Hours later, Sherlock was running tests at the lab at St. Bart's while John was reading through the victim's diary and schedule. The victim had been identified as Valerie Wales. The pair had been sitting there for quite some time in silence as they worked to find connections. There were occasional beeps from the computer as Sherlock's tests came back.
"Damn." he muttered to himself.
"What's wrong?" John asked.
"I was looking to see if there was any identifying information about this note that was left."
"No luck?"
"No. There's nothing special about the paper or ink at all. Just an ordinary index card and ordinary ink. Could've been purchased anywhere." He sighed, ruffled his hair, and sat back in his chair. "Have you found anything?"
He asked, glancing over at John.
"Not a lot to go on here. There aren't many men in her life that I can see. She regularly goes to confession where there's a male priest, but he doesn't fit our guy's description. No boyfriend, no brothers or close family or friends. It's almost as if she'd isolated herself. Well, except for her friend, Emily. She met weekly with her for coffee. She even gave her a birthday card recently."
Sherlock froze.
"John, does that birthday card have any writing in it?"
"Yeah, it says, 'Val, thanks for being such a good friend. Many happy returns, love, Em."
"Let me see it." Sherlock ordered, reaching out.
John walked briskly around the lab to place the card in Sherlock's hand.
After a few moments of examining the card, Sherlock began muttering under his breath, "Stupid, stupid!"
"What?" John asked.
"We've been wasting time. Looking at this all wrong. The killer might've been male, but the person who wanted her dead was a female." He rifled through the papers on the counter, "Look." He pointed at the handwriting on the card, then to the handwriting on the note left at the crime scene.
"The handwriting is identical." John stated.
"Yes. You're not even a handwriting specialist and you can tell." Sherlock commented.
"So, it was Emily?"
"Apparently."
"Yeah, but Sherlock, you said that she knew the killer. She was brought into that alley because she trusted the person she was with."
"John, as you were going through Valerie's personal notes and papers, was there any indication that she might not be strictly heterosexual?"
"Well, now that you mention it, there was an entry in her planner that said, 'dinner with Em' with hearts around it."
"Perhaps Valerie and Emily had a romantic entanglement." Sherlock proposed.
"So, it would've been Emily that picked her up that night." John continued.
"She would've walked with Valerie, taking her in the alley, where a hired hand attacked her from behind."
"But why, Sherlock? Why did Valerie have to die?"
"That, I don't know the answer to yet. We've got to find Emily. I'll text Lestrade. Maybe he can bring her in."
Several hours later, Sherlock and John were sitting across from Emily at a pizza shop in a scuzzy part of town. Dark clouds gathered in the sky and a bone chilling wind breezed through London as a snow storm began to announce its arrival. The police were taking their time finding Emily, having to wait on warrants and paperwork, so Sherlock and John went off on their own to track her down. Sure enough, Sherlock found her, working, and pulled her aside for a chat. Currently, she was sobbing, expressing her profound grief at the tragic loss of her dear friend, Valerie.
"She was my closest friend." She blubbered, pausing to blow her nose. "I don't know what I am going to do without her."
"Was there anyone who would've wanted to hurt her? Did she have any enemies?" John asked, as Sherlock sat studying the girl.
"No, not at all! She was the kindest person you'd ever meet. I can't imagine how anyone could do something like that to her!" she cried.
"Well, what about - "
"Alright, I've had enough of this." Sherlock burst.
"Sherlock!" John chastised.
"John, hush." Sherlock commanded. John's jaw dropped. "Emily, we know you were the one behind this. You lured Valerie into the alley that night and you hired someone to finish her off. Tell us why. Why did she have to die?"
There was an unsettling shift in the woman's appearance. Where once she seemed timid and fragile, now she sat up straighter and immediately stopped crying. She wiped her face and eyes and glared at Sherlock. She recognized that she had been found out.
"Well now, see, that's better." Sherlock remarked, darkly.
"I'll tell you why she had to die." Emily growled. "That little bitch promised me she would end things with her husband long before he died. I can't pretend I wasn't grateful when I found out he'd been shot and killed. But Emily, well, she played the part of the poor, fragile widow. She abandoned me. What's worse, I was waiting for her with open arms. I promised to take care of both of us. Emily was so worried about her finances! And then, she betrayed me by whoring around town, selling herself to any man who would pay. It disgusted me and was a huge stab in my back. So, I gave her what she deserved."
John gaped. The stark change in her demeanor reminded him of Sherlock, only her intentions were much more sinister. "You're mad."
"Well, that may be, but I can promise you won't catch me."
"Is that so?" Sherlock stated, sarcasm in his voice.
"Yeah." she said, matter-of-factly.
And without further ado, Emily took off out of her chair, running to the back of the pizzeria pulling chairs and tables over behind her. She was, admittedly, quite nimble and quick, but Sherlock was able to keep up with John only a couple of paces behind. She ran out the back door that led into an alley, before heading off for the front of the building where she ran into a crowd.
It was significantly more difficult to track Emily through the crowd. She was lightning fast and maneuvered swiftly between the commuters and bicyclists. But again, Sherlock was able to anticipate her every move and stayed with her. He followed her nearly 3 blocks before she popped in another alley. John had fallen behind.
Emily ran into a dead end, or so it seemed. She managed to scramble up a fire escape with Sherlock on her heels. Arriving at the top of the building, there was no escape - the jump to the next building was too far.
"You're stuck," yelled Sherlock, panting hard, trying to regain his breath.
"You're not going to catch me."
"Am I not?"
"No."
"In less than two minutes, my colleague will be climbing up the fire escape, no doubt having phoned the police. There's nowhere for you to run."
"If I'm going down, I'm taking you with me."
"Ha!" Sherlock mocked.
Before he knew it, Emily was charging him. She had a crazed look in her eyes. Tackling Sherlock to the roof, she wasted no time in picking up his head and slamming it repeatedly into the cement. Sherlock had sorely underestimated her, but was able to kick her off momentarily. She swiftly climbed onto his back as he attempted to stand up and pulled tufts of hair off of his scalp and poked and prodded at his eyes. Sherlock grunted, but again, was able to throw her off.
"Sherlock!" he heard John's voice from the top of the escape call to him before he was tackled again by Emily.
She had a vice like grip on his throat and was attempting to choke him. Sherlock was doing everything he could to shove her off. He could hear John's approaching footsteps just as the corners of his vision started to fade.
She whipped quickly to John, still gripping Sherlock's throat.
"Don't take another step or I'll end him!" she shouted at John as she straddled Sherlock's chest.
"Alright." John conceded, hands up in surrender as he froze.
Just then, police lights started to shine down the dark alley and sirens could be heard in the distance, causing a moment's distraction.
Sherlock took the moment's hesitation to throw Emily off of him, despite his spinning head and gasping breaths.
John took the momentary chaos as an opportunity to reach behind his back and pull out his gun, aiming it decisively at Emily. She frantically scampered to the edge of the roof, standing precariously on the ledge.
"Either let me go, or I die." she called out.
"Emily, you don't have to do this." John started, calmly.
Emily's frantic eyes flitted to John's. "Why not? Either I die here now, or they're going to kill me anyway!"
"Who's going to kill you, Emily? Is someone threatening you?" John continued.
"You wouldn't understand. I've already said too much." She began to shuffle backwards.
"No, stop, please!" cried John, eyes going wide. "If someone's out there threatening you, the police can potentially offer you protection."
"You can't promise that," said Emily, hands shaking. "They've got people everywhere. If I don't do exactly as they say, they'll kill me and my sister. She's all I've got left."
"No," Sherlock interjected, voice hoarse, "Maybe we can't promise the police's protection, but I can promise you'll have mine."
"HA! You? 'World's Only Consulting Detective' with a not-so-secret drug problem and the hero complex? Please. You can't even save yourself. You're a marked man, Sherlock Holmes. You're not safe."
Sherlock's brow knit together. Ever since the scathing, revealing news articles were published around the time of Sherlock's faked suicide and coupled with John's blog, Sherlock wasn't surprised that Emily felt she was exploiting some of his greatest flaws. If she REALLY knew him, she'd known he's clean. But, a marked man?
John was struggling to keep up with Emily's changing story. First, she appears utterly distraught that her best friend died, then she confesses to orchestrating the whole thing, then she claims to have been threatened and implies that she may have been forced to kill her friend, but now also seems to know information about people who want to hurt Sherlock. This wasn't adding up. John began running through possible mental illnesses this woman could possibly have that could be the explanation for it all.
"Who do you work for?" Sherlock asked.
"There's an east wind coming." Emily said.
"Who do you work for?!" Sherlock shouted earnestly.
"Whatever happened to Redbeard, Sherlock?" Emily asked.
"How can you possibly know- "
"I'm certain I've said too much." Emily said.
"No. Tell me the name of your employer."
"I believe the two of you have met before. I'm sure after this is over she'll be in touch."
"She?" John exclaimed, incredulously.
"Bye bye now, boys." Without hesitation and with deadly precision, Emily took a fatal step backwards and fell off of the rooftop, landing on the pavement below with a sickening crunch.