A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1)(13)

Yes, it was true that I’d punched Dobson because he was being disgusting about a girl, a family friend, and because no one was saying anything to stop him. Yes, there were better ways of solving my problems; yes, if I could do it again, I’d use words instead of fists. (A lie.) Holmes and I had fought, and very publicly, but I told the detective that I’d found her the next day to make sure there were no hard feelings. (A lie.)

As I talked, I watched my father struggle to contain his beaming approval. When I described my right hook to Dobson’s chin, he took notes with a stifled grin. Really, with role models like him, it was surprising I wasn’t already in jail.

For his part, the detective stuck to asking us simple questions and fiddling with the recorder he’d brought along; we’d given permission for him to tape our statements. After I told him that I’d snuck out of the dorm this morning to see if Holmes was okay (a half-lie) and that we’d hidden away in her lab to avoid our classmates (retroactively true), I came to the end.

Shepard made a show of shuffling through his own notes. “I think that’s it,” he said, and I reached for my jacket.

He held up a hand before I could stand. “Except for the part where, when we found Dobson’s body, he was clutching your school library’s copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. With one story in particular bookmarked. Or the part where you had sex with him. Dobson.” He was facing Holmes, but his eyes were fixed on me. My father stopped writing.

Nothing could have prepared me for that.

I went cold all over, then hot, and I thought I might retch on the carpet. So Dobson had been telling the truth. Thick-necked, grunting Dobson, who I’d once heard brag about jerking off in the communal shower. I’d kill him. I’d hunt him down and strangle him with my bare hands, even if I had to resurrect him to do it.

Next to me, I felt Holmes go very still. “Yes, I did,” she said.

Through that all-too-familiar blood-roar, I heard the detective say, “Is there a reason you decided to keep that fact a secret? Not just from me, either. It looks like even your friend here had no idea.”

I shoved my fists under my knees. Was I breathing? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t care.

“Because I was using a rather large amount of oxy at the time,” she said coolly, “and had that come to light, I would have been expelled. Your real question should be whether the sexual act was consensual. Which, considering my impaired state, it wasn’t.” She paused. “Do you have any more questions?”

Her voice broke on the last word.

At that, I had to leave the room.

I STALKED UP AND DOWN THE HALL, SHAKING. IF I DIDN’T already have a reputation for being a violent dickhead, I definitely had one now: Peter opened his door in a bathrobe, shower caddy in hand, but after one glance at me punching the wall, he ducked back into his room. I heard him lock the door behind him.

Good, I thought. The first person to look at me the wrong way would get the pounding that Dobson had deserved.

As for Holmes . . . it hurt too much to think about her. Of course the fact that she’d done hard drugs wasn’t a huge surprise; even without the rumors, I knew about the Holmeses’ long, storied history with cocaine and rehab. According to my great-great-great-grandfather’s stories, Sherlock Holmes had always fallen back on a seven-percent solution when he was without a case. He needed the stimulation, he’d claimed, and Dr. Watson had only made cursory efforts to stop him. Oxy was just Charlotte Holmes’s particular poison. Apparently, old habits died hard in this family.

But I kept imagining it, Holmes stretched out on that tattered love seat in her lab, one indolent arm over her face, the empty plastic pouch beside her. That image alone was enough to turn my stomach—her eyes sparkling with a false fever, the sweat on her brow. And then Dobson at the door, disgusting words on his lips. How did it unfold? Did he have to hold her down?

I was aware, then, of my breath, as hard and fast as if I’d been running. I thought about it for another half second. Dobson’s face. The empty pouch. Then I slammed my fist again into the cinder-block wall.

My father stepped out into the hallway.

“Jamie,” he said in a low voice, and it pushed me over the edge into tears.

I don’t cry, as a rule. Nothing good comes out of fighting, I’ll give you that, but crying? For a moment, you might feel a touch of release, but for me that’s always been followed hard by waves of shame, and helplessness. I hate feeling helpless. I’ll do anything to avoid it.

I suppose Holmes and I had that in common.

I half-expected my father to try to hug me, the way he did her, but instead he laid a hand on my shoulder. “It’s the worst feeling, isn’t it?” he asked. “That there’s nothing at all you can do to make it better.”

“I didn’t kill him, Dad,” I said, rubbing angrily at my face. “God, I wish I had.”

“You mustn’t blame her for this, you know,” he said. “I imagine she’s doing a good enough job of that herself.”

I took a step back. “I’d never blame Holmes for this. It isn’t her fault.”

My father smiled at that, though sadly. “You’re a good man, Jamie Watson. Your mother’s raised you well.” This was territory that I couldn’t get into, not then, and he must’ve seen it on my face. I waited for him to insist that I sign off campus to go home with him—it would be a reasonable suggestion, after everything that’d happened—but he didn’t.