by Jill Jones
They rode for a while with only the sound of the wipers breaking the silence between them.
“How did you get into law enforcement?” she asked.
“I broke the law.”
She laughed. “That sounds like a story. Tell me.”
Her earlier steely attitude had disappeared, but Jonathan didn’t know whether to be glad about that or not. She was entirely too likeable as she was at the moment. He’d never spoken of his past with anyone in his present, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to now. But as he’d discovered yesterday, it seemed easy to tell her difficult things.
“When I was a teenager, I got caught up in a gang. We didn’t really break the law, I guess, but we pulled some pranks and got involved in some petty vandalism. The leader of the gang wasn’t from our neighborhood. Ernie was the son of a wealthy merchant family on the other side of town, but he got a thrill out of slumming.”
He paused, his face warm, wondering what she must be thinking. She didn’t speak, so he went on. “One day Ernie dared us to pull off a burglary. That’s when I bailed. I don’t think it was because I was such a good guy. I was just scared of getting caught. But Ernie and my friends did it without me. They robbed a store and were caught red-handed. The police sent my friends, the poor kids, to jail, but Ernie, the rich kid, went free with little more than a reprimand. It was a lesson in reality, I suppose, but at the time, I was outraged. I decided right then I would join the police and rectify the injustices of the world.”
“And have you?”
Jonathan laughed without humor. “You know better than that. The Yard is pretty clean, but there is always going to be corruption. As they say, money doesn’t talk, it screams, and as long as there are people like Ernie’s father willing to use their money and influence to cover up their sons’ crimes, there will be payoffs.”
Victoria gazed out the window again and after a while let out a long sigh. “I guess you’re right,” she said. “Even my father once told me that some people get away with murder.”
The address given by Reginald Smythe FitzSimmons turned out to be an abandoned warehouse. “There’s got to be some mistake,” Victoria said, diving back into the relative warmth of the car. As they explored the area, looking for some sign of the old man’s habitat, they had splashed through puddles and unsuccessfully fought off the rain with lightweight coats and only one umbrella between them, until now they were both thoroughly cold and wet.
“He’s a liar,” Jonathan said simply, starting the car and turning the heat up. “A liar, and maybe a murderer.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“I wouldn’t discount it either. Why would he register a phony address if he didn’t have something to hide?”
Victoria had no answer. She did not think FitzSimmons was a likely murderer, but she had to admit, his behavior had reached beyond eccentric. She recalled his claim, made in front of a roomful of witnesses yesterday, that Jack the Ripper was alive and well and living in Kent. Had he been referring to himself? Had it been a plea for someone to stop him?
“Where to now?” she asked Jonathan.
“Someplace we can get a cup of tea and warm up before heading back.”
“Dear me, how very British,” she teased.
He turned to her with a grin. “Don’t knock it. It’s an institution that’s held this country together for centuries.”
That grin. Dear God, she’d forgotten its power over her. She hadn’t seen that grin since early last evening, before she fell to pieces in his arms. Jonathan hadn’t had much to grin about since the murder, she supposed. It was just as well, since that look seemed to render her witless. “Tea sounds good,” she managed, tearing her gaze from his handsome face. Otherwise, she feared she might lean across the seat and kiss it.
They found a small tea room on a side street with a parking space nearby and made a dash for its cozy warmth. Inside, the smells were incredible, and Victoria remembered she hadn’t touched her lunch. Jonathan suggested she try the “cream tea,” and she thought she might die of pleasure when the freshly baked scones, heaped high with butter and fresh whipped cream, passed her lips.
“Highly civilized tradition,” she murmured, licking her fingers in an unladylike manner. “No wonder you Brits perpetuate it.” She looked up and found Jonathan staring at her in a most unsettling manner. “What?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Lick your fingers like that.”
“Am I embarrassing you with my bad manners?
He hesitated, then said, “No, you’re turning me on.”
Victoria blinked, not certain she had heard him right. Then her cheeks began to burn, and another fire kindled somewhere lower in her anatomy. “I beg your pardon?”
Jonathan had the good grace to look abashed. “I…I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from. Please forgive me.”
Victoria tried to be shocked. Offended. Insulted. But she found his honesty disarming. In just a few words, he’d acknowledged the attraction that had played between them during most of the course of yesterday evening. It had gone into temporary remission during their heated exchange concerning the murder investigation earlier in the day, but she’d felt it growing again in the close confinement of the car on their trip to Kent.
“Is that a bad thing, that I’m turning you on?” she replied, wondering where her bold words were coming from.
Jonathan lowered his hand to lightly brush her fingers that had remained in midair, and Victoria fairly sizzled.
“Only if you think so,” he said, his gaze penetrating hers.
Her heart was pounding furiously. What in blazes was she doing? She didn’t know how to play these games. But she sure as hell knew where they would lead.
Was that a bad thing?
She moved her hand away, but not in rejection. Instead, she dipped her forefinger into the whipped cream again and touched it to his lips.
The feel of his tongue against her finger was almost more than she could bear. He licked slowly, until he had removed most of the cream, then sucked gently on her finger. Victoria’s body raged with desire. “Now we’re even,” she said breathlessly. She saw him swallow hard.
“We’d better get back to London,” he said, his voice now husky.
“Don’t they rent rooms in Kent?”
Victoria had never done anything so outrageous in her entire life. Or wanted it more.
“I’m on an assignment,” he reminded her as he kissed her fingertips.
Victoria thought she might melt right there on the chair. “It’s late,” she murmured, “and besides, you’ve done all you can do for the time being.”
He gave her the grin that was her undoing. “You have a point. Let’s go.”
Twenty minutes later, they had secured a room, locked the door, and closed the world behind them. Victoria was in his arms like lightning and was scorched by his kisses. Hunger stirred in her belly. She had never known such hunger, and it was not for food.
“Jonathan…” She breathed his name as he slipped the sweater over her head. Together they fell across the bed, not bothering to turn down the bedclothes. Fingers wrestled furiously with buttons and hooks and zippers until at last they were free. There was no time, or need, for foreplay. Jonathan was as hot for her as she was for him. She opened to him and cried out as he thrust inside her.
“Oh, God, oh, yes,” she moaned, arching into him, wanting more. He gave her more, and more, and more until she thought she could stand it no longer. Her world began to collapse in on itself, and she was flooded with a sensation so exquisite it brought tears to her eyes. She could feel the pulse of Jonathan’s release even as her body wound down in a rhythm of its own.
Spent, they lay quietly, breathing heavily, sweating in the cool room. And Victoria began to come back to her senses. What had she done?
She tried to feel mortified, but didn’t. Worked at being ashamed, but wasn’t. Instead a bubble of laughter rose in
her throat.
“What is it?” Jonathan asked, his lips moving against her ear.
“This morning,” she said between short gasps for air, “I told Trey it was time I got over…”
“Over what?”
“Being a prude.”
Jonathan raised up on one elbow and stroked her breast. “Prude,” he said, “is not a word I would ever use to describe you.”
Jonathan could not believe what had just happened. Yesterday he hadn’t even known Victoria Thomas. Today, they’d just coupled like two rabbits in heat.
And he’d thought she was wound too tight for him.
He’d definitely read her wrong. Victoria Thomas was as natural a lover as any woman could be.
Lover.
He’d never had a lover. Not really. A few short-term relationships, but none in which he’d considered his partner a lover. Why had he used that term with Victoria?
The notion scared him.
Gazing down on her body that was stretched luxuriously beside him, he thought again she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her skin was perfect, flawless. In their moment of passion, her hair had tumbled loose from its clip and lay in rich curls around her head. Her nipples stood erect in rosy brown invitation, and he accepted. He heard her intake of breath at his touch, and felt himself growing hard again.
This time, their lovemaking was slow, sensuous, and tender. They’d turned down the covers and afterwards snuggled together as they listened to the patter of rain on the window pane.
“This is crazy,” Victoria murmured, kissing his neck.
“Insane,” he agreed.
And it was. But there didn’t seem to be a damned thing either of them could do about it.
“We should go back to London,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“Tonight,” she said.
“Yes,” he agreed.
“Now,” she said.
“No.”
And they didn’t.
Early the next morning, Jonathan at last headed the nondescript gray coupe toward London. Victoria sat in silence beside him. He guessed she was in the same state of shock as he was. Neither had dreamt starting out just where they would end up, and by the light of day, it was awkward and unsettling.
Halfway to London, his cell phone rang. He lifted it from its cradle in the car.
“Blake here.”
“Where the hell are you?” a familiar voice shouted, and Jonathan winced. It was his supervisor, Richard Sandringham.
“I…ah…drove down to Kent yesterday to check out that lead. It took longer than I expected, so I decided to stay overnight.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but he felt a little guilty just the same. “Turned out to be a phony address. We might be onto the killer, though, if we can just find him.”
“How long will it take you to get here?”
Jonathan heard the anxiety in his voice. “About another hour. Why? What’s up?”
“We just received a letter, couriered over from the Times. This doesn’t look good, Blake.”
“Letter? What kind of letter? From whom?”
“It was sent to the newspaper, but they shot it over to us immediately. Let me read it to you.”
As the words reached his ear, Jonathan was filled with trepidation.
“Dear Boss,” it read. “You thought I was through, didn’t you. Ha. Ha. I will never finish my work. I will kill into infinity. Yours truly, Jack the Ripper.”
Chapter Ten
He opened the old volume with the tenderness of a mother touching her newborn babe. He caressed the ancient pages, turning them one by one, as he had done so many times over the years since he’d discovered the book hidden away for more than a century among a collection of ancestral memorabilia. The words written here, and the story they told, spoke to him as if the author were whispering in his ear. He felt the pain behind the tale and understood the frustration of the man of yesterday whose blood flowed in his own veins today. The author of these words had, like him, suffered at the hands of women, had lost his power. But he had discovered a way to regain it, and he’d passed along his secret to his descendant.
How strong were the ties of bloodline. How powerful the forces of heritage. Tomorrow, he would take up where his ancestor had left off, and in following his footsteps, would hold power unlike he had ever known.
He had much work to do, but tonight, he wished only to worship at the shrine of the master. He fondled the ring of braided hair he had found between the pages of this book. It had been a gift to his ancestor from someone who loved him very much. His throat tightened, and he wondered…what would it be like to be loved?
In Inspector Sandringham’s office, Jonathan and Victoria examined the letter that had been sent over from the London Times before turning it over to the forensic lab.
“This is the same kind of stationery that he wrote the note on that came with the gift of the liver,” Victoria pointed out. “Hotel stationery. I guess this sort of seals it that the killer was at the conference.”
Jonathan agreed. “Where else would he come by it? But FitzSimmons was not an official guest at the hotel.”
“He could have stolen it off a housekeeping cart,” she said.
“Or we could be wrong about both him and Billy Ray. Maybe the killer is someone who works there.”
“That’s possible. He could have been the waiter who served our steak and kidney pie,” she remarked dryly. “From the way the note is worded, I’d say the subject is delusional and might actually believe himself to be Jack the Ripper. Maybe he heard about the symposium and signed on at the hotel as a bus boy or other menial laborer just to see what was going on, and the events triggered his urge to kill.”
Jonathan made a note to see if any newly hired employee had been on duty during the event. “He’s a bold one, at any rate.”
“Just like the real Ripper,” Victoria remarked. “Going for notoriety.”
“In which case,” Jonathan added slowly, “he’s likely to copy the Ripper’s other actions.”
“To the letter,” she agreed. “How soon did the original Jack strike after his first murder?”
“One week.”
“That soon?” She laid her hand on his arm and looked up, her golden eyes clouded with dismay. It wasn’t just professional concern he saw there, but rather something much deeper. “We have to stop him, Jonathan. I know you don’t like the media, but couldn’t we put out police drawings of the two suspects?”
Jonathan hedged. “I don’t want to do that just yet. For one thing, as we just said, it might be that neither of them is our man. I want to check out the possibility that it was a hotel employee. But even if that doesn’t pan out, it’s premature to post drawings of FitzSimmons and Ray. Only one of them can be the killer. The other would probably take offense at seeing his face on a wanted notice.”
“Tough,” she retorted. “So he raises a little hell. At least we’ll know where he is and by coming forward, he’ll clear himself.”
“This isn’t the States, Victoria,” Jonathan said patiently, irritated with her torpedoes-be-damned attitude. “We have our protocols, and one of them is not to invite litigation.” He could see she was not happy, but then, this was not her case. Damn it all, he wished he didn’t have feelings for her. It complicated an already difficult investigation. If he trusted she would stay safely out of things in her room at the hotel, he would not have brought her in on it. But he knew better than that.
“So, what do you suggest?” she asked bitterly. “Shall we just wait around and see who gets the next knife job?”
Jonathan clenched his fists but held his tongue. “Come on. We have work to do.”
By the light of day, the Jack the Ripper Pub looked like any other local workingman’s drinking establishment on a busy street corner in London. The only thing sinister about it was its name. And the fact that it was just two blocks from where the copycat Ripper murder had taken place on Saturday night.
&nb
sp; Jonathan put his hand at Victoria’s waist and opened the door for her, thinking about the dramatic events that had taken place since their first visit here. A woman had been brutally murdered nearby. A grim mystery was afoot. And he’d had a one night stand with Victoria Thomas.
A one night stand. He didn’t want to think of it in those terms. It hadn’t seemed like that at the time, and it sounded so…coarse. But after their rather nasty little exchange earlier, he was uncertain where they stood, and feared their attraction had been but a temporary aberration.
Inside the pub, a few patrons lunched on typical tavern fare, and the publican busied himself restocking his shelves with clean glassware. Jonathan recognized him as the same man who had been on duty the night of the murder and approached him for questioning.
“Oh, I know FitzSimmons,” he said in answer to Jonathan’s query. “’e’s ’armless enough. Th’ old bloke comes in from time to time. Kind of ‘ung up on th’ Jack the Ripper murders. Knows a lot about them, seems to me. What is ’e, some kind of professor?”
“We don’t know what he is,” Jonathan replied. “We only met him on Saturday. He’s disappeared, and since he was last seen here on Saturday night, we wondered if you can remember if he said anything that might help us find him.”
“’e was in rare form that night, ’e was,” the man said. “Regaled th’ house with Ripper stories. Th’ others who came in with ’im left after a bit, but ’e stayed late. ’e was pretty high by the time he decided to leave, so I called ’im a taxi.”
“He didn’t return to the hotel,” Victoria said. “Do you know where the taxi might have taken him?”
“I didn’t escort ’im t’ th’ car, m’am. ’e was tipsy, but ’e could still walk. I don’t know what address ’e gave th’ driver.”
Jonathan thanked the man and got the name of the taxi service. Back in his own car, he dialed the number on his cell phone, and in moments had his answer. He replaced the phone in its holder and turned to Victoria.