“Holmes,” I managed, but Peterson chose that minute to charge in. With brutal precision, he pulled a syringe out of his pocket, flipped my arm, found a vein, and stabbed it in.
“Sir,” he said respectfully, and left the two of us alone.
“Hi,” Holmes said, getting down beside me. “You look terrible. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything. I just needed—”
“—my reaction to be genuine,” I said, coughing through my smile.
“Precisely.”
“Holmes,” I said again.
“Yes?”
“Hospital?”
She nodded seriously, as if the idea had only now occurred to her too. “I think that would be wise.”
twelve
Five days later
“WHEN’S YOUR FLIGHT?” HOLMES ASKED, PLAYING WITH THE ends of my scarf. “You could always fly back with Milo and me tonight. The offer’s still open.” Her brother had set aside a seat for me in his company jet.
“I’d like to,” I said, “but I think I owe a few more days to my father after all this. I’ll be back in London next weekend.”
He was, understandably, still upset with me for not having told him I was dying. Ever since I’d been brought home to recover, I’d watched him struggle to understand how he should feel. One minute, he was begging me for a description of Nurse Bryony’s face that day in her flat—“Was it more like a snake’s, or an assassin’s?”—his hands clasped in schoolboy glee, and the next minute he was forbidding me to bring in the mail because it was too dangerous with Lucien Moriarty still at large. My father liked reading about adventures, liked talking them through over a glass of whisky. He even liked the thought of his son having them, up to a certain point.
I had, in this past week, plunged off that point and into a very troubling ocean.
“Well,” he’d said, cleaning his glasses, “I suppose you’re looking forward to getting back to your mother and sister.”
“I am,” I’d told him honestly.
“And I imagine you won’t be wanting to return here in the spring when school reopens.” He hadn’t looked at me as he spoke.
“Actually, I’ve heard that someone got me a full scholarship for the year.” I’d hidden my smile. “And though the creative writing teacher left something to be desired, I did make one or two good friends. And I found out my stepmom makes really amazing mac and cheese.”
His eyes had shone. “Ah.”
“Dad,” I’d said. “If your methods were a little obnoxious . . . well. I’m still happy to be here.”
He’d patted me on the arm. “You’re a good man, Jamie Watson.”
It might have even been true. At least, I was trying.
We both were.
“Well, if you stay, you can take over my duties as Robbie’s Mario Kart opponent,” Holmes said now with a wry smile. “That little bugger is very good. I’m used to playing by myself, though, so maybe I’m just easy to beat. Milo was never one for games.”
“You had a Wii,” I said, disbelieving.
“Of course.” She raised her eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t I?”
I shook my head at her.
We’d been spending our days in my father’s house after my brief stint in the hospital. After I’d been released, Dr. Warner had stayed on in a nearby hotel, coming by each morning to examine me. But other than a lingering veil of fatigue (I was sleeping fourteen hours a night), a sickly sheen to my skin, and a tremor in my hands, I was well and truly cured.
Despite my clean bill of health, Holmes had appointed herself my nursemaid. This meant I was served endless bowls of tasteless soup (rule #39 finally rearing its ugly head) and gallon after gallon of water while confined to the living room couch. She kept the room dark, the boys from pestering me (when they’d actually have been a welcome distraction), and the television firmly off. I couldn’t so much as stand without her appearing at my elbow, ready to bully me back into lying down. When I asked, plaintively, for something to do, she’d brought me a biography of Louis Pasteur. I promptly used it as a coaster. (“But he invented vaccinations!” she’d cried, seeing the water marks on its cover.)
That isn’t to say that I didn’t have visitors. Mrs. Dunham came by, with a present of Galway Kinnell’s first book of poems. She took one look at my face—I did look kind of like a ghoul—and burst into tears. Which was strangely okay. It sounds stupid to say, but after several months of being unparented (my father clearly didn’t count), it was almost nice to have someone make a fuss.
Detective Shepard came by, too, in a bluster of frayed nerves and exhaustion. After railing at Holmes for her unprofessional behavior—“You confronted a murderer! In her own apartment! Without telling the police, and with your best friend dying at your feet! And now we have nothing to show for it!”—for a good half hour, he paused for breath. And Holmes produced a flash drive from her inner pocket.