Laura Rowland: Black Lotus

“Next time?” Reiko thought she hadn’t heard him right. Doubt vied with excitement. “Do you mean… you still want my help, after what happened?”

“A few days ago I would have said no,” Sano admitted. “But I’ve come to understand that I’m no less susceptible to bias than you, and my errors can have serious consequences, too. I need someone to oppose me when I’m too quick to draw conclusions.” He said with a wry smile, “Who better than you?”

Reiko beamed at him, savoring the exhilaration of wishes fulfilled, harmony restored. Bad memories began to pale in the light of her happiness, and Sano looked less exhausted. Perhaps their partnership would be better for accommodating differences of opinion; perhaps someday the thought of Haru would cease to torment her. But experience had taught Reiko caution. There would be other suspects, other disagreements.

“Can we prevent a future investigation from dividing us again?” she said.

Sano took her hands in his. “We can pledge to try our best.”

The warm contact with her husband stirred in Reiko a powerful sense of all they’d experienced together during their marriage-the dangers faced and surmounted, the birth of Masahiro, the love for each other and their child that had sustained and gladdened them. She felt Sano’s strength and hers join to meet the challenges yet to come.

“And we shall succeed,” she said.

Laura Joh Rowland is a detective/mystery author best known for her series of mystery novels set in the late days of feudal Japan, mostly in Edo during the late 1600s. Rowland takes some licence with known figures, creating fictionalised versions of Tokugawa Tsunayoshi and Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu. Objective historical details, however, are credibly accurate.