A Murder in Time(102)

“I’d like to go with you,” said Kendra.

Four pairs of eyes swiveled around to stare at her in shock.

Alec was the first to recover, shaking his head. “Impossible, Miss Donovan. You cannot venture into a brothel and consort with prostitutes. Your reputation would be damaged beyond repair.”

Kendra raised her eyebrows and gestured to the body lying in front of her. “But it’s all right for me to consort with dead prostitutes?”

Despite the grisly atmosphere, Aldridge’s mouth twitched. “I rather think society would frown upon this, as well, but allowances have been made. Don’t fret, my dear. I’m confident Mr. Kelly will be able to conduct this inquiry without your assistance. Now, I suggest we return to the castle. Nothing more can be done here until Mr. Kelly’s man arrives to conduct the postmortem.”



As they gathered in the study around the breakfast that the Duke had ordered, it occurred to Kendra that for all this era’s finely tuned sensibilities, no one’s appetite had evaporated. Then again, it was still a time when public hangings were viewed as date nights.

“Miss Duprey clearly saw an opportunity to extort money from the killer,” Alec said, as he forked eggs and sausage onto his plate from a silver platter.

Kendra stared at them, suddenly feeling queasy. “It’s my fault. I’m the one who thought to do a sketch of the victim and send it around to brothels for identification. If she hadn’t seen that, she’d never have tried to blackmail the murderer.”

Another thought struck her. Who was April Duprey? Yes, she was a bawd, but who was she in history? What if she’d been the great-great grandmother of someone important, like Francis Crick, one of the Nobel Prize–winning scientists who had helped map DNA? Would she return to her own time and find out that everything had changed because of this one incident? That DNA, so vital to police work in the future, might not even exist?

“It is not your fault, Miss Donovan,” Aldridge said firmly, probably noticing how pale she knew she’d become. “The sketch was an inspired idea, but we would have sent out a verbal description to the London brothels. I daresay the woman would have recognized one of her own birds, particularly since she’d recently gone missing. Everything would have transpired exactly as it has. ’Tis the thread of fate.”

Kendra began to breathe again. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed in the thread of fate, but maybe she hadn’t begun unraveling the fabric of time after all. Or did she only want to believe what the Duke was saying because the alternative was too awful to contemplate?

The Duke eyed her as he cut his sausage. “Something else troubles you. What is it, my dear?”

Kendra hesitated. She drank her coffee, and then gave a sigh as she set the cup down. “Blackmail is why April Duprey was killed,” she finally said, “but it doesn’t explain why she was killed here.”

Rebecca frowned. “I do not comprehend. You’ve gone to great lengths to convince us that the madman lives in the area. He most likely has been luring Unfortunate Women here for the last four years. Naturally, he would kill Miss Duprey here. ’Tis part of his pattern, as you have said yourself.”

“No. First of all, April Duprey is not part of his pattern. She looks nothing like his victims. She lived in London and he could have killed her there, probably without raising any alarm. Or why not kill her somewhere else in the country? Why here, specifically?” Kendra picked up her own knife and fork, concentrating on the meal as she let the words sink in.

“He killed her because she was attempting to blackmail him,” Rebecca said, bewildered. “We agreed that it explains the anomaly of her appearance and age.”

Kendra shook her head. “The unsub killed her because of the blackmail, but she wasn’t someone he deliberately chose. In that sense, she wasn’t a victim like the other girls.” She paused, searching for the right word. “She was a liability. He could have eliminated her quietly. But he didn’t.”

“He didn’t choose her, but he chose this area,” Aldridge realized. “The fiend chose to put her body on a public path where he knew she’d be found. Why?”

Alec slowly put down his knife and fork. “He’s trying to elicit a reaction.”

“Yes.” Kendra nodded. “That’s what I believe. And that tells us something. He’s watching and listening. You remember when I told you that he’s escalating?”

Aldridge said, “His—what did you call it? His cooling-off period was becoming shorter.”

“This is another form of escalation. He didn’t expect our Jane Doe to be discovered. That was unexpected. Unplanned. But I think . . . it excited him.

“April Duprey doesn’t fit his pattern,” she added softly, “but he took the opportunity to use her to engage us.”

Rebecca looked appalled. “Us? What are you saying, Miss Donovan? Are we in danger from this madman?”

“No,” Kendra answered quickly—too quickly. She had to pause and consider that. Could she be so certain with her conclusion? “At least not yet,” she amended carefully. “In my opinion, he’ll become more unpredictable as the situation becomes unpredictable. As I said, control is important to him. He won’t like it when things slip outside his control.”

“Like the bawd being identified,” Alec surmised.