No. With Isla accepting my story, I have more than a safe place to hide. I also have someone I can ask for help navigating this world.
That’s the deal we strike. I will continue on in this job, and in return, she will alleviate her conscience by letting me ask questions.
“We will also work together to find the way back for you,” she says. “And if you ever need someone to talk to about it—being separated from your world and how difficult that must be—I am here to listen.”
“I appreciate that,” I say softly.
Which leaves one unresolved issue.
“You ought to be working for my brother,” she says. “He needs an assistant, and you are not merely a literate apprentice. You are, in your world, Hugh McCreadie’s equal, yes?”
“In theory, yes. But I can’t tell Dr. Gray that.”
“Yet you can help him in the guise of an apprentice.”
I answer carefully. “If you mean with his studies, there’s the issue of how much I should tell him at the risk of disrupting history. If he’d even believe me, which he won’t while I’m Catriona.”
“I am not asking you to advance my brother’s work. He can do that himself. You understand it and can aid him more than any apprentice. You can also help Hugh and Duncan with this case.”
Right. The case. The fact that the killer they’re looking for may be a twenty-first-century serial killer. The fact that I can’t tell them that. I can’t even tell Isla until I’m certain I’m right.
But if he is a modern killer, then there is no way in hell, as a law-enforcement officer, I can just continue to play at being a housemaid. He won’t screw up by leaving evidence behind. Hell, they couldn’tusemost of the evidence he might leave. This guy would have a hundred and fifty years of knowledge in his back pocket. Just flip through Netflix and you can find more information on serial killers than the most dedicated Victorian could dig up. All the ways other killers have gotten away with it. All the ways they’ve been caught.
“Iwouldlike to work for Dr. Gray when that’s possible,” I say. “Something tells me he won’t be eager to have me back after last night.”
“Leave that to me,” she says.
Isla goes to speak to her brother. I’m still not quite sure what their situation is. The fact that Gray is quick to hand her money for cab fare suggests she’s not a wealthy widow. On the other hand, the fact she teases him about it says she’s not destitute either.
The basic arrangement seems to be what I presumed from the start. I’m guessing Gray isn’t exactly on the hunt for an eligible future Mrs. Gray. Isla is widowed and childless, and has returned to the family home to keep house for her brother. Therefore, whatever his own feelings about me right now, if she says she doesn’t want to fire me, that’s ultimately her call.
When she returns, she motions me into the library.
“He’ll come around,” Isla says as she closes the door behind me.
I take my bucket and brush to the fireplace, so I can work while we talk.
“Please don’t do that,” she says.
“The fireplace needs cleaning, and Alice doesn’t need any extra chores.”
She continues to hover, but I wave her away and say, “So I’m right. Dr. Gray isn’t happy with me. Is it because he was dragged down to the police station? That was humiliating.”
She sighs and sinks into the chair behind the desk. “Duncan would not blame you for that. The problem is that while my brother can be single-minded, he does raise his head now and then to analyze the world around him. You were attacked twice in a similar manner. The first could be misfortune. A second time, though?”
“It seems like proof that I’m involved in criminal activities that could endanger his household, including you.”
“He says you claimed your attacker is the killer they’ve been seeking.”
I stop scrubbing the soot. “He thinks I’m lying.”
“Was it the same person?”
“Yes.”
She leans forward. “Who randomly attacked the housemaid helping to catch him? I may enjoy a rousing melodrama, where every person and event is linked by pure coincidence, but that is fiction.”
“I agree. This isnotcoincidence. I told Dr. Gray about the peacock feather, which disappeared. I didn’t tell him about the paper, because it also disappeared. The killer took both.”