He waited for the whirr of the grinder to shut off before he added hopefully, “Anything to eat?”
I passed him the packet of Hobnobs.
“Oh no,” he said, ripping into it with enthusiasm. “I shouldn’t.”
“All right.” I reached out to take the biscuits away and he clutched them to his chest, wide-eyed.
“I said I shouldn’t, not I won’t.” He jumped up and washed his hands at the sink then turned and leaned against the counter beside me, watching me pour the barista-grade almond milk I kept in the fridge just for him into a metal jug. “With mymetabolism, I can eat the rest of the packet.” He stuffed a biscuit into his mouth and chewed contentedly. “Won’t make a dent.”
Give him another couple of years. He’d be over the hump into his thirties and singing a different tune.
“In fact,” he continued, “I need the carbs. I’m off to the gym. I stopped by to see if Kevin was coming or not. He wasn’t answering his phone. Now I know why.” Jasper smiled around a mouthful of biscuit. “He’s got a different workout in mind.”
“Yep. And now that I’ve given him the green light, if I don’t physically make him stop, he’ll be at it until midnight. He’s a juggernaut.”
Jasper stopped chewing and stared at me.
I scowled. “I’m talking about thegarage. It’s his new project.” I got busy steaming the milk.
Jasper munched his way through two more biscuits, watching, and after I’d knocked the jug against the countertop to dissipate any large bubbles that would spoil the microfoam, he said, “Charlie, make me a swan? Please?”
I was getting better at latte art, having made Kevin so many by now. I was confident enough that I’d quietly started adding a little rosetta or a tulip to customer lattes at The Chipped Cup.
Anything more complicated than that, I kept for Jasper and Kevin.
And even though it was the simplest design and the first one I’d mastered, only Kevin got a heart.
I made Jasper his swan while he sat back down and continued to mow his way through the packet of biscuits.
“It’s highly unlikely that you’ll be able to pry Kevin out of the garage today, even for the gym. Here you go.” I passed him the latte.
“Thank you.” Jasper admired his swan before dunking a Hobnob into the cup, like a barbarian. Despite his care, the swan lost integrity and spread out into an amorphous blob. TheHobnob was fine. “Aren’t you scared he’ll find more bodies in there?”
“No. The only stuff in that garage is mine.”
Itusedto be mine.
Now it belonged to the mice. I’d ceded ownership.
“Can we be sure?” Jasper mused. “One hundred percent sure?”
“Yes.” I took the milk jug over to the sink, squirted some washing-up liquid into it while the hot tap ran, and grabbed the sponge. “Deirdre Sharpe was dead and buried long before any of those boxes made it into the garage. I recognise every single one. They’re all mine. Nothing of Deirdre’s is left, because Kevin dealt with it months ago. You know this. Remember how Liam nearly blew a vein?”
“Oh, I remember.”
I finished scrubbing the jug, rinsed it, and set it on the draining board.
“Hmm,” Jasper said.
“What, hmm?” I wiped down the counter, wrung out the cloth, and hung it over the tap to dry. When I turned to him, Jasper had a thoughtful look on his face. I didn’t like it.
“What if…?” he said, and trailed off into a heavy silence.
“What if what?” I asked when all he did was stare at me.
“What if sheisn’tdead and buried?”
“She is.”