Break the Night

by Stuart, Anne

  “Lizzie,” he yelled, slamming into the kitchen, hearing only his own voice echo back. “Lizzie!” he called again.

  And then he saw the two coffee cups on the dusty wooden table.

  “No,” he moaned. It was a sound of deep pain. He stumbled forward into the living room, half expecting to see her lying on the mattress, sightless eyes staring upward. There was no sign of her.

  He dived toward the basket, but the mask was gone, as well. With any luck, she’d taken it with her, keeping it from the killer. But who in God’s name had she gone with? Who would she trust, more than him?

  The answer was inescapable, and horrifying in its ramifications. She’d gone with the one man she thought represented authority and safety, just as Mary Kelly had been fool enough to go with the one man she thought was safe. The man who was never around when there was a killing, the man who had access to all knowledge.

  She’d gone with Chief Detective Finlay Adamson. The Venice Ripper.

  ADAMSON HADN’T come after her in a police car, and that, at least, was something Lizzie could be grateful for. She’d ridden in his squad car too many times. This one was larger, and it didn’t smell of sweat and cigarettes and urine. It smelled like leather and luxury, and the seats were comfortable. She leaned her head back, closing her eyes, unwilling to watch the landscape as they made their way back to Los Angeles and safety. She wanted to shut out everything.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Adamson murmured, and she didn’t bother to open her eyes.

  “They’re not pleasant.”

  “I didn’t imagine they would be. Why did you run away with Damien? I tried to warn you.”

  She shook her head, negating that line of questioning. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it,” he said. “Would a dying man write an innocent man’s name in blood?”

  She turned then, to look at him. “I don’t know.”

  “If there’s any other answer, we’ll find it. We have to bring him in first. We’ve got an all-points bulletin out covering the southern half of the state. We’ll pick him up, never you fear. He can’t have gone far.”

  She tried to fight the silent voice that screamed a protest inside her head. She had to stop being so damned stupid! “Shouldn’t you be doing something?” she said tentatively, trying to control her anger. It wasn’t his fault that her heart was being torn in two. “Not wasting your time with me?”

  Adamson turned his gaze straight ahead again, but his big hands clenched the steering wheel, then relaxed. “I should,” he admitted reluctantly. “I was worried about you. Too many women have died on my watch, and I couldn’t stand the thought of one more. I ought to be out there, coordinating the manhunt.”

  “You can drop me off someplace.”

  “It wouldn’t be safe,” he said.

  “Listen, I imagine there are any number of places between here and Los Angeles where I can hide. Drop me off, and only you will know where I am.”

  He appeared to consider it. “You’re safe until nightfall,” he said slowly. “The Ripper can’t kill in the daylight.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Adamson shrugged. “Just a guess, really. No one’s been killed in the daytime, with the exception of Courtland Massey, and according to the coroner’s preliminary estimate she died just after dawn. The killer probably didn’t even realize it was daybreak with all the rain and darkness that’s been hanging around southern California. If it keeps up like this we won’t even know there was ever a drought.” He gave her a friendly smile, obviously trying to set her at ease. It didn’t work. “So far that’s been his only mistake, and I don’t think he’ll make it again. There’s no way anyone will hurt you for another—” he glanced at his watch “—six hours. I could drop you off at a place I know, then come back and get you. You’d be safe there.”

  “Where?”

  “I passed an old train station on the way in. It’s been deserted for years, it’s way out in the middle of nowhere, but it’s still pretty sound. You could hide out there until I came back for you.”

  The idea should have terrified her. It didn’t. “That sounds like a good idea,” she said, unnaturally calm. She wanted to get away from Adamson with his comforting smile, away from everyone, while she sorted through the unacceptable. That the hands that had touched her, made love to her, were stained with blood.

  She would have thought the landscape would have changed as they headed west, but it seemed to grow scrubbier, more desertlike as he drove.

  They turned off onto a secondary road following an overgrown set of railway tracks. The road ended at a deserted train station, one that probably hadn’t seen passengers in more than fifty years.

  “You drove by here earlier?”

  “Took the wrong turn,” he said easily. “It’s unlocked.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I was looking for a phone. Go on in. We’re more than an hour from his house—there’s no way Damien can find you. He’s just a man, you know. Not some creature with supernatural powers. Just an ordinary man.”

  Lizzie closed her eyes for a moment, remembering. “Just an ordinary man,” she echoed flatly.

  “Go inside and keep low. Here.” He reached into the back seat and handed her a satchel. “There’s some food and water in there, and a blanket. If I’m late getting back, it might get cold. But don’t come out for anyone else. If anyone comes, you hide. Don’t answer them. Don’t answer anyone but me. I’ll be back after dark. You hear?”

  “I hear.”

  “You promise? I’m trying to save your life, Lizzie. I won’t let that mad dog get you.”

  She forced herself to summon an ounce of gratitude she couldn’t feel, and she reached out and touched his arm. He jerked away, as if burned, but his smile was warm and concerned.

  “Thank you,” she said, summoning up her last vestige of politeness. “I promise.” Sliding out of the big car, she made her way into the deserted train station.

  Chapter Sixteen

  HIS HANDS SHOOK with excitement and disgust as he drove away from the train station. Damien had taken her in carnal lust. She smelled of him. There was no longer any reason to delay. He had her, stashed away where no one would ever find her. He had the mask tucked safely in the trunk of his rental car, and he had his knife and his plastic raincoat to keep his clothes clean. All he had to do was wait until sundown.

  He laughed softly as he drove along the deserted highway. It would finally be over. He would finally finish what he was supposed to do. Lizzie Stride would share in the fate of her sisters.

  And then he could rest.

  It would be a fitting finale. Tonight it would be no bag lady, no teenage boy, none of the many personas that had confused the people who watched. Tonight he would use the final mask. He would place it over her face, when he was finished with her, and he would be gone.

  He wondered briefly what would happen to Damien. He’d been cleared as a suspect weeks ago, and there had been nothing new that could link him to the killings, despite Adamson’s best efforts. He would simply live out the rest of his life, racked with guilt because he hadn’t been able to save Lizzie Stride. Adamson gave him no more than a couple of years before he wrapped that sports car around a tree.

  This would all be a dream. Once he finished tonight, the darkness would leave him. His destiny would be fulfilled, and he could continue with his life’s work. Keeping the streets of Venice, California, safe from muggers and hookers and parasites. And no one would ever know of the darkness that had lived in him one autumn.

  He was tired. He’d worked hard and long, getting to this point. One more day to live through, and then he would take his reward. He only wished he could make Damien watch.

  DAMIEN HAD NO GUN. Nothing to fight the Ripper with, nothing to stop him.
He didn’t waste his time heading back for the crossroads store and the pay telephone. No one would believe him. Finlay Adamson was one of the most respected and beloved members of the force. At a time when the police of the Los Angeles area were generally considered lawless vigilantes, Adamson stood for all the old-fashioned values. No one would ever believe him capable of the Ripper murders.

  Besides, they wouldn’t be able to find him; Damien knew that deep in his heart. He wouldn’t have taken Lizzie back to L.A., or anywhere they could be traced. They were still out here; he knew it. Just as he knew she would be safe until nightfall.

  He had to find her. He was the only one who could. His skepticism was gone, vanished. He couldn’t afford to be cynical and rational about it. Hickory had said he had to save Lizzie to atone for the sins of this lifetime and the last. He’d insisted that Damien was the only one who could do it, and at last Damien believed it.

  He got in the car and started driving, just driving, aimlessly, too fast. Where would he have taken her? Damien knew this area far better than Adamson ever could—surely he wouldn’t be able to keep her hidden from him.

  But the more he thought about it, the more he drove around in circles, as the panic grew and he pictured her lying in a welter of blood, her auburn hair spread out around her lifeless face. He knew what the Ripper did to women. He knew what he’d done to Mary Kelly the first time. He couldn’t let it happen to her again.

  He stopped thinking. Stopped rationalizing. He only knew he had to save her. He stepped on the gas. The Austin-Healey shot forward with a life of its own, and Damien simply let it go, heading east, deeper into the desert, in search of salvation and the woman he had always loved.

  THE OLD TRAIN station smelled of dust and mice and old tobacco. The windows were gone, smashed by some itinerant vandal, and the counters had been ripped up, stacked against each other in a random barricade. It was cool inside, in the shade, surprisingly so, considering the brightness of the sun overhead. The winds were still blowing, whipping up the sand and covering everything with a fine layer of silt. It blew in her eyes, gritty and painful, and she could taste it on her tongue.

  It was probably the closest thing she’d had to solid food since she could remember, she thought, trying and failing for humor. Maybe if she ate something real she would be able to think things through more clearly. To make sense of what was insane. To find a solution.

  She found a spot behind one of the overturned counters. It was dark, a little cul-de-sac, and she pulled out the blanket, settling it on the filthy floor with only a stray shudder, her housekeeping standards long gone.

  She curled up there, leaning her head against the wall. Damien wasn’t a killer. If someone’s hand had written his name in Hickory’s blood, then that hand was the Ripper’s.

  She shouldn’t have left. Adamson hadn’t been able to keep anyone alive yet—why should he suddenly succeed with her? Especially since he seemed convinced that a man she knew was innocent was the killer.

  It made no sense to her. She’d had too little sleep, too little food, too little peace of mind. She wanted to be back with Damien, locked tight in his arms, the night all around them, the demons at bay. She didn’t want to be crouched in this deserted building in the bright desert sunlight, waiting for a murderer.

  He would find her. She knew it with a sudden clarity that should have terrified her, but she was already past terror. She was here, alone, and the Ripper would come for her. Just as he had in the past.

  She shook her head, trying to banish the fancy that felt so real. She reached into the bag, pulling out a warm can of soda and a cellophane packet of nuts.

  Cashews. Long Liz Stride’s favorite. Lizzie stared down at them in silent horror. She threw them against the wall, and the bag split, spilling cashews all over the floor.

  The seconds and minutes and hours blended together in a blur. The desert heat shimmered around her, the hot, dry winds blew through the broken windows, and somewhere in the building she could hear the rustling of mice. She wondered how long it would take them to find the cashews. Not long, she hoped.

  She dozed at one point, dreaming about Liz Stride and Mary Kelly and James Killian. None of it made any sense to her, but her dreaming mind tried to sort it out.

  She couldn’t be two women, and yet she seemed to be. Hickory could have given her the answers. So could Courtland. But they had both fallen beneath the Ripper’s knife.

  As she would.

  She was Mary Kelly, not Liz Stride, despite her name, despite her destiny. She knew that now, whether it made sense or not. She was Mary Kelly reborn, though the ghostly spirit of Liz Stride came to visit, to haunt her, as well.

  She opened her eyes, suddenly awake. Did the Ripper know he was once more hunting Mary Kelly, the woman on whom he’d committed his foulest butchery? Or was he still looking for Lizzie Stride, to finish what he’d started?

  She heard the slamming of a car door, and she realized that the sound of the car was what had awakened her in the first place. The shadows in the deserted train station had lengthened, and dusk was rapidly approaching. When dusk came, somehow the Ripper would claim her, and no white knight would be able to rescue her.

  “Lizzie?” It was Damien’s voice, raw, panicky, breaking the thick silence of the old building. She could hear him crashing around, and she huddled deeper into her corner, letting the terror surround her. Was Adamson right, after all? How could Damien have found her?

  “Lizzie, for God’s sake, answer me!” he cried.

  He was going to kill her. She accepted that possibility with an unnatural calm. She’d had more than enough time to consider all the possibilities, and if that most unbearable one was the only answer, then she had to accept it. He would find her, huddled in the corner, and she preferred to face him. If she was going to die, she was going to die bravely. Looking into the face of the man she had loved. The man she still loved.

  She rose slowly, silently, and for a moment he didn’t even see her. She looked at him across the barrier of broken counters and ripped-up benches, stared at him out of wide, accepting eyes, and waited.

  “Lizzie,” he said, his voice hushed, broken. “He didn’t hurt you.”

  She didn’t move. “Who?”

  “Adamson. He’s the Ripper, Lizzie. I don’t know how I could have been too stupid to see it. It has to be him—nothing else makes sense.”

  “These murders don’t make sense,” she said, in a low, lifeless voice.

  Damien started toward her eagerly, and she took an involuntary step backward, coming up against the wall. She had no place to run, no way to protect herself from him, but her retreat was instinctive.

  He saw it and stopped short. “Are you afraid of me, Lizzie?” he asked, in a soft voice. It was warm, seductive, the voice of a lover. The voice of a savage killer.

  She looked at him, calmly considering his question. “No,” she said finally.

  Some of the tension left his wiry shoulders. “You know I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said, moving closer.

  “No,” she said. “But I’m not afraid to die.”

  He stopped, frozen, staring at her through the gathering shadows. She couldn’t get away from him; she knew it, and she didn’t care. If her destiny was to die at his hands, so be it. She was through fighting it, through trying to guess.

  “What did he tell you, Lizzie?” he asked, his voice beguiling.

  “That you killed them. You killed them all, including Hickory.”

  “Hickory’s dead?”

  He sounded so shocked. Lizzie just nodded. “He wrote your name in his own blood before he died.”

  “You were with me when we saw him last, Lizzie. When would I have had time to kill him?”

  “I went out to the car first. You came out a minute later. Long enough to cut his throat. Not long enoug
h to make sure he was dead, that he couldn’t leave the name of his killer behind.”

  “Adamson told you this.” It wasn’t a question, and Lizzie didn’t answer it.

  “There were witnesses to some of the other killings, people who can identify you. They’ve found physical evidence.”

  “What a polite phrase for it,” he said, his voice filled with a kind of vicious amusement. “What kind of physical evidence? Hair fibers? Fingerprints? Semen deposits?”

  “I thought the women hadn’t been raped,” she said.

  “According to the coroner, if they had sex, someone used a condom. I can’t imagine the Ripper practicing safe sex, but anything’s possible. But where does that leave you, Lizzie? I had you. You gave yourself to me. There’s still proof of that inside your body. Won’t that change my evil plans? I can hardly change my modus operandi after more than a hundred years, can I? The Ripper doesn’t screw the women he kills—at least not on the same day. Maybe we’ll have to wait.”

  “Stop it!” she cried, wanting to cover her ears.

  He was coming closer, closer, and he had something in his hand. It was a knife, she knew it, and she was ready for it. It would be a relief, the first peace she’d known in her life. She was through running, through fighting. If he wanted to kill her, he could have her.

  “Have I got you cornered, Lizzie?” he murmured, his voice a mocking parody of concern. “Nowhere to run to? Nowhere to hide? I always liked Martha and the Vandellas. I wonder if the original Jack used to sing music-hall songs while he did his dirty work? Maybe I need a radio to keep me occupied while I hack you to pieces.”

  He could touch her. The building was filled with shadows, and he kept his right hand down at his side, hiding the knife from her. She wondered why he bothered. She knew what was coming. She welcomed it.