Personal
"Answer the phone you evil hag!"
John jolted awake at the sound of Sherlock screaming at her mobile and chucking it across the room, directly over John's head resting on the arm of the couch. Luckily it crashed into the back cushions and landed on her chest instead of her face.
"What the hell, Sherlock?" John tried to yell, but really, she had only just woken up. On the sofa. Again. God, her back was going to be killing her for a year.
"Moriarty is refusing to answer me!" Sherlock continued to storm about, throwing herself around the room, violently waving her violin in every direction.
"So?" John groaned. "Why would you want her to answer you?"
"Because!" she yelled, as if that were answer enough. Then she strummed her violin with enough venom to torture Moriarty from a distance and continued, "The Italians are refusing to admit anything was taken or smuggled in or out of their country. They refuse to work with us unless it becomes a matter of national security. Which is utter shit."
"It's Moriarty." John heaved herself up. "Isn't that enough of a security threat?"
"Apparently not." Sherlock slumped into her chair and held her instrument to her face. "They believe whatever was in the box is long gone and is no problem of theirs. Moriarty is looking for it. Therefore it is. They're just too stupid to realize."
"So why are you texting her?"
"There are more people who know what is in that box than do," she spat. "Moriarty is one of them."
"You're asking her for the answer?"
Sherlock looked positively scathed with insult as she dropped her violin to her lap and turned her glare to John. "How dare you?" John held up her hands, but it was too late. "Beg for the answer? She is withholding information! What do you suppose I texted her? 'Hey, James. It's Sherlock. I'm stuck. Please help me!'"
"Sorry. Sorry. Didn't mean that." John rubbed at her aching eyes and shook her head. "But if Moriarty isn't the only one who knows, why can't you ask someone else?"
"I'm not asking. I'm collecting data." Sherlock slumped sideways in her chair and pulled at her hair. "The only others that know what is in the box are possibly Gabby Miller-"
"MIA."
"The person who took the box and whoever that person is working for."
John opened her eyes and searched their wall of notes but it looked exactly the same as the night before. "Still no clues there then?"
Sherlock conducted her thoughts at the wall with the tip of her bow. "The alarm system had not been triggered. The CCTV camera is malfunctioning. Has been for some time. Remember, we could not connect on our mobiles until we cleared the house?"
"They blocked the signal?"
"Indeed. Whoever took the box was a professional."
"Yeah, otherwise you would have noticed them at the crime scene."
Sherlock froze, her eyes moving wildly, seeing things John could only fuzzily remember. "I was wrong before."
John found herself biting down on a sputtered laugh. "I'm sorry, what?"
Sherlock's lips curled into a small smile. "It was not two men who moved Haywire's body. It was one."
John gestured for her to continue. "How do you know that?"
Sherlock jumped up and walked through the room as if it were the attic crime scene, pointing at the objects in her memory. "There was a mark just outside the door. A scratch of silver against the ground." She ducked to the ground and closely inspected the invisible mark. "The width, hue, and placement all point towards a pair of heels. I chalked it up to Miller. Too small a shoe size for Bernet. But Miller is much more practical than that, isn't she? She's an archaeologist. She digs in the mud for a living. Why would she wear heels up to her attic?"
"She wouldn't?"
"Exactly!" Sherlock jumped back to her feet and paced. "So who does that leave?"
"Well, if we have a man picking up the box working for someone we don't know, then it could be someone with them, I suppose. Though I don't know why you would need two people to pick up a box. Unless she was lookout. The other man was working for-" John froze and blinked. "Moriarty. Why would she be there?"
Sherlock's eyes shone with so much approval it made John's face flush. "That is the question. What would be so important to James Moriarty that she would make the trip in person?"
"Something really important?"
Sherlock hummed and continued to stomp her well beaten path. "Or something personal."
"She's Moriarty. What the hell could be personal to her?"
"We all have a past, Dr. Watson. Even she."
"But we don't know anything about her past. Mycroft couldn't even find anything." John promptly shut her mouth. Of course, that was exactly why Sherlock texted her.
John searched for Sherlock's phone between the cushions and tossed it back to her. Sherlock caught it with one hand easily and scowled at the blank screen.
To her reflection, she muttered, "Someone does. Or they would not have taken the box."
"What if they just took it because they knew she wanted it?"
"They made a point of taking it out from under her nose. They knew its value." Sherlock squeezed the phone tightly and shoved it into her pocket. "Moriarty must have let it slip."
"Who would she tell a thing like that to?"
"Think, John." Sherlock looked back at the wall of clues, papers and strings cascading from ceiling to purple cock and back again. "To whom do people tell their deepest darkest secrets?"
"I don't know." John shrugged. "Friends, family I suppose."
"Don't be ridiculous. You don't go to your loved ones when you have fantasies about mass murders."
"Alright, well Moriarty has to have someone as fucked up as she is. Someone she can control. An employee or whatever she calls them?"
"Someone she pays to have listen to her." Sherlock lifted her brows and waited for John to catch up.
"The therapist." John chuckled to herself. "You think Moriarty does go to a shrink."
"Of course not. I think she made a mistake. She is only human, after all. Grant was tired of manipulating the masses. He thought he would try his hand at something more challenging."
John hummed. "I thought she was a wyrm."
"She's both."
It looked like the search for Grant became priority. Terrifying to think someone with that power over people was on the run. It would have taken someone with a great deal of intelligence, or an excess of dumb luck, to best Moriarty.
In the middle of the afternoon, while composing a text to Lestrade, John's phone pinged with a message from Martin.
I have Mexican takeaway. You want to come to mine? Xoxo
"Shit," John muttered aloud. Sherlock looked at her quizzically. "It's Martin. You know, my boyfriend. He wants me to go to his for dinner. I need to go. I ran out on him and-"
"Invite him here."
John froze midway to replying. Her head snapped up. "What?"
"You heard me." Sherlock rolled her eyes and pulled her laptop closer, refusing to look up from the screen. "He's a part of your life and you are a part of mine. Therefore I should meet him. Isn't that what you always say?"
"Well… yes. But, the case-"
"Don't make me repeat myself." Sherlock went back to typing.
Sherlock invited you over to ours if you rather. - J
It took twenty minutes for him to respond, all of which John spent wondering if he was still angry. It felt like she was being blown off.
Sorry. I actually have to cancel. I just got a call from the school. Emergency.
John sat back and reread the message, biting at her lip.
What happened? -J
It was insane to think he would invite her over just to cancel for no good reason. He was not like that. Tell that to the rock sitting in the middle of her stomach.
One of the kids tried to off themselves in the chemistry lab. I have to go in. I'm so sorry.
Guilt immediately flushed the rock away and she was quick to reply.
Good luck. Let me know if I can do anything. -J
Tell Sherlock thank you and I'll be seeing her soon. xo
"He's not coming," John called to Sherlock. "One of the students tried to kill himself in the school."
Sherlock ignored her so John went back to writing to Lestrade. She would search the newspapers once she was done and probably call it an early night. They had been plotting a way to snag the therapist all day.
John had wondered aloud why Moriarty would keep him alive if she knew she was betrayed. Sherlock simply ignored her and went to her phone, tapping away.