The Last of August (Charlotte Holmes #2)(73)

There was a small flurry of discussion, and paddles began going up in the air: numbers 103, 282, 78. In the front row, Tom leaned in to whisper a question in Lena’s ear. She nodded without looking up from her phone. Eagerly, he stuck their paddle, 505, in the air. The price went up. 505 went up, too, every time, and soon the other numbers, one by one, began to drop out of the running.

I should have been paying attention to the auction, not to August and Hadrian off to the side, their heads together, arguing in fierce whispers. Twice, Hadrian turned to look at me over his shoulder and was wrenched back by his brother. We’d never spoken, not while he wasn’t in disguise, and so the intense hatred in his eyes startled me. It looked so personal.

I’d been having fun until that moment—a tense sort of fun, but fun all the same. It was shocking to me, that this was fun at all, that this was even happening to me—that I was about to take down some elite art auction in the Czech Republic on Christmas Eve. What jerked me back down was the realization that Hadrian clearly wanted to dismember me. I didn’t want to imagine how he felt about Charlotte Holmes.

Right then, glaring at me, he didn’t look a thing like Nathaniel. For the millionth time, I wondered if Leander was wrong.

I wondered if Leander was still alive.

Slowly, I moved closer until I could hear the edges of their conversation.

August was trying to refocus his brother’s attention. “Look at me,” he hissed. “If you’re claiming all this madness is about me, about my ‘death,’ then you’ll bloody well look at me when we’re talking.”

“Nine hundred thousand,” the auctioneer was calling. Lena tapped Tom’s shoulder, and he raised paddle 505 again. On the stage, Phillipa’s greedy smile grew. “Sold,” he crowed, “to 505! Our next work is also by Hans Langenberg. . . .”

The Moriartys were mocking us. One by one, they hauled up their faked Langenberg paintings, and auctioned them off for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even Hadrian, still in the throes of his conversation with August, kept turning to grin at his sister. The guards standing with semiautomatics to the sides of the stage would keep Holmes and me from making any obvious move on their life. If we tried, we’d forfeit our own.

Three paintings. Five paintings. Six. The auctions went up, and Lena, in her disguise, won them. Every single time. The Moriartys would have confirmed her banking information ahead of time when they’d accepted her request to join. They felt certain about these sales. About that money.

Underneath my mask, I was starting to sweat. I knew we were nearing the end.

“And The Thought of a Pocketwatch goes to number 505,” the auctioneer said as the painting was hauled off the stage. The crowd began to grumble amongst themselves. I couldn’t blame them. They were, for the most part, older, conservative art aficionados who came out on Christmas Eve in pursuit of new work, only to be outbid by a teenage pop star who wouldn’t stop cracking her gum.

“That’s the last one,” I heard Hadrian say to August. He put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I’ll wish them all goodnight, and then we can finish our conversation.”

August smiled thinly. “Yes,” he said. “Do.”

Before Hadrian could take more than a step, the auctioneer cleared his throat. “We have a final piece to present, one that isn’t in your catalogs.”

The room fell silent. Phillipa started toward the auctioneer, her smile frozen on her face.

Holmes beat both of them to the punch. “Ah, yes!” she said, standing from her seating in the back of the room, stretching her arms out to her sides. “Yes, I am very excited for this!”

“It’s Elmira Davenport,” Peterson said in a loud whisper. “I wonder if it’s one of her early pieces!”

The man next to him nodded sagely. “Davenport really is the future of video art.”

“I’ve always said so,” said his wife.

She must’ve sensed that she was losing control of the situation, because Phillipa reached out and grabbed the auctioneer by the arm, hard. “Miss Davenport,” she said, in a carrying voice. “Surely we can fit your work into our next showing—”

“Let her show it now!” called Peterson.

“Yes!” another voice called. “None of us are taking home anything! Give us a chance!”

Tom turned to Lena and said loudly, “You’re not interested in video art, are you?”

“I hate it,” she said in a dull voice.

“She hates it!” someone repeated, and then the room began to buzz. The museum’s high walls of the room gathered their voices and looped it on itself; it sounded almost like a swarm of bees was descending from the ceiling. On the stage, Phillipa bit her lip so hard it turned white. August held Hadrian in place with a firm hand, and while the armed guards looked across the room at each other—I was watching—they made no movement toward their weapons.

Into that anticipation, Holmes and I climbed up onto the stage.

The auctioneer backed away from the podium, letting Holmes step up in his place. “Hello, all! Yes, this is Elmira Davenport. That is my name. That said, I feel that you should call me whatever it is that you want to call me. Identity is so stifling! It is a construct!”

“A pernicious construct,” I intoned.

“Identity is slippery. We go by many names! Our many selves have different wants! Today, I am in Prague, away from my family on a day meant to be with family—and am I family without them?”