“Bollocks. Sorry to vent and run, but off I go. Hope I don’t bore this enchantress to tears.”
With a rather saucy wink, Humphrey left Abe and me fairly surprised.
“So… you read Hound of the Baskervilles ten times?” Abe asked, facing me.
“Not a lie actually,” I said. “I am a fan.”
“When I was in high school, I read A Study in Scarlett every night for a week,” he said. He was being honest, I could tell.
“You would look handsome holding a pipe,” I said.
“So what are you doing taking these gents to tea, Ms. Atwood?” he asked, voice light.
“Jealous?”
“Hardly.”
“Shall I take you to tea?”
“Now that,” he said, “would make Humphrey jealous.”
I cracked a big smile before I could help it.
“Truly enchanting,” Abe said, so softly I almost missed it. The lights dimmed, and Humphrey took the stage, practically by force. He gripped the podium to hoots and cheers and slightly rowdy clapping.
“Keep it friendly now,” Humphrey mock chided. He towered on the stage. It was impossible to picture him being friends with Bernie. Especially since Bernard’s characteristics—from what I could tell—so successfully mimicked my parents. ‘Friends’ were steppingstones, marks to be used to gain entry to whatever dodgy world they were attempting to gain access to. Humphrey didn’t have the look of a steppingstone. He was solid, happy, and he cared for Bernard. And seemed as confused as Abe at Bernard’s whereabouts.
“Like many of us in this room,” Humphrey began, “I despise modern technology, and proudly. And nowhere is that more evident than when I am entrenched in Victorian London, following Holmes and Watson to St. Bart’s Hospital or the Café Royal. Deduction was the key, listening was the key. Paying bloody attention. Our universe is much too clever, much too complicated, for our connections to each other to be arbitrary.”
Next to me, Abe shifted an inch closer until our arms brushed. Bathed in darkness, it was harder to resist the primal pull the man evoked in me. He was temptation personified.
“Don’t place too much faith in the strange coincidences, the déjà vu, the dreams that bear a startling likeness to our reality. Doyle wanted us to know these things are never, ever random. They are vital, they are connectors, they are the truth.” With a rather wolfish grin, Humphrey stared right at Abe and me, drifting against each other in the sea of Holmes fanatics. “The people we meet are all part of the universe’s plan.”
Abe Royal dropped his mouth against my ear. I swallowed a gasp. The feeling was too seductive—the hint of breath, the suggestion of teeth, his raspy voice. “You must be part of the universe’s plan, Ms. Atwood.”
“Because I happen to be staying in the hotel room right next to yours?” I replied, voice shaky.
“No.” He growled softly. “Because, like Doyle, I don’t believe in bloody coincidences, either. If the queen of lies is going to pick my pockets and follow me around London, there’s a reason for it. And I aim to find out why.”
I turned my head to gaze up at him. With a slight smirk and a tilt to his brow, his face said Gotcha.
Mouse, meet cat.
10
Abe
Humphrey Hatcher, Bernard’s oldest friend, gave a powerful speech at the podium in front of us. Bernie’s friend. Was it possible there was someone in Bernard’s life that loved him like a friend…and had no idea he was a criminal mastermind? Although I shouldn’t have been shocked. Henry had been his colleague and confidant, and the man had concealed his true nature easily.
Next to me, the woman who had been charming the members of the Sherlock Society scooped her long, jet-black hair over her left shoulder, exposing the elegant line of her throat, the arch of her high cheekbones. These things are never, ever random.
Her dramatic appearance in my life was definitely not random. She was a lying, clever pickpocket who had tailed me from The Langham Hotel to the Sherlock Society building with the skill of a federal agent.
I’d only caught her because I was a former federal agent.
A queen of lies. A breathtakingly beautiful one. I’d been far too tempted to brush my lips along her temple when I’d whispered in her ear; instead, I’d soothed myself with a deep inhale of her scent. Earthy, rich, mysterious. Before the lights had dimmed, I’d caught the freckles that decorated the bridge of her nose, barely visible against her warm skin.
Uncovering the mystery of Devon Atwood felt like a critical clue, positively screaming in my face. The