Lock & Mori

by Heather W. Petty

  I turned back toward Lock, only to find he hadn’t seen any of it. He still stared at the program. It occurred to me that perhaps he was wondering how long it would be before he had one of his own. I should have said something reassuring, but all I could think was that I didn’t want him to touch it, and we had to get out of the house still, and I wanted to see my brothers, to let them know that I was all right.

  “It’s probably safe to leave,” I blurted before his fingers could brush even the corner of the pristine blue paper.

  He nodded and stood, tearing his eyes from the program just long enough to sweep them around my room, saving the image for later, I was sure.

  We didn’t speak again until we were half a block from the house.

  “Maybe we could go and see my brothers. Just so they know I’m okay.”

  Sherlock paused before he said, “It’s the middle of the night.”

  I glanced up at the sky and furrowed my brow. It wasn’t that I hadn’t known, exactly. It just hadn’t seemed relevant until I thought of a little old lady refusing to answer the door at four a.m.

  Sherlock stepped in front of me to stop our walking. “And perhaps you don’t want them to see you like this.” He traced a finger down the side of my cheek, so that I covered it with my hand. “Give it a day or two for the swelling to go down.”

  I stepped around him. “Tonight is an anomaly. We cannot stay gone from the house. He can’t know we’re gone.”

  “You can’t go back,” he said firmly, taking my hand, as if he thought I might run back right then if he did not. “It’s not safe.”

  I stopped at his door and spoke quietly. “It’s never been safe.”

  Sherlock took a short pause before following me inside, just long enough for me to hide the way my face crumpled at my words.

  Chapter 15

  It wasn’t true, what I’d told Lock. I didn’t sleep any more that night, thinking about what it used to be like in my house—how safe I used to be. I remembered listening as my dad had walked the halls, remembered watching as he looked in on the boys asleep, pretending to sleep when he looked in on me. Or maybe those were someone else’s memories too, like grandparents who weren’t mine and a blue house with a garden I’d most likely never seen. It seemed impossible for that man to be the man I knew now.

  I stared into the darkness, exhausted. I was tired of thinking. I felt like all I’d done in the past few weeks was think and work on this game of Lock’s.

  That wasn’t true either. I’d been lazy, letting Lock run all the errands and do all the searching while I kept all the secrets. The only evidence I’d managed to collect had been a worthless police file. The collective of everything I’d done had only managed to end with me getting tossed around our patio.

  All of that had to stop. It was time for me to step up.

  Problem was, I didn’t know what that meant, exactly.

  I could turn my father in, though it didn’t take much to deduce the eventualities of that choice. If they believed me, a detective serial killer would go viral, infecting all the screens in England. We’d be celebrities. Labeled. Separated. In the system. And every plan I’d ever made for my life would evaporate.

  Worse, and the more probable outcome, they wouldn’t believe me. They’d send Mallory and Day back to my door to assure me and shut me up. They’d pat me on the head, make apologies to my father, and leave. I’d be stuck in a house with a killer who knew I knew he did it, and my chances of living through that . . .

  Don’t turn him in? I knew he had only one more target. I also knew he was deteriorating. If he couldn’t find her? If her death wasn’t enough to quell whatever it was that made him take a sword into Regent’s Park . . .

  That thought actually made me sit up. I was vaguely aware of Lock stirring in his sleep, of our copy of the police file starting to splay toward the edge of the bed. Because I didn’t know why my dad was doing all this. I didn’t know what made him hate these people so much, turn so completely against everything he’d ever been.

  Maybe they were criminals. Maybe he was stopping them the only way he could. Perhaps that was why the DI left his file so conveniently for Dad, to aid him in his quest to take out dangerous killers. Or maybe Mallory had left it for me to find, to stop him.

  I sighed aloud. Perhaps wishful thinking was the first sign of madness, and I was on a Wonderland trajectory.

  I really had only one plausible choice. I had to investigate on my own. I had to find the woman from the photo, find out what she knew, and make her tell me. But all I had was a photo, and no idea how to use that picture to find her. Untrue again. I had a photo, a living witness out there somewhere, and I had two words. “Sorte Juntos.”

  Lock stirred again and reminded me of an additional complication. Sherlock Holmes. He wasn’t about to give up on our little game, nor would he fail to notice if I were to suddenly be off on my own. I stared down at him for a few minutes, smoothed his hair with my fingers. He smiled in his sleep and turned toward me, tossed his arm across my lap. I caught the file just before it waterfalled to the floor and set it on the nightstand. He smiled again and I felt that tug inside me, the desire to tell him and bring him with me to find my answers.

  But I couldn’t. Not yet. I couldn’t see the end of this path, couldn’t let Lock get caught between me and a killer, and until I could protect us better, I had to walk it alone.

  I slid down into Lock’s arms and stared at the slanted shadows of the pins in his door. “Alone for now,” I whispered into the dark.

  x x x

  Sherlock slept on my bedroom floor for two days after the incident. I knew why he was there, of course, and that it had little to do with me. I knew because I understood more than most that life is fragile. Because loving someone means pretending that you can keep them safe when they’re with you, that they will be okay when they aren’t. You have to believe this to the point of denial, because to not believe leaves you with nothing but panic. A person can’t live with that kind of panic. Not for long.

  When you lose someone close, when you can’t stop the pain or make it better, when you can’t even talk to her for fear you’ll crack into a million pieces on the floor, when you can’t do anything but sit and watch her deteriorate—that’s when you realize you can’t pretend anymore. All that precious denial disintegrates in a moment, and you’re left with the truth.

  That life is fragile.

  That letting yourself love people is a most sadistic form of self-torture.

  That the fully alone are the lucky bastards who never have to learn to live with worry.

  Lock couldn’t stop what was happening to his mother—no more than I could stop what had happened to mine. But me? He could still pretend to keep me safe. And I couldn’t take the last dying tendrils of his denial away from him. So I didn’t fight his constant presence, despite the way it infringed on my new commitment to investigation. I couldn’t let him stop me from my own pursuits, however, not even that first day. It meant missing school, which had somehow become the very least of my worries.

  As soon as Sherlock kissed me good-bye and headed into the swarm of students going to class, I backed out the front door planning to hop the first bus to Regent’s Park. I was determined to get a look at the symbol that had been carved into the tree at the Patel site. It might be nothing, as I’d originally thought, but I needed to have all the facts of these crimes if I was going to figure out why my father had become a killer and how to stop him from killing the Blue-Haired Girl. I needed to know everything.

  That included getting a better look at the fountain planter where Todd White had died. I pocketed my mom’s coin that morning so I could compare the symbols from the coin to the plaques affixed there and look for any inconsistencies. I barely made it out the door, however, when I heard a familiar lilting voice.

  “My, my, my,” Sadie said, walking up from beh
ind me. “Just six short months and here you are kissing boys and ditching class. Who knew all this time it was my influence keeping you from walking the delinquent path?”

  I could probably have invented at least twenty solid ways to disentangle myself from Sadie, but I knew all of them were useless. It would have been a better use of my brainpower to figure out how to answer her next inevitable questions.

  “Who is he? And how did you two . . . ?” She lifted her brow and turned back to look at the door, as if she could still see Lock walking the halls. “Not that I don’t approve, mind you. He’s got a geeky-hot thing going on.”

  “That is Sherlock Holmes,” I said. My gaze had followed Sadie’s, only instead of Sherlock, I saw my chemistry professor making her way toward the doors. “And the rest can wait.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her down the steps and toward the bus stop.

  “Where to, my corrupting friend? I can miss exactly one class.”

  “Regent’s Park.”

  Sadie scowled. “You make a lousy delinquent.”

  “You don’t have to come along.”

  “Obviously, I do, or this will be the worst ditching ever.”

  Sadie tossed a barrage of inconsequential questions into my lap as the bus took us toward the park. I was certain they were leading up to what she really wanted to ask me.

  Yes, I supposed we were dating. No, he was not my boyfriend. No, I had not ingested any of his basement experiments that might possibly have been a love potion. No, I did not believe in love potions. The park was where we met. No, I would not take her to the exact spot so she could check it for our “love vibe.” And, finally, yes, he was a decent enough kisser, and no, I would not tell her every detail of every kiss.

  My smile only faltered on her final question. “I don’t suppose you’ll be telling me what has happened to your face?”

  I had opened my mouth to answer before realizing what she’d asked, then promptly closed it. When she hadn’t asked first thing, I’d been sure my makeup had done its job. I should’ve known it wouldn’t mask the swelling.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  She never pressed the hard questions. Maybe because I rarely answered them. This time I almost did, but then the bus pulled up to the Regent’s Park stop, and I said only, “It wasn’t Sherlock.”

  She nodded, unsatisfied, but seemed ready to leave it there for now. I made immediately for the park entrance, with Sadie trailing behind. It hadn’t occurred to me, until we were actually entering the park, that somewhere in the confines, the latest crime scene was probably still marked off—that there was a slim possibility there might even be something left to see. But I was at the park to find a different clue.

  I started a direct route to the Patel scene, but one of the picnic tables that flanked the main path was covered in delinquents. That’s what my father would’ve called them. Mum would’ve corrected him, said they were just bored and maybe a little misguided, that they could use the guiding hand of a proper police officer. Then my parents would’ve exchanged a look that I, to this day, do not understand.

  I watched a couple of older women in their matching velour walking suits pass by the boys. One of them cupped his hands around his mouth and cried out, “Munters!”

  The boy sitting on the table was flicking open a switchblade and then folding it shut over and over again. He was the only one who didn’t snicker at the insult. The ladies acted like they didn’t hear it. But I knew they did. The one in pink pulled at her jacket, like she could make it cover more of her, and the other stood up taller as she sucked her stomach in.

  A boy in a bright orange jersey waved a dismissive hand in their direction. “Park’s full of ’em today. Not even a passable among ’em.”

  Which was unfortunately when they turned their attention our way. We were still a ways off when a boy with a cap pulled low over his eyes nudged the one with the switchblade and pointed in our direction.

  “Jackie spoke too soon. Lookie there.”

  Jackie, who was apparently the one in the orange, stepped forward just as I looked away at the trees. “That one there’s passable, but her friend here’s perfectly fuckable.”

  The boys all laughed and one of them hooted. I really didn’t know or care which way I’d been classified. I was determined not to show any kind of response, and even tempered my expression and the speed of my walking to prove it.

  “Come on, luv! Don’t be shy. I got a big one for ya!” The one in the cap grabbed his crotch as we walked by, which I also ignored, though I couldn’t see how far behind me Sadie was.

  “Oy! I’m talking to you, slag! Cold bitch.”

  “Shut your hole!” Sadie shouted back, which was when I turned and noticed she was trembling.

  Switchblade boy pressed the button on his knife, which snicked open. “Fuckable number one’s a Yank! Always wanted to ride a Yank. Wanna come for a ride, babe?”

  Sadie turned back toward me, like we were supposed to ignore them and walk on, but the look on her face stopped me cold. I felt that burning in the pit of my stomach I hadn’t felt all day—hadn’t felt since my father . . . It propelled me toward them. I couldn’t stop the smile that formed either, or the heat of the glare I gave the switchblade boy. He must have noticed it too, because he folded the blade shut and set it down next to him on the table.

  “Apologize,” I said.

  “You want some too, bitch? Cuz I’ve got plenty to go around.”

  I slowly stepped closer, heel to toe, smile still in place, and when I got so close I could have rested my hands on his still splayed knees, I affected the sultriest voice I could. “You’re asking what I want now? I want you to apologize to my friend for being a crude, small-minded, pathetic little asshole who can’t keep his moron mouth shut. That’s what I want.”

  I flashed him a smile as he fought to cover his scowl with an apathetic grin of his own.

  “I like it when they’re lippy,” Switchblade said, too loud for how close we were, and then gave me the most predatory look I’d ever seen on a boy. “Like to imagine just what those lips could do for me.”

  I leaned closer, despite the fact that he smelled of chip grease, smoke, and sweat. I rested my hands on the table to either side of him, then smiled.

  He leaned back and said, “What you playing at?” all quiet like, so his mates wouldn’t hear, I slid my hand over his knife and then leaned back just enough to slide it between us, unnoticed.

  “You still haven’t apologized.” Now I was the one speaking loud enough for his friends.

  “For what? It’s a compliment, see. You bitches just don’t know when to say thank you.” One of his friends snickered, and Sadie stepped closer to me.

  “Mori, it’s okay. Let’s just go.”

  “You will apologize to my friend now. And then I expect an apology for having to stand so close to your foul stench for the last minute and a half.”

  He adjusted his jacket and smirked. “Yeah? And why would I do what you say?”

  I let my smile drop, let the rage consume me just long enough to cram the top of the switchblade hilt into his crotch. “Because my finger’s on the button and I’m not a patient girl.”

  “Psycho bitch!” He tried to push me off him by my shoulders and scramble away, but I fisted his T-shirt in my hand and shook my head.

  “Better not. I’d hate for my thumb to slip. By accident.” I narrowed my eyes and whispered, “Wouldn’t want to give me a reason to hurt you.”

  “Sorry,” he whispered, and the sound sent a thrill through me. When I didn’t move, his voice became this whining, blubbering thing that made my smile true. “Sorry, I said sorry.”

  “Not to me. To her.” I glanced over my shoulder. “And say it loud enough for your mates to hear.”

  “I’m sorry, miss,” he said to Sadie.

  I was almost breathless from the p
leasure of his submission. It was like a soothing cool had washed over all the rage that had consumed me, making me invincible. I almost giggled when I said, “For what? I didn’t hear that part.”

  “For what I said, okay? It was disre—disrepes—”

  “I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘disrespectful.’”

  “I’m sorry, right? I said it, like you told me.”

  I stared him down for about ten more seconds before backing away. The minute I turned, he said, “Give it back.”

  I spun in place and flicked the knife open, which made them all flinch and gave me another surge of adrenaline. Sadie called my name, and I started to laugh. “I think I’ll keep it.” I spun it around in my hand, blade still open. “It suits me, don’t you think?”

  This time I waited for the pack to run off before I turned away. Sadie studied me with big eyes until I’d clicked shut the knife and pocketed it.

  “That’s illegal,” she said quietly.

  “I know.”

  I started walking, and she didn’t speak again until we were just outside the copse of trees where Patel’s body had been found. I must have stopped walking when I saw it, because Sadie said, “Something a cop’s daughter would definitely know—the legality of weapons in England. If only we had one of them around.”

  “If only.” I grinned and walked into the trees, which of course all looked the same. So I backtracked a little until I was standing in front of the large shrub Sherlock and I had hidden behind and tried to orient myself.

  “Maybe next time you decide to go all superhero on me, a little warning ahead of time?” When I didn’t answer, she stood in front of me. “Mori, seriously. You were like a different person just now.”

  Sadie’s plan to get my attention backfired, but only because she was standing almost exactly where the evidence tech had been dusting the umbrella that night. With that context, the whole scene appeared before me again, like it was that night all over.