The Case for Jamie (Charlotte Holmes #3)(25)

“Leave me to figure it out. I need you to go to Greenpoint today.”

“Greenpoint,” I said. It had been in my plan, and still I disliked being ordered there.

“You could hide a little of your disdain for me, you know. Might take you further.”

I opened my mouth to apologize, and instead said, “I saw Watson yesterday. He didn’t see me.”

DI Green exhaled. If she didn’t know the full extent of my and Watson’s history, she did see firsthand how everything went to shit. “How are you feeling about it?”

It was a simple question. Why did it always make me want to bite the person asking it? “I didn’t sleep well. Is something in particular happening in Greenpoint today?”

“There’s a shipment due for Connecticut from the gallery. It leaves at close.”

Whatever mawkish emotion I was feeling was gone, erased as though with a damp cloth. “Where? Where in Connecticut?”

“Stevie—”

“Where?” I loathed asking questions to which I already knew the answer.

“You aren’t to be on the truck. You aren’t to be anywhere near the truck, do you understand? No. Lorries. You’re on intel only. I don’t want you to be seen by them. I don’t want you to be—”

“Saying something five different ways doesn’t make it more effective—”

“—or any of your Lara Croft bullshit, I mean it, Stevie—”

“Fine,” I said.

A pause. “I should go,” she said with a huff. I could hear someone—her supervisor?—in the background. “You didn’t send me that photo last night.”

Of my pills. I’d fallen asleep. “Sorry.”

“Doesn’t cut it. Send it now.” Green put the phone down.

I supposed I was going to Greenpoint, then. The ease with which I had taken her advice surprised me. Certainly, the DI had given me a good reason, but in the past, that hadn’t had been enough.

I knew, at this point, that I should have a handler. The briefest of glances at my last operation would tell you that.

If you’d said anything at all, Watson had said to me that day on the lawn. Anything. I could have changed your mind! But you maneuvered me here just to—

This is love, I’d told him. This is what love looks like, and then I’d left him to the wolves.

Yes, I needed a handler. If DI Green wasn’t the exact right fit, she was a beginning.

I took my stash out of my coat lining. I photographed it. I made another cup of tea, put on my Rose-from-Brighton kit, topped it off with flat-black, cat-eye sunglasses, and went off to buy myself some Kevlar.

The man in the body armor shop was incredulous. “What—”

“It’s for my Fashion Institute admissions portfolio,” I said impatiently. “I’m putting together work that’s a commentary on personal security. It has a lot of tulle.”

“Tool?”

“Tulle. T-u-l-l-e. Like a tutu? Attached to a vest.” I shrugged my bag from one shoulder to the other. “Here are my measurements. I’m going to model it myself.” When he continued staring at me, I stomped my foot. “Honestly. How hard is this to understand?”

Thankfully the shop was empty; I was having to make a scene. At least I was providing this clerk with exactly the sort of girl he expected to be buying his wares, and so he’d forget me soon enough. Had I arrived as myself and quietly made my purchase, I would be the sort of oddity he would remember.

“It’s your money.” Shrugging, he turned to pull the least expensive model from the wall.

“No. I want the Byzantium Express Level 3X-A. With the moisture wicking if you have it.”

“You’ve done your research,” he said, obnoxiously surprised.

I blinked at him. “With the wicking,” I repeated.

“Wicking?”

“It’s a high-stress interview.”

The man hesitated. “That one’s seven hundred dollars, kid.”

Which would bring me down to two hundred total. Still—“I like the color,” I told him. “It goes with the skirt. Can you wrap it for me, please?”

On an empty subway platform, I did up the vest over my chemise and under my oversized blouse. I tucked my blond hair into the bag and, with quick fingers, undid the curls I’d made this morning to stick the wig’s pins into. I was myself again. Other than the ringlets.

As the train came, I found myself checking the fastenings on my vest. Was I nervous? Perhaps I was. This wasn’t an errand I’d been looking forward to. It had been number four on the list, after all.

But then, I had to see Hadrian Moriarty at some point. No better time than now.





Nine


Jamie


TEN MINUTES TURNED OUT TO BE . . . A LITTLE LONGER than ten minutes. My father replied, I appreciate the dramatics, but I have to finish my monthly sales report. We can fetch you after school tomorrow.

It was fine. I needed time to gather my thoughts, anyway. I begged uncooked rice and a garbage bag from the cafeteria, then settled my turned-off and upside-down laptop inside. The internet had told me the rice would soak up the liquid. I was dubious. The inside of the bag smelled like weird tapioca pudding.

With my laptop marinating beside me, I sat down to make a timeline. It wasn’t a complicated one. Whoever was doing this didn’t think they needed to make it complicated.