Locked (14 page)

The teacher today is a sub. She writes her name on the board—Mrs. Fields—and starts talking about
How to Kill a Mockingbird
like the real topic on everyone’s minds isn’t
How to Kill Sherlock Holmes.

Midway through the lesson, he stands up. Everyone goes completely still. I can almost hear their heartbeats.

“It’s not working out between us, Irene,” he says loudly. “I’m afraid I’m dumping you.”

And he sits back down.

As if I’d let him off that easy.

I stand up, the sound of my chair scraping back nearly deafening in the silence. “Like hell you’re breaking up with me, Sherlock Holmes.”

I take my seat again.

“Um…perhaps if we could save this for later…” whispers a petrified Mrs. Fields, frozen with her marker halfway to the whiteboard.

The classroom is a dead quiet sea of stares.

Sherlock is glowering at me. I smile back sweetly and he gets up again. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he says.

Did he read a handbook on how to break with someone? Probably. What a dork. I get up again too. “It’s not either. It’s both of us. Which is still a thing, because we’re not breaking up.”

“Personal matters…are for outside the classroom,” Mrs. Fields squeaks. Nobody listens to her. I think the classroom is about to combust.

Sherlock narrows his eyes. “I’m gay.”

Breaking out the big guns, then. I volley back: “Not according to last night, you’re not.”

One terrified giggle escapes someone in the front row.

“Stop it, Irene,” he says under his breath, turning up his death glare as high as it will go.

I grin. I’m winning. Today, I don’t mind the stares. They’re for a good cause. “What about yesterday, when you said you couldn’t live without me?”

“Irene,” he hisses.

“And the day before that, when you said you wanted to get marr—”

“Point made,” he growls, throwing himself back into his chair like he’s hoping it’ll break.

“That’s what I thought,” I say, smiling widely. “Babycakes.”

And I take my seat.

“Well,” says Mrs. Fields, her voice quavering. “If we think about what the mockingbird represents…”

A minute later, I get a text.

SH:
You were enjoying that way too much.

IA:
Can you blame me?

SH:
Yes.

|||

Sherlock hasn’t looked up in ten minutes.

He’s typing almost as far as he’s speaking, knees drawn up to his chest in the second plastic lawn chair I’ve donated to his living room. He still refuses to buy furniture. “The killer is someone from Daphne’s comic book club.”

“Tell the police, not me.”

“Someone with a grudge against both Daphne and I.”

“So go tell the police.”

“Someone physically stronger than Daphne. Strong enough to hold her down, drown her and then carry her body into the gym. Likely a male.”

“Sherlock,” I say. “Tell the police.”

“The killer is clever. When one is trying to catch a mouse near his own hole, one does not leap for it in a blue uniform with hands outstretched. One sets a trap.”

“You are ridiculous. Here.” I hold out his mug of tea, but he’s still typing. I start to set it on the floor. My fingers slip and suddenly Bigelow’s Earl Grey is soaking into the carpet.

“The police would get in my way,” he says.

I snatch the mug, but it’s too late. “Well, they’re performing their own investigation, aren’t they? Maybe they’ll figure it out before you do.”

Sherlock laughs. “That joke was almost witty. I’m rubbing off on you.”

I massage my forehead. “I’m going to go ahead and assume you haven’t bought paper towels.”

“There are five males in the comic book club and one girl who I believe would be strong enough to overpower Daphne. But we’re also looking for the person who contacted Ares about seducing Ethan and then made sure Daphne saw your photo.”

“We are?”

“Told you should have let me keep looking into that.”

I set the mug upright and stand. “I’m realizing that pretty much everything you say could be paraphrased as
I told you so
.”

He grins, completely ignoring the puddle of tea spreading near his feet. “It’s unlikely that multiple people would both choose to be in Daphne’s comic book club and have a severe grudge against her. Severe enough to ruin her relationship, and severe enough to kill her.”

I should run and find something to clean up this mess, but I’m fascinated despite myself. “Those are pretty different things.”

“They must have decided that the first one wasn’t enough.” Sherlock stops typing and leans back. “Trevor Engel, Natalie Smith, Jay Heather, Ben Nord, and Jamie McElderry. One of them is the killer.”

Ten minutes on the computer and he’s narrowed it down to five people, out of everyone in our school. “Which ones have grudges against you too?”

He clears his throat. “All of them.”

“Really, Sherlock? Really?”

“I told Trevor his sister was sleeping with his girlfriend. Natalie asked me out and I may have turned her down…ungracefully. I observed in class that Ben and Jay were trading answers on an exam.”

“And Jamie?”

“Jamie said something unpleasant about you and I said something unpleasant, albeit true, about his mother. That was one of the fights I won, by the way.”

“Maybe there are some paper towels upstairs?” I say faintly.

“I need to observe them more closely.” He uncrosses his legs and puts out his hand to stop me as I start to head in the direction of the stairs. “Five seconds in each of their presences and I’ll be able to tell which one is the killer, I guarantee it.”

I shake him off. “You’ll see them all tomorrow at school.”

“I don’t want to wait until tomorrow.” He abandons his laptop and stands up, cracking his back and then his knuckles. “Let’s make some house calls.”

“I’m taking all this as a no on the paper towels. By the way, it’s also a no on the house calls.”

“Don’t tell me you’re more invested in paper towels than murderers,” he says. Now that he’s up, I have to tilt my head back to look at him. He’s going to give me neck issues. “Don’t you want to catch him?”

“Of course I do,” I say, more sharply than I mean to. “But I don’t want you running around and knocking on the doors of people who think
you’re
the killer. You’re in danger, Sherlock.”

“Oh, please. The killer won’t come after me. Whoever did it certainly has a grudge against me, or they wouldn’t have framed me, but if they wanted to kill me as much as they wanted to kill Daphne, they would have done so. Somehow I’m doubting our murderer has any reservations about murdering.”

“That’s not what I meant.” I pull off my sweatshirt and use it to mop up the spill. Sweatshirts can go in the washing machine. Carpets can’t. “There are people around here with shotguns.”

“So you think someone’s going to kill me because they think it was wrong I killed someone. There’s circular logic for you.”

“They don’t have to kill you,” I say tightly. “But they could hurt you.”

“While my intellect far outstrips my physical strength, my physical strength is still above average. I happen to be used to people wanting to hurt me. And good at preventing it.”

I want to point out the one fight that Sherlock had lost, but I don’t.

“I’m very hard to hurt,” he says.

“Nobody’s hard to hurt.”

There’s a moment of silence broken by the buzz of the doorbell.

He frowns. “Not Mycroft. He always holds it for at least four seconds. He knows the noise irritates me.”

I leave my sweatshirt to soak up the puddle of tea and go answer the door. Standing on the front porch is a redheaded girl from the comic book club. One of Daphne’s friends. Bree Laurel. She’s tiny and trying to make herself tinier, hunching and glancing up at me like a rabbit.

“Um,” I say, keeping my hand on the knob in case she tries to push past me into the house. “Hi, Bree.”

“Hi, Irene.” Her voice is wispy and nervous. It’s cold enough that it’s awkward for me not to invite her in, but I still don’t. The reason she’s here can’t be good. “This is Sherlock’s address, right? Is he home?”

“I…” I glance over my shoulder. Sherlock has disappeared from the living room. “He’s kind of busy.”

Bree takes a deep, determined breath. “Okay, then will you tell him for me…that I don’t think he did it. I don’t think he killed Daph.” Her eyes fill with tears. “She wouldn’t have wanted people to believe something that wasn’t true.”

“Thanks,” I say, after hesitating. “I appreciate that. I mean, he’ll appreciate that. Why are you so convinced it isn’t him, though? It isn’t,” I add hastily, “but you know what he’s like. I can’t really blame people for being convinced.”

“Everyone knows what he’s like.” She nods and looks shyly away, casting a puzzled expression at the blackened shoe in the driveway. “My cousin’s like that, too. Rude to people, but it’s just to hide the fact that he doesn’t know how to talk to them. Sherlock always seemed that way to me. Actually, I was wondering if he might want to come over tonight. To my place.”

“That’s sweet of you, but Sherlock’s not really into dating.” I smile gently.

A blush like fire flies over her face. “No! Not like that. You’d be invited too. And what do you mean, he’s not into dating? He’s dating you. And I know he’s dating you. I’m not trying to—I mean, I’ve already given up on—” She takes another deep breath. “What I’m saying is I invited a few of my friends over, just a few, who believe the stupid rumors about him, and I wanted…I was hoping maybe he and you could come over, and they could get to know you a little. Him, I mean. I’m sure they’d understand he’s not dangerous when they see him talk to you. It’s obvious when he talks to you.” She laughs sadly. “And then once they believed it, they might convince others at school. I don’t know. I’m sorry to ramble. I just feel bad about it. Anyway, it’s tonight at nine. 13 Elderberry Drive.”

“Thanks, but I think that might just make it worse.” I tuck my hair behind my ear and open the door a little wider. “Sherlock’s social skills are a disaster in three acts.”

“What are the acts?”

“One: he takes a breath. Two: he opens his mouth. Three: he talks.”

The corners of her mouth quirk up. “Will you at least try to convince him?”

“He really won’t want to go. Trust me.”

“But—”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Bree.” I close the door gingerly in the face of her protests.

Sherlock saunters out of the kitchen, a roll of paper towels under his arm. Paper towels
.
I hate him. “Who was that?” he asks.

“Just a girl from school.” I peek out the window. Bree is walking back to her car.

“Not quite the lynch mob you’ve been imagining.”

“It was one of the comic book club girls.” I snatch the roll of paper towels from him and head back into the living room.” “She wanted you to come to a get-together thing at her house…”

“
Excellent
.” He says it so loudly that I nearly drop the paper towels. He’s beaming at me, suddenly on fire. “Where? When?”

I stare at him. “You know there’ll be people there.”

“Of course there will. Precisely the right kind of people. The comic book club people.”

“Oh, God—you want to go and X-ray them all. At this poor girl’s house where she’s trying to convince them all you’re innocent.”

“If you care about this
poor girl
so much, I’m sure you’d rather she know which of her friends is a murderer.” His eyes flash.

“We should leave it to the police,” I say firmly. “And you could be wrong about the comic book club people.”

“I’m never wrong.”

“Yes you are.”

“Come with me or don’t come with me. Either way, I’m going.” He pulls out his phone and starts ignoring me.

I groan. “Sherlock, you know I’m going to go with you if you go.”

“You’re right. I do. See—never wrong.”

Yeah, I definitely hate him.

|||

Five past nine, and it’s not a small gathering.

Bree’s house is huge. And people fill every inch of it. They spill out onto the manicured frown lawn, laughing and loosely gripping cans of beer. Someone vomits into the rosebushes lining the driveway. Music thick as blood pumps through the air.

“It’ll be a hassle to find them in this,” Sherlock mutters, standing next to me on the sidewalk.

I breathe a sigh of relief. “Okay. Let’s go.”

“I didn’t say we should go.” He sidesteps a red solo cup that comes flying out of the air. It bounces off my chest instead. “You’re not actually intimidated by this, are you? People constantly seem drunk to me. Think how I must feel.”

“I’m not intimidated,” I snap, kicking the cup out of the way. “There’s too many people from our school in there and they all hate you right now and I don’t want any of them seeing you when their inhibitions are lowered.”

A drunk guy with sideburns staggers past Sherlock. He’s beefy, but in a flash Sherlock seizes him, lifts him off the ground, and flips him on his back.

“Help,” the guy says faintly.

“No one in this house poses a threat to me, Irene. Now come help me catch a murderer.”

And then he’s off, striding into the mess of noise and people before I can grab his sleeve. I swear and follow him, narrowly avoiding getting beaned by two guys having a swordfight with golf clubs.

Inside the house, people become shadowy figures, wobbling around in the dim light. The acrid tang of spilled booze is as thick as the music. In the living room, the couch and coffee table have been shoved to the side to make an impromptu dance floor. Someone shrieks as they step on a shard of broken picture frame.

“Trevor Engel!”

Sherlock’s voice slices through the pandemonium. I shove past two girls making out and spot him. Unbelievably, he’s already found one of his suspects—Trevor, a weedy junior that I took chemistry with last year.

He’s frozen under the swathe of Sherlock’s stare, a hard cider in each hand. After a few seconds, Sherlock makes a harsh sound of disgust and pushes him away. “Not you.”

Trevor flees.

“Sherlock!” I have to yell to make my voice heard.