“Doesn’t sound like you, not at all.” I drew back and wiped the tears from my eyes. I was losing everyone, everything, and I didn’t like it.
Jacob touched my arm lightly. “Hey, Captain. It’ll be fine. I have me a new job, nothing much, but enough to tide me over while I go to college. Maybe medical school after that.” He almost smiled at my surprise. “Yes, me. I want to help the rest of us, Captain. The ones who come home empty and raging. The ones like you and me.”
We hugged each other again.
“You are my friend,” I said. “I didn’t do right by you.”
“You were angry, is all. Been there myself, as you know.”
I nodded. Hugged him tighter.
“I have something for you.”
He gently detached my grip from his jacket and pressed an envelope into my hands. “From Sara,” he said. “She takes care of her people.”
* * *
The envelope contained two fifty-dollar bills, scented with clove, and a square of parchment with one line of print: 10 a.m., Georgetown University Hospital. Underneath, Sara had written, For you, my love.
And this time, I did not mind.
* * *
It was already 9:35. I flagged down a cab and demanded the driver take the fastest route to Georgetown University Hospital. When the man balked, I shoved one crumpled fifty into his face. “Drive, damn you. Or I shall loose the hounds of hell into your life.”
Later I wasn’t sure which had terrified him the most—my clearly manic self or the threat of hounds. Whatever. He barely waited for me to click the seat belt before he flung himself into the DC morning traffic.
Nine fifty-five. Destination achieved.
“Dr. Watson.” The receptionist greeted me with a smile. She fed me an expensive cup of coffee and had a minion escort me into a private waiting room. Within ten minutes, a precisely timed interval that allowed me to savor the coffee, another minion brought me up a private elevator to a level marked executive offices.
I remembered this floor, these sun-filled spaces. I had interviewed here three years ago, shortly before I volunteered for the army. There was the spacious interview room where I had chatted with the chief of surgery, with its wide windows that overlooked Shaw Field and the Potomac beyond.
There were several significant changes, however. Both the chief of surgery and the CMO were present. And when I exchanged those perfunctory greetings, I thought I detected a hint of nervousness, as though our roles had reversed themselves over the past few years.
We worked our way through the usual pattern of exchanges. The stock gratitude offered a veteran for her service. The regret for my injuries, as though they themselves shared any blame in the matter. Two months ago, I might have raged at them, told them to fuck off with their artificial sympathy, but the month with Faith Bellaume had helped me gain distance and perspective. If these two powerful women resorted to platitudes, it was because they feared to offend.
Intent might not be magical, but it counts for something. Words my mother said when I came home from school furious because some well-meaning teacher had called me articulate.
And so I returned their platitudes with ones of my own. I complimented them on their reputation and that of Georgetown. I spoke of colleagues in the service who talked about the good the hospital did. And when we had exhausted these, the conversation turned at last to the reason for their invitation.
“We want you,” the chief of surgery said.
She’d used that same inflection three years before.
“Let me be more specific,” the CMO said. “We have need of surgeons like you, Dr. Watson. Your track record throughout medical school and your residency were exceptional, which is why we made you an offer three years ago. You’ve done much more, so much more, since then. Your experience . . .” And I swear she was about to say in the trenches but quickly reconsidered. “Your experience in the service brings invaluable insight, and not just for veterans. We need that insight.”
“We need you,” the chief of surgery said.
I glanced from one woman to the other. Waited.
The CMO smiled. “Do you need us to be more explicit, Dr. Watson? Or is that indecision I see?”
“Not indecision, but uncertainty.” I drew my left sleeve back over my device and held it up. Its metal plating had turned dull, and even though I held it still, it twitched and shivered in the thin December sunlight.
“A surgeon needs two hands,” I said matter-of-factly. “Two good hands.”
“You shall have two,” the CMO said. “Let me explain the terms.”
The terms were straightforward. The position offered was that of senior surgeon, two full pay grades above the offer I had rejected three years ago. Along with the position came the guarantee of a new prosthetic arm—one of the advanced models that could be custom-fitted and programmed for my work.
“You will need training,” the chief of surgery told me. “Four months at the minimum. Until then, you would have an advisory position with the hospital, with commensurate pay.”
Commensurate pay turned out to be 60 percent of my future salary, not counting a generous signing bonus, plus extras for mentoring junior staff.
It was everything I wanted. It was clearly a bribe for my silence about recent events on the front and in Newark, New Jersey.
I closed my eyes a moment, pointed my thoughts toward the future and not these past two months. Sara had bid me farewell. She would no doubt be assigned to another city, another partner. This new job meant I could keep the apartment for myself, or one like it.
Damn you, Sara Holmes. Do you think you can bribe me so easily?
But Sara had understood from that first moment how much I valued beauty and quiet. Gifts . . . gifts were temporary, but even if this one proved temporary, I could not resist.
“I accept,” I said.
The CMO nodded briskly. “Excellent. There are a few formalities to go through. My assistant has the necessary paperwork . . .”
Another hour and I was free.
The fifty dollars was more than enough to buy me a ride back to 2809 Q Street. I preferred to walk the half hour along the banks of the Potomac and up Thirty-First. So much had changed in these past seven weeks. The election posters and signboards had vanished, replaced by advertisements for Christmas. Our new Democratic Progressive president was victorious. True, he faced a wall of Republicans and Conservative Party members in the House, but the third-party progressive factions continued to give him their conditional support. Even if he didn’t have a mandate, he had a clear victory.
Somewhere, hidden away in the White House, Alida Sanches planned her retirement years. Somewhere else, the New Confederacy plotted to win their war. They had not yet surrendered. They might never.
I came at last to Q Street and number 2809. The flower boxes were empty, cleared of their dead stalks. The oak and apple trees had long ago shed their leaves, and the faint breeze that whirled about me carried the scent of snow.
Do I belong here? I asked myself.
Yes felt more like a challenge than the truth. And yet I needed, loved, a good challenge. Or I thought I had, those three months ago.
I climbed the steps to the front door and pressed my thumb against the security pad. Immediately the lock unclicked, so quickly I could almost imagine its apologies for the delays of last September.
The entryway had not changed. There were still the pots of ferns and English ivy, tended by Hudson Realty’s meticulous staff. The marble tiles still gleamed, and the corridors were still hushed.
I rode the elevator up to the second floor and unlocked the door to apartment 2B.
It was not until I had shut the door behind me that my self-possession deserted me. I let my bag drop, tilted my head back against the heavy wooden door.
Holmes had arranged that Georgetown offer, damn her. The salary, the promise of a new device, the ability to resume the life I had before the war. (Almost. Not quite. But let’s not be picky.)
The salary would account for my presence here. And my presence would offer a transition for Agent Holmes from one identity to another. And Jacob, Jacob she had sent off to his own new career. All safe. All wrapped up into a tidy bundle.
I expelled a breath, as if I could expel my anger, and continued into the parlor.
Nothing had changed in the past six and a half weeks. No, that was not correct, and the exceptions proved unsettling. The kitchen was immaculate, floors mopped and counters wiped clean. But I could see a few broken bits from the teapot Sara had swept to one side. Someone had clearly watered her herb garden, but the herbs themselves had overgrown their pots. I rubbed my fingers over the sage leaves and breathed in their fresh sharp scent. Small comfort, but I was used to taking small comfort.
Would she come back for these? Or had she discarded them as she had me?
I pushed myself away from the herbs and continued along the corridor, noting the bathroom with its shampoos and oils and soaps, the other signs of Sara’s former presence here, then turned toward the bedrooms.
It only took a glance through Sara’s open door to see what had changed, what had not. The piano remained in its glorious sunlit nook. The paintings with their secret screens had vanished. Someone had cleared away the wine bottles, the cups, and the accumulated dust. I could not make any sense of what had changed, what had not. But my belly trembled as I passed on toward my own bedroom.
Less than nothing had changed here. My clothes were still scattered over the floor, just as Sara had left them. My books were still on the shelves, with a copy of Kindred on the bedside table, where I had attempted to pass the hours that last evening. A film of dust covered my desk, without even a handprint or two.
But someone did come here, I thought. Someone who robbed me of my journal and my pens and ink.
I heard the faint tread of shoes behind me and spun around.
Sara Holmes stood in the doorway, arms crossed and with a faintly challenging air. Right. I could get behind that kind of attitude. I crossed my own arms and waited for her to speak.
Her mouth tilted into a smile. “Hello, my love. I see you found your way back.”
My pulse ticked upward at the phrase my love. I wanted to protest, but I thought I understood her better. At least I hoped so. “I did. I found your gifts. Thank you. But what about—”
“I had nothing to do with Georgetown. No, that’s a lie. I did, but only because I badgered my chief into granting you the kind of arm you deserved. You, you earned that yourself, back in April. And you earned it a second time over, at the VA Medical Center. The rest is me, and our country, doing what we failed to do before.”
Oh. Oh and thank you and why do I still want to bash her over the head?
“What about your next mission?” I demanded. “What about that?”
My words came out harsh, but something in my expression must have warned her otherwise, because she grinned. “Oh, that? Well, I did tell them I had unfinished business here. Not to mention a colleague in need of cover. Was I right?” she asked, her voice going soft and rough. “Do I have unfinished business here?”
The breath stilled in my chest. I nodded, more stiffly than I liked. “You do, actually. You promised me one more question, among other things. But this time, I want an honest answer.”
Sara Holmes regarded me with a brilliant smile. “And perhaps you shall get one. Let’s make a reservation for dinner, and we can discuss how honest I should be.”
Acknowledgments
There are many people who helped me turn this idea into a story, and the story into this book. I am so damned lucky to have such friends, mentors, and co-conspirators. Guys, guys, thank you so much.
Shout-outs and gratitude to . . .
Stephanie Burgis, who read the first draft chapter by chapter and cheered me on.
My wise and sharp-eyed readers Delia Sherman, Jessica Reisman, Hyeonjin Park, Darlene Marshall, Paul Weimer, Jeremy Brett, Alice Loweecy, Cat Hellisen, Nerine Dorman, Paul Magnan, and Fade Manley.
Tempest Bradford and Nisi Shawl, for their workshop Writing the Other.
My amazing editor, Amber Oliver, and the rest of the team at Harper Voyager, for all their hard work to turn my manuscript into a finished book.
Michelle Cahill, for telling me I was awesome.
And finally, my husband and son for giving me the love, the space, and the encouragement to write, not to mention reminding me when to eat. I could not do any of this without you.
About the Author
Claire O’Dell grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC, in the years of the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. She attended high school just a few miles from the house where Mary Surratt once lived and where John Wilkes Booth conspired to kill Lincoln. All this might explain why she spent so much time in the history and political science departments at college. Claire currently lives in Manchester, Connecticut, with her family and two idiosyncratic cats.
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Praise for A Study in Honor
“A gritty, fast-paced investigation with a memorable and compelling duo of main characters. I can’t wait to see what Janet and Sara get up to next.”
—Aliette de Bodard, Nebula Award–winning author of The House of Binding Thorns and The Tea Master and the Detective
“A Study in Honor is a fast-moving, diverse science-fictional Holmes and Watson reinterpretation set in near-future Washington, DC. As a deliciously intersectional makeover of a famous literary duo it’s enormously satisfying. Clean, clear, and vastly enjoyable.”
—Nicola Griffith, Lambda Literary Award–winning author of So Lucky
“An entertaining and empathetic dystopian procedural that navigates the capital of an America at war with itself, tracking the path to recovery from personal and national trauma.”
—Christopher Brown, author of Tropic of Kansas
“O’Dell’s prose is sharp and clean, rising at times to the poetic, and her near-future Washington, DC, feels like a real city. The USA of A Study in Honor is a place with deep political divisions, and some of that comes into play in this story. It feels appropriately complicated as a future, and not a simplistic future vision of now.”
—Locus
“Readers who pick this up for the novelty of Watson and Holmes as black women will be impressed by how well O’Dell realizes them as full, rich characters. This is a real treat for fans of Conan Doyle and SF mysteries.”
—Publishers Weekly
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
a study in honor. Copyright © 2018 by Claire O’Dell. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Harper Voyager and design are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.
first edition
Frontispiece © thongyhod/Shutterstock
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover illustration by Chris McGrath
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
Digital Edition JULY 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-269932-9
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-269930-5
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