Ripper (Hunter #1)(43)

I let him hold me. If he’d apologized for showing me this, I would have pushed him away. I would have stood up and been the professional I knew I should be, but Gray was smarter than that. He let me cry and he didn’t make me feel stupid for doing it. After a long while, I nodded as an answer to his question.

“It’s hard,” he said. I looked into his face and saw a wealth of compassion there. “Your first murder is always hard, especially when it didn’t start as a murder case. You thought you could find her and be the hero and put a family back together, and now you have to tell a mother that her baby is dead. It’s horrible. I won’t lie to you. I’ll come with you, love. I’ll help you talk to her, but I’m going to ask you to give me until tomorrow. This is the worst of the worst, honey. This is a serial case and it sucks, but you can help me. You figured out in twenty-four hours what it took me weeks to get. I took forever to piece together that the girls were working at that vampire club. I need you. I need you to look at all the evidence and tell me what I’m missing. I need you to go into Ether with me tonight and get people talking. They don’t want to talk to me, but I think they’ll talk to you.”

I nodded, unsure why he thought people would talk to me, but I was willing to try. I was willing to do anything to figure out who this asswipe was. I sniffled and let Gray help me up. He handed me a tissue as I forced myself to look at the pictures again. Gray had grouped them by victim and timeline. I noticed that beside the photos there were a few letters taped to the board. I read the first one, noting the bad handwriting.



Dear Boss, allow me to introduce myself again. I am an artist who has not worked in years. I give you this, my work. I don’t like whores, as I’ve stated before, and the town is full of them. I’ll rip ’em ’til they’re gone. Catch me if you can. No one has yet.





JTR


“He’s pretending to be Jack the Ripper.” I’d read enough and seen enough movies to recognize the drama.

“Oh, yes, he seems obsessed with the Ripper,” Gray replied seriously. “He has good intell though. I’m the only one who received the letters. The press hasn’t been informed of anything. I have to believe this guy’s a supe or he wouldn’t know to send his ‘art’ to me.”

“Have you found any bodies?”

“I figured out that the first three were killed in a warehouse in south Dallas.” He pointed to one of the pictures. “See, he got part of a logo in the shot. It took me a couple of days, but I tracked down the warehouse. It was abandoned but I found some silver chains and some blankets. He was using it as his workshop. I staked it out, but he didn’t come back, and I got that letter a day later.”



Boss, clever, clever but I see you. You can’t catch me cuz my work is powerful good for the world. I’ll move my studio but I won’t stop ’til you nab me. I enjoyed this last one very much. She went down nice and just cried a lot. I like it when they know it’s time to go. I’ve moved all the bodies to a proper location, though they’ll be soup by the time you find them…if you find them.





JTR


“You think he’s a hunter,” I said quietly because I was thinking the same thing.

Gray didn’t take his eyes off the wall. I knew he’d memorized the pictures. He would carry them around with him and the vision might never go away. “The thought has crossed my mind. I also wondered if it wasn’t a vampire.”

“Why waste the blood?” It was obvious the women hadn’t been drained before he sliced them up. Vampires tended to be practical creatures. Of course, if he was looking for attention then it would have been a lot easier to get it by killing human prostitutes. He could dump the bodies and get all the press he wanted. If a hunter was trying to expose the underworld, he would dump the bodies where they would be found before they disintegrated. “It’s a supe, not a hunter. This person respects the rules in one fashion. He’s making sure humans aren’t involved. He hides the bodies somewhere they will be allowed to disintegrate and he’s only pulled you in. You’re the legal authority. Are we sure he hasn’t contacted anyone in the Council?”

“No,” Gray replied. “That’s one of the things I’d like to ascertain tonight. I can’t get into the vampire club itself. There’s no way to sneak in. I tried. It didn’t go well. These girls tend to start their night at Ether and then move on to the vampire club. We get in with Liv’s help and try to figure out who our other three victims are.” Gray went to a large file cabinet. He pulled out a handful of pictures. They were close-ups of the faces in the killer’s “art.” Gray had tried to make them as normal as possible, but I’d seen the complete picture and I was still disturbed.

“And we look for a vampire named Alexander,” I said. “He was one of Joanne’s regulars.”

Gray nodded and pulled me against his chest. I was getting used to his spontaneous affection. I think that was the point of it. Instead of being shy, I let my arms go around his waist to enjoy the feel of him. Instead of holding myself back, I let my head rest against his chest. I was being drugged into trusting him and I seemed helpless against it. His hand rubbed up and down my back.

“I’ll look through my files and see what I have,” he said. “You need to get ready for the party. I called Liv myself and she’ll be over here in an hour. She’s says it will take all day to get you ready.”