his relentless wanderings shook the warped floorboards. His coat was flung across the desk, and he’d set the coffeepot on top of it.
“Now to work, young Grace, before sleep claims you again.”
She shook her head to clear it, already lulled by the warmth of the fire. The loose end of her bandage had unwound itself and flapped against her cheek. She tucked it back in, her fingers adept at the movement, now so familiar. “I’m ready when you are, Doctor.”
“Good,” he said. “Tonight, a brief primer. We’ll see if you’re able to draw any conclusions.” He turned to the chalkboard, but his fingers played with the chalk as he spoke.
“Do you remember the Ripper killings in London a few years back?”
“I remember everyone talking about them,” Grace said. “But I don’t know much about the murders. Mother said it wasn’t a fit topic for me, and she wouldn’t allow the newspapers in the house for fear that . . .” Grace’s throat closed, as if a valve from her former life had turned, not allowing her to speak of it.
Thornhollow nodded, all his attention on her words, not her emotions. “I’m not surprised she’d shield you from such events. It was a nasty business. The papers would have you think it was a new type of person altogether, or a demon at work. But there are those of us who’ve seen dark things long before the Ripper took his nighttime walks. The only thing new in this story was a method that the police used in an attempt to find the killer.
“Most crime solving involves a very simple approach, Grace. Who? When? Why? How? That’s it. These questions are pivotal and have done their duty for a long time, and done it well. But in the case of the Ripper they weren’t doing the trick. Some scientists started looking at the behavior of the criminal before and after the crime, not just during, in order to collect information about who this person might be, what their profession is, their connection to the victim, even what their emotional state was like at different times before, during, and after the event. All these things can help establish a picture of your criminal well beyond the simple monosyllabic questions we’ve been asking for centuries.”
Grace sipped her coffee, letting the warmth soothe her vocal cords and the rough spot that had opened up when she spoke of the past. “That’s all very well, Doctor, but I have to point out that the Ripper was never caught, new method or not.”
Thornhollow stopped pacing and bit his cheek. “True. However, I became somewhat entranced by the idea and have spent years in study, gathering information about individuals that are known murderers so that we may have a collection of facts to draw from when we don’t know who we’re looking for. We’re drawing a picture, if you will, of what kind of man—or woman—would do certain deeds, and how they’d go about doing them.”
“So, you work backward, in a sense,” Grace said, her eyebrows drawing together as a headache began to form at her temples, pulsing against the bandage. “Instead of learning their biography after you catch them, you put together a story about who you think they are, and then use that to track them down.”
“Precisely.”
A flush of pride flowed through Grace at his word, a warmth in her belly not provided by the coffee.
“In the case of the Ripper, you’re right. He was never caught, but I believe the methodology is sound and have used it myself multiple times to aid the police in Boston. Coming to Ohio means I’m casting my net in a smaller pond, no doubt. Boston was so full of murders some nights, I hardly knew which crime scene to attend, but the hospital here is the most humane I’ve seen, and I grew weary of operating in darkness both day and night.”
“Don’t be deceived by a pleasant setting, Doctor,” Grace warned. “Sometimes the loveliest places harbor the worst monsters.”
“Very true,” he acknowledged. “With that in mind, I’ll ask you a straightforward question. If you were to murder someone, who would you kill?”
“My father,” she said promptly.
He nodded, as if he’d expected the answer. “And how would you do it?”
She answered immediately, allowing the smoldering feeling in her belly to take control of her vocal cords before giving any thought to the words. “I’d scratch his heart out of his chest and stamp on it. Then I’d gouge out his