“It is still the law. It is a contract between the people in a community on how to live together peacefully.”
“But without justice, the law is empty. Why follow something that has no benefit?”
Sherlock tightened his grip on my hand. He didn’t say anything else until we crossed to Baker Street. “It still applies, whether it benefits you or not.”
I shook the hair back from my face and gazed up at the starless sky. “Then should I say that the law does not apply to me, because I choose not to accept it?”
“We are to be anarchists then?”
I sighed. “Anarchy is chaos, as is the law. They belong together. Anything that arbitrary is useless. . . . Do not smile at me, Sherlock Holmes.”
He didn’t even try to heed my words. “I can’t help it.”
“You can. You choose not to.” I bumped his side with my arm and he started to laugh, but the sound of it died away sooner than was natural. We took only one more step before we stopped walking.
My house was surrounded by people, with two cars in front—one dark sedan and one gray police car with blue flashing lights. Officers were coming in and out of the front door. We started running up the street, and when I got a little closer, I saw a blond woman standing at the bottom of the steps, her arms protectively surrounding my younger brothers, Michael and Sean. Freddie, the oldest of my brothers, stood just in front of them, his arms crossed to face down the uniformed officer who was peering at him over his notebook.
“This is a restricted area,” an officer said as I ducked under some police tape that formed a lazy barrier around the cars and our stoop. But his slight smirk told me that he knew exactly who I was.
“This is my house,” I said. I instantly labeled him as one of my father’s. It was a little game I had played in the long hours spent at the police station giving statements. I sorted every officer I came into contact with as “father’s,” “not father’s,” or “worthless regardless of loyalties.”
I started forward and he reached out to block me again, but Lock intervened and I left him behind to explain things. The officer facing Freddie was almost sneering when I finally reached them.
“You say she’s your auntie?” the officer asked. “She’ll have to prove it.”
“Not to you,” the woman said, her American accent bringing a smile to my lips. She turned to wink at me and a flood of relief washed away a few of the knots in my brain that I hadn’t realized were plaguing me. “I’m late, aren’t I?”
Alice.
In the days after my father was jailed, I’d had to fight through an exhausting pile of government forms and rules and protocols to keep my brothers together and out of a facility. Mrs. Hudson immediately filed to take them in herself and was granted interim care of the boys, which would last only eight weeks. I’d had no idea what we’d do beyond that. And apparently I wouldn’t need to know.
“Aunt Alice!” I said. I managed to return Michael’s and Seanie’s questioning stares with a quick nod that seemed to put them somewhat at ease. Michael even reached over to take Alice’s hand, which made me desperate to ruffle his hair. Instead, I placed myself between Fred and Officer Sneery, who seemed to be eyeing everyone’s reactions a little too closely. “I didn’t think you’d make it until next month or I would’ve told the boys their auntie was coming.”
“They were surprised,” she said, smiling at Seanie, who looked immediately at the ground. “But Mrs. Hudson helped introduce me. And Fred here even remembered me from way back.”
Alice, of course, wasn’t our aunt. Our mother’s sister could’ve lived out of the country or around the block for all we heard from her, which was never. Alice had been Mother’s best friend and biggest fan when they were young. She was also the only member of my mother’s con-artist crew to escape death at my father’s hand.
Alice turned back to the officer. “I have my papers in order and filed with Tri-borough Children’s Services. These children are now in my temporary care pending a full care order. So, if you’ll please vacate our house.”
The officer cleared his throat and leaned between us. “I heard these kids’ aunt lives in Australia.”
“You should be careful who you listen to, Officer”—I made a point of tracing his silver nametag with a hovering finger—“Parsons, is it?”
“You must be the liar,” he said, looking rather pleased with himself as he sketched a word across his notebook. “Or, I meant to say, daughter. Slip of the tongue.”
“Clever, our officer Parsons. Isn’t he clever, Aunt Alice?”
“Ever so,” Alice said in her most sardonic American accent.
A flash went off behind us and my heart sank. Someone had called the press. Still, I kept my voice light, even as I shifted my body to keep Freddie out of their view. “So what’s all this? Did you miss us?”
“We got a tip—,” he started, but his words were drowned out by shouting.
“Free Moriarty! Free the innocent! Free Moriarty!”
“Send him to prison where he belongs! Clean up our police force!”