Seven

THE SIGHT OF THE UNLIT WAREHOUSE LOOMING in the darkness near the river gave her a moment of nervous dread. For the first time in this endeavor she experienced true fear. It started in her palms, an icy, prickling sensation that climbed up her arms and spread through her chest. Suddenly she found it hard to breathe.

What was the matter with her? It was almost finished. She had come too far to lose her courage at this juncture.

She took a deep breath, and the disturbing sensation passed. She was in command of herself once more. Her brilliant future lay before her. All she had to do was complete this night’s work and she would be on her way into the ton’s glittering ballrooms and elegant drawing rooms at last.

Hoisting the lantern, she went to the door of the warehouse and opened it carefully. The rusty hinges groaned in protest.

Inside, she paused again on the threshold and surveyed the cavernous interior of the building. The flaring light from her lantern splashed sharp shadows across a jumble of empty packing crates and shipping casks. For a terrible instant they looked like so many monuments and headstones scattered about in an abandoned graveyard. She shuddered.

It is too late to turn back now. You’ve come too far. All the way from that dreadful little shop. Soon you will move in Society.

A rapid skittering sound emanated from a corner between two large crates. She flinched.

Rats, she thought. Just rats, fleeing from the light.

She heard the bootsteps behind her, and another cold wave of fear flashed through her. It was all right, she assured herself. He had received her message and had come to meet her, just as she had instructed. They would conduct their business and that would be the end of it. When it was over, she would be poised to move into her golden future.

“My dear Celeste,” the killer said in a voice as soft and low as a lover’s. “I have been waiting for you.”

She knew then that something had gone terribly wrong. Another lightning bolt of freezing horror flashed through her. She started to turn, fumbling frantically with the little fan. She opened her mouth to speak so that she could bargain for her life. This was why she had not brought the bracelet with her. Her plan had held an element of risk, so she had left the Blue Medusa in safekeeping as surety for her own life while she negotiated the new price.

But it was too late to bargain. He already had the cravat around her throat, silencing her so that she could not use her skills to save her own life. In those last moments when the red darkness clouded her brain, she knew with horrifying clarity that she had made a fatal mistake. She had known he could be ruthless, understood that he was obsessed. But she had not recognized the madness in him until now.

 

WHEN IT WAS FINISHED, HE LOOKED DOWN AT the results of his handiwork and was quietly satisfied. The creature would never again play her tricks on him or any other man.

He picked up her reticule, opened it, and poured out the contents. It contained the usual paraphernalia one expected to find. There was a handkerchief and some coins for the hackney she would not be hailing. But what he sought was not inside.

The first stirrings of alarm went through him. He went back to the body and knelt to check the folds and pockets of the cloak.

Not there either.

A feeling uncomfortably akin to panic swept over him. He suppressed it and quickly patted down her clothing.

Still nothing.

He yanked up her skirts to see if she had concealed it between her thighs.

But there was no sign of it.

Desperate now, he rose and hoisted the lantern to check the surrounding floor. Perhaps she had dropped it during her death struggle.

But a few minutes later he was forced to confront the terrible truth. The Blue Medusa was gone. And he had just murdered the only person who could have told him where it was hidden.