I lifted my left hand to my throat as I glanced at my reflection in the glass covering the peony print hanging over my bed. There were several round marks encircling my neck where his mouth had sucked and bitten at the soft skin of my throat. Never mind that now. A scarf would cover it. I needed to focus on getting free.
I gripped the handcuff chain and yanked it upward, intending to pull it up and over the end of the bedpost. It didn’t budge. The handcuff bracelet was tightly secured around a decorative indentation in the bedpost. I yanked again. The chain rattled but didn’t move.
With a frustrated whimper, I pulled on my wrist. Scrunching my fingers tightly together, I tried to twist and pull my hand free. The handcuff bracelet dug into the skin below my thumb but wouldn’t slip off my hand.
I swiped at the tears clouding my vision as I tried again and again. The skin around my wrist was scratched and red before I finally gave up. I looked around the tiny bedroom for anything I could use as a tool, but there was nothing. The room only allowed for a four-drawer bureau and a bed. Despite my embarrassment at being found this way, I could try screaming for help, but I doubted anyone would hear me.
My love of all things vintage and gothic had prompted me to rent a flat in an eighteenth-century building located in Whitechapel. Yes, that Whitechapel, of Jack the Ripper fame. The walls were impossibly thick. It was one of the things I loved about the place. I looked at the lattice window to the left of my bed. The window frame had long ago been sealed shut from countless coats of thick white paint. Maybe I could break it? But with what?
I turned my attention back to the four-poster bed. My only hope was to break the post. Shuffling closer to the headboard, I leaned my shoulder against the post and pushed with all my might.
I heard a crack.
It was working!
I pushed harder, ignoring the pain in my shoulder and wrist.
There was another crack as the post gave under my weight. Unfortunately, it didn’t crack near the indentation as I had planned. My efforts had dislodged the post from the headboard and frame. I cried out as the bed collapsed. The footboard with two posts attached fell forward, slamming against the floor. The post not connected to my wrist leaned precariously to one side. The post connected to my wrist lurched to the other side. The mattress and box spring dropped to the floor with a loud thump.
I lay sprawled on the bed, momentarily stunned.
Just then, the bedroom door swung open, violently hitting the wall behind it.
I took one look at the man storming over the threshold toward me and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
CHAPTER2
JEKYLL
Three days earlier
It wasn’t right.
Dammit.
It wasn’t right.
I took the glass vial of noxious crimson liquid and flung it against the wall. A grotesque blood-like stain oozed down the cinder block wall of my lab.
I turned away in disgust and snatched up the pile of files and my research journal.
“Oh, my!”
I turned back to see the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on standing on the threshold. She had pale skin so delicate it appeared almost translucent. Her silky mink-brown hair was piled on top of her head in a fetching old-fashioned style. The kind you saw in old movies where the women wore dresses with bustles and carried parasols. Her dress was black with the kind of skirt that swung out and swished around her knees. Covering her bare arms and dress bodice was a thin black gauze cape. The hand she held to her heart was covered in a small black lace glove with a cute ruffle around the wrist. Perched on her nose was a pair of silver wire-rimmed glasses. The glare from the laboratory lamps was reflected off the lenses, denying me a true look at the color of her eyes.
She looked like a gothic librarian… and was staring with shock and horror at the dripping wet stain I had caused.
Startled by both her reaction and her beauty, I dropped the files I was holding. The endless pages of reports, bar graphs, lists of chemical compositions, and military memos scattered across the pea-green linoleum floor at my feet.
I fell to my knees, wincing at the pain as my body made contact with the hard, unforgiving floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was standing there.”
Uncaring about their order, I grabbed at the papers and shuffled them into a chaotic mess of a pile.
As I kept my head lowered, her pale, black-lace-covered hand appeared within my line of vision. “Let me, Dr. Jekyll.”
Her voice was like a dark sonnet on an overcast day, sweet with just a hint of sadness.
I inhaled her perfume. It smelled like white lilies.