by Eva Chase
Thompson walked on, but I heard the tap of his loafers stop just around the corner of the hall. He’d bumped into one of our other constables, because a moment later their hushed voices reached my ears. I went still to pick up the words.
“…at it again,” Thompson was murmuring. “As if he can ever prove he deserved to rise that fast.”
“I bet it’s one of Holmes’s whims he’s off on anyway,” said a voice I recognized as DC Quimble. She made a scoffing sound. “He wouldn’t have gotten anywhere otherwise. That’s all he does, really—follow the real detective around like a dog.”
My shoulders came up instinctively. I dragged in a breath and closed my eyes for a second, jerking my mind back to yesterday evening in Sherlock’s flat. To Jemma’s obvious concern for us and the suggestions she’d made about the shrouded folk misleading our senses.
Surely Thompson and Quimble wouldn’t really carry on like that while I was just around the corner. Thompson had always made a show of friendliness when I was around. Maybe they were talking and some magic was altering their words. Maybe he hadn’t even lingered at all and it was a complete hallucination.
I wasn’t going to dignify the trick with any acknowledgment. I just had to tune it out and focus on what was important.
I clicked on my track pad, sifting through the files and photographs I’d already accumulated in my file on Tillhouse. Technically I was supposed to be working an extortion case, but I figured saving the world from demonic fiends ought to come first. I’d done some legwork on the other case this morning.
At the desk across from mine, DI Iversley started jiggling his foot. At least, that’s what I assumed he was doing. Something, presumably his knee, thumped against the bottom of his desk, making it rattle. That sound was nearly as nerve-wracking as the conversation I was now ignoring.
Someone else in the office was chewing gum incredibly loudly. My fingers twitched as I typed in a search term. Dear Lord, was all of Scotland Yard out to piss me off today? Apparently I should have brought earplugs if I wanted to get anything done.
Of course, the earplugs might not have done a thing if it was all fiendish magic seeping straight into my head.
Maybe it was the chill of that thought throwing me off, or maybe it was simply the culmination of all the irritants that seemed to have battered me at once. One of my colleagues slipped between the cubicles behind me with a muttered, “Bloody minging arsehole,” that was clearly directed my way, and I found myself springing to my feet.
“Shut the fuck up,” I snapped as I spun on the speaker.
The speaker who, from the look on the young constable’s face, hadn’t said anything at all. Everyone around us stared at me. Including—just my luck—the chief, who I hadn’t noticed stepping out of his office.
Bloody hell.
“Lestrade!” he barked. “A word, please?”
I strode over, trying to look nonchalant even though my face was burning. Chief Higgins ushered me into his office. He didn’t bother sitting down, just turned to look at me the second he’d closed the door, folding his arms over his chest.
“What the hell has gotten into you, DI?” he said.
“I apologize,” I said quickly. “I was overly focused on a case and a little frustrated, and I must have misheard something.”
“You should apologize to Kim,” Higgins said. “As soon as you go back out there, preferably. And what is this case that’s got you so frustrated? From what I saw this morning, everything’s on track with that extortion situation.”
I hesitated, and his eyes narrowed. “You’re handling something else for Holmes, aren’t you?”
“You’ve always said that you appreciate the strong working partnership we’ve developed,” I said.
The chief sighed. “I do—when he’s helping you with our cases. If he’s seen some illegal activity that requires this much of your attention, he needs to bring it to us and get it officially on file. I can’t have one of my best investigators going around the office with a storm cloud over his head for any longer. Drop whatever you’re doing for him and stick to your assignment. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” I said. Fucking shrouded folk worming their way inside my head. Even knowing they were doing it, I’d let them get to me too much, and now I was in hot water. “I’ll get right on that, sir.”
“You’d better. I’m going to be keeping a closer eye on you until I’m sure you’re back on track. Now get on with it.”
I ducked back out of his office, hurried over to the newbie constable to offer a hasty but genuine apology, and then sank into my chair at my desk.
I couldn’t hear anyone talking about me now, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t imagining the fact that many wary glances were being shot my way. I’d made myself look like a fool, shouting like that, and now everyone knew I’d been sanctioned too. Bloody fuck on a fucking bloody cracker.
It was all right. I wasn’t losing it. I’d just had a momentary slip. The kind of slip I’d managed to control before it got too bad plenty of times in the past—as recently as yesterday afternoon.
My mind slid back to that violent impulse that had come over me in the parking lot, and to Jemma, afterward, asking what had been going on. She hadn’t looked horrified when I’d told her what I’d thought about doing, the way anyone here in the office would have. She’d only showed concern as she tried to figure out what might have been affecting me. It’d been obvious to her that something beyond my normal instincts had been driving me.
It was ridiculous, wasn’t it? The person in my life who understood and accepted me most was a criminal mastermind who’d broken God only knew how many laws. But that was the size of it. Even now, my fingers itched to reach for my phone, to reach out to her, to reset my balance.
A strange giddy ache spread through my chest. Ridiculous or not, we’d been through a hell of a lot together. I’d tried to keep my distance after the way she’d tricked us when she’d first been in London, but it hadn’t worked. She drew me in far too easily. And I wasn’t sure anymore that I minded. She might be a criminal, but she had better intentions and loftier goals than most of the police officers I’d met.
What was the point in denying it? I was falling for her. Hook, line, and sinker. I couldn’t even blame it on her wiles, not really. I didn’t think she wanted my adoration. She’d never shown any interest in a real romance.
That was fine. I’d simply feel what I felt and see where it took me. And in the meantime, I was going to find something on this bastard Tillhouse for her mission, no matter what the chief had said.
I took a surreptitious glance around to make sure no one could see my computer screen and then went back to the file I’d been sorting through earlier. The only real blank in Tillhouse’s life was his childhood. People didn’t erase their pasts unless there was something they didn’t want discovered, did they? If I just found the right way to dig…
I paused on Tillhouse’s year 10 school photograph. His name hadn’t gotten me anywhere in my searches. Using our latest facial recognition software, I’d found a few new articles on him that’d been buried in the search results, but I’d offered it recent photographs for that. His adult face had changed a fair bit since his youth. What if I popped this one in?
The facial recognition searches took a while, skimming through the whole internet. I sat back in my chair as the wheel spun, still keeping a close eye on my surroundings, and popped open the paperwork for the extortion case so at least I’d look like I was working on the right thing.
Finally, an alert popped up that the results were ready. I leaned forward to peer at the screen.
The first few were photos I’d already seen from Tillhouse’s later school years. Then a slightly grainy shot from a newspaper article came up. I froze in my seat.
It was Tillhouse, all right. The same high forehead and smooth straight hair, the same chiseled chin. He was being clutched to the side of a woman in a group photo with a couple of other families. I’d have g
uessed he was twelve or thirteen from the looks of him.
Con artists pull off massive bank scam, the article’s headline read. A group of grifters had gotten together to arrange to steal a few million dollars from one of the top banks, apparently. They’d nearly managed it, too—and partly with the boy’s help. He’d staged a distraction, pretending to be sick, at a key moment.
But one of the guards had realized something was wrong at the last second, and interrupted the grifters before they’d finished their ploy with the accounts. One husband and wife, according to the article, had offered their testimony in exchange for immunity.
The pieces clicked into place in my head. The couple must have been Tillhouse’s parents, or he’d have had a juvenile record he couldn’t simply have walked away from. No wonder he—maybe the whole family—had changed their name, though. They wouldn’t have wanted this attempted crime hanging over their heads.
He’d hidden it awfully deep. It might take some convincing for anyone to believe that the boy in the photo was him after all. But if anyone was good at convincing people, it was Jemma Moriarty.
A smile crossed my lips as I saved the article for future sharing. My colleagues could say whatever they wanted about me, real or imaginary. I got the answers I needed because I was damned dogged about it, not because I’d ridden on anyone’s coattails. I’d just proven once more why I’d been the youngest officer promoted to detective inspector in decades.
Now I just had to hope that the lead I’d found would be enough to get rid of Tillhouse and whatever monstrous plans he was an accomplice to now.
Chapter Fifteen
Jemma
“It was ages ago,” Garrett said when I looked up from the article he’d printed out for me. “But it’ll set a sort of precedent in the public eye about Tillhouse’s behavior—make it more believable if we expose him for something similar.”
I rested my arm along the top of my apartment’s sofa and raised an eyebrow at Garrett. “But we haven’t found anything similar recently to expose him for, have we?”
The embarrassed look that came over his boyish face was rather adorable. “I thought… I don’t want to know how you do it; I don’t want to be involved in that side of things at all… but you did arrange for one man to be arrested and likely sentenced for a crime he didn’t commit a few months ago. We can’t take Tillhouse down for helping your fiends, so it seems fair to manufacture a real crime to have justice done.”
“And to clear our way.” I glanced at the grainy photograph on the printout again. The man that boy had become appeared to be interfering with our best efforts to learn more about the Highlands sect of the cult we’d seen some initial signs of. Our additional investigations had produced very little information—not enough to narrow down the location in a helpful way. Records were missing. The local police had balked at helping even Sherlock Holmes. I sensed the influence of a powerful figure there.
And in a year or so, Tillhouse might be the highest authority in this entire country.
I inhaled the crisply clean air of the apartment into my lungs, willing that unnerving thought away. What Garrett had turned up was perfect. As he’d said, it gave us plausibility to make up another crime the MP was connected to. I didn’t know if people would open up more if we discredited him, but at least we wouldn’t have whatever unknown threat he presented hanging over our heads.
“It’s perfect,” I said, setting the printout on the coffee table. “And impressive work finding it. More and more I wonder how I ever expected to pull off this mission without your help.”
Garrett grinned, but a nervous glint had come into his eyes. There’d been a new awkwardness to his demeanor, subtle but detectable, from the moment he’d come in. Possibly lingering shame over the incident in the parking lot yesterday? He didn’t think I thought less of him for that, did he?
“Jemma,” he said, “I—”
A knock on the door interrupted him. I held up my hand. “Just a second. That’ll be Bash.”
Garrett blinked at me as I got up. “I didn’t know he was coming.”
“Bash is my go-between for all dealings with characters much more unsavory than me.” I winked at him. “If we’re going to be doing things you don’t want us telling you about, I’m going to need him here to strategize. And it won’t be the sort of strategizing we’d want on any phone record.”
“Right. Of course.”
He didn’t look incredibly pleased about Bash’s arrival, but I supposed I couldn’t blame him when the trio had been faced with the business end of my hitman’s gun that once—and also Bash had continued to be testier than usual with the three of them lately. He definitely hadn’t escaped the shrouded folk’s influence. I’d have bet good money they’d been working on him somehow or other.
That knowledge made my jaw clench on the way to the door, but I managed to relax my expression before I turned the handle. “Come on in,” I said to Bash. “We’ve got lots to do. Garrett brought me a wonderful present.”
Bash gave the cop a look that couldn’t be interpreted as anything other than skeptical. Garrett had tensed a little on the couch. I suppressed a frown as I returned to take my seat, Bash following me and dropping into one of the armchairs. This alliance we’d formed had worked to my benefit in all sorts of ways, but it could turn catastrophic if too much friction developed between the men around me.
“Sorry,” I said to Garrett. “Before Bash and I get down to business, there was something else you wanted to tell me?”
The detective inspector hesitated, his gaze twitching to Bash and back to me. “It was something I only wanted to talk to you about. If we could have a moment—or it can wait—”
Bash cleared his throat ominously as Garrett moved to get up. “Anything you’d say to Jemma you can say in front of me,” he said.
I shot him a chiding glance, and he eased back in his chair with just a hint of chagrin. “It’s up to you,” I said to Garrett. “But I think we should get in the habit of being more open with each other—all of us—unless it’s information that would implicate us in a problematic way. And anything along that line that you tell me I’d tell Bash about anyway. You can trust him.”
“It’s nothing like that.” Garrett had stayed on the sofa, but his posture was still tense. He seemed to gather himself, a hint of steel coming into his eyes. “Fine. He might as well hear it too. You’ve both trusted me enough to let me in on your crazy secret, and— I just want to know that you know who I am.”
Bash looked as though he’d restrained an eye roll. I was pretty sure there wasn’t anything Garrett could tell me that would shock me, but he was welcome to try. I scooted a little closer and patted his knee. “Go ahead.”
Garrett held my gaze. “What happened in the parking lot yesterday—there were times when I was younger that I went through with acts like that. I told you before that I did some rotten things to my older brothers out of jealousy when I was younger, and I didn’t mean simple pranks. I sabotaged a school project Mike had spent days working on, I let out one of their pets and because of that it got killed, I messed with Carl’s shoes before he had a practice and they tripped him up so badly he broke his leg…”
I waited until I was sure he was done. “Is that the worst of it?” I said with a wry but gentle smile.
“It was bad,” Garrett insisted, with enough pain in his expression that I knew he felt the remorse all the way down to his bones. “It took seeing one of my brothers in the bloody hospital before I realized how far I’d gone off the rails.”
“You were a kid,” I said. “In an intense situation where you felt nothing you could do was enough. I remember what you told me. I’ve been in a situation like that. I did far worse than you just said. You’ve seen what people do to each other in those communes.” I swept my hand toward Bash. “And you’ve met my closest associate. I trust him more than anyone else in the world, and he used to kill people for profit.”
He still did, technically, in so muc
h as he was on my payroll, but I suspected it was better not to rub that aspect of our activities in the detective’s face.
“It doesn’t matter to you,” Garret said, not a question. His posture relaxed, and a different sort of light came into his eyes.
“Did you really think it would?”
“I guess—not exactly. I just thought you deserved to know, if we’re going to be working together this closely for a while.”
I took his hand where it had been resting on the sofa between us. “Garrett, you don’t owe me anything. Believe me, I’d let you know if you did.”
The corner of his mouth curved upward. “Of course you would. I—I know I should get going so you two can get down to work, but I just—”
He cut himself off and shifted a few inches forward, close enough to tease his fingers along my jaw and tug my mouth to his.
When Garrett kissed, he really kissed. The live-wire smell of him filled my nose, and the intensity of his lips sent sparks crackling over my skin. If this was what he needed to trust himself to stay the course, I was more than happy to give it to him. I kissed him back eagerly, this good man who must barely be able to conceive of what true evil tasted like.
Bash cleared his throat softly. I ignored him, but Garrett tensed again and started to pull back. I grasped the front of his shirt before he could get very far and turned to look at my hitman.
Bash’s expression was rigid. He’d known I got up to all sorts of fun with the trio, but he’d never had to see it.