Page 99 of Secrets in the Dark
“Fine. Let’s move out.”
“My knife will stay at your throat.”
“If I ask you to move it, will you?”
He laughed. “No. And I’m not sure why you’re not saying,hey! If you’re going to kill me, do it now, do it here. Oh, wait. You’ve got your knife at my throat, I’m not going to let you be perfect—you kill me right here and now.Oh, but wait. Everyone clings to hope, right? You can hope people didn’t eat the curry, but they did. And I saw Special Agent Mason Carter enter the house, too—before the curry! But, okay, you go ahead, live on hope!”
“I can live on hope. But you’re not supposed to use that knife against me. It’s believed that the Ripper strangled his victims first, so you’ll be screwing that one all to hell.”
She felt the blade press tighter for a second; she’d angered him.
“You already caused me to change things up!”
“You started by changing things up! You didn’t kill down-and-out prostitutes, some so sad and desperate they became alcoholics—”
“All women are whores!”
“Ouch! Wow, someone sure hurt you. Or was it your pride and dignity that they hurt. Oh, and you couldn’t be the Vampire King—that’s Stephan Dante. So, pathetically, you already had to change that up, too.”
“I am going to have so much fun with you!” he hissed. She winced, feeling the spittle that sprayed from his mouth with his anger.
But it was then that she felt something else. A strange sense of cold that was also oddly...warm.
Abigail.
And the ghost whispered to her, “Keep him talking. Mason is here!”
Those words gave her greater strength and hope than she might have ever imagined. And to her surprise, Jesse Miller waved his free hand around, as if trying to rid himself of a fly.
“Damned cold basement!” he muttered.
“Oh, it’s not the basement, it’s a ghost,” she said.
“There’s no such thing.”
“Oh, but there is.”
“One of the Ripper’s victims, right?” he said.
“Lie!” Abigail said.
“It’s Mary Kelly,” Della lied. “She’s stroking your arm right now. And she's going to haunt you from here to eternity. Feel her?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.
He wrenched her arm behind her back with his free hand, keeping the knife tight on her throat. They were halfway out to the center of the basement, rounding the picnic table, she thought, though even shapes of things were almost impossible to see.
Abigail stroked his arm, just as Della had suggested.
He almost jumped; he still had the knife tightly set to her throat.
“To the couch.”
“Feel her, feel Mary, feel her anger...”
They were getting closer and closer to the couch. Time was running out and she knew it, but she also knew that Mason needed the sound of her voice.
She knew he couldn’t shoot blindly in the darkness; he could hit her.
“Stop it!” he shrieked.
