Jaclyn the Ripper (23 page)

Jaclyn chuckled. “An old—no, a very old acquaintance of your husband. . . . In fact, we go back to the late nineteenth century. You and I, however, haven't really met before, at least not in our present forms. We had a brief, rather tense encounter some thirty-one years ago, yet the circumstances were refreshingly different.”

“You're . . . him.”

“Brilliant deduction, love.”

“That's impossible.”

Jaclyn chuckled again. “So is time travel.”

Amy gripped the wheel, pushed as far away from the monster as her space allowed. “What do you want . . . ?” she whispered fearfully.

“The special key.” Jaclyn smiled. “What else?”

“I don't have it.”

“Of course you don't. Despite your privileged American roots, you have a woman's brain circa 1893. You forget everything. Now, in 2010, women have even forgotten their place—though I must say, that does have its advantages.”

“I left the key in the control panel. I think it was stuck, so if—”

“No, no, Ms. Amy Catherine Robbins.” Jaclyn chuckled. “As they say nowadays, ‘let's not go there.' The key will not be in the control panel because as we both know, your boyfriend has come after you, and while he may be stupidly optimistic, he does not forget. Not even keys.”

Amy started crying.

“You are going to ring Wells on that marvelous little Chinese puzzle of a cell phone, and you're going to propose an exchange . . . you for the special key.”

“I don't know how to call him!”

“It's quite simple, my dear. Since he rang you just minutes ago, all you have to do is press the green button twice, and he will ring you back.”

“Why don't you call him?” said Amy indignantly.

“Because he won't recognize my voice.” She cackled a high-pitched madwoman's laugh, then stopped and listened. A sudden cacophony of horns from Coldwater Canyon Drive echoed faintly in the canyon. Jaclyn glanced in the mirror, then looked back at Amy, who was taking
out her cell. “No, no,” Jaclyn said anxiously, checking the mirror again, “not here.”

“But—”

“Drive!”

Amy drove slowly toward the Y of Franklin Canyon and Lake Drive. She tensed, held the wheel tightly, shot a glance at Jaclyn, then started a normal U-turn—halogen headlights sweeping across dark chaparral. Suddenly, she stomped on the gas and pulled hard to the left, throwing Jaclyn against the door.

She slammed on the brakes and forced the car into reverse.

Jaclyn flew forward, her head smashing into the windshield.

Amy opened the door, leapt from the car, sprinted down Lake Drive for the reservoir, then veered cross-country like a frightened animal, except she lost her footing, sprawled and rolled, the brush tearing her clothes, but was up again, running blind, not knowing where she was going, just away from the terror, the madness. When she reached the trees by the parking lot, she stopped and listened. Only the crickets, her heart pounding, the distant roar of traffic from the city, the crickets again. She peered at the hill behind her. Nothing. No movement. Except for a crow that flapped across the purple twilight haze blanketing the canyon. She took a breath, crept to the other side of the trees. The reservoir was black and still. No runners. No one walking their dogs. A placid, deadly still-life.

She tried to summon reason to overcome her fear, but wasn't strong-willed enough. Where was her calm in the face of disaster, the practical and dependable Amy always there for Bertie and the boys? Where was her self-reliance? Amy had deserted her. Alas, she was Catherine without flowers or chapbook or music—without a beautiful autumn day with whitecaps on the channel. And should a storm blow in, she'd run to the house and busy herself in the kitchen, once again becoming Amy and holding the boys so they wouldn't be afraid of the lightning.
I want to go home. Please, God, I want to go home, I want to—

A spider dropped from the tree on her neck. She shrieked, brushed it away, then heard rustling from the hillside and knew that the monster had heard her. Sobbing, she ran for the road, assuming that she was
safer in the open—hoping for a car, for anything. At the top of the hill, she saw the Mercedes with the door still open. Thinking she'd jump inside and lock the doors, she raced for it, was almost there when Jaclyn sprang from the other side of the car and tackled her. She went down hard, her head bouncing on the pavement, but she felt nothing. She punched and clawed and kicked at her attacker.

Enraged at the blows and scratches, Jaclyn stabbed Amy in the chest with such force the knife went completely through her frame—and then she went on stabbing and sawing until Amy no longer moved.

Then Jaclyn straightened up and stepped back, felt the flood of release and sighed her trans-ejaculatory sigh. Drained, she wished for a bed to lie back on, finally collected herself and looked down at Amy Catherine Robbins, now quite dead, and realized her plan was in shambles. Angry at herself, she dragged the corpse up on the shoulder and laid it out by the ruins of the road bike. She studied the body, wondered what Wells had liked best about his wife and found herself humming that sweet melody from Penny's music box.
Wells would have said something idiotic to her such as: Your eyes are the windows to your soul, my dear, your wonderful eyes.
Jaclyn grinned, then in a controlled rage began excising those hazel-brown eyes, frozen in death, yet lovely—so lovely. She stopped halfway through, cursed her indulgence, realizing she didn't have the luxury of time, and was rooting through the corpse's pockets for the cell phone—Wells's number would be on it—when she saw headlights sweep up the canyon.

She hurried back to the Mercedes and hid the knife under the seat, checked herself for telltale bloodstains and smiled smugly. There were none.
We still have the touch, do we not, dear heart?

But her arms were covered with scratch marks.
No, no, this won't do, this won't do at all.
Frantic, she searched the car for something to cover herself with and discovered Heather had left a bejeweled summer cashmere sweater on the floor in the backseat. Though its pale green didn't match her dress, she hurriedly put it on and turned back to the road.

She saw the car speeding up the hill, which meant that they could see her as well, so if she were to take off in the Mercedes, that would be
a clear sign that she was the killer. Instead, she composed herself, put on a helpless stance and flagged the car down.

It screeched to a stop.

“Excuse me!” she cried. “Something terrible has happened!”

Wells jumped from the car and rushed toward her.

Jaclyn resisted a triumphant smile.
Wells in the flesh. Older now, slightly puffy, indubitably from years of good living. Years that he denied me. . . . If only the moment were opportune. If only we were alone.

Frozen, Amber wanted to look away, but couldn't, fascinated by the horror, more so because Amy Wells was no anonymous corpse. The body was sprawled by the crushed road bike, blood oozing from the stab wounds, Amy's eyes hanging from her agonized face as if pulled from a doll; H.G. was on his hands and knees retching in dead grass; and this beautiful, shaken woman who had flagged them down was standing alone and desolate without a clue. During her time with the West Division, Amber had seen a lot of murder victims, but few had been as grotesque as this one.
Its gotta be the eyes—all hacked up as if a dog had chewed on them—God, what kind of sick weirdo would do that?
She immediately thought of the Brentwood killer that the West Division was looking for—the one H.G. said was Jack the Ripper—but this killer hadn't left a happy face or signature. He didn't have to.

A breeze off the reservoir floated up the hill, lifted the nasty metallic smell of blood from Amy's body and left it hanging in the air. Amber gagged and had to turn away before she, too, started throwing up. She sucked in air from the space behind her, finally looked back at the solitary woman who seemed to be growing more and more nervous.

“Did you call nine-one-one?” said Amber.

The woman's eyes widened in surprise. She paled and shook her head. “I'm sorry, I'm a visitor, I—”

Amber whipped out her cell and hit the button.

 

While she waited to be interviewed, Amber watched the Beverly Hills police tape off the crime scene. The technicians rolled out a portable generator and set up lights to ward off the coming night, and the criminalists went to work with their cameras—infrared among them—and field kits for fingerprints, impressions, DNA and the like, and still others sifted through the weeds and chaparral for evidence. It wasn't long before they ascertained that Amy had run down the hill to escape her killer, had hidden under the trees, then had come back up the access road, presumably to get help from a passing car.

Amber felt an urge to jump in and help, but these were Beverly Hills technicians and like cops everywhere they didn't appreciate strangers playing in their yard, especially when they had a corpse that was sure to become a star on the late-night news. She stayed cool, though she didn't approve of the way the DNA technician was collecting blood and tissue samples from under the body's fingernails. He kept yammering to his buddy about racing his new dune buggy.
Granted, cognitive dissonance comes with the turf, but this is a little over-the-top.
She sighed.
At least they have the decency to leave Bertie alone. At least, so far.

He was slumped in the back of a blue and white squad car, one foot out the door on the road, his head back against the seat, his eyes fixed in that thousand-yard stare she had seen before at crime scenes. Her heart went out to him. She wanted to go over and console him, but was sure the detectives wouldn't approve. Then she couldn't look at him anymore; it was too painful.

She observed a detective sergeant tape-recording an interview with the solitary woman, taking notes as she answered his questions. He wore a blank face, which told Amber he was going by the book, but the woman piqued Amber's curiosity. On the surface she was cooperative, all smiles and charm despite having stopped for the fresh kill of a psychopath, yet Amber sensed a growing uncertainty and fear in her
mannerisms that the sergeant didn't pick up on—or if he did, it didn't register. Maybe it was that she was a tourist from the UK, or maybe that was just the way this woman reacted to a horrible crime, or—The sergeant had dismissed the woman and was gesturing her over.

“Miss Amber Reeves, right?”

“Mizz.”

“Whatever.”

Amber identified herself as a criminalist with the West LAPD, then told the sergeant what had brought them to the scene and what they had seen.

“Hey, Bruce,” the sergeant called to a detective in a light-brown suit. “This lady works for Casey Holland in West Division. We oughta call him in on this, huh?”

The detective nodded reluctantly, and the sergeant turned back to Amber, his brow furrowing curiously.

“I'm kind of wondering . . . why would you meet the deceased here if she was out on a bike ride?” He turned and spread his arms, taking in the blackness, the emptiness of Franklin Canyon. “Especially out here?”

“She'd just called,” said Amber, winging it. “She, unh, she said she was in trouble.”

The sergeant nodded and grimaced as in “no shit,” made a note, then went on. “Any names . . . ? She say anything at all about the attacker?”

“She was dead when we got here.”

“Wasn't your friend talking to her on a cell? That's what you said, right?”

“Yes, but I didn't hear anything. I was driving too fast to get here, and we got in the damned accident or this never would've happened.”
If we hadn't taken the 405, it wouldn't have happened, either.

“Did a patrol unit come to the scene of the accident?”

“Yes.”

He made more notes. “Okay, then.”

“Look, can we go . . . ? My friend is a mess.”

“He can clean up down at the station.”

“What?”

“We gotta interview him formally.” The detective started for a squad car. “He's the husband, right . . . ?”

 

From the wooden bench in the lobby that seemed more suited for a hotel courtyard than a police station, Amber watched the clock, her mind on overload, thus worthless. Forty-two minutes later, the elevator doors opened, and a detective escorted Wells out, apologizing for taking his time, for the murder of his wife, for his grief, for a country no longer safe for tourists, for the presence of a vicious psychopath even in Beverly Hills.
If they're letting him go
, Amber thought stupidly,
the fake IDs must've been okay.

The detective handed Wells a card, shook hands with him and said that he'd be in touch.

“If it's any consolation, Mr. Wells, we'll get this dude.”

“No, you won't,” said H.G. “I will.”

The detective stared at him for a long time and considered responding with a law-enforcement cliché such as taking the law into one's own hands is against the law or about being especially careful or about the dangers of withholding information from the police, then decided to say nothing. He gave Wells an understanding nod and got back on the elevator.

 

They were driving west on Wilshire, Amber stealing sympathetic looks at H.G., trying to read him in the multicolored ambience of light from passing cars and billboards that played across his face, but he had retreated behind another thousand-yard stare. Asking if he was okay would be downright moronic, so she chose to say nothing at all and hoped her silence would bring them closer together.
He needs me to take his hand and lead him from the darkness to a good place—past, present or future. He needs me to be close. He needs me to heal him, to be with him, and that I will do eagerly. I don't care what universe or time zone this man is from, I don't give a damn where he belongs or where I belong—all I know is that he is flesh and blood like me. Like me.