Page 99 of A Scandal in Homeroom
It absolutely wasn’t possible.
23
Thornfield Home
Friday Night
Locke
Irapped on the basement door with the appropriate code. I was prepared for Coyle’s immediate rejection of my presence, but I stopped him with a message.
“Senator Darcy sent a message for Moriarty.”
Coyle looked around me, clearly uneasy. I wasn’t following the rules.
“That’s not how this works.”
“Au contraire. That’s how this works tonight. Senator Darcy is not going to risk her reputation by being seen in some underground card game. Nor is she willing to waste her time with any sort of diversion or intermediaries. She prefers a more straight-up approach.”
Coyle snorted. “And you expect me to believe she sentyou. ahigh-school kid, to take care of her business with Moriarty.”
“And me.” My brother, Croft, emerged from the shadows behind the door. “You don’t know me, young man, but I’m a sort of a…fixer, if you will. Senator Darcy brought me into this mess to fix things for her, and I used my brother here because he was familiar with the environment. Isn’t that right, Locke?”
“Quite.”
Coyle was shaking his head. It was clear he was undecided what he should do. Coyle was nothing more than a stooge for Moriarty. He followed orders and kept his mouth shut. Only now I could feel the fear emanating from him. Maybe he understood the magnitude of being part of a blackmail scheme that involved a sitting U.S. senator. Maybe he also wanted nothing to do with it.
Tough. He was in it up to his eyeballs.
“Where’s your girlfriend, Locke?” he asked with a sneer, maybe trying to distract me. Maybe just sending a message. “Everyone misses her tonight.”
That’s right. He wanted to make sure I knew Irene was just as involved as he was. Except there was no record trail of any of this. There was only Irene’s bank account with a balance, which we’d already emptied, setting up something more secure and untraceable offshore.
She’d still have access to her money as well as a good return on her investment. But all anyone would find if they searched for evidence of a take, was a balance that had been withdrawn and an account that had been closed.
There was nothing illegal about that. Suspicious, sure. But suspicion wasn’t going to be enough to touch Irene. Not when the Feds were going to be focused on Moriarty.
“An away football game tonight, I believe,” I replied. “But you might want to find someone else to help you run things from now on. Irene won’t be returning to Thornfield Home again. Too many bad memories for her here, you understand.”
Coyle just shook his head. “It’s not going to be that easy.”
“It’s going to be exactly that easy. Croft, the envelope please?” Croft handed me a thick, 8 ½ by 11, yellow envelope. I studied it. “You see, it occurred to me that Moriarty was a person who likes to get paid off. Inside this envelope is Senator Darcy’s contribution to his endeavors. And I’ve added a significant amount to that as well, in the hopes that Moriarty will forget Irene Adler ever existed.”
“I don’t control Moriarty,” Coyle said, shifting back and forth on his feet.
“I’m sure you don’t, but at least give him the package and see what he thinks. Our complete silence, the payoff, and we all just walk away.”
Coyle took the package. “I’ll let him know you stopped by.”
I smiled. “You do that. And let him know that Croft and Locke Holmes send their regards.”
“Prick,” Coyle muttered, then the door was shut firmly in our faces.
“You think it will work?” Croft asked softly as we walked away.
“I have no idea,” I said. I hated the uncertainty, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
The trap had been set.
