“Just—”
“Holmes—are you okay? Like, really, actually okay?” It was such a dumb question, but I couldn’t think of another way to ask it.
“Don’t you think it’s sort of backward, that you’re the one always asking me that and not my family?”
“Honestly? All the time.”
We stared at each other.
“They think this sort of thing shouldn’t’ve happened to me at all,” she whispered. “Not to someone as . . . capable as me.”
“This isn’t your fault,” I said fiercely. “God. Has no one told you it’s not your fault? Of all the fucked-up families in all the world—”
“It was never said, as such. It was implied.”
“Like that makes it any better.” I stared at the ground. “I know this isn’t your favorite subject, but have you thought about—”
“Talk therapy isn’t a panacea. Neither are drugs. Neither is wishing it away.” When I glanced up at her, she was wearing a sad little smile. “Watson. Come back.”
“Why? No, give me an actual answer.”
With a groan, she pulled the pillow down against her chest. “Because, contrary to how I just reacted, I don’t actually want you to leave.” She looked at me with baleful eyes. “I also don’t want to . . . do that again. I just want to go to sleep, and if I’m correct, it’ll be much easier for us to continue talking to each other the way we normally do if we don’t have to first go through tomorrow’s formalities.”
Gingerly, I sat down. “I still think that makes little to no sense.”
“I’m fine with that.” She yawned. “It’s dawn, Watson. Go to sleep.”
I eased myself back in under the covers, careful to leave a few inches between the two of us. Leave room for the Holy Spirit, I thought semihysterically. I hadn’t been to church since I was a kid, but maybe the nuns had gotten it right.
“Are you measuring the space between us?”
“No, I—”
“It’s not funny,” she said but it was dawn, and we were exhausted, and I could tell she was trying not to laugh.
“What we need is a good murder,” I said, not caring how horrible I sounded. “Or a kidnapping. Something fun, you know, to keep our minds off all this.”
“All this? Do you mean sex?”
“Whatever.”
“Lena keeps texting me. She wants to fly out from India and take us shopping.”
“That’s not a distraction. That’s a reason to throw myself into the ocean. I need an explosion or something.”
“You’re a sixteen-year-old boy,” she said. “I think we’ll probably need a serial killer.”
Leander Holmes would turn up the next day. Three days later, he would disappear. And for weeks and weeks after, I’d wonder if, by wishing, we’d brought everything that happened after that onto ourselves.
three
I WOKE TO CHARLOTTE BESIDE ME AND SOMEONE ELSE flinging back the curtains.
Even with the sudden brightness, even knowing there was a stranger in my room, I couldn’t make myself look. It felt like I’d gotten less than five minutes of sleep—maybe five minutes in the last five months—and my body was finally drawing the line.
“Go away,” I mumbled, and rolled over.
The lamp flicked on. “Charlotte,” a low, lazy voice said, “when I gave you that T-shirt, I didn’t intend for you to interpret it literally.”
At that, I cracked an eye open, but the man speaking was too backlit to see.
“I don’t think you intended for me to ever wear it, either,” Holmes was saying beside me, but she sounded pleased. Somehow, she didn’t look tired at all; on the contrary, she was sitting up, her knees tucked under her shirt, stretching out the words CHEMISTRY IS FOR LOVERS. “It really is the worst Christmas present I’ve ever gotten, and that’s saying something.”
“Worse than the time that Milo bought you a Barbie?” the figure tutted. “I really must be a monster. Come on, goose. Introduce me to your boyfriend, unless you want to continue pretending he’s invisible, in which case I’ll play along.”
Holmes paused. “No lecture?”
Leander—because it had to be Leander—laughed. “You’ve done worse things, and anyway, it’s fairly clear you aren’t actually having sex. This may be indelicate, but those sheets aren’t hardly wrinkled enough. So I’m not quite sure what I should be lecturing you on.”
That was it. I was going to pass a law against people making deductions before lunch.
As I sat up, rubbing at my eyes, Leander crossed to the other side of the bed. I finally got a good look at him. We’d met once before, at my seventh birthday party. He’d brought me a pet rabbit. All I remembered was a tall man with broad shoulders who’d spent most of the party laughing with my father in a corner.
That impression held true, though the man standing in front of me was impeccably well dressed, given the hour. (The clock beside me read 7:15, because the world was trying to kill me.) He was wearing a blazer, and his shoes were shined up like mirrors. Below his slicked-back hair, his eyes were wrinkled with smile lines. He held out a hand to shake.
“Jamie Watson,” he said. “Do you know, you look just like your father did when I met him. Which is making all of this quite a bit stranger for me, so could you please get out of the bed you’re sharing with my niece?”
I scrambled to my feet. “We’re not—I’m not—it’s very nice to meet you.” Behind me, Holmes was snickering, and I rounded on her. “Come on, really? Some backup would be nice.”
“Do you want me to give him the details, then?”
“Do you want me to give you a shovel so you can keep on digging me this hole?”
“Please,” she shot back. “I’d rather watch. You’re doing such a nice job of it, after all.”
Something was wrong. Our usual banter sounded meaner, pettier than usual. I stopped, not sure what to say.
Leander saved me. “Children,” he said, pulling the door open. “Stop bickering, or I won’t make you breakfast.”
The kitchen was cavernous, all metal and marble and glass. The housekeeper was already hard at work, rolling out a blanket of dough on the counter. I don’t know why it surprised me. Clearly Holmes’s parents weren’t making their own meals, if last night’s formal dinner was any indication.
“Hello, Sarah,” Leander said, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “How late were you up last night, cleaning up after that soiree? I’ll take over. We’ll send breakfast to your room.” He gave her a look I recognized too well, a criminally charming smile straight out of the Charlotte Holmes Is Conning You playbook.
The housekeeper laughed, and blushed, and finally gave up her apron to his waiting hands before she left.
At the counter, Holmes propped her head on her fists. “You’re much more efficient at that than I am.”
Leander didn’t answer for a moment, selecting a saucepan from the hanging copper rack. Holmes’s eyes followed his hands. “You do know that it works best if you mean what you’re saying,” he said. “Fried eggs?”