Penny relaxed completely. “Oh, you guys,” she said, and it was genuine. “I’m so sorry.” But Natalie looked more troubled, a sort of troubled I was familiar with, and that put together with the state of her right index finger gave me more information for the file I was building on her in my head.
My phone chirped. I looked at it under the table; it was from my source at Sherringford. Things are getting worse for him, it read. How soon can you come to Connecticut?
I realized, dispassionately, that I would rather be nearly anywhere else. Even my old boarding school. But it was the final hand of the night, and I was closing in on my kill.
“The river,” Jessa said, while Penny dealt. The game was Texas hold ’em. “And it turns! Final bets, ladies.”
Penny raised, but she was bluffing; she was tapping her foot under the table, the way she had the last three times. Natalie had better cards than Jessa did, to be sure—she had a way of too-nonchalantly eating fries when she was sure she was going to win—but I had better cards than Jessa, too, who was big blind. Since she had to put money down, she’d stayed in. (And anyway, she’d split her winnings with me at the end of the night.)
My phone sounded again in my pocket. It would be poor manners for me to duck out now.
But I looked, despite myself. Jamie needs you, it said. It’s only going to get worse.
I gripped my phone under the table.
I needed to win this round rather desperately.
Natalie studied her cards. “Charlotte Holmes,” she mused. “That’s so funny. I’ve been thinking about this all night—you know, I loved the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was a kid.”
People liked to add that tag, “when I was a kid,” as though there was something childish about them. “That’s great,” I said, because while I didn’t particularly want to hand her secrets over to Jessa, I also didn’t care about her, or what she had or hadn’t read. I only wanted her to bet, so I could leave and contact my source in private.
I tried not to think about the implications of that last text. Watson, dead. On his dorm room floor. Watson dead, shot in the snow, like—
“You know, I met a Moriarty recently.”
My pulse quickened. No one noticed, of course, except for me, as I have a very good poker face. “It’s a common Irish last name,” I told Natalie. “You meet a lot of them.”
“No,” she said, and she tapped her cards against the table. “Like, a real, storybook Moriarty. I go to the Virtuoso School—you know, for working young actors and singers or whatever—and he was getting a tour. They had him sit in on my songwriting class. I guess he’d invested some money in the program.”
Lucien Moriarty’s consulting firm’s client list. The new additions: a large posh hospital in D.C. A wilderness rehabilitation facility for teenagers in Connecticut. And a Manhattan prep school for the arts.
“You gotta bet, lady,” Jessa said, sensing the turn in the conversation. “Then we can order up more champagne. Maybe I can call DJ Pocketwatch, see if she wants to come over.”
My phone chirped again.
“Did you ask him if he’d committed any crimes recently?” I asked lightly, but with just enough edge to let Natalie know I was bothered. It was a tone that drew people in, made them want to know the story behind your upset. It rarely failed.
It didn’t now. She leaned in, fascinated. “Whoa, do you guys still have run-ins?”
I shrugged. “Of a sort. What was he like?”
“Not very interesting. He had on a slouchy hat, like he thought he was cool. Big glasses. He liked the song I played.”
“Are there a lot of people in your songwriting class?” I asked. “I mean, anyone I’ve heard of?”
Natalie snuck a peek at her cards. “Not unless you follow folk-rock? I mean, Annie Henry’s a big-deal fiddler. Penn Olsen and Maggie Hartwell have been playing together for a while—”
“Come on, guys,” Penny said. The music had stopped, and she was staring at all of her money piled up in the middle of the table. “Can we, like, get this over with?”
I pulled my chips toward me, and I found I didn’t care about my winnings.
Maggie Hartwell.
Michael Hartwell was one of Lucien’s fake identities.
My phone chirped. You know you can stop this before it happens, it read, and just like that I was elsewhere, gone. August’s eyes taking me apart on the plane back to England. August ducking his head into my room in Greystone, my violin in his hand—Will you play for me? August in the snow.
Things I could have stopped before they happened. I could get on the train. Tonight. I could be at Penn Station in an hour. I—
You need to feel it, DI Green had said. Or else, every now and then, it’ll happen anyway. And you’ll continue to do very stupid things.
I forced myself to breathe.
Jessa and I had played together enough at this point that she could read me across the table. A distant part of me thought it was a pity she and I weren’t bridge partners. “Penn Olsen and Maggie Hartwell?” she asked, picking up my slack. “Are they on YouTube?”
Natalie laughed. “I guess. They’re not big or anything. They do covers, mostly. Maggie’s a sweetie, but Penn has a really big head.”
Breathe. I was breathing. “Huh,” I said, and it didn’t sound strained.
“She has nothing on you, girl,” Jessa said to Natalie. “Have you heard Natalie’s new single, Penny? It’s so effing good.”
“It is so. Good.” Penny kissed Natalie’s head. “You need to talk to the producers of my show. Maybe we can write you into an episode? I think we’re doing a musical one soon!”
They were looking at each other, so they didn’t see the flash of jealousy in Jessa’s eyes.
We sorted the money quickly, changing out the chips for cash. The champagne had run out. “God, I’m tired, and now I’m super broke,” Penny said, packing up her bag, “and I have call at seven tomorrow morning. We’re shooting a pool scene first thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten those chicken tenders, oof. Love you, love you”— she kissed her hands and blew at us—“but let’s not do this again till I get paid, okay?”
Girls could be so profligate with their love, as though by spreading it wide, they would induce the world to love them back. As though the world wasn’t going to take that love and beat them with it. Still, I blew a kiss at Penny. I waved good-bye to Natalie. I checked my winnings carefully—nearly three thousand dollars, I had taken almost the whole pot—and then faced Jessa across her notebook.
In that moment, I worried that I would open my mouth, that it would all come pouring out. How horribly I had behaved, and for how long. How much damage I had done. As though I would confess to the first person who asked.
Jessa saved me from myself.
“That was useful for you.” When alone with me, her way of speaking had begun to mirror my own. She was clipped, precise, hoarser. It was clear that she was taking a new acting class, and that I was the current object of her study.
At that moment, I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to pretend to be me.
Imagine your father is sitting across that table, I told myself. Be bloodless, and just like that I was again. “The information about the Virtuoso School? Yes, it was useful to me.”
“Did you learn anything about them? Penny and Natalie?”
In fact, I had learned quite a bit. I opened my mouth, then hesitated. “Is it too much for me to ask how you plan to use this information?”
“I imagine the way you use money. As currency.” She waited for effect, then blinked her blue eyes rapidly. I wondered if I did that too before launching into an explanation. “These girls are my competition. A rumor can be useful. Knowing their flaws, their foibles. I hoard the best ones, though, and if I’m short on money, I sell those secrets to TMZ.”
We regarded each other. To be honest, her imitation of me was unsettling enough that I was having trouble thinking.
Was this what I seemed lik
e to strangers?
I put that idea on to simmer while I told Jessa what I’d learned. That Natalie believed in God and prayed silently when she felt she was losing at cards; her faith was personal enough that she kept a small cross necklace not around her neck but in her pocket, where her hand returned to it like a worry stone. Penny had an older sister she worshipped. It was clear that the boots she was wearing had a previous owner, and they were (1) half a size too big; (2) made too recently to be vintage; (3) five years out of fashion. The sister had worn the boots for something practical, perhaps horseback riding (the sole was worn in the place where something like a stirrup would go) but Penny wore them for love. Perhaps the sister was dead. I couldn’t tell from the data at hand.
“That’s it?” Jessa said, when I’d finished. She was frustrated enough to revert back to being herself, much to my mixed disappointment and relief. “No habits, or addictions, or exes, or . . . ?”
Natalie was bulimic. Penny had a girlfriend back home she wanted no one to know about. Natalie, at some point in her life, had lost over a hundred pounds, and quickly; she had stretch marks, slight ones, when her crop top rode up over her pants. Penny wanted to quit the business after her contract was up, perhaps (this was a surmise) to spend more time with her beloved sister. (Perhaps the sister was not dead, but dying? I needed more time to observe her.) Neither of them ever wanted to play poker with us ever again.
Jessa made her own money now, through royalties and residuals. She was not “short on cash” in any meaningful way, despite what her selling secrets to tabloids would suggest. At the very least she didn’t need me to ruin two girls’ lives to keep herself away from her mother and her own ruined past.
“No,” I said to Jessa’s disgruntled face, “that’s everything,” and I knew I would never play poker with her again either.
How much damage I had done. How much damage I would continue to do.
On the street, I checked my phone again. My Sherringford source had written me one last message. It’s on your head, it said. As though that was a new thing.
My heart rate had slowed. I wouldn’t go to Penn Station tonight. I wouldn’t head into Sherringford, guns blazing, on some supposition. I would go home and force myself to “feel things” about my past for thirty minutes, on a timer, and I would continue with my plan, as it was the best way to keep Jamie Watson safe.
Safer than August had ever been.
Safe from me.
I lit a cigarette, the first I’d allowed myself in weeks. I had money. I had eaten food I hadn’t had to pay for. It was late, and I was actually tired, and in the morning, I had an interview with Starway Airlines. I had quite a bit of prep to do.
Thirteen
Jamie
DETECTIVE SHEPARD HAD GONE THROUGH LENA’S PHONE while she stood there, arms crossed, rolling her eyes. “I thought you actually, like, wanted to make a call.”
He scrolled again through her texts, her missed and received call log, her contacts, and then he tossed her mobile back. Because she was Lena, she caught it neatly with one hand. “Just was a little too good to be true,” he said. “You disappeared. Then immediately, Ms. Williamson got that phone call from the gallery with a confession.”
“Serendipity,” she said, and wound up her scarf. “It’s an SAT word. Look, since it’s a school night and everything, I should go home. Jamie, text me or something tomorrow, okay?” She waved good-bye and left.
Everyone else had left too. My father was warming up the car in the parking lot. The detective zipped up his parka, looking out over the snowy quad. “I’m not going to say it’s good to see you again,” he said.
I shivered. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t really want to be in this mess either. I am happy, though, that you’re working the case.” I meant it. I had always liked Detective Shepard; he was smart, and determined, and flexible enough to work with me and Holmes. I just wished I wasn’t always the person he was investigating.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “You’ve made some real enemies, kid,” he said. “Or she has. Charlotte. I don’t know. I hope it’s all been worth it. I’ll call you in the morning. Don’t leave town.”
I told him I wouldn’t, then got in my father’s car.
You didn’t make that call? I asked Lena.
She wrote back instantly. Told you I was useful. You don’t need to be a dealer to keep a burner phone in your bag. He didn’t ask me for that one haha night Jamie xoxo.
I laughed to myself. It was late, late enough that we were the only car on the road back to his house out in the country. It had been where I’d grown up, out here, playing tag in the yard with my father, eating dinner outside together in the summer, my sister and I locking each other in the closet below the stairs. My father lived there now with my stepmother, Abigail, and my half brothers, Malcolm and Robbie. They’d set aside a room for me, what had been the stuffy old guest room before. I hadn’t decorated it, and I didn’t sleep there much, but it was good to know it was there anyway. I kept enough clothes there, a razor, some shoes. I wouldn’t have to go back to the dorm for my things.
When we walked in the door, Abigail was waiting up for us in the living room. She’d had a fire going, but it had faded down to embers.
“Jamie,” she said, and pulled me into a tight hug. “You’re okay. Thank God. And you—”
My father said, “Hello to you too.”
“Will you tell me next time? Instead of leaving me a note saying, J in trouble, be home late, and then not answering any of my texts?”
“I’m sorry, things moved very fast.” There wasn’t a lot of apology in his apology. “Can we talk about this tomorrow? I don’t want to wake up the kids.”
“It’s fine, they haven’t seen you in days anyway.” Abigail tugged on her nightgown. “Sorry, Jamie, I’m exhausted, and this—anyway. Go to bed. We’ll figure it out.”
“Your mum’s coming in,” he said to me. “I spoke to her earlier. She changed her tickets, she and Shelby—we’ll figure out lodgings. Maybe you on the couch? We can talk more about it tomorrow.”
“You talked to Grace tonight and not me?” Abigail said.
I took that as my cue to go upstairs.
They kept on quarreling quietly, the sound creeping up the stairs as I got myself ready for bed. My father wasn’t an award-winning parent, to be sure, but I’d thought he’d grown out of some of his shittier habits. No matter how much I’d fantasized as a kid that he would give up Abigail and America and come back to us in London, it wasn’t anything I wanted from him now. I’d wondered a little how he was keeping up with his work or the house or his two little kids, what with all the traipsing around with Leander, but my father was an adult, and as far as I knew, adults worked those things out.
I guess my father hadn’t.
I fell into an uneasy sleep, and when I woke, it was late morning, the day half-started already. A kettle was whistling downstairs and the door to my room was open. In the kitchen, Abigail was nowhere to be found. Malcolm, my toddler brother, was missing too, and my father, and Robbie, who was school-aged. Was it a school day? I was too tired to remember.
In lieu of any members of my family, Leander was perched at the counter, scrolling through a news site on his tablet. His dress shirt was pressed, and he was freshly shaved. “Good morning, troublemaker,” he said.
“Please tell me that’s not going to be my nickname.” He’d switched off the whistling kettle, but the water was still hot. I made myself a cup of tea. “Though I guess I’m a wanted thief. And possible ‘druggist,’ if the dean has me pegged right.”
“How much of it do you think is Lucien?” Leander asked, setting down the tablet.
“The paintings, for sure. My father filled you in on that?” At his nod, I said, “I thought at first the phone call from the shop was Lucien toying with me. Like, showing how easily he could reach into my life, and how he had the power to fix it, if he were inclined to. But it turned out to be Lena Gupta instead,
getting me off the hook.”
“I always liked that girl,” he said.
“Yeah, Lena’s great.” I leaned back against the counter. “As for the rest of it—my dad doesn’t know this, but the laptop sabotage? Someone emailed Elizabeth, pretending to be me, and asked her to be there for it. And for the party, too.”
Leander nodded. “Do you want to walk me through it?”
“All of it?”
“I could help.”
“And you won’t tell my dad?”
He hesitated. “No. I’ll let you do that. Deal?”
“Deal.”
He picked up his tablet again. “Let’s start with times, if you have them, and places, and where everyone was when it happened.” When I finished, he said, “My thoughts: we’ll approach the problem from two separate sides. If you feel comfortable asking questions around your school, I’ll keep on with my investigation in the city. I have an appointment today I’d like to keep.”
“Is my father coming?” I asked.
Leander looked uncomfortable. “He and Abigail are taking a day,” he said. “It’s important, especially with your family coming in, that the two of them have a moment alone to . . . recalibrate.”
“Oh.” I studied him for a moment, the man I’d come to think of as my own uncle. He had a careless sort of elegance that he wore like a cloak, and every now and then, if he let you get close enough, you saw how deliberately it had been woven, what he hid beneath it. “Has this happened before?”
Leander hadn’t ever been one to mince words with me. “With your mother, quite a few times. Never before with Abigail. If this isn’t settled soon, I’ll go back to London and try to do my part from there. I . . . might be putting some strain on the situation.”
When I called up an image of my father in my head, he was cheerfully rumpled, in his usual corduroy and blazer, and in that imagining, he was never alone. Leander Holmes was there beside him. Not my mother and not Abigail, but his best friend, one I’d only known in person now for a year. But I’d never really considered what a problem that would be for the woman my father was married to. When your life was split that way, how could you ever have everything?