A Study in Charlotte

She nodded. “It’s a duplicate of one I own.”

“Is this your . . . your . . .”

“My lair?” She still held the shirt between her pinched fingers. “Someone certainly wants you to think so, don’t they.”

I had questions for her. Questions I didn’t really want an answer to. Questions I’d have to ask later, because as we stood there, the police were kicking down doors all up and down the hall. In a minute, they’d find us.

All the while, they were shouting Holmes’s name.

WE WERE HAULED DOWN TO THE STATION, WITH SHERRINGFORD’S explicit blessing.

“So much for their protecting minors. But I imagine finding a television-styled murder den changes things,” Holmes said next to me in the back of the police cruiser. She wore her handcuffs with a kind of elegant disdain, bringing both hands up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “We’re going to be fine, Watson. Do you trust me?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to lie.

Detective Shepard cleared his throat in the front seat. “I usually don’t warn people about this after I’ve read them their rights, but you’re kids, so. You two don’t want to say anything that incriminates you.” A pause. “Not like either of you listen to me.”

When we got to the station, Shepard separated us. I was put into a poorly lit interrogation room, with a mirror that I knew from the movies was actually one-way glass. There was a chair, a glass of water, and a piece of paper and pencil. For my confession, I imagined.

Really, it was all just like the movies, except in the movies, they don’t show you the waiting. And there was so much waiting. For almost two hours, I sat in my desperately uncomfortable chair, jerking in and out of sleep, waiting for someone to come in and ask me to talk about what happened.

What would I even tell them? Well, officer. First, this asshole died after I punched him, but not because I punched him. He was poisoned, and also a snake got him. A snake that apparently appeared from thin air, because no one on the eastern seaboard is missing a snake. Then a drug dealer followed us to the diner and ran from us in the woods. I went to a dance, and thought about kissing my best friend, but didn’t, and another girl wanted me to dance with her and maybe kiss her instead, but someone shoved a plastic diamond down her throat, so nobody kissed anyone, except maybe her and Randall. In a room underneath the school, I found a whole bunch of evidence that my best friend, who I didn’t kiss, is a psycho killer. And now I guess you’re questioning me about all these crazy crimes that I haven’t committed, but someone wants you to think I’ve committed, and they’ve done such a good job of it that I almost believe I committed them too.

That’s good, I thought blearily, and started writing it down.

Above my head, a speaker crackled to life. I blinked up at the pair holstered high up in the corner. I’d missed them. I couldn’t now: they were speaking with Holmes’s voice.

“All last year, I bought from a senior named Aaron Davis,” she was saying.

“Hey!” I yelled. “There’s something wrong with your sound system!”

No reply. Nothing but Holmes’s voice droning on.

“He delivered in packages to my dorm, and I’d put the money in his mailbox. It was all very straightforward like that, when it was pills. But last May, I wanted something harder, and he took me down to that room to—to use in front of him. To make sure I wasn’t just buying to rat him out.”

Shepard’s voice, then. “So that dealer, the one you took it on yourself to chase—”

“I’ve never even seen him before. In fact, I still haven’t even seen his face clearly, and for that reason alone, I thought he worked for—” I heard her about to say Milo, or my brother, or maybe even Moriarty. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought.” Not your best save, I thought with a wince, and then remembered I wasn’t on her side. Not tonight.

“We found your prints there, Charlotte.”

“Aaron used to deal out of that room. Why aren’t you listening to me? If you found my prints there, anywhere, I’m sure it was on the inside of the door or on the wall, not actually on any of the fake-serial-killer things pinned to it, and that they’re at least several months old.”

“So is that why you were down there? Trying to destroy the things you forgot to touch with your gloves on? Innocent people usually don’t give as many excuses as you do.”

“You’re asking why you found me in the room I went directly to, knowing you were following me—the room that only the most wretched Sherringford students have reason to know about. The room that I decided to style like a network television art director. So that I could destroy paper records that I left there in my own handwriting.” She snorted. “I won’t insult your intelligence, Detective Shepard, by reminding you who my family is. Not to trade on my blood, but on my training. I am not an idiot. And I didn’t kill Lee Dobson, or attack Elizabeth Hartwell. I’m sure that when she’s fit to speak, she will tell you exactly that.”

“She’s suffered a traumatic brain injury,” Shepard said gravely. “We don’t know yet how much she remembers. But with all your training, I’m sure you knew that would be the result when you clobbered her with that tree branch.”

“Fine. Call my parents. Call Scotland Yard. I have contacts there. They’ll tell you that I help people.”