FORTY-FOUR
Gray keeps going down the hall and then descends to the main level. He leads me into the funeral parlor and shuts the door. More silence as we head into the reception room.
Then he turns to me and says, “What year?”
I blink.
“You have traveled through time. From what year?”
I sink onto the settee. “You want to test me. Okay, let’s do this.”
“No, I am not testing you. My sister will have already done that.” He pauses and his eyes narrow. “Is that what Isla said? That I would not believe you? That I am too rigid-minded to accept such a thing?”
“I’d rather not bring Isla into this. Please. Whatever she said or did, I’m an adult.” I look down at myself. “Despite appearances.” I meet his gaze. “Like I said upstairs, I made choices.”
“Including who you were going to share this secret with. Isla. Not me.”
I sigh. That’s not leaving Isla out of it. But I push through with, “I told her because she was going to kick me out. It was a Hail Mary.”
“A…?” He shakes his head. “Fine. Contrary to what Isla may have told you, I believe your story, first because I trust that she tested you on it and second, because I heard that conversation. You were not trying to convince the killer of some far-fetched story. He already knew it because, if I am interpreting correctly, he is from your own time. Now, I asked the year.”
“Twenty nineteen. He attacked me in the same spot Catriona was being attacked by Findlay, one hundred and fifty years before. All I know is I was strangled and ended up in Catriona’s body, and he ended up in her would-be killer’s, which I didn’t realize until he attacked me the other night.”
“So you knew then it was Constable Findlay?”
“No, I knew my attacker was whoever tried to kill Catriona the first time. He knew Iwasn’tCatriona.”
“When?”
“When he attacked me the second time. He expected Catriona. My speech and my fighting techniques told him I was the woman he attacked in our time. That gave him the advantage. I had to figure out who strangled Catriona, andthatwould let me stop the person who killed Archie Evans and Rose Wright.”
“You knew all this last night when we spoke. Isla knew your secret as well—she must have, which explains why she let you stay. I tried to talk to you in the kitchen. I stressed my openness to considering any theory you offered. And you…” His jaw works. “You decided otherwise.”
You rebuffed me.
That’s what he means. It’s how he feels. I rejected his advances, not romantic but personal and professional, and he is hurt.
Of course he’s hurt. I would be, too.
“I made a choice,” I say. “I wish I could have made another one but…” There’s no way to weasel out without throwing Isla under the bus, which I will not do. “This is the one I made. To make sure Findlay was the right guy andthentell you everything. My priority was stopping him.”
“Because you are a police officer.”
“Detective. Vancouver Police Department.”
His gaze shutters as his voice chills a few more degrees. “You must have thought it very amusing, all my comments about what a good detective you’d make, praising you as if you were a child showing aptitude.”
“No, I only thought that you were very kind to me, and I appreciated it.”
“But not enough to trust me with the truth.”
“I… It wasn’t about trust, Dr. Gray. I couldn’t risk telling you or Detective McCreadie the truth unless absolutely necessary because I couldn’t stop the killer from inside an asylum.”
“I would not have done that to you.”
“What would you have done?”
His mouth tightens, as if he doesn’t like the answer, and he says, “I do not know.”