Chapter Four
Blending into any environment and almost seeming invisible had never presented Jack with any difficulties.
It was a skill all magicians were expected to master, and one her father had taught to her as a child.
It was a skill she excelled in and didn’t find all that difficult since most people were far too occupied with themselves to pay any specific attention to what seemed normal and expected, which was the key to the whole endeavor, really.
The ease with which Jack had infiltrated the building would surely have Sir Robert Peel himself turning in his grave.
All Jack had done was put on a black skirt and blouse, with a white cleaning apron over her outfit, along with a white cleaning cap over her auburn hair, and the constable at the back entrance hadn’t even batted an eye when she’d smiled at him and said she was there to clean.
Being a woman, and she supposed an attractive one, at that, did have its advantages on occasion, though unlike Cordy, Jack herself rarely employed those skills.
It was far easier to rely on her sleight of hand deftness and her expertise in illusions to get what she needed, rather than having to resort to using her feminine wiles.
In any event, just as she’d told Cordy, it had been ridiculously easy to find herself now on the fifth floor while happily pretending to be sweeping the halls as she made her way to the Criminal Investigation Division, or CID, as everyone called it, to where this Inspector Flint’s office was.
So far, about twenty officers had walked past her and none had even acknowledged her, let alone questioned her presence here.
No one had barely even looked at her after they’d seen her outfit and the broom in her hand.
It was child’s play, it truly was. Now all she had to do was get in, see what information they had, and then get out undetected in the next ten minutes, and her mission would be a success.
She double-checked her pocket watch once again, quickly confirming she was exactly on time. After all, timing was imperative.
Ahead, another officer turned down the hallway heading towards her, so Jack without haste ducked her head and pretended to be busy sweeping the floor. He, like everyone else, simply walked past her, paying her no mind whatsoever.
Not for the first time, she thought it was the biggest joke that these men oversaw any investigations at all.
She doubted they could find a rat in a trap even if it bit their noses off!
Such was their level of incompetence. It really was no wonder Jack’s own investigation agency had boomed over the years, especially given she and her agents were more than prepared to do whatever needed to be done, skirting the law included, to see proper justice prevail.
Jack waited for the officer to turn down the corridor before she headed down the rest of the hall and slipped through the doors into the CID offices.
It really was far too easy. Perhaps she should infiltrate the Yard more often when needing information?
Normally, she stayed as far away from police as she possibly could, having had several adverse interactions with them when she’d been younger after she’d been forced to fend for herself on the streets following her father’s death.
But given how easy this was, she foresaw a few more visits in the future, especially when she needed some insight into what the police were up to.
Going off the information one of her informants had given her about the layout of the CID, Jack turned to her right, heading to the northwest corner of the building, where apparently both the eastern city’s division of detectives and the inspector’s office were located.
Sure enough, the closer she got, the more people were coming and going down the corridor. Some paid her a cursory glance before they caught sight of her cleaning apron and dismissed her presence there without another thought. No one paid any attention to what they expected to see.
As she rounded the corner, she saw an office area ahead with a lot of plainclothes detectives and uniformed officers arguing with each other in the middle of the room.
It was particularly chaotic, with what looked to be a sizable task force amassed there.
Good. The more chaos and people, the easier she could blend in, or disappear if she needed to.
Slowly, she began sweeping the floor as she headed towards them.
Again, a few glanced at her, then dismissed her just as quickly.
From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a young man pinning up some photos to a board on the far side of the room, which it seemed was being met with loudly voiced disapproval.
“Fuck, Phillip, do we have to bloody see those pictures right in our face?” a detective complained loudly. “Can’t you pin them somewhere else? I saw enough of that at the scene to want to see it again.”
“Yeah, get those hideous things down,” another detective added. With several other voices joining him.
“Enough,” a deep voice commanded, cutting through the complaining in an instant, the speaker not even having to raise his voice.
“They will be placed there and stay up there to remind you all of the monster we’re dealing with, and the imperativeness of the assignment that we catch him before he does this to another victim. Do I make myself clear?”
The men all nodded, with one she couldn’t see yelling out, “Is it true we think this is the first of six victims?”
There were a few seconds of silence before the deep voice spoke again. “We’ve received intelligence to suggest that yes, that could be so.”
Jack kept sweeping silently, positioning herself so she could get a glimpse of the speaker from between the backs of two of the detectives.
She peeked through the detectives’ backs, and for an instant, she felt her whole body clench and her breath catch as she could sight of the man.
This had to be the inspector Cordy had spoken of.
He was a head taller than most, probably around six-foot-two, with raven-black hair and piercing, gray eyes, eyes that Jack was certain missed nothing.
And yes, she couldn’t help but notice that Cordy’s description of him being deliciously handsome was far too tame a description to label the raw masculinity and power he was radiating effortlessly.
Instantly, she knew this man was dangerous to her. Not in a way that would hurt her physically, but rather in a way that could threaten the carefully constructed walls she’d placed around her heart a long time ago, after she’d been betrayed by another man to whom she’d given her heart.
Damn it. She wasn’t going to let herself ever be such a naive and trusting fool again. Not for anyone. Most especially not for a police officer, no matter how much she found herself unaccountably drawn to him.
She very nearly gasped as his eyes glanced over at her, and she had to resist the urge to spin around quickly.
Instead, she forced herself to casually turn away—only very slightly, though, so as not to appear suspicious.
Then she continued methodically using her broom to gently continue sweeping the floor, looking for all the world like a cleaner going about her menial tasks with neither vigor nor apathy.
Without daring to look back, she slowly kept sweeping the broom across the floor, her heart pounding faster than it had in a long time.
Stupid, Jack, stupid! She’d very nearly attracted his attention.
And she suspected that if she’d done that, he would not have simply taken her appearance at face value, as everyone else had.
Because though she was dressed in the clothing of a cleaner, she hadn’t bothered to disguise her black leather boots, as most people never bothered to look at a person’s feet.
But she suspected this man might, and if he did, he’d know instantly she was no cleaner, not with her kid-leather boots costing more than a cleaner made in a year.
Taking in one slow breath after another, she continued to gently sweep the floor, moving out of the man’s direct line of sight.
Very carefully, just in case the man’s focus had stayed upon her, Jack blithely peered over her shoulder and was relieved to see the inspector’s attention now focused upon a group of several detectives who were surrounding him in a semicircle as they spoke about the case.
She couldn’t make out a great deal of what was being said, so instead, she made her way around the periphery of the room until she could more clearly see the photographs that had been pinned to the board.
Casually, she glanced up at them, and it took all her willpower not to heave up her breakfast on the spot.
Her father’s illusion had been defiled, turned from a terrifying-yet-miraculous spectacle into what could only be described as a grotesque abomination. She felt sick to her stomach even thinking about what had been done to that poor woman.
Who could do such a thing to anyone?
Swallowing down the bitter acid rising in her throat, Jack slowly made her way towards the inspector’s officer, the door of which had been left slightly ajar, but then she paused as she heard her own surname yelled out.
Glancing superciliously back to the main part of the office, she focused more intently on what the officer was saying to the inspector.
“I’ve gotten the information you asked for on the Magnificent Maguire, sir.”
“And?” the inspector asked, a hint of impatience in his deep voice.
“His name was James Maguire and he had a wife, Julia, and a child, Jack. His wife was killed twenty years ago by a jealous benefactor of Maguire himself: an Edward Cloran, the first Baron Denton. It was a right scandal at the time and the baron was found to be criminally insane and sent to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he’s still incarcerated today. ”
Her fingers clenched tightly around the broom handle as the officer’s words brought back the night of her mother’s death in vivid detail. But no. She couldn’t think of that. Not now. With all her will, she pushed down the dark memories and returned her attention back to what was being said.
“Interesting,” the inspector murmured.
“Then five years after that,” the officer continued, “Maguire perished in a fire, apparently testing his new illusion, the Burning Lady, which went horribly wrong. Though in truth, many suspected he committed suicide, given his debts were about to bankrupt him. But the most interesting thing, sir, was that fire happened fifteen years ago to the day of the murder yesterday.”
“Which would suggest our killer either knew Maguire or else is obsessed by the man and his death,” the inspector replied. “What about this child of his, Jack? Is the boy still alive?”
“No, it’s reported he also died in the fire with his father. He was thirteen at the time.”
Jack’s whole body clenched upon hearing more of her family’s demise, and her so-called death, spoken about in such a matter-of-fact fashion. That whole time had been the darkest chapter in her life, and one she’d never thought she’d recover from.
At least her father’s determination that she pretend to be a boy to protect her while they’d traveled around for his shows had been easily accepted, and everyone had thought she, as his son, had perished in the fire that had taken her father’s life.
Though they were deeply mistaken about him committing suicide, not to mention the nonsense of one of his tricks going wrong.
Her father had been meticulous with his illusions, and it hadn’t been an illusion that had killed him—it had been a ghost from the shadows.
A ghost whose cold hand of death she could still feel, after he’d shoved her in the dressing room beyond the stage, locking her in the room, leaving her to die in the inferno.
But she’d survived. The only time she’d ever been grateful to a police officer, who’d kicked in the door and pulled her from the flames that had been about to consume the place.
“Anything else, Officer?” The timbre of the inspector’s voice pulled Jack away from the haunting memories.
The officer nodded. “There is a magician who goes by the name of the Great Dondaric, who likens himself to the Magnificent Maguire. He’s currently got his own show and is performing in Mayfair at the moment, but he has a rock-solid alibi for the time of the victim’s death.”
Jack very nearly scoffed aloud. There was nothing great about Caleb Dodd.
Just a great talent for manipulating people to get what he wanted, caring little if he broke a person’s heart into a million pieces in the process.
Though a part of her was glad to hear he obviously had had nothing to do with the death.
The idea that she could have given her heart at one stage to a man who was capable of such an atrocity would have been unbearable.
“Good work, Officer,” the inspector replied. “Perhaps this Great Dondaric will able to provide some insight into the illusion used.”
Good luck with that, Inspector, she thought. Though there was nothing Caleb Dodd loved so much as his own voice, he was a true magician at heart and she doubted he would betray the magicians’ code, which required them not to tell anyone outside of the magic circle the tricks to their illusions.
As the inspector began to allocate tasks for his men, Jack realized she was running out of time. Given they were still immersed in their conversation and weren’t paying her any attention at all, now was a good a time as any to quickly see if the inspector’s office had further information inside.
Glancing at the clock stand leaning against the far wall, she saw she had exactly six minutes to get what she could and get out of there. That would do, amply.
She slipped into the office, ensuring the door was left slightly ajar, in exactly the same position as it had been left, allowing her both the privacy to quickly search the room and the ability to hear anyone’s approach.
Time to get to work. She had to see what the police knew of this killer, which hopefully would provide her with the information she needed to know if this fiend was an actual threat to her personally.
Because despite her assurances to Cordy that it had to have been a coincidence, a part of Jack didn’t believe that, not even for a second.