by Eva Chase
I didn’t really listen to his answer, only enough so that I’d be able to react if I needed to. Instead I watched his expression, his body language, checking for any of the tics only someone who’d spent years among the cult of the shrouded folk would have noticed. Nothing overt stood out, but he rubbed his forearm at one point when he paused to decide how to phrase part of his answer. The gesture caught my eye.
I asked another question, a faster one this time, and then I let out a light laugh. “And this may sound frivolous, but many of our viewers will be curious to know—you’re always so well-dressed. What designer came up with this lovely suit?”
As I spoke, my hand shot out to give his sleeve a teasing tug. I angled it perfectly so I displaced the cuff of his shirt underneath as well. For just a second, I caught a glimpse of the skin of his inner wrist and an inch beyond. Skin with a tropical tan other than a thin slash of a paler mark. My stomach turned.
Anyone else would have taken that for a birthmark, no doubt, but I’d seen that shape, that shading before. Tillhouse had been exposed to a blast of the shrouded folk’s power.
The MP pulled his arm away from me with an answering laugh, not seeming concerned about the contact. He didn’t have any reason to think I’d recognize that mark any more than he must have thought anyone would figure out what SHROUD referred to.
“This one’s Richard James,” he said, and waved for Sherlock to turn off the camera. “All right, I think you got more than the time you asked for.”
I would have been fine with the progress we’d already made, but as soon as Sherlock lowered the camera, Tillhouse leaned closer to me. He tapped the neckline of my dress where it lay a couple inches below my collarbone. “I don’t think what I’m wearing is half as lovely as this, though.”
Understanding flashed through me. He found me attractive. I’d wrapped plenty of men around my little finger using that advantage—I’d manipulated my London trio that way, among other strategies, when I’d first met them. Peek at him through my eyelashes, ease closer to him, exchange another touch or two, and I could have all his clothes off within an hour, I’d bet. Imagine how much I might find out then.
Those thoughts crossed my mind—and jarred against my awareness of Sherlock standing next to me. Something inside me balked.
Yes, I’d used sex as a tool to get my way dozens of times in the past, when it was the only way I’d known how to use it and any pleasurable parts were secondary. I knew what it was like to fuck with full passion now, to get off with a partner I cared about who cared about me. To treat the act like a ploy again, with this asshole who’d conspired with the shrouded folk somehow, made my very skin recoil.
I got ahold of myself within a second. Taking down the shrouded folk was worth anything. I sure as hell wasn’t above a pragmatic fuck along the way. I forced a smile to my lips and started to speak, but my momentary resistance must have shown. Tillhouse was already pulling back from me, his demeanor cooling. I’d rejected him without even meaning to.
“I look forward to reviewing the segment,” he said. “I trust you know the way out?”
“Yes,” I said, suppressing my frustration with myself. “We can handle that.”
I could still use that information later, I told myself as we went down to the main floor. I could catch him somewhere when we weren’t on the job and make out as if my hesitation had been professional rather than personal. It wouldn’t be that hard.
And yet my skin still shivered uncomfortably imagining it.
I’d gone fucking soft. That wasn’t how my alliance with the trio was supposed to work. Damn it.
A woman was standing by the front door when we reached it. She beamed at us. “He’s just wonderful, isn’t he?”
“Absolutely,” I said, beaming right back at her and willing her the hell out of our way.
“He’s gaining so much ground already,” she went on, a little breathless. “I’m sure he’s going to get the leadership. Just think—in less than a year he could be prime minister of the whole country.”
My inner turmoil quieted under a jolt of horror. Someday soon the man I’d just talked to might rule this entire country… while carrying a debt to the shrouded folk they were no doubt waiting to fully cash in on.
Chapter Twelve
John
I came home from a grocery shopping trip to find Sherlock sitting in the living room drawing his bow across his violin. The sound of him playing—and playing a song I didn’t recognize, which meant he was probably making it up on the spot—wasn’t unusual, but as I slid a carton of eggs and a week’s worth of vegetables into the fridge, my stomach started to tighten. There was a frenetic quality to the movement of the bow and the melody he was producing that wasn’t all that usual.
I hadn’t heard him play like that in over a year.
He didn’t stop even when I closed the fridge and walked over to the sofa beside him. His hand kept whipping back and forth, and his eyes started straight ahead with a pinched alertness, the pupils dilated. A flush colored his cheeks. He hadn’t left any paraphernalia out, but I didn’t need to see the tools to know what he’d done with them.
I stepped right in front of him, so close that if he’d shifted the violin an inch it’d have hit my gut. He slowed his strokes of the bow, his gaze flitting up to me now. The music quieted, but he still kept playing.
“Is my improvisation disturbing you, John?” he said in a breathless tone. I liked that voice when the enthusiasm in it came from the thrill of a case—or more intimate sorts of passion. Knowing any emotion it held today was artificial only made my stomach knot more.
“How much did you take?” I said, holding his gaze firmly.
“Oh, only a very moderate dosage. Don’t worry yourself—I measured it carefully.”
“You told me you weren’t going to turn to the drug anymore.”
He managed to make a dismissive motion of his shoulders without losing his rhythm. “I told you I’d hold off if it seemed unnecessary. I didn’t promise to give the stuff up completely. Now and then my mind needs a good jolt to find the right track. We’ve discussed this.”
We had, more than once, and I couldn’t say I’d ever come away from those discussions completely satisfied. The idea that this genius of a man would insist on poisoning his brain and body with cocaine clashed with everything else I knew about him.
But there were certain other emotions, certain types of stillness and uncertainty, that he found it incredibly hard to tolerate. Even a genius had weaknesses. I’d just started to believe he was over this one.
“And have you made some additional progress under its influence?” I asked. If anything would convince him to leave off another injection, it’d be the logic he valued so highly. If the drug didn’t help, why take it at all?
“My thoughts are much sharper now,” Sherlock said. “I can promise you that I know my limits. This was exactly what I needed.”
He said that so matter-of-factly that I didn’t know how to argue with him. How could I dispute the activity of his own mind or how he’d spurred it on? I had never been the brains between the two of us. My job was to support and provide a sounding board and occasionally whack a troublesome fellow or two with my walking stick.
Sherlock wasn’t looking for guidance right now. He’d found it in a dissolved white powder.
I couldn’t help trying anyway. “Is there any way I can help with your newfound clarity?”
Sherlock gave a brisk shake of his head. “I’m still sorting through the concepts as they come to me. I’m sure this will lead us to a productive route soon enough. You’ll be the first to know.”
He shot me a smile so bright I couldn’t help smiling back, even as my throat tightened too. Damn the cocaine; damn Sherlock’s enjoyment of it.
Knowing what was fueling his music, I couldn’t stand to stay in the flat while he played on like that. I grasped my walking stick where I’d left it by the door.
“I’ll leave you to it the
n.”
He didn’t even ask where I was off to now as I headed out.
Which might have been a good thing, because I didn’t have the foggiest idea where I was going. I set off down the street with the urge to find something useful to do nagging at me. I could accomplish more than just waiting around for Sherlock to figure out how he needed me, couldn’t I?
I just wasn’t entirely sure what. I didn’t have the sort of contacts who’d be able to share information about this MP who seemed tied up in the shrouded folk’s business. All our focus had been on him since we’d discovered the connection.
Well, maybe Jemma could point me in a productive direction. I dug out my phone as I walked on, my walking stick tapping against the pavement with a sound much more decisive than anything else about me at the moment.
Evening was falling, pulling the shadows long and dimming the remaining daylight between them. The air pressed down, muggy beneath the thickening clouds gathering overhead.
Jemma picked up after just one ring. “What is it?” she said, and I realized she probably assumed this was some kind of emergency. I’d normally simply have texted her unless I had urgent news.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I said quickly. “I just—I’m out and about, and I wondered if there was anything you needed looking into.”
The explanation sounded weak when I said it out loud. As if Jemma wouldn’t have told me without being asked if she’d needed me for something. But I was talking to her now. At least the impression of her presence on the other end of the phone line kept my restlessness a little more at bay.
“I’m not sure there’s anything I can delegate to you at the moment,” she said, her voice turning a bit wry. “Are you getting bored?”
“Maybe a little. I’m not sure it’s so much that.” I veered right at the next intersection at random, pushing myself a little faster even though my hip twinged. Burning off the impatient energy might do the trick. “I haven’t been of much use in general with the latest developments.”
“You’ve helped plenty,” Jemma said. “Who else would corral Sherlock half as well?”
She was partly teasing, but a jab shot through me all the same at the thought of how I’d failed to stop him from doing the thing I hated most just this evening. The words to tell her what he’d immersed himself in rose in my throat, but something—maybe the guilt of that failure, maybe the sense that it was Sherlock’s business whether Jemma knew what he got up to—held them back.
“I guess I’ll just have to hope our next lead takes more of a medical angle,” I said, matching her tone. My gaze meandered along the street and came to an abrupt halt on the fence surrounding a construction site on the opposite side of the road.
Something flickered on the other side of the fence, visible only for a moment through the chain-link gate. A piece of paper blown in the breeze, I thought. And I could have sworn I’d seen Harvey Tillhouse’s photograph printed on it.
What did he have to do with whatever they were building over there?
“John?” Jemma said as I crossed the street, in a tone that suggested I’d missed something she’d said earlier.
“I think I might have a lead right here,” I said. “I’ll let you know if it pans out. I think I’d better get off the phone so I can take a real look.”
“Take a real look? What are you doing?”
“Nothing I can’t handle.” I peered through the gate at the jumble of wood and steel heaped around the pit that I supposed was going to be a building’s basement. The frame rose up out of it like a metal skeleton, but the construction workers hadn’t gotten to the point of adding anything like floors or walls yet.
Another flash of white, a glimpse of slick silver hair, caught my eye, whisking up and then dropping behind the body of a crane. My heart thumped faster. My hand came to rest on the gate—right by the lock someone had neglected to fasten.
No one was around. Would it be so horrible for me to slip inside and grab that paper? Even if it didn’t turn out to be remotely useful, at least I’d have tried.
An eager tingling was already spreading through my chest, deciding the answer for me.
“If I turn up anything interesting, you’ll be hearing from me again soon,” I said, and hung up the phone before Jemma could ask more questions. I had the feeling if I tried to explain what I was about to do now out loud, it’d sound not just weak but ridiculous.
If Sherlock could shoot himself full of drugs, I could be excused a little risk-taking of my own. At least mine wasn’t going to result in bodily or mental harm.
I lifted the latch on the gate and tugged it shut behind me as soon as I was inside. Gravel rattled under my feet. I flicked a fast food wrapper away with my walking stick and headed toward the crane. When my phone jangled with an incoming call, I turned off the ringer.
The wind rose again, making one of the nearby machines creak in a menacing sort of way. The light was continuing to dwindle. I poked all around the crane, squinting, and even peered under it. As I straightened up, the paper I’d come in here after darted past my vision again in the opposite direction. It floated beyond a stack of steel beams.
Fine, then. It wanted to give me a chase, did it? I hurried over, watching in case the breeze flicked it away again.
I didn’t see anything move, only felt the faint brush of the air against my cheek, but when I peered around the stack of beams, I’d lost my target again. I let out a huff of breath and scanned the wider area.
There. It must have drifted on over the ground while the beams still hid it. It was trailing along the edge of the pit now, wavering back and forth with shifts in the air currents. I gripped the handle of my walking stick with renewed determination and picked up the chase.
I got close this time—close enough to be sure even in the fading light that it was Tillhouse’s face in that photograph, close enough to have bent down to snatch at it. The wind picked up at the last instant and whipped the paper from my grasping fingers. It flew right over the edge of the pit and into the thicker shadows below.
I stared after the white shape now skidding down the steep incline. It came to rest on part of the frame just a couple feet from the pit’s side. My pulse kicked up another notch as I studied the slope.
For God’s sake, I should be able to manage that. I’d tramped all around Iraq, hadn’t I? This was nothing. My leg didn’t slow me down that much.
I set down my walking stick at the edge of the pit and eased myself over the lip, crouched with my hands pressed against the gritty earth. After a few hesitant footsteps at almost a crabwalk, my confidence grew. I nudged myself onward at a better speed—and that was when it all went wrong.
A loose clod of dirt shifted under my left heel. My foot shot out from under me with a burst of pain through my bad hip. I skidded down the slope too fast to catch myself, the grit scraping my palms raw as I fought to at least keep myself upright.
Despite my efforts, I spun sideways. My thigh and shoulder smacked into the edge of the frame where it loomed close to the pit wall, slamming me to a stop with a fresh sear of agony.
I sat there, panting and staring up at the twenty or so feet I’d fallen, for a long moment. The sharpest shards of pain dulled, but when I adjusted my position to orient myself, my hip ached. It didn’t feel as if I’d done it any serious damage, but I might if I tried to scramble back up that slope.
Even if I hadn’t hurt myself, I could already tell I’d have a hell of a time making it back to the top. Shit. I couldn’t even see the paper I’d been after anymore. It’d disappeared completely.
One of my hands was seeping blood where I’d scraped it. I ran my other hand through my hair, pondering how to get out of this mess. Sherlock wasn’t in any real state to help. The thought of calling on Garrett made me wince.
Did I even have cell reception down here? My heart sank as I pulled out my phone. It showed a grand total of one bar, but I knew from experience that might not be strong enough to get me an actual connection.
Shit squared.
I gave myself a few minutes to simply breathe and rest my leg. Any excitement I’d been feeling about this expedition had drained away, leaving only a pang of fear. I was about to give the phone a shot just in case when a voice carried down to me.
“John?”
Even distant, I recognized it as Jemma’s immediately. “Over here!” I shouted, relief overcoming any embarrassment that welled up at the same time.
Her slim figure appeared at the edge of the pit, the fading daylight silhouetting her even as it caught on her fiery hair. She cocked her head as she looked down at me, her mouth twisting into a pained grimace. “How did you manage to get yourself down there? Why did you go down there?”
“It’s a long story,” I said, even though it wasn’t really, only a ridiculous one. “I hit my bad leg—it’s acting up. I’m not sure I can climb out on my own. But you don’t want to end up stuck down here too if you—”
“I’ll be fine,” she said calmly. “And if I’m not, Bash is on his way too. Let’s see…”
She picked her way down the steep slope much more gracefully than I’d managed it. With her grasping my arm, I managed to haul myself onto my feet. My hip still ached, but I could ignore that if it meant getting the hell out of this fix.
Jemma had brought my walking stick. She dug the base into the dirt for extra traction as we trudged out of the pit together. Her arm stayed looped around mine, steadying me.
“How did you figure out where I was?” it occurred to me to ask.
“I know at least as many people with many talents as Sherlock does. I had a bad feeling after you hung up. One of my sometime associates tracked your phone. I got rather worried when he reported that the signal had faded out, though.”
“I’m lucky I have such a concerned colleague on my side, then.”
“Yes, you are.” She pulled me up over the edge of the pit and handed my walking stick to me. I grasped it tightly as I regained my balance on the suddenly even ground. Jemma touched my face, and I leaned toward her automatically. The kiss she offered was sweet and soft and over much too quickly.
