A Rip Through Time(88)

I need to learn more about Catriona. Talk to Davina. Talk to Isla, too. Get Catriona’s background from Isla and find out from Davina what Catriona had been up to recently, even if that takes every coin in my stash.

Still, I feel as if I’m about to wade into shark-infested waters trying to find the one shark who did this. I stare at the ceiling, mentally sorting through data and feeling pulled in twenty directions while working with both hands tied behind my back.

I saw Catriona being strangled, but as hard as I rack my brain, I can recall nothing of her killer except the sense that it was a man. Otherwise, the links only further complicate the crime, and I need to constantly pull apart those threads before they hopelessly tangle.

As for the “tied hands” part, well, I’m not a detective here. Not a criminal officer. Not a constable. Hell, I’m not even a man, and for all the times I felt hampered by that in the modern world, it is the difference between having to swim upstream and being kept out of the river altogether.

I have a crime to investigate. I am the person best qualified to solve it, because the killer comes from my world, which I cannot tell the investigating officer. Yet my days are not my own. I’ll get up tomorrow and take Gray his coffee, and if I’m lucky, he’ll keep me up to date on McCreadie’s investigation, and maybe I can add my two cents, but that’s it.

I want to tell Isla I need a few days off, so I can go out and investigate.

Go out where? Investigate how? I’d need McCreadie for that, and there’s no logical way for me to insert myself into the active part of his investigation.

I’ll talk to Isla. Convince her to help me get more access.

Can I tell her about the link between this killer and my twenty-first- century one? I’m not sure yet. I need to work it through more and tread carefully.

The tangled threads make my head spin as they cinch ever tighter. I need paper and a pen so I can get my thoughts out of my head. When the clock strikes midnight, I’m reasonably certain everyone will be in bed, and so I sneak down the back stairs to the second floor and head for the library. I’m creeping across the cold floors when a board creaks, and I freeze.

What if someone catches me in the library at this hour? I can’t keep asking Isla to get me out of scrapes.

I tell myself I’m overreacting. If I’m caught, I’ll take a book. I’m allowed to borrow them, and it’s understandable that I might get one if I can’t sleep.

I cock my head, listening, but the house has gone still. I continue on to the library. I consider lighting a lamp, but instead just open the drapery enough to catch moonlight.

Find a book first. That will make my cover story more plausible.

The problem here is that the minute I begin perusing the bookcases, I lose myself in the possibilities, all whispering to be pulled from the shelves. Victorian fiction that I doubt my father has heard of—contemporary works lost to time. Scientific and historical texts of every variety, each promising a glimpse into past theories and thoughts, their gorgeous vellum pages nestled between leather covers.

I ignore all those temptations and head straight to the shelf of texts that might be of interest to a budding forensic scientist. I pull out a translated French book. A General System of Toxicology, or, A Treatise on Poisons by Mathieu Orfila. I resist the urge to open it and instead lay it on the desk, ready to grab if I hear anyone.

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.