Disclaimer: Don't I wish they were mine? But you already knew that. I spent most of my summer searching for Eros so that he would give me Lestrade and when I finally found him he said that Lestrade was a fictional character. Shows what he knows doesn't it? Maybe I shouldn't have called him a pansy…oh well, I'll figure something out. Until then Sherlock and company aren't mine and I make no money from these stories of their adventures…more's the pity.

A/N: I'd apologize for my lateness in getting this out but I'm sure you're all sick of hearing my excuses. I'm sick of hearing my excuses. So anyway here's your next chapter. Also the only information I could find on potassium poisoning is that it causes heart failure the rest of it is made up.

Wednesday II

Greg rubbed at his tired eyes with thumb and forefinger. Tuesday had been very long and the night hadn't been much shorter. The empty bed and silent phone had seemed to be mocking him and so he'd left the two conspirators alone together while he and the sofa had renewed their friendship. At one point the telly and the radio had made their own attempts at catching his attention but mostly only the wall and sofa had continuously enraptured him.

Not that any of them had been any comfort whatsoever. Now he had to put his game face back on and face another day. Greg wasn't sure why he was trying so hard to not let anyone know how much he was hurting but he couldn't seem to stop himself. None of them would ever understand this deep, wrenching pain.

Well, maybe John could. He was attached to a Holmes himself, after all. The rest though could never see past the man's last name and cold exterior to the sweet, fun, lovable man beneath. Holmes men seemed to be very good at burying their best personality traits and putting forth a front of coldness. Sherlock hid behind a sociopath and Mycroft behind a bureaucrat.

Greg had to admit they were good covers. Almost no one saw beneath them and usually that suited Greg just fine. As long as no one knew the wonderful men, especially Mycroft, beneath the exterior then no one would try to take them, him, from him.

None of these contemplations were finishing his paperwork for him though, he sighed. The reports on the desk before him confirmed that Lauren McKnight had indeed died of an overdose of potassium. Greg was still amazed that someone could die from too much potassium in their system.

Apparently the excess potassium caused heart failure. The potassium buildup happened so fast that there was no time for McKnight's body to react which meant that it had to have been injected or ingested. There was no injection site so the woman had to have either eaten or drunk the potassium.

Tricky idea that, Greg's inner voice told him. If she'd ingested it then how did she not realize it was there? And had she ingested it purposely?

Anderson and Donovan, after they'd gotten over their irritation at Sherlock, were both proponents of the suicide idea. They maintained that she couldn't have ingested it without knowing about the poison and there were no signs of a struggle at all to show that she'd been forced.

Greg, with both Sherlock and John's backing, believed that there was something off. And since Greg was leading the investigation, Anderson and Donovan had been overruled. They'd all have to go over the site again and talk to all the people in McKnight's life again.

He didn't mind that too much. The work kept him busy and stopped him thinking about the shambles his life had become. Mycroft still hadn't texted or called him back yet. Greg had begun to start believing that he never would.

"Stop thinking about it!" Greg ordered himself under his breath. "It's not important right now."

He picked up the reports and resolutely signed each one before attaching them to the growing file on Lauren McKnight. With grim determination he focused all of his attention on the reports and the file while he made notes on a piece of paper situated to the side of the file on his desk.

A throat clearing at his office door a while later had him dropping his pen and glaring at the interloper. "What?" He growled.

PC Roberts swallowed and flushed a bit around his ears. "Sir?" Greg only upped his glare hoping the younger man would get on with his interruption so he could get back to actively not thinking of anything but work. "There's been another one like McKnight, sir." The words tumbled out of his mouth quickly. "The Superintendent wants you to have a look at the scene, sir."

Greg let his face fall into a scowl. "Of course," he grumbled. "What else could go wrong today?" Then he grinned a bit viciously. "This also proves that Donovan and Anderson were wrong though. With two separate victims it can't really be suicide can it?"

Roberts swallowed again and shook his head. "No sir." The DI could be very scary when he was in a bad mood and it seemed as though he been in a very bad mood ever since Roberts had joined the force two months ago. At least Roberts knew he hadn't been singled out. Lestrade had been gruff and irritated with even Sgt. Donovan lately and rumor had it they'd been on the same team for years.

Greg stood and shrugged into his suit jacket with that same scary, sharkish smile on his face the whole time. "Well," he said impatiently. "Let's go, Roberts."

Roberts swallowed convulsively again and nodded. "Yes sir," he replied in a higher tone than he would have liked. "I'm to drive you to the scene."

MH/GL MH/GL MH/GL

"There is no need to call the Freak and his pet," Sgt. Donovan sneered before Greg could even close the door of the cruiser Roberts had brought him to the scene in. "Anderson has it handled."

Greg slammed the door and glared at her. "We'll see," was all he allowed himself to say. "Show me the victim."

Sgt. Donovan barely kept herself from flinching. She knew she was on thin ice at the moment with the DI but he'd never illustrated it so convincingly. He'd been an absolute beast the past few months and she knew that her snide remarks about his husband weren't doing anything but making his mood worse. She couldn't stop herself though. The DI deserved so much better than that cold fish Mycroft Holmes. "This way," she motioned towards an alley and kept her voice even.

"Details," Lestrade barked out as they arrived at the mouth of the alley.

"Same as the first," Donovan said quickly. "Same age group, hair color, marital status." She paused. "Only thing is this one, Allison Jefferies, is still clothed and the only thing missing is her watch."

"Any evidence that links them?" Lestrade asked as he surveyed the young woman lying on the ground.

"Other than what I've already mentioned? No." Donovan told him curtly. "But we'll find it."

Lestrade lifted an eyebrow at her and then turned back to the young woman's body. Years of exposure to Sherlock had raised his awareness of the details and he quickly noticed the small stain on the lapel of the woman's jacket. "What is that?" He asked Anderson as he crouched next to the young woman and reached into his pocket for the gloves he always carried with him.

"What is what?" Anderson asked with an edge to his voice. It was bad enough when the Psychopath pointed out things he missed; did the DI have to start it too?

Lestrade shook his head in frustration and pointed at the spot of color on the white jacket. "That spot, Anderson."

Anderson looked down at the spot and then shrugged. "Coffee," he answered. "Thought you were trying to imply that I'd missed something."

Lestrade rolled his eyes and studied the spot. He drew in a breath. "Have you looked her over?"

Anderson nodded. "Haven't moved her any but we've catalogued everything visual," he reported.

Lestrade nodded and flipped the jacket open to reveal the huge coffee stain on the shirt the victim had been wearing. "What have we here?" Lestrade murmured. "Coffee?" He rubbed his fingers together after he'd prodded the stain. "Still wet too. She's not been dead long then."

Greg's eyes went wide and he swung his head around just in time to duck as a pop, pop, pop sounded throughout the alley. "Down!" He screamed to his team as he dove for cover behind one of the garbage skips.

Greg heard everyone scrambling and thuds as they dove for the ground and then in the quiet he heard heavy footsteps. Knowing it was probably one of the stupidest things he'd ever done he poked his head cautiously around the skip. "I wasn't finished with her," a large man growled out and pointed his gun towards Greg's head. "You should have let me finish."

Greg whipped his head back around the corner and winced at the loud report of the gun. Pain exploded in his head and the world around him went white and then gray and finally blackness blotted out the shouts and the light.