The Case for Jamie (Charlotte Holmes #3)(79)

“But it got muddy, didn’t it. It got muddy when he came to work for my family. All this began there. Not with the drugs in the car, not with my stupid crush. It started when August walked through our front door. When he started playing politics. Because it was a political decision, wasn’t it? He wanted a favor from my father. My father, whose last name made him nobler than you, no matter what terrible things he’d done. In the eyes of the world, you and your family would always be less than. Because you were a Moriarty.”

“Brilliant,” Lucien said, hoarsely. I wished I could see his face. “How much did you pay for that psychology course?”

“I’ve had quite a bit of time to think about it,” Holmes was saying. “I’ve had some time to put it together. I know, for instance, why you’ve turned a corner since August has died. Oh, sure, fucking with me was your hobby, but before his death it was never your full-time job. Bryony Downs? You encouraged her with a few phone calls, then let her do the rest. Hadrian and Phillipa? You don’t trust either of them enough to tie your shoes, much less kill me. And poisoning my mother—that you arranged on your own, I’m sure of it, but you didn’t stir yourself to do it. But look at us now. All together, one happy family. Honestly, Lucien—marrying Watson’s mother? Kidnapping his sister? That’s grandstanding, and you know it.”

“Grief does that to a man,” Lucien said. I couldn’t believe that he was still standing there, listening to her; I couldn’t believe I was still alive.

“Of course you’re grieving,” Holmes snapped. “Grief doesn’t make you chuck over your whole life to go hunt down a teenage girl at her boarding school. No, it’s more than that.

“I think you were happy when you thought August was dead. I think you were relieved. You could put him back up on his pedestal—no more of his pesky little life choices, clouding up the narrative. You could make him a saint again.

“And when he died the second time, on the Holmeses’ estate, by a Holmes’s hand, you saw a way to rewrite the story. A girl like me? A villain like me? I was an opportunity. What if the Moriartys were the victims all along? What if—horror of horrors—they were the heroes?”

“Shut your mouth,” Lucien snarled, and I knew, then, that she’d won.

And that her victory didn’t matter, not at all.

Because he was going to kill me, quite literally, at her feet. To make a point. As though I were a bag of garbage he needed to spill out on the ground.

I guess I won’t be going to prison, then, I thought. I wanted badly, then, to look up at Holmes, to see what she was thinking, but I was too afraid to move my head.

A SCUFFLING SOUND. A DOOR OPENING. “GIRL,” LUCIEN was saying, and I could make out a small figure next to him, a bag over her head. “Come here.” When she didn’t move, he said, again, “Come,” and for a moment, his flashlight beam blinked off, and we were in darkness.

“Faster,” Lucien was saying.

The world sharpened slightly around me. Something had changed. Something small. A click. Where had it come from? From behind me?

Was it just wishful thinking?

Maybe it was, because Lucien hadn’t heard it. “Take the gun from the holster on my hip,” he said to the girl, and he clicked his flashlight on, its light trained on the floor.

Why did Lucien need two guns?

In that small moment of distraction, Holmes dropped something small and hard onto my legs. The backs of my calves, specifically, which were out of Lucien’s sight. She tapped her foot on the floor, once, in confirmation. She wanted me to know that she had done what she had done on purpose.

“Bring the gun to Charlotte,” Lucien told the girl, and she did. Slowly, with dragging steps, and as she came closer, I could feel my vision start to go. I had assumed, dully, that he had dragged out Anna again—but this girl was smaller. Slighter. Was she? Was I just imagining things?

All I knew was that she had on a pair of gray Converses with mismatched laces—one pink, one green.

My sister, Shelby, had shoes like that.

“Holmes,” I said, low, and she said, “Watson. I know.”

“Shut up,” Lucien said, and I saw then that he was shaking. “Don’t talk! Neither of you says a word, or this ends the fast way. Now, Shelby.” Lucien lifted his gun so that it was pointed at Holmes. His flashlight ran over my face, my shoulders.

The backs of my legs.

I caught my breath.

Shelby paused. She paused. And she handed Holmes the gun and backed away, backlit, that gunnysack over her head like a girl playing a game, like a demon from a story.

“Kneel,” Lucien said. “Now, girl. At my feet.”

I couldn’t help it—I made a horrible, inarticulate sound.

“Charlotte. Keep the gun pointed to the ceiling. This is how we’re going to do this,” Lucien said. “You’ll follow my directions, or I’ll shoot the girl right here. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Holmes said, steadily.

“Take three steps to your left. Keep the gun pointed up. Good. Turn. Back toward the boy. That’s it. And the gun should be—ah, I see you’ve guessed it already. Clever girl. The gun should be pointed at little Shelby’s head.”

I couldn’t help it—I wrenched my head around to stare at Holmes. I needed the confirmation. Her pale face, the long line of her arms, the pistol at the end of them.