by Jill Jones
“The driver’s record shows that he only took FitzSimmons two blocks before he demanded to be let off. Victoria, it was within steps of where the murder took place.”
“I can’t believe it,” Victoria cried. “I just can’t believe Reginald FitzSimmons is our man. Not only does he not fit the profile, he was drunk!”
“You kind of like the old boy, don’t you?” Jonathan said, touching her cheek lightly. He shouldn’t have done it, but he somehow couldn’t help it. He didn’t like the strained atmosphere that had stretched between them since they’d left the Yard.
Victoria jumped as if she’d been burned. “Don’t do that.”
“Why? Are you mad at me?”
“No.”
“Prove it,” he said, laying his hand on her shoulder.
“Jonathan,” she groaned, but turned toward him. “Don’t start this again. Not here. Not now.”
Relief flooded through him. The hungry look on her face told him she wanted him as badly as he wanted her. Maybe it hadn’t been a one night stand after all.
“Oh, be that way,” he said, removing his hand and giving her a grin. “But I’m disappointed. I thought we might stop by the hotel for a nooner.”
“Pervert.”
“Prude.”
“I am not!”
Jonathan wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and remind himself once again how very unprudish she was, but he restrained himself. It was enough to know there was still promise in the air.
“I have to go in to the Yard for a while,” he said.
“I want to go back to the hotel.”
He leered at her. “Change your mind?”
“Quit that. No, I’m a little tired, and I’d like to take a bath and change clothes.”
It wasn’t an unreasonable request. “Will you do as I say and lock yourself in your room until I’m free again?”
She gave him a pained look. “I’m supposed to be on vacation,” she reminded him. “Maybe I’d like to go see the Queen or something later this afternoon.”
“Then maybe I’d better assign a man to you. Or better yet…” He paused, eyeing her lecherously. “…I could take you into protective custody. We could find a safe house for you, where I could ravish your body anytime I wanted.”
“You really are a pervert,” she shot back, but then gave him a wicked smile. “I like that in a man.”
At last Victoria agreed to his terms. Not because she was afraid that Jack the Ripper was going to come after her, she assured him, but because after she refreshed herself, she had some work she wanted to do.
“What work? I thought you just said you were on vacation.”
She sighed and gave him a rueful smile. “It’s just the way I am. My work is my life. Better get used to it if you want to hang around me.”
It sounded almost like an invitation, and Jonathan decided he would give it a try. “What are you going to do?”
“Your guys believe Billy Ray is still in England, because no one by that name has taken any flights out of here since the murder. But I have a hunch…”
“Here we go again.”
“Hush. I think it’s possible he might have used an alias, or skipped through the channel tunnel to France and left from there. Have your guys considered those possibilities? I think he could have gone back to the States. I want to call Mosier and sick him onto Ray. I just have a feeling he’s our bird.”
Jonathan didn’t take offense at her stubborn persistence. Or her intuition. He was beginning to learn they were just part of her “ways.” Besides, he had to admit, she might be right.
He didn’t let her off in front of the hotel but insisted on walking her to her room, and he waited until he heard the door lock slide into place before leaving again. He wished she would move to another hotel, but as Victoria pointed out, if the killer was stalking her, it wouldn’t matter where she stayed.
In his office, Jonathan found a pile of message slips on his desk. It would take him an entire day to return all those calls, he thought glumly. He hated returning phone calls. Thumbing through the notes quickly, he paused when he came to one from Roger Hammersmith. Curious, he picked up the phone.
“Roger, Jonathan Blake here. What’s up?”
“I have a package for you I think you might find very interesting.”
“A package? What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.”
Jonathan frowned. How could Roger think it would interest him if he didn’t know what was in it? “Well, open it.”
“I can’t. I promised not to.”
“Who sent it?”
“Can’t tell you. Trust me on this one, old boy. You won’t be sorry, I’ll wager.”
“I’ll drop by the bookstore this evening. How late will you be open?”
“Seven-ish. I’m closing early tonight. I have an…uh…appointment.”
By the way Roger said it, Jonathan suspected he had a hot date. Good for him. He’d been a widower far too long. Unlike Jonathan, Roger needed a woman to look after him. He’d been getting a little seedy of late, Jonathan thought.
“Very well. See you before seven.”
Jonathan hung up the phone and considered what it would be like to have a woman in his life on a permanent basis. He’d always harbored a repugnant stereotype of married life. Husband and wife stuck together by a long-ago vow, hating each other, bored out of their minds. It was a picture of his parents that he’d carried with him all his life. They were gone now, and he hoped they’d found happiness in the afterlife, because they’d been pretty miserable in this one.
Somehow, Victoria Thomas didn’t fit the image of his mother, however. He simply could not imagine her as a sullen housewife. He couldn’t imagine her as a housewife at all. A thought occurred to him, and he brightened. Maybe she didn’t go for the marriage thing either. Nobody said a lover had to become a wife.
Then another thought cast a dark shadow. Nobody said a lover was permanent either. Victoria lived thousands of miles away. When she left England, she would leave him.
Jonathan wadded the rest of the messages in his fist and threw them onto the desk. He ran his fingers through his hair.
Christ, this was all he needed.
Victoria waited a few minutes, then opened the door and peeked into the hallway, half expecting to find Jonathan Blake lurking there to see if she would behave and stay in her room. A part of her hoped he would be, but it was better that he had gone on his way. Otherwise, she suspected she might weaken and go for that nooner.
Going back into her room, Victoria threw the deadbolt. As annoying as Jonathan could be where his work was concerned, she could not deny her feelings for him. And she had no doubt those feelings were reciprocated. It was disturbing. She was unaccustomed to anyone caring quite so much about what she did. In one respect, she found it stifling, but on the other hand, it was kind of touching to have a man so concerned about her welfare.
And what a man. She glanced at the bed, thinking what might have happened there if he had stayed. God, what a night they’d spent together in Kent. Victoria tingled all over just thinking about it. What was with her? She’d become like a sex maniac in Jonathan’s arms. She simply couldn’t get enough of him. No wonder she was so exhausted today. Yawning, she wondered when Scotland Yard would give her permission to return to the States. If they kept this up, she would die of sleep deprivation.
Noticing the message light was blinking on the telephone, Victoria dialed the concierge, who informed her a note had been left for her. They would send it right up.
So reminiscent was it of Saturday’s scenario that Victoria checked the floor in the hallway when the bell boy brought the envelope, just in case another goody had been left there for her. To her relief, there was nothing.
The envelope was large and square. It had not come in the mail, but rather had been hand delivered to the hotel. The concierge had found it on his desk and did not know who had put it there. She tore it open. Inside were two
pieces of paper. One appeared to be from a cheap tablet of lined paper. The other looked formal, official, and old.
“What on earth?” Her hands trembled as she took them to the small desk and flicked on the light.
“Things are not always as they seem,” she read the words neatly printed on the lined paper. “You are in grave danger. Beware.”
Victoria’s skin grew clammy, and the hair stood up on her arms. She glanced at the door to make sure she had indeed locked it. Maybe Jonathan’s overprotectiveness wasn’t so ridiculous after all.
She looked at the second note. “Sir, Our worst fears appear to be sustained. This must not proceed. Take action immediately as discussed.” It was signed simply, “V.R.”
Feeling slightly nauseous, Victoria slumped into a chair and put her hand to her mouth. Her other hand shook slightly as she held the warning note and reread it. Had the murderer sent it? Victoria knew that some killers literally cried out to be caught, and it wasn’t unheard of for an intended victim to receive a warning in advance of the attack.
She did not know what to make of the second letter at all.
Victoria leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to remain objective. There was no doubt in her mind that a full-fledged Ripper copycat murderer was at large. The MO of the killing, the signature style of the Ripper, the delivery of the liver, and the letter sent to the newspaper all pointed to someone who knew the old case very, very well.
But this warning letter didn’t fit, as far as she knew. The original Ripper hadn’t been known to forewarn any of his victims. Perhaps this wasn’t from the killer after all. But who could have sent it? And why to her?
Her knee-jerk reaction was to call Jonathan immediately. He hadn’t had time yet to arrive at the headquarters of New Scotland Yard. It would be easy for him just to turn around and…what? Rescue her? From what?
Victoria stood up and tossed the two messages onto the desk, disgusted at being such a ninny. She would not be held hostage by her fear. If the creep was out there waiting for her, she wanted to confront him. By daylight, of course. She considered a course of action that might flush him from the shadows and get him to reveal his identity without endangering her or anyone else.
She looked at her watch. It was just past one, London time. Mike wouldn’t be at work yet. But a man in his position was at work twenty-four/seven anyway, in the office or out. She couldn’t wait all day. She had other things to do. Reaching for the phone, she placed the international call.
Ten minutes later, after listening to Mike’s tirade about her choice of vacation activities, she managed to calm him down enough to give him the specifics of the case, and asked him to instigate a search for Billy Ray. With false confidence, as she said goodbye, she assured him she would be perfectly safe.
She had barely hung up the phone when it rang again. “Hello?”
“Tori?” Trey’s voice sounded as if he were in the next room, not across the ocean.
“Trey? Where are you?”
“Home. Where you ought to be. Are you okay? Have they caught the killer yet?”
She heard the open concern in his voice and was grateful for it, even though it was unnecessary. “It’s very sweet of you to call, Trey. No, we haven’t caught him yet. But we’re working on it.”
“What’s with this ‘we’ stuff? Are you involved in the investigation?”
“What do you think? I couldn’t just sit around eating bon bons while Scotland Yard goes after the killer.”
“Why don’t you just get your sweet ass on a plane and come home? You’re in danger there.”
Victoria grinned. Trey kidded her about using low language, but he was pretty good at it himself. “I can’t. Not until Scotland Yard releases me. It’s because the killer sent the…uh…liver to me. Besides, I think I can be of help in the case.”
“You’re sick, Victoria,” Trey growled. “You’re obsessed with murder. And you’re too damned hardheaded for your own good.”
Sick? Obsessed? Hardheaded? Her temper flared. “It’s my job, Trey,” she retorted. “I’m not sick or obsessed. It’s what I do for a living.”
There was a long pause on the line, then he said softly, “Okay, okay. I’m sorry. Just be careful. And give me a call when you get home.”
“Thanks. I will. And good luck on your new job.”
She hung up and stared at the phone, surprised at Trey’s sudden protective attitude toward her. It had always been the other way around. She thought about what he’d said, that she was obsessed with murder. She wanted to deny it, but her entire life did seem to revolve around brutal killings. The notion made her shudder. Maybe Trey was right. Maybe she was becoming obsessed. Maybe she should convince Scotland Yard that it would be better for her to return home than to get further involved.
But she knew she could no more back off now than she could fly.
Dismissing the idea, she considered again whether to call Jonathan. He should know about the latest “special delivery” right away. But she knew if she told him, he would take measures to protect her, and that she would likely become a virtual prisoner of Scotland Yard. For her own safety, she granted. But she would be unable to move about freely. And she had other ideas about that.
That phone call could wait.
Victoria took a quick shower and slipped into fresh clothing, eager to put her plan into action. Scrounging among the brochures and pamphlets she’d gathered about the sights to see in London, she came up with a map that marked the underground stations and tourist destinations. She donned comfortable walking shoes and her all-weather coat, stuffed the map in her handbag and headed for the door. She would purchase an umbrella if necessary, one with an extra heavy handle, she thought grimly, in case she needed a weapon.
Outside, the air was cool and damp, but it was not raining. Victoria stood for a moment at the street corner, getting her bearings and listening to the pounding of her heart. She wasn’t frightened, she told herself. She was just aware. The killer could be nearby, and it was her plan to get him to reveal himself if she could. What she’d do then, she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t think he would make a move against her in broad daylight with people all around.
Her hope was simply that she would “accidentally” encounter someone she recognized from the conference. If someone was stalking her, he might show himself in a casual, seemingly innocent, encounter, just to play with her. Perhaps, if her nerves didn’t fail her, she could engage him in conversation and learn something that would later lead to his capture. She fully expected the person to be Billy Ray.
Crossing the street along with a crowd, she glanced behind her. No portly gentleman. No body-builder. Nobody she recognized. Still, she was tense as she walked the two blocks to the tube station and descended into the dimly lit underground. It, too, was filled with people, but she was uneasy. Hits were made in places like these regardless of the crowds. But she doubted that the Ripper copycat would strike here. It wasn’t his MO, she reminded herself. His kind of slime lurked in the midnight darkness of lonely streets and preyed on the homeless and helpless.
Nonetheless, when she arrived at her destination, Victoria was glad to return to the surface. She walked briskly to the ticket booth of the attraction she’d come to see. The Tower of London. Now a major tourist draw, the ancient stone fortress had seen more than its share of terror and death. For centuries, prisoners had been incarcerated here, tortured, beheaded, and piked, sometimes for no reason other than that they were on the wrong side of the political fence.
Again seeking safety in numbers, Victoria joined a group gathered around one of the tour guides. Were the killers of yesteryear so different from the man she sought today? she reflected, looking up at the crenellated structure. Killers were killers. But those killers of old had been different, in one important respect. They were killers with motive. The Ripper copycat and others like him killed for the pure pleasure of it.
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Victoria caught sight of a f
amiliar face. Someone from the Sherlockian weekend had joined the group. The person spotted her and did not hesitate to edge through the crowd and approach her.
“I thought you were instructed to go home,” Victoria remarked, surprised but unafraid.
Adele Quigley shrugged. “I was. But I would have had to pay a premium to change my airplane ticket. Besides, this was the vacation of a lifetime for me. I had prepaid everything and planned to spend a full week, and I decided not to let what happened scare me away. I moved out of the hotel into an inexpensive guest house in Earl’s Court, and I’ve been sightseeing ever since. I’ve been to Buckingham, Westminster, Harrod’s, all over London on the underground. But you can bet,” she added as the group began to move toward the Tower, “I won’t be going back to Whitechapel.”
Chapter Eleven
King’s College, Cambridge
Sixth October 1887
It has been many months since I last saw my beloved Prince. I have to work to control the rage that burns inside me at the notion that he is being deliberately kept from me. I do not deserve this treatment, for I was and am Eddy’s only friend. He has managed to smuggle messages to me these past miserable lonely months, and a mourning bracelet that he wove from hair plucked from his head. They are all that sustains me.
My days are empty, but my nights are filled with powerful, seductive dreams. In them, I am threatened by women. Sometimes it is Lady Stephen who shows herself to me, at other times more common whores. I am ashamed to admit it, but sometimes it is the image of my little cousin Virginia who raises her skirts to me. I am compelled by these women to thrust myself inside their vile cunts, whereon they consume me. They tear my flesh away and emasculate me. But I am stronger than they. I must be stronger to survive. In these dreams, my cock becomes a rapier, and even as I submit to their obscene demands, I take my revenge. I slice into them, riding them mercilessly, until they are slain and lay bleeding beneath me.
“There’s nothing. No weapon. No fingerprints. We did not find a hair, a fiber, or any foreign bodily fluids on the victim.” Jonathan listened as the coroner reported the results of the autopsy on the victim who had been murdered in Whitechapel. “The killer must have worn a space suit and swallowed the knife.”
