The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes #2)(20)

Are you, now.

Tell me, have you already hauled Lucien out of Thailand and begun pulling out his teeth?

Not yet. For now, I’m assigning a security force to the Sussex house.

Yes, good, but within reason.

Naturally. You’re not upset about Mother, are you? Milo asked.

Holmes hesitated before typing a response. No. Of course not. The situation is under control.

“Apparently she’s been poisoned,” my father was saying. “Jesus, Jamie. Way to bury the lede. It’s not that I haven’t seen this sort of thing before with them—but listen, the Holmeses have always taken care of themselves. Still, while you’re out there, do you mind casting out some feelers for Leander? Milo surely knows something. His spies have spies. I’d do it myself, but I have no idea how to contact him directly.”

“Of course,” I said, and prepared to strike my deal. “I’ll do that if you agree to tell Mom why I won’t be in London for Christmas. And if you make sure she doesn’t come out here looking for me.”

He let out a long breath. “Is that what you’d like for your present? Me, roasting on a spit?”

“You could always fly to Germany and look for Leander yourself,” I told him, which was unfair, because I was sure that’s exactly what he wanted to do. My half brothers were both still tiny, though, and there was no way that my father would leave them over Christmas, not even to search for his missing best friend.

I heard my father snort. “You are a piece of work,” he said. “Yes, fine, I will tell your mother if you’ll follow up with Milo. I’m sure he can spare a few bodies to look for his uncle.”

I can tell you that Leander isn’t in the city, the text on Holmes’s screen read. At least not as himself.

He wouldn’t be, Holmes wrote back. I need whatever contacts you have in Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain. Isn’t there some mangy art school out there?

Hold on.

“I have no idea what you’re on about,” I hissed at her. “I thought we were going to Berlin. Where’s Kreuzberg?”

“In Berlin,” Holmes said, as though it were obvious.

“Jamie?” my father asked.

“Can you send along those emails? I’m sure they’ll be useful.”

He hesitated. “I’d rather not,” he said finally, “but if you need any particular information, I can pass it along.”

“Why won’t you just send them?”

“If Charlotte had written you every day for months, Jamie, can you honestly tell me you’d forward them all to your father without a second thought?”

“Of course I would.” Of course I wouldn’t. But there wasn’t time to argue; the airport was looming in the distance. “Look, I have to go.”

“You need to promise me that you won’t look for Leander yourself. He’s created a complicated scenario, and I don’t want you mucking it up. Promise me.”

Not, it isn’t safe. Not, I don’t want you in danger. He just didn’t want me blowing Leander’s cover. It was nice to know that, as usual, he had his priorities straight.

“I promise we won’t go chasing after him,” I said, not meaning a word. “How about that?”

“We’re at the airport, miss,” the driver called, and beside me, Holmes burst out into horrified laughter at her phone.

I found you a guide, the screen read. But I’m afraid neither of you will approve.

“No.” Because I was now remembering exactly who worked for Milo Holmes. “No. Absolutely not.” Then I spat out a few other things that I’d heard on a dark Brixton street from the mouth of a man being curb-stomped.

“Jamie?” my father asked. “What on earth is going on?”

I hung up. I couldn’t stop staring at Holmes’s goddamn screen, which now read: Tell Watson to watch his language, will you? He’s blistering my poor wiretapper’s ears.

DESPITE BEING SHUTTLED BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN ENGLAND and America for most of my remembered life—or maybe because of it—I’d never traveled all that much otherwise. Our family vacations had always been underwhelming. Growing up in Connecticut meant that I’d made the one mandatory trip down to New York City with my family, but in our case, we ate in chain restaurants and saw a Broadway show about rollerblading tigers. (For that, as for most things, I blame my father.) After I moved to London, I went on vacation exactly once: my mother rented a camper van and took me and my sister to Abbey Wood. It was in the south of the city, barely a mile from our house. It rained all four days we were there. My sister and I had to share a fold-out bed, and I woke up on that last morning with her elbow physically inside of my mouth.

It was, in short, nothing like going to Berlin with Charlotte Holmes.

Greystone was headquartered in Mitte, a neighborhood in the northeast of the city. Milo had begun it as a tech company specializing in surveillance; he expanded his operations when it became clear that there were certain things humans couldn’t do. All I knew was that his employees—his soldiers and spies—were the main independent force on the ground in Iraq, and that once, Milo had ordered his personal bodyguards to frisk everyone at Holmes’s eighth grade graduation.

Holmes ran me through this, and more, in the cab from the airport, though I knew the bulk of it already. I wasn’t sure if she’d assumed I had a bad memory or if she was chattering on because she was nervous. She had good reason to be. In the next ten minutes, we’d be face-to-face with someone whose brother spent this past fall exploring fun and creative ways to have us killed, someone who’d faked his own death to escape that family (and prison), someone Charlotte Holmes had loved so much, she’d tried to have imprisoned because he didn’t love her back. August Moriarty had a PhD in pure maths, a Prince Charming smile, and a brother named Hadrian who’d probably taught him everything he knew about wheeling and dealing stolen paintings. Who else would Milo possibly tap to guide us through the city?