The Case for Jamie (Charlotte Holmes #3)(82)

James Watson came by, with flowers but without his son. He didn’t bring his wife, either, which I supposed was intentional, as he and Leander took the opportunity to go out to the hall and have a very loud fight. There is no way that Shelby is going to that godforsaken school, it nearly ate your son and Of course he doesn’t hate you, James and Don’t be a martyr, I know it’s your default setting, get over yourself. Then they stole the Connect Four set from the nurses’ station and made me watch them play each other. I began placing bets on Mr. Watson. It wasn’t good strategy, but it made my uncle furious. Well, as furious as he could be with Jamie’s father around.

Shelby came; I had always liked that girl, her enthusiasms, her happy voice. Her face so much like Watson’s. How she let herself in and immediately said, “We aren’t talking about it, it’s too screwed up, can we just watch YouTube videos instead?” and then proceeded to French braid my hair into pigtails. She’d smuggled me in a whole dozen old-fashioned donuts and then ate ten of them in sock feet, talking so fast that I could hardly understand her, a lone sprinkle on her shirt.

She was so much like her brother it made me want to cry. I didn’t. I braided her hair instead, much to her surprise and delight.

It hadn’t ever been a decision, really, whether to choose her life or mine.

Lena came by, sans Tom; she’d given him up as a bad job, she said, but I knew there were still three more months left in school, and that Lena had a thing for a boy in a sweater-vest. DI Green called, and Detective Shepard. He’d finished questioning me to his satisfaction, he’d said. I wasn’t facing criminal charges. Yet. I rather wanted to get back to England before he changed his mind.

Hadrian Moriarty sent me a bouquet of lilies, most likely because he knew they were funereal. Bastard. My brother sat tragically by my bedside and pledged that he’d never leave me again. Save for prison, as he had made a full confession to the police. He would serve his time with dignity, he said.

Four years ago I would have severed a limb for such treatment from Milo Holmes, but today I just made him sit in the plastic-covered chair and watch Ugly House Rescue with me until he fell asleep. He was gone in the morning. His assistant said he’d gone to Taiwan. I doubted he would ever really take responsibility for what he’d done.

My mother called; we had a very civil discussion about my injuries, and she invited me to visit her in Switzerland. Her language made it clear: it was her home, not mine, and I wasn’t welcome to think of it as a refuge anymore.

If I ever had to begin with.

That was all. My mother didn’t want me, and my father never showed, and still the nurses called me Miss Holmes, Miss Holmes, like I belonged to that family, and it had been days since I’d seen him. Watson. He’d left, and not come back.

Until he did.

Leander was down at the vending machines. The nurses had just done their rotation. We were working on the paperwork for me to be transferred to a rehabilitation facility. They didn’t want me to fly, but Leander was insisting on bringing me home. There wasn’t much they could say to it—I was a British national, and I would wait until I wasn’t in immediate danger any longer, and then I would be gone.

Seeing Watson in the door made me wonder at that. Danger. Why he and I found that we needed it. Why I felt it even now, him being there. He had on his leather jacket, and his ridiculous watch, and the boots that Morgan-Vilk had given him. He didn’t say anything for a long time.

Until, like a fool, I said “Jamie,” and he came to me like a man compelled, feet slow, eyes dark, almost against his will. Almost against his will he put a hand on my shoulder. Dropped down to his knees. Put his face in my hair. For a moment—just a moment—and then he straightened and stood.

“I did this,” he said. “I should have—you should have just shot me.”

“You realize how ridiculous that sounds.”

He stared at me. “You’d kicked it, hadn’t you.”

“In a way.” I met his eyes. “You don’t ever really kick it, you know. Not completely. Though the current treatment plan certainly isn’t the best.”

“The current plan?”

“My getting shot, and needing morphine.”

He smiled, despite himself. “That’s not much of a joke.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “I’m usually quite funny.”

We talked. He was finishing his college applications; his suspension had been hand-waved away, and he was installed back at Sherringford in his single room. I had the sense that he was counting the days until it was over.

I hadn’t seen Shelby in days. She wasn’t, as Mr. Watson had insisted, remaining in America. She was returning to her mother in London, for now.

Watson hadn’t spoken much to his mother. “I don’t know when I will again,” he said.

“Give it time,” I told him. It was advice I’d heard given before. I assumed it had some merit.

And really, only days had passed. I had begun to feel unstuck from time, somehow, in a way that was particular to hospitals, and as I was explaining it to Watson my uncle appeared in the door with an armload of crisps and chocolate. Then he saw the two of us, and slipped away.

Not before Watson saw him. “I should go,” he said. “Leave you to it.”

“Why have you been away?” I asked him, all at once. “You were here—and then you left.”