The Temptation of Four

by Eva Chase

  I came back to the hotel the next afternoon with my stomach pleasantly full and my mouth laced with the doughy sweetness of the pastry I’d just eaten. This time I could walk right through the lobby without any subterfuge, because I’d taken Sherlock’s tracker out for a walk. I’d rambled around one of the city’s larger parks for a couple hours before stopping by Franjo’s.

  None of the trio had bothered to follow the tracker to see what I was up to, though—or if they had, they’d been stealthier about it than usual. I’d been hoping I might be able to catch one of them in a conversation and find out what else they’d learned, but no dice.

  Maybe it was time I moved on to making my own investigations around Split. I had a fair bit of information to work with. The only question was whether I could make the move there without the trio trailing along behind me, their investigation changing from a help to a hindrance.

  Jakov hustled over to me as I stopped by the elevators. “Ms. Matthams,” he said in a low urgent voice.

  Or perhaps I had more business to attend to here. I gave the porter my full attention. “What is it?”

  “One of the men you asked me to watch for—the tall one with the dark hair—he came through the hotel this morning. I didn’t see exactly where he went, but I thought you’d want to know. You said it was better not to call anymore, or I’d have told you right away.”

  “That’s fine, Jakov,” I said despite a prickle of irritation. I hadn’t wanted any unexpected phone calls interrupting my various activities, but in this one case, it would have been nice to get the information immediately. “Thank you for telling me now.”

  What had Sherlock been doing here? A quiver shot through my nerves as the elevator jerked upward. If he’d determined the main room I was staying in…

  When I reached the door, I eased it open carefully with a rustle of the Do Not Disturb sign. No prints marked the sprinkling of face powder I’d left on the carpet just inside the door. I exhaled in relief. It looked as though no one had come through here, including any obnoxiously nosy consulting detectives.

  I ducked inside anyway, quickly checking over my things. I hadn’t been leaving anything in the room when I went out that would be of much use to Sherlock, but I didn’t want him meddling in here anyway. Who knew what his penetrating mind might be able to deduce that I wouldn’t have expected?

  There was no indication anyone had been in here since I’d left, not a thing missing or out of place. Good. I headed out and down to the other room in my name—the one where Sherlock and I had entertained ourselves the other night.

  The moment I stepped through that doorway, I knew. He was too careful to leave any obvious sign of his investigation, but I caught the faintest whiff of that sharp aftershave he wore. In another hour or two, it would have faded. I might not have noticed it at all if I hadn’t been searching for it.

  One of the screws fastening the grill on the air vent showed a tiny scratch that hadn’t been there before. He must have opened it up to check for hidden materials. No doubt he’d riffled through my suitcase and the few articles of clothing I’d left around the room too, though he’d managed to put them back exactly as they’d been before.

  Had he been able to conclude that I wasn’t really staying in this room? I wasn’t sure he’d gleaned enough about my usual habits to know what was typical versus uncharacteristically spartan.

  The truce was definitely off. My attempt to draw them out this morning hadn’t worked. Let’s see if I couldn’t find a more successful angle for the afternoon.

  I sucked my lower lip under my teeth as I sat on the end of the bed. What’s the latest on our friends? I texted to Bash.

  I’m staked out by a government building right now, he wrote back. H and W just headed in ten minutes ago. L left the hotel at the same time, in a different direction.

  Good. Let me know when they leave?

  On it.

  Do you have any more of those audio bugs? I might have the opportunity to place one in a good spot.

  In the bag next to the bedside table in my room. Help yourself, Majesty.

  The corner of my lips quirked up. Let’s see if Sherlock hadn’t left me a little more of a reward than I’d given him.

  Half an hour later, I got onto the elevator of the trio’s hotel next to a cleaning woman and her trolley. With a feigned stumble and a flick of my fingers, I swapped her master keycard for a standard one I’d nabbed off the check-out desk downstairs. When her new one didn’t work, she’d just think she’d grabbed the wrong one by mistake.

  She got off on the third floor. I continued up to Sherlock and John’s suite. The bug Bash had already placed by the front desk had gotten us their exact room number days ago. Reasons to never order in delivery when you’re facing off against a criminal mastermind.

  I squinted at the edge of the door before I tried it. A tiny scrap of paper showed between the door and the frame, several inches above my line of sight. Did Sherlock really think a gambit like that would escape me?

  The door opened with a swipe of the card. I slipped inside, scanning the floor and the walls for any other subtle protective measures. Then I snatched up the paper that had fluttered to the floor and tucked it back into place so there was no chance of my forgetting to place it in the right spot on my way out.

  The earthy smoky smell of Sherlock’s tobacco met me as I slunk through the living area. His wooden pipe and tobacco box lay on the coffee table. A few glasses with a ring of amber liquid I’d be willing to bet was sherry, courtesy of John, scattered the full-sized dining room table. Someone had stuffed several take-out containers into a plastic bag by the wall. They’d left the air conditioning on, the unit making a soft whirring sound as it dampened the late spring heat.

  That might suggest they hadn’t expected their government meeting to take very long. Bash would warn me when they headed back, but I needed to move quickly if I was going to make a thorough search of the place.

  I scanned the table, lifting a napkin here and a receipt there to check for handwriting. A map lay on the kitchen counter, but when I unfolded it to the full spread of Croatia, I didn’t find any personalized markings. The drawers held only the hotel-standard offerings.

  Damn it. They couldn’t have left out even one little note about how they were narrowing down their search for my mountain village?

  The dining table appeared to be their center of operations. I knelt down and pressed Bash’s bug into a nook where one of the legs met the hardwood top. Then I moved to the bedrooms.

  The first one I entered was clearly John’s—not at all smoky, with a deck of cards sitting on the side table. He’d set a few small rocks of no discernable value on top of the dresser. I studied them for a second and moved on.

  The drawers in there turned up a Western novel with a faded cover, a sleep mask, and a prescription bottle of mild pain pills. His hip must still hurt him enough that he needed those now and then to sleep. I set them back carefully.

  John’s clothes spilled out of his suitcase haphazardly. I sifted through them and turned up nothing of interest except for a torn notepaper in one shirt pocket that said only Antibiotics—frequency? and a few numbers with no clear significance. I took a picture of it with my phone just in case it could lead me somewhere, but it didn’t look terribly promising.

  Sherlock’s bedroom was tidy to a fault. His shirts and slacks hung in a well-pressed row in the closet, his sparse toiletries—toothpaste and brush, shaving kit, and a block of soap with a scent as sharp as his aftershave and a London company name printed on it—set in a semi-circle around the sink. John’s covers had been tangled; Sherlock’s were pulled crisply straight.

  Unfortunately he appeared to be equally fastidious about his work paraphernalia. If he’d made any record of his mental workings outside his head, he had those notes with him or had hidden them away somewhere I couldn’t see.

  I was just about to drag the chair over to start checking out the air vents, since he’d thought that
was a worthy consideration in my hotel room, when the lock on the suite door beeped. I froze.

  One set of footsteps came in, with a short sigh and a rustle of clothing as the new arrival must have scooped up the paper from the door. The sigh told me why Bash hadn’t signaled me. I hadn’t been joined by either of the suite’s regular inhabitants but by Garrett. They must have given him an extra key card so he could enjoy the larger living space whenever he wanted to.

  I crept to Sherlock’s bedroom door, which stood a few inches ajar. Garrett was pushing something into the kitchenette’s fridge with a clinking of glass. Then he hunkered down at the dining table. He pulled out his notepad and jotted something in it. Frowning, he considered the page.

  A tingle of anticipation quivered through my chest. There’d be something useful in that notepad—I’d be willing to bet on that. He had a tendency to hold onto it though, and right now he was sitting between me and my only escape route. I didn’t like the odds of surviving a jump down from an eighth-floor window.

  So, why not kill two birds with one stone? I’d won Sherlock over enough to get him into my bed. It’d be useful to know whether the detective inspector’s new armor had its chinks too.

  I’d be highly surprised if it didn’t.

  A smile curled my lips. I nudged open the door and sauntered across the room as if it were perfectly natural that I should happen to be there.

  Garrett startled and bolted out of his chair. “Hello, Garret,” I said, dropping into the seat across from his. “You look like you could use a little company.”

  He stared at me. “How did you get in here?”

  I shrugged, leaning my elbows onto the table. “Not so differently, I’d imagine, from however Sherlock got into my room this morning. Since he seemed to consider an uninvited visit fair play, I didn’t see why I shouldn’t return the favor.”

  From the tightening of Garrett’s mouth, he’d known that Sherlock had searched my room. He didn’t have much of a leg to stand on if he wanted to accuse me of shady practices. He stayed standing, his hand clenched around his notepad.

  “What do you want?”

  “Well, we did discuss the possibility of having a proper conversation, just the two of us. This seems like an excellent time for it, since our paths happened to cross. Why don’t you sit down?”

  He sat, but he didn’t look happy about it. I pretended not to be interested in his notepad as he set it down in front of him. He paused for a moment and then said, “You took me by surprise—that’s all. We can talk.”

  He’d smoothed out most of the tension from his voice, just as he had when we’d spoken on the phone a few days ago. Making a conscious effort to engage with me. That attitude felt different from the brusque energy he’d given off when we’d faced each other in Franjo’s that first time since the trio had caught up with me.

  Bash had said that Garrett had mentioned something about “using” the fact that I’d propositioned John. Maybe he thought he could get more out of me by playing sweet than Sherlock had. Wouldn’t he love that—to score both between the sheets and by outdoing the great consulting detective in their investigation?

  He didn’t wear the friendlier attitude well, though. Sherlock had been honestly willing to offer the sort-of truce, to indulge his “fascination” despite his wariness. Garrett’s uncertainty showed in the flex of his shoulders, in the twitch of his eyes as I gazed back at him. He was holding back a mass of bottled emotion I’d have loved to uncork and drink down.

  “I haven’t seen much of you since you three showed up in town,” I said casually, aiming a subtle jab at his pride. “Are you letting Sherlock and John take the lead?”

  Garrett’s jaw worked. “We’re all contributing the best way we can. You don’t need to worry about that.”

  “Of course not. You aren’t really the type to stand back and let others do all the heavy lifting. Very admirable.”

  “Am I supposed to believe that you admire me?” he said, managing to sound amused.

  “Why not? Am I supposed to believe that you don’t admire me, at least a little bit?” I tapped his calf with my toes under the table. “There’s no shame in it. I’m very good at what I do, even if it’s not exactly what you thought I did.”

  He sputtered a laugh. “That’s the understatement of the year.”

  “Which part? That I’m very good?” I touched his leg again, just enough to move the tap to a caress this time.

  “Is that what you wanted to talk about?” Garrett asked. He leaned toward me, with a flicker of hunger in his expression that I didn’t think was an act. “How admirable we both are?”

  “Well, if you don’t want to talk about it, maybe I should see what wonderful things you’ve been writing about me.”

  My hand darted across the table to snatch up the notepad. Garrett sprang after it with a noise of protest, too late. I sat back in my chair and flipped through the many marked up pages.

  “You do draw a lot too, don’t you?” Words and images fluttered past. I stopped on one that showed a woman with long wavy hair from behind, with careful attention to both the hair and the ass. I grinned. “Is this me?”

  Garrett came around the table to make a grab at the notepad. I slipped off the other side of my chair. We studied each other from either side of it, shifting weight one way and then the other to feel each other out, his expression lit with determination.

  I could have run for the door, but that would have given away that I wanted the notepad for more than just to tease him. I dashed for the kitchenette instead, brandishing it like a trophy. Garrett leapt after me. He caught my arm, and I spun us around with a laugh. Pushing into the turn instead of fighting it, he pinned me against the counter and plucked the pad from my hands.

  “That,” he said, close enough that his breath grazed my cheek, “is mine.”

  He shoved it into the pocket of his jeans. His other hand was still gripping my wrist, his arm flush with mine, the rise and fall of his chest echoing into my body where I was trapped between his wiry frame and the counter.

  I raised my eyebrows at him as if to ask, What now? For an instant, I thought I felt him about to push away from me. Then his dark brown eyes flashed, and he pressed his mouth to mine.

  Garrett Lestrade knew how to kiss. I knew that because of the intensity with which he’d met that challenge back in London. Now, he nudged a little closer, his hand rising to grasp my shoulder, but his lips moved awkwardly, hard but hesitant. I felt his reluctance all through the set of his shoulders and the tension in his touch. That wasn’t at all the emotion I’d wanted to liberate.

  I ducked my head, breaking the kiss, and brought my fingers to his cheek to ease him away from me. “No. We’re not going there if you don’t really want it.”

  Garrett backed up a step, his arms jerking up to fold over his chest. In that moment, he looked only furious. “Pardon me? Since when have you ever cared what I want?”

  I straightened up against the counter, a jab of annoyance stiffening my spine. “Are we going to talk about what happened in London, then? Because I gave you exactly what you wanted. You can’t pretend I forced you into a single thing we did together.”

  “I don’t really see how that matters when you were lying to me the whole time.” He exhaled sharply and dropped his hands to his sides. “Forget it. It’s not as if there’s any point in discussing it. I—I do still find you attractive, regardless.”

  He eyed me as if he were trying to figure out just how convincing he had to be about that for me to accept his advances. Or maybe he was trying to figure out whether the plan he’d decided on really was the best idea. I wasn’t sure what would play into my hands most effectively. The one clear thing that had rung through his voice in those first forceful remarks was pain.

  I’d known he was angry with me from the start, but I’d thought it was wounded pride. I hadn’t realized I might have wounded him more deeply than that. My approach might require some recalculations. And perhaps som
e strategic honesty, if I was going to get what I wanted from him now.

  I held his gaze. “Garrett, I can understand why you’re pissed off at me. I wouldn’t expect anything else. But you know, everything in London—I made the moves that would get me to what I needed. I maneuver people as it suits my ends, and, yes, sometimes I get some gratification out of that. But I’m not some kind of sadist who enjoys tormenting people just for the sake of it. I didn’t have anything against you.”

  “I was just in your way?” Garrett supplied.

  “More like you were the way to get where I needed to go.” I wet my lips, and he followed the movement of my tongue. Part of him did still want me despite everything he knew, despite everything I’d just told him, even if a larger part of him was balking. “You were brilliant, you know. I knew you would be. That’s why I turned to you. I could have stuck to Sherlock and John, but they wouldn’t have been enough.”

  “Am I supposed to be flattered by that?” he asked, as if I couldn’t tell he was.

  “If you want to be.” I eased half a step toward him, not daring to try to touch him yet. “You were a pretty brilliant fuck too. I’d have done that again just for fun, if there’d been the time for it. We could. Why not? You know what you’re getting into this time, and it doesn’t have to mean anything more than what it is. You almost went for it just now. What’s holding you back?”

  His gaze slipped back to my mouth. His throat bobbed. “There are a lot of bad choices in the world and not so many good ones. Somehow you make it hard for me to tell which is which.”

  I had to smile. So, underneath the passionate competitor, Garrett was a moralist. Who would have guessed? Sherlock must have led him down more questionable paths than I had so far, but this wasn’t the time to argue about it.

  “I happen to think that most choices aren’t inherently good or bad,” I said, letting my voice drop lower. “It’s what you make of them that matters.”

  His tone softened. “I don’t know what to make of you.”

  “You can make this the first time I’ve ever been fucked in this suite, even though it’s not yours.”