A Study in Charlotte

by Brittany Cavallaro

  Holmes had graced me with her half-second smile. “If someone can get their hands on my mobile, I’m either dead, or close to it. In any case, you’re the only other person I’d want to use it. So I thought I should choose a key code you can remember. Surely you can remember this.”

  I typed it in quickly, hoping it was still the same, hoping it wasn’t.

  0707. July 7.

  My birthday.

  With a heavy sigh, I scrolled through her contacts. There were only four of us on the list: home, Lena, me. And Milo.

  “One of the most powerful men in the world,” she’d told me. And the only person she’d listen to, if she wouldn’t listen to me.

  I stabbed out the text one letter at a time. Milo, this is James Watson.

  “I’ve been solving crimes ever since I was a child. I do it well,” she’d said to me. “I take pride in how well I do it. Do you understand?”

  Your sister is making a massive mistake, one that might cost her life. I need your family’s help.

  “They don’t believe I can do it anymore.”

  Come if it’s convenient. Even if it’s not . . . just get here.

  I sent it. Then I deleted any evidence that I’d sent it. It was a futile gesture: God knew it would be a moment’s work for Holmes to sniff out my betrayal. I debated trying to make good on my original lie, to get some sleep. But I didn’t see how I could. We weren’t simply being framed anymore. We were being hunted. If we weren’t going to be thrown in jail, August and his accomplice would make sure we’d die instead.

  And who was to say he wouldn’t make an attempt on our lives while we were here? I froze. How hadn’t I thought of that before?

  Malcolm and Robbie, I panicked, and dashed down the stairs to find my father.

  He was at the front entrance, waving to Abbie and his boys as the minivan backed down the driveway.

  “Oh,” I said.

  “They’re going back to her mother’s for a few days,” he told me, shutting the door. “Charlotte made quite the compelling case for it, and now I feel remiss in not already having sent them away myself.” He sighed. “Detective Shepard’s in the kitchen, if you’d like to speak to him. Did you find what you needed?”

  “Is that Jamie?” Shepard called. “Ask him what the hell Forever Ever Laffy Taffy is.”

  But Holmes’s violin was still crooning. I followed the sound as if in a dream. There, in the family room. Dressed again in her usual clothes, all the way down to her trim black boots. Against the bright window, she was like a shadow gone abstract, the instrument tucked under her chin. She moved the bow with exquisite slowness. A high note, and then a languorous descent.

  She paused, midnote, like some beautiful statue. It wrecked me, watching her.

  “Watson?” she asked without turning.

  I plodded forward as if I’d been summoned to the judge for sentencing.

  “I just spent a good hour telling the detective about the explosion. As if I knew anything he didn’t. Oh, and your father said that your assigned time to get your things from the dorm is at ten thirty tomorrow. So I might toss Nurse Bryony’s place alone.” She held the Strad up to examine its strings and plucked one, listening. “Is that all right?”

  “I’d rather go with you,” I said, in as normal a tone as I could manage.

  She whirled to look at me, her eyes gone dark as a storm. Rapidly, she took in my face, my posture, my bare feet on the carpet, and when she reached her conclusion, she reared back as if I’d struck her.

  “You said you wouldn’t,” she whispered.

  “I need to hear it from you,” I said. There was no use now in pretending. “What happened between you and August Moriarty?”

  “You don’t—”

  “I do, I need to know.”

  “Watson, please—”

  “Tell me,” I insisted. God, I was terrified. I hadn’t known that please was in her vocabulary. “Just—will you tell me.”

  Tightly, disbelievingly, she shook her head, like I was a man on the street who’d made the mistake of demanding her wallet and PIN number and ten minutes with her in an alley. Like I hadn’t seen the knife she’d been carrying in plain view. In that moment, I invented and discarded a hundred things I could have said to her—platitudes, reassurances, accusations—only to have her walk past me and straight out the front door, the tap of her boots the only sound in the silence.

  In the kitchen, Shepard said to my father, “Sororities? Hot cocoa? Um. Can you walk me through it again?”

  I DIDN’T TELL MY FATHER OR THE DETECTIVE SHE’D LEFT, FOR the simple reason that I didn’t want them to stage a search. She had every reason to want to disappear, I thought, even with our bomber on the loose, but the last thing I wanted was for her to come face-to-face with them right now. Even if I didn’t have any doubts about who would win.

  It did nothing to stop the sinking feeling in my stomach. Because this wasn’t a superhero film (swelling music and inevitable triumph, the enemy at her feet in a tasteful amount of his own blood). This wasn’t one of my great-great-great-grandfather’s stories (her with hat and cane and pocket watch, dashing out to haul the villain in, me waiting by the fire for the great reveal to be brought safely home). This wasn’t even an item on my father’s endless list, an anecdote to be summed up in some tasteful, mannered way. I didn’t even know how that could be done. 128. When you betray Holmes’s trust, _______. 129. When you realize she’s cared about someone who isn’t you, you selfish bastard, _______. 130. When the direct result of emotions she claims she’s incapable of feeling is one dead misogynist creep, one innocent girl choked to almost-death, your every private moment filmed, and Holmes nearly blown up into bloody pieces, _______.

  She’ll understand, I told myself after a good hour of stewing. She’ll understand why I did it. And, for now, I’ll respect her need for distance—I can do that much—and when she’s back, I’ll apologize, and we can get on with the business of not getting ourselves killed.

  That was when I remembered rules 1 and 2.

  Search often for opiates and dispose of as needed.

  Begin with the hollowed-out heels of Holmes’s boots.

  Maybe we weren’t so divorced from the past as I wanted to believe. I thought, Oh, I am one stupid son of a bitch, and I hardly remembered to grab my coat as I flew out the door.

  Between our house and the road was a flat expanse of grass, dusted lightly with snow. When I was a child, it had been its own continent, unending. But now it seemed the size of a postage stamp. It was unforgivingly white, and open, and showed no sign of her. How had she managed to move without footprints? All I could pick out were those of rabbit and deer.

  We were a half mile from the nearest house, and even farther from any sort of civilization. Still, I tromped out to the middle of the road and shadowed my eyes, looking far in both directions. I saw pavement, flat land, our nearest neighbor’s weathervane. I didn’t see her.

  Well, before I took my father’s car to go out looking, I’d rule out the rest of our land. I’d be thorough. Holmes would have been thorough, looking for me.

  God knows what I’d say when I found her.

  I MADE QUICK WORK OF THE TREES ALONG THE SIDES OF THE house. I spent longer in the shed my father had built to store his tools. The lawnmower was there, and his sawhorses, and though it seemed like there was nothing else, I examined the shed from both the inside and out, looking for unaccounted-for space, a hidden room. I felt every inch of wood with my bandaged hands. Nothing. Still nothing.

  I stalked out into the backyard and considered the stretch of open, icy land behind the house, wondering if she’d managed to turn herself the same colors as the landscape, if she was somehow standing right next to me. If she’d erased herself altogether.

  Through the back window, I glared at Detective Shepard’s bent head. My father was opposite him, trying not to watch me, and failing. I glared at him too.

  I’d get in the car, then. I’d scour all the cou
ntryside between here and Sherringford, and I’d find her, somehow. After I was sure she hadn’t OD’d, I’d let her hate me all she wanted. But my hands, beneath their bandages, were beginning to freeze. I had no intention of getting frostbite twice in two days. Gloves, I thought, climbing the porch steps, and then the car, and then Holmes—

  Below my feet, I heard snickering.

  It was an ugly laugh. A laugh you’d hear from a small boy who’d just plucked the wings from a fly. Still, it was hers, and I jumped off the side of the porch, getting to my hands and knees to peer into the foot of darkness underneath.

  In the frozen mud beneath the stairs, Holmes had tucked herself into a small dark ball. Her head was tipped to one languid side, considering me. I knelt there, unmoving. She saw me, it was clear; it was also clear she wasn’t processing what she saw. Her bare feet were black with dirt, her hair wild.

  She’d hidden herself under the porch the way a beaten dog would.

  74. Whatever happens, remember it is not your fault and likely could not have been prevented, no matter your efforts.

  My father, once again, was proving himself an idiot. “Holmes?” I whispered.

  “Hello, Watson,” she said drowsily. I crawled up next to her, past her socks and shoes all in a pile, past her tucked-up legs. Her eyes flicked over to me, unconcerned. I noticed, with a shock, that her pupils had constricted to tiny black dots. “Hello,” she said again, and laughed.

  “How much have you taken?” I asked, shaking out her socks and pulling them back over her freezing feet. She didn’t resist, but she didn’t respond either, even when I put a hand inside one of her boots and came up with an empty plastic bag. “God, have you always kept this stuff with you?”

  “Rainy days,” she said, shutting her eyes. Her voice wasn’t ragged, or hoarse—it wasn’t hers at all. “Oh, Watson. Always so disappointed.”

  “No, stay awake,” I said, tapping at her cold face. She batted my hand away halfheartedly. “What have you taken?” I asked.

  “Oxy. Slows it all down.” She smiled. “Done with coke. Hate coke. Am I disappointing you?”

  “No.”

  “Liar,” she said, with sudden venom. “You expect impossible things, and I refuse to deliver. Can’t do it. Won’t.”

  “I am not expecting anything from you,” I said, “except for you not to freeze to death.” Shucking off my coat, I wrapped it around her. “Come on, let’s go inside.”

  “No.”

  “Holmes, it’s freezing, we need to get you into a hot bath.” I tugged on her arm. Immediately, she clawed at my injured palm with her nails. I flinched away.

  “I said no,” she said, staring at me with eyes that were all iris and no pupil.

  I cradled my hand to my chest, trying to steady my breathing. “How much have you taken?”

  “Enough,” she said, looking away. She was bored again. “I won’t die. Go away.”

  “I’m not leaving without you.”

  “Go away. Take your coat, it smells like guilt.”

  “Actually,” I said, “I think I’m fine right here.” I couldn’t make her go inside. I probably couldn’t make her go anywhere with me ever again. What else could I do? After a moment, I tucked myself in beside her, hoping my body heat, at least, would do something to warm her up.

  The world slowed to a standstill, as it does when things go so wrong, the bad news closing in like a lowering ceiling. I should have been thinking up a solution. A way out. Deciding if I should grovel for her forgiveness, or if I should tell Detective Shepard that she and I should be pulled from the case. But I didn’t. I curled up against her in the cold and listened for her breathing. What were you supposed to do when you were dealing with drugs like this? How long would the effects last? I wished, for the first time, that I’d done something with my years at Highcombe other than read novels and swoon over icy blond princesses who’d never touch anything harder than pot. I could have gained some practical knowledge. She might be dying, I thought, and I had no way to know; the responsible thing would be to call the police, or an ambulance, or at the very least tell my father and let him sort it out.

  I didn’t. They’d write that on my tombstone, I thought: Jamie Watson. He didn’t. The snow sifted down through the porch slats, filling in the tracks her knees had made crawling through the mud. I wasn’t Catholic, but this had the distinct feel of purgatory: the bitter cold, the unending wait. No idea of what would come after.

  After what felt like forever, the back door slid open. I listened to the heavy footfalls over our heads.

  “Jamie?” my father called. “Charlotte? Detective Shepard and I are done talking. Jamie?” I held my breath. After a long minute, he swore and trudged back inside.

  “Worried,” she observed, after we heard the door shut. I stared at the cloud her breath made in the cold. “Good that he worries. I don’t. You’re nothing to me.”

  “Liar,” I echoed. I tried to put the force of my affection behind it.

  “You did once,” said Holmes. “Mean something to me. You don’t now.”

  She began to shiver. Was that a good sign? A bad one? Either way I couldn’t stand it. Carefully, I pulled her into my arms, and to my great surprise she let me, curling up against my chest as pliantly as if she were my girlfriend. As if I’d held her before. As if I held her every day.

  Somehow that scared me far more than the rest of it. Lee Dobson had found her this way, I thought, and my arms tensed, instinctively. Dobson had—

  “Stop thinking about him,” she said. “It’s not yours to think about.”

  “What am I allowed to think about?” I asked wearily. If I had a rope, this was its end.

  “Let’s talk about the things you think you know.” That horrible snicker. “Let’s disappoint Watson some more.”

  “No,” I said, “you don’t—”

  “August was my maths tutor. Did you know that? You did. Can tell by how your hands seized.”

  I’d thought I wanted to hear this. But I didn’t. I really, really didn’t. “You don’t have to—”

  “It was my parents’ idea. For publicity. Had some bad press, and they wanted to change the story in the media. Forgiving Holmeses. Fucking liars. I hated him at first. But after Milo moved to Germany, I got used to him. It was like having an older brother again. And then it wasn’t. It was something else.”

  “What?” I asked, into the silence.

  “I loved him. And he wouldn’t have me.” The words came sharp and hard, sudden in their ferocity. “He was too old, he said, and even if we waited, it would be a catastrophic mess. Our families, you know. He said that I’d grow out of it. My ‘crush.’ Him saying that was worse than him rejecting me.”

  I couldn’t quite breathe, hearing her speak this way, as if reciting her sins. When she spoke again, she was horribly precise.

  “I wanted to punish him. To make him feel what I was feeling. So I got him to use his family connections to buy me cocaine. I knew he’d do it. I’d been taking so much, and he was so scared that, without it, I’d go through withdrawal.” She drew a breath. “I wanted to make him hurt me, and then I wanted him to pay for it. The night his brother Lucien drove up with a boot full of coke, I called the police. Lucien ran, and August stayed to take the blame, as I suspected he would. After all, he felt responsible.

  “My mother fired him. Then she phoned his don at Oxford to have him expelled. And after all of that was over, she sat me down in the drawing room. She’d drawn all the curtains. And she explained to me, very patiently, that this was a lesson. It wasn’t to happen again.”

  “The drugs?” I asked quietly.

  “The drugs.” She laughed. “No. I’d started with ‘the drugs’ at twelve. I was too soft on the inside, you see. No exoskeleton. I felt everything, and still everything bored me. I was like . . . like a radio playing five stations at once, all of them static. At first, the coke made me feel bigger. More together. Like I was one person, at last. And then it stopped wo
rking, and I began taking more, and more, and they sent me to rehab. When I came back, I spent a few months going the classical route—morphine, syringes. It made everything quiet and far away. I was wrong inside, you see. I’d always been wrong. But it was too messy, the morphine, and I was found out—more rehab. So I dropped the morphine for oxy. More rehab. Then more oxy. I’ve never quite managed to shake it, any of it, and my parents stopped expecting me to. It doesn’t scare them anymore.”

  The whole time she spoke, she didn’t look up at me once. She was curled up in my arms like she was my girlfriend, but she was talking to me like I was an empty shell.

  “What my mother was afraid of was sentiment,” she said. “Of my being sentimental. With my particular skill set, it’s a liability. With what I felt for August, I became . . . a worse person. I was sent away to think on what I’d done. It was never about keeping me from the drugs. It was about keeping me away from myself.”

  “Jesus, Holmes, that’s horrible.” What kind of monster would demand that her daughter not feel?

  “Is it really? I think my mother was right. I don’t trust myself anymore. No one does.” She lifted her head to study me. She’d gone so pale that the veins on her neck stood out like pen marks. “Not even you.”

  It was awful to see her like this. “Holmes—”

  “You thought I killed him. And it’s almost true. He lost his life because of me. He got a job, finally. Works for my brother in Germany doing data entry. What a waste. But he’s forgiven me. He’s a sentimental fool. August even demanded his family leave me alone. I was disturbed, he told them, and no good would come of it. They listened. It was their last favor to him. You see, his family disowned him for taking my fall.”

  “You aren’t disturbed,” I said, trying to mean it, to make her feel better. “You aren’t disturbed at all. You just made a mistake.”

  “I don’t make mistakes,” she said, and pulled away from me. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  “Even if you did. You were still forgiven. They forgave you. And accepting their forgiveness isn’t a sign of weakness.” I was desperate to pull her back to me, back out from where she’d gone, deep inside herself. I’d never wanted this. Never. “I wouldn’t have thought any different of you, if you’d told me.”