Capturing the Devil (Stalking Jack the Ripper, #4)

by Kerri Maniscalco

A feat more difficult than it should’ve been. Jack the Ripper hadn’t committed his crimes alone. His reign of terror was not yet complete. That thought ripped the rest of my heart from my chest. Jack the Ripper was alive. All this time… all of these months I’d convinced myself that his horrors were over. That his death might offer a bit of solace to the spirits of those he’d slain, though keeping his secret didn’t offer me the same peace in return. Every ghost of the past I’d worked to fight against, every demon in my imagination—everything was rallying against this news, clawing its way up my throat, taunting me with an I told you so. His death was one more lie to choke down. Tears burned my eyes. Jack the Ripper was two depraved, twisted men acting as one. And I knew—I knew with every molecule of my body that he’d been with us on the Etruria. That crime was too much like him for me to have overlooked it. I committed the same mistake I had during our first case—I ignored the facts because I didn’t want to see them for what they were. I drew in one ragged breath after another. Jack the Ripper lived. I couldn’t stop repeating it in my mind.