Page 48 of From Hell

“How else do you explain it?”

“You need to tell Nola.”

I give her a look. That’s the last thing I’m going to do. “No, no. Nola can’t find out.”

Sage lifts a brow. “Why not? She might be able to help?”

“What am I going to tell her? That I lost a body?” That someone broke into my house and washed the murder weapon.

Her mouth makes a grim line. “No…that your stalker took it.”

“We don’t know that,” I lie to us both out loud, hoping it’ll be true because the alternative is horrifying. “Maybe I didn’t kill him properly, and he got up and walked away?” I let out a harsh laugh.I do know because a car registered to Berners House was following me and then someone broke into my house and took the clothes I was wearing. Why not take a body too?

Sage frowns. “That isn’t funny.”

I exhale sharply. She’s right. It’s not funny. Someone was here, and now a body is missing. Evidence of what I did is in someone else’s hands. “Fine. I’ll tell her.”

Sage nods, relief blooming across her face. “Nola will know what to do.”

Another shiver runs through me as we gather the tools to head home, turning off the lamps and plunging us into darkness.

I can only hope she’s right.

Nola picks us up from the woods after we move the bodies. We drop Sage off at Templevale station first and then make the winding journey toward Whitechapel.

It’s quiet for a few miles. She says nothing about my face covered in scratches from dragging bodies through the undergrowth or my hair matted and clothes slick with mud. I’m sitting on a tarp to keep her seats clean anyway.

As I lean my head against the cold glass and let the warmth of the blow heaters eat away at the chill in my bones, I close my eyes. The heavy sigh my companion exhales, the calming tap-tap of the rain on the car windows, and the soothing swish of the wipers bleed into the silence like water, making this feel like just any other journey at 4.30 a.m.—a nightmare into a dream.

Nola couldn’t be there tonight and couldn’t tell me why. It would irk me more if it were anyone else or any other situation but this, but she has her own demon. Not that she’s told me anything about him. The monster Nola is stalking is someone she doesn’t like to talk about.

She took the news about the body being missing in her stride, though the atmosphere in the car is as thick as fear now, chasing me all the way home from the cemetery.

I may never feel warm again.

“What motive?” she asks, breaking the tense silence with her sultry voice.

“It’s a game to him.” My voice sounds scratchy compared to hers.

“And what’s his end goal?”

I shake my head, staring out a steamed-up window as rain drizzles like tears from heaven outside, misting up the streets so you can’t see more than a mile ahead. Even though the heater is on, a shiver slides down my spine. “Can you believe it’s August?”

Nola puffs out a lung full of air. “No, and I can’t believe you’re changing the topic, either.”

“I don’t know what he wants.”

“We’ll he hasn’t dobbed you into the police.”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“Then he’s waiting for you to make a move.”

“What move could I possibly make?”

Nola shoots me a look in the dark and nods to the glovebox. I open it to reveal a cloth wrapped around a solid, heavy object. It’s a handgun, the blued steel drinking in the surrounding darkness as the polished metal reflects the streetlamps we drive past. She grins at me. “One he isn’t expecting.”

I stare at it and then bundle it back into the glovebox, closing it with a snap. “I’m not ready for that.”