then at least he would be messing with the right fire escape. There were six windows spanning the wall on each story. Well, that could divide into three or two sections, or it could even just be one really big apartment. If he could get look into the windows, maybe he could figure it out. But then he'd have to climb three different fire escapes…

Wasn't there usually only one fire escape per section? Then, most likely Kelly's apartment would be attached to the second fire escape. It was a start, at least.

But still, how to get up there…

Toby fussed again but this time he was pawing at John's shoe. John gently pushed him away, then knelt to scratch the little dog's chin as he spoke to him.

"I'm gonna have to climb up there somehow," he said, pointing up to the window with his free hand. "But I can't bring you up there—it would be too dangerous for a dog."

Toby stared at him with his milky brown eyes and panted, ears pricked as he listened. John doubted he actually knew what John was saying, but at least he was including Toby in the scheme and wasn't entirely alone.

Now, if he could jump high enough…

John grimaced and looked for something to tie the lead onto. He had to make sure Toby didn't run away if John made a sudden loud noise, or if Toby simply got bored waiting. Hi eyes fell on a garbage can standing against the wall of the building. He looked back up at the fire escape…

"Toby, I can't believe I'm actually doing this…"

Five minutes later John was perched on top of the trash can, trying to get up the gall to actually stand. Toby was watching him from where he lay the ground. John had tied the lead to the handle on one of the dumpsters. Well, he'd not tied it so much as just wrapped in around a few times. Should anything happen to him during this adventure, Toby would at least have the means to escape—if he pulled hard enough.

You can do it, John coached himself. Just straighten your legs. He'd been through more harrowing situations and lived. Of course those incidents had always more or less been Sherlock's fault. Were he to fall and break his skull on the pavement now, he would have no one to blame but himself.

John slowly raised himself into a standing position, trying his best to ignore the wobbling of the can as he rose. When he reached his full height he spread out his arms for balance and stood a moment to gather his bearings. Toby raised his head, ears pricked, eyes fixed on John.

"Ta-da," John said with a tight grin.

The trash can tipped and nearly pitched him over. Toby leaped up and barked but John caught himself and managed not to fall. He took a steadying breath, made sure Toby had calmed down (well, he was pacing and whining, but at least he wasn't yelping), and looked up at the fire escape. It was within his reach now—all he had to do was grab it.

John slowly raised his arm, carefully shifting his weight to compensate, and grabbed onto the cold, metal bottom rung. He grabbed onto it with his other hand as well and slowly pulled down the ladder. Toby let out a low growl but John kept pulling until it touched the ground, then he carefully put one foot on—and started climbing.

Toby barked at him as he reached the platform. John turned back to look down at him, flinching as the ladder clanged back into place. Toby barked again.

"Hush," John whisper-called down. "It's alright, Toby. You have to be quiet!"

Toby closed his mouth but his lips were still curled, and a deep guttural whine escaped him as John turned back to the window.

He could see inside a bedroom, and there was no one there. The bed was unmade and there were things all over the floor—clothes, bags full of books, toiletries, paper, and such. The window was even left open a bit. Everything looked as if the occupant had left in a rush with every intention of coming back soon. Did he have the right room?

John looked to his left at the other fire escapes. Too far away to jump to, and it was too much trouble to climb down this one and get to the others. He was fairly certain it was this apartment that Toby had been whining at. He just had to take a chance.

Carefully he pulled the window open further and poked his head into the room. It was very small and he could see a living area through the doorway, and it, too, was small and untidy. He saw a desk littered with books and papers, and there were more books and papers on the floor. He thought he could even see some dirty dishes lying around. John tilted his head and listened for telltale signs of life—rustlings of paper, footsteps, a clink of a coffee cup, the tapping of fingers on a keyboard. He held his breath and waited, but two minutes passed without the slightest noise.

"There's no one home," he called down to Toby. "I'm going in. Wait here for me."

What on earth was he talking to the dog for? He'd be lucky if nobody heard him, and it was probably only upsetting Toby more. Maybe he was just spouting out all the things he'd wished Sherlock had said to him in similar situations. Pretending that for once he was the great detective and Toby was the loyal, hapless sidekick. Only John would not neglect to tell Toby where they were going or what the bloody dickens they were doing.

John pulled himself further in, only realize he was now hanging over a bedside table and abut to fall on it face-first. He tried to thrust out his hands to stop himself, but only succeeded in knocking over a reading lamp and sending all the books that had been piled on the table to the floor. Along with himself, unfortunately, causing quite a racket and jolting his spine as he hit the table and then tumbled over it.

He sat dazed for a moment before realizing that Toby was barking at him again. He rose a bit unsteadily and leaned over the table and out the window, exactly the opposite as he had been a moment ago—inside looking out.

"Toby, please," John called down as quietly as he could. "I'm fine!"

Toby hushed up.

John pulled himself back in and rubbed his face. What was he doing? Right, searching for clues. He looked around and tried to find something that confirmed whose apartment he was in.

He saw a mobile phone lying on the floor at his feet, amidst the books he'd knocked over.

He picked it up. It was halfway open. He pushed a bottom and the screen lit up with four little boxes and a blinking cursor in the first one. It was locked with a security code.

Trying to keep images of a certain leering dominatrix out of his head, John looked around once more and started walking out of the bedroom.

The papers lying around on the floor were covered in writing. John picked one up and saw it was a letter. The letter began Dear Taylor.

John felt a chill go down his spine. He was in the right apartment.

He looked at the letter again. It seemed to be written by a family member and was talking about some kind of "bad choice" the receiver had made. The writer was very vague but very angrily written and signed, Mother.

John was a bit taken aback. If it was from the woman's mother, why would she have called her by her last name? Was she that angry? And what did she mean by "bad choice"?

John sifted through some more of the paper on the floor and found an envelope. It was addressed to Taylor Kelly, and the address was somewhere in America.

Is Kelly Taylor American?

Were Taylor Kelly and Kelly Taylor the same person? That would explain why he couldn't find anything about Kelly Taylor! If her mother called her Taylor, that must be her real first name. Kelly Taylor was a pseudonym—a really bad one, John thought—and that was why there were no Kelly Taylors in London with dogs named Toby that matched Sherlock's description. There was no such person. Her name was Taylor Kelly.

But why?

And what was she doing here? And why would she leave Toby at a shelter only to adopt him all over again?

"Perhaps she does not want to be known. Why? Is she hiding? That name is a very American one. Is she from the States? Has she fled the states to escape from something that haunts her there? Moved to London, to an unassuming apartment, with a dog as her only friend. But what is she running from?"

Why did Sherlock's voice suddenly start running through his head? It was the last thing he needed. But much as John hated to admit it, he had a point.

If Taylor Kelly was running from something, was that the "bad choice" the mother spoke of in the letter? She did write about it in present tense—"It would be a bad choice to go through with your foolish ideas."

John read the letter more closely. The mother was very religious, it seemed, and old-fashioned, continually bringing up the Lord and Taylor's duty to her husband. And that she would write her daughter a letter rather than sending her an email suggested she was set in her ways-

Wait—her husband? Sherlock said she was single!

John took a quick glance around the apartment. Were there two people living here? He stepped into the living area and looked around. The apartment was cramped; it was not designed to house two.

Was her husband dead? No, that didn't seem right. Why would her mother blame her for that?

Had she left her husband behind? Was that what she was running from?

John looked around for more letters. Maybe there would be more clues in them. Most of the papers seemed to be work-related. Looking closer, he saw many were newspaper articles in draft form, and they seemed to be in the process of editing. Was that Taylor Kelly's job? Something she could do at home, without leaving much, and under an assumed name. John sifted some more and, sure enough, found a cover letter for an application signed Kelly Taylor.

He was getting closer, but some things still did not make sense. If she worked for a paper, why on earth wouldn't it occur to her to put an ad out for her lost dog? And why would she have not seen John's? Unless she never read the paper and only edited articles. But still…

Had she abandoned Toby after all?

Suddenly John's hand darted to his pocket and he pulled out Taylor Kelly's phone. He noticed his hand shaking a bit as he flipped the phone open. The four empty spaces stared him in the face.

John's thumb brushed the keypad, and then he quickly typed in four letters.

T

O

B

Y

The screen blinked and flashed and a picture appeared; the phone's home page. It was a picture of the very dog that now sat below the fire escape. Head cocked, tongue lolling, ears pricked and eyes soft with adoration.

Taylor Kelly had not abandoned her dog. Something else was going on. But what?