The client's name was Eleanor Vance — no relation to the fixer I'd destroyed — and she ran a mid-sized accounting firm in Midtown.
"Someone's framing us," she said, sitting across from me in a coffee shop on Lexington Avenue. Her hands were wrapped around a cup she hadn't touched, knuckles white with tension. "The fraud investigation started three weeks ago. SEC involvement, federal auditors, the whole nightmare. Except we didn't do anything."
"What are they claiming?"
"That we helped clients hide assets. Fraudulent valuations, fake transactions, the kind of thing that destroys careers and sends people to prison." She shook her head. "We're not those people. I built this firm on integrity. We've turned down clients who wanted us to bend rules. And now some faceless accusation is about to destroy everything I've worked for."
The Memory Palace filed the details automatically — SEC investigation, asset concealment allegations, timeline of accusations. The pattern suggested something more than routine fraud. Someone had constructed this carefully.
"Who benefits if your firm goes down?"
"That's what I can't figure out. We're not big enough to have serious competitors. We're not political enough to have enemies at that level." She finally took a sip of her coffee. "My lawyer says to cooperate with the investigation and trust the process. But the process is already destroying my reputation. By the time they decide we're innocent — if they decide that — we'll have lost every client who matters."
"You want me to find who's behind this."
"I want you to stop them." Her eyes met mine directly. "I heard you solve problems that the system can't handle. That you operate in spaces where normal people can't go. Is that true?"
I thought about my reputation — the Moriarty name, the Vance destruction, the particular fear that had built around what I was capable of. Eleanor Vance had heard the stories. She'd sought me out because she believed I could help where legal channels had failed.
"It's true," I said. "But solving this might mean exposing things that don't stay hidden afterward. Are you prepared for that?"
"I'm prepared for anything except losing my life's work to lies."
"Then I'll take the case."
---
The investigation took three days.
I used the Memory Palace to map Eleanor's client relationships, looking for patterns that didn't fit. Vex surveilled the accounting firm's competitors, tracking unusual activity. Dmitri ran background checks on everyone involved in the fraud allegations, searching for connections that shouldn't exist.
On day three, I found it.
The fraud accusations traced back to documents that had been planted — forged transactions inserted into Eleanor's systems by someone with inside access. That someone had been bribed by a larger firm that wanted Eleanor's biggest client, a real estate developer whose account was worth millions in annual fees.
The larger firm had connections to a murder case.
I sat in my room, staring at the convergence diagram I'd constructed on paper. Eleanor's client. The larger firm. A dead accountant who'd worked for that firm before his body turned up in the East River two weeks ago.
And Sherlock Holmes, who was consulting on that murder.
"The cases connect," Vex said, studying the diagram. "The fraud and the murder. Same firm. Same timeline."
"Same motive, probably. The dead accountant knew about the fraud. They killed him to keep him quiet."
"Which means Sherlock is investigating the people who framed your client."
I nodded slowly. "Our cases overlap. If I solve one, it helps him solve the other."
"Are you going to tell him?"
The question carried weight beyond the obvious. Sherlock had told me not to contact him until he was ready. We'd established fragile terms that didn't include active collaboration. Reaching out now might damage whatever possibility we'd preserved.
But Eleanor Vance deserved the truth. And Sherlock deserved information that could help him catch a murderer.
"I'm going to send him an anonymous tip," I said. "Information about the larger firm's connection to both cases. He'll figure out the rest."
"Anonymous. After everything."
"He'll know it's from me. He doesn't need my name to understand the source." I pulled out my burner phone. "This is how I can help him without pushing too hard. Let him decide whether to accept it."
I composed the message carefully — details about the larger firm, the connection to Eleanor's case, the timeline that suggested the dead accountant had been killed for what he knew. Nothing that identified Eleanor as my client. Nothing that required Sherlock to respond.
Just information. Offered without strings.
I sent it to Sherlock's phone and set my own device down on the desk.
"Now we wait," I said.
"And if he doesn't accept the help?"
"Then I solve Eleanor's case without him and hope our paths don't cross destructively." I looked at Vex. "But I think he'll accept it. He's too good at his job to ignore useful information just because he doesn't trust the source."
"You have faith in him."
"I have faith in his commitment to truth. That's not the same thing."
Vex considered this for a moment. Then: "Why are you helping him? After the confrontation, after everything he said — why continue?"
I thought about the question. About Sherlock's hands shaking when he talked about Jamie. About Joan's offer of water and her promise to help destroy me if I betrayed her friend. About the particular weight of being known, even partially, by people who might hate what they saw.
"Because he's still the best chance at truth," I said finally. "And because someone should be watching out for him. Even if he doesn't know it. Even if he doesn't want it."
"That sounds like caring about someone."
"It probably is."
"Jamie would say that's a vulnerability."
"Jamie's right about a lot of things." I watched the phone, waiting for a response that might not come. "But she's wrong about this. Caring about people isn't weakness. It's the only thing that makes any of this worth doing."
The phone stayed silent. The tip had been sent. Sherlock would decide what to do with it.
I turned back to Eleanor's case, continuing the work regardless of whether collaboration came. The fraud needed exposing. The truth needed finding. And somewhere in the city, a detective I'd come to respect was working toward the same goal through different means.
Trust didn't rebuild in gestures.
It rebuilt in results.
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