“Sorry it took us so long to come get you,” Lock said. “I thought Mycroft’s car would be better than a cab.”
“How did you know to come over at all?”
Lock held gauze across my scratches, which instantly started to sting. “I couldn’t sleep, so I kept checking out the window to see if your house lights came on. I first saw the body at 5:45. It wasn’t there at 5:15. It was Constance Ross, yes? The woman who’d given a statement against you?”
I nodded. I must have been shivering again, because he held my hand still without taping the gauze down for a few seconds. I looked up at his eyes, which were bloodshot and glassy. “You didn’t sleep.”
“I told you I wouldn’t.” He tilted his head a bit and lifted a brow—his way of asking if I was okay. I didn’t answer.
“I need to go to Alice. I don’t think her mobile’s on, and she needs to know what’s happened.”
“Alice knows,” Mycroft said. “I told her as soon as Sherlock called me.”
“And you can’t go to the hospital. The police will be waiting there for you.”
Really, it didn’t matter if they were there or not. All that mattered was getting Alice and my brothers out of town as soon as possible. I thought to plead my case with Mycroft, but he looked pensive as he turned down a side street to avoid the traffic ahead. And when he caught me watching him, he shook his head, as if he somehow already knew what I was about to say and had already decided against it. So, when he rolled to a stop at a light, I made my own decision.
“I’m out of here, then.” I grabbed for the door handle, but the locks engaged before I could open it.
“Just a minute,” Lock said, his eyes moving back and forth as he calculated something. “If I can just find the reason . . .”
“Unlock it,” I said to Mycroft, trying my best to be commanding. “Neither of you should be seen with me. It’ll only mean questions and rumors.” I pushed to unlock the door manually, but it locked again immediately.
Mycroft sounded playful when he ignored me and said, “Sherlock will put it together eventually.”
“Seriously. Let me out.”
“She knew something!” Lock cried. “Constance Ross knew something important.”
“Yes. She knew that I’d tossed the murder weapon.”
Sherlock waved his hand through the air, like he could bat away my words. “No. It had to be something more important than that. Something bigger. Her statement about you doesn’t matter, because the police already have the sword. They’ve already heard the accusation. There has to be something else she might say if she’s medicated. Something about the killer.”
“There he is,” Mycroft said. “And that means . . .”
“I’ve been an idiot!”
Mycroft smiled widely. “That’s true on more days than not, but I’ll listen.”
Lock’s eyes were calculating again, but they were brighter from his discovery. “You were right. This isn’t Lily Patel.”
The minute he said her name, some pieces started to come together for me. Pieces like a high-end boutique that sells costume jewelry and handbags—the kind of bags that Lily collected. Like magazines culled from the doctor’s office where her mother worked. Like a little red dot sitting in Regent’s Park while my blue dot danced around it, all while I’d been standing near Lily.
She hadn’t had the burner phone. And I’d seen myself the way the little blue dot moved off while Lily stood right next to me. But the phone could have been passed off to someone else right before we got there. “It can’t be her,” I said with less vigor.
I’ll help you, she’d said. But we weren’t friends. We’d never been friends. And what was that she’d said about a killer and a thief? Did her family have a killer too?
“What is it?” Lock asked. “You’re frowning.”
“Tell me why you know it’s not her,” I said, which made Lock study my expression.
Still, he answered me. “The motive of this doesn’t match her. She’d never do anything that might make your father look innocent of the Regent’s Park crimes. If she’s coming for you, it’s because she wants both of you in prison, not you at the expense of your father going free.”
I nodded. It couldn’t be Lily who killed Constance anyway. She was with me all night.
Until she left in the wee hours of the morning. Before the killer had struck.
“It is possible that whoever is behind this wants me to think that Lily is involved?” I asked.
Lock asked, “How so?”
“She collects handbags, like the ones at the boutique at Church Street. The message was built from magazines at her mother’s work. The burner phone led us right to her last night, and a body turns up on my front porch the morning after Lily spends her first ever night in my house. Too many pieces there for them all to be coincidence.”
“Could it be her?” Mycroft asked.
“No. Lock is right. She wants my father to rot forever in prison. She would never do anything that might give anyone even the tiniest doubt of his guilt.”
“And we saw the burner phone moving away from her,” Lock added. “We know that the person holding that mobile is the one who called in accusations about Mori.”
We all fell into a thoughtful silence for a while. I thought about bringing up my theory about her passing off the phone, but his thinking on the motive was right. Not that it helped me to know she didn’t do it. Deciding who wasn’t our culprit did nothing at all to solve the actual problem at hand. I could come up with a hundred people who didn’t kill Constance Ross, but that wouldn’t stop me from being arrested for a crime I didn’t commit. And, at the moment, I had no other suspect to offer them in my stead. I was just the girl who had stepped over a dead body to flee from the scene in front of witnesses. Just like everyone would expect of me.
I sat up straighter in my seat. All my enemies would expect me to shout my innocence until the end. Even my father would expect me to evade police and lie about what had happened and when. The very last thing anyone would expect was for me to come clean, which was why telling Mallory everything was the exact right thing to do. And I needed to do it as soon as possible.
This time I didn’t give Mycroft any warning.
I pushed to unlock my door and jumped out. I ran down the street, though I didn’t know where I was going. I only knew it felt good to be out in the city, to feel the drizzle on my face, to be anonymous on an anonymous street. But then the buildings got nicer, all red brick with perfect white windows and white brick trims, and I knew I was in Mayfair. I walked to a crossing and saw the Italian flag on one side of the street up ahead and the low shrubbery wall of Grosvenor Square on the other. Which meant I was only a ten-minute walk from where I needed to be—West End Central Police Station.
I stood at that corner for a few minutes as all the other pedestrians picked a direction to cross, and I couldn’t find it in me to take the crosswalk to my right. I stared down the path I would take, tracing it as far as I could see, which is when I noticed Sherlock, leaning back against the red postbox to my left, hands in pockets, like he was just waiting to see what I’d choose.
I was sure Lock had been following me since I jumped from the town car, but he hadn’t yet approached. I should’ve been grateful for that, really, but instead it made me a little sad. Perhaps he’d heard what I’d said in the car after all, that he shouldn’t be seen with me. That was still true, but I didn’t believe he cared all that much about things like appearances and associations. Still, when he did approach, I’d only have to send him off again. I couldn’t let him get involved with this any more—not when someone was killing people to get my attention.
But the very thought of sending him off made a question pop into my mind.
Was this the place where our “temporary” became “finished”?
Pain lanced through my chest. I closed my eyes against it and crossed my arms, then another set of arms held me too. Did my pain draw him to me? He managed to a
lways be there when I was falling apart. He pressed his cheek against my hair and pulled me back against him.
“Tell me what to do,” Lock said.
Was this where I was supposed to become a noble girl? Because a girl more noble than me would pick a fight and tell lies until her boy ran off, hurt but safer for being apart from her. I, on the other hand, leaned back in Lock’s arms, closed my eyes as he tightened them around me. I’d never been very good at being selfless. But I couldn’t let him be ruined either.
“Call your brother. Have him take you to the hospital.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be at the West End station, waiting for Alice.”
Lock turned me around to face him, and even though we were still standing close, even though his hands were still on my arms, I suddenly felt cold. Another slash of pain shot through me. Could I do it? Could I become that noble girl?
“You’re giving up? You’re just going to walk into a police station and turn yourself in? For what? You didn’t do anything.”
“Better to walk in by myself then let those smug bastards catch me and feel accomplished for it, right?” I wondered what Mallory’s expression would be when I finally told him the truth about everything. I found I couldn’t even guess.
“Then I’m going with you.”
I shook my head. “Not this time.” I reached up to rest my hand against his cheek. “I need you to help Alice get the boys ready to leave town.”
“Leave?” His hands dropped from my arms, and the cold seeped through my skin to my veins. It was all I could do to keep from shivering.
“She’ll need help with Michael. He’ll still need medical care, and they won’t want to let her take him from the hospital.”
Sherlock stared at the sidewalk. “Will you leave too?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. I knew I couldn’t leave. They probably wouldn’t let me, even if I wanted to. “But if they let my father out, my brothers aren’t safe here. I need them to be safe.”
“Mycroft can help them. I’m going with you.”
I looked up then, waited until he did as well before I spoke again. “What can you do?” I hadn’t meant to sound so cruel, but my tone affected Lock enough that I knew pressing a few more buttons would possibly send him away from me after all. “What is it you think you can do for me there? Do you think they’ll let you sit in the interview room and hold my hand? Do you think they’ll listen to your theories? Can you logic away the death of a witness against me?”
“I’ll clear your name.”
“How?”
He didn’t have an answer, and I knew he wouldn’t, but still he persisted. “I’ll find a way.”
“How will you do that from inside a police station, Sherlock?” I watched a pack of students cross the street to the square, sack lunches in their hands. “Nothing you say holds any weight with the police. Especially not now that you’ve been stained by me.” I looked back at Lock, and he was scowling in that way that meant he was about to argue with me. “You said you wanted to do this work in future? Then do it properly. You can’t let your emotions get in the way, and you can’t do a proper job if you’re with me.”
His expression fell blank and I crossed my arms and closed my eyes to make it through another flare of pain.
“Go and help Alice. Tell her what’s happened. Then—”
“Then I find the real killer.”
I nodded and offered up the best smile I could in the circumstances. And then I backed up a step. And another.
“I’ll find out who it was,” he said.
I nodded again, knowing I should have reassured him a little more. But it was all I could do to keep myself walking away from him, when every step I took made me feel colder and more alone.
Chapter 23
It was strangely freeing to walk into the police station on my own. No one recognized me at first, or cared why I was there. So I found a row of chairs across from the front desk and sat in the one farthest from the door. It took exactly seven minutes before I got a panicked phone call from Alice.
“Where are you?” she demanded, like she seemed to always do these days.
The constable behind the desk glared at me as I answered. “I need you to come meet me. I’m at the police station in the waiting area.”
“Huh.” She laughed a little. “You’re a constant surprise. I thought for sure you’d lied to your boy.” Alice lowered her voice and I could almost see her con mask settling in over her features. “Get out of there. We’ll find another way.” She definitely no longer sounded panicked.
I shook my head and met the eyes of the constable, who seemed suddenly much more interested in me. “This is the way. Come down and we’ll listen to their accusations.”
Alice paused a few seconds just as the constable made a phone call, his gaze never leaving mine.
“Do you have an alibi?” Alice asked. “Do I need to create one?”
“I don’t have one that will help. But you’d better get here soon. I think they’ve finally discovered me.”
I heard Mallory’s voice in the background of Alice’s call. “She is where?!”
A sudden amusement overtook Alice’s voice when she said, “Seems you’re right. Should I just hitch a ride with the inspector? It would save on petrol.”
I smiled, despite everything. I was starting to wonder if Alice wasn’t the best gift my mother ever gave me. “You are nothing if not conscientious.”
The constable must have been given orders to stay put, but another uniformed officer came out from the back to stand near the door, which meant I wasn’t to leave either. I toyed with the idea of going to the ladies’ just to mess with them, but in the end I stayed put myself. Even after Mallory came rushing into the station like he was there to save a life, I stayed in my same chair, tinkering around on my mobile.
“Did you know the prime minister just got a new cat?”
Mallory didn’t reply, but he did walk over to stand in front of me imposingly with four officers at his back, not including the one guarding the door and the one behind the desk.
“One more, and I believe he’ll qualify to become a member of the Cat Ladies’ Society. I wonder if they have a gentlemen’s branch in London?” I glanced up at the giant crowd of police in front of me, then bowed my head a bit to greet Mallory. “Detective Inspector.”
He was trying very hard to keep up his cool, disinterested persona just then, though his eyes were almost manic with anger. “Bring her,” is all he said, before he pushed through the double doors and into the back offices. I stood and two of the officers lunged toward me and grabbed my arms, holding them up while a third officer ripped my phone from my hands.
Right as he did it, however, the door to the station opened again, and Alice stepped inside, in full fire mode. A man in a suit also entered, holding a briefcase behind him and keeping one or two steps behind Alice, who walked straight at the officer and grabbed my mobile from him before he could drop it into an evidence bag.
“What are you doing, miss?”
“This phone is in my name,” she said. “Do you have a warrant?”
“It’s evidence. We’re allowed to seize mobiles without a warrant.”
The man who’d come in with Alice raised a finger in the air. “Excuse me, but that’s only technically true if you are arresting the girl. Do you, in fact, have a warrant for her arrest?”
The officer scowled as the uniformed constable behind him leaned in to secure a zip tie around my wrists. Once he heard the sound, the officer pointed at Alice. “You stay here until we invite you back.”
Alice’s man still had his finger in the air when he cleared his throat. “Once again, I’ll point you to the law on this matter—”
“Who the hell are you?!” Officer Scowls bellowed.
I grinned. “Just guessing, but I believe that’s my barrister.”
Alice nodded, and her man held up his briefcase, as though that proved his credentials. “Evan Go
lding, solicitor advocate, actually. But I have a barrister standing by should we require her services.”
Officer Scowls turned and smacked open the double doors, following Mallory’s path. We all followed him, including Alice and the solicitor, who stood on either side of me.
“Legally, you are allowed both a guardian and an attorney in this instance, you see.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the man, who cowered back a bit and glanced at Alice for approval.
“Yes, Evan. You’re doing a fine job.”
The expression on Evan’s face over such a tiny encouragement told me that he could only be another one of Alice’s men. And despite my previous issues with Alice’s manipulative ways, there was something comforting about that. He was so eager to please. Though he was also exceedingly awkward as we waited in the interview room for Mallory. The DI entered the room soon enough, however.
Mallory walked in with one other officer, who placed a laptop and two file folders on the interview table before taking his place by the door. Mallory sat and stared down at his papers, which I knew was all a part of his theater. Not even Evan fell for it.
“The twenty-four hours you are allowed to hold my client here started the moment you took her into custody, which means you have only twenty-three and a half hours left. Use them wisely.”
Mallory didn’t speak. He opened a file folder and slid a form across the table toward Evan, who immediately frowned.
“I see,” Evan said. “You have thirty-five hours, then. Not a minute more.”
“We have submitted to the court for a ninety-six hour hold,” Mallory countered. “Based on the seriousness of the crimes.”
“I’ll look into that,” Evan told Alice.
Mallory seemed to find Alice’s authority over Evan amusing. “Where were you between the hours of four and six this morning, Miss Moriarty?”
Evan rested a hand on my arm to stop me from answering. “Miss Moriarty will not answer any questions until you present us with a reason for holding her.”
Mind Games Page 18