A Study in Seduction

by Eva Chase

  And then he stayed there. Balls deep inside me, he eased his head back just far enough to meet my eyes. A strange tenderness had come over his face. My gut twisted.

  That kind of look didn’t have any place here. There was nothing like a hint of sappiness to ruin the mood.

  I tilted forward, bringing my lips to his ear. “Fuck me,” I said. “Fuck me until I can’t see straight.”

  He exhaled with a stutter and started thrusting, harder and faster as I bucked to meet him. Oh, yes, this was what I needed. His thumb worked over my stiffened nipple, and his mouth crashed against mine, and for a few fleeting minutes everything in the world fell away except the swell of ecstasy building between my thighs.

  He was awfully good at the whole fucking thing. Maybe we’d get the chance to take a second spin at it.

  The pleasure sang through my nerves. I dug my fingers into Garrett’s muscled back as my vision blurred. Then the searing sensation burst with a blissful shudder.

  As I clenched around Garrett, he groaned and pounded into me a few more times. His breath hitched out of him as he came. I touched his cheek and drew him in for one more kiss.

  Mine, I thought as my lips branded his. From now until I’m done here, you’re mine.

  Chapter Seven

  Jemma

  The smell dragged me out of sleep—a parched scent carrying a taint of sickly decay, like bones flecked with flesh so ancient it’d rotted right into dust. I opened my eyes with the side of my face still burrowed into the pillow.

  Bog’s depthless mist of a face was hovering beside the bed just a few feet away. My pulse lurched. If I’d been anyone other than Jemma Moriarty, I would have screamed. As it was, I had to clamp my jaw tight.

  The shrouded one would probably have liked it if I’d screamed. There wasn’t any good reason for Bog to be lurking around watching me sleep.

  I pushed myself upright in the hotel bed—my own, since staying in Garrett’s would have skewed the feelings I was encouraging him to develop too far in the wrong direction. “Good morning to you too, Bog,” I said flatly. “Get a good eyeful of my bedhead?” I fluffed my rumpled hair and resisted the urge to scratch at the mark on the back of my neck, which was itching at the shrouded one’s presence.

  Bog shifted. The floating swaths of white that shrouded it stirred as if in an underwater current. “In case you were starting to forget,” it said in its husk of a voice. “Twenty-six days.”

  “Thank you so much for the reminder.”

  The shrouded one didn’t answer, just faded from sight, leaving only that repulsive smell. I rubbed my nose. It was hard to imagine that I’d lived fourteen years immersed in the stink of the shrouded folk, barely noticing it.

  The human body could adapt to an awful lot.

  So much for my Fibonacci deterrent. I fiddled with the papers and bottles and added a handful of spare change to the sequence on the dresser, but who was I kidding? Bog had waited ten years to claim his reward. He was chomping at the bit to gobble me up. A little discomfort wasn’t going to hold him back from his gloating.

  Laying out the pattern did make me feel a little more in control, though, so I finished tweaking it anyway. Then I dug a sugar cube out of the baggie I kept in my purse and sucked on its clarifying sweetness while I got dressed.

  Alerts on one of my phones informed me that the payments Bash had mentioned had gone through. Good—I wouldn’t have to send him to crack any heads. My business was simple: I gave select criminal collectives a leg up with the insight and connections I’d cultivated over the years, helped keep the cops off their back as need be, and in thanks they passed on a nice percentage of their earnings. The arrangement worked out well for both sides as long as they held up their end.

  Breakfast beckoned. Because Bog had woken me up earlier than usual, I was already through two cinnamon buns and one cup of coffee when my trio drifted into the dining room.

  Sherlock came first, with an energetic stride and a brisk nod to me, emanating the air of a man about to get things done. As he shoveled eggs and ham onto his plate to join his toast, John ambled over and filled a bowl with cereal. They fell into step together as they approached my table, John grinning and giving his walking stick a quick flourish when he saw me watching. If yesterday’s work had run him down, he appeared to have fully recovered.

  The sweetness of the pastries lingered in my mouth. I smiled at both of them with nothing but genuine good will in my heart for that brief moment.

  Garrett hustled in a minute later. His shoulders were already a little high, but they twitched up even more the second he glanced toward the table the three of us were sharing. I pretended to be absorbed in the last bite of my cinnamon bun so he wouldn’t feel any need to make an immediate gesture of acknowledgement.

  As he moved along the buffet, he appeared to get control of himself. He sauntered over to join us with a casual bob of his head and only the faintest flush in his cheeks. With extreme care, he didn’t let his gaze linger on me any longer than on my companions.

  “Good morning,” he said evenly, and busied himself with his hash browns.

  I licked sugar glaze off my fingers, suppressing my amusement. I’d had a feeling Garrett Lestrade was the type to get awkward the morning after. Did he think his colleagues would be able to sense what had happened between us? Was he afraid he’d overstepped some unspoken boundary?

  It actually was somewhat possible that Sherlock would deduce what we’d gotten up to after he and John had left last night. He studied Garrett as the shorter man gulped his coffee. I didn’t imagine he’d be particularly disturbed by that development, but Garrett might be by him knowing. The easiest way to redirect the one detective and reassure the other was to leap back into the case as if nothing at all had changed.

  “Any responses to last night’s inquiries?” I asked the table at large.

  Of course, Sherlock was the one with a ready answer. “A contact of mine confirmed that Richter left by plane on the night of the murder from a private airfield near Freising, with a few crates of artistic artifacts as cargo. It seems he likes to show off his collection. He arranged an exhibit of the more valuable historic pieces in a gallery in Munich, like the one he’s set up here in London.”

  Oh, excellent. I’d carefully nudged Sherlock toward that angle last night with an off-hand comment here and there.

  “Were there any witnesses who could vouch for what time he got to the airfield and when the plane left?” I asked.

  “I believe so,” Sherlock said. “Richter has a manager who handles most of the logistics for his showings. It appears they both normally travel alongside the art when it’s transported.”

  “You have the whole case wrapped up already, don’t you?” Garrett said, but his tone was more wry than bitter. He was still avoiding looking too long in my direction, but perhaps the fun we’d had last night had loosened him up all the same now that he could see I wasn’t going to make a big thing of it.

  “The course of justice is rarely so smooth,” Sherlock said, flexing his lithe hands. He sounded as if he enjoyed the prospect of a longer chase now that he felt he was on the right trail. “To speak to this manager, I need to track the man down, and he keeps himself rather incognito. But I managed to procure a photograph, and my Irregulars are on the look-out. I’d be surprised if they don’t locate him before the end of the day.”

  “Irregulars?” I said.

  John motioned to Sherlock with an amused look. “He’s got a squad of delinquent youth who are happy to be his eyes and ears for a couple tenners when he needs them. The kinds of people we’re often tracking down might dodge us, but they aren’t so cautious around a kid shooting hoops or rambling around the streets.”

  “Over time I’ve narrowed them down to quite an effective force,” Sherlock added.

  Garrett glanced up at the ceiling. “I’m definitely not hearing any of this.”

  No, I supposed Scotland Yard might not approve of paying off street kids to
act as unofficial informants. I’d gleaned some hints of that practice in my prep work, but I hadn’t realized how organized Sherlock was in his marshalling of the resource. It really was a brilliant strategy, I’d give him that. And useful to know for my various other business endeavors.

  Sherlock leaned his elbows onto the table. “In the meantime, I’ll delve further into Richter’s other recent dealings. Who knows what fruit that will bear?” A delighted smile crossed his face at the prospect.

  “How historic are the artifacts he includes in his exhibit?” I asked. Best if Sherlock kept the art aspect at the front of his mind. “Does he even have the right to own all of them?”

  “I’d bet he acquired some of those through questionable methods,” Garrett put in. “He just always produces convincing enough papers if anyone questions him. We won’t get far with that angle if no one involved in the acquisition is willing to talk.”

  Sherlock waved his fork in the air, his eyes lit with enthusiasm. “It’s disappointing, really, that collectors focus on the aesthetic side of history when the antiquities are rife with real innovations. Take the Rama Empire, for example—when do they get credit for their civil engineering that in many ways puts our own to shame? Perfectly ordered roads, and plumbing all through every building. Do you know, there are archeologists who claim they had no concept of social class?”

  He chattered on in a smooth and lively tone, the total opposite of the distant sullen mood I’d first found him in at dinner last night. The great Sherlock Holmes was a study in contrasts. Who would have thought he’d have read up on obscure ancient civilizations? I supposed he absorbed whatever struck his fancy—and once absorbed, facts stuck in that mind of his forever.

  Imagine how quickly we could have conquered everything ahead of us working together if we really had the same goals. Instead I had to guide the knife of his mind indirectly, always a hair away from slicing my own fingers off.

  John nodded along and interjected a question now and then to encourage his friend onward. A person would have had to be blind not to see the admiration that practically shone off him as he watched Sherlock. I almost wondered if it was more than admiration. Not that I’d seen any reason to believe the two had a more intimate relationship… but that didn’t mean the desire wasn’t there, admitted or not. For all his brilliance, I didn’t think Sherlock had picked up on that.

  A rising murmur in the dining room broke through Sherlock’s sparkling commentary. He trailed off at the same moment as I glanced around. The people at the tables around us were peering up over our heads with puzzled expressions that ranged between awed and frightened. I jerked my gaze upward.

  Fucking hell. The light between the two fixtures on either side of us was flowing in a stream across the ceiling like a strip of cloth blown by the wind. Like several strips, actually, weaving together and fraying apart with an eerie shuddering. My skin crawled at the sight, and I at least knew where it came from. The mark on my neck pinched.

  Stalking me in my sleep hadn’t been enough for Bog this morning. The shrouded one had decided to put on a light show for the whole conference.

  My trio was staring up at the display too, Garrett paling, John wide-eyed, Sherlock frowning. The last thing I needed was them wondering whether their new colleague had brought some sort of unearthly influence down on them.

  A ghost of an impression whispered through my nerves, taking me back to the wrenching moment of pure icy panic when I’d discovered where all my childhood ambitions had been leading me and where they’d lead my sister too if I couldn’t find a way out. When I’d seen that our parents and all the other adults in the cult of the shrouded folk were whipping us toward earning not some exhilarating honor but our deaths. We were sacrificial lambs vying for the slaughter.

  It’d felt as if my whole life were slipping from my fingers too fast for me to catch it—but I had caught it. I’d bent circumstances to my control, and I’d kept doing that, over and over, to get to this moment right now. The shrouded folk might have won more than I could ever accept, but they’d lose in the end.

  I clamped down on the panicked sensation with an iron grip. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” I said, aiming for the dismissive attitude I’d seen Sherlock take on more than once. “The electrical systems act up for a minute, and the whole room devolves into a tizzy. The greatest analytical minds in the world, huh?”

  “Indeed.” Sherlock looked a bit distracted, but he drew his gaze away with a shake of his head. “The undisciplined human mind does love to leap to fantastical assumptions about the most mundane phenomena.” His gaze fell on me for a moment as if considering my expression. I kept it as bland as possible.

  To my relief, the light show was petering out as if to support my dismissal. Bog was really pushing the limits creating an effect that visible.

  The shrouded one knew I was up to something. It hated the thought that I might slip from its grasp after all the time spent waiting, after the wrath it’d risked making the deal with me in the first place. So now Bog was pulling out all the stops to throw me off.

  Too bad for it I was already three steps ahead.

  My pulse beat a little faster as I caught John’s eye across the table. He shot me a smile. “Apparently we needed some more excitement around here. The organizers should consider fireworks next year.”

  Or we could make a few of our own. I smiled back, grazing my fingers over my cheek.

  John Watson might already be hooked on Sherlock, but I intended to hook him too. And after that little display, I meant to lock him down fast.

  Chapter Eight

  John

  I’d had to accept, living and working with Sherlock, that he only revealed his plan and prep-work on a need to know basis. Unless he was fully confident that he was on the right track and that sharing the information wouldn’t jeopardize his mission, even I wouldn’t hear a peep.

  I suspected he also enjoyed seeing the looks on people’s faces when he unraveled an entire scheme with one grand flourish.

  In any case, he hadn’t needed me for whatever he was up to this morning, so I figured I might as well make the most of the conference we’d meant to attend. I was studying the schedule in the program booklet when an unassuming fellow with dark dreadlocks and startlingly blue eyes stopped beside me. He cleared his throat apologetically.

  “Could you point me in the direction of Banquet Room B, mate?” he said with a mild Australian accent. “I seem to keep getting turned around.”

  “Let me have a look.” I flipped to the map and tapped the right spot. “I was in there for a talk a couple days ago. It’s just down this hall here and to your left around the corner.”

  “Thank you so much! I don’t want to miss a word of Dr. Tanaka’s talk—she’s always leaps and bounds ahead of the rest when it comes to anything DNA.”

  He saluted me and loped off down the hall. I watched him go and grabbed my walking stick from where I’d leaned it against the wall. The bodily side of forensics was the one area where I could occasionally offer more insight than Sherlock. With a recommendation like that, how could I skip this talk?

  Plenty of other attendees had felt the same way. When I reached the hall, one minute before the presentation was due to start, it took me a moment to spot an open seat in the rows of chairs. My gaze snagged on a now-familiar fall of ruddy hair halfway down. Jemma had decided to sit in on this session too—and no one had claimed the seat at the end of the row next to her.

  I hustled over just fast enough to provoke a faint twinge in my hip and sank into the chair. “Brushing up on the forensic sciences too?” I said teasingly. “Are you working toward the day when you can run circles around even Sherlock?”

  Jemma laughed. “I’m not quite that ambitious. But it seems to me I’m better off filling in the gaps in my knowledge than listening to people explain what I already know.”

  I wondered if she realized what a Sherlockian thing that was to say. My heart beat a little faster just sitting
next to her, for reasons I didn’t see any need to examine too closely. She was a pretty woman. She was an intelligent woman. There’d have been something wrong with me if I hadn’t felt a brief crackle of attraction.

  I might have asked more about what experience she did have on the forensic side, limited or no, but our speaker stepped up to the podium.

  The Australian fellow hadn’t steered me wrong. Dr. Tanaka breezed through several recent developments in DNA collection and testing—most of which I hadn’t understood in a great deal of depth and a couple of which I hadn’t been aware of at all—with crisp enthusiasm and a knack for translating the concepts into laymen’s terms. The non-experts in the crowd should have been able to follow along without any trouble.

  Jemma leaned forward, watching the doctor avidly. She wasn’t taking notes like many of the attendees around us, but I had the feeling that sharp mind of hers was absorbing everything.

  Sherlock didn’t like to take notes either. He said it distracted from really hearing what a person was saying, with both their words and their behavior.

  My memory wasn’t quite on par with his, so when Dr. Tanaka launched into her top tips for officers on the scene, I jotted those down in my case journal. Anything I could contribute to wrapping up our cases faster, I wanted to absorb.

  I left the seminar with Jemma a little lighter on my feet, eager to put the new techniques to the test. Too bad in our current case the victim and all available concrete evidence lay hundreds of miles away.

  “That was inspiring, wasn’t it?” Jemma said. “The intersection of science and policing—it’s getting harder for criminals to cover their tracks all the time.”

  “Yes!” I said with a grin. “And it gives medical professionals a way to be useful on the crime-solving side of things. Although I can’t see the kind of detective work Sherlock and Garrett do ever becoming less valuable.”