“It seems wild that she would put her address on any of her vials, doesn’t it?” Gaynor shrugged. “Who knows what she was thinking. Maybe a careless mistake.” She reached for the second article. “Anyway, I also brought the other bulletin with me, and it’s this one that identifies the woman as an apothecary. And more than that, an apothecary killer. I suspect that soon after the first article was printed...” Gaynor trailed off. “Well, let’s just say it was the beginning of the end for her.”

I frowned. “The beginning of the end?”

Gaynor flipped to the second article, dated February 12, 1791. But I didn’t have the chance to read it because my phone, sitting on the table in case James called, began to ring. I checked the screen, my heart lurching when I saw that it was him. “Hi—are you okay?”

I heard his haggard breathing first, a slow intake of a breath followed by a shaky, wheezy exhale. “Caroline,” he said, his voice so quiet that I could hardly hear him. “I need to go to the hospital.” I pressed my hand to my mouth, sure that my heart had stopped. “I tried dialing 911, but it’s not going through.”

I closed my eyes, vaguely recalling a pamphlet at the hotel check-in desk with the emergency number for the United Kingdom. But in my moment of disoriented terror, I couldn’t remember the number.

The sensation of vertigo hit as panic rose inside of me; the coffee shop, buzzing with chatter and the hiss of an espresso machine, shifted on its axis. “I’ll be right there,” I choked out, sliding out of the chair and grabbing my things.

“I have to go,” I told Gaynor, my hands shaking fiercely. “I’m sorry, it’s my husband, he’s sick—” At once, my eyes welled with tears. Despite what I’d felt toward James in recent days, I was now so terrified that my mouth had gone dry; I couldn’t even swallow. On the phone, James had sounded like he was struggling to breathe.

Gaynor looked at me, confusion and concern on her face. “Your husband? Oh, God, yes, okay, go. But—” She picked up the two articles and handed them to me. “Take these. The copies are for you.”

I thanked her, folded the pages in half and shoved them into my bag. Then, offering her a final apology, I rushed out the door and started running to the hotel, hot tears finally breaking through and rolling down my cheeks for the first time since I’d arrived in London.

When I entered the hotel room, the stench hit me first: the sweet, acidic odor that I had smelled on him earlier. Vomit.