Mind Games

by Heather W. Petty

  She had all my attention then, which seemed to be just what Alice wanted. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s dead.” Alice watched me closely then, looking for my reaction when she added, “I did it for you.”

  “You killed her.” I didn’t know how she’d expected me to react, but I’d obviously disappointed her.

  “I did it for you. She’s been after you from the beginning. Haven’t you put it together yet? She came there that night to kill you.”

  “But she didn’t. She was dying on the floor, you didn’t have—”

  “And what if she survived?” Alice looked out through the doorway behind her. “I can’t believe it took me this long to figure out who she was.” She turned back to me. “As soon as you said what’d happened, I remembered that I’d seen her with Constance Ross at the police station. When I was arguing with Mallory about keeping you in custody, I saw her.” Alice pointed at the white card that was still in my hands. “That Greeves woman was yelling at the officer who was trying to control Constance. So when you told me she’d attacked you, that’s when I knew I had to get you away from London.”

  Alice was Y.

  “She’s been after you all this time, sending threats and calling in tips to the police. You said it’s been her all along.”

  But if Alice was Y, that had to mean she killed Constance, which didn’t make sense. “Did you kill Constance? And leave her on our stoop?!”

  Alice seemed proud of herself as she explained, “Mallory already knew someone was after you. He would never believe you’d leave a body on your own stoop. I was giving him proof of what he already believed and getting rid of a statement that might have buried you. I did it for you!”

  “Stop saying that!” I regretted yelling as soon as I did it. My head started to throb again with a steady rhythm. I sighed and dropped the card. There were a few smudges of dried blood on the back. The artist’s, of course. It had to be. She’d killed Charles Ross before he could finish drawing my third sin. She killed his wife for daring to medicate herself. And she finished off Mrs. Greeves. Alice was a serial killer, just like my dad. And she was taking care of my brothers while I was locked in a cell in her horse barn.

  That thought seemed to clear my head in a way hours of rest might not have been able.

  “How did you find out about Constance and the drawings?”

  “From one of my marks, of course. Or . . . ex-marks. I’m sorry to say he’s no longer among us. You’ve met part of him, though.”

  Because his hand was in my rubbish bin. “Charles Ross was a mark.”

  Alice ran a hand across the bars. “He was the one who saw your father killing that girl in the park. He knew who the real killer was but didn’t think he needed to get involved as a witness because your father was already in jail. But he couldn’t convince Clara Greeves that your father was the true killer. And Clara had Crazy Constance all in an uproar, trying to force her to go to the police with what she knew about the sword. So Charles Ross came to me, hoping desperately to save his wife from having an episode.”

  “You killed them both?”

  Alice shrugged. “I’m not normally a killer. I’m a player. Why actually do the deed when you can just move all the pieces into place and watch the game play out on its own? But this time I had to make an exception.”

  “People are not wooden pawns.  You can’t predict—”

  “And yet, they are so very predictable. Aren’t they?” She smiled and I remembered a time when I thought her smile was genuine. Now I wondered if it had ever been. “You, for instance. I didn’t need to know where you were as long as I knew where Sherlock was.”

  Sherlock. I’d never reached the bandstand. He probably thought I’d refused him again. “He didn’t help you. He wouldn’t tell you anything.”

  Alice looked at the floor. “No, but we followed him to the park and that’s when I noticed he was just staring at his phone, like he was watching something. I sent one of my boys in to ask him a question, and he saw the app on his phone. A tracking app.”

  “My GPS.” I closed my eyes as my heart sank. He’d turned my GPS back on before he left the hotel room so he could watch to see whether I was coming for him or not.

  “I thought you’d outwitted me when it was turned off the night before. But then all of a sudden, there you were again, and you were walking right toward us.”

  “Right into your trap.” But if my GPS was on, that meant he could track me still.

  A shred of hope must have somehow shone through my expression just then, because Alice smirked.

  “We destroyed your phone,” she said, her mockery returning in full force. “It was for your own good. Well, for my good. It gets you out of my way.”

  The fuzzy memory of my phone being stripped from my hand and crushed on the ground returned. I was so empty, every breath I took felt like it gusted through the dark cave that was my center. Every inhale was so loud. He couldn’t stand to wait for me—couldn’t take the not knowing. So he’d turned on my GPS to watch and see what I’d do. I wondered what Lock thought when he saw my stops and starts on the bridge, when he saw me finally coming toward him only to stop short and disappear. He’d think that was my decision.

  One of my breaths snagged on a laugh that had no joy in it. Then another. Soon, I was laughing darkly to myself and holding my head in a vain attempt to keep the pain at bay.

  “If only I’d actually walked away. Imagine that.”

  Alice’s smile fell and she looked at me with a creepy sort of interest. Almost as if she was studying my reactions again.

  “So you captured me,” I said. “To what end? Why am I here?”

  “Because you’re nothing like your mother.” Alice held the bars and leaned back like a little kid at a playground. “This wasn’t in the original plan, of course. I was going to make you my partner, the way I’d been for your mom. I even tried to teach you. But, sadly, you aren’t like Emily.” She blew her bangs up off her forehead and pulled herself upright again.

  “You said over and over that I was.”

  “Yes, which is why I sent you the cards. That was my test. Emily would have figured out what was going on ages before you did. But I suppose it’s good that you turned out to be lesser. There can’t be two of us. That won’t do.”

  Two of us. I stared at Alice, wondering what in the world that meant.

  “But you’re not like her, are you?” She smiled. “You’re like him.”

  I knew immediately whom she meant. “I’m not!”

  “Oh. Did I hit a sore spot?” Alice offered a mocking pout. “That moment in the hospital stairway I saw the truth. You actually put your hand around my neck. Do you remember doing that? Do you know how many times I watched your father do that to my Emily?”

  My Emily. Her “two of us” comment made sense suddenly, especially if Emily Moriarty was whom she wanted to become. Her hero had left a giant gap in the lives of me and my brothers and I’d invited Alice to fill it. I’d ushered her right into the spot. But that couldn’t be all of it. There had to be a bigger game to play for Alice. “If I’m so much like my dad, why would you want me around?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “How foreboding, our Alice. I suppose you think I’ll do something for you in the end.”

  “And you think you won’t. As long as we’re both clear on the starting point.”

  “Nothing is starting, Alice.” I sat up too fast, which sent a rage of pain through my skull, but I covered it with the smile that most enraged my father. She was attempting to keep some kind of amused expression on her face, but it was clear to me how irritated she was that I wasn’t cowed by her. “This is a lot of wasted effort.” I stood, feeling stronger than I suspected I would. “So typical of a lowly con woman to go to so much trouble for very little return.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Two things.”

  I slowly made my way across my tiny prison to the bars where s
he stood. She didn’t back down and I didn’t stop until we were practically face-to-face. It was foolish of her to underestimate me like she was.

  “First, this,” I gestured around my jail cell. “I’m sure this plan of yours will be full of lots of clever little fragments, but in the end it will mean nothing.”

  She laughed and stepped back from the bars, but too slowly. I jutted my arm through just in time to grab her by the hair and yank her head so hard against the metal bars, the thud rang for a few moments after impact. She whimpered and was forced to hang on to my cage to keep herself upright. I held tension on her hair to keep her in place, then leaned down so she could feel my lips at her ear when I said, “Second, and let the pain you’re feeling now serve as the smallest proof that what I’m about to say is true—you’re not smart enough to break me, Alice Stokes.”

  I heard footsteps coming and, with my hand still fisted in her hair, I let Alice’s head sway away from the bars just enough so I could let go and drop her to the floor. I ignored the men who rushed to her aid. Ignored their panicked shuffling about and Alice’s vague threats shouted through my new cage wall. I ignored everything and limped over to the cot to collapse, facing the back of my cell, so that no one could see the scattered tears that dripped down my cheeks.

  I couldn’t stop them. Maybe because I was all alone again to fight a battle I didn’t want to fight. But I should’ve been used to that by now. Maybe because for all my supposed cleverness, I’d been ensnared by a second-rate copy of my mother. That was humiliating, to say the least. But staring at the wall of my new prison, I knew the exact reason for my tears.

  I couldn’t help but remember over and over the last thought I’d had before waking up to this new nightmare. I’d smiled just before they grabbed me, because I’d remembered something my Lock had said to me once. That we were our own army. That none could stand before us. In Regent’s Park, for a brief shining moment, I’d thought he and I were finally going to become that. I’d thought maybe we’d belong to each other.  At least for a while. That maybe he could keep me from becoming a monster while slaying one. But it was a stupid, stupid thought. Because as much as we wanted that fantasy to be our reality, even an attempt to make it happen ended only in disaster.

  And so I cried for our army that would never be. I shed tears for the belonging I’d never know. Because Alice had declared war and I couldn’t afford to have a liability like Sherlock Holmes if I were to win. I couldn’t let him be my weakness like he’d been yesterday in the park. Never again. Because I had to win—for my brothers and myself. I couldn’t let our lives be determined by anyone else.

  So I made a set of promises to myself, that day in my horse-stall jail cell. I scratched a line into the wood behind my bed and promised that I would escape this cell as soon as possible. I scratched another line and promised that I would find a way to make my brothers safe again. Another line, deeper this time, as I promised that I would neutralize Alice and destroy my father.

  I paused before I scratched my final line, and when I finally drew my fingernail down the grain of the wood, my vision blurred with fresh tears. I traced my finger down the divot I’d made, and then I promised that these would be the last tears I’d ever shed for Sherlock Holmes.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing this book was an adventure I might not have survived if it weren’t for the following people who get my unending thanks:

  To Laurie McLean, my amazing agent, who always manages to make me feel like a rock star, even when I’m a mess, and who cheers me up, even when she doesn’t know I need it. You are an amazing partner and friend. I feel so lucky to be a small part of Team Fuse Lit.

  To my patient and brilliant editor, Christian Trimmer, and to his lovely and insightful assistant, Catherine Laudone. Thank you so much for helping me dig deeper, and for giving me the time and space to make this the best it could be. And special thanks to all the S&S BFYR team, who have been so supportive in my debut year!

  To my critique partners, Tracy Clark and Kristin Crowley Held, for fitting me into your schedules on super-quick deadlines and letting me argue with myself until I could find a path through. I love you both and I couldn’t be more excited to finally see us all together on the same shelf.

  To my Fearless Fifteeners, who have given the best advice and support possible, despite my monthly, K-pop-gif-filled rantings about cabins in the woods and bad bird poetry. You are all officially invited to my hermit lollipop commune. Thank you for being part of my tribe!

  To Naomi Canale, Cynthia Mun, Terri Farley, Ellen Hopkins, Suzie Morgan Williams, and the rest of my NV SCBWI family. I would not have made it through this year without you! And to Zach Payne, Heather Riccio, and the rest of the Mentor Program crew, thank you so much for your patience and excitement. You guys are amazing. I can’t wait to see your books on the shelves!

  To Katie from Mundie Moms, Beth from Fangirlish, and all the other book bloggers, librarians, booksellers, and reviewers who continue to spread the word about Lock & Mori, I will never be able to adequately express how much I appreciate and adore you all.

  And finally, to my endlessly supportive family. You somehow manage to keep our lives afloat while I flit off to events and working weekends, and all the other stuff that has taken me away from you this year. Thank you for tolerating all of it. I love you completely—even when I growl from my writing cave and stare at you like you’re not in the room.

  © ARI NORDHAGEN

  HEATHER W. PETTY has been obsessed with mysteries since she was twelve, which is when she decided that stories about murders in London drawing rooms and English seaside villages were far superior to all other stories. She is the author of the Lock & Mori series. She lives in Reno, Nevada, with her husband, daughter, and four hopelessly devious cats. You can visit her online at heatherwpetty.com.

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  Also by Heather W. Petty

  Lock & Mori

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2016 by Heather W. Petty

  Jacket photograph of people copyright © 2016 by Ylva Erevall

  Jacket photograph of barn copyright © 2016 by Arcangel/Bobbi Anderson

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

  Names: Petty, Heather, author.

  Title: Mind games / Heather W. Petty.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers,
[2016] | Series: Lock & Mori [2] | Summary: In modern-day London, sixteen-year-old Miss James “Mori” Moriarty and classmate Sherlock Holmes set out to discover who is framing Mori for the Regent’s Park killings.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016015587| ISBN 9781481423069 (hardback) |

  ISBN 9781481423083 (eBook) Subjects: | CYAC: Mystery and detective stories. | Characters in literature—Fiction. | Love—Fiction. | London (England)—Fiction. | England—Fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Mysteries & Detective Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Law & Crime. | JUVENILE FICTION / Love & Romance. Classification: LCC PZ7.1.P48 Mi 2016 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016015587