"Thank god they finally let me out of that place!" Sheri said as she walked on the bus, wearing the same thing she had worn the day she was checked into the hospital, minus the leather jacket. The spaghetti strap tank top revealed a little more of Sheri than she was comfortable with on such a sunny day, but it was all she had. Eli had refused to let her leave in the hospital gown or doctor disguise.
"They're more happy than you are, believe me." Eli said sitting down next to her on the bus seat.
"I don't know why, I was much better behaved than last time." Eli couldn't even imagine, but she could see that Sheri was staring out the window.
"Whatcha thinking about?" Sheri looked back at her companion.
"Ryan knew my name." she said frowning.
"So? You solve a lot of cases, he could have heard about you from the newspaper."
"But I don't take credit for my cases, and I didn't recognize his name. There is no way he could have heard of me before." she pulled her phone out of Eli's bag. Miraculously it was undamaged from it's fall to the floor. She tapped the screen for a few minutes before holding it up for Eli to see.
***
SHERIDAN HOLMES, the greatest mind I've ever known. She can solve rubix cubes in under five minutes, trace any hacker she encounters, and remember a masterpiece to every last paint stroke. I've seen her run for hours without a break, and shoot bulls-eyes across football fields. Yet she can't be bothered to remember to put her bras in her hamper.
I swear if I find one more pair of boots in my dishwasher I'm going to rip her head off! I don't even know how they got there. We've been off all day on the case of the missing syrup. You see a couple days ago an entire warehouse of syrup was stolen in Niagara Falls....
***
"Is that my diary?" Eli asked scrolling down the screen in horror.
"Your diary?" Sheri said surprised for once.
"Yes, My diary. What is it doing on the internet!?"
"I imagine entertaining people." she stared at the seat in front of her, her hands folded over her lips.
"Two million hits!" Eli gasped.
"Congrats, you've gone viral."
"But how?" she looked to her friend, who was perhaps a little more worried than she was.
"I think we have a ninja problem." she said seriously.
***
"So how exactly did my diary get on the internet?" Eli asked again as they walked from the nearest bus stop to the apartment. Sheri's skin was already starting to burn and Eli could see all the scars clearly on her shoulder. "I write it out in a notebook."
"Easy," she said jumping onto a garden ledge to escape the sun. "They took it from your bedroom when you weren't there and took pictures of the pages. Then they typed it up." She looked down at her phone again.
"But why? Why go through all that trouble to put my diary on the internet?"
"I'm not 100 percent positive, but I assume it's to drag me out into the limelight."
"Why would that be bad?"
"I'm a private detective, of sorts, think about how hard it would be to be stealth when hundreds of people are shouting 'Sheri! Sheri! Come here and sign this!'."
"I doubt anyone would willingly call you over." Sheri shrugged.
"I said the same thing about Justin Bieber, and who's plastered on your closet door?" Sheri jumped off the garden ledge as they approached the apartment building. "The question is who. Who wants revenge?"
"What about that Moriarty guy you were talking about earlier?" The two girls walked up the stairs.
"Perhaps, but it doesn't add up quite right. I mean why try to poison me when you have this whole plan cooking in the meanwhile?" she stopped to think for a second then smiled broadly, "Oh, he's a smart one." She let Eli open the front door for her and they went straight to Sheri's apartment. "He knew you'd be around. The poison was just a distraction. I should have known." They walked into 4A, which was still covered in powder from earlier.
"What happened in here?" Eli asked.
"What?" Sheri looked around, "Oh, ignore that. All part of my process."
"But you were in the hospital!" Sheri walked straight into her room and began her chemistry.
"DNA." she said, already mixing the chemicals together in a test tube, "Nature's name-tag."
"What? You left the hospital to find a DNA sample?" Sheri didn't answer she was already absorbed in the reaction.
"Dandruff in my sugar." she said happily.
"Well," Eli said digging through her bag, "As long as you're at it." she pulled the plastic bag with the ring in it. "I found this at the crime scene, it has some blood on it." Sheri held her hand out for the bag, while she was mixing a test tube full of a clear foamy substance.
"Night." she said vacantly.
"Goodnight." she said back. Eli turned to leave the apartment, and she made it as far as the front door when she suddenly heard Sheri.
"Oh crap!"
Eli turned on a dime, whacking her hand against the doorknob. Sheri rushed out of the bedroom, pulling off her boots and hopping into the bathroom. "ELI!" she yelled.
"What!?" she asked rubbing her throbbing hand.
"Good," she said poking her head around the doorframe, "I need you to finish the DNA extraction." she went back into the bathroom and slammed the door.
"But I don't-" Eli started.
"THIRD SHELF!" Sheri yelled frantically, "The fourth book." Eli sighed, "Just do it, I have to be somewhere."
"Where?"
"No time, just finish the extraction then in the morning take them to the police station for analyze, tell them I sent you. And DON'T get them mixed up." Eli could hear cabinets opening and closing in the bathroom.
"You aren't...?"
"No, I'm not getting high. You guys took all my drugs, remember? Just do what I asked. I'll be back at ten." Eli checked her watch, it was 11:46PM.
"Ten in the morning?"
"No, ten at night."
"But it's 11:46."
"Tomorrow night." she told her, her voice muffled slightly.
"What could you possibly be doing that would take so long?" Sheri banged on the door with one hand.
"I don't have time for this!" she yelled, "Now go and extract DNA. Oh, and don't forget to write in your diary."
"What?" the sound of a make-up compact closing went through the door. Sheri never wore make-up.
"I'm setting a trap, the assassin will come back if he has stuff to do. Like perhaps taking pictures of your diary. Now go." Eli muttered a few choice words and went to retrieve the book from Sheri's shelf. When she finally understood what she was supposed to be doing, after reading it from Forensics and Genetic Sciences, she went to work on the foamy test tubes.
She was just about done, when the bathroom opened up. She barely saw Sheri running across the apartment, making a beeline for the door. But she looked different, her hair was blonde now, and Eli could make out traces of make-up on her face. Plus her black clothes were replaced with an indigo tank-top, a pair of blue skinny jeans, and a open, pink North Face jacket.
Before Eli could get up and look, the front door slammed closed and Eli knew she wouldn't be back for a long time.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,816 Reviews
Hey Willow,
It makes the whole mystery more puzzling. I mean, who would want to do that?
Back to read more, although I had quite the break in between! Let's get started then. This part was good interesting. We get to see Eli and Sheri slowly collecting the clues together, puzzling through the pieces. Intriguing. I agree with HomeschooledTeen about the awkward filling in the blank there. You could've just cut off the Oh and left it as that, or just **** the swear word out. The sudden reference to the reader was a tad confusing.
I have a only one nitpick for you today, which means it's getting better:
"take them to the police station for analyze" I think this should be 'to be analyzed'.
I don't have much things to say on this chapter because it all sounds good. I can slowly see Eli becoming more and more independent, and learning from Sheri. Which is good because this shows character development, and towards the end of the story this is what readers long to see. Nice touch there with the diary being put online
I'm going to continue reading to the final posted bit.
Deanie x
How did Sheri sneak back in to the hospital?
I forgot to ask that last time.
Wow. You did really good on this chapter. The only weird thing that I noticed was this:
What exactly did you mean by this?
Also, I was going to mention this, but I think you should add a violence/mature warning to some of these. You're describing murder scenes, and what happened to cause that scene in detail. Sheri tells the reader exactly how the victim was killed, in a pretty violent manner most times. That's why I say add the violence warning.
I suggested adding the mature warning because one of your main characters is a drug user. You would of course only add this when the content makes an appearance in the story.
Also I have noticed, and maybe this is just me being weird, Sheri seems to be attempting to teach Eli her craft. Eli won't be able to learn everything of course, because most of it is Sheri's own quirkiness, but the DNA, visiting the crime scene. She appears to be teaching, or at the very least letting Eli learn how to do certain things.
Well, I loved this chapter. I really have to stop repeating myself so much, but I really did enjoy reading it.
One last thing before I go, there's a random quotation mark at the very end of the chapter. What's up with that?
See you later.
First that would be my unwillingness to resort to using bad words.
Second, you'll just have to see. I have a lot planned for Sheri's secret life. Her drop-off quirk and her getting angry at Eli, they all have a secret for later on. But you are right about her teaching her craft, as Sheri would say, Eli is her "Apprentice Monkey" therefore should be able to learn how to be a detective.
Oh and the quotation mark is a thing I use on my iPad to mark how many spaces I need to create an indent. It only shows up because I copy and paste everything. So, it will end up in there a lot.
Ah. Well, with the unwillingness to use bad words thing, stick that in italics or something to distinguish it from the rest of the text. It's a little confusing. Say, AN: or something so that people know that this is you, and explain why we need to fill in the blanks.