The question she wanted to ask was evident, even if she wasn’t asking it outright. “You’ve wondered why.”
Leo took another bite of bread, her gaze expectant. She waited for him to go on. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, and yet he found himself speaking anyway.
“She reminded me of my mother.”
Leo forgot the potted beef. She sat taller, her attention riveted now. He thought he knew why. He’d never spoken of his mother to Leo except to say that she was dead.
“Did she…look like Regina Morris?” she asked.
“No. She died like her.” Jasper cleared his throat, realizing he was being too vague. Leo wouldn’t allow for that. “My motherwas beaten to death, and at the time, she was carrying a child too.”
“Oh, Jasper,” she whispered, sorrow stealing over her expression. “I’m so sorry.”
To his relief, it wasn’t pity he saw as she searched his face, her lips parting with soft concern. It was her more typical curiosity.
“How old were you?”
Of all the questions she could have asked first, she had chosen one about him rather than the murder itself. He shifted in his seat. “Ten.”
“Did they find the person who did it?” she asked next, and Jasper smiled. That was more like it.
However, telling her the truth—that the police had never investigated—would be a mistake. She would dwell on it. Question why not. And that was an answer he could never part with.
“Yes,” he said. It wasn’t a complete lie. People had known who’d done it. Hell, even Bridget O’Mara had known the truth.
After a moment, Leo picked up her bread and potted beef and took a small bite, looking pensive. “This is the first time you’ve ever said anything about your life…beforethe Inspector.”
“I’m not going to make a habit of it,” he said, maybe a little too brusquely. But she forgave him with a small grin. Then to his relief, she did not press him for more details. Instead, she spun their conversation on its head, whirling back to that moment in the hospital alleyway.
“I can’t help but wonder if Mr. Carter was bluffing, and if you might have been able to keep Mr. Nelson and avoid censure from your chief.”
Jasper cringed, seeing again the point of the blade so close to the white of her eye. “Your safety is more important than anything having to do with my work.”
Leo buried a smile with another nibble of bread and potted beef. He was becoming hungry, watching her eat.
“You put your life in danger today,” he said. And she had done sofor him.
“Your life was in danger too,” she replied blithely.
“Danger is to be expected in my line of duty.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does. It’s what I signed up for. It’s what every police officer knows is possible. So, from now on, please, you must stay away from the Yard. Coughlan demands it.Idemand it.”
The warm tenderness she’d shown him iced over in a blink. “Very well. Then I make the same demand of you.”
Rising from her chair, Leo took her plate and started toward the sink. Jasper got to his feet. “What demand is that, exactly?”
“To stay away,” she said. “It’s only fair we be equal in our neglect of each other.”
She dropped her dish into a pail of soapy water. Next, she lifted a cloth as though intending to scrub with it.
“You should be aware that even if you wash your dishes, Mrs. Zhao will still wash them again.”
She ignored him and set to her task.
“Would you please stop?” he said.
