A Rip Through Time(115)

I’m only half listening to him. I’m pacing on the sidewalk, thinking. Yes, Isla would have fled if she heard us. We weren’t whispering once we came outside. Yes, she could also have heard a crash or a grunt or a cry from in the apartment—it’s hard to look back on a fight and know whether you made some involuntary noise.

“I will run home,” Gray says. “I am dressed to move faster. Whether she is there or not, I shall return with the coach. You check around the back of the town house. See—”

He cuts himself short. “You have not said whether you found evidence that Constable Findlay is guilty of anything.”

“He’s the person who attacked me the first time. I am certain of that.”

“What?”

“He thinks I double-crossed him.” I keep pacing, my gaze on the ground. “A woman I believed to be a friend told him so, and she lured him in that night to the public house where I was seen. I found the evidence in his rooms. Yes, you go home and get the coach. I will check behind the house.”

“Not if Findlay is the one who tried to murder you. What are you doing?”

I’m standing in the spot where I’d seen Isla as I work this through. It’s not as if the imposter could have crept up behind her. That’s the thing about town houses—there aren’t any side passages to sneak up through. Also no side passages for her to hide in, which is why she’d been so exposed.

Isla found this spot between the front steps and a shrub. It allowed her to see directly across the street, at what she must have realized—while I did not—was the window in Findlay’s apartment. I’d missed the window because the blind kept me from seeing it. She didn’t see my candlelight after all, and presumed the dark window meant Findlay was not at home.

Had she been tucked in here, deciding her next move? If so, had she circled the block to get in through the basement door?

If she did, for any reason, head around back, then we need to get to her and warn her off. So why am I not asking Gray to do that? Why am I not telling him I’ll run to his town house, check for her, and bring Simon with the coach?

Because I am standing where she was, and my gut doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like it at all.

She can see Findlay’s town house perfectly from here. What she can’t see? Someone approaching on this side of the road.

“Go check the mews lane,” I say.

His brows rise at the order. I should reverse course, but I’m so distracted that I shoot him a very Mallory look. The kind I might give a detective partner. Our eyes meet, and there’s a moment of connection that jolts through me. He blinks and rocks back on his heels.

“One of us needs to check,” I say. “Quickly. Before Findlay returns. I want to look around here a little more. It bothers me.”

“Bothers you how?”

“Please check the back door, sir.” I meet his gaze again, my Catriona mask in place. “We do not want Mrs. Ballantyne there if he comes home.”

“Yes, of course.” He glances down the street. “Are you safe here?”

I pull the knife from my pocket.

“All right then,” he says. “I suppose I ought to be grateful you attempted to use the truncheon on me instead.”

“Knives are messy. Also, they leave distinct wound patterns.”

He chokes on a chuckle at that and then jogs off. I bend to examine the ground. No sign of scuff marks where Isla had been standing. If she’d been dragged out, I’d see marks in the dirt, and I don’t.

I’m being paranoid. She heard us and took off. It’s a quiet night, and Gray isn’t exactly soft-spoken.

She’s fine. She just—

My gaze catches on something caught on the shrub. As I tug it out, my heart seizes.

“Duncan!” I shout, then quickly amend it to, “Dr. Gray!”

He’s less than fifty feet away, and he wheels, running back even faster. I lift what I found. A lady’s black glove.

“This was in the shrub,” I say. “Is it hers?”

He snatches it from my hand and turns the cuff out. Her initials are sewn there in ivory thread.

“She could have removed her gloves,” I say. “And then dropped one as she left in a hurry. But it was wedged in the shrub. As if she put it there.”

As if she’d been surprised by the imposter. As if she’d been forcibly removed from her spot. Not dragged but ordered, on threat of violence. She wants to leave a clue. She shoves her glove into the shrub.

I tell myself that’s silly. Who would find that glove?

I would, when we realized she was missing, and I guessed where she’d gone. It’s a long shot, but a long shot was all she had.

Gray strides in the other direction, and I think I’m being left behind. He gets about ten feet and bends. He lifts what looks like a small white pill. I get closer and see it’s one of Isla’s peppermints.

“Isla’s,” I say. “She is fond of peppermints.”

“No,” Gray says, his voice a growl as he stalks down the sidewalk. “She is not fond of them at all.”

I jog to catch up, both of us scouring the dark ground for another spot of white.

“Is it not hers?” I say. “It looks like it. She makes her own, and it’s rather distinctive.”