The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes #2)(31)

“Am I?” I laughed. I sounded a bit insane.

“No, you are. But you seem a little sad. Is anything wrong?”

I shrugged. “Just feeling a little out of my element.”

“I’m happy to introduce you around.”

“Thanks,” I said, hating that I wanted to say yes. “I think I need to take my time with that.”

“Bad night, huh. Okay, I’ll take the hint,” he said. “So how’d you find out about the school here? We’re not very well known outside of the city.”

I decided to try for a direct approach. “My uncle lives here. I’m staying with him nearby. He couldn’t come out tonight, but the Old Met is his Saturday night place, and he told me to check it out. Maybe you know him? Tall? Dark hair? He wears it slicked back—”

With a sharp crash, Nathaniel dropped the mug. “Oh—oh, God, I’m sorry, shaky hands, long night. You know. I can’t believe—you’re David’s nephew? He never talked about his family.”

Hook, line, sinker. So much for FUBAR. As long as David was, in fact, Leander’s alias. “You know him?” I asked, as Nathaniel kicked the ceramic pieces into a pile.

“You could say that.” He was avoiding my eyes. “And he’s at home tonight? I didn’t think—well.”

“He is,” I said blithely. “You know him. Cooking up a storm. Arguing with the crossword puzzle answers.”

“That sounds like him,” he said, which was good, as I had no idea what “David” would do on a Saturday night in. Or who exactly Nathaniel was to him. All I’d had was his name, that he was one of Leander’s contacts. Maybe. Did that mean that he was under suspicion? Had he stolen paintings? Organized a forgery ring? Was he part of a drug cartel? Was he helping Leander out? Was he so surprised to hear about “David” because he knew he was being held somewhere or—awful thought—dead?

What the hell was I doing, and where was Holmes?

“I should get home, actually,” I said, forcing a yawn. I needed to talk to my father. I needed to get him to give me the details. “He worries if I’m out too late. I’m sure he’ll be glad to hear that I met you.”

“Yes. Yes of course.” Nathaniel squinted at me. I felt, suddenly, like an insect on a slide. “Tell him to meet me tomorrow night at East Side Gallery. Our usual corner, at the usual time.”

That didn’t sound sketchy or anything. “Yeah, okay.”

“It’s Simon, right?” His stare grew thornier.

“Right. See you!” Before he could ask for Simon’s last name, I was out the door.

Holmes met me outside. Her arms were covered in goose bumps, and I gave her my jacket. She took it with a show of reluctance. “Is this our new status quo? You leave me to babysit your girlfriend while you muck up my investigation?”

“Our investigation. Hey, maybe I do. How come I ended up playing pool with your boyfriend while you threw yourself at some auctioneer?”

“Honestly, will you quit imagining that I’m some tarted-up Mata Hari? My espionage work is far more subtle than that.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Then how did you approach him?”

“I appealed to his sympathies.”

“Holmes.”

She paused. “I might have threatened to kill his shih tzu—”

“No. Never mind. Stop.”

We looked at each other. After a second, she started to laugh. “Watson, do you even know exactly what Leander is doing here in Berlin?”

“No,” I admitted. “Not exactly.”

“I don’t either,” she said. “Shouldn’t we get back to Greystone, then, and find out?”





six


Have you found him yet?

My father’s text woke me at five the next morning. Call me when you wake up. I need to know, my screen read. I turned it around in an attempt to assuage my guilt.

We’d spent this past fall fending for ourselves because Holmes had been too proud to ask her family for help. No more, I told myself, and clambered down from her lofted bed. When we’d gotten in last night, she’d flopped facedown on the cot and gone instantly to sleep, as though her body recognized the rare opportunity to recharge.

I slept fitfully, and now that I was awake, I was anxious to get going. Ten more minutes, and I’d go wake up Milo. I’d get him to throw some real resources at the Leander situation. Surely, with his help, we’d find Holmes’s uncle within the day, and then we could get down to normal things. Museums. Curry shops. Christmas shopping, maybe, and for a moment, I wondered what I should get Holmes. Pipettes? A book on something bizarre, like anglerfish? August would get her something better than that. Something more inventive.

No, it was definitely better to focus on the task at hand.

Milo was waiting for me in the hall, as though he were a robot that had been left to recharge there all night. “Watson,” he said impatiently. “Come along. Breakfast is in my kitchen.”

As I trailed after him, I realized that his actual living quarters were on the other side of the floor. Holmes and I, it seemed, had been housed in the hallway just outside the rooms that held Milo’s personal security team. He never said it out loud, but I got the sense that his sister was housed outside his penthouse for her protection and not because he thought she’d muck up his nice vintage carpet.