Stalking Jack the Ripper (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #1)(76)
“Oh, I’ll be having words with him, believe me.” Thomas pulled me close. “I despise having put you in unnecessary danger.”
“We are stalking Jack the Ripper,” I pointed out. “I’m already putting us in danger.”
Thomas shook his head, mirth replacing tension, but didn’t say more.
Intent on leaving the East End, we trudged across Dorset Street, our attention scattered from the attack, when I nearly walked straight into a hansom cab. I stopped, staring in disbelief. Incredibly, the night took a larger turn for the worse. A snake coiled around my torso, striking at my innards.
A scratch ran down the side of the cab in an unmistakable M, a feature I was very familiar with, as I’d made it myself last week. It was my identification of a murderer.
This carriage belonged to my father.
TWENTY-SIX
BLACK MARY
MILLER’S COURT,
WHITECHAPEL
9 NOVEMBER 1888
I grabbed on to Thomas’s overcoat, nodding toward the carriage. Where was the coachman? It would be odd if Father took it himself, leading my mind to stray in a thousand directions. Was it possible we’d had it all wrong? Could John the coachman be responsible for the killings? Or maybe Father had Blackburn take him here. I shook my head, clearing it. Nothing made sense.
“If I were committing a murder,” I mused aloud, “why park my carriage outside the scene of the crime? Hardly seems logical.”
“Jack the Ripper, whoever he truly is, doesn’t appear to be thinking logically, Wadsworth. The man just ingested a human organ. Perhaps he feels invincible, and rightly so; thus far he’s gotten away with his crimes.”
I glanced up the street: nothing but lodging homes and litter joined us from our shadowy hiding place. Thankfully, our attackers hadn’t reappeared and I doubted they would. I was fairly certain I’d broken his foot. I would’ve felt bad were it not for their malicious assault on us.
Most of the lights were off given the late hour, all except for the lodging house directly in front of Father’s carriage. Mumbled voices and bright light poured from two windows facing us. One of them was cracked, allowing the sound to travel into the night.
I pointed to two figures walking back and forth. Making out features was impossible, but the broad set to one of them most certainly looked like Father.
“Come,” I said, dragging Thomas into the alley across the street. “Should we fetch the police? Or give it more time?”
Thomas studied the layout of the alley, carriage, and building where the two figures were apparently just talking. The way he scanned the area around us was methodical and exact. After a minute, he shook his head. “Whoever’s in there isn’t arguing. I say we see what happens.”
Something inside me wanted to rush across the street, pound on the door, and scream at Father for all the wrong he’d done, and all the wretched things he still sought to do, and cry for the guilt he was now laying on my shoulders.
“Very well. We’ll wait.” I settled against the cold stones of the building, waiting and watching. Time dragged by one hour for every second, it seemed.
I was freezing and exhausted from the attack we’d already been through, and scared of the encounter I’d yet to have with Father. I couldn’t tell which was making me shiver more. I wanted Father to have an excuse for being here.
I wanted desperately to be wrong about him.
Nearly forty-five minutes later the front door swung open, revealing the two figures from the lodging house—a man and a woman. I strained my eyes, searching for definitive proof it was, indeed, my father standing before us. The couple remained a respectable distance apart, before the man stepped into the lamplight.
Lord Edmund Wadsworth glanced up and down the street, his attention pausing on the alleyway Thomas and I were camped out in, causing my heart to shout a warning. Fumbling in the dark, Thomas grabbed my hand and held it securely between his. The warmth of him steadied my nerves.
I knew Father couldn’t see us, but I cringed all the same. I’d never been more grateful for the blanket of fog wrapping us in its cloudy embrace. Father scanned the area again, then climbed into the driver’s seat of the cab, cracking the reins and lumbering off toward our home.
“Pay attention to the cab,” I instructed Thomas, my own focus flicking back to the woman Father had been speaking to. Now she was standing in the light, speaking to another woman, who’d come from the adjacent building.
I was startled to see how young she was. Though I couldn’t make her out clearly, she didn’t look to be more than in her mid-twenties. Her hair hung down in long, ginger curls and she was taller than most men.
I hated that Father had sought her out. Nothing good could come from their association, even if he wasn’t planning on murdering her. How could my father have so many secrets? After she finished her conversation with the other woman, she reached inside her broken window, then checked the door handle. I drew my brows together. It wasn’t a good idea to lock your door without a key in this neighborhood.
She stumbled down the cobbled street, tying a red scarf about herself, singing a familiar song, its lyrics washing over me as they dripped from her honeyed voice.
But while life does remain to cheer me, I’ll retain
This small violet I pluck’d from my mother’s grave.