The two of them were still standing. From a distance, it looked as if they were locked in a loving embrace, she yielding to him languorously, he pressing her to his chest in a gesture as possessive as it was tender; but the illusion would only have lasted a moment. Ryan slipped slowly to the floor, without letting go of Indiana; his last thought was to protect her from a fall.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Amanda Martín convened the Ripper players one final time so that they could close the game and say good-bye. In two days she would be at MIT, dedicating herself fully to reconquering Bradley, and studying in any spare time she got, so there would be no room in her life for role-playing games.
“Yesterday Kabel and I went to drop my mom off at the airport,” said the games master. “She’s gone to Afghanistan to try and find two kids in a village.”
“What for?” asked Esmeralda.
“To keep a promise she made to Ryan Miller. She doesn’t know the names of the children or of the village, just that it’s close to the border with Pakistan. But she’s getting help from a group of Navy SEALs who were Ryan’s buddies.”
“Then she’ll find them,” said Colonel Paddington, for whom the Navy SEALs were demigods.
“Those kids have been waiting for Ryan Miller for six years,” said Abatha.
“How d’you know?” asked Esmeralda. “Can you read their thoughts?”
“I haven’t tried,” replied the psychic. “I know because the games master told us his story. You guys have bad memories.”
“Mom dreams about Ryan almost every night,” Amanda said. “She’s more in love with him now that he’s dead than when he was alive—right, Kabel?”
“That’s right. Indiana’s a changed woman. I don’t think she’s ever going to get over Alan Keller and Ryan Miller’s deaths and all that horror she suffered at Winehaven. And I’ll never forgive myself for what happened to Miller—we could have prevented it.”
“I’ll never forgive myself either,” Amanda agreed. “If I’d told my dad a little sooner, Ryan would be alive. The police arrived ten minutes too late. Ten minutes!” she exclaimed.
“The Navy SEAL saved your mother and died like a hero,” said Sherlock Holmes. “He chose to run unnecessary risks, refused to accept help from anyone.” He went on, musing, “Maybe he had a death wish. . . .”
“That’s not true!” Amanda argued. “Ryan wanted to live, he wanted to marry my mom, and he wanted to go and see the kids in Afghanistan. He didn’t want to die for a moment!”
“What’s going to happen to the dog when you go to MIT?” asked Esmeralda.
“I’ll keep him,” Kabel said. “Attila puts up with me and with Save-the-Tuna, but he’s got a lot to recover from too. He’ll stand stock-still for hours at a time, staring at the wall. He looks like a mummy.”
“He’s mourning too,” Abatha reassured him. “The spirit of the soldier can’t get away because Indiana and Attila are keeping him here. They have to let him go.”
“Maybe when Mom keeps his promise, Ryan can say good-bye to us and continue his journey,” ventured Amanda.
“Are we going to play Ripper again some day?” asked Esmeralda.
“We could hook up in the winter vacation,” suggested Sir Edmond Paddington.
“Unless there’s something gruesome we need to investigate before then,” added Sherlock Holmes.
“And meanwhile Kabel is going to write our story,” said the games master, by way of farewell. “A novel. It’s called Ripper.”
Acknowledgments
This book was born on January 8, 2012, when my agent, Carmen Balcells, suggested to my husband, Willie Gordon, and me that we cowrite a crime novel. We tried, but within twenty-four hours it was clear the project would end in divorce. So he stuck to his own work—his sixth detective novel—while I shut myself away to write alone, as always. Still, this book would not exist without Willie: he helped me with the structure and the suspense, and he supported me when I wavered. Some others I would like to thank for their help:
Ana Cejas is the white witch who inspired the character of Indiana.
Robert Mitchell is the Navy SEAL of the book, although he has two legs and a clear conscience.
Sarah Kessler was my fabulous researcher.
My son, Nicolás Frías, revised the text to comb out the frequent consistency errors that my readers chalk up to magical realism.
My granddaughter, Andrea Frías, initiated me into the mysteries of the role-playing game of “Ripper.”
The forensic expert Dr. D. P. Lyle answered my questions about homicide, weapons, drugs, and poisons, never bothering me with moral scruples.
The psychologist Lawrence Levy helped me develop the most important character of all: the villain.
Captain Sam Moore taught me about the waters around San Francisco.
My daughter-in-law Lori, and Juliette, my assistant, protected me from the world while I wrote.
About the Author
ISABEL ALLENDE is the best-selling author of twelve works of fiction, four memoirs, and three young-adult novels, which have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages, with over 57 million copies sold. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award in 2012. Born in Peru and raised in Chile, she lives in California.
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Also by Isabel Allende
The House of the Spirits
Of Love and Shadows
Eva Luna
The Stories of Eva Luna
The Infinite Plan
Paula
Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses
Daughter of Fortune
Portrait in Sepia
My Invented Country
Zorro
Inés of My Soul
The Sum of Our Days
Island Beneath the Sea
Maya’s Notebook
THE JAGUAR AND EAGLE TRILOGY
City of the Beasts
Kingdom of the Golden Dragon
Forest of the Pygmies
Copyright
RIPPER. Copyright © 2014 by Isabel Allende. English-language translation copyright © 2014 Isabel Allende. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Originally published in Spain in 2014 by Random House Mondadori under the title El juego de Ripper.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Allende, Isabel.
[Destripador. English]
Ripper : a novel / Isabel Allende ; Translated from the Spanish by Oliver Brock and Frank Wynne.
pages cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-229140-0 (hardback) —ISBN 978-0-06-229142-4 (paperback) — ISBN 978-0-06-229141-7 (ebook) 1.Teenagers—Fiction. 2.Serial murderers—California—San Francisco—Fiction. 3. Internet games—Fiction. 4. Crimestoppers—Fiction. 5. Detective and mystery stories. I. Brock, Oliver (Translator) II. Wynne, Frank, translator. III. Title.
PQ8098.1.L54D4713 2014
863'.64—dc23
2013030359
EPUB Edition FEBRUARY 2014 ISBN 9780062291417
14 15 16 17 18 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Isabel Allende, Ripper
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