A Rip Through Time(75)

The trap is the next obvious factor in favor of my theory. I’d been lured into a dark alley, following sounds of a woman in danger. Might not Catriona then be pulled in by the even stronger lure of a child in distress?

Then there’s the moment during our fight when he seemed to recognize me. Recognize the real me, as the victim who’d fought back in the modern world. I’d been fighting for my life and not caring whether I was talking or acting like a Victorian housemaid. That modern talk caught his ear, as the modern self-defense techniques caught his attention. A moment of déjà vu for both of us.

Is that enough?

My defense-attorney mother would say no. It’s not enough to convict him of the “crime” of being my modern-day attacker. However, it would be enough evidence for the crown prosecutor to sign off on questioning him. Enough to charge him while I gathered more for trial? Possibly. But that doesn’t matter here. Here, my question is only whether it’s enough for me to pursue this theory. It is.

Is there anything in Evans’s murder that suggests his killer wasn’t from my time? Fingerprints or other obvious forensic evidence could hint at a Victorian murderer. It’s too late to test that with Evans, but I do recall my attacker last night wore gloves, plus the hood that might keep him from shedding hairs. Still, that was also part of his disguise, so I can’t read too much into it.

There’s nothing in the staging or the method of murder that indicates either a modern or Victorian killer. I’ll have to go through that more carefully once I have paper and pen, but a mental rundown pings nothing.

What about the torture? Nope. The old “splints under fingernails” dates back at least to the thirteenth century, from the book Gray lent me. And I investigated a case six months ago where it’d been used. Nothing there. So—

I bolt up in bed.

The water Gray found in Evans’s lungs combined with the lung damage and restraints suggests waterboarding. I’ve seen that, too, and cops I know say it mostly started after the news of waterboarding at Guantánamo Bay. It’s a bloodless and effective torture method. One McCreadie laughed at. Pouring water on someone’s face? How was that torture? Anyone who has ever been yanked underwater knows how horrible it is. Even if your brain realizes you aren’t going to drown, your body reacts with primal panic.

Gray hadn’t rolled his eyes quite as hard as McCreadie, but he’d dismissed it, too. Does that mean waterboarding is a modern method of torture? Almost certainly not. If there’s a way to terrify another human being, someone found it millennia ago. Yet Gray and McCreadie’s disbelief—combined with everyone who web-searched “waterboarding” after the Guantánamo Bay incident—tells me it’s not like forcing splints into nail beds. Not something they’d have read in a book or a news article. But if you’re a modern killer looking for bloodless torture? Waterboarding would rank at the top of your list.

If this is the same killer, then there’s something else I need to think about. Something I’ve forgotten, being so caught up in the possibility that I’ve brought a modern killer into Victorian Scotland.

I jumped into the body of Catriona, as she was being strangled by her would-be killer. So, logically, where would my would-be killer have ended up?

In the body of Catriona’s killer.

Find him, whoever he is, and I’ll have the raven killer.



* * *



The next morning starts as expected. Alice has been charged with taking Gray’s breakfast to him, meaning I remain in that particular doghouse. Then he’s off to work before I need to clean his quarters. Isla leaves before breakfast for some engagement or other.

I’m cleaning Gray’s bedroom, my mind working through the implications of my theory, when his unmistakable footsteps pound up the stairs. He’s in a hurry, and I glance around, feeling the odd impulse to hide, as if I’m about to be caught somewhere I’m not supposed to be. I continue dusting, presuming he’ll run in, grab what he wants, and run out again. Instead, he stops in the doorway.

“You,” he says.

“Yes, I am dusting your room, sir. I was not told I shouldn’t—”

“I have been looking everywhere for you. Come.”

He waves and strides off. I hesitate barely a heartbeat, but it’s enough to have him shouting back, “Catriona!”

“Coming, sir.”

He continues down two flights of stairs, and I think we’re going to the funeral parlor, but he throws open the back door instead. I rack my brain to think of what I might have forgotten to do outside, but that is the domain of Simon and the part-time gardener, Mr. Tull.

When a coach emerges from the stable, Gray grunts and waves me toward it.

“Sir?” I say. “If I’m going out, I need to change my boots and put on a coat.”

His look clearly conveys “Not this again” irritation. As much as I don’t want to wear my indoor boots through the muck again, I’m really balking because the chill creeping down my spine has nothing to do with the weather.

Isla is gone, and Gray is suddenly very anxious to bundle me off on a coach ride. Has he realized that, with his sister away, he can fire me and tell her I quit?

“In the carriage, Catriona,” he says. “Now. We haven’t much time.”

Not much time before Isla returns?