The Journey: Illustrated Edition (An Anna Kronberg Thriller) Read Online Free PDF Page B

to me on the nightstand. ‘Holmes, I know you don’t…’ I dropped my gaze. ‘I’m not stupid enough to believe I’m not… I’m not…defiled.’
    Odd, how heavy one’s limbs grow when the heart is full of shame. I couldn’t tip my head upward, couldn’t tear my eyes off his legs. Unmoving, they seemed cemented in a pair of sharply pressed trousers, framed left and right by a half-open dressing gown. Time crawled agonisingly slowly.  
    ‘Go away,’ I breathed.
    His hand approached and took mine in his. His feet took a step closer, his arms wound around me. I had the fleeting impression I would come undone. The taste of blood in my mouth told me I was biting my tongue. I tried to relax my jaw.
    ‘Stop calling me Holmes.’
    I couldn’t utter a word.
    ‘Say my name, Anna!’
    ‘Sherlock,’ I whispered.
    My plan of sneaking away that night was forgotten. Exhaustion burned in my eyes. Listening to his slow breathing, the whispering of his hand in my hair, I tried to calm myself. To no avail. I was vibrating.
    He exhaled a growl and said, ‘You are not defiled, Anna. What you did to stop Moriarty was a great sacrifice.’
    ‘I know, it all sounds so reasonable,’ I said. ‘One can look at a collection of facts from many different angles. Mine is simple: I was his whore.’ How curious that hearing my own words made them suddenly sound false. In the dark loneliness of my thoughts, I had fancied myself much wiser.
    ‘Well, yes. You could certainly see it that way. But what does it help to do so?’
    ‘Was that ever a reason? Choosing the most helpful interpretation?’ I pushed away from him. His one hand slid off my back, the other off my neck. My skin felt cold there.
    ‘I usually choose the one that makes sense,’ he said. His expression was relaxed, soft, even. And yet it sounded as though he wished to mock me.  
    ‘Are you that distanced?’ I asked. ‘The automaton Sherlock Holmes?’
    ‘Why, in your opinion, was I holding you?’
    ‘Because you feel guilty,’ I said.
    ‘How does that fit your automaton theory?’
    I had no answer.
    ‘Is that why you tried to kill yourself while I was watching? Because you believe I don’t feel and hence, it doesn’t matter?’  
    He stooped at little until we were at eye level. I didn’t like the belligerence I saw in his posture.
    ‘I simply took an opportunity,’ I said. ‘I told you already.’
    ‘That is correct. But for you to do so, you must have established earlier that it wouldn’t matter to me, that I wouldn’t care.’
    ‘Yes,’ I whispered. It was true. It was precisely what I thought.
    ‘You make surprisingly little sense these days,’ he said.
    ‘I know.’ Life made surprisingly little sense these days. I watched him for a long moment. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. ‘Why have you been in an asylum?’
    He sat down on my bed and exhaled one rattling breath. ‘My mother fell ill after giving birth to my sister,’ he began. ‘She starved herself. At times, she clung to her newborn daughter as though she were drowning and her child the last straw to cling to. It took only minutes until the child fussed and cried and she rejected her again, telling her what a terrible girl she was. It wasn’t long before the wet nurse quit her appointment. The lady maid helped taking care of my sister while father tried to find a replacement. One morning, Mother left her room, the child in her arms. She sang for her. It was the first time I heard mother sing. About to go downstairs, I stopped in wonder and listened. She walked past me, smiled at me, and I was convinced she was well again. She lowered her head to smile at her daughter. The girl began to stir and woke up with a cry. My mother’s face distorted as if in pain, and she flung…’
    Silence fell. I followed his gaze across the room, imagining every detail he described.
    Eyelids flickered. He cleared his throat. ‘She looked at me with a face so empty that, for a moment, I forgot the