Page 12 of Cloaked in Deception (Spencer & Reid Mysteries #4)

After arriving home near dawn and changing into dry, warm clothes, Leo had sat near the kitchen stove with a pot of tea while telling her uncle everything.

He’d been horrified, to say the least, but in his usual patient manner, he’d let her tell the whole story before asking questions.

One of those questions had flummoxed Leo completely: “Why that woman?”

She hadn’t known how to answer that. Initially, she’d assumed the man had randomly chosen someone to sacrifice so that his orders would be taken seriously.

But seated at the kitchen table with her uncle, safe and warm, Leo was able to look back on the moment with more clarity.

The killer had taken three or four strides to stand directly behind Mrs. Seabright’s chair.

Why hadn’t he selected the middle-aged man with muttonchops and a pair of gold spectacles who’d been seated at the table right in front of him?

Perhaps he had wanted to persuade them all by showing his willingness to kill an unarmed, helpless woman.

So then, why had he overlooked the woman with a peacock plume spearing her upswept hair who was seated next to the man with the gold spectacles?

Leo could see them all in her mind; each guest seated at the table, their neighbors, their clothing.

And that woman would have made a closer target. So would have Leo.

“My grandfather was speaking to the poor woman before dinner,” Connor commented as he pulled on his surgical coat.

“I noticed,” Leo replied. “Did you happen to overhear any of their conversation?”

It was a prying question and perhaps a little strange. A twist of Connor’s mouth seemed to say as much. But he then shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. Why do you ask?”

She shrugged off his inquiry. “No reason. Just curious.”

Connor stepped into a pair of tall, vulcanized rubber boots. “It was the detective inspector who found you?”

“In a manner of speaking.” She didn’t want to get into too much detail about how she’d spent the night in the Battersea police station. Or that she’d confessed to a non-existent murder.

“He was in high dudgeon after you were taken,” Connor said, going next to his tool kit.

A full postmortem was required, even though the woman’s cause of death was apparent—and had been witnessed by them both.

“He wasn’t in a much better mood before that, however, when we first saw him in the front parlor. ”

Jasper had appeared strained, Leo recalled. But likely so had she. She’d waited too long to speak to him about their kiss and her decision to either forgive him and move forward…or not to. She hadn’t yet made her decision, even a month later.

“I could be wrong, but I think Inspector Reid is under the impression that I took you to last night’s benefit dinner with romantic aspirations,” Connor said, an amused grin cinching the corner of his mouth. “And he didn’t like it one bit.”

Leo met his mischievous look and tried not to grin. She’d perceived that too. It had irritated her as much as it had given her a little thrill to see Jasper wrestle with unexpected jealousy. She had no right to indulge in such a feeling though, when she was guilty of indecision.

“I think that might just be his usual demeanor,” Leo said lightly, brushing off the comment. She didn’t wish to discuss Jasper with the coroner, even if she was starting to consider Connor a friend. But then, she considered something. “You don’t have romantic aspirations toward me, do you?”

She’d certainly never sensed them, if so.

Connor laughed as he opened his kit and selected a scalpel. “Miss Spencer, I like you very much, but no, my feelings toward you are strictly professional.”

It was what she’d thought, and it was a relief. “As are mine toward you,” she replied. “Now that we’ve cleared that up, I think you should know something.”

Connor drew back the sheet, exposing the corpse beneath. “Yes?”

“Someone broke into the morgue this morning.”

He released the sheet and lowered the scalpel. “What? Are you sure? Has anything been taken?”

“I don’t think it was a thief.” She told him about the back door being ajar, the strong scent of perfume left behind, and the positioning of Martha Seabright’s hand upon her chest.

“I noticed that before we undressed her,” Connor said.

“Her handbag still has two shillings inside, so whoever it was took her hand, placed it on her chest, but did not rummage through her things,” Leo explained.

“A loved one, maybe?” he suggested. “Though, breaking into the morgue makes little sense. Why not wait for someone to arrive here this morning and ask to see her body?”

Leo didn’t have an answer. As they quietly began the postmortem examination, they stayed in their own thoughts about the break-in.

However, their focus soon became directed toward the corpse.

With her pencil and paper, Leo documented his findings, though she did stand further away from the table than usual.

Not once in the five years of assisting her uncle had she grown queasy during a postmortem.

However now, her exhaustion, coupled with an empty stomach, worked against her.

Connor cited the obvious cause of death—a single bullet discharged into the brain, entering through the left parietal bone.

He also found evidence of heart disease and cancer of the lung, both of which, given time to progress, would have eventually killed her.

More interesting, however, were some markings on Martha Seabright’s bare skin: circular scars scattered across her chest and arms, and even on her thighs.

A suspicion sank through Leo. “The shape of these scars… Are you thinking what I am?”

Connor sighed. “Unfortunately, I believe so. The burning tip of a cigar, left against the skin for any length of time, would certainly leave such marks.”

This wasn’t the first time Leo had seen burn marks upon a corpse’s skin. Scores of women and children had lain on the morgue’s tables with similar scars. Their abusers often kept the evidence of their cruelty hidden from sight: on the torsos, arms, and legs of their victims.

“They all look to be pale and smooth,” she said. “So, they’re old scars.”

“By a decade, at least,” Connor confirmed.

The parallel lines of scarring on the palm of Leo’s right hand were also white with age, and though they were still raised, the two weals had started to smooth over, as most scars did over time.

Her memory brought forward the scar on Jasper’s left pectoral chest wall, inflicted by the same shard of porcelain that had cut Leo’s palm.

His scar hadn’t healed as well as hers probably because he hadn’t tended to it as carefully as the Inspector and Mrs. Zhao had done for Leo’s.

He’d hidden it under his shirt, knowing that it marked him as the boy whom Leo had stabbed in the attic.

Although she’d come to terms with the truth of his identity, and it no longer felt as massive a betrayal as it had at first, pangs of sadness still stroked through her chest when she thought of Jasper’s deepest secret.

One question that continued to nag at her was if he would have ever come forward with the truth if she had not discovered it on her own.

Would he have drawn her close and kissed her, if she’d still been living in ignorance about the boy who had saved her from certain death that night?

The question was one of many that had held her back from seeking out Jasper since the night in his study.

Leo jotted down the number of burn scars, their placement on the corpse’s body, and their exact measurements as once again, her mind returned to the few moments she had been in Jasper’s arms four weeks ago.

Even though Jasper had escaped the Carters, had renounced them, it didn’t change the fact that his blood relations had murdered her family.

Kissing Jasper had felt incontestably right, and yet, the smallest sliver of betrayal had lodged under her skin afterward.

A sliver that had continued to grow since that night.

What would her parents think of her? Her brother and little sister?

Right then, the bell in the morgue lobby pealed, distracting Leo from her dismal, guilty thoughts.

“I’ll see who it is,” she said, hoping it would be someone to do with Mrs. Seabright. Her body would need to be formally identified and claimed, and perhaps her family would have some idea about who had come to pay her body an early morning visit.

As Leo approached the door to the lobby, it opened. Stephen Warnock of Scotland Yard peered into the postmortem room, then pulled to a stop, hesitant to enter any further. She looked past him, expecting Jasper to enter next. But the officer was alone.

“Constable,” she said, unable to mask her surprise. “How can we help you?”

Belatedly, he doffed his hat. “It’s detective sergeant now, miss. I’ve passed my examinations and had a promotion,” he corrected, his pride shining through.

“Congratulations, Sergeant Warnock. It’s well deserved, I’m sure.”

She wasn’t truly certain, but it seemed an encouraging thing to say. Besides, Warnock had never been rude toward her, as some of the others at the Yard had been.

“I’ve had a message from Inspector Reid. He’s asked me to meet him in St. Bride, and I’m to bring you with me.”

That sounded serious. She crossed a look with Connor, who had started to place closing sutures, before turning back to the sergeant. “Why? What has happened?”

“He’s found a body,” he answered. “And he wants you to have a look at it.”