Chapter Six

I made my hiding spot inside a shrub by the entrance to the café. My phone propped against my left knee, pointing through the branches towards the street. Rain drops trickled across the screen. I'd barely been here for fifteen minutes, yet hours of anticipation had passed.

Another car passed across the screen. A green hummer, muddy from off-roading. Going significantly faster than any other car on the road. They didn't stop, obviously. The gust they produced was so loud, it nearly overtook a faint rumble from my left.

I shifted my head to the left, glimpsing towards the source. A grey Honda civic, recently washed, was merging in from a side-street. Tires new. License plate local, Washington. A third sticker rest beside the vehicle inspection notice. A car rental agency was listed beside it. Promising.

Careful not to budge, I turned my phone towards the car and pressed record. My eyes drifted from the screen to the sight ahead. The license plate was just as pristine as the rest of the car, number NZ1 8P9K, framed with the name of the rental agency. The car turned into the lot. I could barely make out the image of the driver from this distance. It was an adult somewhere between 5'8" and 6"0", Caucasian with dark hair, no fringe, which was either long for a man or short for a woman. They were in an old v-neck shirt, light for the weather.

The car's pace slowed considerably, drifting closer to the café. The driver turned their head towards the building, searching. This had to be them. I ran my fingers across the screen, zooming in on the face. I stopped mid-movement at the sight.

It was father.

No. Perhaps. He didn't match any projections of how he should've aged, but the likeness was near exact to his last known appearance. From the wisps of his eyebrows as they grew wider yet thinner as they moved away from the center of his face to the freckle a few inches beneath his right eye, this man embodied the late Siger Holmes.

On some level, I'd known it could be. There was a note. On another, there were enough inconsistencies to doubt it. For all I could be certain, this was the work of a plastic surgeon and a stranger who knew he had a fortune to lay claim to. But, the likeness was flawless. There'd never been a body. Occam's razor. This was him.

I pulled my hands out of the branches, slipped the phone into my pocket, leaned back against the wall and stood in wait. The branches scratched at my hair. There may have been leaves involved, but I couldn't focus on that. All the attention I had was set on his face.

Father turned his head towards the passenger side window. He stared through it, at me. For a moment, it seemed he was barely breathing from the shock. I pushed through the bushes and wandered towards the car.

He reached across to the passenger side door and rolled down the window. As the glass gave way, I could see the popped blood vessels and glossy overlay of contacts irritating his eyes. Rain seeped through my shirt, the wind chilling my back.

We stared at each other for ten seconds, my words locked in my throat. He broke the silence. "You came."

"Obviously."

Father swallowed. His eyes shifted towards the lock on the passenger side door. A slight shake passed through his fingers as he clutched the plastic handle and pushed it open. "Get in."

I pulled my rucksack off my shoulder, dropped it on the floor and slid into the adjacent seat. My head turned towards him, waiting for a signal. He swallowed a breath, visibly anxious. Otherwise, he wasn't speaking.

"What happened? Why are you back?" I asked abruptly.

Father reached towards the drivers side-view mirror. He stared at the surface, adjusting it. His stare never broke, as if intentionally not facing me. "Down. Below the window. Use the seat belt."

I slid further down the seat, shrinking from sight until my eyes were level with the arm rest. I'd had to turn and bend my legs just to fit. A paper mat crinkled under my boots. The car was close to pristine, filled with the overpowering scent of multiple air fresheners. There was no trash, no music, and the dial on the radio hadn't been turned for hours, if the dead frequency it was on was proof. Even the glove compartment door lacked scratches.

I looked to the rear-view mirror, struggling to catch sight of any part of my father from here. The side of his neck reflected overhead. He shifted the gear into reverse, leaving the lot.

"Where're you going?" I asked over.

"Thruway. Harder to track."

"Then why—"

Father cleared his throat. "Slow. Calm. We'll get to it."

I turned my head, looking towards another mirror. If I concentrated, I could make out an occasional road sign. We'd turned at the entrance ramp and were approaching eastward. He was telling enough truth to be honest, but eliminating enough answers to be deeply unsettling.

I waited for one more second before speaking. "Contacts?"

"Eyes aren't what they used to be."

Father's hand reached up to adjust the upper mirror. From the angle he had moved it to, I could presume it was mine. His stare lingered on me in reluctant awe. "You changed. So much. Too much, maybe. I'm sorry for that, genuinely. Before anything else, I need you to know."

"Then start explaining."

He raised the mirror towards the back, and then looked back to the windshield. Though his expression was obscured, I could hear hesitance twist his voice. "I had to go, for your mother, your brothers, you. Only way to keep you from being dragged in-"

"To what?"

He exhaled deeply, still tense. "To save your lives. To, to keep him away from your mother. Your brothers. You." I couldn't read his expression, but it sounded genuine.

"From Moriarty?"

Father hunched over the steering wheel, avoiding my gaze in favor of the road. "From a serial killer. A stalker. The kind of demon you don't believe exists until it crosses your path. He, would have killed you to get to me, so I left. That's who," he confessed, as if assuming I hadn't read his letter or gotten the general message from any other statement he'd made in the last 24 hours.

I did my best not to sound impatient. "The clarification's appreciated, but why is that relevant, now?"

"Because you have to trust me."

"No I don't."

"You listened to get in the car."

"That seemed necessary."

I tilted my head to face him as best I could, striving to catch a glimpse of anything I could read from down here, yet all I could see was that his shoes were newly polished. I closed my eyes instead.

"Why not call the police?" I asked.

"I did. They wouldn't listen. Claimed the killings were bear attacks. No evidence, at least, not the kind that's admissible in court. I found him, then he found me. I fled overseas. He's been chasing me ever since."

"Why come to me?"

"When you came here, you came to him. We've been stateside for months. Thank God I found you first." Father changed the dial on the heating vents, turning it on slightly—made sense enough, considering the shirt he was in—and then set that hand on my upper arm. I could feel the chill through my pea-coat. "You have to come with me, Sherlock. Out of town. Today. Only way I can protect you."

Within a second, I was hit with a sudden sense of haziness. I pressed my hand over my mouth, masking a searing itch through a cough. My pulse jumped in my ears, rattling twice as frequently as it should. Mucus dripped on my palm. I tried to sniffle it away, but it kept running regardless. Even considering what I'd pulled at school, this wasn't right.

I turned towards my left and slid my hand into my pocket, gripping my phone. I fumbled through the fabric to grab the SIM card and jammed it back inside. My fingers ran across the screen, trying to remember the keys without looking at them. I struggled to breathe past the boulder crushing my chest which didn't exist, but felt as if it were. "Where?"

"Vancouver. Victoria. Somewhere outside of the states. Make it harder for him to follow."

I slid my mobile onto the floor beneath my leg. The display screen charged up as the carrier flashed on screen, the signal re-connecting the phone. I struggled against my increasingly shaky hand to type a number in.

"Documentation?" I asked, increasingly breathless.

"Two doctored passports in the glove compartment. Your name's Robert."

I could barely sense my fingertips jab against the screen to type out an SOS to that Hooper girl. It was her or Mycroft and she'd ask fewer questions. If no message in two hours, report stolen car license no nz1 8p9k. may need help – sh.

I was about to press send when I heard the heater. It was clicking periodically, like a gear to a clock. I stared into the vent. A thin plastic pipe pointed back, swaying with the air inside. I couldn't tell where that pipe ran, but it probably involved an airborne toxin consistent with nerve gas. If it was, then the dosage was low.

I made a point of slowing my breathing, then looked to father. He stared ahead, still driving, completely unaffected.

My stare drifted downwards, towards the mark on his wrist. Four scars, each of them indented, faintly red, spaced at the same distance as incisors, similar to what I'd seen on John. Maybe this was what he knew.

I added John's number to the message, pressed send, and tucked the phone back into my pocket. I lifted my heavy hand towards the window crank. My finger grazed the handle.

"We're moving. Don't," father ordered.

My throat was so irritated, I could barely finish the word. "But," I coughed.

Father's eyes darted towards me for such a short time, I may have imagined it. "What? What is it?"

"The car… someone… tampered, drugged car," I coughed again.

I watched the car door through a squint. The textured plastic started twisting into a swirl of barely distinguishable nothing, to the point where I could barely make out the handle overhead.

Father's voice echoed around me, muffled but bouncing, as if his words were being swallowed in cotton. "Don't worry. I'll take care of it."

Before I could perceive so much as a sound, I felt something solid smash against the back of my head. The world cut to black.