The Case for Jamie (Charlotte Holmes #3)(41)

My phone sounded again in my pocket. It would be poor manners for me to duck out now.

But I looked, despite myself. Jamie needs you, it said. It’s only going to get worse.

I gripped my phone under the table.

I needed to win this round rather desperately.

Natalie studied her cards. “Charlotte Holmes,” she mused. “That’s so funny. I’ve been thinking about this all night—you know, I loved the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was a kid.”

People liked to add that tag, “when I was a kid,” as though there was something childish about them. “That’s great,” I said, because while I didn’t particularly want to hand her secrets over to Jessa, I also didn’t care about her, or what she had or hadn’t read. I only wanted her to bet, so I could leave and contact my source in private.

I tried not to think about the implications of that last text. Watson, dead. On his dorm room floor. Watson dead, shot in the snow, like—

“You know, I met a Moriarty recently.”

My pulse quickened. No one noticed, of course, except for me, as I have a very good poker face. “It’s a common Irish last name,” I told Natalie. “You meet a lot of them.”

“No,” she said, and she tapped her cards against the table. “Like, a real, storybook Moriarty. I go to the Virtuoso School—you know, for working young actors and singers or whatever—and he was getting a tour. They had him sit in on my songwriting class. I guess he’d invested some money in the program.”

Lucien Moriarty’s consulting firm’s client list. The new additions: a large posh hospital in D.C. A wilderness rehabilitation facility for teenagers in Connecticut. And a Manhattan prep school for the arts.

“You gotta bet, lady,” Jessa said, sensing the turn in the conversation. “Then we can order up more champagne. Maybe I can call DJ Pocketwatch, see if she wants to come over.”

My phone chirped again.

“Did you ask him if he’d committed any crimes recently?” I asked lightly, but with just enough edge to let Natalie know I was bothered. It was a tone that drew people in, made them want to know the story behind your upset. It rarely failed.

It didn’t now. She leaned in, fascinated. “Whoa, do you guys still have run-ins?”

I shrugged. “Of a sort. What was he like?”

“Not very interesting. He had on a slouchy hat, like he thought he was cool. Big glasses. He liked the song I played.”

“Are there a lot of people in your songwriting class?” I asked. “I mean, anyone I’ve heard of?”

Natalie snuck a peek at her cards. “Not unless you follow folk-rock? I mean, Annie Henry’s a big-deal fiddler. Penn Olsen and Maggie Hartwell have been playing together for a while—”

“Come on, guys,” Penny said. The music had stopped, and she was staring at all of her money piled up in the middle of the table. “Can we, like, get this over with?”

I pulled my chips toward me, and I found I didn’t care about my winnings.

Maggie Hartwell.

Michael Hartwell was one of Lucien’s fake identities.

My phone chirped. You know you can stop this before it happens, it read, and just like that I was elsewhere, gone. August’s eyes taking me apart on the plane back to England. August ducking his head into my room in Greystone, my violin in his hand—Will you play for me? August in the snow.

Things I could have stopped before they happened. I could get on the train. Tonight. I could be at Penn Station in an hour. I—

You need to feel it, DI Green had said. Or else, every now and then, it’ll happen anyway. And you’ll continue to do very stupid things.

I forced myself to breathe.

Jessa and I had played together enough at this point that she could read me across the table. A distant part of me thought it was a pity she and I weren’t bridge partners. “Penn Olsen and Maggie Hartwell?” she asked, picking up my slack. “Are they on YouTube?”

Natalie laughed. “I guess. They’re not big or anything. They do covers, mostly. Maggie’s a sweetie, but Penn has a really big head.”

Breathe. I was breathing. “Huh,” I said, and it didn’t sound strained.

“She has nothing on you, girl,” Jessa said to Natalie. “Have you heard Natalie’s new single, Penny? It’s so effing good.”

“It is so. Good.” Penny kissed Natalie’s head. “You need to talk to the producers of my show. Maybe we can write you into an episode? I think we’re doing a musical one soon!”

They were looking at each other, so they didn’t see the flash of jealousy in Jessa’s eyes.

We sorted the money quickly, changing out the chips for cash. The champagne had run out. “God, I’m tired, and now I’m super broke,” Penny said, packing up her bag, “and I have call at seven tomorrow morning. We’re shooting a pool scene first thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten those chicken tenders, oof. Love you, love you”— she kissed her hands and blew at us—“but let’s not do this again till I get paid, okay?”

Girls could be so profligate with their love, as though by spreading it wide, they would induce the world to love them back. As though the world wasn’t going to take that love and beat them with it. Still, I blew a kiss at Penny. I waved good-bye to Natalie. I checked my winnings carefully—nearly three thousand dollars, I had taken almost the whole pot—and then faced Jessa across her notebook.