Break the Night

by Stuart, Anne

  Lizzie stared at him in horror. “Get out of here,” she said in a low voice.

  He didn’t seem the slightest bit offended. He started toward the door, pausing to look at her. “You’d better tell Adamson. Not that you’ll be able to reach him—he’s never there when you need him. But you should at least make the effort. The Ripper killed two women one night, and no one’s sure why. He might decide he needs another mask. And he’d come back here to get it.”

  “Stop it!” she cried. “You’re scaring me.”

  He opened the door, and the night rain splashed inside, made dazzling by the light from the street. “I just want to save your life, Lizzie,” he said. “If I have to terrify you to do it, then I will. Every woman in the greater Los Angeles area should be scared to death. You in particular.”

  A moment later, he closed the door behind him, and she was alone once more. She moved across the room, twisting the lock with angry force, then leaning her face against the cool white door. She could hear the throaty sound of his sports car as it drove away, and then there was nothing but the usual street noise.

  “For someone who wants to save my life, mister,” she muttered out loud, “you certainly are abandoning me easily enough.”

  She pushed herself away from the door, moving back to the row of masks along the wall. She couldn’t believe The Bag Lady was gone and that absolutely nothing else was disturbed. Surely if the Ripper had broken into her apartment he would have been waiting for her?

  Even assuming someone had actually broken in, who was to say it was him? There were hundreds, probably thousands, of thieves in this area of southern California. There was absolutely no reason to assume that the sneak thief, if there had been a sneak thief, would be the Venice Ripper.

  Except for the fact that he’d chosen her apartment, of all places. And one of her masks was missing.

  She traversed the spotless apartment slowly, looking for any sign of the intruder. There was absolutely nothing to suggest anyone had been there, apart from the open door and the missing mask.

  And how in God’s name had he managed to get in? Granted, she couldn’t afford a state-of-the-art security system, but the locks on her apartment door and windows were serviceable. There should have been some sign of forced entry. Unless whoever had been there had the ability to walk through walls.

  “Stop it,” she said out loud, heading into the kitchen. There was nothing in her refrigerator but a jar of homemade granola, some outdated yogurt and a little fruit juice, and her stomach protested at the very sight. She needed something bland and starchy—comfort food—on a night like this. But she suspected that all the meat loaf and pasta in the world wouldn’t comfort her.

  Damien was right, damn him, she discovered when she tried to phone. Adamson was out somewhere and couldn’t be reached at the moment, and Lizzie wasn’t about to entrust her irrational worries to an underling.

  There were no betraying fingerprints lurking around the apartment, she knew that with an instinct that was irrational and unshakable. Whoever had come into her apartment was like a shadow, leaving no trace of his passing. Sooner or later she’d get in touch with Adamson, tell him about the missing mask. It wouldn’t matter if it were tonight or tomorrow.

  She wasn’t about to talk to one of the other men on the case. Adamson knew her; Adamson had proof that her connection with the Ripper murders was only peripheral. Others weren’t quite so certain.

  She looked as if she had the strength to commit the crimes. She even had the knowledge of anatomy, due to the emergency training course she’d taken in college. She had no motive, but then, what reasonable motive could there be for such grisly crimes?

  If they were going to suspect anyone, they should suspect Damien. He’d seemed to know her apartment had been broken into, he’d known that the thief was gone, that a mask was missing. There was no logical explanation unless he was the one who’d broken in.

  But if it was him, why had he brought her home and then left her? Why hadn’t he taken a knife to her, as well? Was it all some elaborate game of cat and mouse?

  Her apartment was hot and muggy, but Lizzie felt chilled to the bone. She wanted a shower, and yet something stopped her. The thought that someone had been there, someone indescribably evil, made her skin crawl. She couldn’t bring herself to strip off her clothes, despite the fact that she knew she was alone, knew the doors and windows were once again securely locked.

  Against an intruder who’d had no trouble breaching them in the first place.

  She found a woven cotton throw, one she’d bartered for with a fellow artisan, and wrapped it around her as she curled up on the couch. Usually she slept on the futon on the floor, but she felt too vulnerable lying down. Instead she huddled in the blanket, staring blindly at her row of masks.

  She couldn’t get him out of her mind. Damien, with the tormented eyes, the narrow, haunted face, the long, elegant hands. He was like some dark Gothic hero, a Heathcliff, driven by demons. But Heathcliff had been as much a villain as a hero, and he’d ended badly. Were Damien’s demons so strong that he would be beaten by them, as well?

  He was fighting them; Lizzie could see that quite clearly. Fighting some kind of darkness, a darkness he called the Venice Ripper, but she couldn’t help wonder if there were more to it than that. The decaying apartment, the life on the raw edge of nerves, all suggested more than dedication to a career-making story. Besides, J. R. Damien had no need to make his career—his reputation was impressive enough.

  He was obsessed with the Ripper, more so, unfortunately, than the police department. If Adamson had put a fraction of the same intensity into the case, the monster would have been behind bars long ago.

  Intensity, that was the word for Damien. Intense, obsessed. Driven. And shockingly, disturbingly attractive.

  She would be a fool to deny it, and she’d never been one to cultivate self-delusion. She found him attractive. She shouldn’t. She thought she’d learned to keep away from men who were bad for her, but her previous relationships seemed models of sanity compared to her fascination with Damien.

  It had to be the weather. Weeks and weeks of rain were enough to turn anyone’s brain to mold and mildew. Combine that with the specter of a killer stalking the midnight streets of Venice, and it was no wonder she was feeling fanciful, irrational.

  Vulnerable.

  She should have taken his money. Pride be damned, she should have taken anything he’d been willing to give her, gotten in her car and driven to Nebraska or someplace equally midwestern and safe. She should have gone to find some nice, uncomplicated man, settle down and raise babies.

  Except that she’d never had the wisdom to be attracted to nice, uncomplicated men. And she couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d been so drawn to another human being.

  She snuggled down deeper into the soft blanket, closing her eyes. She could hear the rain beating against her windows, steady, soaking. She could hear the sound of traffic in the streets. Once she almost thought she recognized the distinctive sound of Damien’s sports car. And then she was asleep.

  DAMIEN WASN’T particularly in the mood to be driving around in the rain. Neither was he in the mood to go home, alone, to the silence of his apartment. His mouth twisted in a smile as he thought about it. Squalor, she’d said.

  Well, he liked his squalor. No, scratch that. He simply didn’t notice it. He washed a dish if he needed it, took out the trash when he noticed bugs. Apart from that, he simply didn’t care. He had more important things to worry about than being a good housekeeper.

  Obviously Lizzie didn’t have enough to occupy her mind, which in itself was a surprise. She had a satisfying art; she had a job to make ends meet; she had an unnerving connection to a serial killer. Those things alone ought to make her concentrate on more important things than the waxy yellow buildup on her kitchen f
loors.

  She needed a man. It was that simple. She needed someone to keep her so occupied that she wouldn’t worry about dirty dishes and stray newspapers. She needed a man to carry her over to that futon he’d noticed lying in the corner of the room and tear the sheets off. She needed clothes strewn from one end of the apartment to the other, her clothes and his, until they wound up naked on that thin mattress

  “No,” he said aloud, clamping a shutter down on his erotic fancies. Not him. She needed a man who could concentrate on her alone. She needed someone to make love to her, hard and often, someone to wipe that anxious look from her eyes. He wasn’t that man.

  Even if, for the first time since he could remember, he wished he was.

  He pulled the Austin-Healey over to the sidewalk and parked. He could see her building from where he sat; he could see if anyone entered, if anyone skulked around the back, looking for a way to break in. He didn’t really think that was going to happen, but couldn’t simply go home and go to bed, assuming she’d be safe.

  He would watch. After all, he scarcely slept nowadays. He might as well spend the night sitting in his car, watching her apartment rather than pacing the littered floor of his own squalid place.

  He slid down in the cracked leather seat, staring at the building. The streets were almost deserted, only one of California’s uncounted homeless wandering down the sidewalk, shopping bags in both hands, her skirts trailing around thick ankles. She had a filthy scarf over her grizzled gray hair, and she was singing something. He concentrated, trying to make out the words, but they were unintelligible, meaningless. It sounded like some old children’s rhyme he’d never heard.

  She paused to glance up at Lizzie’s building, and adrenaline shot through Damien’s body. She moved on, muttering some old song about sunrise soap or some such thing. And then she disappeared into the night.

  He forced himself to relax once more. The lights were still on in Lizzie’s apartment, and he found himself wishing she had larger windows and no shades. He wanted to sit there and watch her undress, like the crudest voyeur. He wanted to enliven the long, endless hours after midnight with harmless erotic fantasies. About her soft mouth. Her long legs. Her muscled arms and that thick mop of red hair. In another lifetime there might have been the possibility—just the possibility, mind you—of something wonderful.

  Her eyes hinted of that lifetime. Of a thousand lifetimes, all coming to a head in this one. He wanted to believe in that possibility, but he knew it would be a waste of time.

  Right now there were no possibilities at all. Only staying alive for another day. And making sure no one else died.

  SHE SHUFFLED ALONG the streets. Her shopping bags were heavy, but she didn’t mind. She had the tools of her trade with her wherever she went, and she should be glad of the burden. She used the Giorgio bag for the mask. She wished she’d used a plastic bag for the knives. Blood had a tendency to soak through paper.

  No one bothered her. A lucky thing for them. They might think she was just a helpless old lady, crooning her meaningless songs. They might not see her power.

  She knew where she would find her goal that night. She’d wanted to go back to the apartment, but it wasn’t time yet. She had to wait until the perfect moment. Besides, that reporter was sitting in his car, watching her. She knew he didn’t suspect, but he was busy watching the mask-maker’s house. She would have to wait until later.

  It was all right. She’d waited long enough. More than a hundred years, in fact. She could wait a few days longer.

  In the meantime, she had work to do, and not much time to accomplish it. Humming softly, she shuffled off down the street, in search of the next victim.

  LIZZIE DREAMED. Not of monsters or blood, not of masks and death. She dreamed of Damien.

  Damien, with his elegant hands touching her, his fingers tracing random patterns on her hot skin as he watched her from his dark, haunted eyes. And then it was his mouth, brushing against her lips, his thin, mocking mouth, kissing her, pressing hard against her, so that she had no choice but to open her mouth and taste him, and he tasted of darkness and sex and obsession, everything she’d ever run from, and she kissed him back, willingly, reaching for him, wanting him.

  His body was hard, hot, strong against hers, and his skin was smooth and vibrant. His hands were sliding beneath her clothing, beneath layers and layers, deft, impatient, and she arched up against him, reveling in the feel of him, the hunger he felt for her alone

  She was jarred awake, suddenly, rudely, and she was covered with a cold sweat, her hands shaking as she tried to summon back the disturbing dream. Somewhere in that dream were the answers, and they’d vanished, ripped away, just as her sleep had been, by the strident sound of the phone ringing.

  She didn’t want to answer it. She’d fallen asleep with the lights on, and she could see it was close to six in the morning. The sun was probably up already, but the rain was still falling. Another dreary day, and the phone could bring nothing but disaster.

  She waited for her answering machine to click in, but the phone simply kept ringing, harsh, insistent, and she had no choice.

  She knew it was Adamson before he spoke. She knew it was another death. And she knew what she had to ask.

  “Do you need me to send a squad car?” Adamson asked, his voice solicitous. “It won’t take long—we’ve gone through all this too many times.”

  “I can get there myself,” she said wearily. “What mask was the girl wearing?”

  “Does it matter?” Some of Adamson’s patience was clearly wearing thin.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know what you’d call it. The mask looks like an old woman. Apple cheeks, gray hair. Sort of like . . .”

  “Like a bag lady,” Lizzie supplied wearily.

  “Exactly. Is that important?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get there. Give me half an hour.”

  She got in the shower before she could think twice about it, then pulled on a baggy pair of jeans and a chambray shirt, twisting her wet hair in a loose knot at the back of her neck. It wasn’t until she stepped out into the early-morning drizzle that she remembered her car had broken down.

  She hesitated on her front walkway. And then she saw it, Damien’s old sports car, parked a few yards down the street.

  She walked over to it without hesitation. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, asleep, his thin face shadowed with exhaustion. She almost hated to wake him up.

  She moved around to the passenger side and opened the door, sliding in as he jerked awake.

  “If you were watching over me,” she said pleasantly enough, “then you aren’t supposed to fall asleep.”

  He blinked, rubbing a hand across his stubbled jaw. The car smelled of wet leather and cigarettes, and the floor was littered with empty paper coffee cups, attesting to his long night.

  “I just drifted off for a moment.” He shifted in the seat to stare at her. “What’s wrong?”

  “I need a ride to the police station.”

  “There’s been another murder.”

  “How’d you know?” she asked in an artificially bright voice. “And you’ll never guess which mask the poor girl was wearing.”

  “The bag lady.” He started the car with a savage twist of his wrist. “How come they didn’t send a squad car?”

  “They’re getting used to this by now. It’ll be the same old questions, and then I’ll come back home.”

  “Not this time. He was in your apartment yesterday. They’ve got a lead. He might have left a fingerprint, a speck of dandruff. Something . . . “He pulled out into the empty post-dawn street. “Didn’t you tell them your apartment had been broken into?”

  “I tried.” She stared straight ahead, into the rainswept morning. “Couldn’t get through to anybody.”

 
“They’d probably already found the body. Damn,” he said, slamming his fist against the steering wheel. “Why the hell did I have to fall asleep?”

  She turned to stare at him. “What’s that got to do with anything?” she asked. “It didn’t sound like the murder happened anywhere near us. You wouldn’t have seen anything.”

  “No,” he said shortly. “Of course not.” He didn’t sound convinced.

  The ride to the police station was short and silent. “I’m coming in with you,” he said when he pulled up outside.

  “There’s no need.”

  “There’s every need. I was in your apartment last night. They’ll want to talk to me as well. I’ll save them the trouble of looking for me. Besides, they might have found out something interesting.”

  “And you think they’d tell you? A reporter?”

  “Adamson tells me things he wouldn’t tell another reporter. Probably because I’ve found out things he hasn’t. I have greater access to information. I can use bribes. There are street people who wouldn’t think of talking to a cop, but who are more than happy to tell me what I need to know. We have a good working relationship, Adamson and I.” His voice was cool and cynical.

  “Then I suppose I can thank him for giving you the information about me,” she said, making no effort to leave the car.

  “No,” Damien said, opening the car door. “I’m the one who told him about you.”

  Adamson looked up when they were ushered into his office, and his bluff face was blank with surprise. “Both of you?”

  “I drove her here,” Damien said.

  Lizzie opened her mouth to correct the impression their arriving together must have made, but then she closed it again. It didn’t matter to her what Adamson thought. It only mattered that he caught the killer.

  “Take a seat,” Adamson said after a moment’s evident surprise. “I didn’t think you two knew each other.”