Orphan on Baker Street

Thirty Eighth: Lipstick

The night improved significantly. There was a lot of laughing - even from Sherlock - and the food was great. Sherlock even told Rickey something about the cancer that he didn't know; apparently it's shrinking.

In the cab, I look to the consulting detective on my right. "How did you know?" I ask softly. "About his cancer, I mean..."

He shrugs at me. "You just have to look at the signs. If it was growing, he wouldn't really have an appetite; his eyes would look more tired and in his case, yellow. But, he ate a decent meal and looked as if he had recently gained some weight."

"Oh... Well, thanks for not embarassing me. And thanks for making him feel better and not uncomfortable."

Sherlock pulls his eyebrows together. "How could I have- Oh..."

There's silence for a while, and we eventually turn onto Baker Street. Blinking red and blue police lights blur my vision.

"Stop," Sherlock exclaims. The cabbie slams on the breaks; Sherlock runs out onto the street, and Mrs. Hudson and I quickly go after him. He's running, and I jog behind him to keep Mrs. Hudson a reasonable distance behind me.

I finally catch up to Sherlock, who went past 221B and is at the neighbor's house. Most of the policemen flock here, and one man holds his arm up to prevent Sherlock from getting closer.

"I'm with Lestrade," Sherlock tells the man.

"If he wanted you here, he would have told me you were coming. Now, please, sir-"

"Just let him in," Lestrade's voice from the doorway cuts him off. "Sorry, he's new." He glances at me. "Let her in, too." Then he disappears back into the building, and Sherlock and I go in.

It's set up like 221B, but the walls are a soft pink for some reason. The stairs creak as we ascend them; the railing looks full of splinters, so I fold my hands together. Lestrade leads the two of us into the flat at the top of the stairs, and there is absolutely no furniture.

"At first, we got a call for a robbery from here," the detective explains. "When we got here, there was nothing and-"

"Where's the body?" Sherlock asks. He stares around the room as if he could magically make the furniture reappear, or even a corpse.

Lestrade glares at him. "In the room at the end of the hall." He glances down at me briefly before turning his attention to a girl with her hair pulled back and a clipboard in hand. I follow Sherlock down the hallway and practically step on him as he stops unexpectedly in the middle of it. My nose instinctively scrunches up from a familiar smell, and I get goosebumps.

"Sherlock," I whisper. He just keeps walking, and we enter another empty room with dark purple curtains closed over the window on the right wall just beside us. A long mound of damp dirt sits in the middle of the room, surrounded by people with flashing cameras.

Someone - Anderson - exits what I assume is the master bathroom. He frowns as he spots Sherlock. "Oh... you're here."

Sherlock rolls his eyes at the man. "Don't bore me with your attempts to insult me, Anderson. What's going on here? And do you mind not messing up?"

There's a small pause before the man starts speaking. "There's no body under the dirt, if that's what you're wondering. There also aren't any personal belongings in either of the bathrooms."

"No personal belongings?" Lestrade's voice comes from behind me. "We'll have to interview neighbors."

Sherlock waltzes over to the master bathroom and disappears. "Mickey," his voice echoes off the tile. "Come help me out."

I frown slightly before walking over to the doorway, which peels white and reveals a red interior.

"Wait," I say abruptly. "Wait," I say again, not knowing why I said it the first time. Then I step back and look at the red on the doorframe. "Could this be blood?"

"How could you miss this?!" Sherlock demands. "There is nothing in the room to distract you - I haven't even seen Donovan - yet you still continue to amaze me with your oblivious and utterly stupid face!" His shouts bounce off of the bare, white walls. I glance over my shoulder at the dirt mound.

"Mickey," he says more calmly. I look back at him, and he gestures for me to enter. "Do you see anything in here?"

"What do you mean?" I ask. "Why does it matter?"

"Just look," Sherlock says impatiently. I scowl and examine the bathroom, spinning very slowly in a full circle.

I take in the pale green tiles on the wall that stop halfway up and turn into smooth, pink paint; the interesting design on the semi-circle shower door; the spotless white porcelain of the toilet.

"Who's this meticulous?" I wonder out loud. "Someone who wouldn't leave a trace - not of them, not of the flat's owner..." I crouch down and open the pink cabinet under the sink. Then I sit on my butt and stick my entire head in, looking around at the underside of the sink.

"How do they solve crimes without us, Sherlock?" I ask with a small giggle. In what appears to be orange lipstick, a message is written out. It takes me a moment for it to register and read it aloud. "It's in orange lipstick. It says 'I'm counting days. You're counting graves.'" My body is pulled out from under the sink by firm hands when I finish.

Sherlock towers over me, holding a plastic bag in front of my face. An uncapped tube of lipstick is in it, and I smirk.

"Brilliant."