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Lestrade made her way into Holmes' room, still yelling. "What happened last night, Holmes?! Tell me the truth!"

'Ahh, she must have got the clues I left last night,' Holmes thought. But now he didn't want her to find out. Now if she knew, Lestrade would be in even greater danger. As much as he hated lieing, he couldn't tell the truth. "What do you mean, Lestrade?" He would put off lying as much as he could.

"Holmes, the Bits and Parts hardware store was robbed last night, and all pieces of evidence... well, they all lead to you." Lestrades voice was quiet now, even shy. Suddenly, a surge of energy and will burst through her, and her voice rose. "Someone's framing you, aren't they, Holmes? Ohhh, the rascals! Wait till I get my hands on them! I'll... I'll...." Lestrade trailed off and bit her lip. She had no idea how to handle this. Her beloved (that's right, beloved) Holmes might be a criminal! The very thing she had been working so hard against! She waited for him to agree with her that he had been framed, but he didn't.

"Lestrade..." His soft, soothing voice made her want to break into tears. "What sort of 'evidence' did you find?" He still wasn't exactly lying.

Lestrade bit her lip and stared into Holmes' eyes. There was no way a cold-hearted criminal could be hiding behind those sweet blue eyes of his. "Your DNA was all over the scene...along with your footprints and other things."

Holmes sighed. Now he would have to lie to her. Tell her some crazy story. He tried to look her in the eyes as he spoke, but couldn't. After reassuring himself that he was actually saving Lestrade by lieing to her, he began his story. "Well, I _was_ there, Lestrade, but I didn't steal anything. I had a feeling that the hardware store was the next target, so I went there a little after three in the morning. I was to late, however, to catch our criminal. He had already been there and stolen things. I looked around for clues, but there were none." Holmes had been staring at the ground the whole time, but now he lifted his head to examine Lestrade's face.

A mixture of sadness and confusion settled upon Lestrades features, along with a bit of hopelessness. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely audible. "How'd you hurt your arm?"

Holmes looked towards his floor again. "I tripped going out the door of the store."

"May I take a look?"

Holmes nodded his head. "By all means."

Lestrade tenderly stripped the bandages off and peered at his arm. A look of hurt swelled in her face. Lestrade was no doctor, but she had handled ionisers enough to know what an ioniser wound looked like. And this was most definitely an ioniser wound. There was no way he could have got this from tripping. She wrapped his arm back up, still with the same amount of care, and looked at Holmes long and hard. He stared back at her, and for a few minutes, each was locked into the other one. Finally, tears came into Lestrade's eyes, and she broke away and ran out of the house.

Lestrade looked at Holmes' front door in shock. There was a pool of blood on it, and Lestrade's scanners verified that it was Holmes'. The front door seemed to be the end of a long trail of blood. Lestrade folowed the trail from end to beginning and found herself by the river. She looked at her reflection in the water and was surprised to find herself looking so hurt. She knelt beside the river and had a deep, long cry, all the while thinking, 'He lied to me. Holmes lied to me. Why? Doesn't he trust me?'

Grayson came in on the vid-phone. He failed to see the tear streaks on Lestrade's face. "Lestrade, what have you found on the 'Bits and Parts' case? Any clues? Suspects?"

Lestrade swallowed. "No, Chief. No clues or suspects or anything. Not even a DNA trace." Without waiting for a response, she pressed the 'off' button and the screen went blank. 'Holmes wouldn't lie to me unless it was absolutely necessary. I just know it. Something is going on here, and I'm going to find out what. First thing to do: wire him.' Lestrade made a mental list of what she had to do to keep track of Holmes and get to the bottum of this. Following the her own first step, Lestrade walked into a mechanics store and bought a tiny camera. 'Now to just plant this on Holmes....'

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OK, how do you like it? Hope it didn't confuse you to death. I'm not exactly a simpleminded person. It's sort of hard for me to explain things without getting the reader confused. Did you understand it? Please R&R!!