And then there was three; a Sherlock Fanfiction

Eleven

Sherlock stood with Molly Hooper to his right and Lilly Harper to his left. John was to the left of Lilly and Lestrade was loitering around behind the four.

They stood in front of five human bodies- correction- the remains of what used to be five human bodies. Anderson was being kind when he called it gruesome, the bodies were downright horrific. The stab wounds were messy and all over, and their faces were bashed and broken, mostly raw. Even trough the attempts to clean them up, one could barely tell that these had once been living, breathing human beings. It was a mess of bone and skin. Molly didn't like looking at them very long; she'd seen some horrifying bodies throughout her life, but nothing this bad.

"When taking the initials of the victims, 4 out of 5 could match 11 of the 16 emails from Gracie Brown's account," Sherlock stated.

"Right, Sherlock," Lestrade said from behind, avoiding looking at the bodies, "so what do the emails have to do with all this?"

Sherlock glared at the dead body of Natalie Vail, "I don't know,"

He whipped the sheet back over her, turning around with a swift swish of his coat.

"Wait Sherlock," Lilly said, half jogging to catch up with the consulting detective's strides. When she reached him she slowed to match his pace, "they said that that woman, Natalie Vail, she was having money troubles, right? And then her unrecognizable body is discovered in her car in the middle of no where so that she can only be identified through DNA,"

She glanced up at Sherlock, "what if it's like the case you solved during the bombings. Remember? Janus, the God with two faces. They faked their own deaths and fled the country,"

Sherlock stopped walking and looked down at her, "Network. That's what they were talking about. Grace must have been a part of the network funneling those people out!"

"But why did they kill her?" Lilly asked, racking her brain.

"She must have gotten in the way, became dead weight, something. The real question is who would be so concerned about these people? What are they getting out of it?" Sherlock and Lilly shared grim looks, but a hint of a smile remained on both their faces- there was nothing they enjoyed more than the adrenaline that carried them through a case.

"We should fill John in," Lilly said, turning around to go talk to him. Sherlock watched her silently, pondering this possible breakthrough. If there was another person transporting citizens out of the country illegally, they would need resources and connections, but what they'd really need was some motivation. A network like this wouldn't be doing it for free, but these people had nothing to pay them. What is it they could possibly do to gain their emigration?

Just then, John inhaled sharply, causing Sherlock to snap to attention. Lilly had finished explaining the situation to John, and the new connections made him feel on edge.

"Then, if the 'victims' were all smuggled out of the country," he turned to stare at the bodies, "who are they?"

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sorry for the short short chapter but I'm lazy <3

M