Final Fall

by Heather W. Petty

  “Am I dreaming?” I whispered.

  The boy nodded, though he still cried. And he must have been right, because when I looked up, Sherlock was there.

  Lock seemed to appear out of the shadows in the hall like he used to do when he was just pretend, though a part of me thought I had heard his footsteps on the linoleum. Still, he seemed like the obvious next part of this dream I was having, where Seanie was wearing the wrong pajamas and begging me not to kill the man responsible for his brother’s wounds.

  “Mori.” My name on Lock’s lips jolted me out of my state. I watched him paint the scene with his gaze, take in every detail. He took a step toward the boy and then looked at me, confused.

  “I didn’t know he had a son,” I said, as if somehow that should explain everything he’d just seen.

  “And now you know.” Sherlock’s voice was different. It was like there was something caught in his throat and he was trying to speak around it. Like he was repulsed. By the state of DS Day? By me? He was staring at me, like I was supposed to tell him what to do next.

  So I did.

  “Stop me?” I didn’t need to say “please.”  There were a hundred versions of the word in the sound of my voice.

  And Lock heard them all. “You can stop yourself.”

  My vision blurred as tears gathered, and I let them fall down my bloody cheeks unchecked. “That’s what you’re here to do, right? You’re here to stop me?”

  “No. I’m here to help you stop. But you have to do it.”

  I shook my head too long, then stared at Day’s broken and battered body. How long had he been unconscious? “You don’t know what he did, what he knows. He has to die.”

  “The police are almost here. This isn’t the way.”

  “You called the police again.” I smiled, though I felt more tears well in my eyes. “Is that all you know how to do?”

  “You can go before they get here. You can just leave.”

  I moved closer to Day’s body and the little boy cried out. He shouldn’t see this part. That was all I could think.

  “Take the boy,” I said, and lifted up my knife.

  I could hear Lock’s distress when he said, “Mori, let’s all leave together.”

  “Take the boy or let him watch.”

  “Neither. We all leave together.”

  I dropped back down onto my knees next to DS Day, and I could hear his son’s muffled weeping, but I couldn’t let that shake me any longer. This man had left us to be terrorized over and over. He’d known the kind of monster my father was and had still played lackey to him like a beaten-down dog. And instead of standing up to him for once in his life, when my father had given the order to kidnap my brothers, DS Day had passed it along. He was as responsible for Michael’s injuries as if he’d been driving the car that ran into him. And now he’d seen Lock there with me. He could not survive the night.

  “Take him OUT!”

  Both of them jumped, but then the room got quiet. So quiet I could hear the faint sounds of sirens in the distance.

  “Ten seconds, Mori. You can give me that. I’ll take the boy out and be back in ten seconds. You can even count them out.”

  I didn’t even pause to consider. I said, “One. Two.”

  Lock rushed the boy out the front door and returned just as he said he would, in exactly ten seconds. But DS Day was dead before I got to five.

  I dropped the knife on the floor and then stared at my gloved hands. They were covered in red, just like my mum’s had been all those years ago when she’d been forced to kill her mark. It was just as my father had described. She’d needed a savior back then. At least mine wasn’t a dirty cop.

  I was sure Lock would keep me there and hand me over to the police. He did believe in their justice, my Lock. But instead he pulled me by my arm out a side door into the alley. When we came to the first dumpster around the corner, he carefully slid my bloody gloves off and buried them in the rotting muck. Then he covered me with his long woolen coat, grabbed my hand, and ran with me down the alley and out onto the street. The boy was nowhere in sight. We ran alongside a double-decker bus, jumped on when it stopped, and found seats in the very back corner.

  He didn’t say anything. Didn’t let go of my hand. We just sat in silence through one stop and then another. And when the back area cleared out some, I couldn’t stand the quiet anymore.

  “Why didn’t you hand me over?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What are we doing now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Home.”

  Chapter 21

  When I was showered and changed, I came down the stairs to the front room. Lock sat on the edge of a wingback chair, like he’d been waiting for me the whole time. There was a tray with tea and Mrs. Hudson’s sandwiches on the side table and a throw over the arm of the sofa. I didn’t know what to do at first. It felt odd to be cared for, coddled like this. He was treating me like I was a victim of something when the opposite was true. But my exhaustion outweighed my confusion, and I gave in.

  I curled up in the corner of the sofa and covered myself with the blanket, then held the tea mug between my hands to warm them. When I took my first sip, Sherlock stood. “My turn to wash up, then?”

  “You’re leaving me here?” I frowned at how pathetic that question sounded.

  “Yes.”

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll run off?”

  His brow furrowed and his head tipped to the side a little when he said, “You could do that whether I’m here or not.” And then he went upstairs.

  I didn’t wait long to follow him up. I’d spent so much time in his house, but never by myself. And the minute he left, his sitting room felt like a giant cavern—so quiet I could hear my own breathing. My thoughts echoed in that chamber, and they were filled with the voice of a little boy in truck pajamas calling for his daddy.

  Four steps from the top of the stairs, I heard Lock’s voice. I’d heard him speak like that just once before—to a name on a map. “I’m doing just what you asked.”

  When I didn’t hear a reply, I curled up on the third stair and peeked up over the top and into his room. He stood by his bed, staring at his mobile, a pained look on his face. And without bringing his phone to his ear, he spoke again.

  “You said yourself that this is the only way I know.”

  Slowly, I eased up another step so I could see better into his room. I followed his gaze from his phone to a pillow on his bed—the same one I’d attached my name to with a pushpin barely a week ago. Lock sat next to the pillow and put his hand on the paper, then looked back at his phone.

  He nodded and then cursed. “Don’t forgive me,” he said, and then he closed his eyes, pressed his thumb to the screen of his mobile, and brought it to his ear.

  He was going to do it. He was going to turn me in.

  In a panic, I eased down two steps to make sure he wouldn’t see me when I stood, then started downstairs for the door. The clanging of the postal slot stopped me for a few seconds—just long enough to allow the rational part of my brain to take over. I wasn’t sure where I’d go. By the time he was done with his call, the police would have my name if not my physical body in custody. That meant it wouldn’t be long before they cordoned off my house and posted alerts, possibly even to the evening news. I needed to get my stuff from the hotel.

  At the bottom of the staircase, I stopped again. I also needed to take my dirty clothes with me, I knew, but when I reached the living room where they were, I ended up sitting again on the sofa and reaching for my tea with a shaky hand. I had to run. I still had Alice to deal with, and my brothers were waiting for me.

  But I was so tired of running—tired of thinking and plotting and. . . and it was peaceful there in Lock’s cavernous sitting room that had tea and sandwiches.

  I stared out the front window at the people passing by on the street. There were an awful lot of them that day, and I knew w
hy, though it took me a few minutes to put it together. It was sunny out for the first time in weeks of drizzling overcast. And it was a Sunday, which made the sunny day all that much more of a miracle.

  It was a Sunday. And the post didn’t come on Sundays.

  I set my tea down with a crash that might have shattered a lesser-made mug, and I had the postcard in my hand before Lock could call down.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Yes, sorry. Misjudged my strength. Nothing’s spilled.”

  There was this great pause that filled my head with racing thoughts of where and how quickly I could hide the postcard should he come down to check on me, but then I heard his bedroom door close, and I sank onto the nearest chair.

  The M on this card was a series of four slashes. Alice hadn’t even bothered to attempt a copy.  And on the other side it simply read: Bring my money to me. There was an address scrawled underneath.

  I grabbed my clothes and was gone before I could hear the faintest police siren.

  • • •

  My plan, when I left Sherlock’s house, was to find the address but stay back and watch Alice from afar. I wasn’t going to meet her. Not this time. Let her stew a bit. I was done being used by her.

  But our meeting place wasn’t some quiet out-of-the-way building, as I’d imagined. The address was for a family theme restaurant with a gift shop on the top floor. I had no choice but to go inside. Alice could have been anywhere in that tropical nightmare. I literally had to walk through a forest of exotic animal plushies and trees with faces to get to the restaurant entrance. And by the time I reached the stairs, the ceiling had turned into a kind of rain-forest fantasy, complete with giant butterflies, vines, and bright yellow flowers.

  I walked down the stairs slowly, taking in the sounds of the place. But it was impossible to pick out anything real over the soundtrack of birdcalls and raucous splashes from all the water features and fish tanks. The very moment I reached the bottom, strobe lights started flashing in the trees, and the sounds of a thunderstorm took over for the birds. I frowned at a plaster elephant but stepped behind it to look around.

  Alice was nowhere in sight, and moving through the tables would only make me the more visible one. So I waved off the overly helpful hostess and headed for two giant toadstools, which acted like umbrella cover for a bar shaped like a snake. The bar top was even mosaic patterned to look like snakeskin, and there was some kind of cartoonish gecko creature peeking out at me from the side as I sat on a bar stool shaped like a tiger’s back, complete with a braided rope tail. I couldn’t hear much with a constant waterfall flowing behind me, but I was properly hidden in the darkest part of the room and able to see anyone who came in.

  Sadly, none of that helped me in the end, as the person who’d come out to meet me was already in the restaurant. It took me much too long to see the figure attacking a plate of food just two stools down. In my defense, I was looking for a woman, not a man. I was looking for blond hair, not the vaguely militaristic buzz cut of Barnaby Trenton—the guard I once knew only as Trent. He had noticed me, however—either that or he found his food extremely amusing. Possible that it was both.

  “They’re called Lava Nachos,”  Trent said. He lifted his giant bowl of a wineglass. “And this is Survival Sangria. Clever.”

  He winked at me and I closed my eyes and sighed. But when I opened them again, I was staring straight at a bartender dressed in khakis and a polo shirt with a too-large safari helmet barely balancing on her head. “Would you like something from our juice bar, miss? Fresh lemonade? Our Amazon Energy drink will keep you up half the night to study but is so much healthier than coffee!”

  I tried to wave her off, but Trent interjected, “She’ll have that last one.” He grinned at me. “Thinking about your health.”

  I didn’t even wait for the bartender to walk away. “Still playing Alice’s lackey? She couldn’t bother to come herself?”

  He seemed surprised at what I’d said. “Your plan was more effective than you intended. Alice is dead.”

  My mind was suddenly racing through how that changed everything I’d done in London up until now, but I didn’t let myself react. He wasn’t the only one with information. “Long live Barnaby Trenton?”

  Trent’s amusement evaporated. “Where did you hear that name?”

  “Does it matter if I know who you are?”

  He shrugged, and something about his indifference made me unreasonably angry. “What did Grady know?”  That question got his attention. I didn’t really care how or why Grady died, of course. He was just as bad as all the other cowards who thought it was okay to keep me locked in a cage. But seeing Trent’s surprise made the question worth asking.

  “How did you know it was me who killed him?”

  “Stan was a plant from my father. He wanted information. He didn’t need to play games with Alice or her men to get that information.” I paused a moment. “And maybe Grady didn’t know anything. You killed him just to make Alice scared so she’d up the timeline?”

  My juice came in the time it took Trent to decide whether to answer me or not. In the end, he just said, “I want Alice’s money.”

  “No.”

  I’d managed to surprise him again, though he tried to hide it. Trent had a shitty poker face. “I’m going to tell you a place, and you’ll bring that cash to me if you don’t want me to turn you in to the police for killing three men.”

  I shrugged. “Do as you will.”

  Trent narrowed his eyes. “I know where your brothers are.”

  “Liar.”

  He toyed with his food, then shoved it a little too hard away from him. The plate balanced precariously on the far edge of the bar top. “I’ll ruin you.”

  “I’m already ruined. But if this is just about empty threats, I’ll be going.” I turned on my stool, but before I could stand, Trent grabbed my arm and spun me back around. I slapped him and he glared at me. I saw the bartender jump and start toward us in my periphery, but she backed off when I shook my head.

  I watched Trent as I leaned slowly forward to sip my juice. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve been doing your bidding for days while you played the part of master criminal. But I’m done playing your games.” I glanced up to meet his eyes. “I don’t believe you anymore. And, if we’re being honest, I haven’t really believed you all along. It’s just that your wishes and mine correlated.”

  “I’ve been following you. I have evidence—”

  “I’m sure you do. I’m equally sure, Barnaby, that you’re not about to walk into a police station and out yourself for being back in London.”

  I’d caught him there. His anger gave him away. “I’ll call them anonymously.”

  I finished my juice and then nodded. “Do it.”

  I stood quickly this time and started for the stairs just as Trent grabbed my arm again. I slapped him off me and then yanked the front of his shirt to pull him close. “Don’t touch me.”

  People were starting to stare, which made Trent visibly uncomfortable. He sneered down at me to cover his nervousness, but I didn’t back down. Our growing audience would be my escape from him; he just didn’t realize it yet.

  “You think this is a game? Then here’s my wild card: you’re not afraid for yourself, fine. But I also have evidence on that boy who’s been following you around. I could just as easily implicate him.”

  I swung my free hand up to slap him, but he blocked me. A server started toward us and Trent moved closer to me, negating the need for my hold on his shirt.

  “Well, that got your attention. Maybe we should take this outside.” Trent glanced around, grabbed my wrist, and tried to use it to yank me from the bar, but I was quicker and less afraid of causing a scene.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you,” I shouted in my most scared voice. “Stop threatening me!”

  Two men and the server came to my rescue, surrounding Trent so I could leave, but he yelled after me, “Bring that money to Dov
er tomorrow at noon, or I’ll take him down!”

  I grabbed the first taxi I saw and took it to the hotel to retrieve my bag, and then I decided to walk to the park. I needed to clear my head—needed to figure out what it was I even knew anymore. Everything had gone so topsy-turvy in the last hour, but now I knew a few things to be true:

  Sherlock had informed on me to the police.

  Alice was dead.

  Trent was an ex-gangster who my dad ran out of town.

  Trent used me to get rid of three of my father’s men.

  Trent was a threat to Sherlock.

  Because of me.

  That was the sticking point. I knew I could stay to deal with my Trent problem—knew too that if I didn’t, he’d come for me eventually, that I’d never be free of him or my crimes. But if I stayed, Sherlock would be collateral damage. Trent would try to use Lock to get the money and keep me in line, but I never was very good at being told what to do. Eventually, I’d fight back, and win or lose, Sherlock would pay the price.

  So I took my final journey down Baker Street, took in my final breaths of this city I loved, and made my way to the one place that would never again be my escape—Regent’s Park. My nostalgia was cut short, however, by Sherlock Holmes, who stood at the very center of Clarence Bridge. He didn’t say a word in greeting, didn’t look at me, but when I walked past him, he fell into step next to me.

  We walked together, passing the bandstand and Sadie’s willow tree. We followed the main path past the amphitheater and then took a smaller one to find my fountain planter. But instead of retrieving my getaway stash, I found a nearby bench and sat. Lock sat beside me without an invitation. He also spoke first.

  “Is someone else dead?”

  I glanced at him but didn’t respond. And I shouldn’t have looked. His profile in the dim lighting of the park brought back memories of other nights and other versions of me that felt so remote from who I’d become.

  He nodded at my bags. “You’re leaving.”

  I hated that he said it at all, but the way he said it—like he didn’t think it was any big thing to me, to leave the only city that had ever been my home—tore at me. It felt like he’d stolen something dear to me, something I could never get back.