Where All Paths Meet, page 30
part #3 of The Adventures of Holloway Holmes Series
The other possibility was that I’d found the blackmail I was looking for. But that didn’t seem quite right either. When Sarah had tried to blackmail Blackfriar, he had worked quickly and ruthlessly to find whatever material she had and destroy it. The only reason it had taken him as long as it had was because Holmes had interfered, hiding Sarah’s laptop before Blackfriar could reach it. Tom hadn’t hidden this blackmail material—if that’s what it was—particularly well; it had taken me less than five minutes to find it. If Tom was holding this over Blackfriar’s head, the only question was why he hadn’t ended up in a shallow grave in the desert already.
I retied the plastic bag and set it near the bedroom door.
I made my next hit literally thirty seconds later: the book was between the mattress and the box spring. My first thought was that it was old, because it was a hardback and the cover was stained, and when I flipped through it, the type was cramped and, for lack of a better word, cheap looking. But then I decided it wasn’t old. There wasn’t any of the usual stuff you see at the beginning of a book, so I couldn’t check the copyright date, but there was a kind of introduction. It was a genealogy of the Holmes family written by amateur historian Benjamin Baxter, who’d published it himself in 1997. A hundred copies had been printed. That’s what the introductory note said. And out of those hundred copies, one of them had ended up here, hidden in Tom Watson’s room.
I flipped through the book again. Genealogical charts and tables were interspersed with long—and I mean long—sections of text. Apparently, this guy had thought it important for everyone to know exactly how diligent he’d been in his research. It was the kind of thing that made you think there was a reason why, for a long time, people who wrote books were the same people who insisted it was a good thing to be a virgin.
A section of the book caught my eye, and I slowed. The pages were dogeared and worn. Dirt, specks of what might have been food and drink, smudged ink—these things all suggested that this portion of the book had been read and re-read and thumbed through time and again. It was near the end of the book, where the most recent generation of Holmeses was listed. I stopped at the chart with Blackfriar’s name. He was listed as married to Cecilia Norton, with no children. Cousins from Blackfriar’s generation appeared off to the side: Susan Holmes, Donagh Kennedy, Richard Holmes, Fairfax Holmes, Evelyn Ross, more. On several of the names, someone—perhaps Tom—had penciled in death dates. I turned back a page and immediately got lost in the web of relations, so I returned to the end of the Holmes family tree. Blackfriar and Cecilia.
Holmes had been born in October of 2004, and Noneley was only a few years older. The book had been published in 1997, so it didn’t mean anything that the children weren’t listed. They didn’t exist in 1997.
A sound made me turn.
Tom stood in the doorway that connected the bedroom and the living room. He held a revolver, and it was pointed at me. I shifted, and he made a warning noise.
“That’s mine,” he said. “Put it down, please.”
It was only a .38; I knew that because I’d seen the box of cartridges under his fancy underwear. But the barrel of the gun looked like a tunnel from where I knelt on the floor. I laid the book on top of the bed.
Without breaking his gaze, Tom nudged the Harmons bag where I’d left it by the door. The plastic crinkled and rustled. “You’ve been busy.”
“Did you kill Lynnissa Baca and Maggie Moriarty?”
Tom shook his head, and I couldn’t tell if it was a no or if he was just trying to get that sun-streaked hair out of his eyes. He studied me. His hand flexed restlessly around the butt of the revolver, his finger snaking inside the trigger guard until he fumbled it out again. This was the same guy who couldn’t cross a room without slipping on banana peels; all it would take was for him to flinch at the wrong time.
“Could you put that down?” I asked. “You’re making me nervous.”
“You think you’re so much better than me.”
I shook my head.
“You do. You think—” He shuddered, a convulsion working its way down his body in slow motion. I waited for the spasm that would depress the trigger. They called it trigger pull weight. They measured it in pounds. Another afternoon lost on Wikipedia after Dad bought that stupid gun. But then Tom steadied, seemed to gain control of himself. “You think you’re special. But you don’t understand: no one is special, and nothing changes. The Holmeses, the Moriartys, the Adlers, the Watsons.”
“I don’t think I’m better than you.” Well, I did, a little, but only because I’d never held a gun on somebody. “Tom, did you kill them for Blackfriar? Because if he made you do it—”
“You’re so stupid.” He crowed a little laugh, and his smile was ugly and sneering. “Get up. It’s time to go.”
“Did Blackfriar kill them?”
“Get up.”
“Did you follow him? Is that what happened? You’re always following him. Did you watch him kill them?”
“Stand up!”
I got to my feet, hands in the air, but I stayed by the bed. “You never went to med school, did you?”
“Of course I did.” Another of those twisting contortions clutched him, and the gun wavered. “Stop talking.”
“You never had the chance, I bet. You wanted to go. You’re definitely smart enough to go. You know a lot about taking care of people. You’re good at it. You know what I think?”
“Stop talking.”
“I think someone in your life got sick, and I think you stayed to take care of them. Because you’re a good person. Instead of going off to college, you stayed and helped. And you learned all these important skills.”
“Where is the bag? My bag. I want my bag.”
“Did you drop it? Did Blackfriar startle you when you followed him to Maggie’s, and you had to leave it?” He flinched, and I knew the answer. “Who was it, Tom? Who got sick? Your dad? Your mom?”
His breathing was high and labored.
“Your mom,” I said softly.
“She ruined everything.” He stopped, breathed shrilly, twitched. For a moment, the raw chaos underneath the mask appeared, and I wanted to step back, move away from what I saw in his face. And then he stitched himself back together again, and the look he turned on me was cold, dispassionate—a skin of ice over the madness roiling underneath. “She wouldn’t be reasonable. She didn’t want anything to do with the Holmeses, wouldn’t even ask, wouldn’t let me ask. And so I sat in that shitty house when she got sick. She wanted me to sell his bag, and I wouldn’t, and she—she laughed at me. But I wouldn’t sell it. Then we lost the house, so I sat in that shitty apartment. I waited for her to die, with her shots and her pills and her screaming. She wouldn’t even pick up the phone. She would have rather lain there, pissing herself, always screaming.” He put his free hand to his face, covering one eye while the other fluttered uncontrollably. “We have to—” He pressed down hard on his eyes. The gun trembled. “We have to go.”
“You were smart, though,” I said. “You’ve always been smart. You figured out something. Something that would make the Holmeses help you.”
“I told her that’s what the Watsons have always done, but she wouldn’t listen. That’s what we’ve always done. They pretend they don’t like it, but they need us too. They want the world to know how special they are, and we’re the ones who tell the world. It was the same, I told her; it was the exact same thing. We get close to them. We know them in a way nobody else does, that’s what Watsons do. We see the human under—” He giggled, and he dropped his hand, but he looked blind, like he wasn’t seeing me at all. “—under the deerstalker cap. And they hate it, that they’re still human, and that we can sniff it out. But they need it too. Even when they don’t know they need it. Mr. Holmes didn’t even want to see me at first. He needed some…encouragement.”
“What is it?” I asked softly. “What did you figure out?”
“We have to go,” he said, and I could hear the effort in the words, the attempt at concentration as Tom tried to drag himself back together. “You shouldn’t be talking—we have to go.”
“What was it? What did you figure out?”
“Stop talking!” He fought against another of those ripples that contorted his body. Then, chest heaving, he dropped his hand to his side. “We’re going. We’re going right now. And don’t—don’t try anything. You wouldn’t want your dad to get hurt. If you try anything, he’s going to get hurt.”
I stared at him. I pressed my hands against my thighs.
Tom gave me that sneering smile again. “You don’t want that, do you? Come on.”
“You’re lying.”
He laughed. Then he pulled out his phone, tapped the screen a few times, and held it out toward me. On the screen was a photo of Dad. He glared into the camera with a fuck-around look I’d never seen on his face before, but it was definitely Dad.
“You think you’re so much better, but you’re not, are you?”
I stared at the photo. The screen timed out.
“Are you?” Tom shouted.
I shook my head.
“Say it.”
“I’m not better than you.”
“You’re not a Watson.”
His pause was a prompt, so I said, “I’m not a Watson.”
“You’re—you’re a stupid little kid.”
It was, in its own way, easier to deal with this than to think about what was happening to Dad; Tom had me on the verge of rolling my eyes. “I’m a stupid little kid.”
“Yeah,” Tom whispered. “You are. So, don’t try anything. Understand?”
I nodded.
That seemed to satisfy him. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 32
The Game Is Over
We went to the Grange, of course.
Tom was driving a black Bentley; apparently the Holmeses had a type. The gates opened as we approached, and then the mansion appeared, the mixture of stone and stucco, the raven’s wing of the slate roof, the turret, the carriage house. Tom parked in front of the door, and the smell of fresh mulch and flowers met me when I got out of the car.
He herded me through the house, taking me down the maze of corridors that led to Blackfriar’s study. When we reached the room, though, it was empty, and Tom chivvied me toward the French doors. We stepped onto the deck outside, and I understood why.
Blackfriar sat in a wicker chair, typing on a laptop. There was a whole patio set of wicker furniture arranged around a firepit where, even though the day was pleasantly warm, a low flame burned. Gas, not wood. And the firepit itself had decorative glass that glinted and sparkled. The valley spread out below us, and the air smelled like dust and open sky and the cedar boards underfoot. Then Blackfriar raised his head, the tarnished tin of his eyes settling on me, and I caught a whiff of fish oil.
“Hello, Jack.”
“Where’s my dad?”
“Have a seat.”
“I want to see my dad.”
Blackfriar sighed and set the laptop aside. “Sit down.”
“Kidnapping,” I said. “False imprisonment. Assault. Those three are freebies, just off the top of my head. Detective Rivera can come up with a lot more; he gets a boner thinking about all the stuff he likes to charge people with.”
Shaking his head, Blackfriar stood. He waved Tom off as he approached me, and Tom retreated a few steps, the gun dipping. I set myself. Blackfriar’s fancy shoes clipped the boards.
“Take a seat, Jack.”
“If you hurt—”
The blow was like lightning. I’d been preparing myself for it. I’d been ready, or so I’d thought. But when it came, I didn’t even see it. There was the sense of impact against the side of my head, and then a pain that I’d felt once before—a concussive wave inside my skull, like my eardrum had burst. The world tilted, and I found myself on the deck, propped up on my arms, trying not to be sick.
“I’ve told you politely several times,” Blackfriar said as he grabbed my hair and began dragging me toward the patio furniture, “to have a seat.”
I screamed and scrambled after him, but I was disoriented, my balance disrupted. Holmes had used that move on me before, and it did something to the inner ear. The best I could manage was a kind of quasi-coordinated tumble in Blackfriar’s general direction. When we reached the seating, I screamed again as Blackfriar hauled me upright. I did my best to move with him, which probably saved my scalp, and a moment later, I found myself hurled into a chair.
“There,” Blackfriar said as he returned to his seat. “Isn’t that much more civilized?”
The world was still spinning: the sun seemed to move over the valley and then jerk itself back into place. I closed my eyes and counted to ten, and a wave of nausea passed. When I opened them again, Blackfriar’s face was doing the same trick, drifting, ghosting, and then snapping back to its original position.
He smiled. “Hello, Jack. You have something that belongs to me.”
My words sounded slurred when I finally said, “Where’s my dad?”
For a moment, Blackfriar’s smile froze. Then it widened. He let out a quiet laugh. “Do you know, Jack, I think I might understand it, what my son sees in you. A certain resilience. A certain bravura. It has its appeal. No common sense, of course, but that’s to be expected with a Watson. If circumstances were different, I dare say I might even…approve.”
Tom made a choked noise from the French doors.
“You’re worried about your father,” Blackfriar said.
My vision was steadying. The little flame hissed in the firepit. I could smell it now, the hint of gas floating underneath the fish oil stink.
Finally, I said, “Yes.”
“Then you understand that I feel the same way, Jack. I am possessive. I do not like people touching my things. You have something of mine, and I want it back.”
“Watson’s safe.”
“Where is it?”
“Don’t have it.”
“But I think you do, Jack. You separated from my son, which is unusual. You were arrested at Lynnissa Baca’s condo, which raises further questions. Yes, I know about that. So, I believe you found Watson’s safe.”
“Nope.”
Blackfriar bared his teeth. “Lying is a filthy habit.”
“I want to see my dad.”
“Jack, you’re testing my patience.”
“I want my dad.”
Blackfriar sat back and let out a disappointed breath.
“I want my dad,” I said again.
“I’ll tell you what—”
“I want my dad right fucking now!”
He sat forward so quickly that I shot backward in my seat, but Blackfriar didn’t stand. He reached down and picked up something. It was a wiffle bat—long, plastic, hollow. He held it up for display, and with one hand, he crimped the yellow plastic. I’d already known the bat was soft; we’d had a wiffle ball set in Salt Lake. I wriggled farther back in my seat.
“No, Jack,” he said with another laugh. “Not you. When I hurt you, I will enjoy doing it with my own two hands. Let me ask you a question, Jack.” He gave an easy swing of the wiffle bat, and it whistled as it carved the air. “How many times do you think I’ll have to hit your father with this before his brain begins to bleed?”
My breathing was harsh in my ears, and then the wind picked up, and all I could hear was its scream.
“How many times,” Blackfriar said, and he paused to give another of those lazy, smiling swings. “Before it begins to swell? The bleeding is bad enough, you understand, but when the brain begins to swell, that’s the real problem. See, there’s nowhere for the brain to go.” He tapped himself lightly on the head with the bat and grinned like we were just goofing around. “The skull offers no flexibility. So, when the brain swells, what happens?”
I couldn’t swallow. All I could do was follow the bat with my eyes as he gave another of those warm-up swings.
“Jack,” he said softly. Then the yellow plastic was under my chin, pressing against my throat—threatening to make me choke and make me puke and make me suffocate, all at the same time. Blackfriar forced my head up. The tarnish of his eyes held mine.
“Pressure,” I said and gagged as the bat dug into my throat. “It’s called cerebral edema.”
“Yes,” Blackfriar said.
The pressure against my throat increased once more, and I gagged again. Then the bat was gone, and I leaned over the arm of the chair, heaving and trying not to let anything come up.
In a quiet voice, Blackfriar said, “Shall I let you watch, Jack? You can keep count.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Memories flickered in the dark, the jitter of an old projector, like the ones at the dollar theater. Mom with a Super Soaker, a summer night, the smell of the grill. Dad in the garage, oil on his hands, ignoring my bitching as he made me learn how to change the oil in the Dodge. Holmes. The stupid, ridiculous smile. The look on his face when he said my name.
I sat up. Found Blackfriar’s face. And I said, “You hired Baca to steal the safe from Maggie. Why?”
“Why does one hire anyone to do anything, Jack?”
That was an answer, I decided. Of a kind. “You tried to frame H for Baca’s murder.”
“Tried to frame,” Blackfriar said in disgust. “I needed to keep the two of you busy. And, of course, I hoped the police would tie you up, occupy your time. I should have realized that you deserved my full attention.”
“That’s why you told the security guards to hold on to us.”
“And that went wonderfully as well, didn’t it? Believe me, Jack, this streak of bad luck is unusual.”
“You tried to kill me.”
Nothing changed in his expression. Not even a flicker. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“And you killed my mom.”
For a moment, he went completely still. I’d seen that move on Holmes, the total blankness of body, meant to give nothing away. And then, carefully, Blackfriar laid down the bat.
