Mattie’s nightmare cycled in her mind. Nausea threatened as bile rose in her throat, but she couldn’t escape the dream. Every time she swam near the surface of consciousness, someone grabbed her and pulled her back into the sharp claws of fear.
Last night when she’d walked out of the supermarket with her bag of groceries, Brett caught up to her. She figured he was going to ask for a date or return to the Dark Angel with him sometime. After she’d popped the trunk, he’d taken the grocery bag from her arms and placed it inside. With a gloved hand, he’d closed it and stared into her eyes.
“I can’t believe my luck, running into you.”
She’d shrugged. “Victoria isn’t all that big. Do you live around here?”
“I have a place to stay if I need it,” Brett said.
She didn’t want to be impolite, but if Greg got up and found she was gone, he’d have a heart attack. “I need to go. Nice seeing you again.”
In the low lights emitted by the lampposts, Brett’s eyes scanned the small parking lot. Only a large, black Ford truck was parked beside her. “You too, Mattie. I knew we’d meet again.”
Her veins chilled with ice crystals. Surely, his words were coincidental, but he knew her real name. She decided to ignore the warning and the hair rising on the back of her neck. “See you.”
With her senses heightened, she stepped around Brett. One muscled arm shot out and wrapped around her middle. Stopping her with a tug and holding her hostage, while his other hand cupped her mouth and nose. She couldn’t escape the pungent odor in his glove. She held her breath and fought to free herself at the same time. With her first breath darkness came from all angles, and her legs wilted beneath her.
“Your mine now, Mattie,” he whispered next to her ear.
She woke with his gravelly voice calling her name. The scent of diesel fuel filled her nose as she opened her eyes. The muscles in her arms complained, and she tried to pull them from behind her back. Restraints cut into her wrists, and she stopped fighting.
Brett crouched in front of her wearing a wry smile. “You’ll have to wait here for me. It’s a short trip, and then we’ll have time to explore each other.”
“What the fuck!” Panic struck deep, and she yanked at the metal cuffs, causing them to clang against the pipe he’d secured her to.
“You can make all the noise you want. We’re below deck next to the engine room, no one will hear you.”
Staring into his amazing green eyes and handsomely rugged features, some of the clues snapped into place. His ability to draw any woman would be easy. At the Dark Angel, he’d told her he was a captain. And she was most definitely on a ship. Which ship, she didn’t know, but if it was a bulk carrier headed for the orient, she had zero chance of escaping.
This is how he’d evaded capture.
“You’re the Ripper?”
The serial killer of Victoria squatted too close for comfort. Mattie’s heart wanted to clamber from her chest. This was real. No one knew where she was. No one could save her.
“I’m not the monster you’ve made me out to be, Mattie.”
Did she even have the tiniest hope of freedom? “You murdered nine women. Why?”
He caressed her cheek with the back of his finger. “I was looking for you.”
“Someone else loves me.” Greg had never said those words to her, but Brett didn’t know that. “He doesn’t share and he’ll want me back.”
Mattie expected a villain. The Ripper was supposed to be gruesome, heinous and ugly, not someone who could advertise men’s cologne. When he chuckled, she expected her body to chill with fear, but it warmed, his alluring features the worst kind of deception.
As he spoke, his voice held a possessiveness over her. “If you’re speaking about the military man, I doubt he has any feelings for you. When I took his knife at the club, he was quite enamored by the blonde he was fucking and licking a brunette’s pussy at the same time. I watched for a while. He has skill as a Dom. I hope he taught you something.”
Anger broiled, making the thump in her head a pounding overture. Sweat covered her skin and she pulled at the restraints, trying to slip her hands free. “He didn’t teach me anything.”
“Then I will.”
Brett’s gaze was like staring into the eyes of a cobra, waiting for the poisonous fangs to strike out at her. “You lost someone and you’re trying to replace her, aren’t you?”
A flicker of unrest shot through his expression.
“Why leave all your victims at the historical sites?”
He nodded slowly. “You have a lot of questions. Understandable.”
She hung her head and wished the damn migraine would stop. When she raised her gaze to meet his, she said, “I want the answers before you slaughter me.”
His brow arched. “Why are you so sure I will?”
Because you’re a fucking psychopath! She wanted to scream, but losing control would only end her life quicker.
A dribble of sweat coursed down her cheek, and she rubbed it off on her shoulder. “Because you have no empathy. You love to cause pain. I don’t know why, only you do. No matter the reason, you spilled the blood of nine innocent women.”
“It was their choice. All they had to do was please me. They didn’t. I want the perfect Sub, and I’ve found her.”
“What about the Sub you had when you killed Diana. He was with you. Who is he?”
Brett shrugged. “Not a Sub. An acquaintance, and he’s gone.”
She swallowed. “Gone as in dead, or gone as in you nurtured another killer?”
“Why are you interested in him?” he said harshly.
Panic rose in the form of bile in her throat. Don’t make him angry. Playing his twisted game was the hardest thing she ever did, but she changed her tone. The one she used to interview people for an article. “Are the women in Victoria your only victims?”
Brett sighed and sat his ass back on the deck with his legs bent and an arm hooked around his shin. “Beth was the woman I loved for many, many years.”
Beth? Who the hell was Beth?
She nodded. “And she died?”
“She did.”
“An accident?” Mattie didn’t doubt it was Brett who had killed her.
He got to his feet and stared down at her. “We all have to move on.”
Her eyes trailed all the way up his imposing height to his face. “Look at you. An intelligent man. Handsome…polite when you choose to be. Why waste your life killing women when there’s so many who would instantly fall in love with you? Share your life.”
She knew her questions were ridiculous. He was a psychopath who couldn’t understand love, and by the sounds of it, the loss of Beth had turned him into a killer.
“That’s all I want too, Mattie, and I’m going to share it with you. If you please me, we’ll have a long, gratifying life together.” He stepped toward the hatch to leave. Probably to take command of the ship and depart Victoria.
Desperate to keep him with her only because if they set sail, her hope for escape would be gone. “Who the hell are you?”
Eyes like shards of emeralds turned on her. “I’m a Blackney. My family holds one of the darkest secrets of the nineteenth century. You asked why the historical locations?”
She swallowed thickly, and nodded.
“In honor of my descendant. I’m like him. Looking for perfection in a mate.”
Mattie shook her head. “You think you’re related to Jack the Ripper, don’t you? That’s why you chose Victoria and the historic sites.”
“I don’t think—I know.”
“But why here, in Victoria? Why not England?” Not that she’d wish this hell on any country.
He smiled as if honored to tell the story and stepped away from the hatch.
“My ancestors were seafarers. My great-great grandfather captained one of the clipper ships for the Black Ball Line.” He hunched down as if telling a bedtime story to a child. “A round trip voyage from New York to Liverpool. His son followed in his footsteps. As did I. When the voyages ended, they settled in England.”
Oh, my stars. She was on the Coho.
“Brett, killing is not a DNA trait. How are you so sure your ancestor was Jack the Ripper? Many people have claimed they were.”
“Journals, Mattie. My descendant was given a ship to captain in 1818 for the Black Ball line. After his years at sea, he became a journalist. Just like you. But one journal in particular was handed down from father to son. They were the adventures of the Blackney mariners. In 1888 the journal was locked away. The original Blackney wrote about his family, and about his grandson, Alexander, who also became ship captains. In 1878 at the age of thirty, he too was given a ship on the Black Ball Line, but hard times closed the line and he only sailed one year with them. A string of bad luck followed Alexander. By this time, Alexander’s father had the journal and continued to write the family tale. He worried about his son who tended to be aggressive in nature. At forty, Alexander still hadn’t married and liked to spend his time in the brothels of Whitechapel instead of settling down.
“One of the last entries Alexander’s father made in the journal noted how he’d followed his son late one night into the alleys of Whitechapel. In August of 1888, he watched with horror as his son slaughtered one of the women who became known as a Ripper victim.”
Blackney beamed with pride as if the horrific murders of the poorest women of Whitechapel was a victory. Mattie didn’t know if she believed Brett or not. But there was probably some truth in the tale.
She raised her gaze to meet his. “Then why don’t you chronicle instead of kill?”
For a moment he stared, a slight wrinkle on his brow. “There was an entry by Alexander in the journal. It said he’d found a wife. A woman who understood his needs. They moved to America to start anew in the spring of 1899, and settled in Port Angeles, but sadly his wife died in September of the same year.”
Mattie’s heart ticked as the wheels of fate clicked into place. “Did he come to Victoria?” She licked her dry lips. “Did he murder Agnes Bings?”
One perfect slash of brow arched. “He was heartbroken, Mattie. Just like I was when I lost Beth. She understood me. She kept the need to kill in my darkest place by giving me her submission and her body.” He stared at the deck with deep creases on his brow. “Her love chained the darkness back into the corner.”
He stood, staring down at her with his handsome cut jaw, looking absolutely debonair in his uniform. He was the epitome of the most alluring male she’d ever seen next to Greg. “Wait!” She yelled when he turned for the door.
He shook his head. “A little longer and we’ll have hours to explore.”
She wasn’t waiting for anything. She’d chew through the rope at her ankles if she had to. “The reprieve. You stopped killing in April and didn’t start again until October. Why?”
Blackney’s eyes narrowed as if considering he might share with her something he wasn’t certain he wanted to share. He turned and put a hand on the white handle of the hatch then paused. “I know you think I’m psychotic. Most would.” He shook his head. “I’m not. I function in society like everyone else. I pay my taxes. I treat my crew fairly. Football is my favorite sport to watch.” He looked down at his hands. “It’s like an addiction, Mattie. The blood. The pain. I can’t stop without Beth. Although she was my wife and my submissive, she leashed my desires.” His voice was barely a whisper. “She controlled the beast inside me.” He turned a sharp look over his shoulder at her. “After she died, I vented what I could at the Dark Angel. But then I saw Aimee. She reminded me so much of Beth.” His expression caved with honest grief. “I couldn’t stop. I was so angry at Beth for leaving me.” He inhaled deeply and blinked the glaze of tears from his eyes. “I didn’t want to kill her nor the second or third. In April, I turned to the club for release. It worked. For a while.” He shook his head. “I hope you have what I need.”
The heavy metal door clanged shut behind him, and so did the hope that she would escape alive.
A headache pulsed through Mattie’s temples. Sitting on her ass and tied to the pipe, her head too heavy to hold up, she stared at the granules of dirt on the dull grey deck. For what seemed hours, she could do nothing but contemplate the worst outcome since he’d locked her in the tiny room. When the ship’s engines trembled to life under her feet, she swore she would not cry. The undeniable motion meant they were leaving the dock.
The dimly lit, six foot by six foot space contained one shelf of engine parts and various cardboard boxes, all out of reach. She wiggled her fingers and toes, numb from the tight cinch of handcuffs around her wrists and the rope wound around her ankles. He’d secured her to a pipe leading from the ceiling that continued through the floor.
Brett would be on the bridge, but no one would hear her scream with the deafening thud and drum of the ship’s massive engines. Desperation cut deep.
Her next port of call would be death.