Read The Madness Underneath: Book 2 (THE SHADES OF LONDON) for Free Online Page B

for a moment until I had it right. I was Wexford property again.
    Alistair spent most of his time in the library because he thought Aldshot smelled bad. His favorite spot was up in the stacks, in the romantic poetry section, in a dark little corner by a frosted glass window. This was where I found him, spread out in his usual way.
    Alistair died in the 1980s, when overcoats were big and hairwas even bigger. He was used to people walking past him, or over him, or through him, so he didn’t really pay any attention when I stood by his Doc Martens.
    I was careful to leave a lot of distance between us. Blowing up one potential friend by accident, well, that can happen. Blowing up another would be carelessness.
    “Hey,” I said, “Alistair.”
    A slow drawing up of the head.
    “You’re back,” he said.
    “I’m back,” I replied.
    “Boo said they took you to Bristol. That you wouldn’t be coming back, ever.”
    “I’m back,” I said again.
    Alistair wasn’t the hugging type, but I took the fact that he hadn’t already started reading again as a sign that he welcomed my presence. I slid down the wall and took a seat on the floor, tucking up my legs so we didn’t tap into each other.
    “One thing,” I said. “Never touch me. Don’t even get near me.”
    “Nice to see you too.”
    “No, I mean…something’s gone wrong with me. And now I am bad for you. Really. No joke.”
    “ Bad for me?”
    It’s really hard to tell someone you can destroy them with a touch. It’s not the kind of thing that should ever come up in conversation.
    “I’m unlucky,” I said, in an attempt to cover. “I attract nutjobs and trouble.”
    “So why’d you come back?”
    “Why wouldn’t I?”
    “You got stabbed,” he said.
    “I got better. I was bored sitting around at home.”
    “And you came back here? Why didn’t you go back to America?”
    “Someone’s renting our house,” I said. “And my shrink said I needed to come back to get my normal life back.”
    “Normal life?” That got a dark little laugh.
    It was good to see Alistair was the same cheerful entity that I’d left behind.
    “So the Ripper,” he said. “The news says he died, that he jumped off a bridge. That’s a lie. They covered it all up. Typical. The press lies. The government lies. They all want to keep people in the dark.”
    He scraped the rubbery sole of his shoe against the library floor. It made no noise.
    “I don’t think that many people in the government actually know what happened.”
    “Oh, they know,” he said. “Thatcher and her kind always know.”
    “It’s not Thatcher anymore,” I said.
    “Might as well be. They’re all the same. Liars.”
    I heard footsteps approaching. The library wasn’t very populated during the day, and not many people made a point of coming to this corner of the second floor. This is why Alistair liked it. It was the literature corner, full of works of criticism. It was also a bit dim and cold.
    Whoever was coming seemed to really want some criticism, because the footsteps were sharp and fast. The person hit a switch, waking up the aisle lights, which reluctantly flicked on one by one.
    “I thought you might be here,” he said.
    I recognized Jerome, obviously, but there was something very strange, something almost a little foreign. His hair had gotten just a touch shaggy and was falling into a center part. His tie was a bit loose. He seemed about an inch taller than I remembered, and slouchy shouldered. And his eyes were smaller. Not in a bad way. My memory had screwed everything up and adjusted all the measurements.
    “Oh, God,” Alistair said. “Already?”
    I’d gotten used to not being around Jerome, and strangely, this had made us closer. We’d definitely gotten more serious in the last two weeks, but we’d done it all over the phone or on a screen. I’d grown accustomed to Jerome as a text message, and it was somewhat unsettling to have the actual person sliding down the wall to