“We are going to resolve my most pressing detective case.”
There was a split second when I thought about telling him to go back to bed, to “let himself grieve” or one of the other hundred platitudes people had told me when I went back to school before it was deemed proper by whoever keeps track of those sorts of things. But I had gone back to school for the same reason Lock wanted to go finish his case. He needed something else to think about. Giving him that felt like the very least I could do.
“And I get to watch the great Detective Holmes in action?” I stood up and stretched my arms to the ceiling.
“I’m finished with the case of the stolen mobile phone.”
“Sifted through the data already?”
“The day you couldn’t go with me, I learned two facts I didn’t know before.” He twisted out the dark brown cigarette butt on the windowsill, then stood and reached for my hand without looking at me. I let him take it. “So, I’ll tell you those two truths, and you have until we reach the client’s house to come up with the answer.”
“Very well. What are your facts?”
“I found the missing SIM card in an odd place.”
“Is that so?”
“And I discovered that I’d been given inaccurate information about the state of the phone. Once those two facts came to me, it was all very simple, really. Had I known, I could have solved it in minutes.”
I waited for the details, but he didn’t give them. Instead, he tightened his grip on my hand slightly and tried to pull me toward his bedroom door. I didn’t budge.
“I have some new data for you as well, perhaps we could trade.”
“About the mobile phone case?”
I shook my head. “About my case. Or, to be more specific, about where I went with Alice the day that I couldn’t go with you.”
Lock frowned and looked down at his watch, then back up to me. “Okay, we’ll trade. But you first, and you have to tell me on the way.”
“Deal.”
I told him about my little trip to the police station, the Lady Constance’s accusations, and Mallory’s sudden change of mind about my role in the murder case as we walked over to my house and while I got washed up.
Lock’s eyes brightened when I got to the last part. “He showed you the evidence?”
“Kind of. He showed me a photo, a statement, and a call log.”
“Do you think he’d show you again? Or give us a copy?”
My rueful stare did nothing to quell the hope in his eyes, and so I said, “He literally told me to leave this to the police and make sure you stay out of it.”
Lock nodded. “Still, it’s good to know what we’re looking for.”
“Looking for?”
Lock only grinned and turned his back to stare out my window onto Baker Street.
After a quick shower, I spent most of the time while drying my hair trying to figure out what evidence we’d be looking for and what facts he was still holding back on the mobile phone case. I didn’t actually ask, however, until we were walking toward the Tube station, but he only shrugged and said, “I’ll tell you on the train.”
We didn’t say more than a few words to each other as we wound our way through the crowd to our train platform, but I was watching Lock, waiting for that break in his shield that would reveal the grieving I was sure hid just beneath the surface. But even as we stood on the platform silently, hand in hand, he acted like it was any other day. He seemed to be thinking something through but showed not even a trace of the emotions I’d expect to see from anyone else in his situation.
I envied that—his ability to put things out of his mind for good and focus on the present. I couldn’t even seem to focus on Lock for long. The minute I looked away from him, my mind filled with the story of Lady Constance and her caretaker husband, imagining the life they must have had at Oxford when they were young, and the pain he must have felt every time he watched her Arthurian fantasy world torment her away from his reality.
I looked down at the ground because no thoughts of my artist tormentor could pass through my mind without bringing Sadie Mae’s face from the drawing to the forefront. I couldn’t seem to scrub it from my mind no matter how hard I tried. I’d thought that seeing her dead was the worst kind of torment, but seeing the scene re-created on paper and not being able to reach in and get my father away from her was far worse.
My expression must have given me away. When Lock leaned closer to meet my eyes, he seemed confused for a moment, then concerned. I thought I was in the clear when he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and held me. I should have known better.
“I want to know what is hurting you like this.”
“Did you look at the second drawing?”