Through Her Eyes (2 page)

Chapter Two

"So this "old friend" of yours,"
Dylan said, watching her pack her suitcase. "Anyone I know?"

She glanced over her shoulder at him, dredging up a
smile. "No, like I said, I haven't seen him for years."

"And yet, out of the blue, he calls and you're
off to London at the drop of a hat." Dylan leaned in the doorway of the
bedroom, blue eyes narrowed.
"Must have been a really
close friend."

His tone bit at her. She dropped the jeans she'd been
holding and straightened up to face him. "I don't have to explain
myself," she said, sharper than she'd intended. Dom's call had triggered a
surge of dark memories, bad feelings. She fought them now, not wanting to pick
a fight with Dylan.

"I'm not asking you to!" He held up his
hands defensively. "You always say you hate London, but suddenly, for no
reason, you're dropping everything to rush there. And after last night, I'm
worried about you. Is that okay?"

She sat down on the bed, rubbing her ribs. Where to
start? She knew she was acting strangely, but this wasn't how she'd planned to
tell him her story. Well, hell, she hadn't planned to ever tell him. He was her
friend, not her keeper. But his concern was genuine and he didn't deserve her
bad temper.

"You know I told you I was mugged?" she
said, staring at the carpet.
"In London?"

"Yeah."
He sat down on the other side of
the suitcase. "You were walking home from a club, right?"

"Right."
She nodded. "Yeah, except it
wasn't just a mugging." She closed her eyes, hot and sick but determined
to tell the whole story now she'd started.

****

“You really should get a taxi
home,” Jo told Keira, worry thick in her voice. Keira waved her friend off.

“My place is ten minutes from here.
I'm not wasting the money!”

The two girls stood outside their
favorite bar, a tiny cocktail bar in Soho, watching other drinkers head to new
watering holes. It was past midnight and a light, misty rain was falling. Keira
hugged her jacket tighter around herself, shivering. It wasn't really a case of
not wanting to waste money. She didn't have any to waste in the first place. Jo
had been buying the drinks all night, and all Keira had left
was
a few quid.

“Keira, you've seen the bloody
news,” Jo said. “There's some madman out there—”

“Ten minutes’ walk and I'm home,
safe and sound,” Keira said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear and
plastering a big, fearless smile on her face. “I've got a rape alarm.” She
patted her handbag.

Jo looked like she wanted to argue,
but her own taxi pulled up. Jo lived on the other side of London, in the
opposite direction to Keira. With a sigh, Jo kissed Keira’s cheek and climbed
into the car. “Text me when you're home, okay?”

Keira waved her goodbye and set off
for home. It really wasn't far to her flat, and the streets were seething with
people. Of course she knew about the Slasher, but surely nobody was going to
drag her into an alleyway in full view of a crowd. Nervous, but not unduly
afraid, she took off.

She hurried down the familiar
streets as fast as her high heels would let her, desperate to get out of the
rain. Turning off the main street, she headed past St Patrick's Church, a
landmark that meant she was halfway home. She picked up her pace as the rain
fell faster and the crowds thinned out. It was still too early for the clubs
and pubs to be closing, and the area was quieter than she'd expected. Jo's
words suddenly rang loud in her head.
Some madman.

He'd already killed three women.
Nowhere near
Soho, but the police had
still warned
everyone to be careful and sensible. Maybe everyone else was being careful and
staying indoors. Fog curled around her ankles, sending shivers up her spine.
The neon lights of the nightclubs glowed seductively in the dark, and for a
second she considered ducking into one of them.

“Stop it,” Keira said to herself. A
bit of rain and a few drinks and she was seeing Jack the Ripper in every
shadow.

Five more minutes and she'd be
home. She knew this neighborhood. She'd be fine.

There was a vegan cafe and a tattoo
parlor at the end of the street, a narrow passageway separating them. Going
down the passage would cut a few minutes off her journey, but it was badly lit
and even if she hadn't been alone, Keira wouldn't have gone down there.

As she past the tattoo parlor,
someone grabbed her collar.

Keira screamed – or tried to. He
caught her so quickly, whirling her into his arms and punching her hard in the
face. Once, twice with rapid jabs that sent her head spinning. He dragged her
into the passageway, one hand clamped firmly over her mouth.

Terror fired through Keira and she
tried to struggle against him, but he was powerful and she was dazed. It was
like kicking under water; there was no strength in her limbs. He slammed her
against the wall, wrapping one meaty hand round her throat. She choked and
clawed uselessly at his arm. He shoved his body against hers and she felt his
erection against her leg. She wanted to gag. Disgust clashed with fear inside
her. Did he rape his victims? She didn't know. She couldn't think. The world
was dimming as he throttled her.

So it was this simple, she thought.
You didn't have to be stupid or careless – you just had to be there, and he
would take you.

She felt the knife, but the pain
was dull and far away, nothing to do with her. She heard him laugh, an ugly
sound that grated on her ears, but that, too, seemed nothing to do with her.
She was barely connected to her own body, and everything he did, everything he
wanted to do... It was blessedly distant. When she died, she'd barely notice...

****

When she finished speaking, Dylan reached out for her,
then
dropped his hand. "You're serious?
The Shoreditch Slasher?”

She nodded. "I was the only victim to escape. I
was lucky – a gang of kids were passing by the alley from another club and they
scared him off before he could...finish." It sounded simple, clean even,
when she said it, but the reality had been dirty, violent, and terrifying. The
Slasher's hot breath on her face, steaming through the balaclava he wore.
The manic gleam in his eye as he pinned her by the throat, knife
raised.
She'd been more than lucky. Luck didn't begin to cover it.

"My God, Keira. I had no idea...I can't..."
He did seize her hand this time, squeezing her fingers almost painfully tight.
It was oddly reassuring.

"The police never released my name to the press.
They figured I was safer that way. You know, in case he wanted to try
again." Her throat tightened. She dug her fingers into her palms, pain
stinging through her, pushing back the memories a little. "But after the
attack, I was different."

"That's understandable, that kind of trauma
leaves all kinds of scars
— "

"No, that's not what I mean." She took a
deep breath. This was the hardest part of the story. The part nobody ever
believed, except Dom. "You know
,
I suppose, that
the Slasher killed eight women in total. I would have been victim number four.
The women he killed after me...I...I saw them.
Saw him kill
them."

He shook his head. "I don't understand. You mean
like in visions or something?"

"Dom – Detective Abbott – called it an
out-of-body experience. He thought the trauma of the attack forged some link
between me and the killer, so I was pulled to him every time he attacked again.
It's like a dream. I'm watching, hanging over the scene, invisible, unable to
do anything but watch. I saw him kill those women, Dylan.
Like
I was right there.
And I couldn't do a damn thing about it."

"But the police..."

"They didn't believe me. Would you? Dom was the
only one who did, and he couldn't do much with my evidence. The killer was
masked, I couldn't describe him. And it was raining – a lot of DNA evidence
just got washed away."

"They never caught him," Dylan said,
standing to pace the room. "I remember it all just trailing off, the news
reports, the manhunt...It just faded away, didn't it?"

Keira nodded. "They collared a couple of
suspects, but the forensic evidence wasn't strong enough. Dom told me when a
serial killer stops like
that,
it's sometimes because
he's been caught for something else, like drug possession or something minor.
The OBEs stopped, I moved down here, and that's it."

"So this Detective Abbott, he's the old friend
who called?" Dylan stopped, kneeling in front of her to take her hands.
"Why?"

She couldn't meet his eyes. The compassion there, the
concern, might undo her. "A girl died last night.
Murdered.
I saw it."

"You had an out-of-body experience," he
said. "So why does that mean you have to go to London? Can't you just talk
to Abbott over the phone about it?"

She could, but then she wouldn't get to see Dom. Guilt
spiked through her, cutting through the churning sickness in her stomach.
"The police want to question me again." She lied, hating how easily
the lie came. "Like I said, I'm the only survivor – if this is the
Shoreditch Slasher again, anything I can tell them could help catch him."

Frustration marred Dylan's face. "I can come with
you if you like.
For support.
I can afford to miss a
few days of work."

"No," she said. "Really, it's fine.
I'll be back in a couple of days, and you've got tons of stuff to get through,
deadlines to meet. You've got Greg to think about.
It's
fine, Dylan."

He rocked back, frowning. "You'll call me when
you get there, yeah?
And when you're on your way back."

"Of course."
She leaned down to kiss his cheek.
"I promise."

****

Dom was waiting for her at King's Cross Station. Her
heart leapt at the sight of him, looking just the same as he always had in his
battered old trench coat, dark hair falling into dark eyes, a five o'clock
shadow on his jaw. She smiled as he hurried to meet her, a little of the
tension she'd been carrying since her nightmare – her OBE – melting away.

"Keira, it's good to see you." He took her
suitcase from her with one hand, clasping her hand with the other. His grip was
rough but warm, sending hot little sparks through her. "Wish it was under
better circumstances."

"Me too."
She let her hand fall from his
reluctantly.
"Where to?"

"Don't know about you, but I could do with a
drink." Dom led her out of the station, free hand pressed to the small of
her back to guide her through the crowd. "It's been a bloody long
day."

Dusk was falling over London, the streets were packed,
and Keira felt a weird mix of homesickness and nostalgia. She didn't miss
London, not really. Her life in her quiet corner of the countryside was
peaceful, happy. Apart from the issues with her job, anyway, but nothing was
perfect, was it? And there were too many bad memories associated with London.

But with Dom at her side, broad and grim-faced, she
felt safe and her sense of safety triggered an unexpected fondness for the
city. She'd had good times here once, as a student and trainee teacher. She’d
had lots of friends, a hectic social life. The bright lights and heady sounds
of the city didn't seem as ominous as she remembered, not with Dom's protective
hand on her back.

He took her to a quiet pub a street away from the
station, bought her a white wine and a spicy chicken burger. She had to grin.
"You remember."

"Never forgot." He returned her grin.
"I used to look forward to our pub dates, despite everything."

Her mood darkened a little. They'd met so many times
to discuss her OBEs, what she saw, what it meant, if anything. He couldn't tell
her much about the case at the time, but that hadn't mattered to Keira.
Safety, that
was what mattered. Dom made her feel like she
wasn't
alone,
wasn't so vulnerable.
Wasn't
crazy.

"So how are things?" he asked, sipping his
beer. "How have you been?"

She shrugged.
"Good, mostly.
I'm teaching. Not really enjoying it anymore, but I don't know what else to do.
You?"

"Working hard."
He rubbed his nose, an old,
familiar habit. It had been broken a couple of times, giving him the look of a
boxer. She'd always found that so appealing. It gave him a little edge of
danger. "Not much else to do, really. Angie left me...God, must be four
years ago now."

 
A flicker of
surprised excitement ran through her, quickly followed by guilt. She covered
his hand with hers, squeezing. "Dom, I'm so sorry."