by Stuart, Anne
It would have taken nothing at all to push him over the edge again, to follow her. A sigh, a whisper, the stroke of her hand on his arm. He kept himself very still, waiting until the last tremor died away from her body, the last stray shiver passed over her skin. Waited until the tears stopped seeping from beneath her closed lids.
And then he pulled away, out of her, pushing off from the bed, moving to the bathroom and slamming the door behind him, locking it.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror. At the haggard face, at the arousal that mocked. And then he turned on the shower, full blast, and stepped in, letting the icy-cold water sluice down around him. Wishing it would drown him.
LIZZIE GRABBED ONE of the pillows and hugged it tightly against her body. She was still frightened, still shaken, still more confused than she’d been in her entire life.
He’d hurt her. And yet, for the first time in her life, she’d climaxed. And he had been the one to make her do it.
She hated him for that. She could have endured the pain, the degradation. She had before. But after terrifying her, shutting down her reactions with his brutality, he’d made her come alive again, more alive than she’d felt in her entire life, and she would never forgive him.
For some reason frustration clawed at her insides, because he hadn’t finished. He’d left her, after bringing her to an unwilling climax, and she felt empty, unfinished, needful. She cursed herself for feeling that way. For the sheer illogic of it.
She lay alone in the darkness, shivering despite the heat. It had stopped raining. She was so used to the constant drizzle that the very absence of it was intrusive, startling.
The two doors leading from the bedroom were closed, shutting her within the sultry darkness. She could hear the sound of the shower, and she knew she should pull on her clothes and run from this place, from this man.
But he’d slammed the door to the living room when he’d carried her to bed like some romantic lover and then proceeded to terrify her and hurt her. And she didn’t want to get up and open that door.
She wasn’t sure why. She just had this deep, dreadful sense that whatever lay beyond the living room door was too horrifying to face. Better to face the fear she knew, the face of John Ripley Damien, than to open the door on a darkness deeper than any she’d ever known.
She pulled the sheet up over her body, wrapping it around her, still clutching the pillow in place of someone’s warm, loving body. She felt shaken, frightened, hurt. And just once, just for a moment, she would have liked to feel peace.
It seemed like hours before she heard the shower turn off, hours longer before the door to the bathroom opened, flooding the dark bedroom with a harsh glare. Lizzie allowed herself a small, sullen glance at Damien as he stood in the doorway. He was dressed, at least partially, in a pair of baggy jeans that had probably once fit him. His hair was wet, he’d shaved, and his expression, as usual, was blank.
“I was afraid you might have run,” he said, reaching for one of the shirts she’d dumped on the nearby chair. It was a black T-shirt, and for a moment she started, fascinated, as he pulled it on. It had the skull-and-roses Grateful Dead logo emblazoned across the front.
“Don’t wear that shirt,” she snapped, still hugging the pillow, refusing to meet his eyes.
He glanced down at it, then pulled it back over his head, tossing it into the wastebasket. “Did I hurt you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she muttered into the pillow, closing her eyes, trying to close him out.
She felt the bed sag beneath his weight, and she stiffened, afraid he would touch her, afraid she would let him. But he remained where he was, until she warily opened her eyes.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked again, calm, patient, inexorable.
She thought about it for a moment, not interested in sparing his feelings. She almost considered lying, then thought better of it. “No,” she said finally.
“Are you sure?”
She raised her head at that, finally goaded beyond endurance, beyond embarrassment. “For crying out loud!” she snapped. “If I said no, I meant it! Do you think I’m in the mood to spare your tender feelings? It was a little uncomfortable, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said. “Could we just drop it? So we made a mistake. I’m used to it. You told me to leave you alone, that you had nothing to give me, and I didn’t listen. I never had good taste when it came to men. You’ve probably pointed that out to me. Just chalk it up as one more bad error in judgment and leave it—”
He hauled her into his arms and kissed her, effectively silencing her tirade, and his mouth was so sweet, so gentle against hers, that she wanted to start crying all over again. “It’s not your fault,” he murmured against her cheek. “It’s mine. Something came over me, something black and terrible. It scared me, and I was afraid I might hurt you.” He cupped her face, looking down at her, and for a moment his emotions were no longer masked, and he looked real and lost and infinitely dear.
“Damien,” she said, softening, wanting to kiss him again.
He shook his head, pulling away from her. “You believed what Courtland told you, didn’t you?”
The abrupt change in subject startled her. “Yes,” she said. “Did you?”
He didn’t answer, simply moved to the door, staring at it in surprise, as if he hadn’t remembered closing it. “I don’t know,” he said. “But I think I’d better warn you about something.”
“I’ve been warned about enough things.”
He paid no attention to her protest. “Just because I wasn’t Jack the Ripper in a previous life,” he said, “that doesn’t mean I’m not him in this one.” And he opened the living room door and left her without another word.
Chapter Twelve
IT WAS A SIMPLE enough matter to break into the abandoned apartment. He stood beneath the shower, washing the blood from his body, scrubbing it from beneath his fingernails. He’d worn a raincoat, but his shoes were a mess, and even his hair was matted with the stuff.
It would be much easier if he could do his work naked. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about getting the errant stains out of his clothes.
Not in this lifetime, he thought sadly, stepping out of the shower and looking at his reflection in the filthy mirror. He squinted, and the form altered its shape, moving, coalescing, changing from a lithe, strong bodybuilder with close-set eyes and flowing blond hair to a paunchy, middle-aged bureaucrat. He blinked, and it shifted again, to a woman, soft and rounded, and he felt the blood lust rise in him once more. And then his vision cleared, and he could see himself as most people saw him. Ordinary. Harmless.
It was a gift he’d been given. The ability to project whatever he wanted when the killing haze was upon him. It was no wonder he was never recognized. No wonder he’d gotten away with it, in this lifetime and so many, many others.
He dressed quickly. His shoes were wet, the cheap imitation leather soaked where he’d scrubbed the blood away. His socks were wet, as well, and uncomfortable.
In a matter of moments he was back again, himself, a decent man who wouldn’t harm a fly. He picked up the package, tucking it under his arm with extreme care, and started toward the bathroom door. He paused, turning back, and met his eyes in the mirror, eyes that were shifting and rainbow colored.
He looked into those kind, worried eyes, and he laughed softly.
THE LIVING ROOM was ablaze with light when Lizzie came out of the bedroom. Damien had turned on every single lamp, and he was standing at the picture window, staring out over the city, his shoulders hunched, tense, a glass of pale liquid in one hand.
Lizzie paused, staring about her, uneasy. Something wasn’t right about the room, she’d felt it ever since she’d lain in bed, watching the closed door, but she couldn’t figure ou
t what.
He turned at the sound of her footsteps, and there was no reading the expression on her face. “You found something to wear,” he said.
“Yes.” She tugged at the oversize T-shirt, then regretted her action as his eyes immediately went to her breasts. In the heat of the room, the heat of his gaze, she felt her nipples harden, and she quickly crossed her arms across her chest like a self-conscious adolescent.
“I wasn’t thinking about your breasts,” he said wryly. “But I am now.” He turned away, looking out into the night. The rain had started again, a light drizzling, coating the cracked window and running down in rivulets. “Do you want a drink? There’s some tequila left. No, that’s right, you hate tequila.” He took a long, meditative drink from his own glass. “All the more for me.”
She reached out to touch him, putting her hand on his bare arm, and he jerked away, as if burned, and the liquor sloshed over the carpet.
“Don’t,” he said in a tight voice. “Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me.”
She didn’t move. “Why?”
He sighed, sounding infinitely weary. “Haven’t you been paying attention here, Lizzie? Keeping score? I could have hurt you tonight. Hell, I could have killed you. Something came over me and I don’t know what it was. Memories, dreams. Maybe I was possessed by demons. Maybe I was possessed by something else. Just be glad I stopped in time. Before you were hurt even worse.”
All her anger and hurt had vanished, leaving behind only a raw, aching wound. She wanted to touch him, heal him, drive those demons away from him. All she could do was stand there. “You didn’t hurt me,” she said.
“I could have. Damn it, don’t you understand? I don’t know where it would have stopped. You might have ended up in pieces all over the bedroom, just like Mary Kelly . . .”
“I thought I was Long Liz Stride.”
“It’s nothing to joke about.”
She managed a very small smile. “No.” She reached out to him again, and he whirled around, twisting his arm to catch hers.
“Don’t,” he said again. “Or I’ll take you back into the bedroom, and God only knows how it will end. We might not even get that far. Stop looking at me like that, Lizzie, or I swear I’ll tear the clothes off your body and take you right here on the floor.”
“I wouldn’t stop you.”
He groaned. “Haven’t you learned anything, Lizzie?”
“Yes,” she said, knowing she was about to say the most dangerous thing of all. “I learned I’m in love with you.”
He froze in unflattering horror, but a moment later caught her other arm, pulling her up to him. He was still hard with wanting her. “Damn it, Lizzie,” he muttered, his head moving down to hers, when suddenly he stopped.
She felt the horror suffusing his body as his gaze focused past her shoulder and his fingers tightened on her arms. “What is it?” she asked in a hushed voice.
“The masks,” he said. “They’re gone.”
He released her, and she turned, looking at the wall where the two masks had hung. They were gone; the wall was bare. Except for a streak of rusty brown, where the clown mask had hung.
The darkness hit her like a blow, and the dizziness washed over her. She wasn’t going to pass out, she wasn’t. “When?” she managed to gasp.
“They were there when we got here,” he said. “They were there when I carried you into the bedroom.”
Lizzie shoved her fist into her mouth to stop the scream that threatened to erupt as horror washed over her. Her mind was blank, only the word no, no, no rattled around inside her head.
And then Damien caught her hand, forcing her to move, yanking her toward the door. “We’re getting out of here,” he said. “Now.”
“What if he’s still in the building?”
“Then he can get in here, despite my security. He’s already proved it. We’re getting the hell out of Venice, out of L.A. entirely. We’re going to drive as far and as fast as we can. Come on, damn it!” he said, hauling her through the door.
The hallway was deserted, the bare light bulb swaying slightly for no reason whatsoever. And then Lizzie’s eyes focused on the brown streaks along the wall. “Damien,” she whispered.
“Don’t look,” he said. “Just come with me.” He jammed the button of the elevator, and a loud buzzing noise could be heard coming from the shaft. “Damn,” he muttered, turning and heading back the other way, through the bloody hallway, shoving open the metal door to the stairway.
Lizzie held back for a brief, horrified moment. “He might be down there.”
“No elevator, Lizzie,” he said, jerking her.
“It’s coming,” she said, listening to the creak of the old lift as it rose upward.
“Come with me, Lizzie. You don’t want to be anywhere near that elevator.”
She didn’t listen. She pulled away, and started back down the hallway, just as the elevator door slid open with a wheezing sigh. “There’s no one in there,” she called over her shoulder. “Come on, Damien, we can—”
And then she saw her. What was left of her. The floor of the elevator was awash with blood, the corpse of the woman lying there so mutilated and disfigured that Lizzie could barely recognize it as having once been human. In the middle lay the mask of the clown, matted with blood. She stood there in the open door to the elevator, frozen in space and time.
She didn’t even feel Damien put his arms around her, drawing her away. Time passed in a blur as she fought to keep from screaming. She shut down everything, her vision, her mind, her sense of smell, moving where Damien led her, a shell with no life with which to feel pain.
And then it left her, that hard cocoon of safety, and she was in the front seat of Damien’s car, speeding away from the city as the rain beat down around them. She had no idea how much time had passed since they left the apartment—it could have been minutes, it could have been days.
She began to shake so hard that she thought her bones would fall apart. “Don’t,” he said, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t remember, don’t think about it, or it will haunt you.”
“Do you think I have any choice in the matter?” she cried, her voice a raw whisper of pain. “Oh, God, Damien, that poor woman . . .”
“Stop it, Lizzie,” he snapped. “There’s nothing you can do for her now. Take what comfort you can in the fact that she would have felt very little.”
“How do you know?”
“There have been enough autopsies, and I’ve read every one. He cuts their throats, and they’re usually dead before he goes on to the more creative aspects of his-”
“Stop it!” It was no whisper, it was a scream, and the violence of it was shocking. “Stop it,” she said again, in a quiet voice this time. She looked around her. “You’re going the wrong way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to go to my apartment.”
“Lizzie, you’re not safe. I won’t leave you there alone. We’re getting the hell away from here, and we’ll call the police when we stop.”
“I don’t want you to leave me,” she said. “I need to get something.”
“What?”
“The masks. I’m not going to leave them for him to get his hands on. If he runs out of masks, he’ll run out of killing.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that simple.”
“It’s the only thing I can do, Damien,” she said, in a dull voice. “Grant me that much.”
“What if he’s waiting at your apartment? Waiting for you? That body in the elevator wasn’t a random choice. It was a message for you.”
“Maybe he thought it was me.”
Damien shook his head. “He’s not going to make any more mistakes.” He jerked the wheel savagely, and the car slid on the wet
surface as he turned back.
She was out of the car the moment he pulled up outside her apartment, and he managed to get ahead of her only by sprinting, stopping her at the door and barring the way. “Let me check first,” he said. “He doesn’t kill men.”
Lizzie looked past him to the door in horror. “Damien,” she whispered, “someone’s been here.”
He pushed the door open slowly, stepping into the dark interior of the apartment, and Lizzie was right behind him. She could see the outlines of her masks against the walls, and her relief was enormous. Until she saw the shadow of a man against the window, eerily motionless.
It was him, she thought dazedly. The Ripper had found her, and it was too late to run. And all she could think was that she wished Damien had finished what he’d started with her, just a short while ago.
“Run, Lizzie,” Damien said under his breath.
But Lizzie was frozen, staring at the figure in her apartment as it slowly turned toward them, expecting to look into the yawning gates of hell.
Damien’s arm shot out, and he turned on the light, flooding the room. Illuminating the hunched-over figure of Hickory, his straggly gray hair loose around his face, his expression an unreadable one.
The terror left Lizzie in such a rush that she almost collapsed. “Hickory!” she cried, starting toward him, when Damien reached out a hand to stop her.
“You’re too trusting, Lizzie,” he said in a cool voice.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Hickory isn’t the Ripper,” she said angrily, trying to shake off his grip.
“No,” said Hickory. “I have neither the strength nor the dexterity.” And he held up his hands, hands that were gnarled and distorted by the crippling arthritis that had plagued him for most of his adult life. There was no way he could wield a knife with surgical precision.
Damien cursed, released Lizzie, and shut the door behind them, shutting out the rain and the night and the darkness. “Then what the hell are you doing here?” he demanded. “And how did you get in?”