The crime scene was in a warehouse in the Bronx — the third warehouse I'd visited in a month, which suggested either a pattern in my client base or the universe's lack of creativity.
My client this time was a shipping company owner named Franklin Torres. His business partner had been found dead that morning, shot twice in the chest, discovered by a night watchman who'd arrived late for his shift. Torres claimed he had nothing to do with the murder. He also claimed he needed representation at the crime scene, someone who could protect his interests while the police investigated.
That was why I was walking toward a building surrounded by yellow tape, my credentials ready and my cover story rehearsed. Security consultant. Client protection. Standard fixer work.
What I hadn't expected was the consulting detective already inside.
Vex's warning came a split second before I saw him: Holmes. He's examining the body.
I stopped at the tape, my heart suddenly hammering despite weeks of preparation for exactly this moment. Sherlock Holmes was thirty feet away, crouched over a corpse, his eyes cataloging details with that machine-like precision I remembered from the show.
Joan Watson stood beside him, notebook in hand, her posture suggesting she'd learned to stay out of his way while he worked. Detective Marcus Bell was near the door, talking to a uniformed officer, his body language professional and focused.
My first thought was strategic: this was the convergence I'd been positioning toward. The face-to-face meeting that would transform me from anonymous tipster to known quantity.
My second thought was visceral: Sherlock Holmes was real, he was here, and he was about to look at me with those eyes that saw everything.
"Security consultant, you said?" The officer at the tape was checking my credentials, her expression skeptical. "And your client is?"
"Franklin Torres. Shipping company. His partner is the victim."
"Torres is inside. Detective Bell's talking to him."
She lifted the tape, and I ducked under it, walking toward the building with deliberately casual steps. My new instincts — the skill that had manifested during the Reyes case — were firing automatically, reading the scene without conscious effort.
Entry point: front door, no forced entry, victim knew his killer. Blood pool: extensive, victim bled out over several minutes, not immediately fatal shots. Body position: fell backward, tried to crawl toward the office in the back, didn't make it.
I filed the information and focused on the people.
Sherlock looked up as I approached. His eyes met mine for exactly 1.3 seconds — I counted, I couldn't not count — and in that time I felt myself being cataloged. My clothes, my posture, the way I held my shoulders. The calluses on my hands that matched no obvious profession. The awareness in my eyes that suggested I was doing the same thing to him.
He didn't recognize me. There was no flash of revelation, no sudden connection to the anonymous tips that had been plaguing his cases for weeks. I was a stranger to him. A puzzle, perhaps, but not a familiar one.
"Mr. Dalton." Detective Bell had noticed me. He crossed the warehouse floor with the efficient stride of a cop who didn't have time for complications. "Your client said you might show up. He couldn't wait five minutes for official representation?"
"Mr. Torres is concerned about his interests." I kept my voice neutral, professional. "He asked me to observe and advise. I won't interfere with your investigation."
"See that you don't." Bell's eyes were sharp, assessing. I remembered watching him from a distance, admiring his competence. Up close, that competence was more intense, more focused. "This is an active crime scene. You can observe, but you don't touch anything, you don't talk to anyone except your client, and you definitely don't share theories with the consulting detective."
He said the last part with a glance toward Sherlock, and I detected history there. Bell respected Sherlock's abilities but chafed at his methods. Canon-accurate, and useful information.
"Understood."
Bell turned away to continue his work, and I moved toward Torres, who was sitting on a crate near the back of the warehouse looking pale and shaken. But I was aware — intensely, uncomfortably aware — of Sherlock Holmes's attention.
He'd returned to examining the body, but I could feel his peripheral awareness tracking my movement. The new skill told me he was noting every detail: how I walked, where I looked, what I chose to examine and what I ignored. He was building a profile, just as I'd been building profiles of him for weeks.
The difference was that he was doing it in real time, while I was standing in the same room.
"Mr. Torres." I crouched beside my client, pitching my voice low enough that only he could hear. "Tell me what happened."
"I already told the police—"
"Tell me."
Torres swallowed hard. He was late fifties, overweight, the kind of man who'd built a business through years of hard work and didn't know how to handle a situation that couldn't be solved by working harder. "Victor called me last night. Said he had something important to discuss, something about the company. We arranged to meet here this morning, before the regular workers arrived. When I got here, he was..."
He gestured toward the body. His hands were shaking.
"Did anyone else know about this meeting?"
"I didn't tell anyone. Victor might have, I don't know." Torres looked at me with desperate eyes. "I didn't do this. Victor was my partner for twenty years. I didn't—"
"I believe you." I didn't, necessarily, but believing him wasn't my job. Protecting his interests was. "The police will ask questions. Answer them honestly. Don't volunteer information they don't ask for. If they want to take you downtown for a formal interview, call this number." I handed him a card with Dmitri's lawyer contact. "Someone will meet you there."
"That's it? That's your advice?"
"For now." I stood up, my attention already shifting back to the crime scene. "I'll be in touch."
I moved toward the door, planning to exit and observe from a safer distance. But a voice stopped me.
"You have impressive peripheral awareness."
Sherlock Holmes had appeared beside me without warning. Up close, he was exactly as I remembered from the screen — thin, intense, those remarkable eyes that never stopped cataloging information. But there was something else too. A quality I couldn't name. A presence that wasn't captured by cameras or scripts.
"I'm sorry?"
"Your awareness. You've been tracking my position since you entered the building. You know where Detective Bell is without looking at him. You've cataloged three potential exits and calculated which offers the fastest path to the street." He tilted his head, that particular gesture I'd seen in hundreds of episodes. "That's not normal security consultant behavior. That's the awareness of someone expecting danger."
My heart was hammering again, but my voice stayed steady. "I'm good at my job."
"You're good at something." He didn't move, didn't break eye contact. "Cash Dalton. British passport, relocated to New York two months ago. Security consultant with no verifiable clients before your arrival. Building a reputation in circles that don't typically require consultation."
He'd researched me. Or he'd just deduced everything from observation. With Sherlock Holmes, either was possible.
"You've been busy," I said.
"I'm always busy." A pause. "You're interesting, Mr. Dalton. I don't encounter many interesting people."
"Is that a compliment?"
"It's an observation. Compliments require value judgments. I haven't decided what you're worth yet."
I should have been afraid. Sherlock Holmes was looking at me with the kind of attention that destroyed secrets, that saw through lies, that would eventually unravel everything I was trying to hide.
Instead, I felt something else. Excitement. The thrill of finally meeting an opponent worthy of the game.
"Perhaps you'll figure it out," I said. "Mr. Holmes."
I walked out of the warehouse before he could respond, but I could feel his eyes on my back the entire way. Vex materialized beside me as soon as I cleared the tape, her expression as close to alarm as I'd ever seen.
"He made you," she said.
"He noticed me. That's not the same thing."
"It's close enough. He's going to investigate now. Properly. And he's Sherlock Holmes — he'll find things you've hidden."
She was right. The game had changed. I was no longer an anonymous tipster, a shadow in Sherlock's peripheral vision. I was a face, a name, a puzzle he'd decided was worth solving.
But that had always been the goal. Visibility came with risks, but it also came with opportunities. Sherlock Holmes knew I existed now. The next step was making sure he needed me to exist.
"We continue as planned," I said. "But faster. He's going to pull on threads. We need to make sure the threads lead where we want them to."
"And if they don't?"
I thought about the watch in my pocket, still ticking, still mysterious. About the organization-level surveillance Vex had detected. About Sebastian Moran, who the Memory Palace told me was the most dangerous man in Jamie Moriarty's service.
"Then we adapt," I said. "Like we always do."
Sherlock Holmes emerged from the warehouse behind me, his eyes sweeping the street with that relentless attention. Our gazes met across the distance — two minds that had been circling each other for weeks, finally occupying the same space.
Neither of us looked away first.
The contest had begun.
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