At six o'clock on the dot, the Holmes Ford Flex screeched up to Bliss Outfitters' front door. Molly was clocking out when she heard the sound of rubber burning on asphalt, and she looked outside with mild surprise. Sherlock must have found something.
"See you tomorrow afternoon, Molly!" Ralph waved as she headed for the door.
"Bye!" Molly said, waving in return. If Sherlock had found something, she wasn't so sure she would see him again.
Sherlock's face was practically glowing with excitement when Molly got in the car. He peeled off as quick as he'd come before she'd even gotten her seatbelt on.
"Oi! This isn't a race car," Molly said after slamming into the door. She buckled the seatbelt and held on to her armrest for dear life.
"I found a large stack of black market order forms in a hidden compartment of Oscar Bliss's office desk. I've got him, Molly!" Sherlock squeezed her hand, making her heart leap into her throat.
"Another man came in with a secret package earlier today," Molly said when she managed to regain the power of speech. "He asked for Danielle, so I took him to her in the back and then hid so I could listen in. Turns out the box was full of heroin, and he's going to be delivering the rest of the shipment over the next few days. Danielle said she'd tell Victor about it, so clearly he's in this as deep as his father. I recorded the entire interaction on my phone."
"Brilliant! We have all of them now. Well, for the illegal merchandise, at least. Proving they're behind Wyatt Davis's murder will be slightly more difficult, but if I can get one of them to confess…" Sherlock paused for a moment, deep in thought. "I suppose we'll have to continue our charade a bit longer. No matter; I'll come up with a plan by tomorrow morning."
"Maybe focus on Victor? He's easier to get to than Oscar, and from what I've seen of him he doesn't seem to be the brightest of the bunch," Molly suggested.
"Good observation. Meanwhile, you can look around Danielle's office for evidence of the murder. Anything incriminating, actually." Sherlock pulled into the cool parking garage below the hotel, and they quickly walked inside.
Once they were safely in their room, Molly let Sherlock listen to the sound file on her phone of Danielle and her black market delivery man's conversation, and Sherlock in turn showed her his pictures of the order forms in Oscar's desk. Molly didn't think she'd ever seen him more excited as he downloaded both pieces of evidence onto a disk for safekeeping. Meanwhile she scarfed down the chicken pot pie they'd ordered up for supper, starving after hours on her feet. Sherlock's was left untouched.
"How much longer do you think we'll be here?" Molly asked.
"No longer than a week, I should say. I have a return flight booked on the twenty-first, and I expect to have this case wrapped up long before then."
"Wonderful." Molly got up to set her empty supper tray outside the door. She shut it and kicked off her wedges, glad to be rid of their uncomfortable height. Unused to the sudden flatness of her feet, she tripped quite ungracefully over one of the shoes and would have twisted her ankle if Sherlock didn't catch her on her way down. For a moment they stood there, chest to chest and frozen, as if neither knew what to do. Suddenly Sherlock let go of her, his hands clutching his head instead and his eyes shut in fierce concentration. He sat down on the foot of the bed.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Molly settled next to him, her nervousness banished by the fear that he was ill.
"There's this iron door in my mind palace that I keep seeing at random, but the padlock has no key. I've tried picking it, and occasionally it acts like it's going to open, yet it never does. It's incredibly frustrating."
Molly rolled her eyes. Trust Sherlock to have a room in his mind palace that he didn't remember putting there and couldn't get into. As if having a mind palace in the first place wasn't strange enough. "Are there certain times that you see it? Like, I dunno, triggers?"
Sherlock was silent for a moment. "It seems to happen when I'm around you…In fact, it's often whenever you're in danger, in one way or another. That's odd." He closed his eyes again. He could feel Molly's warm breath on his neck, her fingers hesitantly touching his hand. Suddenly the great door reappeared in his mind's eye, as imposing as ever, but this time the lock looked different. Deep cracks webbed the steel, and as he watched, they spread out, growing deeper. On impulse, his hand closed around Molly's, and immediately the lock shattered, the shards of steel clinking on the floor. Without anything to hold it back, the door flew open, and blinding golden light poured out, seeping into every crevice of the imaginary structure. It was soft and warm and smelled of Indian spices.
"Sher—" Molly began, but she was cut off by Sherlock's lips closing over hers. At first she was shocked, numb as one of his hands buried itself in her hair and the other snaked around her waist. Was it possible that she had floated off in a daydream, or fallen asleep while sitting there and started dreaming? This sort of event only happened in her fantasies. After all, Sherlock would never kiss her in real life…would he?
A few seconds later, after it was clear Sherlock had no intention of pulling away and apologizing, Molly decided she didn't care to know exactly what was happening. She closed her eyes and kissed him back, a feeling she had never experienced racing through her veins, as if light had taken the form of blood. She had a vague realization of being lowered back onto the bed, a new, unfamiliar fire blazing in Sherlock's eyes as his fingers worked furiously at the buttons on her dress, lips moving down her neck.
The rest of the night was a blur, but if there was one thing Molly knew for certain, the notion to rebuild the wall of pillows was the furthest from both of their minds.