Sadie grinned. “Delinquent.”
I returned her smile. “Teacher’s pet.”
She winked and took off running for the bus stop, calling back. “Twenty-four hours, Moriarty, and I’ll be coming for some answers about all this.”
I waited a good two minutes after she was out of sight before daring to pull the papers from my bag. I sat on the next bench I saw and spread them across the weathered wooden slats. The picture was of some old church. On the back was written an address in Sussex, Piddinghoe Village, which sounded like someplace no one ever goes. Down at the bottom in microprint were the two words that I’d practically been hit over the head with lately, “Sorte Juntos.”
“Scorpio” was scrawled across the first envelope, and inside was what had to be a fake ID. My mother’s younger, smiling face was glued to it, but her name was Ginny Wilkes, and it showed her wrong birthday—a birthday, I noted, that would make her a Scorpio. The second envelope was filled with cash. I didn’t pull it out to count it properly, but I thumbed through more than ￡200 before closing it up again.
It didn’t take me long to work out what I’d found. It was her getaway. Everything but the picture fit. My mother had stowed away cash and a new identity in case she ever needed to escape. Which led me to wonder, from what did she need to escape?
Chapter 16
I wandered around the park so long, I didn’t make it back to school until everyone was going to their final afternoon class. I started for the library, determined to do a quick search for “Sorte Juntos,” but the warning bell let me know I was too late. I rushed into drama just as the final bell rang and sank into one of the theater seats toward the back. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as the cast filed onto the stage.
Before I could open them again, Lock’s voice intruded from the darkness behind me. “You didn’t go to class, Miss Moriarty.” He jumped over the back of the row of seats and plopped into the one next to me. “You’ve been skiving off, and now you’re caught.”
I tried my best to smile at him. “By you?”
“Yes, by me.”
“And how do you know this, Mr. Holmes?” I leaned close. “Where’s your proof?”
“I sat outside your chemistry class and you never came out.” He was awfully cute when he was smug. Irritating, but cute.
“How do you know I didn’t just leave class early?”
So, it was more on the irritating side when he leaned in and smelled my hair. “You’ve been in the park!”
“You can smell the park on me?”
“No, your hair tells me you took a bus. Your shoes tell me you were at the park, most likely after ten forty-five this morning.”
I looked down, and there were grass stains along the white part of my trainers and little bits of grass stuck to the canvas. “Or maybe out on the football field.”
“No, unfortunately for you, our school’s grounds staff mows the field after seven each night. The sprinklers come on at dawn, washing those pesky leavings into the thatch. But the park—”
“You are now going to tell me that you know the grounds schedule for Regent’s Park?”
He reached down and pulled a leaf off the bottom of my shoe and held it up. “This says you were down at the canal.”
I very much failed to restrain my grin.
“You were at the crime scene. Without me.”
Lock was also cute when he scowled.
“It had nothing to do with the case,” I lied. But then I didn’t know what to say next. So we sat in silence for a bit. Lily Patel was back at school, I noticed. I probably should’ve noticed before then, but I’d had quite a bit to keep track of. John Watson sat cross-legged, leaning against the far stage wall and watching her play her part, an open script in his lap. When she saw him looking, she turned away quickly and walked from the stage.
I slid my fingers along Sherlock’s and then pushed them down between. “I’ll most likely be gone tomorrow, too. I have to go down to Sussex.”
“What’s in Sussex?”
“I don’t know yet.” A truth, and then the lie, “But it really has nothing to do with our case.”
Lock didn’t say anything, leaving a nice gorge of silence for me to throw myself into. As one does.
“You want to g—?”
“Yes,” he interrupted.
I sighed, partly at my own idiocy, partly at his. At any rate, I removed my hand from his. “I will need to go off by myself once we’re there.”
“I’ll be busy taking clippings anyway.”
“Clippings?”
“Of the different vegetation to be found down there.”
“You want to study the vegetation of Sussex.”
“It’s on my list.”
“Plants. Plants are on your list.”
“The regional botany of England and Wales. How else will I know where you’ve run off to? I don’t suppose we’ll be going to Wales on the weekend?”
I rolled my eyes, and Sherlock grinned and steepled his fingers together as he fell into his thoughts.