Madman's Dance (Time Rovers #3)(90)

Her pulse began to race. What the hell is this?

Just then, she heard the creak of carriage wheels and the snort of a horse. Cautiously, she stepped back into the shadows.

The driver was heavily cloaked against the night air and kept looking around, uneasy. The carriage door swung open and a figure climbed out.

“This will do,” he said. “It’s a short haul to the river, and he doesn’t weigh much.”

He?

The voice registered. Dalton Mimes, the crazy author in the asylum, the man who’d killed Chris Stone. But what was he doing here? Cynda shrank farther back into a nook near a storage shed, worried he might spot her.

Meanwhile, another man exited the carriage. He was tall and wore a dark coat, his back to her.

Turn around.

With effort, Dalton Mimes and his companion pulled something out of the vehicle. It took her a moment to realize it was a body. As they adjusted the weight between them, she caught sight of the face. Bile rose, scorching her throat.



Chris. She was off-time again. This was the twenty-third of September, the night her lover had been murdered and his body thrown into the Thames. For some reason, she’d been brought here to witness this moment.

As they hefted his lifeless corpse, her eyes filmed with tears. She blinked to clear them.

“Let’s get it done,” the man ordered. He didn’t move like a Victorian. That puzzled her—if he were from ’058, her interface should be registering his ESR Chip. Unless he took it out. She didn’t have one, after all.

Mimes complied, and with much tugging and complaining, Chris’ body was carried to the pier and tossed into the Thames like a sack of unwanted puppies.

At the sound of the splash, Cynda’s hand dove into her pocket for the firearm, the ants inside her screaming for lethal revenge.

“It won’t bring him back,” she heard from her shoulder.

“I don’t care,” she hissed.

“It may make things worse,” Mr. Spider said.

“How could it be any worse?”

“Trust me, it can,” he nearly shouted.

The voice of her conscience had never steered her wrong. She took three deep breaths, trying to calm herself. There was no way to change the timeline now. Chris was gone. Forever.

He deserved so much better than this.

She forced herself to remove her hand from the pocket, clenching it into a quivering fist.

The cloaked man turned and she finally saw his face in the muted light. Cynda studied him intently, channeling her anger into action. He was tall, with a rigid stance. That seemed an important clue. Frantically, she rummaged in her mental filing cabinets for a name.

“That night in Wapping?” Mr. Spider suggested.

The memory surfaced. She heard the sound of a gunshot echoing off the brick warehouses and Harter Defoe collapsing, blood pouring from his chest.



Copeland. She’d called him Ramrod because of his stiff posture. He was one of the two TPB minions who’d come to collect her when she’d been hauled back to 2057 for trial. The man who’d threatened to shoot her and wounded Defoe instead. Somehow, this jerk was tied to Mimes. But why would TPB want Morrisey’s nephew dead?

“Taking the trash out,” Copeland joked, gesturing toward where Chris’ body had just splashed into the Thames. “Piece of cake.”

“You son-of-a-bitch,” she spat.

“Did you hear something?” Mimes asked, craning his head around.

Cynda froze. She didn’t sense the presence behind her until right before the hand covered her mouth, pulling her further back.

“Quiet. Don’t move.”

Fear coursed through her as her hand closed on the pistol again. She would have pulled it out if Mimes hadn’t moved closer, staring directly into her hiding place. He seemed to be looking right at her. She waited for the shout of discovery. Instead, he blinked a couple of times, then shook his head and backed off.

“Time to go,” Copeland called. The men loaded into the carriage and with a clatter of hooves the conveyance rolled away.

“They’re gone,” her companion said, releasing her. As she turned, a figure appeared out of the air. It was Defoe. Or at least someone who looked like him. With the shape-shifters, you never knew.

“How do I know you’re really you?” she asked, still edgy.

“Who else would it be? I’m the one who always saves your skin.”

Her eyes lit on the flower in his lapel. “Tell me about the rose.”

He smiled. “You said the one I was wearing didn’t have the right scent. That was when I knew you still had a working brain. Satisfied?”



She nodded. As she watched, he shifted into a distinguished gentleman, a lion’s head cane in hand. He had a white bloom around him, like he was edged in a silvery cloud. She’d seen that once before at the crazy place. The man who’d claimed to be her brother had one of those.

She decided to test a theory. “Change back to the real you.”

He looked confused. “What?”

“Just do it.”

After a quick look around, he shifted to the form she knew as Harter Defoe. The white outline vanished.

“Okay, now change back.”

He easily reverted to the Victorian gent again. As she’d expected, the white edging returned.