The Unexpected Coincidence Read Online Free PDF

enough that Amelia must have heard it.
Mercifully, she went silent.
    “I have absolutely
no interest in your fans, although he isn't a threat to you. He
couldn't possibly be the person who delivered your letters and also
followed you to the hotel.”
    “Then why did you
ask? Oh... I'm so sorry, Myron. I was so preoccupied with these
letters and the strangeness of them. I've missed something I was
meant to notice, haven't I?”
    “Yes, you have.”
It pleased him that she was apologetic, but nevertheless she had
failed a task and he'd said it was grounds to end their
arrangement. But now it came to it, he found his mouth firmly shut
and he didn't tell her it was over. Instead, he listened as she
sighed.
    “I know begging
for a second chance isn't going to work. Is there anything I can
say that would make you consider starting this challenge
again?”
    Mycroft sat back
and thought about her question. He hadn't expected her to fail so
soon, not given how highly his younger brother thought of her.
Something in the letter she received must have made her lose focus,
and given how she'd behaved when they were abducted, it must be
more than the usual female would be emotionally compromised by.
    “Has the stalker
threatened you?” he asked, curiosity overriding his
displeasure.
    “No, not directly.
The second letter mentioned his dislike of the greeting I received
from a couple of my friends at the signing today. He suggested I
was too familiar with them.”
    “So he was
there.”
    “Definitely.”
    “But you didn't
notice him? Or anyone else?” Mycroft hesitated over giving her a
second chance. She had calmed down while talking to him, and it was
at least somewhat impressive that her response to a threatening
letter was to try and spot the sender herself. Before he could
continue and tell her this, she took the silence as indication that
he had nothing else to say.
    “I only noticed
the person I mentioned, Guy Thomas. But if you don't think he's the
type, then I guess I was wrong about that too.”
    “You sound
tired.”
    “I am. I woke up
to the first letter and it has been a long day.”
    “Then you'd best
get some sleep. You'll need it. I fully expect a message from you
tomorrow evening telling me what you've observed. Perhaps you can
figure out who this man is at the same time as achieving your next
challenge, and I can be entertained by both attempts.”
    “Thank you,
Myron.” A lighter note lifted her voice, but she still sounded
weary.
    “Go on, get some
sleep. That's an order.”
    “As you command,”
she said in the same manner she'd used before. He could imagine the
merry light in her eyes as she said it, and he found himself
smiling as he hung up.
    Once the phone was
tucked back in the drawer it lived in Mycroft realised he'd
possibly just made the most irrational decision so far in his long
life. Never before had he given anyone but Sherlock a second
chance.
    He frowned and got
up to summon his housekeeper for some more tea. It didn't feel
right to have let Amelia get away with failing, but he'd done it
now. He could only hope Amelia kept her head and didn't make him
regret it. Once more, he wondered if it had been a good idea to
agree to teach a woman, but something had made him curious about
her, and he'd followed her into that bookshop one afternoon in
September. All the strange decisions he'd made had followed that
one, like waves on an ocean. Maybe he needed to turn the tide.
    Mycroft felt
better after drinking his tea, and settled into his leather chair
by the fire to read a book. He had one of his favourite classics
open, and was reading the first edition in its original language,
Russian.
    Before he could
read more than a few pages, his laptop chimed to let him know he
had an email. With a sigh, he went back to it to see if it was
anything important, and was pleased to find it was and he hadn't
been disturbed for no good reason.
    One of his men had
spotted footprints in the marshes. The trail had