Page 55 of Method of Revenge
He confirmed it with a nod. “But Miss Geary? Truly? She tricked her way in here to…tokillGabby and me?”
Andrew rolled his neck, stretching it side to side in the manner Jasper had seen boxers do in the ring before a fight. “That’s devious. If my wife hadn’t been the target, I’d appreciate that level of treachery.” He walked toward a sofa and a table of decanted spirits nearby. It would be where David sat down withother businessmen, plied them with liquor, and made all sorts of deals. It might have even been where Mr. Nelson sat when he’d signed away his right to ever seek justice for his children’s deaths.
“If the woman wasn’t already dead, I’d do the honors,” Andrew said, picking up a glass decanter and pouring himself a liberal splash. “As it is, I’ll have to settle for her husband. Inspector, I trust you’ve reached the same conclusion as me: Nelson was the one dressed in Bloom’s livery that night.”
He was big, Andrew had said, his recollection of the waiter vague.His hands barely fit into the white gloves.Jasper shifted his sore jaw. Terrence Nelson’s hands matched that description well.
He agreed with Andrew, but he refused to utter it aloud.
“I’m arresting Mr. Nelson and sending him to trial,” he said instead. “He’ll hang for his crimes?—”
“I’ll gut him before he gets to Scotland Yard,” Andrew said, raising his glass in a toast.
The door to the office suddenly burst open, and Jasper’s hand went to his Webley again. He swore under his breath as he saw Leo standing within the frame, her hand still on the knob.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he thundered.
“Thank goodness,” she breathed heavily, flushed as if she’d sprinted to the factory all the way from Spring Street. “We must leave the building—now! I found a confession in Mrs. Nelson’s bodice.”
“A confession to what?” Lewis asked.
But Jasper was more interested in the reason for Leo’s frenzied state. “Why do we need to leave the building?”
“She didn’t want to kill Gabriela and David; that was her husband’s plan. She argued against it, saying they needed to destroy thewallpaper, not two people who had nothing to dowith their children’s deaths. The book on her bedside table, Jasper!”
He vaguely recalled it. “A guide of some sort,” he said. “About mining?”
“A guide to handling dynamite for coal miners, yes. I overlooked it at the time because I cared more about the photograph you found between the pages. But now it makes perfect sense. Hurry, we need to leave before?—”
A deafening roar silenced Leo and shook the floor. Jasper’s legs disappeared from underneath him as a cracking blast shuddered through his teeth and wiped out his hearing. He reached for Leo, but the ceiling came down, and she was gone.
Chapter Eighteen
“Leo!”
The voice reached through the dark, past a persistent chiming in her ears.Jasper. She moved, and a splinter of pain radiated down her torso and along her ribs.
“Leo, goddamn it.” His voice drew closer and became clearer, and then all at once, the darkness dispersed. Leo opened her eyes and pushed up from the floor, where she’d been laying. A hand gripped her shoulder as she slid her feet underneath her.
Debris rolled off her skirt to the floor as Jasper helped pull her up. Plaster from the ceiling had come down in chunks, and dust lingered in the air. She could smell smoke. Something was burning.
He looked her over. “Are you badly injured?”
She shook her head and coughed as dust particles shuttled down her throat. Jasper’s hat was gone, and his hair hung over his brow, the golden strands coated with white. Blood streaked his temple, and he cradled his left arm to his chest. “You’re hurt,” she said.
He winced but shook his head. “I’m fine. We need to get out of here.”
Looking around, her hearing still muffled, she saw that Andrew Carter and his two men were already gone. David Henderson was crawling out from behind his desk, trying to stand; and Lewis was still on the floor, unmoving. Jasper went to his side.
“Lewis?” he said loudly. “Roy, wake up.”
The detective sergeant moaned and twitched. Leo exhaled, relieved he was still alive. Jasper tried to lift him but grunted in pain.
“Youarehurt,” she said. Then, at the odd drooping of his left arm, she guessed, “Your shoulder is dislocated?”
“I’ll take care of it later. We need to leave the building. It can’t be stable.”
Leo winced at the ache in her ribs as she helped Lewis to his feet. He swayed, and Jasper shored him up.
