Page 88 of A Scandal in Homeroom
Also a lie.
“Too late,” Coyle said. “Moriarty doesn’t trust her, which means he’s going to want to keep his eyes on her.”
“Hmm. It seems Moriarty doesn’t like me very much, either. I’m sure you know he sent his thug to attack me.”
Coyle said nothing, just turned and started walking again.
“It was strange, because it was almost as if I’d done something to upset him, when all I did was play his game and win a lot of money. Also, I’m an excellent tipper.”
“Yeah, well, maybe he doesn’t like your face.”
“That’s not what his henchmen said when he attacked me,” I pointed out. “He said I talked too much.”
“He’s right,” Coyle grunted.
A cold wind blew toward us, and I tucked my hands into my coat pockets. “Just makes me wonder when or how he might have heard me talking…unless of course he was there. That night. At the game.”
Coyle said nothing, but I could feel a sudden tension in him.
“He was, wasn’t he? Moriarty was someone at one of those tables playing poker.”
“Let’s just say…my boss is always watching, and we’ll leave it at that. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away from the game and you’ll shake off Adler like a bug. She’s nothing but a fuck-tease anyway. Everyone knows that.”
It was strange. I had always known the phraseseeing red,but until now, I’d never really understood it. However, it was an actual thing. I could feel my vision change. Felt my cheeks flush with blood, too, as a surge of adrenaline flooded me.
Interesting. I should experiment more on how my body reacts when enraged.
It only took three moves. A sharp kick to the back of his knee to send him sprawling. A targeted strike to his ribs that would cause maximum pain but leave little bruising. And a sudden twist of his wrist in my hand that had his finger bent in such a way that with a little pressure I could break it.
“Get the fuck off me. Ow! Damn it.”
I pushed on the finger just a hint. Clearly his threshold for pain wasn’t very high.
“Speak of Irene Adler like that again and I won’t be as forgiving,” I said softly.
I let him go and he flopped on the sidewalk, holding his hand with the other as if he was unsure whether I’d broken his finger.
Dusting myself off to show him how little he mattered, I continued my walk home with a great deal of information to consider.
* * *
Later that Night
I was sittingup in bed doing a search on Thornfield Home that wasn’t yielding the results I’d hoped, when my phone dinged.
Irene: What are you doing?
Me: Researching Thornfield Home.
Irene: Why? I can tell you anything you need to know about it.
Me: You can tell me anything you know. That’s not the same thing as studying its past.
Irene: Fine. I didn’t want to talk about that anyway.
Me: What did you want to talk about?
Irene: Stuff.
