A Study in Charlotte

Milo’s phone rang.

He startled. It was like seeing the Sphinx jump. “No one is supposed to have this number,” he muttered, picking it up, and then, into the phone, “Yes. Fine. I’ll put you on speaker.”

Lucien Moriarty’s voice crackled into the room.

“Hello again, Charlotte,” he drawled.

Bryony’s eyes flickered back and forth. “This wasn’t part of the plan,” she hissed.

“No, no, darling,” he said. “Your part in this is done. Hush, now. Dear Charlotte. You had a question? I’ll give you one answer. As your consolation prize.”

“Consolation prize?” Holmes laughed. “I won. Lucien, I am quite literally standing here, holding the gun.”

“So there’s nothing you want me to clear up. Nothing at all. No questions about the drug dealer”—and here, his voice changed to a dark snarl—“who stuffed a plastic gem into that little prize turkey? Who was so obliging as to hang himself to break any remaining links between him and his employer? No questions about that employer who is, even now, calling you from Russia?” A laugh. “That’s me, by the way. In case you’re as slow as you seem.”

I tried to swear, but I couldn’t force out any words. Holmes’s hand shook. It was almost imperceptible, but I saw it. She’d taught me to notice things, after all.

“Fine,” she said. “You win. So tell me. Why did you make it so easy for us to catch Bryony?”

“I never wanted you in jail,” Lucien purred. “That was never the plan. The plan was to torment you, and how can I do that from within a jail cell? Oh, you could lose yourself within weeks in a juvenile penitentiary, but you could also start a riot. Or break yourself out. No, this was a practice round. I wanted to see what was important to you. I wanted to see how much this foolish boy trusted you. I threaten him, and you kiss him. Cue strings. Cue the applause.”

Milo whipped around to stare at his sister, but her eyes were fixed on the phone.

“It’s good to know what matters to you, Charlotte. So very little does. My brother didn’t. Your own family doesn’t. But this boy . . .” I could almost hear him licking his lips. “No, I don’t want you in jail. I don’t want you to have the satisfaction of this being over.”

No one in the room was looking directly at anyone else. I wondered, briefly, if anyone remembered that I was quite literally dying on the floor.

“Well. Go on. Take out the trash,” he said. “I see that your antidote is waiting at the door.”

A click, and he was gone.

“I knew about his plan,” Nurse Bryony said into the silence. “I knew this whole time.”

“No,” Holmes said, pressing the gun to Bryony’s temple. “You’re a terrible liar. How sad, you’ve made me resort to guns. How incredibly cheap. Milo, tie her hands. I hope you’re ready to take her . . . wherever you’re going to take her. I don’t want to know.”

“I promise not to tell you,” Milo said, in a tone that suggested he’d said this many times. He bound her hands neatly in a zip-tie, put her own pistol to the base of her neck, and led her out the door.

I’d missed something. But then, I’d missed a lot of things.

“Holmes,” I managed, but Peterson chose that minute to charge in. With brutal precision, he pulled a syringe out of his pocket, flipped my arm, found a vein, and stabbed it in.

“Sir,” he said respectfully, and left the two of us alone.

“Hi,” Holmes said, getting down beside me. “You look terrible. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything. I just needed—”

“—my reaction to be genuine,” I said, coughing through my smile.

“Precisely.”

“Holmes,” I said again.

“Yes?”

“Hospital?”

She nodded seriously, as if the idea had only now occurred to her too. “I think that would be wise.”

twelve

Five days later

“WHEN’S YOUR FLIGHT?” HOLMES ASKED, PLAYING WITH THE ends of my scarf. “You could always fly back with Milo and me tonight. The offer’s still open.” Her brother had set aside a seat for me in his company jet.

“I’d like to,” I said, “but I think I owe a few more days to my father after all this. I’ll be back in London next weekend.”

He was, understandably, still upset with me for not having told him I was dying. Ever since I’d been brought home to recover, I’d watched him struggle to understand how he should feel. One minute, he was begging me for a description of Nurse Bryony’s face that day in her flat—“Was it more like a snake’s, or an assassin’s?”—his hands clasped in schoolboy glee, and the next minute he was forbidding me to bring in the mail because it was too dangerous with Lucien Moriarty still at large. My father liked reading about adventures, liked talking them through over a glass of whisky. He even liked the thought of his son having them, up to a certain point.

I had, in this past week, plunged off that point and into a very troubling ocean.

“Well,” he’d said, cleaning his glasses, “I suppose you’re looking forward to getting back to your mother and sister.”

“I am,” I’d told him honestly.

“And I imagine you won’t be wanting to return here in the spring when school reopens.” He hadn’t looked at me as he spoke.