Page 53 of From Hell

I swallow quickly, my teeth sinking into my bottom lip, and put down the bagel. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“And when you’re nervous, you gnaw those lips until they bleed.”

Trying not to grind my teeth, lest he tell me what that means about my inner emotional state, I reach for my coffee to take a sip. My throat feels like sandpaper. “Thank you for the breakfast, but you really shouldn’t have.”

“I’ll ask you again. Do you know how to shoot a gun?”

“Of course I do.”

“Don’t lie to me, Laine.”

I take another sip of coffee, feeling more like myself and less like a corpse. “Fine. No, I don’t. Happy now?”

He stares at me, so sure of himself, a glint of excitement teasing the inner silver of his eyes. “No, not until you know how to kill someone with that thing.”

* * *

Surgeon Billionaires Still Missing—Thenewspaper headline catches my eye as I head toward Lucky’s Waffle House early to meet my dad. Without reading the article, I know what it will say—there’s a potential kidnapper on the loose, and no eligible bachelor of the wealthy elite is safe.

Not safe from me.

Jaxon had to work but practically ordered me to meet him at the shooting range after his shift. There’s one at Berners House.Of course, there is.Is shooting guns with Jaxon at close range a good idea? It doesn’t feel like one. Feels irresponsible, somehow. I’m letting him get too close after I decided he was no good for me. Maybe he’s trying to help, but Nola is right; he’s been hanging around a lot lately. Could it be a coincidence that he came back to Whitechapel when I did? Could he be the Ripper?

But whenever I think of his skin-scorching gaze whipping over me, my insides melt into a puddle, and I can’t breathe. That’s not the reaction of someone afraid.

Stop thinking about Jaxon. Just stop it.

I take a slow, deep breath in to counter the light-headedness as I step into the restaurant. A soft, ethereal glow of sunlight seeps through the windows, creating an otherworldly atmosphere in the early morning. It’s too early for rush hour. It’s too late to go to bed.

Not that I even went to bed. After the night I had and with Jaxon waking me up, I couldn’t sleep. The cut on my arm throbbed, and images of Henry alive, suffocating in blood, flashed before my eyes whenever I closed them. An hour after Jaxon left me alone, I gave up and dragged myself out of the house.

In the breakfast diner, tired commuter faces barely notice me. But I see them. Or the phantoms my brain wants me to see. Sometimes, they look like Henry; other times, it’s the previous men I’ve killed, ghosts still haunting me. They never go away. Even now, when it feels like a lifetime ago, I was standing in a disused cemetery, covered in dirt. At least, the hidden parts of my life feel surreal in the light of day. Like they happened to someone else, and I’m watching from afar. I can pretend like it never happened.

There are no monsters.

And I’m not one of them.

“Elaine, over here,” my father’s gruff voice calls out.

With his silver hair and handlebar mustache, my dad waves at me from a booth near the window. Shaking off the shudder, I head to where my dad is sitting at our table. A steaming pot of coffee is already on it. Dad has his hands wrapped around a mug.

Since he started working in London, it’s been our ritual to have breakfast at Lucky’s in Shoreditch once a week before he starts his shift. It’s the one appointment I make sure I show up for, and Dad never misses, even if it means he’s late for work. He fills me in on his cases, and I get free food.

Only today, I don’t feel like eating.

I slide into the tacky pleather seat, careful not to jolt my arm since, despite healing well, it still throbs now and again. Dad pours me a fresh brew from the pot into an empty, waiting cup while I stare blandly at the menu.

“A waffle with strawberries and maple syrup,” I tell the server.

She looks at me, the heavy kohl around her eyes turning her into a panda. “Just one waffle.”

I force a smile. “Just one.”

She purses her lips. “You know they come in a stack?”

“I just want one.”

“Why don’t you get the stack? I’ll have a few off your plate?” Dad offers.