The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes #2)(38)

“I think they were on the roof. Just another minute or two. I don’t hear gunfire, that’s good.” She stomped her feet a little against the cement floor. “Watson?”

“Holmes?”

For a long second, she studied the ground.

“I left my coat back at the table,” she said, and when she looked up, I saw that her eyes had gone glassy and sad.

I took a step forward. “Hey,” I said softly. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you know that when my uncle goes away, he always leaves me a present? He didn’t this time. He didn’t . . . the last time he went, he left me a pair of gloves. They were black cashmere. Fingerless. Perfect for picking locks.” She looked down again, shoving her hands in her pockets. “I wish I had them now.”

Five minutes later, they opened the door. There was ice in my mouth and snow on my shoes, and Holmes had stopped crying. Though really, I guess she’d never started.

BACK AT GREYSTONE, WE BYPASSED THE SECURITY CHECKS by the simple expedient of telling them to fuck off, and rode the elevator back to our room. Holmes had that sort of deliberate silence around her that meant that she was brooding. Ten more minutes of this, and she’d start chain-smoking under an avalanche of blankets.

“I didn’t get to eat any lunch.” It was the sort of deliberately stupid comment I’d make to draw her out of herself. It also happened to be true. “I sort of wanted an oyster.”

“We’ll go,” she promised. “You can always get a sandwich from Milo’s penthouse. He keeps a spread in there, usually.”

“No one will snipe me when I get in there?”

“No one will snipe you,” she said. “Where’s your phone?”

“I left it here. Why?”

“We went to meet a Moriarty and you left your phone at home? What if we were separated?”

“We weren’t separated,” I said irritably. I really was hungry. “I still don’t have anything to tell my father, and he keeps texting me.”

“Check it now,” she said, sitting straight down onto the floor. After a quick once-over, she hauled a book out of one of the stacks beside her.

There it was, that familiar mix of dread and anticipation I always felt when she told me to do something like this. I climbed up to my loft and dug my phone out of the tangled sheets. I had a text from a number programmed in as FRENCH LOVE INTEREST. Simon, it read. Do you still want to get coffee this afternoon? I’d love to talk more about my paintings.

I swore. Down below me, Holmes smiled to herself, balancing her book on her knees. She must’ve dug my phone out in the night, but how, I couldn’t imagine—when I’d left that morning, she was starfished out in the same position she’d been in when she fell asleep. Still, she’d managed to send Marie-Helene the world’s most awful text:

Hi luv, hope u don’t mind. Tabitha gave me ur number. Ace wingwoman she is. Fancy a cuppa tomorrow?

“Holmes. This is wretched. This is like British by numbers.”

“Can’t help it. It’s what you sound like when you’re playing posh.” She bit her lip. “Isn’t that right, mate.”

Aren’t you the sly one, Marie-Helene had written back. Jesus Christ. Sending your cousin to do your dirty work! Yes, of course I’d love to see you.

Luv to see ur paintings and talk more about them. Sorry was a bit shit last nite at ur teacher’s. Got nervous.

“Simon wouldn’t have used an apostrophe if he’s too lazy to type out a full word.”

She looked innocently up at me from the top of her book. “Bloody hell, I made a bleedin’ mistake.”

Why nervous? Marie-Helene had asked, and added a line of angel emojis.

Isn’t it obvious? Ur beautiful. U kno it 2.

Blush emoji.

“No,” I groaned. “No. Absolutely not. This is like a L.A.D. song. This is like my sister’s L.A.D. fan fiction.”

“I learned quite a bit from your sister,” Holmes said with some satisfaction. “I learned that when you were a toddler, you once insisted on wearing your underwear outside your trousers for an entire week. I saw the photos.”

“No.” I was going to murder Shelby, and creatively.

“I also learned every word to every song on L.A.D’s debut album.” To my surprise, she started warbling, “Girl yeah girl you’re beautiful you know you’re effin’ beautiful—”

I threw a pillow at her. She dodged it nimbly. “How can someone with a private music teacher have such bad pitch?”

“We all have our own personal skill set, Watson. Not all of us are professional heartbreakers.”

“Is there a real reason why I’m meeting Marie-Helene for coffee this afternoon? Or are you just feeling punchy?”

She lofted the book up in the air. Gifte, the title read, on a marbled textbook cover.

“Are you asking what I want for Christmas?” I asked. “Or should I suddenly be able to speak German?”

“Poisons, Watson. The word means poison. There are some things you can’t tell from surveillance footage and from frisking the housekeeping staff, as much as Milo would deny it. If I can’t do anything about Leander . . . I’m going to run some things I know about my mother’s medical history. Try to narrow down what she’s been exposed to, and from there, determine how it’s gotten into the house. Milo’s gone, you know, and now I have access to his labs. To his techs! It’s going to be an excellent afternoon.”