to their core. Would Bernard know what you looked like?
Every feeling of guilt rose to the surface yet again. Until the magic of the symphony, I’d felt inklings of this the past two days and had restrained it as best I could, distracted myself with sight-seeing and fine whiskey. I’d been in the field of criminal justice for far too long. I knew when the facts presented to you, the story you told yourself, no longer made sense. It happened all the time at the Bureau; for whatever reason, an agent would latch onto a potential suspect even as their viability unraveled in the most obvious ways. The story no longer matched the facts.
And these were the hard facts: in four days, a priceless collection of Doyle’s papers would be auctioned off at London’s premier auction house. Years ago, Bernard had desperately wanted to own Doyle’s papers, and they were taken from him, publicly. Louisa had dispatched a private detective to track down her former employee. The moment I met with one of Bernard’s closest colleagues, Eudora, and gave her the Reichenbach Falls code word, Sloane and I were almost drugged and attacked in an alley.
There was another problematic detail I hadn’t mentioned to Sloane at that pub. I couldn’t trust what I’d seen because the alley had been dark, and my recollection was hazy. But the man, the attacker, was giant and broad and had a military-style haircut. Plenty of men fit that description. As did the Dresden guards, the rich-and-shady security company used by the famous heiress Victoria Whitney, Bernard, and The Empty House.
On stage, the musicians began filing back into their seats. The lights flicked once, twice.
And I seriously considered stepping out of the Royal Opera House and calling my team.
We’d followed hunches before—most notably Delilah, who correctly guessed that Victoria had stolen a priceless artifact from The Franklin Museum. That had been pure intuition, and I’d been happy to trust her bloodhound instincts. All four of them would be here in an instant.
Distracted, I leaned forward in my seat, elbows on my knees. The musicians were picking up bows and arranging string instruments. The conductor walked out to applause and the remaining patrons sat back in their seats.
Would Bernard Allerton know what I looked like?
I swiped my thumb across my phone, pictured flying my team out here only to have us lose Bernard for the fourth fucking time. I winced inwardly, remembering how cheerfully Sloane had called my bluff. You are full of shit. This woman barely knew me, yet she could sense my desperation for vengeance regardless of how forcefully I denied it.
My father had been like this, even before he’d walked out the door that fateful night. He was vindictive and imperious, always needing to get what he wanted regardless of the harm it caused in the process.
The not-Sloane woman sat down in her seat. I caught her giving me a strange look. I settled back, let out an exhale as the cello released a note of sweet melancholy.
I deserved this vacation. I deserved this time. Louisa had moved on and hired Sloane Argento, who would probably be the person to actually capture Bernard. Whatever dreams I’d entertained of being the one needed to be let go of once and for all.
14
Sloane
Forty-eight hours after leaving Abe in that tiny pub, and I was back in it. I was on day two of a long and boring stakeout. And the skies above threatened thunderstorms. I had a troubling and total fear of thunder—a bone-deep, primal reaction that led me to shake and panic. London had been rainy and dreary, but I’d avoided a thunderstorm so far.
I swallowed around a lump of nerves and nursed my martini.
The long and boring stakeout had started yesterday afternoon. In the morning I’d woken energized and focused. And whatever strong feelings of longing or lust I might have felt for my hotel-room-neighbor I mentally crushed with my stiletto-heeled boot.
I had nine days left, a fact Louisa made sure to remind me of when I called to check in with her that morning. The auction of Arthur Conan Doyle’s private papers was in four days. Abe had offered little in usable information, and so I went back to my first juicy clue: the bartender.
If my instincts were correct, the bartender and the Big Guy who had attacked us were working together. Find one, find the other, find out who was paying them to scare and threaten two private detectives searching for