My Book is Coming Out! See first pages and Preorder Here:
Amazon dot com / dp / B00U8CR1L6
Sherlock spent the night crossing 37 options off of his list, including drug dens and alcoholic recovery centers before he started looking for a body. Mycroft would have already searched most of them, he knew, but there wasn't much point in spending time locating a corpse. He had twenty most-likely options if John had committed suicide but he didn't start checking them until the dawn. Mrs. Hudson would want a proper funeral, he figured, pushing his way through the door to the familiar roof of Bart's Hospital.
This the last place he ever expected to come back to, but John may have wanted to die here. It was arrogant thought, he knew that, but it seemed likely all the same. He opened the door to the top of Bart's hospital wing with a sickening feeling of expectation. He ignored it. This was by far the most likely. It would be a sick kind of justice.
The roof was empty. The wind blew lightly over his hair, kicking dust and dirt around him. He was wearing clothing fit for New York, loose jeans and a leather jacket. It kept the cold from distracting him. There was no sign of a body here.
His old phone was still there, lying by the far wall. Sherlock walked over to it, wondering how the police had possibly missed it, much less Mycroft's teams. It was exactly where he'd thrown it before he jumped so long ago. Two options: either Mycroft's team had found it and left it -likely, choosing to maintain the scene to hide their presence - or they were utterly incompetent. Sherlock picked up the phone, long dead after a year of rain. Idiots, either way. His new phone buzzed on; Mycroft.
:Missing Persons notified. Last spotted four days ago:
Sherlock stared at the message, feeling the wind tug at his hair. Four days. How had no one noticed John for four days? That happened to the impoverished elderly with no grown children and the homeless. Sherlock knew only too well what John's corpse would look like after four days. His stomach rolled. John's skin would be black and loose, sliding from his bones with little pressure. It was spring; his corpse would be riddled with maggots, bloated with gas, sitting in a pool of dark fluids, reeking of acetone.
He had to talk to Molly. He needed more facts, something to pin down what John might have done and where. Did John have any enemies? Sherlock tried to remember their conversations, surely, after their time together, he'd know. But Sherlock could not even say what John did in the army to learn his skills at sharpshooting, or how he'd put them to use. Who had John shot, before that telling night with the cabby? Who could have come for him now? Or was this case exactly what it seemed - a suicide by a markedly unstable, miserable veteran upon the death of his friend?
It didn't take long to sneak back through the hospital. With international plane-flight stubble and his poor attire all he'd had to do was steal a mop from a janitor's cart and walk. The inaccurately titled 'security guards' didn't apparently care that his mop was bone dry. Sherlock rushed down the steps to the hospital basement, knowing no one was likely to see him at six in the morning. He spared a glance through the doors to make sure Molly was alone and stopped short.
Damn it. Lestrade was talking to her. Apparently deciding to 'help'. The man needed to get out of the way. Sherlock had determined it safest that he not come back unless there was no possibility of John being alive, and there was still a possibility.
You have no way of calculating that dispassionately. Your numbers are flawed with sentiment. The grit on the lens.
Oh bugger it , he didn't have time. If John was dead it was all irrelevant anyway. If not, he needed to be found. Sherlock slammed through the doors.
"What do you know?" he demanded.
Molly turned, her mouth open – apparently halfway through a word with the man - blinked and licked her lips, likely thinking about how to answer him. She'd expected him. Lestrade jerked -startled by the door and turned to look at him. His face froze, looking vaguely sickened - surprise. His hand slowly opened around his coffee cup's handle, giving it time to slip. He tried to catch it but it fell and smashed to the floor, coating the tile with ceramic shards and brown liquid -coffee. The coffee flowed slowly toward the floor drain but Lestrade did not glance at it. He stared at his face, looking pale. Shock; Lestrade had not expected him – predictable. Molly licked her lips, apparently ready to talk, and Sherlock turned his attention to her.
"I last saw him months ago, when he came in for the postmortems. I gave them to him and uh – told him he couldn't leave with them. He looked them over, said he was going to join the army and left. He looked upset," she admitted, biting her lip.
She was shifting on her feet often and not quite meeting his gaze now; she probably thought herself guilty. She should have noticed something about John. Likely true.
"Hold the phone, you're alive," Lestrade said, apparently done gaping at him, but his color was still off. Too pale.
"Obvious," Sherlock said, turning back to Molly. She likely had less information but she was at least talking about the subject at hand.
"Mrs. Hudson hasn't spoken to him in months so she had no information. Gre- er- Inspector Lestrade spoke to Sarah -"
"Who?" Sherlock interrupted. Molly blinked. He'd broken some social rule. Irrelevant. She was standing on the same side of the work table as Lestrade; he was too close to her, interested in her then, but not acting on it. Irrelevant.
"And you knew about this?" Lestrade deduced, turning on Molly. Useless. He was looking less pale, that was promising.
"Er...John's boss. And ex-girlfriend?" she said, ignoring Lestrade as well. Right. The bossy woman who had helped in the case with the insane Chinese woman and her gang. Relevant only because she'd likely been the one that reported the missing person. But how had it taken four days?
"He'd called out sick recently?" he asked, turning to Lestrade.
"What are you wearing? And why are you holding a mop?" Lestrade asked instead.
Fuck off. John's body is likely so discolored liver mortis would be undetectable. Idiot.
"Why did Susan-" Sherlock started.
"Sarah," Molly interrupted. Irrelevant.
"Not contact missing persons after two days?" he demanded. Lestrade was still blinking at him like a demented fish but drew himself up, swallowing rapidly and nodding.
Just answer the bloody question. It'd almost be faster to ask Susan-Sarah himself at this rate. Almost, but probably not-
"He apparently worked all the time, almost constantly, after the uh-" Lestrade glanced at him, confused. Sherlock dug out his cellphone, getting ready to phone the clinic. The man was slow. God. He hated dealing with people; they were worse than old webpages.
"The fall," Lestrade continued, glancing at him askance again like he was going to just drop everything and explain. God. "but she said she was so used to his irregular schedule with er – with you -and he'd been so depressed that she didn't worry."
"Been depressed so she didn't worry when he disappeared?" Sherlock repeated, incredulous.
How fucking stupid could she be? The ugly cow. John's eyes would be eaten out by now, depending on where he'd killed himself. If it weren't for the woman's idiocy Sherlock could have seen the corpse sooner, when it still looked like him. Something twisted in his chest at the thought. Sherlock tried to shake the feeling away. He had to focus. Perhaps there'd be some clue, something that'd say it wasn't suicide. Mourning preemptively would hardly help John now, if there was a man left to help.
Lestrade shrugged helplessly.
"Stupid, I know," he agreed. The room fell silent and Sherlock glanced between them. That was all the information? He'd already had most of that. No use coming out of hiding after all.
I could still keep it quiet, stay hidden, Sherlock thought but he had to admit – the likelihood of John being dead already was far greater than not and if he wasn't alive it was almost certain that he desperately needed all of Sherlock's help. It wasn't Sherlock coming out of hiding that was going to kill him. All of the assassins were dead anyway; the threat was almost entirely neutralized.
Unless this is a ploy to get you out and John's dead as soon as you're seen, he thought, uncertain. He should have investigated Colonel Moran's death, should have followed up on the other murders. Idiot. His 'ally' in London may not have had the same motivations at all. When, though, when would he have done that? When he was taking down man after woman in Moriarty's organization, investigating their pasts, meticulously laying their crimes out before the law enforcement's feet while never surfacing to the light of day? Sherlock pushed his hands through his hair, feeling something like panic twisting in his gut. Yes, he should have done it then. This was John.
"I need all of the information off of this phone," he said, handing the dead phone to Lestrade without glancing at the man. Lestrade took it and Sherlock moved to leave. Lestrade was certainly going to return to Scotland Yard to assemble a team and Sherlock needed to find a way to eavesdrop.
"I'll declare him a possible victim of the Moriarty case, transfer it to my unit," Lestrade said as he left, sounding dazed.
Obvious.
"Are you okay?" Molly asked him. Utterly utterly irrelevant. Did she understand nothing? Sherlock left without answering. He had work to do.
Lestrade was waiting just outside the morgue, leaning against the wall with his neck down, as if he'd needed to put his head between his knees but couldn't contemplate sitting on the hospital floor. He was breathing irregularly and his hands were gripping his thighs too tightly; he was probably dizzy.
"This floor is regularly mopped," Sherlock commented. Lestrade picked his head up only to whiten further and stare back down at the tile.
"What?" the cop bit out. Sherlock pushed his hands into his pockets, feeling oddly self conscious about his reasoning. He threw the emotion away with the rest of them.
"You're dizzy and struggling to maintain normal breathing patterns. You should sit, but you won't because you fear the floor has bodily fluids on it. The floor, however, has been recently bleached," he repeated. It didn't seem to help. Lestrade shook his head, his jaw clenching, and glared up at him.
"You bastard," he said. Referring to his false suicide or something more immediate? Sherlock frowned, uncertain, and Lestrade shook his head again. "You bloody bastard. Poor John."
His false suicide, then. Sherlock swallowed. That had been necessary. He did not need Lestrade to understand or approve of it. It had saved lives.
John's life? His mind poked at him.
"I had no evidence that John would become suicidal at my death, nor concrete evidence that it was my death that caused it, if he has killed himself. I can only make decisions with the data at my disposal, and I made the right call at the time," Sherlock told himself. Lestrade stared at him, looking hateful, and shook his head again.
"You bloody bastard," he hissed between his teeth, and pushed himself up to lead the way toward Scotland Yard.
~~/~~
John was awake when Mike came in this time. He tried to hobble away despite telling himself to be docile and the man simply grabbed him by the hair like it was nothing and clipped him to the ceiling chain.
"Photos again tomorrow, gotta get you bloody for them," the man explained.
~~/~~
"Okay everyone, today we are dealing with a missing person's case. I know it's not really our area but as you've probably heard, it's one of our own," Lestrade started as the projector warmed up. The detectives were still getting into their seats at the tables set on either side of the room. They were quieter than usual, more somber, no sign of carry out lunches and jocular gossip; they definitely already knew. Sherlock stood in front of a storage crate in the closet, concentrating on staying absolutely still as he waited for Lestrade to get to the point.
"John Hamish Watson, 39 years old, white male, living at 72 Whitehall Lane, Apartment GH17, formally employed as a consultant here. He was last seen four days ago by Sarah Sawyer of the London Clinic in Westminster. We have no concrete reason to believe that this is related to the god-awful Moriarty case we finished up last year but the connection should be explored as much as possible," Lestrade reported. The crowd shuffled, mumbling to each other. Discomfort, discontent.
He didn't live at Baker's street? Irrelevant, but still Sherlock wanted to think about it. He forced his mind back to the subject at hand. John could be dead.
"I know, it's uncouth to mention it that way, but here's what we've discovered since then," Lestrade started.
Sherlock was ready to strangle them all as they started on Moriarty again. Why were they so slow?; this was known, it was irrelevant. Missing Person's cases became almost impossibly unlikely to close after 24 hours, half that at 48 hours and it had been 102, assuming that John had left work on time that fourth day. And they were going over what Reichenbach meant in German? Who cared about his reputation – he was dead in their minds.
Why would they possibly care, the ones who'd condemned him in the first place?Misplaced guilt? At a time like this? It didn't make sense. He was 'dead', Moriarty was dead, his criminal network mostly dismantled; the connection was gone. Useless. The only fear left was that Moriarty had a contingency plan for his fake death off the rooftop but they weren't talking about that, they were talking about the life and crimes of Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock pushed his fingers against his lips, thinking. He had to admit; it was possible Moriarty had out thought him one last time, but if so, it wasn't likely that John was dead. It didn't seem Moriarty's way; he wouldn't just shoot John. It didn't fit the game, it would mean Moriarty's death was meaningless, that they were never matching intellects, just matching what the other one was willing to do, how far into hell they were willing to march.
You're boring. You're on the side of the angels.
Oh, god. If he'd misunderstood the puzzle the whole time? If there weren't any rules at all, Moriarty had simply been causing pain, almost randomly. How many times had John told him it wasn't a game? If he'd been right? The thought made bile try to rise up in Sherlock's stomach and he forced it down.
Lord, but he was grateful the idiot detectives had moved on from talking about his reputation. John was almost certainly dead. The question now was simply why and where and who he needed to throw off a rooftop.
"We've recovered this off of the late Sherlock Holmes' phone," Lestrade said, his eyes glancing to Sherlock's closet. Two options, random chance or he'd figured out that Sherlock would be there. The man was smarter than he looked but he was still too slow.
What did you get off of the phone?
That would confirm it. If they got anything relevant off the phone, it had to be Moriarty. Sherlock felt his heart beating wildly, and forced it to slow down. He was hoping for a message from Moriarty, something that would show John was a captive, not a missing body.
"We got this sheet from the phone company. I'm not going to cut out the private correspondence, because we don't know what could be relevant, but it's short," Lestrade said, attempting to meet Sherlock's gaze through the crack in the closet door. Sherlock ignored him as the projector finally did its damn job.
Six texts to his phone from the same number.
15/6/2012 How'd you do it?
15/6/2012 Why'd you do it?
20/6/2012 Did you do it for me?
20/6/2012 I loved you, you idiot.
15/6/2013 I keep waiting for you to come home. Every time a door opens. I can't keep waiting, Sherlock.
Sherlock stared at the ceiling to clear his eyes. He couldn't read when they were fucking wet for no reason and there was one last text, from an unknown number. That last had sounded like a suicide note. And he needed to know.
God, no. His heart was pounding sickly.
20/6/2012 I loved you, you idiot. Loved how? That didn't sound platonic. Surely he hadn't missed that? Sherlock swallowed. Surely not. People were more dramatic when grieving. That was all. He would not take this hint of something more and drag himself mad with it.
"So it was all true, sir? Moriarty? Sherlock Holmes killed himself, but he was innocent?" one of the officers asked. Sherlock wiped at his eyes and glared at the screen until he could read it.
6/15/13 Come and find your pet, sexy. You should take better care of your things.
Unknown number. Sherlock inhaled sharply, too loud in his hiding place.
Thank god, yes . And they were asking about his bloody reputation again? Not a suicide, almost certainly not a suicide. Moriarty's contingency plan. Which meant John was possibly alive.
And it'd never been a game. Moriarty had never left a way for Sherlock Holmes to win. No, he'd simply been about causing pain. Boring, and what John had seen all along. Given that, there was no way to say that John was alive, except that a man like Jim Moriarty would have wanted to cause as much pain as possible beyond his death, draw it out, send these texts.
Idiot. It meant one more puzzle to solve. He had to find John, before Moriarty's trap was sprung. He could save John.
Unless it's too late. Sherlock quashed the thought. He had to think.
The text didn't say anything about using or ignoring the police. And Moriarty had never had an issue with his police support before.
"Sir, if Sherlock Holmes is dead, how are we going to find Watson?" a male cop asked, not bothering to raise his hand. The rest of the room quieted, guilt thick in the air.
Lestrade looked uncomfortable.
"With the resources of the London police force, we should be able to narrow it down," Lestrade replied. Lying, clearly. They wouldn't get anywhere. Why lie? That was only wasting time. The assassins were irrelevant now; this was Moriarty's final play.
He'd never been so grateful to whatever hitman had taken out Moriarty's assassins one by one over the last year; he could save John with minimal risk. Sherlock had a strong feeling he wasn't supposed to be grateful for that, not when it required two men and a woman to be drugged to death in the back of a car. But Sherlock did not care about two men and a woman, he cared about John Watson, and as long as Moriarty chose to torture him, he'd have a chance. He had a feeling he wasn't supposed to be hopeful for that either.
But he'll heal, and we'll be back.
Sherlock winced at his thoughts. They'd never be back. John still thought he was dead. John would never forgive that. Sherlock could feel that in his bones, knew that when he'd had John on the phone, just before he jumped. John would never forgive him.
Irrelevant. Find John. There is no way the police force would find John on their own.
Sherlock took out his phone and opened a text message.
:Wrong: He texted and the officer's phones buzzed and beeped and chimed.
"Sherlock Holmes," a female officer commented quietly to the man beside her. The man was still staring at his phone, his mouth agape. Lestrade did not bother looking at his own, he was staring back at Sherlock's closet, his eyebrows raised.
"We never did find out how he did that," Donovan complained.
"You're not going to find him by looking for a missing person," Sherlock commented as he walked out of the closet. The door smacked some uniformed woman. Hardly pertinent. "The greater question is what's the motive? If I find John, what happens? How could he draw this out? Where's his fun in this?" Sherlock asked, ignoring the sudden noise in the room, grateful when it suddenly went silent again.
What are they confused about? Sherlock wondered, glancing around at the officers still staring at him. A man in the corner had his gun unholstered and trained on Sherlock's chest.
The officers all stared, many with their hands on their gun belts.
"Cheers, Sherlock," Lestrade growled. An officer pushed his head between his knees the same way Lestrade had in the hallway. Sherlock sneered at them. They were wasting time.
"If you're going to be sick, leave the room. It'd be distracting," Sherlock ordered, turning back to Lestrade. Didn't they see? This was had to happennow. Lestrade had a fist pressed against his mouth, looking almost as shocked as he had in the morgue hallway.
"You bastard," Donovan bit out. Sherlock turned toward her, frowning.
"Why does everyone keep calling me that?" he asked rhetorically, before turning back to Lestrade. "What are we waiting for? If John is alive, it's for a very limited time," he pointed out, though he was sure the cop knew that. Lestrade ran his hand through his hair, looking harried, and glanced over his officers.
"Ladies and Gentleman, the genius prick is alive. I'm sorry, I know it's a shock, but we have to move on. John Watson is one of ours, and he is likely in a very bad situation right now," he pointed out. The officers started to lower their guns, still looking distrustful. Most of their fingers were still on their sidearms, half lifted from their holsters. That was probably the best they were going to get, Sherlock decided.
"Thank you. Now, think people, what's Moriarty's aim?" he repeated.
"Game? God, Sherlock," Anderson said, looking like he was about to get ill. His hair was different, longer now and somehow even more greasy. Sherlock sneered at him. This wasn't complicated and they'd all worked the Moriarty case before. They knew how he liked to set up competitions. Still, the fool was at least on the right topic.
"So you just jumped, engineered it all, and never answered any of these texts?" Donovan demanded, pointing to the projector. She had cut her hair shorter, had it held back with a heavy clip. Her dog had died, or she'd finally given the neglected thing away. He couldn't tell if she still smelled like Anderson. The cop in the corner started taking notes, looking rather awkwardly about at his comrades. A new recruit, and a confused one. Sherlock glanced at the texts on the board.
20/6/2012 I loved you, you idiot.
"What possible relevance could that have?" Sherlock asked, praying she'd have some kind of reason behind her question. She'd seemed halfway intelligent when she'd accused him of kidnapping and murder.
"Relevance?" she asked, sounding choked too, now.
"Yes, relevance, or have you already forgotten the case here?" he snarled.
What could possibly be more pertinent?
And he was standing in this damn room with these idiots so they would help him find John, not slow him down.
"Okay, people, I know it's a tall task but we need to ignore our shock right now. Sherlock Holmes is alive and we have already determined that he's innocent so let us work with him. We have to get to work here. Quickly. I want a scouting between Watson's workplace and his home, Bart's hospital, 221B Baker Street, anything and everything people," Lestrade ordered, taking control, and the room finally started to empty.
"Donovan, Sherlock, anyone who doesn't already got something to do, stay here, let's get something resembling a plan going."
"First of all, get a new phone set to that number; we're going to want to know the instant Sherlock is contacted again," Donovan suggested and Lestrade nodded.
A bright remark from her again, Sherlock noted.
There was nothing else to do but wait. He'd checked everything in John's life and Mycroft had no doubt gone further. They could not check the whole city. So either Moriarty had a plan that was going to kill John or a plan that'd give him a clue. Sherlock took a seat at the long table at the side of the room, stretching his legs out to get comfortable. He didn't plan to get up until he'd figured out Moriarty's move. Whatever it was, it had been arranged before he died. The officers stared at him uselessly and ran about making phone calls to determine where John Watson wasn't.
Perhaps Moriarty had been using yet another actor to play his words again – that he was the ghost writer behind that short man's words? Sherlock blinked, considering that option before dismissing the idea. That had only really been a possibility up until the man and gone and shot himself through the skull. It was difficult to pay a man enough for that one and regardless – he'd been too damn skilled – faking gay, leaving every subtle physical hint without being obvious, just enough to be utterly boring – irrelevant, he'd thought this before. No, Moriarty was dead, they were just watching his last move play out.
He needed to get ahead this time, find John faster than expected, before this whole thing had time to unfold.
~~/~~
Author's Note:
Thank you all so much for everything you've done to help my career. I have the best job in the world. My Book is Coming Out! See first pages and Preorder Here:
Amazon dot com / dp / B00U8CR1L6