“So who did it?” I asked. “They have to know.”

“No,” Jerome said, leaning back. “They don’t know. They never will know. The evidence is gone. The suspects and witnesses are long dead. The vast majority of the original Jack the Ripper case files are gone. Keeping records for the long term wasn’t considered that important back then. Things got thrown away. People took souvenirs. Papers got moved, lost. Lots of records were lost in the war. It’s exceedingly unlikely that we will ever find anything that conclusively identifies Jack the Ripper. But that won’t stop people from trying. They’ve been trying nonstop since 1888. It’s the one magic case that everyone wants to solve and no one can. Pretending to be Jack the Ripper is pretty much the scariest thing you could possibly do because he’s a total unknown. He’s the one that got away with it. Does any of this actually make you feel better?”

“Not really,” I said. “But it’s . . .”

This time, it was definitely me. I leaned into him, and he put his arm over my shoulders. Then I put my head against his, and his curls pressed into my cheek. From there, it was a slow turn of the head until our faces were together. I started pressing my lips into his cheek—just a hint of a kiss, just to see how it went. I felt his shoulders release, and he made a little noise that was partly a groan, partly a sigh. He kissed my neck, up, up, up to my ear. My muscle control began to slip away, as did my sense of my surroundings. My body flushed itself with all the good chemicals that it keeps in reserve for making out. They make you stupid. They make you wobbly. They make you not care about Jack the Ripper or ghosts.

I reached up and ran my hand along the back of his neck, deep into his hair, then I pulled his face closer.

Chapter 23

23

CLEARLY, JEROME AND I HAD A COMPLICATED THING going on. He told me scary Jack the Ripper facts, and I had the sudden need to make out with him until I ran out of breath. I would have continued indefinitely if Boo hadn’t bounded up to us like a deranged puppy. Jerome and I detached so quickly that a thin bridge of saliva connected us for a glittering moment. I swung it away.

“Heya!” she said. “Sorry! I didn’t realize you came here too! Came over for a coffee.”

She held up a coffee as proof.

Jerome was so startled that he had a violent coughing fit.

“Well,” he said when he recovered. “I . . . well.

Hello.”

“Hi,” Boo said. She was still standing there, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’d best get back. I have a physics lab to work on.”

He got up abruptly and left.