Page 46 of From Hell
I keep that seed of doubt to myself. I didn’t see Jaxon there. It was later I found out that he’d left the country to go to his residency program early. He was supposed to take me to the university end-of-year ball but never messaged or showed. When he stood me up, I was so furious I wanted to do something reckless. I wanted to do all the bad things I’d been avoiding all my life up until that point—get drunk, sleep with some random guy, forget I’d ever met Jaxon Clémont. That’s why I dragged Molly to the frat party. That’s why she’s dead.
Because of me.
My emotions want to blame Jaxon, but I have to be clinical about this. He wasn’t there.
Still, the unsettling feeling stays, sickening my stomach’s insides like a malignant spirit refusing to be buried by common sense. I swallow it down, ignoring the acid reflux, focusing on Nola’s next question instead.
“What about the guy they caught?”
“Max Lamberton?” I went once to see him, to put all the old ghosts and the nightmares they harbored to bed. It was before I met Nola and before the letters started coming again. As soon as I looked into his eyes, I knew that the police had the wrong guy, even if he confessed to all five murders and had details no one else knew—like the pennies.
But the police wouldn’t listen to a girl who got letters from the Ripper himself. Why would they, when they pronounced them fake? And Molly was missing, not ripped like the other girls.
“He must know something. If you say he’s not the Ripper, he confessed for a reason. Innocent men don’t take the fall for nothing. Are you sure he’s not the one sending you the letters?” Nola muses out loud.
“From prison? It’s possible.”
“Did you ever ask him?”
“No.”
“Then you need to.”
“I hate prisons,” I sigh, making a note to visit Lamberton at HMP Hanbury. They remind me of dark, forgotten places where I might end up.
“Want me to come with you?”
I decline. As much as having Nola there would help me through it, I can’t drag her into my problems more than I already have. I can’t implicate her in anything else.
“Still on for tonight?” Nola’s throaty voice soothes down the line. Even though we meet just the three of us, we still try to attend the Stronger Together meeting that brought us together in the first place—every Monday at 7 p.m. in St. Jude’s church.
“I’ll be there,” I say in a clipped tone. I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Without her and Sage, I would have curled up and given up.
“Good, because Sage is throwing a wobble about her parents’ latest demand, and you have a problem,” she sighs.
She hangs up before I can ask what the problem is, unsettling me. A gnawing creeps into my gut that I can’t explain. Nola is one of my closest friends; she has to be with all the dark secrets of mine she knows about, but sometimes, she can be bloody cryptic.
I work throughout the day, drifting between rows, researching the names I remember in the guest book on the internet and then in the news archives. I may not have access to the Foundation’s files, but I can wade through a lot of public data. It would help if I could access the police evidence, too, but my father would have a heart attack if I asked him. They closed the case years ago. My father couldn’t unearth the files without questions being asked.
The night steals up on me. I only know it’s late when the place empties and the librarian locks the doors to prevent anyone else from coming in. It’s the last straw when the lady comes over to tell me I need to leave, and I jump out of my seat. After a full day of research, I’m no closer to finding anything remotely useful, and it’s eating me alive.
I should have let Jaxon throw my phone in this lake, and then at least those pictures would be on a backup in the cloud instead of permanently gone.
My car is the only one in the parking lot when I finally exit. I exhale and traipse toward it. The cold summer air is crisp, clinging to my skin like it’s on the precipice of rain. If only my thoughts could be as clear, but they’re not. They’re in turmoil, and I’m a hot mess. The Ripper has me trapped in a maze, running in every direction.
And Jaxon is a mystery I can’t solve or run away from, even if he is playing me for a fool.
* * *
“You need to move them,”Nola says as we approach the church meeting. I stop walking, but Nola continues, clomping up the steps ahead until I snap out of it. She doesn’t give me time to ask what she means because the rest of our group has arrived.
Nola takes one of the empty chairs, avoiding my gaze. Brow furrowed, I choose a seat too. Sage appears beside me, waves a shy hello, and takes the chair to my right, ignoring Nola’s orders to sit apart for our Stronger Together meetings. As if we can pretend we don’t know each other. Therapy is how we met.
Greg, the group leader, starts the session, but I’m not listening. I’m too busy glancing at Nola, trying to get her attention…for confirmation of what she means. Halfway through, my gaze collides with hers, and she shakes her head.Her one perfectly groomed brow arches over the black eye patch matching her black jumpsuit.
Not here.
I grimace, unable to keep my emotions from sprawling across my face like the rainbow of light that dapples through the arched stained glass. When the session finally ends, I pull Nola aside at the refreshment stand.