“Jamie,” August said, a warning.
“Whatever. I don’t care. August, you’ve been here all afternoon? Haven’t hijacked any black cars today?”
“No,” he said, inflectionless.
“Then what have you been doing?” It was hard to keep from shouting. I needed to see some answering anger flare up in her face. Any reaction at all.
August stepped forward to put a hand on her shoulder. They looked at each other. He shrugged; she nodded. It was the kind of wordless back and forth I was used to having with her.
“My mother,” Holmes said at length, “is now in a coma.”
“A coma?” I stared at her. “I thought the poisoning was an isolated event. I thought—”
“We thought wrong.”
“Shouldn’t this be our priority?” I asked, starting to pace. “Shouldn’t we put the rest of this on hold? Go back to England? Your mother’s life is on the line here.”
She regarded me evenly. “No.”
“You’re sounding kind of heartless right now. Just so you know.”
“These things are connected, Watson. My mother? Leander? If I solve one, I’ll solve the other, and I’m so sorry if it offends your delicate sensibilities if I happen to love my uncle more.” Visibly, she swallowed. “I love her, too, you know. But—I need to prioritize. My mother can take care of herself.”
“From her coma.”
Behind Holmes, August glared at me.
Her expression was a mirror of his. “I’ve only heard about this from my brother’s intel. My father hasn’t told me anything at all.” Annoyed, she gestured to the screen. “Milo is beaming me footage from Thailand so I can review it for myself, but no one, and nothing, has entered the house that wasn’t there yesterday. Milo just fired the whole staff, as a precaution. The only people—” With a sigh, she raked back her hair. “My father and the doctor are tending to my mother. That’s all I can tell.”
“And Lucien?” I asked.
“Moriarty hasn’t made any kind of move. Not that Milo can tell. Nothing that he can stop.”
“I’m sorry.”
She slipped out from August’s hand and crossed to me. His eyes tracked her across the room. “I’m tired, Watson,” she said. “I’m working two cases at once, and they both concern my family. It’s not like anything I’ve taken on before. Milo’s stupid surety isn’t helping. I’m positive he’s missed something. I know who the culprits are. I just don’t know how they’ve done what they’ve done.”
“Don’t you usually reason from the facts?” I asked her. “Instead of assigning blame and working from there?”
Holmes shrugged, but I could tell I’d hurt her. “I’m not Sherlock Holmes. This isn’t a case study. My uncle is missing, and the only possible answer is that it’s the Moriartys behind it. One way or another, they’ve done this. Sorry, August.”
August grimaced.
“Is there any value in having Milo . . . remove Lucien?” I asked.
“And Hadrian?” she asked. “And Phillipa? And their bodyguards? Why do you think they haven’t taken us out directly? Why do you think they haven’t sent us Leander’s body via parcel mail? Put a bullet in my mother’s head?”
Rubbing my shoulder, I thought about it. What was the only worse thing than the confirmation of your greatest fear? “Because the uncertainty is worse.”
She spread her hands as if to say, There you have it. “Are you done berating me?”
“What about my ideas?”
“They have value,” she admitted. “Of course they do. Of course you do. What do you take me for? Some kind of machine? If I wanted a yes-man, don’t you think I’d find one that wanted to ‘yes’ me more often?”
I bit back a smile. “That’s fair.”
“Don’t you think,” she said, drawing closer, “that there’s some irony in someone taking the trouble to anonymously kidnap you? If everyone keeps insisting you’re unimportant, you have to ask yourself why.”
“I’m sorry about your mother,” I told her quietly.
“I am, too.” She considered me for a moment, eyes bright. “Should we divide up the work, then? You’ll call your father? I’m sure August wouldn’t mind doing some data mining in Milo’s systems, he was hired to do that sort of thing”—August shrugged—“and if you don’t mind, I’d like to spend more time with Milo’s security feeds. When I was younger, I was made to find my way through my own house, blindfolded. I know every room. This feed is missing some.”
“Was Milo trained that same way?” I asked, wondering why he’d skip surveillance, wondering why we were all apparently wandering around with our eyes covered.
“No,” she said absently. Her attention had drifted back to the broken screen. “He was always away in our father’s study. He speaks five languages, but I doubt he’s ever seen our basement. Shall we regroup in an hour?”
But when I reached the door, she cleared her throat. “Watson?”
“What?”
“You only—you kissed her?”
Her back was to me. “Yeah,” I said, wishing I could see her face.
“Will you see her again?”
“I don’t think so.”