Chapter Twenty-Two
“What is it?” Grant growled as he stormed down the stairs and into the front room where all of the runners except for Felix had gathered. While he’d been chasing Juliet around St Giles, his arch-nemesis had been getting married. By the looks of their formal attire, everyone had attended the ceremony except for him. “What the devil couldn’t wait a bloody second longer? I was questioning a prisoner.”
“A woman claims to have seen a man matching The Slasher’s description one hour ago in Haversham Square,” Owen said grimly, looking up from a large map he’d spread across the table. “Says he came up to her in the middle of the market and tried to get her to go with him into an empty shop. When she refused, he pulled out a knife.”
“Was she hurt?” Forcibly tearing his mind away from Juliet, Grant gave the captain his full attention. A violent murderer who liked to carve up his victims before murdering them, The Slasher had first appeared in London nearly five years ago. After a killing spree that left more than a dozen women slain, he’d disappeared into thin air. Everyone had hoped that he had died…but six weeks ago when a dead prostitute showed up on Felicity Atwood’s doorstep they came to grim conclusion that he’d only been in hiding.
Under Owen’s strict orders the runners had been canvassing the entire city around the clock ever since, working in a methodical grid like pattern in the hopes of flushing The Slasher out of whatever dark whole he’d slithered back into. Unfortunately, thus far all of their efforts had come to naught. If The Slasher really had been sighted in Haversham Square then this was the break in the case they’d all been waiting for.
“No, she wasn’t. Thank God. Ian was on a routine patrol nearby and heard her screaming. When she gave him a description of the perpetrator – and mentioned the knife – he immediately suspected The Slasher.”
The Slasher was renowned for killing his victims – all women – with a knife. He slit their throats and then went to work on their bodies. The results were nothing short of gruesome, and the first time Grant had seen one of the mutilated bodies firsthand he’d thrown up his dinner on the spot.
“Have we sent anyone out?” he demanded.
“I’m about to.” Grabbing a pencil, Owen drew three large squares on the map and wrote in their names as he spoke them out loud. “I want you, Hawke, and Ian to tear the entire square apart. Start in the middle, here, and work your way out. Chances are he’s already moved on, but he could also be laying low, waiting for the threat to pass. If you manage to flush him out, Archer and Colin are going to be waiting here, at the intersection of Newbury and Yates. They’ll be stopping and searching every carriage that goes past.”
“What aboot me?” Tobias Kent, a dark-haired Irishman with a thick brogue and a dark temper, had a very personal reason for catching The Slasher. His wife had been one of the bastard’s first victims.
“You’re with me,” Owen said. “We’ll head directly to Fleet Ditch. If The Slasher has left the square, that’s where he’ll most likely be. Any questions?”
To a man, every runner shook their head.
“Good. We’ll meet back here at midnight.”
Everyone scraped their chairs back and stood up in unison. Grant was the first out the door. Slightly out of breath, Ian and Hawke caught him just as he reached the end of the street. Lifting his arm, he flagged down a hackney. Given the time of day one stopped almost immediately, and after giving the driver terse orders to get to Haversham Square as fast as possible, they all piled in.
As he stared tersely out the soot covered window, Grant found his thoughts returning to Juliet. It was a dangerous thing, for a runner’s mind to be on something else when he was on a case. Particularly one as important as this. But putting Juliet completely out of his head was impossible. So was forgetting the way she had looked at him when she’d realized he was going to keep her in chains.
The pain and betrayal in her eyes…it had hit him like a punch to the gut, and it had taken everything inside of him not to go to her and gather her up in her arms. To kiss her soft lips and comb his fingers through her hair and reassure her that everything was going to be all right, that she wasn’t going to have to stand before the magistrate, that he was going to keep her safe...
But he’d done none of those things because he was a runner and it was his job – his sworn duty – to help the innocent and apprehend the guilty. With the exception of his family, nothing was more important to him. But if that was completely true, why couldn’t he get Juliet’s voice out of his head?
I thought you were different…
His teeth grinded together as the hackney made a sharp left and headed towards Haversham Square at a breakneck pace. The bloody truth of the matter was that he did feel different when he was around her. For all of Juliet’s faults, the greatest one was her ability to make him forget.
When he was touching her – hell, when he was within ten feet of her – everything else faded away and he wasn’t a runner or a lord. He was just a man and she was just a woman and together…together they felt right. He couldn’t think of any other way to explain it.
So what the devil was he going to do about it?
He couldn’t let her go. Not if he wanted to continue being a runner. If Owen didn’t discover what he’d done and fire him outright, his damned conscious would make him quit. And then what the devil would he do? Retire to the country and succumb to a paralyzing case of ennui? His entire life was defined by Bow Street. It was the very air he breathed. But he also didn’t know if he had it in him to turn Juliet over to the magistrate, despite what he’d said. The idea of her locked away in Newgate chilled him to the bone. She may have been a thief, but she didn’t belong in that hellhole.
Only the damned did.
It took Juliet exactly five minutes and thirty-seven seconds to pick her way out of the cuffs and unlock the door. A personal best. Rubbing her wrists where the heavy manacles had chaffed the delicate skin, she slowly opened the door a few scant inches and peered down the hallway. It was empty, with nary a single runner in sight.
Taking a deep breath, she slipped out of the holding room and tip-toed along the edge of the wall, careful to avoid any boards that looked as though they might creak beneath her weight, slight as it was. At the top of the stairs she stopped and listened, but there was only silence. Lifting up her skirts she flitted down the steps like a shadow and headed straight for the front door. It almost seemed too easy to be true, but she’d never been the sort to look a gift horse in the mouth and she wasn’t about to start now. All of the runners must have been called away on a case, which was why Grant had left her so abruptly.
At the mere thought of his name her stomach knotted and her hands curled into fists, nails digging into the soft flesh of her palms. How stupid she’d been, to ever believe there was something between them! To ever hope – even for a moment – that she meant something to him. To ever think that when their backs were pressed against the wall he would choose her over Bow Street. That he would choose their physical attraction over duty. Their kisses over honor. Their connection over his damned morality.
Stupid, she thought bitterly. You’re nothing but a stupid, naïve girl who allowed herself to be fooled by a handsome face.
Well, she wouldn’t be making that mistake again. As far as she was concerned. Grant Hargrave could go straight to hell and if he came after her again she would put him there herself. This was no longer a friendly fight. It was a war.
And there was only going to be one victor.
Grant made it back to Bow Street at half past two in the morning.
Physically and mentally exhausted from chasing a lead that had ultimately led to nowhere, he gave a cursory nod to the runners that had returned before him and were sharing a bottle of brandy before heading upstairs.
He’d never intended to make Juliet wait for so long, and guilt gnawed at him as he unlocked the door and stepped into the darkened room.
“Juliet, I’m sorry.” For more things than one. “We had to go to Haversham Square and – Juliet?” He had his first inkling that something wasn’t right even before he lit a candle.
The first thing he saw was the iron shackles on the floor and with a muffled curse he sprang forward and picked them up. Metal clanged as he spun around, but even before he shone the light in every corner of the room he knew the truth.
Juliet was gone.