Vex returned from the brownstone at 3:17 AM, her fur matted with rooftop grime and her expression carrying something I'd learned to recognize as alarm.
"He has a file on you," she said without preamble. "Physical. Labeled 'Cash Dalton: Anomalies.' Multiple pages, photographs, timeline reconstructions."
I sat down on my bed, the mattress springs protesting under my weight. The room at Mrs. Petrova's had become familiar over the past weeks — the water stain on the ceiling, the particular creak of the floorboards, the way the streetlight filtered through the curtains. It didn't feel safe anymore.
"Tell me everything."
Vex hopped onto my desk, positioning herself beside Jamie's portrait, which still watched me with those painted eyes. "I accessed the brownstone through the rooftop ventilation — the same route I used during our early surveillance. His workspace is on the second floor. He was asleep when I entered, but his materials were displayed."
"Displayed how?"
"Like he'd been working on them before bed. Timeline pinned to a corkboard. Photographs arranged in chronological order. Notes in multiple colors, cross-referenced." She paused. "He's treating you like a case, Cash. A formal investigation."
The Memory Palace churned with implications I didn't want to examine. Sherlock Holmes investigated cases. He solved cases. And the cases he couldn't solve immediately became obsessions.
"What did the timeline show?"
"Your arrival in New York — he's pinpointed it to within forty-eight hours of actual. Your first interactions with the criminal underworld. The pattern of anonymous tips. Your appearance at crime scenes. Your relationship with me." Vex's tail twitched with agitation. "He's documented every anomaly. The beekeeping slip. Your knowledge of Moran. The correlations between your appearances and case resolutions."
"How many pages?"
"Fourteen that I could see. There may be more in the folders."
Fourteen pages of documented impossibilities. Fourteen pages of evidence that I knew things I shouldn't know, appeared in places I shouldn't be, and operated with intelligence that defied conventional explanation.
"What's his leading theory?"
"I couldn't determine that. But his notes included references to 'impossible knowledge,' 'predictive accuracy,' and 'unknown information source.'" Vex looked at me with those ancient green eyes. "He's not close to the truth — he's thinking about elaborate intelligence networks, perhaps government connections. But he's close to the conclusion that something impossible is happening."
I stood up and walked to the window, staring out at the Brooklyn night. Somewhere in Manhattan, Sherlock Holmes was sleeping with a file about me beside his bed. Tomorrow he would wake up and add more pages. The day after, more. Eventually, the file would contain enough data points that even a wrong theory would point at the right conclusion: Cash Dalton shouldn't exist the way he exists.
"There's something else," Vex said.
"Tell me."
"He has photographs of you with Marcus. Multiple occasions. Different locations." She paused. "He's investigating your personal relationships as well as your professional operations."
The information landed with weight it shouldn't have carried. I'd been careful with Marcus — different neighborhoods, varying patterns, nothing that should have attracted notice. But Sherlock noticed everything.
"He's building a complete picture," I said.
"Yes. And he's patient. He'll keep building until he has enough to confront you with."
I thought about Sherlock's eyes during our last meeting — the particular intensity of someone who was cataloging everything I said and did, looking for the pattern that would unlock the puzzle. He wasn't going to stop. He wasn't capable of stopping. The mystery of Cash Dalton would occupy him until he solved it.
"How long do we have?"
"Weeks, maybe. A month if we're careful." Vex jumped from the desk to the windowsill, positioning herself beside me. "He's thorough, but he's also working multiple cases. We're not his only focus."
"But we're his most interesting one."
"Yes."
I stared at my reflection in the window glass — the face that Sherlock was photographing, documenting, analyzing. The face that Jamie had painted with such precision. The face that Marcus had kissed without knowing what lay beneath it.
"I need to get ahead of this," I said.
"How?"
"I don't know yet." The Memory Palace offered no solutions, just variations on the same impossible problem. "But I can't let him construct the explanation himself. If I wait until he has a theory, it'll be too late to shape what he believes."
"You're considering telling him something."
"I'm considering controlling what he learns. Partial disclosure. Enough truth to satisfy his curiosity, enough lies to protect the rest."
Vex was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice carried that ancient weight I'd learned to trust. "Partial disclosure is dangerous with someone like Sherlock. He'll see the edges of what you're hiding and work at them until they unravel."
"I know. But letting him construct his own explanation is worse." I turned away from the window. "If he decides I'm a threat — an intelligence operative, a criminal with government connections, something that endangers the people he cares about — he'll act. And I can't afford that."
"What's your alternative?"
"Make him a collaborator instead of an investigator. Share enough that he feels invested in keeping my secrets rather than exposing them."
"That's a significant gamble."
"It's the only gamble I have."
I sat back down on the bed, suddenly exhausted. The weight of the evening — Vex's report, the implications of Sherlock's file, the growing complexity of my position — pressed down on me like something physical.
"Get some rest," Vex said. "Tomorrow we'll plan. Tonight, you need sleep."
"Sleep." I laughed without humor. "With fourteen pages of documentation about my impossible existence waiting in a brownstone across the river?"
"Especially then." She curled up on my pillow, her warmth familiar and comforting. "The problems will still be there in the morning. You'll face them better if you're not exhausted."
She was right. She usually was.
I lay down beside her, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about Sherlock's file or Jamie's portrait or Marcus's hands on my skin.
Sleep came eventually. But it wasn't restful.
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