Page 74 of Courier of Death
“How is your head?” she countered, wishing to get away from the topic of her injury.
He muttered under his breath and slouched further into the couch. “Fine.”
Leo didn’t believe him either. But he was too stubborn to complain. She supposed she was too.
“When will Mrs. Zhao be home?”
“I’ll send word tomorrow that it’s safe for her to return.”
The pop and hiss of the coal grate filled the next drop of silence. Then, Jasper looked at her from across the sofa. “Are you going to tell me?”
The light from the gas wall brackets and the glow from the coal fire cast his face in changing shades of golden yellow.
Leo had put off telling him about her visit to Striker’s Wharf, the things Eddie Bloom had told her, and what she’d found in the steamer trunk that had inspired her to go there in the first place. What could Jasper do to resolve or change any of it?
“I’m not sure it matters.” She turned her gaze toward the coal grate.
He shifted on the sofa to face her. “You wanted to tell me something earlier, and it was important. It still is.”
She bit her bottom lip, hesitant. However, even if nothing could be done, she didn’t want to be alone with the things she had learned.
“I found the letters Aunt Flora sent to my mother. Something was happening with my father, something dangerous. Flora never wrote anything specific, but she was afraid for us.”
“Your mother knew what your father was doing?” Jasper guessed. “That he was working for the Carters?”
“Something more, I think.” Leo turned toward him. “You said he was an accountant for them. That would have given him access to sensitive information regarding their income andexpenses. What if he discovered something while doing their books?”
Jasper bobbed his head as if to say it was a possibility. “The Inspector thought it most likely that your father was targeted for that reason. Something having to do with his accounting work for them. But he went through all your father’s papers and ledgers before giving them back to Claude, and he never found anything untoward specifically, nothing about the Carters.”
It was a reminder that Jasper had always known the truth of who had killed Leo’s family and had been playacting ignorance while the Inspector worked tirelessly to discover answers to the tragedy. Leo hardened her spine and faced forward.
“Five months before the attack on my family,” she began, ignoring the break in the tenuous peace between them, “my father began to receive five pounds a month. He recorded the addition in his personal ledger, marking them only with the initials BR.”
There was little chance the Inspector had not seen that pattern. And there was no avoiding it any longer: She would have to go through his file on the murders, even if it made her ill and gave her nightmares.
“You think someone was paying your father to pass along information about the Carters’ false accounts?”
She nodded and closed her eyes, suddenly exhausted. “I need to go through my father’s things again. I might be able to find someone with those initials, or some business perhaps, listed somewhere. And then, of course, I’ll have to look through the Inspector’s private file.”
When Jasper stayed silent, she wondered what he might be thinking. She took a guess. “Or, as I said before, maybe it doesn’t matter.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Jasper asked quietly.
“Does it truly matterhowmy father betrayed the East Rips? The fact is, he did. And they killed him for it. My mother and brother and sister too. None of that will change by learning the details.”
In fact, discovering them could revive the danger her aunt had mentioned in her letters. Eddie Bloom had made it clear that Leo was to let sleeping dogs lie and not stir up old troubles. She considered keeping her visit to Striker’s Wharf a secret. But in the end, Jasper would likely learn of it, and she’d rather it be from her.
“Don’t get angry, but I went to Striker’s Wharf.”
He set his jaw. “When?”
“Last night.”
The glow of the burning coals seemed to leap from the grate and ignite his pupils. “By yourself?”
Leo sighed. “Please don’t chastise me again.”
“Why did you go there?” But then, comprehension darkened his already fulminating glare. “I see. You went after you found the steamer trunk.”
