The Last of August

Alistair? August? The latter was putting an arm under his legs now to help turn him off the bed and put him into the wheelchair.

“Get off me,” Leander said, and stood. “I’m fine.”

“Where is Dr. Michaels?” Holmes was asking her mother. “Where is she being kept?”

“In my room,” Emma said. “Your brother had a camera put there—is he secure? Leander, are you ready to go?” I was shocked to hear her speak to him with such gentleness.

“Fastest way out,” I said. “The window we came in?”

“Done.” Emma Holmes was pulling things from the suitcase—a pair of passports, an envelope, scarves and gloves and a hat—and stuffing them into the pockets of her lab coat. “Go,” she said. “I’ll follow.”

We ran. Leander kept pace behind us, moving far too quickly for a man who looked as debilitatingly ill as he did. The window was just ahead, but there were footsteps, now, above our heads, the scuffle-run of someone moving too quickly for grace.

August hoisted himself up out of the window. “Here,” he said to me, “help him up.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Leander said. “Come on, Charlotte. Move.”

I grasped her waist and lifted her high enough that August could pull her out onto the snowy ground. Leander went next; I made a cradle with my hands and boosted him up and out.

Footsteps on the stair, a different set of footsteps behind me. Emma had her arms full of files; wordlessly, she handed me half the stack, and we passed them up to Holmes until her mother’s arms were free, and then I lifted her up to the window and pushed her out, my arms aching, my bruises pulling painfully against my skin, and just as August reached down both hands to drag me out of the basement, a voice behind me said my name.

I didn’t have to look to know it was Alistair Holmes. He said my name again, louder, a shout now, “James Watson,” like there wasn’t a difference between me or my father at all, like we were all interchangeable, these idiot Watson men who were beaten up and outsmarted by the enemy, kidnapped and shoved out of cars by their friends, men who left their own families behind to find themselves in the thick of a family feud that would leave a trail of bodies by the time this was all over.

“Jamie,” Alistair said again, approaching me with his hands out, entreating. “You don’t know what you’re doing. Lucien’s made threats. He presented them through Hadrian. He’ll know. He needs to see Leander sick in that hospital bed. He needs to see my wife debilitated in her room, unable to work. He needs to see us at his mercy.”

“What are you even talking about? That isn’t even what I saw—”

“Idiot boy. The cameras aren’t omniscient. I sedated the ‘doctor’ he sent, Gretchen Michaels, dressed her like my wife and put her in Emma’s bed. I locked up Leander, like he demanded, but I had Emma tend to him. He’s fine. Wholly fine. This is—”

“Jamie,” August hissed. “Come on.”

But I was so close to understanding. Alistair was drawing closer to me, his eyes wild, and I said, “It’s crazy. What this is is crazy. Why did Mrs. Holmes help Leander escape? How long were you going to keep this up?”

“Hadrian and Phillipa are here, aren’t they.” There was steel in his voice. “Aren’t they, child.”

“What are you planning—”

Alistair Holmes lunged for me.

“Now,” August said, and I grabbed for his hands. As he pulled me out of the window, Alistair Holmes grabbed at my leg.

I kicked him in the face, and he staggered backward.

There was no time to process what I’d just done. There wasn’t any up or down anymore, any right path to take. August replaced the window, and Holmes was there with a piece of wood from the pile and a hammer. I held the board while she hammered it into place.

I gripped her shoulders. “Your father—”

“Not important,” she said, shaking off my hands. “The car’s out front. Help her—I don’t know about the Greystone guards, if they’re still on our side—”

Holmes’s mother was conferring with Leander. “I’m about to give you something that will make you very sick. In actuality. You understand that.”

His mouth twisted. “I understand.”

“Remember,” she said. “There isn’t any antidote. This will get worse before it gets better. You’ll speak to the police. You’ll have them run tests at the hospital. You’ll implicate Hadrian and Phillipa. And then you’ll recover, and disappear. My suggestion is you go to America. Go see James.” She lifted an eyebrow in my direction.

“Of course,” I told him. “My father can help. And there’s nothing—nothing you can give him to help? Was he poisoned, as you were?”

“There’s nothing he can take,” she said. “I’m a chemist, Jamie. I mixed this myself. I tested it on myself until it became too dangerous to continue. There’s a Dr. Gretchen Michaels comatose in my bedroom. Hadrian sent her here to oversee this whole operation, and she stayed long enough that I had to put Leander under for a night—but the next day, I slipped her enough of this compound to put her into a coma. She looks enough like me to fool Milo’s cameras, to fool anyone watching his feeds. I didn’t need him to worry. I didn’t need anyone else to know.”

“Listen,” Holmes said. “I know you’re tired, but—” ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">