The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes #2)(18)

“Right. Well, I kept hearing that name through the vent, but not with enough context to figure out exactly who he was to my uncle.”

“The vent?”

Holmes swept around a corner. “The vent that leads from my closet up to my father’s study.” It made me remember her eerie, omnipresent violin, the way the sound had come from nowhere. It must have been snaking up through the air ducts as Holmes played in her closet. I imagined her in a nest of clothes on the floor, her head tipped back against the wall, playing a sonata with her eyes shut. “Still, none of this tells us anything we need to know at the moment. Ergo, my father.”

“Holmes,” I said. I did not want to deal with her parents if I didn’t have to. “Wait. Did he leave you a note? Have you checked your phone? He could already have explained it all.”

Frowning, she dug her phone out of the pocket of her robe. “I have a new message,” she said. “Five minutes ago. An unknown number.”

We stopped in the hallway, and she played it on speaker. “Lottie, I’m fine,” Leander said, all bluff cheerfulness. “I’ll see you soon.”

She stared down at it, unbelieving. She played it again.

“Lottie,” it said. “I’m fine. I’ll see you soon.”

“That isn’t from his number,” I said, peering at her screen. “Whose number is that?”

Holmes immediately hit the Call Back button.

The number you have dialed is disconnected. She tried again. Again. Then she flicked back to the message—“Lottie, I”—and before he could say the rest of it, she put the phone away. I could hear the tinny voice playing out of her pocket.

“That isn’t what he calls me,” she said. “He never— I need to see my father.”

In the hall that led to the study, the long line of paintings glowered down at us. I was just about to ask Holmes if she’d overheard anything else when the door at the end of the hall opened.

“Lottie,” Alistair said, blocking the doorway. “What are you doing up here?”

“Have you seen Uncle Leander?” she asked him, twisting her hands. “He was supposed to take Jamie and me to town for the day.”

I wondered how, exactly, one lied to a Holmes; I’d never successfully done it myself. Could you actually pull it off if you were one, too?

From the withering look Alistair gave his daughter, I decided you couldn’t.

“He left last night. One of his contacts in Germany was growing suspicious of his continued absence.” He waved an errant hand. “Of course, he said he loves you, wishes you well, et cetera.”

There was a rustle, and Holmes’s father flung an arm across the door. “Mum?” Holmes asked, trying to step around him. “Is she in there? I thought she’d be in her room.”

“Don’t,” he said. “She’s having a very bad day.”

“But I—” And she ducked under his outstretched arm and into his study.

The hospital bed was nowhere to be found. I hadn’t seen Emma Holmes in days and had assumed she’d been in her room, but here she was, flung out on the sofa like she’d fallen there. Her ash-blond hair hung limply around her face, and she was wearing a robe not unlike her daughter’s, thrown over a set of pajamas that looked wrinkled and sour. As I opened my mouth, she held up a hand. I glanced over at Holmes, who stiffened.

This house was nothing like my family’s flat, where you tripped over each other on your way to the bathroom. Here, you could go weeks and see only pale marble floors, floating staircases, invisible plastic chairs. You could start to believe you were the only person in the world.

“What are your plans for Christmas?” her mother asked abruptly. Her voice came out in a harsh whisper.

“I—”

“I’m speaking to my daughter.” But she was looking at Alistair, and with anger. It must have been terrible to be this way, prone and weak, when you were used to commanding the room.

Alistair cleared his throat. “Lottie, your brother has just expressed an interest in you staying in Berlin for the holiday.”

“Oh,” Holmes said, stuffing her hands in her pockets. I could hear the machinery in her brain grinding to life. “Has he.”

“Don’t exhaust your mother,” he said. “We can have a rational conversation about this.”

“She has to go.” Emma struggled up to her elbows, like a scuttling crab. Her breathing was labored.

“She doesn’t,” Alistair murmured. He made no motion to help her. “I’d rather have Lottie here. We never see her.”

Holmes looked horrified, but her voice was calm. “Milo hasn’t spoken to you in weeks,” she said. “You haven’t had that twitch you get, on the side of your mouth, after you talk to him.”

“I’ve been ill,” her mother said, as if it wasn’t obvious. “That’s enough to change anyone’s tells.”

“Yes,” her daughter said, plowing ahead. “But the doctor you brought in—Dr. Michaels, from Highgate Hospital—doesn’t specialize in fibromyalgia. She specializes in—”

“Poisons,” her mother said.

At that, Alistair turned on his heel and retreated into the hall, snapping the door shut behind him.