“And you’re just going to leave your friend to die,” Nurse Bryony said in a harsh whisper.
It was what I’d asked her to do, after all. To keep herself out of jail at any cost. I tried to breathe through the panic clenching my lungs.
Holmes sighed. “No, of course I’m not,” she said, and I almost died right there from relief. “My brother’s men are retrieving the antidote from Watson’s dorm room as we speak. It’s a clever place to hide it, isn’t it? The same place where you infected him? Wanted us to really be kicking ourselves when we found it. But it was easy enough to deduce from the university keys sticking out of your pocket, and not your handbag, and the glass shards embedded in your boot soles. Those, I confirmed when Watson here so obligingly fainted and you got to your knees to examine him. Shards of one-way glass, specifically. Any second now, Peterson will text me that he’s found the antidote.”
As if on cue, her phone chirped.
“How could you know that,” Bryony said. “How could you know that for sure,” and I was surprised to hear an element of jealousy in her voice.
“Because, right now, you look furious,” Holmes said. “So thanks for the confirmation.”
Nurse Bryony spat on the floor.
Holmes rolled her eyes. “It was a bloody stupid place to hide it anyway, far too close to your flat—which is perfectly awful, by the by. So close, in fact, that we’d have fetched it and injected Watson before you had proper time to make your getaway. Why, really, would we let you abscond with three million dollars’ worth of my brother’s money when you had no further cards to play?
“Though I suppose you had Lucien as a last resort. Hello again, Lucien.”
Milo’s phone rang.
He startled. It was like seeing the Sphinx jump. “No one is supposed to have this number,” he muttered, picking it up, and then, into the phone, “Yes. Fine. I’ll put you on speaker.”
Lucien Moriarty’s voice crackled into the room.
“Hello again, Charlotte,” he drawled.
Bryony’s eyes flickered back and forth. “This wasn’t part of the plan,” she hissed.
“No, no, darling,” he said. “Your part in this is done. Hush, now. Dear Charlotte. You had a question? I’ll give you one answer. As your consolation prize.”
“Consolation prize?” Holmes laughed. “I won. Lucien, I am quite literally standing here, holding the gun.”
“So there’s nothing you want me to clear up. Nothing at all. No questions about the drug dealer”—and here, his voice changed to a dark snarl—“who stuffed a plastic gem into that little prize turkey? Who was so obliging as to hang himself to break any remaining links between him and his employer? No questions about that employer who is, even now, calling you from Russia?” A laugh. “That’s me, by the way. In case you’re as slow as you seem.”
I tried to swear, but I couldn’t force out any words. Holmes’s hand shook. It was almost imperceptible, but I saw it. She’d taught me to notice things, after all.
“Fine,” she said. “You win. So tell me. Why did you make it so easy for us to catch Bryony?”
“I never wanted you in jail,” Lucien purred. “That was never the plan. The plan was to torment you, and how can I do that from within a jail cell? Oh, you could lose yourself within weeks in a juvenile penitentiary, but you could also start a riot. Or break yourself out. No, this was a practice round. I wanted to see what was important to you. I wanted to see how much this foolish boy trusted you. I threaten him, and you kiss him. Cue strings. Cue the applause.”
Milo whipped around to stare at his sister, but her eyes were fixed on the phone.
“It’s good to know what matters to you, Charlotte. So very little does. My brother didn’t. Your own family doesn’t. But this boy . . .” I could almost hear him licking his lips. “No, I don’t want you in jail. I don’t want you to have the satisfaction of this being over.”
No one in the room was looking directly at anyone else. I wondered, briefly, if anyone remembered that I was quite literally dying on the floor.
“Well. Go on. Take out the trash,” he said. “I see that your antidote is waiting at the door.”
A click, and he was gone.
“I knew about his plan,” Nurse Bryony said into the silence. “I knew this whole time.”
“No,” Holmes said, pressing the gun to Bryony’s temple. “You’re a terrible liar. How sad, you’ve made me resort to guns. How incredibly cheap. Milo, tie her hands. I hope you’re ready to take her . . . wherever you’re going to take her. I don’t want to know.”
“I promise not to tell you,” Milo said, in a tone that suggested he’d said this many times. He bound her hands neatly in a zip-tie, put her own pistol to the base of her neck, and led her out the door.
I’d missed something. But then, I’d missed a lot of things.