"You had better start explaining, Sherlock Holmes, and don't lie to me. Don't you dare!"
Sherlock stood silent for several moments with a distant look in his eyes as if he were trying to spot a rabbit across an open field. Every now and again, he would give his head a little shake. She watched his fingers dance at his sides. After one minute stretched into the next, Molly stepped forward and snapped her fingers in his face. He flinched and glared at her fingers before looking her in the eyes with bewilderment.
"Hello, anyone home?" She asked with a huff.
His head jerked sideways. "Wasn't I speaking?"
"No, you most certainly were not."
He cricked his head from side to side and then adjusted his scarf. "I thought we had an entire conversation. Pity, I was quite eloquent and you agreed with everything I said."
She gritted her teeth. She tried to remain calm but found it difficult.
"Alright, I'll bite. What did you say?"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I don't feel like repeating myself."
Molly grabbed his arm. She took a breath but tears stung her eyes anyways.
"You can't treat me this way," she whispered. "Not if you care for me at all. I don't deserve it."
His eyes, slightly larger than usual, ticked downwards and he looked back up. His face was soft and boyish. He seemed so lost. She felt that familiar tug at her heartstrings from the confused way he gazed at her.
"Tell me you have a good explanation for this or that I'm mistaken or anything else because I want to believe in you," she pleaded.
He stepped back with a curse before he squeezed his eyes shut and massaged his temples.
"It doesn't matter what I do. He's never wrong," he mumbled to himself. "I want him to be wrong."
She balled up her fists. "For Christ's sake, tell me what is going on!"
Sherlock opened his eyes. "I have an explanation for you, Molly. I do, but I need you to believe in me a little bit longer. Please, first examine the Leeds men for me and help me thwart Sherrinford. I cannot do this without you."
Molly felt numb as she examined the sheep farmer brought down from Scotland and then his brother, the dentist. She went about her post mortems by rote as she tried to contemplate what Sherlock had explained about Sherrinford's plot. Sherrinford had had access to all the requisition labs in the UK, he had probably tampered with blood tests performed on each of the men. She wasn't one to put simple labels on things but what Sherlock theorized was in a word – evil. The depth of Sherrinford's depravity gave her chills.
The examinations of the men were tricky with her wrist still hampered by her cast. Not to mention, Dr. Leeds was well past the point he should have been buried while Mr. Leeds the farmer, had been embalmed so any blood work she might otherwise order was pointless. While both men did, in fact, appear to die from renal failure, the mechanism of that death was far from conclusive. The damage to their kidneys appeared chronic as if they'd been suffering from some sort of affliction for quite some time. Also, try as she might, Molly found no trace of Cryptosporidiosis on any intestinal slides.
"Dr. Hooper?"
Molly glanced up to see Wendy, the technician who had performed the tests on Mary's blood work.
"I haven't seen you for a bit, oh! What happened?" She asked when she saw the cast.
Molly pressed her lips together nervously then smiled tightly. "Nothing. Bit of a tumble. I'll be all healed in a few more weeks."
Molly watched as Wendy's eyes scanned the lab. "Where's that yummy Mr. Holmes?"
"He's around somewhere causing trouble I'm sure," Molly mumbled feeling vexed with herself for being a bit jealous.
Wendy twitched her brows and leaned against the counter. "Well, tell him to feel free to disrupt the lab upstairs anytime. I could use a little excitement."
Molly frowned and cleared her throat. "May I help you, Wendy?"
She produced a report from behind her back. "I've got your results for that tranexamic acid requisition you ordered on . . . " she checked the papers, ". . . Ms. Mary Elizabeth Watson. Yeah, I tested that every which way from Sunday, Doctor. Nothing."
Molly took the report and scanned the numbers. "Are you sure?"
Wendy nodded. "I had two other girls I work alongside double check my results. There was no trace of that med in her system."
"Alright, yes, um, thank-you."
Wendy pushed back from the counter. "I'll head back upstairs then, unless you need anything?"
"I'm good, thanks again."
"No problem. Tell that gorgeous man candy of yours hello from Wendy next time you see him, hmm?" She winked.
"Uh, huh."
Molly turned and resumed her work on Dr. Leeds. She was in disbelief. If Mary hadn't been dosed with tranexamic acid that meant Molly's original conclusions were correct. Mary hadn't been murdered. She had died from something far more mundane and Sherrinford Holmes had nothing to do with her death.
Just as those thoughts were solidifying in Molly's head, she noticed something odd about Dr. Leeds' sternum she hadn't before. A growth.
"Oh, my, my. What is going on with you, Dr. Leeds?"
"What are you doing?"
Molly looked up to see Sherlock entering the lab. Her heart twisted painfully in her chest. She wanted to curl up in a ball somewhere and cry. For all the intimacies they'd shared, she was still just a means to an end to him. She wanted to be much more upset with him about his deception but thoughts of their recent activities competed for her attention. Could she really have misread him so badly?
"I'm finishing a cause of death report."
His brows raised. "On one of the Leeds?"
"No," she looked back down. "On Mary."
She listened as his steps halted. She braced for the inevitable argument. He would not agree with her findings.
"Mary? Have you received some new information then?"
"No, not really, except that she didn't have any tranexamic acid in her blood stream."
"So how can you determine her death . . . "
She looked up with incredulity. "Because I am a damn good pathologist, Sherlock, and I never should have doubted myself. Mary wasn't murdered. The answer was in front of me the whole time but I let myself get carried away by fantastical conspiracy theories."
He drew his brows together in a frown. "What!?"
"You heard me."
He clamped his mouth shut for just a moment before he replied. "So, what was her cause of death then if not something 'fantastical'?
"Her birth control."
He blinked a couple times. "That can't be it."
Molly sighed. "Mary had just started back on the pill prior to her death. It didn't help that she had a very minor a heart defect. That in and of itself isn't a problem but it meant she was at a higher risk for a life threatening clot. It's kind of a chicken or the egg thing, her leaky heart valve could have caused a small clot in conjunction with her birth control which then lodged in her leg or the clot could have started in her leg. Either way, her body was a ticking time bomb."
"It can't be . . .Sherrinford knew. He alluded to it . . . "
Molly narrowed her eyes. "But it is, and it's past time John and little Bethie had their answers so they can move on with their lives. You can pick this apart all you want, Sherlock, but you will come to the same conclusion eventually. You have let Sherrinford con you."
He slunk down to one of the metal lab stools thinking for several moments. She busied herself as he compiled her information. She knew by his silent contemplation he was in fact, starting to accept her findings.
"What of the Leeds?" He asked quietly.
She paused at the edge of the lab table at which he was seated. "Ah, yes, well, they are a different story."
He looked up with one brow raised. "Indeed?"
"They both died of kidney failure, to be sure, but neither of them were infected with Cryptosporidiosis. They should not have been on antibiotics. Their kidneys were in poor shape from fighting something much worse."
"What was it?"
"Multiple Myeloma. They both were in the advanced stages of this type of cancer. I found bone tumors in their spines, septum and even their ribs. When myeloma breaks down the bones in some patients, they become hypercalcaemic from too much calcium in the blood. That's why the kidneys can fail. Of course, it's rare for siblings to suffer from the same disease at the same time but they were identical twins. When I checked their medical records, they had been each of them tested for it at least once in the past year with negative results."
Sherlock's face paled. "Sherrinford tampered with their records. One of Mycroft's agents found his digital trail."
Molly frowned. "But why? Why would he do that?"
"I d-don't know. When we checked, we found that he'd been in and out of countless files with no apparent rhyme or reason. It was nearly impossible to discern whether he changed each record or not. Mycroft has people pouring over everything so we might prevent more of these incidents. I am hoping a pattern develops so we can determine his end game."
Molly scratched again at her damn itchy cast. "Can I look at the records?"
Sherlock's eyes widened. "You want to help?"
"I want to stop him as much as anyone."
He looked down. "I didn't think you would want to help me . . ."
She held her breath. "I wouldn't be doing it for you."
He looked away and swallowed. She wanted to hate him for that, for making her feel bad, but she couldn't.
She cleared her throat. "Which reminds me, you still owe me an explanation, Sherlock Holmes, and it better be good."
"Well, are you finished? We should probably not discuss such matters here."
"I am, are you really going to make me wait?"
Sherlock stood and straightened his jacket. He lifted his chin and assessed her with a nod.
"I am fearful for anything breakable in this lab, including myself. I said I had an explanation." He smiled grimly. "However, I did not say I had a good one."