sorry this is late, again. hope it's worth your time. on the bright side next week I'll only have one job so more free time! YAY! :)  Song is for the start of the chapter!

"Rori, Rori Anderson, get up," someone yelled out my door, waking me up from my slumber.

"Go away," I shouted back at them as I rolled over in my bed, pulling the sheets over my head, hoping that if I didn't open the door, they would just go away. It had to be only seven in the morning. The sun hadn't even come over the horizon yet, so thus I would not get out of bed and no one would make me.

"Rori, it's Donovan," the threatening voice said.

Without waiting another second, I jumped out of bed and opened the door. "I'm here. What?" I snapped at her. As much as I hated getting up without a warning, I had to because Donovan was tougher than Lestrade and would send me back without even thinking twice about it. She hated me, more than I hated Sherlock.

"Didn't you get Sherlock's text about today?"

"Oh, yeah, about that," I said as I scratched the back of my head, trying to come up with a good excuse. For the past week, I had been using my phone as a fancy paperweight on my desk. It had to be dead by now. I just got so fed up with all the texts Sherlock sent me. I just didn't like phones, they were like a convenient GPS for the cops and anyone with a half of brain could know where I was at all times.

She made a face of disgusted then snapped, "You know the deal Rori, if you don't follow it you get sent back to where you belong."

"I don't belong there!"

"Then where do you belong?" Donavan said flatly.

I dropped my head to look at the ground to hide my face. What she said stung like a slap to the face. It was uncalled for and in that moment; I wanted to hurt her as much as that hurt me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. 'Don't hit her, don't hit her.'

"The charger, I didn't give it to her. The phone has probably been long dead by now," Sherlock said coolly, snapping out of my thoughts.

"Oh, whatever, just get it fixed and you get ready. We leave in 10," Donovan said and turned her back to me.

I just looked at Sherlock in shock. He looked back at me with a straight face, as if he did nothing important. He gave me the charger when he gave me the phone, and he knew it. Why was he defending me? What did I do to deserve his sympathy?

I got ready as fast as I could and before long; I was walking down the cold street behind Sherlock and Sergeant Donovan. I could feel the hatred radiating off of Donovan towards me, but I didn't care. If she didn't like me, that was her problem. It wasn't my job to make everyone like me.

We stopped in front of a fancy restaurant that was covered with loads of yellow tape and Donovan turned to me and spoke for the first time since we left the flat. "Here you are."

"Aren't you coming with us?" I asked her politely, just to get on her nerves.

"I've been reposted. Lestrade wants you and Sherlock to work this case," she said flatly and walked off.

I looked at Sherlock then followed him under the tape through the front door to get into the building to Lestrade.

"Why do you like provoking people?" Sherlock asked me as we walked in. His question was just as unplanned as my wake up call had been. This was one of the first questions he asked me about my personality, it was like he was trying to get to know me. But that couldn't be the case, could it? He like provoking people just as much as I did, so he should have been able to answer the question himself.

I sighed and looked at Lestrade from across the room. He was so far away, no one could get me out of this one. "If you are so good a reading people, why don't you read it off me?" I snapped as I quickened up my pace to move ahead of him.

"Ello, Anderson, Holmes," the Inspector greeted us as we walked up to him in the kitchen.

"Hiya," I said to him and looked over his shoulder to see the giant walk-in freezer open. Typical, someone died in the freezer, perfect crime. It is a smart one, just coax the person into the freezer and shut the door. You didn't even have to touch him. "Who died in the freezer?"

Lestrade had a look of puzzlement on his face, then quickly changed back to normal. "This is Ian Strasser," he said as he took us in the freezer to see the poor man, white and stiff on the ground.

"What did you do, Ian?" I said emptily as I squatted down to get a better look at the ginger middle aged man. He wore a white button-down shirt with dress pants. If he worked here, he was a waiter or some high up position in the restaurant.

"He died from the cold. We are guessing he's been dead for about five hours."

"He didn't die from the cold," Sherlock stated as he looked around at the room. He chuckled at Lestrade, who wasn't following this conversation. "Isn't it obvious? Tell me you see it." Sherlock looked at the Inspector like he was stupid and when he didn't respond, he continued. "He should be bluer if he died here from the cold, but he's white from blood loss. And did you not see how his wrists have a reddish tint to them? Someone tied him up, killed, then dragged here." He pointed to the scuff marks on the floor.

Lestrade said nothing, instead stood there with a dumb look of awe. It took all I had not to smirk as his expressions entertained me. Why didn't he hide his amazement, didn't he know Sherlock fed off this?

Sherlock walked closer to the body and sniffed Ian's shirt and said, "do you smell that?"

"Smell what? It's a restaurant," Lestrade said flatly.

"It smells almost sweet and since this restaurant isn't known for their desserts, Ian must have been somewhere else. Well, I'm done here, come on Rori," Sherlock said and walked out.

"Garden Row. Isn't that restaurant in some type of competition with this one? Shouldn't we talk to some workers in there?" I asked, implying that since it was in a competition, it might have got a little too competitive. I think the workers were the best lead we had.

"That is why we don't need to talk to them."

I frowned. We needed to talk to everyone, no stone left unturned. Why did he believe we didn't need to talk to them? "Well, you do it your way. I'll do it my way," I fired off at him, then walked back into the restaurant alone, not checking to see if Sherlock followed.

<><>

"He was married, happy, a good worker, liked by everyone." One chief said to me as I took notes on a post-it pad.

This was the fifth person I've interviewed about Ian and everyone had said almost the same thing, he was a good guy. I heard the same thing so many times already it was making me tired. I felt so bored I could just lay my head down on a desk and fall asleep. This was just killing my time since I was getting nowhere. "You may leave," I said as I fiddled with my fingers, not even pretending that I cared anymore.

"Would you want me to send in the next co worker?" the woman said to me as she got up from her seat.

"Sure," I said with boredom thick in my voice.

I watched her walk out of the room and within about five minutes, an older man with a bald head came in. He commanded the room instantly, and I knew he was someone important. His shoulders were pushed back, and he walked with confidence like he owned the place.

"Top chief?" I asked, as he sat down.

"Yes. Jamarcus Hershberger," he answered, with annoyance in his voice, not even holding out his hand for me to shake it. Clearly, it irritated him as I was here. He was a busy man, he had things to do, people to see. He didn't have time for this and I understood that. But he didn't need to be rude about it.

"Look, I know you don't want to be here, I don't want to be here either, so let's get this over with. How do you know Ian Strasser?" I said bluntly to him.

"He was the sous chief, my protégé if you must," he said and sighed. He looked so bored with only being here for an hour or two. If his protégé just died, shouldn't he be more supportive of trying to find the killer? Shouldn't he be more emotional? Some people tried to hide it so well that it just looked fake. He was hiding something, but what was he hiding?

"Where you close?"

"No, he had his life, I had mine. We saw each other at work and that was it." He leaned forward and put his arms on the desk. I looked at his Rolex watch. I didn't think chefs made that much money. My eyes trailed down his wrist and saw a nice bruise on the side of his arm which he quickly covered from view.

"But if he was your sous. Shouldn't you have been closer to him?" I asked, as I tried to pry into his mind.

"Look, if you're done, then I must go," he said and stood up from his chair.

"Is this where I can find you?"

"Yes."

"Ok, go," I said, and watched him walk out the door. For whatever reason, I felt compelled to believe that he was the one that killed Strasser. But why would he kill him? What would he gain? I knew nothing about him and my mind was screaming at me for letting him walk away so easily.

"Miss..." a timid man said as he popped his head through the door.

"Anderson. And yes?"

"Did you want to talk to me too?"

I thought I was done. "Sure," I said and sat back down at the desk.

He walked over and sat down in the other chair as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He was unsure of himself, like he had zero self-esteem. He couldn't have been a cook.

"I'm the janitor of this restaurant. But because of that, I know what everyone does. I get around."

"Oh ok." Suddenly interested in what he could offer me. "Can you tell me anything about Jamarcus Hershberger?"

"He's a wanker. Really, no one likes him, everyone liked Ian much more. In fact, Ian was going to talk to the owner of this place about Jamarcus. With the competition going on, we all need to be on our toes, something that Hershberger isn't good at doing."

"Can you remind me about this competition?" I asked, not knowing how important this competition was to the cooking world.

"It's a chief race against five restaurants. Starts tomorrow. We were looking like we could win, but after this? I'm not sure."

"Well, thanks for the information," I said and smiled at him, happy that I got something out of this past hour.

After saying my goodbyes at the restaurant, I started on my way back. The sun was now shining strong, even though it was so cold. Knowing that we only lived a few kilometers from here, so walked home. In a matter of 30 minutes, I walked into the flat after a long day to see Miss Hudson decorating for Christmas.

As I closed the door behind me, she stopped and smiled. "Hello dear,'" she said.

"Hi Miss Hudson."

"I just love the Christmas season, don't you? I loved getting ready for it all."

I nodded. "Yeah, it's nice."

"Would you like to help me? Sherlock never does."

"Well, it's been a really long day. I'm just too tired," I lied with a half truth mixed in. I loved everything about Christmas, the snow, the way people acted, and the lights. Everything seemed so positive around this time. This was a special time, all the wonderful memories about my mum flew around my mind. A part of it I wanted to get rid of every memory I had about her. But the thing was, I couldn't. After everything she did to me, I couldn't just forget about her completely.

"Oh, how about another time then?"

"Yes, let's do that," I said as I walked up the stairs, knowing that she would probably finish the decorating by tonight. I wasn't used to being around others that cared for me. For the longest time, I was by myself or around people that just used me.

I walked into Sherlock's flat, tired and frustrated to see Sherlock staring out the window with a newspaper in his hands, not reading it.

"That dog across the street it won't stop barking. I've looked down the street and there is nothing I can see that it is barking at. It could bark at nothing!" Sherlock shouted at the window.

"Why don't you go over there and talk to the owners?"

"No."

"Um ok, well night," I said as I walked into my room.

"Rori, don't forget to charge your phone."

"Oh, yeah," I said, totally forgetting about that phone incident this morning.

"What did you find out?"

I assumed he was talking about the case so I said, "they were in a chief race and not only that, but the top chief is a jerk."

"I could have told you that."

"What did you say?"

"Isn't that something you would say?" he asked me, with amusement in his eyes.

"Well then, what is so important that you found out here?" I snapped at him and crossed my arms over my chest in frustration.

"Ian married has two kids. One of which is out of the house, the other is your age. He was also having an affair."

"And you found that out by just sitting here staring outside?"

"Well, look at this." Sherlock walked up to me and showed me billing statement from Ian's 'privet' bank account. As my eyes scanned over this paper, I remembered what the top chief said, 'he has his own life. I have mine.'

He didn't want to know what Ian was doing. All he wanted to do was to win the race. I bet he had his guesses too, but he didn't want to say. They were going to win. Nothing could impede that.

"This could ruin him or the race if someone found out." I looked at the transactions that had taken place all the way back from a year ago. I didn't even care how he got this or figured it out but all I knew was that he was right.

"Hershberger couldn't have done it. He was a smart man, 10 years in the military and then straight to culinary school. He worked too hard for this to let it slip away from him. he may look like the bad guy in this but trust me, he is not."

"I need to look into this more." I gave him back the paper and put my coat back on.

"Remember the tube closes at 11," Sherlock said as I walked out the door.

"I'm not that stupid, I know when it closes," I shouted at him and closed the door behind me. I walked down the stairs and as I opened that door, I ran into Watson.

"Oh, hiya Rori," John said politely to me and smiled.

"Hi." Was all I said to him as I tried to walk around him.

"So Sherlock and I were going to go out to eat, would you like to join us?"

"No, John, I would not like to join you," I sighed as I walked down the front steps.

"Oh, then maybe another time then?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Rori!" Sherlock shouted at me from the doorway.

"What?" I said as I turned to face him.

"I got a text, we're leaving for the hospital."

"Oh don't mind me, just standing here, you know what? I'll just leave, yeah, see ya Holmes."

"No, Watson, come. I would like a second input," Sherlock said to him.