The Case for Jamie (Charlotte Holmes #3)(17)

“Be reasonable. You know he’ll be coming for you.”

“Let him,” I said, and meant it.

“He can’t travel,” Milo insisted. “Not without my knowing. My hands are tied as to any direct action, but he can’t travel anywhere as himself without my knowing. I have fail-safes in place. Ones that can’t tracked back to me. I’ll make sure he’s taken out. Lucien knows this, of course—”

I had been hauling my bedframe over to the door to reinforce my barricade. I stopped. “Your hands are tied because you’re confessing?” I said. “You’ll be turning yourself in to the police?”

“Lottie,” he said, and his voice was loving, paternal. It was the way our father spoke before he’d hit me. “Don’t be silly. Someone needs to keep an eye on things. We need to talk contingencies. I can’t do anything if Lucien isn’t traveling as himself, the police are watching any new moves I make—”

I jerked at the bedpost again, and this time I put my back into it. With a bang, it slammed the end table into the door. The legs splintered. The door buckled. It wasn’t satisfying at all.

“You’re a murderer,” I said, panting.

To his credit, Milo hadn’t backed away from the door. I could see his eye through the keyhole. “You know full well you’re the one who’s responsible for his death.”

It was true. It was also true that he had pulled the trigger. “Get out of this house,” I said, “you murderous piece of shit.”

The eye blinked. Then it retreated. “It’s your funeral,” he said, and I didn’t see any more of him after that.

WHEN I FINALLY EMERGED FROM BEHIND THOSE RUBBISH bins, I was furious with myself.

I hadn’t done any of the work I’d intended to do, and now the only option I had left was attempting to pick a lock in an apartment stairwell to find documentation that I really didn’t need.

Ultimately, what I wanted—what I needed, I would allow myself that urgency—was a comprehensive list of Lucien Moriarty’s access points in and out of this country. Perhaps I was up my own ass, to steal an expression from Watson, but I had a working hypothesis. I was finished assuming that my suppositions were correct; this time, I intended to test them. Thoroughly.

I knew what would happen if I didn’t. Had my feelings for August been responsible for the actions I took to ruin his life? Yes. Had the steps I took to find my uncle resulted directly in August’s death? Yes. Yes, a thousand times, yes.

The only question, then, was how I could devise myself a punishment while bringing Lucien down in the bargain.

In the months after August’s death, I painted a very deliberate target on my back. I opened social media accounts and tagged my posts with my location. I walked along the river in Lucerne every day for hours, slowly, in bright colors, talking loudly on my mobile. (I told my mother these walks were “constitutionals,” meant to bring me back to full health. Her response was a shrug and a reminder to bring my mace.) I photographed myself walking along the river, and posted it to said public social media accounts.

Lucien hadn’t even feinted in my direction. The last I heard, that bastard was in America. In New York.

I took several months to craft myself a snare, and then I came here myself.

But Watson? I never wanted Watson to be here. And it looked as though he might be again, if he was in fact following my uncle and James Watson on this frankly idiotic search for Lucien Moriarty. Why on earth did they want to find him?

This was my mess, and I would be the one to clean it up.

I waited until I was on the subway to write down the details I’d heard in the stairwell. It was enough to confirm, at least, that Peter Morgan-Vilk was an identity I should keep in mind when I took my next step. I would confirm at least one more, then move on.

We passed through a station with Wi-Fi. My phone buzzed. Tell me you’re there.

There in ten, I texted back, and then I was.

Six bloody flights of stairs again. New York was taxing, though not in any interesting way. The key is in the frog, the text read, as if I wouldn’t immediately know to fish it from the small ceramic animal next to the doormat.

My choice in lodgings this trip was giving me some pause. In the past year, I had undertaken most major travel (trains, planes, et cetera) in the guise of a girl named Rose from Brighton who was traveling on her gap year, filming videos for the YouTube channel she hoped to launch upon her return. Her accent was similar enough to mine to be unchallenging, her interest in film allowed me to carry around recording equipment, and her attention to fashion was easy enough to affect, as far as these things went. I’d built her persona around the nicest wig I owned, an ashy-blond one I’d had made in London. Rose wore a lot of black, as I did, in tailored styles, as I did—but with her hair and cat-eye sunglasses, her clothes took on a purpose. Even though she made me look like a fashion vlogger, I appreciated her.

I thought of her this way, like a person I kept propped up in the corner until I climbed inside. She’d taken short-term sublets in London for the duration of last fall, but this winter in America had proved more expensive. Rose’s finances were limited. My finances were limited, and it was unclear as to when I could replenish them without exposing myself to more attention than necessary in the process.

This is why when DI Green offered me the use of her sister’s apartment while she, the sister, was on holiday, I accepted, though with some hesitation.