The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes #2)(60)

“No. You don’t worry about him. My employer has taken care of it, yes? Now—”

That wet sound again. No, a different wet sound, and a man’s tortured wheeze, a whimper, and before I fully knew what I was doing, I had shoved myself out from my hiding place, fists up.

In time to watch Holmes slam her elbow into his throat a second time. He slid down to the floor, dragging an avalanche of coats down with him.

“He tried to reach up my dress.” With a shaky hand, she straightened her wig. “Let’s go. Now.”

We made a break for the stairs. Even now, even with her mouth tight and trembling, she was playing the part she’d assigned herself—what looked like some blond version of Marie-Helene, down to the clothing. Was that how she crafted a persona? Ran her scanner eyes over some girl she’d just met and then re-created her, hours later, with a wig and a set of painted-on freckles?

Behind us, a buzz kicked up. When I turned to look, I saw a man come tearing out of the coat closet only to be grabbed and hauled away by—August?

“Faster,” Holmes said, and we pounded down the brightly painted stairs, past the burned-out chandelier and the door with its painted eyes. In moments, we were outside and tearing down the hill. But I hadn’t paid attention when we’d first arrived, and there was nothing around us—just the lumbering shapes of factories and trucks stretching out to the skyline.

“Where are we?” I asked her, but she grabbed me by the elbow and hauled me along. At the end of the block she skidded to a stop and pulled me around the corner of a warehouse. I searched my pockets for my phone. “I have something to tell you about August.” No response. “He’s in touch with his brother. He’s been talking to Hadrian, I think all this time.” Nothing, still. “Holmes?”

She’d knelt on the curb, her hands braced against the concrete. Once, twice, she threw up into the street. I got down beside her to hold back her hair, the long strands of the wig cold and stiff in my fingers. A cold wind snapped down the street. She didn’t shiver, but any minute now, it was going to snow.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” She coughed, then pulled off her wig and threw it to the ground. The wig cap. The false eyelashes. Without them, she was almost herself again, a girl in cast-off black clothes with desperate eyes. “Can you call a car?”

“I don’t have any reception,” I told her. “Yours?”

“I’ll ask Milo.”

“Isn’t he in Thailand?”

But she didn’t say anything else for a long minute. Instead, she looked out across the road stretching out and up to the art squat. The wind kicked up again, scattering her hair across her face.

Wheels on gravel. As we both watched, a black town car came around the corner. It didn’t have plates.

“I wonder who he bugged this time,” I muttered, opening the door, “you or me.”

The driver was another of Milo’s silent, dark-dressed men. After we settled in the backseat, Holmes waved at him. “Home.”

We were quiet for a long minute. Absently, she asked the driver for a plastic bag; he handed her one as though he had a supply on hand. I wasn’t sure what to say after the way we’d left things back at Greystone. I turned it over in my head—an apology? An interrogation? How to tell her about what I’d learned from Leander’s letters? She met with him, the last one said. They talked about how things would change at her house. Should I start there?

At first it seemed like we wouldn’t talk about it at all. She took out her phone and began tapping away—to who, I didn’t know—and only when she’d finished did she speak, in a hoarse, cruel voice that I’d only heard once before.

“You want to talk about this.”

I sighed. “I need to tell you something about August.”

She drew a breath. “Watson. If you’re telling me you’re concerned about his loyalties, I’m uninterested. He might be in touch with his family. He might be unwilling to babysit me. I don’t care what reason you’ve dug up, but at the moment, I’d rather rely on him than you. This brings us to my second point. One moment.”

Very neatly, she threw up again into the plastic bag.

“Two,” she said. “When you told me to get out, I did. This is me getting myself out. I want out. I don’t want this horrifying iteration of you that no longer has any faith in my ability to keep a handle on myself because I am having boy problems.” She said those last words with a snarl. “Am I made of glass now? You come to find me, and you don’t tell me straight off that you’ve gotten new information about my uncle?”

“How did you know that?”

Holmes stared at me like I was a moron. “You’re honestly asking me that question.”

“Holmes. August is talking to his brother again, and I don’t care if he thinks he’s doing us—me—a favor, it’s incredibly stupid. What did he do, wander into his consulting rooms dressed like a bookseller? Surprise, I’m not dead, and oh look! We’re re-creating history—”

“Shut up, Watson. Just get out. Look, we’re at a red light—I’m sure you could find your way home. Do you have reception to call a cab?” She glanced again into the rearview mirror. The driver didn’t look back. “Do you need me to come with and hold your hand?”