A/N: Right, so I'm just going to sneak under a rock for a bit while I let you read the chapter...

21: The Hurried Investigation

John and Lucie were soon walking briskly down the main street of the borough in which Molly and Lucie had been shopping. They kept their pace quick, fully aware that every minute that ticked by could potentially be Molly's last, and that they needed to work as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to get back to Baker Street and tell Sherlock all they had found out. The sooner they had made their enquiries in the area of Molly's disappearance, the sooner a plan could be formulated. John's eyes kept darting from side to side, constantly scanning and rescanning the surroundings in case of any suspicious behaviour.

Lucie kept her eyes fixed on the street winding away in front of them, trying to tap into the methodical side of her brain and stop the rising panic that threatened to emerge if she let her thoughts run away with her. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that their search at the clothes boutique may unearth some dark truths that she didn't want to know. She also couldn't help but panic about the current state of Molly. Where was she? What was Jim possibly doing to her? Try as she might, she couldn't suppress the imminent worry she felt for her. There were too many unanswered questions and, knowing Jim as she did, too many horrific possibilities of what could be happening than Lucie could care to think about.

She was jerked out of her worry by John gently squeezing her hand, and she looked up into his concerned eyes. "You okay?" he said gently, already knowing the answer would be no but proceeding nonetheless.

Lucie smiled grimly and nodded determinedly. She and John had a job to do, she knew, and she couldn't let her emotions cloud her judgement. Suddenly, she halted and pointed to the door with dark green peeling paint, pulling John's hand to gesture.

"There," she said. "That's the place." A silence hung over the couple as they took in all they could about the outside of the building.

"Looks ordinary enough to me," said John.

Lucie shook her head and pointed. "What about that? That wasn't there before."

They advanced a little closer until John could clearly see a bullet hole in the wooden doorframe of the boutique. He moved closer again and ran his finger gently across the splintered wood. Planting his arms either side of the doorframe, he leaned in to inspect the hole and look for a bullet, which he eventually found wedged in amongst the green paint and wood shavings.

"There," he said, pointing to a small metal sphere perfectly lodged in the wood. "There's no getting that out. But it's right in the centre of the frame and pretty securely wedged. And look," he said, positioning Lucie's hand over the indent. "The incision's straight, so it must have been fired at point blank range. But the bullet was clearly meant to be shot there, so not shot to kill…maybe to intimidate. Whoever shot that must know what he's doing."

"Or she," Lucie said sharply. "It could just as easily have been a woman."

John looked around at her, feeling reprimanded. "Okay," he said. He turned back to the door and gave it a soft push with one hand; it slowly creaked open and the couple exchanged a nervous glance. Lucie nodded almost imperceptibly at him, although her insides had turned to jelly. He held the gaze a moment too long and she snapped.

"Open the damn door, John," she said. "I'm terrified so please can we just get this over with."

John turned to her and kissed her hard on the mouth, pulling away before she had any chance to react. "For luck," he grimly smiled. One hand in his inside coat pocket, primed to whip out his gun at a moment's notice, he made his way into the shop, Lucie following close behind.

The place was deserted, the lack of human presence making the once cosy boutique feel eerie and abandoned. The knowledge that something dark had happened here only added to the hostile atmosphere. John held his gun ready in his hand, and Lucie wielded Sherlock's, he having wrapped it in the scarf he had thrown her when they left. John checked stealthily behind and underneath the counter but found nothing of interest, and had just begun to make his way towards the back of the shop, where the rails and rails of clothes were stored, when an angle of sunlight fell on something silver, making it glint. Lucie saw the flash out of the corner of her eye, and knelt down to inspect it further.

"John!" she whispered, waving him over. "Look. This is Molly's." She held in her hand a silver bracelet covered in aqua glass beads, the chain broken and one of the beads having come off. Turning the chain over in her hand, she pointed out two barely visible carved initials – 'MH' – with her little finger. "See? She told me this was a present from her parents for her twenty-first." She gently fingered the chain, deep in thought. "This wouldn't just come off. Look at that clasp."

John leaned in to inspect further. "It's broken."

"Yes, it's broken," Lucie said, laughing despite herself, "but the clasp is still intact. Someone ripped this off in a hurry and left it here."

"Molly?" John said. Realisation dawned on his face, quickly followed by confusion. "But Moriarty's cleverer than that. Why would be let her leave that behind?"

"He's playing a game, John," Lucie said, her eyes still scanning the chain. "He wants us to find it…there must be something on here that tells us something about where she is." Her eyes searched frantically, but found nothing. Frustrated, she tucked the bracelet in her pocket and repositioned the gun in her hand, following John as he once again began to move towards the back of the shop. He checked all the clothing rails carefully, the metal hangers squeaking eerily against the metal racks.

Lucie made her way stealthily towards the very back of the store, her heart in her mouth; at any moment, she expected to see the figure of Jim Moriarty leap out and shoot her down, before she had had any chance to save Molly. Her eyes darted from one dark corner to the other but found nothing. Finally, her eyes fell upon the changing rooms, shielded from view by a right-angled corridor leading to the cubicles. She glanced back to see John continuing his investigation, and mentally reassuring herself, headed down towards the changing rooms. Her eyes darted from side to side, and she froze at a slight movement at the base of one of the cubicles' curtains. She made no movement, simply watching the bottom of the curtain in case of another twitch, he blood pounding loud in her ears.

She paused for a moment, gathering her courage, before firmly grasping the curtain and yanking it open.

Sherlock calmly crossed his legs and tapped his slender fingers on the arm of his chair, his nonchalant appearance hiding the flurry of thoughts and workings going on inside his head. He tried to order his thoughts logically and not let his mind get carried away with itself, but the urgency of the task in hand seemed to be affecting his powers of logic. He continually reminded himself that his confusion had nothing to do with the fact that the abductee was Molly Hooper, and tried to refocus his train of thought. He glanced at the laptop screen again, but it showed no fruit, and his fingers began to clench and unclench themselves, the one physical sign of his anxiety appearing. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and tried to refocus his mind, when the laptop suddenly beeped. He leant forward and stared at the screen:

1 mobile device discovered for ID:

Hooper, Molly

1 unread message from phone to this computer

View message

Sherlock's fingers hovered above the keyboard, itching to check the message. He quickly clicked the link underneath and waited, holding his breath. A staunch blocking sound emanated from the computer and he quickly scanned the screen's contents.

Password required for message view:

Show password hint?

Even Sherlock didn't try and attempt to work out the password with no visible clue. He clicked on the link.

Dear S,

So nice of you to join me. I should think this password should be obvious once you know it's me, your one and only Jimmy. As I once said to you: staying alive is so boring. It's just…staying.

Have fun!

Sherlock read the message and reread it at least three times. His brain flew to the arrangement of the letters, rearranging them mentally to try and think of a secret code which could be encrypted, but found nothing. He studied the last sentence carefully, certain that the clue was hidden in there. There was no doubt that the message was from Moriarty, and the repetition of the statement made on the roof of St Bart's could hardly be a coincidence. Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck him, and he carefully typed in the password spaces:

S

Sherlock waited with baited breath, hardly daring to press enter. The screen froze for a moment or two, before a red dialog box flashed up.

Incorrect password

Password hint:

Dear S,

So nice of you to join me. I should think this password should be obvious once you know it's me, your one and only Jimmy. As I once said to you: staying alive is so boring. It's just…staying.

Have fun!

His eyes widened at his mistake, but his brain turned back to trying to decode Moriarty's unchanged message. Staying alive…staying alive…where did he know that from? He pressed the heels of his palms hard into his closed eyes, racking his brain. Suddenly, Sherlock sat bolt upright, and rapidly leaned forward to the keyboard again, his right leg twitching from excitement. He carefully typed:

S

He leant back, satisfied, and pressed enter. The screen froze once more, and he hardly dared to breathe, before a 'ting' came from the laptop and the screen flashed green. He scanned the message eagerly. The dialog box informed him that the message was a video file, which he played. As soon as the video appeared, his fists clenched.

Molly appeared on his screen, an ugly yellow bruise above her left eyebrow, her hair unkempt and her face red and blotchy, with the remains of tear tracks down her face.

"Hello, Sherlock," she said, a wry smile not reaching her eyes. "Well, Moriarty has asked me to leave you a message to tell you where I am. He says he's looking forward to seeing the three of you, and that he'll finally be able to do to you what he should have done a long time ago, and what he tried to do on the top of St Bart's." Her voice was hollow, although her eyes were slowly filling with tears; Sherlock felt a sharp pull in the pit of his stomach. "Make sure all three of you come, else he says he'll shoot me now and you'll never see me again. He says you ought to see your mouse at least one more time before the four of us die." She stared despairingly, her gaze piercing through the camera lens and straight into Sherlock's mind. Unthinking, he reached out to touch her face on the laptop screen, although quickly pulling back once he was conscious of what he was doing.

The blank look on Molly's face slowly disappeared, and her eyes followed something behind the camera, watching as it moved from directly in front of her to her far left; Sherlock heard a door close softly.

"Sherlock, please." She leaned closer to the lens. "You have to do something. I'm dead already, I know that, but please just get me out of this hellhole first. These walls…" She reached out and turned the camera, showing Sherlock walls covered with graffiti. "…they change. He shows me things I never want to see. I don't know how he does it, but the whole room fills with horrible images which he's made – you lying dead on the ground outside St Bart's…they always involve you and John dying somehow, and he makes me watch it all. He puts me in a neck brace and makes me watch…then he showed me actual footage of Lucie and her father, and Moriarty killing her father…and I can't not watch it. If I shut my eyes, he whips me." She positioned the camera so it was pointed at her neck and the top of her chest. "Look." She pulled the shoulder of her battered shirt down, and Sherlock saw an assortment of scars, both white and red, old and fresh. "Just…please, Sherlock. I don't want to have to watch any more."

Molly's eyes flew to the far left again and she lunged forward to turn the camera off; the clip flickered with static and then went black.

Sherlock sat, stunned into silence from anger and horror. However much he had tried to detach himself from his emotions during this case, the blatant attack on Molly inhibited his brain's functionality and angered him as he had never thought anything could. He quickly snatched up his phone and texted John and Lucie:

I've found Molly's GPS on her phone. Meet you at Baker St tube station in 15 minutes. Be quick.

- SH

He rapidly sent the message, his fingers tapping restlessly on his knee.

A loud scream came as Lucie yanked the curtain open, quickly mirrored by Lucie herself. A pair of large blue eyes met her gaze, wide with panic. Their bearer grabbed Lucie around the shoulders and steered her out of the cubicle and against the opposite wall, the eyes still brimming with anxiety.

"You need to get out of here!" A middle-aged woman stared at Lucie, eyes darting. She had blonde straggly hair which was greying at the roots, and her makeup was smeared down her cheeks; plastic jewellery hung from her ears and neck. Lucie noticed a friendly name-badge pinned to her light pink blouse, now crinkled and covered with pale brown stains, from which she gauged that this woman was an employee of the firm. The woman's fingernails were painted hot pink, but the polish was chipped around the edges, and traces of a cheap perfume lingered on her skin. Even without Sherlock here, Lucie could see and work out all she needed to know about the woman. Her badge revealed her name to be Sarah.

John came running over, attracted by Lucie's scream, gun wielded. At the sight of the gun, Sarah let out another blood-curdling scream and pointed a shaking finger at the weapon. "D…d…don't let him shoot me!" she wailed, burying her face in Lucie's shoulder. "P…please not m…me too…not like Stefan…p…please…"

Lucie and John hastily exchanged glances, both knowing the urgency of the situation, but also knowing that they couldn't just leave this woman in her clearly distressed state. Besides, she could hold valuable information as to Molly's whereabouts. Lucie knelt down so as to look up into Sarah's face, and smiled kindly at her, gripping her hands tightly and fishing in her pocket for a tissue.

"Madam," Lucie began, opting to use the woman's title rather than name at this point, "we are trying to find out what has happened to our friend. She has disappeared from this shop and we're trying to find her. I know this is hard for you, but please…you could help us so much just by answering a few of our questions."

Sarah nodded slowly, still snivelling. "I'm Sarah and I'm assistant manager of the shop. My husband, Stefan, is…" – her breath caught in her throat – "…or rather, was…the manager. This morning he came into work a few minutes earlier than me to open up and all that, so I came in my car about fifteen minutes after he arrived. When I got here, I couldn't find him, so I looked around until I found him hiding in here. He told me…" – she paused to sniff and carefully wipe under her eyes – "…there was a man in the shop somewhere…we must have been in here for about ten minutes, before we saw a pair of feet underneath the curtain and a man called to us that he knew we were in there. Then…" Sarah took a great gulping sob, and Lucie squeezed her knee comfortingly. "…he pulled the curtain back…I've never seen someone so scary…"

A good minute or so passed where she tried to compose herself; Lucie and John's hearts raced based on the knowledge that each precious second was one lost for Molly but not wanting to rush Sarah. They both heard John's phone vibrate, and they exchanged a glance, deciding whether or not to check it, before Lucie gave him a small nod. He quickly scanned the message and swallowed hard, wordlessly showing her the message.

Lucie took a deep, shaky breath, torn between the two situations. On the one hand, she had to gauge as much as she could from Sarah about Moriarty's actions, but if Sherlock had found Molly…the pair were faced with the choice of which was more urgent. They had fifteen minutes…it took almost seven to get to the tube station from where they were (perhaps less than five if they ran as fast as they could). Resolved, she turned back to Sarah.

"I'm so sorry, Sarah," she said with a kindly smile but sad eyes, "but we need you to tell us all you can before we have to go and try to find our friend. It's a matter of life and death."

Sarah's eyes grew even wider, and she gave a small and timid nod, once again sniffing and wiping her nose decidedly with Lucie's tissue. "Very well. He was about my height, with black slicked hair. He was wearing a suit and he had…he had a gun in his hand. He grinned at us and ushered us out, and just examined us for five minutes. Then he told me that he was afraid my husband…wouldn't be necessary…any more…to run the shop…and…and…" She almost broke down again, but looking into Lucie's eyes, forced herself to compose. "…he took his gun and shot my husband…shot him here…" – she gestured to her temple and put his body in that…that cubicle." She pointed with a shaking hand to the next changing room, the curtain drawn across. John swiftly moved to where she gestured and went inside; Sarah broke into sobs once more and Lucie crouched with her, an arm around her shoulders.

When John emerged, his eyes were blank and his jaw set. "He's been dead for well over seven hours," he said monotonously, his tone carrying the edge it always held when he was dealing with an innocent death of a civilian. Lucie's heart ached for him. "You've been here all this time?"

Sarah nodded mutely. "The man told me to stay here or I'd suffer the same fate as him. So I've been here since then, waiting for someone to come but too scared to come out…" She pressed her tissue hard to the corner of her eye, the lump in her throat clearly audible in her voice. "And now he's got your friend…of course you must go…but please don't forget me. Come back for me." She clasped Lucie's hand and looked hard into her eyes. "Promise me you'll come back."

Lucie nodded. "Of course. We'll send our friend from the police to come and get you, but we'll be back as soon as we can." She handed over her mobile number in case of emergency contact. "And I promise your husband won't be forgotten." She gave Sarah a small smile, before squeezing her hand and releasing it. "John," she said, and he nodded.

Once outside, John was straight on the phone to Lestrade, arranging for him and a party to come and pick Sarah up, and treat her for shock. Both he and Lucie were pale at her story, but had no choice but to run straight to Baker Street station, as fast as they possibly could. When they arrived at the entrance, they found Sherlock leaning against the railings, tapping his foot on the ground anxiously. He gave them a look of murder when they sprinted up, both doubling over for lack of breath.

"You're late," he said icily, before quickly showing them the GPS signal for Molly's phone. "It's constant," he said, "so we should be able to keep it in our view. Unless Moriarty moves her around, I would say it's impossible for us not to find her. But we need to hurry!"

They walked rapidly down the steps into the station, scanning their respective Oyster cards as fast as they could, but not so quick as to arouse suspicion. Sherlock passed his phone surreptitiously to first John and then Lucie to display exactly where it was that Molly was being held, along with a planned tube route which he estimated would get them to her place of captivity in around twenty-seven minutes, which, he said rather dismally, he wasn't sure would be long enough to save her.

A/N: So now I've had that time to think up a decent excuse for not updating since MAY...I can't really think of anything except the usual - coursework has been crazy and I have had hardly any spare time. Once again, this chapter has been making steady progress for ages, but it's been tricky to be able to sit down and write more than twenty words at a time. However, now this story is really nearly at an end (just one or two chapters left of the main plot, with a few extra afterwards to round everything up and give you some more Jucie fluff) and I will make an EXTRA SPECIAL effort to update within the next few weeks even if it means failing my exams (except maybe not that bit)! Just for you my lovely readers and reviewers and followers and favouriters and everybody!

This chapter is dedicated to Charlotte (a.k.a. Rusty Solstice) because you have been my number one supporter throughout this whole process and I love you :)

Please review and thanks for sticking with me! :)