Broken (5 page)

A typical night at the movies. The upshot being that my memories of the movie had big Clay-induced plot holes, and if there had been a mention of the letter that had inspired the title, I didn’t remember it.

As we walked into the house, I said, “I’ll go online and see what I can find out about this letter.”

“Let’s ask Jeremy first.”

“Jeremy?”

Clay shrugged. “He likes solving mysteries. He might know something.”

“About a case like Lizzie Borden maybe. Jack the Ripper is definitely not Jeremy’s style.”

“Maybe.”

The study door opened down the hall and Jeremy walked into the foyer.

“That was quick,” Jeremy said. “Was there a problem?”

“Questions needing answers,” I said. “He’s serious about giving up Hargrave—says if his tip doesn’t pan out, we don’t owe him anything. Hard to argue with that. But the favor he wants in return is…a little strange.”

“Jack the Ripper,” Clay said. “What do you know about him?”

Jeremy frowned. “Jack the Ripper?”

“Victorian serial killer,” I said. “Killed some prostitutes—”

“Five women in Whitechapel in the fall of 1888,” Jeremy said. “I know who he is, Elena.”

“Obviously,” I said. I tried to keep the surprise from my voice, but the corners of Jeremy’s mouth twitched.

“Come into the study,” he said. “I’m hardly an expert on the subject, but I’ll see if I can start you in the right direction…after you tell me what this has to do with Xavier’s request.”

Jeremy didn’t “start us in the right direction.” He got us all the way to the last stop, and then some. I guess I should have known. As Clay said, Jeremy did love a mystery, and there were few crimes with more questions and theories than those of Jack the Ripper.

First, Jeremy skimmed the particulars. “Then there are the letters,” he said, propping his feet on the ottoman. “Hundreds of letters sent to various members of the police and local press.”

“I thought only modern killers did that,” I said. “Establishing a correspondence with a reporter in hopes of getting more inches on the front page, keeping their crimes in the spotlight.”

“That may very well be what he was doing,” Jeremy said. “One of the first media-savvy criminals. But it’s more likely that the majority of those letters didn’t come from him. Had he really written them all…well, let’s just say his wrist would have been too tired to wield a knife.”

“Fakes,” I said. “Written by people in serious need of a life.”

“Presumably that’s where most came from, though some are believed to have been written by reporters themselves, frustrated by the lack of news between killings.”

“Next they’ll be saying the Ripper himself was a journalist, killing people to boost paper sales,” I muttered.

“You know, newspaper sales did skyrocket during that period…”

I shook my head. “So this letter Xavier wants is a fake?”

“Perhaps. And yet…Imagine you’re the killer. Someone else is writing to the press and the police, claiming to be you. Dozens of people, signing your name to letters, putting their words in articles that are supposed to be about you.”

“Identity theft, Victorian style. You’d want to set them straight. So you send real letters proving you’re the killer.”

Jeremy nodded. “There are three letters many believed to be genuine. The first, sent to the Central News Agency, appears to hint at a double murder committed a few days later. The second, sent to the same place, refers to the original letter, and includes details of the crimes that hadn’t yet reached the papers. Still, there were doubters, those who believed the references in the first were too vague and the details in the second could have been leaked. Two weeks later, a third letter came in, this one sent instead to the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee.”

“The
From Hell
letter,” I murmured.

“Called so because that was the return address on the envelope:
From Hell
. Enclosed with the letter was half a human kidney, and one of the victims was indeed missing her kidney. Tests indicated it came from a woman approximately the victim’s age but that was the best they could do at the time, so whether it was a hoax or not was never determined. Obviously the man who wants to buy it believes it’s the real thing. Yet all that matters, for our purposes, is that the letter does indeed exist and is indeed missing, as Xavier claims.”

“What happened to it?”

“It was boxed up with the other evidence and packed away for a hundred years. When they opened the files in 1988, the
From Hell
letter wasn’t there. It may have simply been misplaced. Conspiracy theories speculate that it was ‘removed,’ either by the police to cover a misstep, or by ‘interested parties,’ who feared it contained an important clue. Most likely, the truth is exactly what Xavier believes, that it was stolen for its value on the collectors’ black market.”

He paused, tilting his head slightly, eyes unfocusing as he retrieved something from his memory. “There
was
a story that it was bought by a Canadian collector. Interesting, given where Xavier claims it is now. I don’t think there was ever much credence given to the rumor. It wasn’t very interesting, given the other possibilities.”

“That’s the problem with the truth,” I said. “Making things up is so much more fun. So what do you want us to do?”

Again, Jeremy paused, this time for a few minutes. Then he pulled his feet off the ottoman and straightened. “Look into it more before you get back to him. Be thorough, but be quick. If we can get to Hargrave, I want to make this deal before he decides to move on. Start by confirming what I’ve just told you. It’s been years since I took an interest, so make sure the letter hasn’t turned up in the meantime.”

“I’ll search the wire services—” I began.

“No, give Clay your access.” He turned to Clay. “You can do that, right?”

“Simple enough.”

“Then, Elena, you get back to Xavier. He said he’ll make this easy, but I want specifics. Make sure he can give us blueprints, security codes, keys, anything we might need. This isn’t our area of expertise, so I want all the professional work done for us and provided in advance so we can get a second opinion.”

“Karl?”

Jeremy nodded.

“I’ll get on it,” I said.

“That leaves the spell,” he said. “I’ll verify that.”

“Spell?”

“Xavier claims this letter is protected by a spell that will stop anything in human form. I want to be sure such a spell exists—or that it could exist. Paige or Lucas should be able to tell us that, or find someone who can.”

Diversion

WHEN WE FINISHED OUR RESEARCH
,
JEREMY HAD ME CALL
Xavier to accept his offer and get David Hargrave’s new address. Clay and Antonio took care of Hargrave right away. And no, that didn’t mean they took him aside and gave him a stern talking to. Sometimes that’s all that’s required, but if a mutt catches the Pack’s attention, it usually means he’s gone beyond the “occasional slip-up” stage, and needs more than a warning.

They found Hargrave right where Xavier had told us he’d be. So we were ready to uphold our end of the deal. Yet it seemed that wouldn’t happen anytime soon. When I called Xavier, things weren’t going well on his end. Although he assured me he was just working out some kinks, I got the impression the buyer was waffling. When a month passed, with no word from Xavier, we figured the deal had fallen through.

Two more months passed. Spring became summer, then headed toward autumn. I was racing through the forest, hot breath billowing smoke signals into the cool night air. Adrenaline rippled through me with each stride. A glorious late summer night, capped off by a perfect run.

I lunged through a stand of trees and launched myself. In midflight, pain ripped through my abdomen, and I crashed sideways to the forest floor. When I tried to get up, machine-gun bursts of cramps doubled me over and pushed me back down.

I lay on my side, moaning, claws scrabbling against air. A burst of wetness under my tail. The smell of blood filled the air. Still racked by cramps, I managed to twist around. Blood pooled in the leaves under my backside. Fur clotted the blood; fur too dark to be my own.

Oh, God, no. Please—

A tremendous wave of pain ran through me, so intense I thought I was spontaneously changing back to human form. Then a horrible wet plop, as something fell onto the leaves.

At first I saw only a dark lump, black against the blood. Then in a flash, I saw everything—the tiny limbs contorted by their own Change, the head nearly perpendicular to the body, neck snapped, broken by me, by my Change, my selfishness, my thoughtlessness.

I screamed.

“Shhhh.” The wind whistled through the trees overhead. “Shhhh.”

I tried to move, but something held me fast, something warm and solid. My eyes flew open and I saw the full moon overhead, bright blue against the night. A full moon? Hadn’t it been a quarter moon earlier? I blinked, and saw two moons hanging over me.

“Elena?”

Another hard blink, and the blanket of sleep fell away. Clay’s face, twisted with worry, hovered over mine.

“What did you dream?” he whispered.

I opened my mouth, but only a whimper came out. His arms tightened around me. I started to relax, then the images from the dream flew back and I jerked away. I ran my hands over my rounded belly. Still there. So big. Too big. I was barely past the halfway point, and already people were stopping me in the supermarket to ask how many weeks—or days—I had left.

Jeremy insisted it was the wolf blood accelerating my pregnancy, but he was only guessing. No one knew. I ran my fingers over my stomach again, trying to feel a heartbeat or a kick, but knowing I wouldn’t. For as far along as I seemed to be, my baby was strangely quiet. Jeremy assured me he heard a heartbeat, though, and I kept growing, so I had to tell myself that was good enough.

Clay laid his hands over mine.

“I can’t Change anymore,” I whispered. “It isn’t safe for the baby. It can’t be.”

“If it wasn’t, then you wouldn’t need to Change while you were pregnant. You can’t have a species physically incapable of reproducing—”

“We are not a species!” I said, pushing myself up. “
They
are a species, not us. They inherited it. We were bitten. Don’t you get that? You’re infected, I’m infected, and no sane person with something like that intentionally tries to reproduce!”

I took a few deep breaths and concentrated on hearing that voice of reason in my head, telling me I was overreacting again, that everything would seem better in the morning. But my pounding heart drowned it out.

Goddamn it! Why couldn’t I get past this? After I’d Changed that first time, everything had seemed fine. But every Change since had been just as nerve-wracking.

Logically, as my pregnancy progressed without complications, my fears should have eased. Instead, they grew worse, like a shipwreck survivor swimming to an island, with each stroke thinking, “Oh, God, I’ve made it this far, please, please, please don’t let me fail now.”

As hard as I tried not to, every day I made new plans for our child—“I can’t wait to show him this” or “I have to remember to teach her that.” If something went wrong, I’d lose hopes and dreams and plans, and a baby that was already as real to me as if he or she were lying in a bassinet beside my bed.

“You’ll be okay,” Clay murmured. “You’re doing great so far, right?”

I took a deep breath. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m so—”

He put his hand over my mouth. “You’re worried. Nothing wrong with that.” He lowered me down to the bed. “What did you dream?”

An image flashed. The blood, the clotted fur, the—

Heart hammering, I crushed my face against his bare chest and took a deep breath, grounding myself with his scent.

I pulled back, not looking up at him. “I just want—I need to sleep.”

A slight tensing of his shoulder muscles, as if fighting the urge to prod. After a moment, he relaxed, pulled me against him and, eventually, I fell back to sleep.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of Clay’s snoring. I eased out of bed so I wouldn’t disturb him, then leaned over to brush my lips across the top of his curls, too light a touch to wake him.

As I headed downstairs, I heard Jeremy in the kitchen. When I smelled what he was cooking, I knew he’d heard me wake up screaming last night. I leaned against the wall and cursed my performance, knowing even as I did that it wouldn’t be the last. No matter how embarrassed and guilty I felt the next morning, in the darkness of night all my fears and insecurities came out to play.

I took a deep breath, pushed open the kitchen door and looked at the tottering stacks of pancakes and sliced ham on the counter.

“You don’t need to do this,” I said.

Jeremy fished the bottle of maple syrup from the back of the fridge. “The plates are already in the sunroom. Can you carry the pancake platter for me?”

“Really, you don’t need to do this. I’m being silly, and what I need is a swift kick in the rear, not comfort food.”