Someone from the crowd screamed, and Alice tried her best to hide my brothers out of view as a wave of flashes and camera lights overtook the front of our house. The world around us went to chaos, but still all the officers turned to look at me—the girl with a severed hand in her rubbish.
Sherlock moved faster than the officers, grabbing me around my middle and practically carrying me into the house. When we reached the kitchen, he was full of assurances that what they found had nothing to do with me, that it was probably all a mistake, but I knew he couldn’t protect me from what came next. I still ended up sitting in my kitchen, with Lock and Alice on either side of me while the inspector retook his seat at the head of the table.
After a very long pause, Mallory closed the manila file folder, looked up at me, and said, “You’re going to have to come to the station.”
Sherlock stood in protest, but I kept my eyes fixed on Mallory. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, whether he was feeling triumphant or skeptical or bored, for that matter. I didn’t know what to think or feel myself. I could think of only one person who might try to call in a tip and give the police something to find when they got here, but he’d been in a jail cell for two weeks. ?And while my mind traced every possible way my father could have tossed this mess in my lap, my silence was making it look as though I were acquiescing to Mallory’s request.
“For what possible reason?” Alice, bless her, spoke up in my stead. “There’s n—”
“A body part was found when searching the house.”
“Outside the house,” Alice countered.
“In her rubbish bags.”
Sherlock slammed shut the lower cabinet door beneath the sink. “Not her bags.” He stared at the white bag in his hand and then set it on top of Mallory’s folder. “You of course noted that the bag the hand came out of was green, like those found in the park bins, not the white with red stripe provided by the City of London.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean—”
“And that the other items in the bag were clearly take-away containers, bags, and other rubbish from the zoo, shops, and restaurants in the park. You at least saw the smashed coffee cup that literally said ‘Feeding time at the zoo’ on it.”
When Mallory said nothing, Lock wandered behind him, to the far side of the table, then sat down in the chair directly across from me. His grin was subtle, but infectious. “Her bins have been left out front for hours now. Anyone in the city could have dropped that bag in there.”
Mallory swept the empty bag off his folder and started to speak, but my Lock wasn’t done. “Most important, however, you wouldn’t have had to watch Miss Moriarty grow up to know that she’s much too intelligent to cut off someone’s hand and drop it into her own rubbish bin, when there are public bins literally every thirty feet across the city.”
Mallory pressed his lips together. “Perhaps not.”
Alice cleared her throat, bringing our attention back to her. “And the press will want to know why a detective inspector as bright as you would bring a teenage girl to a police station when she is clearly being framed. Do you have an answer for that, Mr. Mallory?”
He apparently didn’t, as his chin dropped to his chest. Then, without a word, he pushed back from the table and stormed from the kitchen. I followed him out and stood in the kitchen doorway to watch him call off his dogs. The officers slowly streamed out the front door under my watch, none of them bothering to say a word in my direction. Not that I would have answered. My mind was working too fast trying to figure out answers to the most important questions: What the hell was a severed hand doing in my rubbish bin? Who the hell put it there? And why?
My father was the obvious answer to all three, but then I got stuck on the how of it. My father. Two weeks behind bars and I was still not free of him. I closed my eyes against the surge of rage that burned through me and felt my jaw clench. I didn’t, however, realize I was trembling until Sherlock slid his fingers between mine and squeezed my hand.
“Almost over,” he said.
I’d only meant to free myself from his touch, but I jerked my hand from his with enough force that the final uniformed officer to leave paused and looked over at us on his way out. I took a deep, shaky breath before I turned away from Lock and headed up the stairs. I paused on the center landing. “Distract my brothers while I check their rooms?”
I saw Lock nod in my periphery.