“It’s more possible than you realize.” Ted Bundy had kidnapped women in the middle of busy parks and crowded beaches. No one expected a predator to be in their midst, especially if a predator so fully blended into his surroundings.
“I, too, am finding it difficult to believe,” Aldridge admitted.
Kendra asked, “Did you notice Lord Sutcliffe when we arrived in the stable yard?”
He raised his brows. “Of course.”
“Why?”
“Why? I’d recognize my own nephew, Miss Donovan!”
“Would you recognize him if he was dressed as the gardener? We were in the kitchens for a few minutes before you realized Lady Rebecca was there. We see what we expect to see. There’s a lot of extra help around, and some of the guests brought their own servants. If the unsub dressed the part, he may have gone unnoticed.”
How many serial killers did exactly that by wearing a uniform? A repairman, a postal worker . . . a policeman.
“Yes. I recognize what you are saying, Miss Donovan,” Aldridge said slowly. “And you are quite right. ’Tis a technique employed successfully by spies during war, to infiltrate enemy territory. Of course, not without considerable risk. He is bold.”
“Yes, he’s confident,” Kendra agreed, “and we may use that to our advantage, because confidence breeds arrogance. And an unsub who becomes arrogant tends to slip up.”
And he would slip up, she was certain. But would it be in time to save Rose?
Kendra had never felt so helpless. In all the investigations she’d been involved in, she’d been an outsider, brought in to review the evidence with a cool head and an even colder eye. She hadn’t been emotionless. She’d felt pity for the victim, for the victim’s family and friends. It was impossible to be part of something like that and not be touched by the fear and grief. But the source of her personal terror had always come from not doing her job properly, from missing a vital piece of evidence that could lead them to the victim—or, after the victim was found, to the killer.
For the first time ever, she was fully invested. Her fear was twofold: the gnawing anxiety that she was missing something, and for Rose herself. She could imagine all too well what the girl was going through. She’d seen the killer’s work with Lydia. She paced the room, made notes, circled back to reevaluate the old notes.
Despite the pots of coffee she had consumed, Kendra could feel exhaustion creeping in. Rebecca had tried to persuade her to go to bed, but had finally given up. After Rebecca had left, the Duke had added his voice. “You need to sleep, Miss Donovan. You can do nothing more here. You will make yourself ill.”
But it wasn’t until around two in the morning, when the words blurred on the slate board, that Kendra conceded. She needed sleep. She would start fresh in the morning.
The castle’s corridors were silent as she walked down them. The silence pressed heavily against her chest. She carried her own candle to light the way up the backstairs to the bedchamber. Inside that shadowy room, she simply stood and stared at Rose’s empty bed.
Her eyes burned with tears. She set the candle down and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyelids. Jesus. She was so damn tired.
Why the hell am I here? If I can’t even save Rose, why the fuck am I here?
She began undressing, her movements robotic. Shoes first, then the tights. The dress was another matter. The buttons were down the back. She could reach some of them, but not all. It was why she and Rose had always helped each other.
After a moment of consideration, she finally unpinned the fichu, unfastened the buttons she could reach, and then pulled the dress over her head. It took some wriggling. There was no spandex in this era. Without that stretch, Kendra could feel the seams strain, and half expected them to rip apart. She finally managed to pull herself free of the gown, which she tossed on the floor. Next, she rid herself of the shift and chemise, and slipped into the shapeless white nightgown that had been part of the wardrobe Rebecca had ordered for her. The gyrations loosened her hair. She removed the pins, and used her fingers to comb the thick mass before climbing into bed. Blowing out the candle, she yanked up the thin blankets.
Despite her fatigue, she found herself studying the shadows and moonbeams that dueled across the slanted ceiling. Nighttime noises in the overall quiet screamed at her: a light wind rattling the windowpanes, the faint creaks and low groans as the ancient fortress settled. But she was keenly aware of the absence of sounds that she’d grown accustomed, Rose’s light breathing from the narrow bed next to her and the rustle of blankets as the tweeny shifted in sleep.
Kendra’s throat tightened, and tears began to trickle hotly down her cheeks. With a moan, she curled into a ball beneath the covers, and thought of the irony of crying for a girl who’d already died more than two hundred years before she’d been born.
51
Kendra didn’t think she’d be able to sleep, but the next thing she knew, she was opening her eyes to the misty light of dawn. She glanced at the small clock on the bedside table. Six forty-five. She’d slept about four hours.
For a moment, she just lay there, staring at the ceiling. Her head had that dull ache brought on by too much adrenaline and too little sleep. Her eyes were gritty from the tears she’d shed last night. She felt drained and disheartened. She didn’t want to think about the day that stretched out before her, or wonder what it might bring.
She forced herself to roll out of bed and used the chamber pot. Afterward, she poured water in the ceramic bowl and gave herself a quick sponge bath. She was rubbing baking soda against her teeth when there was a knock at the door, and Molly poked her head in.
“Oi wasn’t certain ye’d be awake, miss.” Her eyes, Kendra noticed, were red and puffy.
“I’m awake. Come in.” Kendra rinsed out her mouth, and then surveyed her throat in the mirror. The bruises were still noticeable.
“The villagers ’ave begun to arrive for another search, but . . .” Molly faltered. In the mirror, Kendra saw how Molly’s eyes cut to Rose’s bed, and noted the sheen of tears over her eyes. “Oh, miss, everyone is frettin’ that it’s ’opeless!”
Kendra wished that she could give her some reassurance that Rose would be found, that she would be all right. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even reassure herself.
When Kendra remained silent, Molly stifled a sob and bent down to pick up the gown that Kendra had discarded last night. Smoothing it over her arm with an aura of melancholy, she walked back to the wardrobe to hang it up.
Rose did that, Kendra remembered suddenly. Rose was always so careful with clothes, picking up what Kendra treated so carelessly, making sure everything was put away properly. It was the behavior of someone who valued clothing because it wasn’t plentiful. This was not the disposable society that Kendra was familiar with.
“W’ot do ye wish ter wear today, miss?” Molly asked as she studied the gowns in the wardrobe.
“I don’t care. You choose.”
She pulled out a blue-and-yellow paisley muslin. “’Ow about this?”
“Sure.” Really, who cared?
Molly helped Kendra into the dress. “Oi can pin up yer ’air,” Molly said after she’d finished fastening the buttons.
Kendra was about to tell her that there was no point, but caught the look in Molly’s eyes. Routine, she realized. It was something Molly needed. A bit of normalcy in a world suddenly tainted by tragedy.
She understood that need. It was what drove her to the study fifteen minutes later. Again, she stared at the names she’d written down. Morland. Dalton. Harris. They each fit her profile.
She circled the room, and tried to come at it from a different angle. The unsub had established a pattern of taking girls in the months of February, June, and October. But this year, with Lydia, he’d broken his pattern. Why?
If that kind of acceleration in behavior was usually connected to a stressor in the unsub’s life, then they all might have a reason. Morland was the most obvious, beca
use Lady Anne was suffering from dementia, an illness that would add stress to anyone’s life. Morland’s father had also been absent in his childhood—a common denominator among serial killers. But he’d had a father figure, an authoritarian: his grandfather. If he’d been abusive, Morland might’ve come to resent, even hate, his mother for allowing the cruelty. That kind of pattern was disconcertingly familiar. But by all accounts, the late earl had doted on his grandson.
Kendra rubbed her temples, tried to ease the dull ache that she suspected would turn into a full-blown headache in the next couple of hours. She shifted her focus to Dalton. A likeable guy, trying to build a horse farm. It couldn’t be easy, she mused. There were always a lot of stressors when you started a business. Maybe he’d had a financial setback.
She considered his background: affluent family, father a doctor. A doctor was more prestigious in this era than a surgeon. For the first time, Kendra wondered what was behind Dalton’s decision to become a sawbones rather than a physician. Some sort of rebellion against the father?
She remembered the small cuts on Lydia’s torso. Fifty-three in total, four different knives. A surgeon was familiar with knives. Was it a taunt against a society that thought less of him because of his profession?
Then there was Dalton’s wife, who’d left him for another man. Kendra didn’t believe for a second that Dalton didn’t know how his wife had died. So why lie about it? Unless he’d killed her. She could’ve been the first victim, triggering the killings that followed. The timing was right.
Kendra moved on to Harris. He was the least likeable of the bunch, the one who openly expressed his contempt for prostitutes. And beneath that, a disdain for all women. Arrogant asshole.
Like Dalton, Kendra didn’t know much about the vicar’s background other than the fact that his father was an earl who’d fallen on hard times. What had Rebecca said? Punting on the River Tick. That had to be a blow to Harris’s ego. He’d been forced to marry a woman he considered his inferior, to take a job that, although respectable for younger sons of the aristocracy, was not one he’d have chosen.
That time line was also interesting. He’d married his unwanted heiress a year or so before the prostitutes began vanishing. And a young maid had been murdered in a similarly brutal manner down the street from where he and his wife had lived in London. Was the maid the first victim? An impulsive act, to release the pressure building inside because of his unwanted marriage? And then, perhaps, he’d found that he’d liked it? It was possible.
And that was the problem. Each scenario was possible, each suspect viable.
Kendra studied the slate board, and again felt that whispery sensation at the back of her neck. Someone had said something . . . what? She couldn’t get a handle on it; the thought remained as elusive as ever.
Fresh air. That’s what she needed. And she might as well get it on the walk to Thomas’s shack, as she still needed to interview him about yesterday. He’d been the last person to see Rose. Maybe he’d seen someone lurking nearby.
As she reached the door, it swung open and Alec entered. He raised his brows when he saw her. “Miss Donovan. I had hoped you were still in bed. Did you sleep at all?”
“Long enough. How about you?”
“A few hours. We plan to resume the search in the next hour.”
She nodded. “Good. I’m going to talk to Thomas about yesterday.”
Alec grabbed her arm, glaring at her. “Are you mad? Have you no sense? I am not about to let you go traipsing through the woods alone with a murderer on the loose!”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Bloody hell. You look like the victims, Miss Donovan! Do you not realize that?”
On some level, she had. But she shrugged, “In size and coloring, yes. But I’m older. I don’t fit the pattern.”
“He already broke his pattern!”
“I’m not a helpless fifteen-year-old. I can protect myself!”
Alec’s grip tightened, as though he wanted to shake her. “You would not be able to protect yourself against a lead ball.”
“Guns aren’t his style. He wants his hands around his victim’s throat. He wants to see her panic, her terror. He wants to watch the life go out in her eyes.”
“If this is your attempt to ease my concern, you are doing a bloody awful job of it!”
“I’m going to talk to the hermit. If you want to, you can come with me.”
“I shall.” He dropped his hand. “You might want to fetch your spencer, Miss Donovan. There’s a chill in the air.”
The hermit opened the door in answer to Alec’s knock. His eyes locked on the marquis, and Kendra thought she detected a gleam of fear.
“Your Lordship.” He licked his lips nervously. “Er, what do you want?”
Kendra said, “We need to talk to you, Thomas.”
His gaze swung back to her. “I helped search for the maid last night.”
“Yes. I heard. Can we come in?”
He hesitated, but they knew he wouldn’t deny her request. Not with the Marquis of Sutcliffe standing right there.
As Thomas stepped back, Kendra’s eyes scanned the dim interior. It was as she remembered, except the shutters from the window had been removed, though the window was so greasy with dirt that it barely allowed the gray light of the overcast day inside. She saw that the drug paraphernalia was no longer on the floor, but crammed on the table with dirty dishes and paint supplies. The odor was the same, a mixture of sweat, turpentine, and paint, mingling with the smoke from the fireplace.
Alec hung back in the doorway, his expression filled with distaste. She couldn’t really blame him; the air was fresher back there.
“You haven’t done much painting,” Kendra observed. She moved forward to stand in front of the easel. The canvas was still blue. The white female form in the center had taken on flesh tones, with more dimension, but it was otherwise faceless.
“Art requires sacrifice,” he mumbled, his eyes skating away from hers.
“Sure it does.” She moved around the easel. The space was so tight that her hip hit one of the cabinets, rattling the paint supplies strewn across the grimy surface. She put a hand up to steady them. “We need to talk to you about Rose. She made a sandwich for you yesterday.”
“I don’t know nothin’.”
“You went into the kitchens. Who did you speak to?”
He frowned. “The cook. I asked for somethin’ to eat. She told the little maid to give me some bread and cheese.”
“Did you wait in the kitchens while she prepared it?”
“Nay. I waited outside.”
“So Rose came outside to give you the sandwich?”
“Aye.”
“Did you talk?”
“She said the countess was havin’ a nuncheon out in the gardens. She had to help with that.”
“While you were talking, did you notice anyone around?”
“Who?”
“Anyone. People.”
Thomas shrugged. “A couple of gardeners.”
“How did you know they were gardeners? Did you recognize them?”
“Nay. I . . . I dunno. They could’ve been stable hands, I suppose.”
“Were they standing in a group, or were they separate from each other?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Thomas, I want you to think about the girl who gave you bread and cheese yesterday. She needs help.”
“I dunno nothin’.”
“You might know more than you realize. That’s why I want you to think about it.” Kendra paused, then asked, “Were you in the woods last Sunday? The vicar said he saw you.”
He stiffened. “I’m often in the woods.”
“Did you see the vicar?”
“Nay.”
“He was riding. You didn’t see someone on horseback?”
“Nay.”
Was he telling the truth? Kendra’s gut said no. But if he was lying, for what purpose? She let that go, and circled
back to Rose. “After Rose gave you the sandwich and you talked, what happened?”
“Nothin’ happened.”
“After you talked, did you see where Rose went? Back into the kitchen? To the gardens? Think Thomas. This could be important.”
“I dunno. I left.”
“You’re not thinking!”
“Miss Donovan.”
She swung around, and glared at Alec.
“He does not know anything,” Alec said gently.
Anger and frustration rose inside of her. And fear, terrible fear.
“Miss Donovan, Thomas does not know where Rose is,” Alec said, even more gently.
She let out a sigh, and stepped back. “I want you to keep thinking, Thomas. If you remember something, anything, you will let us know.”
He looked at her like a dumb animal. She wanted to hit him. Instead, she turned on her heel, and walked out the door.
Though she walked fast, Alec easily fell into step beside her. He wisely kept silent.
They’d entered the forest when Kendra finally spoke. “I still think he’s hiding something. Or not telling the truth.”
“Maybe he was poaching in the woods. ’Tis a serious crime, punishable by transportation, even hanging. The Duke does not adhere to those harsh penalties, but Thomas may err on the side of caution.”
Kendra rubbed her hands against her arms, suppressing a shiver as she considered hanging for such a simple transgression. I don’t belong here.
Neither one spoke as they retraced their footsteps through the woods. As they emerged from the forest, Alec suddenly grasped her arm. His touch brought her out of her dark reverie.
She saw what he had seen: a large crowd walking along the path that led to the front courtyard. Her first thought was that Aldridge had organized another search party. He was walking with Sam and Dr. Munroe. But then she saw the black bag Munroe was carrying, and her stomach knotted.
“No.” She shook off Alec’s hand, picked up her skirts and ran. Her heart was thundering in her chest by the time she caught up to the Duke. She stood transfixed, but she knew. Dear God, she knew.
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