A Buried Past
Alexandria Clarke
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
21. Three Months Later
About the Author
1
August 31
Durward Street, Whitechapel, England
William Lewis’s loafers clicked rapidly across the wet pavement as he hurried across the street toward the Royal London Hospital. He was late for his shift again, and his supervisor would be none too pleased. For William, a visiting student at the hospital, waking up before dawn to get to work was a hard habit to adjust to. He was in his last year of school, and he had barely begun washing his own clothes. His mother had taken pity on him and done his work outfits the night before. He smelled of her rose-scented detergent and a hint of salt, from the sweat that dripped out of his hairline and trickled down his spine.
Fortunately, the cobblestones on Durward Street were no more. Bits of London still favored the chunky blocks of river rock in historically preserved areas, but the stones had mostly gone by the wayside. Remnants of the Victorian age were littered about—an old building here, an original street there—but the city looked different than it once did. Thank heavens, William thought, or his slippery shoes would have surely caught on an uneven cobblestone by now.
Clouds hung like a grandmother’s gray drapes across the sky, dampening the moon’s light with a filmy covering. The wee hours of the morning existed in between reality and the next dimension. Those who remained awake between two and five a.m. witnessed events they dared not speak of. A glance at the clock alone could raise hairs. With darting shadows, mysterious noises, voices without owners, the streets were never truly quiet. If you listened hard enough, you might hear a rat scurrying along the alleyway, dragging a tourist’s uneaten kebab into the gutters, or the pitter-patter of the ever-obliging rain.
William squinted through the fog without luck. Dewdrops clung to the fair hair on his arms. He wiped the moisture away, shivered, and picked up his pace. Drawing his phone from his pocket, he gritted his teeth. He’d forgotten to charge it the night before, and the battery was down to three percent.
“What else could go wrong today?” he muttered into the void. Perhaps someone whispered an answer or a warning to him from the shrouded darkness, but William, like most, chose to ignore the eerie echoes of those who came before him. With what he considered to be his last shred of dignity, he texted a fellow member of his intern program. Stall for me, mate?
Again?
Almost there.
Before he could press the send button, the toe of his shoe caught a crack in the pavement. He stumbled and tripped, spreading his hands wide to catch himself and save his knees and uniform from the mud. If he showed up covered in dirt, he would be reprimanded for sure.
His right wrist took the brunt of his weight, and William saw the break coming a moment before it happened. The crack of his bone was one more lost sound in the night. Too late, he remembered his elementary rugby lessons and rolled forward on his shoulder and came to sit on the ground.
Cold rainwater seeped through his pants as he cradled his wrist to his chest. Mud decorated his uniform from head to toe. Experimentally, he flexed his wrist. It throbbed, already swelling.
“Don’t need a degree to tell that’s broken.” He looked up at the dark sky. “Not my day, Nan, yeah?”
He fetched his phone from the shadows. An ugly crack stretched across the screen, forming a map of William’s bad luck. The battery was down to one percent.
Meet me in A&E, he texted to the same friend.
What have you done now?
As he typed back one-handed, his phone flashed to black. Dead.
“Shite,” he muttered.
Heavy boots drummed a rhythm behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, hoping for a hand up.
“Hiya,” William said, squinting up. “Do you think I could borrow your phone? Mine’s just died.”
If he’d listened to the whispers, he would have fled. As it was, William didn’t see the trouble coming until it was too late. The knife crossed his throat, blood spattered the pavement, and William’s lifeless body fell to the ground with a thunk.
2
The police came to my apartment because the library reported me for checking out an inordinate number of books about serial killers. They brought a psychiatrist with them, a man with gnarled hands and darkened age spots. The drooping purses beneath his eyes boasted at least three layers, and he looked closer to death than a tire-flattened racoon. He carried a clipboard in the crook of his elbow, and no matter how skillfully I maneuvered to catch a glimpse of the paperwork upon it, the psychiatrist remained elusive.
“Jacqueline Frye?” asked the cop closest to me.
I crossed my arms. “Who wants to know?”
The cop, in full gear, tapped the name embroidered on the front of his uniform. “I’m Officer Byers from the San Diego Police Department.” He gestured to the psychiatrist. “This is Doctor Witz, and the rest of my team.” Behind Byers, a group of five additional officers waited with irritation and impatience. “May we come in?”
“You may certainly not,” I said, standing in the way of the door as Officer Byers attempted to step inside. He bumped off of me and backed up, eyebrows raised. “Is there a particular reason for your visit?”
“We got a disturbing call,” he said. “From the library.”
“Overdue notices?”
“You frequent the nearby library, do you not?” Byers asked. “The librarian mentioned you spend a lot of time there.”
“I also frequent the farmer’s market, the craft store, and the coffee shop next door. Do you have a point?”
Clearly uncomfortable, Byers shuffled his boots on my welcome mat. “Miss Frye, the librarian said you checked out several books on serial killers, various nonfiction and fictional accounts of
