The Unexpected Coincidence Read Free

his brother hadn't followed through on his
threat and told her about his difficulties. As he grabbed the
device, he started to think of all the ways he would punish
Sherlock for the betrayal. When he managed to pull the text up on
screen, the lines on his forehead deepened even further.
     
    Stage 2?
     
    Her question gave
nothing away but impatience, and definitely didn't give him an
indication of why she'd decided to message him now.
     
    Is your lack of
patience the only reason you messaged? I won't reward
impatience.
     
    Mycroft pressed
the send button before he thought that his message sounded angry,
but he wouldn't apologise for it. If she chose to message him
because of something Sherlock had said to her, it would only fuel
the temper that already simmered. It didn't take long for her to
respond. He flicked the screen on again, hoping she had a good
answer for him.
     
    I'm sorry. I
didn't mean to sound impatient. I just noticed that it has been ten
weeks since you last sent me a message. As always, I await your
instructions.
     
    He exhaled and
considered the reply. If Sherlock had prompted her, she'd have
said. Lying to him wasn't something she'd risk when she was so
eager to learn from him.
    After leaning back
in his chair he thought over her request. Ten weeks was a long time
to leave her without a lesson of some kind, but he'd had little
time to think about it since their last communication. It would
take little effort from him to begin the second stage of her
teaching, and he knew just the person to start her off. He used his
main phone to send instructions to one of his agents before typing
a one-word reply and sending it to Amelia.
     
    Tomorrow.
     
     

Chapter 2
    Darkness
surrounded Amelia when she opened her eyes, and the dull ache of
her head soon let her know that it was still early. The combination
of a message from Myron, her nerves at starting a brand new book
tour, and the rain that had only stopped in the early hours of the
morning, had prevented her from getting much sleep.
    With a groan, she
glanced at the bedside clock. It was a few minutes before six, but
she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep. Her mind already whirred
through the many questions and worries she had.
    After rubbing the
dust from her eyes, she turned off her alarm and wrapped herself in
her favourite dressing gown. She padded through to the rest of the
ground floor flat and her large open-plan kitchen, dining area and
living room. Off to the far corner, the front door stood like a
silent green sentinel in the ochre walls.
    Immediately her
eyes were drawn to the large white envelope on the mat. With a
raised eyebrow, she wandered over to it. The postman wouldn't come
for several more hours yet, and only her name appeared on the
outside in a blocky but neat script. Given Myron's message, she
wondered if it might be from him, but it wasn't his handwriting,
and when she flipped it over there was no familiar seal holding the
envelope shut. She did notice three large splotches of what must
have been rain water.
    Still not opening
it, she wandered to the window and peeked out of a gap in the
curtain. It wasn't raining and didn't look like it had been for at
least an hour or so. Whoever had delivered this letter had done it
at a very early time of the morning. She searched her memory of the
previous night while she'd been tossing and turning in bed, but she
didn't think she'd heard the letterbox clatter shut after the
envelope would have been pushed through. Given the lack of sleep,
she was fairly certain she'd have noticed it, and that meant it had
been posted some time between one and five-thirty that morning. She
shivered, not sure she wanted to open it and find out why.
    To put the moment
off for a few minutes, she decided to make herself a cup of tea
first. She took the envelope back towards the kitchen area and
placed it on the counter while she boiled the kettle and prepared
the teapot.
    Once she had the
warm mug of hot tea in