Chapter 7

I didn't hear from Sherlock again that weekend and when I came into work on Monday I was as jumpy as a cat. What if Sherlock showed up? How could I face him after all the things I'd said…and done…to him? In my flat that night, all my emotions had boiled over, making me bold. Embarrassment, anger, lust, rejection, sadness , frustration, and a million other feelings I couldn't name. They'd run through my veins like a drug. No, like a crackling electric current. The energy made me feel invincible, but in the harsh fluorescent light of day, I wasn't that girl. What must he think of me now? The thought made me feel sick.

But Sherlock didn't come into the hospital on Monday. He was also a no show on Tuesday. By Wednesday morning I'd finally relaxed enough to stop looking over my shoulder all the time. Sherlock was always busy, but not all of his cases required him to visit the morgue or lab. It could be weeks before he'd be back in again. At least that's what I kept telling myself every five minutes.

Nevertheless, I still felt my heart lurch when I heard the doors to the morgue swing open behind me. It was just Chris Schmidt, the new kid who'd recently been hired. He was fresh out of Uni and technically still in training, so I was supposed to be supervising all of his work for the next few weeks.

"Hey Molly, can you sign off on these reports from yesterday?"

"Sure, no problem," I answered, pulling off my gloves. I took the papers he handed me and started to look over them.

"What's this? 'Cause of death: natural causes, unknown'? You couldn't figure it out?" I asked.

"To be honest, I didn't even try. It's not like it matters. She was 78!"

"It's not our job to decide if it matters, Chris. When an autopsy's been requested, we're supposed to perform it."

Chris bit his lip before breaking out an apologetic smile.

"I know. And I'm sorry. It's just I was nursing a killer hangover yesterday. And I've got a date tonight and I'll never get out of here on time if I have to do that autopsy today on top of what I'm actually supposed to be doing today."

I sighed and hesitated, not sure what to do.

"Aw come on Molly, let me off the hook this time," Chris pleaded.

Chris dropped dramatically to his knees on the ground in front of me and made the most pathetic puppy dog face I'd ever seen. I couldn't help but laugh. As I was laughing I heard the morgue doors swing open again, but I could tell by Chris's unconcerned glance that it wasn't our boss, so I decided to play along.

"Oh, aren't you cute? You're just SO adorable," I murmured, brushing my fingers down his cheek and ruffling his hair. Chris nodded, keeping his boyish pout firmly in place.

"Pleaseeeee, Molly," he begged.

"Alright, I'm not gonna sign this one…but I will take care of the autopsy for you, ok?"

Chris jumped up, beaming at me.

"Yes! Thanks, Molly, you're the best!" he said, grabbing me and dropping a kiss on my cheek.

"Alright, but don't let it happen again," I scolded, swatting him on the head with the papers before handing all but the one back to him.

I jumped when someone sharply barked my name from behind me. Sherlock was standing just inside the doors, flanked by John and Detective Inspector Lestrade.

"We need to see the Hampton body," Sherlock continued.

"Oh, uhm yes, the gunshot victim, right? He was next for me anyway. I'll get him," I said cheerily. I made eye contact with Sherlock and gave him a tentative half smile, hoping he'd take it as a kind of apology for how I'd acted the other night. All he gave me was a raised eyebrow in return. I bit my lip and rushed to open the proper drawer. Was he mad at me, then?

As a slid the corpse out and unzipped the body bag, I glanced periodically back at Sherlock, but he only stared back at me coldly. I wasn't sure what I was hoping for, but it was more than I was getting.

"There we go," I chirped, when the body was on full display.

"Now you must see how obvious it is that the wife didn't do it," Sherlock addressed the men as he came up behind me.

Suddenly, I felt Sherlock's long fingers wrap around either side of my waist and he pulled me over a few paces and assumed my place at the head of corpse. Had I imagined the little squeeze he'd given me before he let go?

At any rate, I was offended. Walking in here and ignoring my attempts at an apology and then manhandling me when he could have simply asked politely for me to me move over.

"As you can clearly see by the bullet holes, here and here," he went on, ignoring my glare and gesturing to the wounds on body. "It's entirely impossible for the gun to have been fired by a person shorter than the victim. You see the angle at which the bullet went through. The wife's a full head shorter than her husband; she couldn't have held the gun at that angle."

John and Lestrade merely stared back blankly at Sherlock. Sherlock groaned.

"Don't you see?!" There was another short silence and the next thing I knew, Sherlock came up behind me and grabbed me in a loose choke hold. Not enough to hurt or crush my windpipe, but enough to force my head up and back. I was too shocked to say anything.

"This is about the height difference we're talking about. Hampton was shot from behind and, presumably, held in about this way. And, yes, that's right, Molly, he would have been trying to pull the attacker off," Sherlock said as I squirmed and yanked on his arm. He wasn't hurting me, and I wasn't afraid that he would. I was just not interested in being the demonstration dummy.

"Let me go," I whined.

"Nice touch, but sound effects are really not necessary," Sherlock answered me smoothly, not loosening his grip at all.

"Sherlock…maybe I could…" John started in, but Sherlock cut him off.

"You can see how this position pulls her head back almost parallel with the floor. I might hold the gun like this," I felt his fingers poke into my hair at the back of my head. "Or maybe this. Even this. I've got several options, one of which results in the exact entry and exit wounds we see here. About like this."

Sherlock abruptly let go of me.

"Now if Molly were going to shoot me…" he went on, coming to stand in front of me. He reached back and grabbed my arm, pulling it up and around his neck from behind. The movement crushed my chest up against his back.

"Come on, Molly, pull back," Sherlock urged and I did as he said. Maybe being involved in the demonstration wasn't so bad. Choking him was exactly my idea of a good time right now.

"Now," Sherlock semi-gasped because I was pretty much hanging off of his neck. "See. She..can't…force…my neck…back and…pretend to shoot…me Molly," he ordered. I formed my fingers into a gun shape and pushed them against his head.

"Try to…match the…angle on…the corpse," he rasped. I did as he said, but I couldn't find a way to "hold the gun" which would put the bullet through at the right angle.

"Aha! She can't!" Lestrade shouted.

"How could you see all that in your head?" John asked. "Unbelievable."

I slid off of Sherlock and backed away a few feet. I watched with growing annoyance as he calmly straightened his clothes. There he was, looking all smug and self-satisfied, when I was standing over here with whiplash from being tossed around like a sack of potatoes for the last ten minutes. Ok, so maybe I didn't have whiplash. But I could have!

"That being the case, Lestrade, I suggest you free the poor wife and arrest the gardener," Sherlock drawled.

"The gardener? He hasn't got any motive, while Mrs. Hampton…"

"Has absolutely no motive. A bunch of nosy old biddies heard her having a row with her husband at a few mind-numbing fundraisers. That proves nothing. Every couple argues at one point or another," Sherlock's eyes slid over to mine for a millisecond between his sentences. "The two of you should be much more aware of that than I am. So she argues with her husband! It's hardly a reliable indicator that she's going to kill him in the next few weeks."

I let out a pointed snort and rolled my eyes. All three men turned to stare at me.

John chuckled. "It seems that Molly does not agree," he said.

"Yeah, I bet she'd get on really well with my wife," Lestrade mused.

I couldn't read Sherlock's expression; it wasn't one that I was familiar with. He stared back at me for only a few seconds before slightly shaking his head and turning back to his audience of two.

"At any rate, it doesn't matter, because the gardener has a much better motive. Money. Lots and Lots of money. What could be a better motive than that?"

"What?" John and Lestrade asked incredulously at the same time. Sherlock sighed.

"Hampton and the gardener were selling cocaine. The landscaping business provided the perfect front. Access to the homes of all the wealthy customers in the area. Nobody would bat an eye seeing a gardener's truck pull up in front of a mansion. And, of course, for laundering the money. They'd print up bills for trimming the shrubs or mowing the lawn when it was really for kilos of coke."

"We didn't find any evidence of…"

"Were you looking, dear inspector?"

Lestrade's hands went to his hips as he stared back at Sherlock in annoyance.

"Didn't think so," Sherlock quipped.

I couldn't stand it! I could not look at that smug little smirk for a single second longer! I slowly ambled over to Sherlock until I was standing right next to him. He was so wrapped up in his performance that he didn't seem to notice.

"So what went wrong then?" John asked, his brow furrowed.

"Mmm, yes. That's the thing with drugs rings. Something always goes wrong. Hampton got tired of spl-Ahhh!" Sherlock's words cut off sharply as my heel came down hard on top of his foot. I'd angled myself in such a way that the men positioned at the other end of the table couldn't see what I'd done.

"What? Are you alright, Sherlock?" John asked.

"I think he just gave himself an orgasm!" Lestrade chuckled at his own joke.

"No…ah I mean yes, I'm fine. Fine," his eyes slid to me but cut away as he went on again quickly. "Hampton…" Sherlock paused for a moment as he took the first step on his injured foot. I bit back a smile.

"Hampton got tired of splitting the money…I'll explain the details later but right now we've really got to get to Heathrow," Sherlock finally finished, pulling out his phone and typing frantically.

"You think the gardener will be trying to leave the country?" John asked.

"Yes, exactly. The 11:15 to Bogota is our best bet," Sherlock answered. He'd already started heading for the door, not sparing me a backwards glance.

"How did you…is he rubbing off on you?" Lestrade asked John as they both followed Sherlock out of the morgue.

"God, I hope not."

So...hey...hi...remember me? Hate me? Please don't throw things at me...I'm so sorry for abandoning this story for so long! I won't make excuses, since there aren't any. I'm gonna try my best to pick this thing back up again.

As always, I have to say: thank you so much to everybody who left reviews on the last chapter! Reviews are my favorite thing ever and I loved reading your reactions!