In the ballroom at The Langham Hotel, long rows of chairs were rapidly filling with chattering Holmes aficionados. In the center, on a stage with a podium, was an older white woman with wire-rimmed glasses and long, gray hair. She wore a deerstalker hat—the same as the notorious detective being discussed this evening.
As I sat in the very last row, I noticed most of the audience wore the same hat. Or were fully dressed as Sherlock Holmes.
“How interesting,” I muttered. Crossing one foot across my knee, I settled back in the chair and fought an unusual urge to take a picture of these elaborate costumes and send it to everyone back at Codex. Strange that I almost… missed… the endless clamoring of Freya, Delilah, Henry, and Sam. Barely twenty-four hours had passed, and I couldn’t stop thinking of things they would like, jokes they’d find amusing, food they’d enjoy.
I was also irritated that they’d all disobeyed my express orders thus far. I’d received not a single call or email regarding work or our cases.
The sensation of missing someone wasn’t one I entertained often. Disappointment readily followed in its wake. It was much easier to wall off your heart than risk the painful consequences of letting people in.
The lights dimmed, and the audience hushed their chattering.
“Welcome, everyone,” the woman at the podium said in a crisp British accent. “My name is Eudora Green, and I am the president of the Sherlock Society of Civilized Scholars.”
The audience hooted softly like owls. Eudora, removing her deerstalker hat, gave a mysterious smile. “For any non-members in the audience, the Sherlock Society is the oldest, and most respected, society of Holmes scholars in the entire world. We’re quite a passionate lot, and part of our monthly programming is to conduct discussions on the latest research and theories surrounding Arthur Conan Doyle and his most perfect creations: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.”
More light clapping, and she demurred, humble. But there was glee behind those wire-rimmed glasses, a preening.
“It’s no secret our beloved Doyle felt that Sherlock Holmes had become a sort of albatross ‘round his neck. The public demand for Holmes and Watson had reached a fever pitch, although Doyle himself no longer felt inspired to continue their adventures.”
Sighs of irritation huffed through the audience. More than 120 years later, Holmes fanatics were still outraged that their beloved detective had been tossed over a cliff. Fictionally.
“In The Adventure of the Final Problem, Holmes fights his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, on the cliff at Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. Watson, rushing to the scene later, famously encounters two sets of footprints to the edge of the cliff. No sets returning. The story ends with Watson presuming Holmes and Moriarty have both perished—Holmes, courageously so, as he had finally defeated a criminal mastermind and quite literally saved the day.”
Heads nodded vigorously. Two women next to me puffed on unlit pipes. I scanned the crowd for suspicious behavior—shifty eyes, sudden movements. Another habit from my FBI days I couldn’t seem to shake. Another habit former girlfriends had despised.
I tugged at the knot in my tie, fighting a tightness that hadn’t been there a second ago. Work was a familiar passion, as comforting as a good book with an ending you’ve already read. But now I was forty-one years old, on my first vacation in years, and I didn’t know how to just… be.
“And yet, as all of us here know, our great and noble Holmes did not die.” There was a resounding cheer from the crowd as Eudora continued. “The public mourned the death of the detective so voraciously that Doyle succumbed to the outspoken pressure and resurrected the great Sherlock Holmes. Once again proving the detective to be beyond comparison. In The Adventures of the Empty House, Watson is startled when an elderly bookseller approaches him and reveals himself to be none other than Sherlock.”
My pulse noticed the mention of The Empty House.
“This is not the first time Sherlock Holmes had successfully hidden in plain sight. This was a common theme throughout each story—the most obvious facts were often the most disingenuous. Simplicity is buried within the most complex of human situations. That was the job of Holmes—to hide in plain sight when necessary. And to uncover the facts hidden in plain sight as well. True coincidences rarely exist.”
The door behind me creaked open. Every head in the audience swiveled to take in the newcomer. I hesitated, took a moment to gauge their facial reactions to the person interrupting the talk. A few whispers, a flurry of arched eyebrows, some friendly faces waving at the intruder.
When I finally turned in my seat, my gaze landed on the ornate doorway bathed in light. A woman was framed by the glow—a woman with the regal bearing of a queen. She was tall, chin raised, posture proud. Jet-black hair was piled into a bun, high on her head. Large golden earrings dangled from her ears. The deep V of her black jumpsuit revealed tan skin that shimmered. Luminous, midnight eyes that found mine immediately lingered, drew me in, tempted me, called to me. My jaw threatened to drop, so I grit my teeth instead. The queen’s brow lifted, blood-red lips curving ever-so-slightly.
She knew every goddamn person in this goddamn room was staring at her.
She knew I was staring at her.
Openly admiring a stranger wasn’t my style. I preferred cool detachment, not the white-hot blaze emanating from her very being. With languid motion, the woman walked toward the only empty seat in the room.
The one right next to me.
“And as I was saying,” Eudora began, but whatever words came next faded into a muffled background noise that didn’t dare penetrate the experience of watching the queen glide across the room, hips swaying, eyes still locked on mine.
“May I?” the woman asked, pointing at the chair. She had a voice like bonfire smoke, rich and earthy, tinged with ember.
And she was, interestingly, an American.
I nodded, gave her space, watched as she sank down with grace. For a dangerous few moments, we simply stared at each other, barely a foot apart, and the full force of her astonishing beauty engulfed me. She was young, certainly younger than me, long-limbed, and full-lipped, and her hair was rich, black satin.
Her red mouth gave up its teasing curve, became a full smile with white teeth. Her throaty laugh incited a primal urge deep in my body.
Not a queen. This strange woman was too brutally captivating. More like an ancient goddess legions of people would drop to their knees and pray to. A powerful deity who blessed your crops and gave you rain and inspired love and lust for the heartbroken and lonely.
Or the sleep-deprived workaholics who can no longer have fun.
The raven-haired goddess was the first to break our stare-down, turning toward Eudora with an enigmatic expression. I flexed my fingers, dragged myself back from the delirious vision I’d been thrust into. Eudora’s speech reached me as if through miles of water.
“… It really is breaking news, and we all know how much he’d want us to…”
The older I got, the more tedious I found casual dating to be. The endless pursuit of a sexual partner was exhausting when the work hours were long and my job felt much too important to waste precious free time. Freya had been right about my dry spell. It had been more than a year since I’d indulged in sex, and that event had left me unsatisfied and frustrated. Probably because it’d been a long time since I’d met a woman who inspired real lust—wild and uncontrolled. The more tightly I restrained myself, the less I felt like I deserved finding that in another person. Aloofness was my preferred armor. An unfortunate trait I’d inherited from my father.