“Precisely,” Bryony said. “Gold star, you. Except for the part where he’s a Moriarty first. They have connections you can only dream of. Tell Lucien you want a rattlesnake as window dressing for your little scene, and he’ll make an untraceable one appear. Tell him you want a beautiful little suitcase bomb, and he’ll hire a professional to make you one. Tell him you want a plastic jewel shoved down a girl’s throat, and she’ll choke on it. Tell him you want a new identity, a passport, a job at Charlotte Holmes’s boarding school, and he’ll give it to you wrapped in a bow. God, the very lack of evidence should have been a clue. I gave up my dreams of being a doctor for this. Do you hear that? I gave up my dreams to make you serve the sentence you deserved. I’d nearly all the credits necessary for a nursing degree, and if that could get me here and to you faster—well. For once, sweetie, you were the hottest ticket in town.”
She knelt down before the ottoman, put her hands on Holmes’s knees, leaned right into her face. “This is why I’m a better person than you. Are you ready? I could kill you right now. No”—she held a finger up to Holmes’s lips—“that suitcase bomb was never intended to kill you, don’t be stupid. I was just disgusted by the thought of you and the Watson boy playing house in there. Acting out your roles. Do you want to know why I set up Dobson’s murder as a remake of ‘The Speckled Band’? It’s a reminder. They’re stories. They’re stories, and this is real life. You are not Sherlock Holmes, and you won’t ever be.”
Holmes stared straight down her nose at Bryony’s sneering face. And then she turned her head to me and, slowly, unmistakably, blinked her eyes twice.
Play your last card, she’d said. What card could I possibly play? Only sheer force of will kept my eyes open now. I could barely speak, much less get to my feet and make a stand. If I was supposed to be the muscle in this operation, I was totally out of commission.
But she knew that. So what could she mean?
Last night—a hand on my forehead, a deliberate, closed-mouth kiss. Roses. And her smile as she walked out the door, telling me not to die before I could use it as a bargaining chip.
Oh.
I let my eyes fall closed. I willed my breathing to slow. And I fell, heavily, out of the chair onto the thick pink carpet.
“Watson!” Holmes cried, a perfect parody of the last time she’d thought I was dead.
Stumbling. Footsteps. Bryony saying, “Oh, damn,” as she crouched above me. I could smell the Forever Ever Cotton Candy. A man’s cold fingers on my cheek, then moving to my neck to take a pulse.
“He’s alive,” Milo announced. “He’s alive, but barely.”
“Don’t move him,” Holmes said. “I’ll get the blanket from the bed.”
I opened my eyes to slits. Bryony was still crouched over me, an unexpected look of concern on her face. “Jamie,” she said. “It’ll be okay. This will be over soon, as soon as your girlfriend agrees to let me go.”
I was actually beginning to think that wasn’t the worst idea.
More footsteps. Milo saying, “Couldn’t you take a look at him, Bryony? For his sake?” Bryony’s bit lip as she took her eyes off the bedroom door and fixed them on me.
The sound of a handgun being cocked.
“Get up,” Holmes snarled. “With your hands behind your head.”
Nurse Bryony got to her feet, stiffly.
“You’re wearing a wire,” Holmes said. “It’s wrapped around your handgun holster, which is in and of itself very clever, as most of us would notice the gun and then instantly avert our eyes. I am not most people, as you well know. So yes, hello Lucien, I’m happy to know that you’re well and having your crony deal drugs to the Sherringford milieu, and as I’ve said in the many letters I sent you in prison, I am very sorry for my part in your two months’ incarceration, though I’d wager that one of the dozens of other children you sold coke to would’ve ratted you out eventually. I hope that you’ve enjoyed being an accessory to murder.”
She walked forward, the gun steady in her hands. “I’d suggest that you don’t attempt to blow the suitcase bomb that I found in the linen closet, as I’ve already defused it. I didn’t even need to take to Google for that one. But then, thanks to my father, I imagine I’ve forgotten more about designing explosives than you’ve ever learned.”
She was close enough now that she and Bryony were eye to eye. With wild eyes, Bryony opened her mouth, and Holmes lifted one black boot and stomped the heel of it onto the nurse’s foot.
“Now, now. Speaking out of turn. I’m afraid that I’m not as tolerant of that as you. I really should be taking lessons.”
Bryony whimpered against the pain, her hands still tucked behind her head. Swiftly, Holmes pulled the pistol from under Bryony’s coat and tossed it to Milo, who caught it neatly.
“Bryony Downs,” Holmes mused. “What can I say? If I could apologize to August, I would.”
I noticed that she was still maintaining the fiction that August Moriarty was dead, even now, when throwing the truth into Nurse Bryony’s face would be the ultimate punishment.
But Holmes was still speaking. “I’ve been through three separate rehabilitation programs. I may, in fact, simply be a terrible person at heart, but the difference between you and me is that I fight it. With every single atom of my being I fight against it. I might be an amateur detective but you are a bloody psychopath, and I would rather put this gun in my mouth than let you skip away to St. Petersburg where you can prey on teenage boys on my brother’s blood money. You orchestrated my rape, and you call me a whore? No. This is the absolute end of the line.”