I’m easing out the desk chair when a whisper comes, like an opening door, and I’m on my feet, book clutched in my hands.
Silence falls again, but as I stand there, holding the book, some sliver of awareness tickles down my spine, the same one I’d felt earlier today, standing near Rose’s body and wondering whether the killer could be in the crowd.
With the book under one arm, I slip to the door. I glance down at the leather-bound tome and weigh its use as a potential weapon against the chance this is just a member of the household. I don’t want to be found sneaking around holding a fire poker. Nor do I want to come up against the killer while armed only with a book on forensic toxicology.
Damn it, I should have brought my knife. I back up to the fire and grab the poker. Book in one hand, weapon in the other. That will make sense if I explain that I’d been getting something to read when I heard a noise.
I slide into the hall. As I creep down it, I check each room, but the drawn drapes make it impossible to see more than the shapes of furnishings. I reach the hall and consider and then head for the stairs. As I set my foot on the first one, a creak sounds, one that doesn’t come from under my feet. I peer down into darkness below. Nothing.
I wait another moment, ears straining. When it stays quiet, I remind myself that this is an old house, prone to creaks and groans.
Uh, no, Mallory, this town house might be a historic building in your time, but it’s fifty or sixty years old in this world. With the solid construction, it’s no more given to creaking than my condo at home.
Still, any house can be subject to noises, and that must be what I’ve heard, because it’s gone quiet, and it’s staying quiet.
I continue down the stairs, poker in hand, hearing nothing more than a creak or two of the floorboards under my own feet. At the bottom I pause to look both ways, and then I stride to the front door. I check it. Locked. Walk to the back door. Also locked.
Good. If there’s anyone about, it’s only one of my housemates, getting a glass of water or using the water closet.
I return to the library, and I’m pulling open a desk drawer when I am certain I hear a clack from somewhere in the house. I freeze. Then I rise with my book in hand. Halfway to the door, I realize I left the drawer open.
I hesitate but force myself into the hall, where I listen. Listen and hear nothing.
Okay, now I’m being paranoid. The doors are locked. There’s no one here. With these high ceilings, I probably heard the echo of the damn drawer opening.
One last peer down the dark hallway, and I retreat to the desk. I reach into the drawer, where I know Isla keeps paper. Next comes the pen, plucked from a holder on the desktop. It’s a gorgeous engraved-silver combination dip pen and mechanical pencil that I can imagine my father salivating over. That’s the second time I’ve thought of him in the last hour, and each nudge brings an affectionate smile followed by a surge of panic.
My dad would love this pen.
When I get home, I should find one in an antiques shop for him.
What if I don’t get home?
What if Catriona is in my body?
What if I never see my parents again?
Deep breaths to calm my racing heart. What’s the saying about long, dark nights of the soul? The witching hour for all my worst fears to toil and boil forth, from a killer in the house to never seeing my parents again.
I cannot control the last part, except in the sense that solving Catriona’s murder might be the key to unlocking the gate. Maybe I was brought through time to stop her killer before he struck again. Except it’s no longer the same guy, and I’m doing a really shitty job of stopping him.
I press my fingers to my temples, return to the desk, and sit again.
I lift my pen over the blank page to be frozen exactly as I was upstairs. Where to begin? What’s the starting thread? The current murders? Catriona’s initial attack? Or her second attack—the one I’d faced, which requires the killer knowing she’s helping Gray and McCreadie?
Stop. It doesn’t matter where I start. Just write it all down.
Current murders. First victim, Archie Evans, chosen because the killer wanted information from him. He knew something—
Wait.
Wait right there.
We’d been checking out Evans’s housemates trying to determine what the killer wanted from him. What he’d been tortured for. It had seemed connected to his housemates’ anti-immigrant efforts. Except that wouldn’t interest a modern-day killer. Whatever his own beliefs, he’s not going after Evans to extract information on a nineteenth-century anti-immigration movement.
Whatdidhe want?
He killed Evans within two days of arriving in this world. He’d barely arrived. What would he want? Whatcouldhe want?