Eleven Weeks and Two Days Ago. 221B Baker Street
John arrived early the next morning, baby Rosie in arms. He had arranged with Molly the night before for her to take the baby to the Battersea Children's Zoo, while he and Sherlock worked on the case. Sherlock didn't think a visit to the zoo, an activity where she'd be out of doors for hours at a time, offered the level of safety he felt she required, but she was adamant.
"I'm not going to be a prisoner, Sherlock," she told him. "There are three men with guns that are going to be within spitting distance of us the entire day."
But he growled in response. So she placed a hand on his cheek and said "I don't need to deal with two babies today, Sherlock." John was secretly amused at the undercurrent of flirtiness between them and wondered if they themselves were at all aware of it.
As Sherlock went to put Rosie's stroller in the security-driven vehicle downstairs, Molly used the opportunity of being alone with John to ask him a question. "John," she said, looking to make sure Sherlock was still downstairs with the car, "Sherlock isn't telling me almost anything about the case. Is there anything I should know? Anything important he's keeping from me?"
John was so conflicted. He did think Molly should know about the photo text Sherlock had received two nights ago, but he also didn't want to go against Sherlock's wishes. In the end, he decided to trust Sherlock's judgment and hoped he'd made the right decision. "Anything you should know, Sherlock will tell you sooner or later." The addition of the phrase "sooner or later" bought him plausible deniability, but he still felt a bit shitty about keeping something so potentially important from her. God he hoped Sherlock was right.
"So," John began, after Rosie and her Godmother departed for the day, "you and Molly living together. Interesting turn of events." Sherlock eyed him, annoyance in his eyes, daring him to say anything more.
"John, if you'd be so good as to keep your puerile insinuations to yourself, we have a case to solve."
"What insinuations did I make? I merely remarked on a fact, a very interesting fact, in fact."
"Stop it, John."
"I could make some interesting deductions."
"That's not your area of expertise. I pray you to know your limits. Now can we please get to work?"
"Alright, alright. Where are we now?" Sherlock explained the developments of the previous night. "So, do you think Forster is involved in sending the package?"
"Involved, yes, but how and why? What would be his gain in all this?" As he stood pondering this question, his mobile phone rang. Lestrade. "Greg?"
"We finally got a hit on those partial fingerprints you lifted from the batteries inside the, um . . . "
"Vibrator?" Sherlock said, trying to help out the Scotland Yard detective.
"Yes. It took a long time because we didn't come up with anything from British arrest records. Then we searched INTERPOL's records and got nothing. It took some convincing, but I got them to check American fingerprint databases, thinking about the connections you found and guess what?"
"Just tell me, Greg."
"A hit. A prostitute named Gina Wilson. And guess where her home base is?"
"New York City." It was more of a statement than a question from Sherlock, feeling that pieces were clicking into their proper place at last.
"That's it alright."
"Do you have a photograph? Her mugshot?"
"Sending it to your e-mail right now."
"And her arrest records."
"That too."
"Thanks Greg." They rang off.
John couldn't help himself. "You said 'vibrator.'"
"Grow up, John." John laughed.
"Another link to New York?"
"Yes, a prostitute. Greg's sending me her information now. While I'm looking at that, you can comb through these." And Sherlock handed John several sheets of papers.
"And these are?"
"A record of everything Simon Forster did with his credit and debit cards while in New York—personal and well as business accounts. Look for anything unusual, particularly anything around a week and a half ago when he downloaded the photographs onto a disk drive. Anything that might reveal where he was or who he might have been with. I'll look into our American lady of the evening."
Sherlock had found that Gina Wilson—aka Candi Wilson, aka Gigi Wilson—had been arrested for solicitation three times, tending to ply her trade in the bars of the most expensive hotels in the city. Apparently a night with Gina, Candi, or Gigi could cost anywhere between $1500 and $2000 a night. He made a list of the three hotels she had been arrested at and looked at the areas they were in NYC as well as their price range to see potential places she might be likely to pursue her vocation.
John interrupted to tell him an item of interest he found while perusing Forster's financials. "Almost everything he did the whole three weeks were on his corporate card. Expense account, I presume. Except three consecutive nights in a row he took $2000 out of ATMs. All came out of his personal checking."
Now Sherlock was excited. He bounded around the flat.
John asked him, "What? Does that mean something to you?" Sherlock came practically skipping over to his seated friend, grabbed him and hugged him. "Get off me," John said, confused.
"It means it's time to visit the ever-delightful Simon Forster again. The game, John! The game is on!"
"I really hate that expression."
"No you don't. You know you love it."
As co-founder of the Forster-Michaels Consulting Group, Simon Forster's office sat in a newly redeveloped area in Canary Wharf. Just what they consulted about was unclear. John and Sherlock arrived there in the early afternoon after arguing three times on the way about whether to stop at a chips shop or not.
"But there's a really good one just down the road," Sherlock pleaded.
"There's always a really good one right down the road. This is London." John finally gave up and they stopped for chips. "I swear, one day the Potato Council is going name you man of the year. It wouldn't surprise me if you starting ordering chips with a side of crisps." At the sight of Sherlock taking that as a suggestion, he regretted putting the idea in the detective's head.
The Forster-Michaels Group's office occupied the tenth floor of the building and required guests to be escorted up to them. The two men gave fake names and waited for someone to come to the lobby to fetch them. Instead, four very large, very threatening-looking men stepped off the elevator and approached them in a menacing manner.
"Sherlock Holmes?" One of the men asked. Shit, Sherlock thought, they know who we are. But neither he nor John responded. The man continued, "Mr. Forster asked that we deliver this letter to you from his solicitor and requests that you leave the building immediately."
Sherlock just took the letter and placed it, unopened, into a coat pocket. He and John turned around to leave but Sherlock turned around again to look at the four men still lined up at the security desk and said to the one who had handed him the letter, "By the way, that man"—Sherlock pointed to the man to his immediate right—"is sleeping with your wife." The man on the right appeared guilty and horrified while the other looked at him with growing anger. Turning to John, Sherlock said, "Let's go John. Things are about to get very ugly."
John couldn't believe it. Sherlock actually stopped and got takeaway chips for the return to Baker Street. What must his cholesterol numbers be, John thought.
"So the solicitor's letter, are you going to read it?" John asked.
"Why bother? I know what it says. 'All questions to Mr. Forster must go through his solicitor. He's outraged by his treatment at Gatwick. Blah blah blah. Here, you can read it if you like." Sherlock threw the letter at him. John opened it, only to confirm that it said exactly what Sherlock said it would.
"Now what?"
Sherlock paced a few times, lost in thought. "I guess that means we'll have to pay him a visit at his home."
"He'll never let us in." Sherlock shot him a look that told him that they wouldn't be "asking" to come in. "Ok, well, even if we get in anyway and confront him, Sherlock, he's not going to talk. He obviously knows he's in some trouble and is just going to call his solicitor."
"It's all about the proper motivation, John." Sherlock went to one of his drawers and pulled out his gun.
"Oh, Jesus Christ, Sherlock. No, you're not taking a gun."
"I don't see why not."
"You don't? Really? You're too worked up about this case to be carrying a loaded weapon around."
"I'm not any more worked up about this case than any other."
"You may be able to lie to yourself and you may be able to lie to Molly, but not to me."
"John, it's just a motivational tool. You said yourself that he's not going to just have an honest little chat with us over tea and biscuits." John thought hard for a minute and then seemed to have an idea. He hoped Sherlock would agree with his safer plan.
Sherlock and Molly shared leftovers from the previous night's meal. She tried to get him to eat more of the salad, but Sherlock insisted on only having the lasagna. "No," he demurred, "I can't eat roughage more than once a month. My system can't handle it."
"Yes, I'm sure it's quite unused to anything of the color green."
"Ah, Molly? John and I have something to do quite late this evening. I may be gone for several hours. Have one of the members of your surveillance come inside and stay with you while I'm out."
"Oh for God's sake, Sherlock. One's right outside that door at this moment. I don't need a babysitter. I'm not Rosie."
"Really? Because you're having a childish temper tantrum right now."
"You're the one who's been treating me like a child. I'm the one who received the damn package, yet I'm not allowed to know what the Hell is going on in my own case. You get to pick and choose what information I do and do not get, you've tried to choose where I get to live and what I get to do. What are you doing tonight with John? Does it have to do with my case?" Sherlock just crossed his arms, not answering. "You asked me to trust you, but you don't trust me."
"It's not that I don't trust you. I don't trust myself," Sherlock exploded at her, getting up from the table and knocking the chair out from under himself. "I don't trust myself not to completely fuck up this case. It's hard enough to do the work I have to do without worrying even more about you than I already do. Can't you see? I don't have the answers yet. I don't know what the endgame is about here. Are you in physical danger? Or is all of this just a massive mindfuck? I DON'T KNOW. And I'm scared out of my mind that I won't know until it's too late, like I did with Mary." At this, he choked up a little.
Molly softened at his obvious pain and distress. She moved toward him, to touch him and give him reassurance. "Sherlock . . . "
He backed away from her. "No, no. I fucked up. And I can't lose . . . I can't. I can't worry about both your physical safety and your emotional well-being and trust that I'm doing everything I can to solve this case."
"Sherlock, you're being too hard on your . . . "
"There's no room for error here," he said, his anger so clearly self-directed. Molly moved toward him again. This time he didn't move away.
Her hand went to touch his cheek and he closed his eyes in equal parts exhaustion and relief. "Sherlock," she whispered softly. Just as her hand finished caressing his face and she started to pull away, he grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him, resting his forehead on hers. His breathing quickened; hers practically stilled. He placed both hands on the sides of her head and started to kiss her gently on the lips. At first, Molly didn't respond, but, just as she began to part her lips, he seemed to realize what he was doing and jumped backwards away from her. He looked frenetically everywhere but directly at her.
"I'm sorry," he said, as he ran from the flat.
"Sherlock?" Molly called after him too late, for he was already gone.
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