A Rip Through Time (A Rip Through Time #1)

by Kelley Armstrong

When she says Simon instead, that pulls me up short. “Is he gay?” I ask. Her brow furrows more. “He is quite a cheerful lad.” “Wrong word. Queer?” “Odd? No, not really.” “Third time’s the charm. Homosexual?” That has her flushing in a way “premarital sex” didn’t. She casts a quick glance around and lowers her voice as she steers me away from others. “I presume that is more acceptable in your world, and I am glad to hear it.”

He must know that Catriona is a thief or Alice a pickpocket. He does not need to know that Simon was a…” She clears his throat. “He found himself in trouble because he consorted with men. Older homosexual men.”

Simon had a friend, a young man who was not quite as handsome but was very charming and garrulous. I believe they were merely friends, but it is none of my business either way. The two of them played a sport of dressing as girls, a very pretty and charming pair of girls who frequented theaters and such establishments and flirted with men who knew exactly what they were and enjoyed participating in the performance. Liaisons were formed, to the financial benefit of Simon and his friend.

“The problem came when Simon’s friend extricated himself from an attachment that had proven increasingly worrisome. He found a new benefactor, and his old one killed both him and his new lover.”

“He was eighteen, the son of an Irish immigrant, and involved in what they considered ‘deviant’ behavior. He avoided the gallows only because one of his past lovers had the influence to help him

“It makes sense,” she says slowly, as we steer to add an extra block onto our walk. “The inciting event is the attack happening in two periods. Two women attacked by two men in a similar manner on the same spot. If you jumped into Catriona, it is logical that your attacker could have jumped into hers.”

With this guy, it was a game. He let his victims self-select, so to speak. If someone pisses him off, in a very ordinary way, can he track and kill them?” “Cerebral,” she murmurs. “That’s what you and Duncan called the murder of Archie Evans. Methodical and cerebral, lacking passion or bloodlust.”

“To many people in our time, the first serial killer doesn’t strike for another twenty years. He wasn’t the first, but he’s still the most famous. This guy comes here and thinks he can steal his thunder. Be clever and memorable. Except no one cares. So he goes another route. Replicate those murders. Out-ripper the Ripper.”

“We recognized each other in that attack,” I say. “I believe he knows who I am, and I know who he was. It’s the ‘was’ part that’s a problem. He has the advantage.”

if I may be so bold, sir, may I ask whether you gave Simon a half day off? Or perhaps dispatched him on an errand into the Old Town?” He hesitates. “I saw Simon in the Old Town, sir, and he seemed to be following Mrs. Ballantyne, which is concerning … unless you sent him to do so.”

“You questioned Simon? By yourself?” “You said you could not, and I agreed. So I did it myself.” She settles onto a chair. “I was very discreet.”

I commended him for the excellent work he’d done, repairing the path into my garden, how it was quite smooth now, and I no longer caught my heel on the stones.” “Uh-huh.” “He was quite confused, as he did not repair the path at all. He reminded me that it is the gardener’s work,

“Poor Mallory, from a time so backwards that it has outlawed sweet opium.” She catches my expression and laughs. “I am teasing you. While opium has its uses, it is highly addictive, whether for personal use or for treating pain.” “But it’s legal?” “As is alcohol, which I might argue has ruined more lives.

Damn the girl for not keeping a journal. Dear Diary, Today the butcher’s son threatened to throttle me for stealing from his weekly deliveries. Tee-hee! What fun!

Evans was sharing or selling information about his housemates. Why addresses? Were they targets? That makes sense. His asshole roommates are compiling addresses to target the residents with hate crimes or other persecution. The first two had been crossed off. Removed from the list of possibilities? Or already “dealt with.”

I remember the date beside the toy shop. We’re past that date, and there was no sign of damage to the shop. That gives me an idea, and if I’m right, another clue, floating in the ether, seemingly meaningless, will clunk into place.

“You are to tell your parents that there was a kind woman at the toy shop who bought these for you, and if they have any questions, they may speak to me.”

“I found this shop on a list of addresses that I fear may indicate danger. Addresses of immigrants, written by those who may mean them harm.” She relaxes. “Ah, all right then. Well, I thank you very much for the warning, but the police have already been informed and thwarted whatever those ruffians had in mind.”

I hesitated to go to the police because, as you say, they do not always trouble themselves with such concerns. It seems this particular criminal officer is different. Might I have his name?” She beams. “Certainly. It is Detective McCreadie.”

Gray and Isla have known Hugh McCreadie since they were children together. They’ve been close friends for most of their lives. I cannot imagine the imposter would be able to pull that off.

even better would be an amateur team to assist the professional detective. A widowed chemist, a former-thief housemaid, and a medical doctor turned criminal scientist, all helping the clever and handsome criminal officer, who does not need their assistance but humors them most graciously.” “Now you’re mocking me,” McCreadie growls.

yes, it was young Findlay.” That’s why Evans’s roommates had known Findlay was a cop. Not because he looked like one—because they actually recognized him.

a look of horror passes through his dark eyes. “If you think I am attempting anything untoward, I assure you—” “No, no. You give me no concern on that front, Dr. Gray.” And that’s a damn shame. The thought comes unbidden, and I shove it back with as much horror as he just felt.

I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. He is apologizing for excluding me. For withholding information. For not sharing theories with me. And what am I doing? Excluding him. Withholding information. Not sharing a theory with him—a vital theory that changes the entire investigation.

Of course, if I’m right about Findlay, we won’t need to worry about that. McCreadie will take over, and Catriona’s killer will be caught, and—fingers and toes crossed—I will have fulfilled my cosmic assignment and be sent hurtling through the universe to my own time.

“Time-traveling cop flees killer only to be done in by slippery Victorian stockings” is not the epitaph I care to leave in this world.

But if the killer came into my room, wanting to prove to himself that I was not Catriona, those notes would do it. Here I’m looking for a similar telltale sign. What I find is something altogether different.

Pull out a small notebook. I open to the first pages and see handwriting that looks like that on the back of Evans’s note—the information about Catriona.

Three-quarters of the way through, the handwriting changes.

Copious notes on who Findlay was, everything about him and his job and who he might encounter on a daily basis. There are blank spaces where the imposter can come back and fill things in.

The first part of the book is Constable Colin Findlay’s notes for becoming a detective. The second part is the imposter’s notes for becoming Constable Colin Findlay.

That’s what I see in these pages. Tell me everything I’ve said about Detective McCreadie. About my sergeant. About my coworkers and my friends and my landlords. Every tidbit, no matter how small.

If there was any—any—possible way I could read these pages and come up with another explanation, like early memory loss, it’s erased by the terminology itself, with words like “workaholic.”

Dear Constable Findlay, Your little kitty-cat is doing you wrong. You think she is so interested in your job. All those questions she asks! She is interested … in selling every tidbit you give her. If you want to know more, leave ten bob with the barkeep at the address below. A friend Davina. I’m sure of it. She calls Catriona kitty-cat, and the black-market dive bar is on the street she mentions.

This is what Findlay had in his pocket the night he tried to kill Catriona. Items the imposter deemed irrelevant but had kept, just in case. The note is in the same handwriting as the hidden one. From Davina. Dear Constable Findlay, Thank you for your generous donation. On Thursday night, come to the address where you delivered it, wait outside and I will deliver the proof. You will hear the kitty-cat yowl with your own ears.

I growl under my breath. Isla’s out front, and if Findlay does pass that way, he’ll see her, because she’s not nearly as well hidden as she seems to think.

I snatch the billy club and jerk back into my spot, clutching it to my chest. There’s no cry from the hall. No pound of footsteps. He heard me. He must have, and yet he’s continuing his silent approach. The hunter stalking his prey.

I followed you. You were obviously in a hurry to leave earlier this evening, and I presumed you were about to follow another clue. Which is why I had that talk with you—vowing to do better, so that you wouldn’t feel the need to do such things on your own. But obviously…” He pulls back, and in that movement, I see his hurt.

I was an anomaly at the time, and some people do not like anomalies. They mistake difference for weakness. I learned how to teach them otherwise, sometimes with my grades and sometimes with my fists. The problem, as my mother would say, is that I came to enjoy the latter an unseemly amount.” I smile. “Well, you are good at it, which always helps.” “It does, and so I say, as a fellow student of the art, that you have obviously had training yourself. You would do much better without those damnable skirts.” “Tell me about it.”