A Murder in Time (52 page)

In the study, embers glowed demonic red in the fireplace grate, the only light in the dark room. Normally, a footman would've been on hand to light the sconces and candles, and get the fire going again. But all available footmen had volunteered for the search.

Aldridge dropped down to one knee to put more logs into the grate and coax the fire back to life. Rebecca and Kendra took over the task of lighting candles. Afterward, Aldridge poured three glasses of brandy. “The tea and coffee will allow us a clear head, but this ought to take the chill away.”

Rebecca accepted a glass and sat down. “Tell me what transpired on your calls.”

As the Duke shared their journey, Kendra peeled off her spencer. She picked up a piece of slate. On the board, she began to create a time line.

“Rose was seen upstairs either at nine or nine-thirty. Around ten, she was asked to bring in vegetables from the garden. At eleven, she gave bread and cheese to Thomas.” She underlined that time. “Unless someone else comes forward, that's the last time she was seen. Molly said she was supposed to help with the linens at one o'clock, but never showed. That's a two hour window for her to disappear.”

Rebecca frowned. “The girl must have been taken right here in the castle. How the devil is that possible? Surely someone would have seen one of our suspects loitering about? The servants know Mr. Morland, Mr. Dalton, and the vicar. They would have seen them!”

“It's more possible than you realize.” Ted Bundy had kidnapped women in the middle of busy parks and crowded beaches. No one expected a predator to be in their midst, especially if a predator so fully blended into his surroundings.

“I, too, am finding it difficult to believe,” Aldridge admitted.

Kendra asked, “Did you notice Lord Sutcliffe when we arrived in the stable yard?”

He raised his brows. “Of course.”

“Why?”

“Why? I'd recognize my own nephew, Miss Donovan!”

“Would you recognize him if he was dressed as the gardener? We were in the kitchens for a few minutes before you realized Lady Rebecca was there. We see what we expect to see. There's a lot of extra help around, and some of the guests brought their own servants. If the unsub dressed the part, he may have gone unnoticed.”

How many serial killers did exactly that by wearing a uniform? A repairman, a postal worker . . . a policeman.

“Yes. I recognize what you are saying, Miss Donovan,” Aldridge said slowly. “And you are quite right. 'Tis a technique employed successfully by spies during war, to infiltrate enemy territory. Of course, not without considerable risk. He is bold.”

“Yes, he's confident,” Kendra agreed, “and we may use that to our advantage, because confidence breeds arrogance. And an unsub who becomes arrogant tends to slip up.”

And he
would
slip up, she was certain. But would it be in time to save Rose?

Kendra had never felt so helpless. In all the investigations she'd been involved in, she'd been an outsider, brought in to review the evidence with a cool head and an even colder eye. She hadn't been emotionless. She'd felt pity for the victim, for the victim's family and friends. It was impossible to be part of something like that and not be touched by the fear and grief. But the source of her personal terror had always come from not doing her job properly, from missing a vital piece of evidence that could lead them to the victim—or, after the victim was found, to the killer.

For the first time ever, she was fully invested. Her fear was twofold: the gnawing anxiety that she was missing something, and for Rose herself. She could imagine all too well what the girl was going through. She'd seen the killer's work with Lydia. She paced the room, made notes, circled back to reevaluate the old notes.

Despite the pots of coffee she had consumed, Kendra could feel exhaustion creeping in. Rebecca had tried to persuade her to go to bed, but had finally given up. After Rebecca had left, the Duke had added his voice. “You need to sleep, Miss Donovan. You can do nothing more here. You will make yourself ill.”

But it wasn't until around two in the morning, when the words blurred on the slate board, that Kendra conceded. She needed sleep. She would start fresh in the morning.

The castle's corridors were silent as she walked down them. The silence pressed heavily against her chest. She carried her own candle to light the way up the backstairs to the bedchamber. Inside that shadowy room, she simply stood and stared at Rose's empty bed.

Her eyes burned with tears. She set the candle down and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyelids. Jesus. She was so damn tired.

Why the hell am I here? If I can't even save Rose, why the fuck am I here?

She began undressing, her movements robotic. Shoes first, then the tights. The dress was another matter. The buttons were down the back. She could reach some of them, but not all. It was why she and Rose had always helped each other.

After a moment of consideration, she finally unpinned the fichu, unfastened the buttons she could reach, and then pulled the dress over her head. It took some wriggling. There was no spandex in this era. Without that stretch, Kendra could feel the seams strain, and half expected them to rip apart. She finally managed to pull herself free of the gown, which she tossed on the floor. Next, she rid herself of the shift and chemise, and slipped into the shapeless white nightgown that had been part of the wardrobe Rebecca had ordered for her. The gyrations loosened her hair. She removed the pins, and used her fingers to comb the thick mass before climbing into bed. Blowing out the candle, she yanked up the thin blankets.

Despite her fatigue, she found herself studying the shadows and moonbeams that dueled across the slanted ceiling. Nighttime noises in the overall quiet screamed at her: a light wind rattling the windowpanes, the faint creaks and low groans as the ancient fortress settled. But she was keenly aware of the absence of sounds that she'd grown accustomed, Rose's light breathing from the narrow bed next to her and the rustle of blankets as the tweeny shifted in sleep.

Kendra's throat tightened, and tears began to trickle hotly down her cheeks. With a moan, she curled into a ball beneath the covers, and thought of the irony of crying for a girl who'd already died more than two hundred years before she'd been born.

51

Kendra didn't think she'd be able to sleep, but the next thing she knew, she was opening her eyes to the misty light of dawn. She glanced at the small clock on the bedside table.
Six forty-five.
She'd slept about four hours.

For a moment, she just lay there, staring at the ceiling. Her head had that dull ache brought on by too much adrenaline and too little sleep. Her eyes were gritty from the tears she'd shed last night. She felt drained and disheartened. She didn't want to think about the day that stretched out before her, or wonder what it might bring.

She forced herself to roll out of bed and used the chamber pot. Afterward, she poured water in the ceramic bowl and gave herself a quick sponge bath. She was rubbing baking soda against her teeth when there was a knock at the door, and Molly poked her head in.

“Oi wasn't certain ye'd be awake, miss.” Her eyes, Kendra noticed, were red and puffy.

“I'm awake. Come in.” Kendra rinsed out her mouth, and then surveyed her throat in the mirror. The bruises were still noticeable.

“The villagers 'ave begun to arrive for another search, but . . .” Molly faltered. In the mirror, Kendra saw how Molly's eyes cut to Rose's bed, and noted the sheen of tears over her eyes. “Oh, miss, everyone is frettin' that it's 'opeless!”

Kendra wished that she could give her some reassurance that Rose would be found, that she would be all right. But she couldn't. She couldn't even reassure herself.

When Kendra remained silent, Molly stifled a sob and bent down to pick up the gown that Kendra had discarded last night. Smoothing it over her arm with an aura of melancholy, she walked back to the wardrobe to hang it up.

Rose did that
, Kendra remembered suddenly. Rose was always so careful with clothes, picking up what Kendra treated so carelessly, making sure everything was put away properly. It was the behavior of someone who valued clothing because it wasn't plentiful. This was not the disposable society that Kendra was familiar with.

“W'ot do ye wish ter wear today, miss?” Molly asked as she studied the gowns in the wardrobe.

“I don't care. You choose.”

She pulled out a blue-and-yellow paisley muslin. “'Ow about this?”

“Sure.” Really, who cared?

Molly helped Kendra into the dress. “Oi can pin up yer 'air,” Molly said after she'd finished fastening the buttons.

Kendra was about to tell her that there was no point, but caught the look in Molly's eyes. Routine, she realized. It was something Molly needed. A bit of normalcy in a world suddenly tainted by tragedy.

She understood that need. It was what drove her to the study fifteen minutes later. Again, she stared at the names she'd written down. Morland. Dalton. Harris. They each fit her profile.

She circled the room, and tried to come at it from a different angle. The unsub had established a pattern of taking girls in the months of February, June, and October. But this year, with Lydia, he'd broken his pattern.
Why?

If that kind of acceleration in behavior was usually connected to a stressor in the unsub's life, then they all might have a reason. Morland was the most obvious, because Lady Anne was suffering from dementia, an illness that would add stress to anyone's life. Morland's father had also been absent in his childhood—a common denominator among serial killers. But he'd had a father figure, an authoritarian: his grandfather. If he'd been abusive, Morland might've come to resent, even hate, his mother for allowing the cruelty. That kind of pattern was disconcertingly familiar. But by all accounts, the late earl had doted on his grandson.

Kendra rubbed her temples, tried to ease the dull ache that she suspected would turn into a full-blown headache in the next couple of hours. She shifted her focus to Dalton. A likeable guy, trying to build a horse farm. It couldn't be easy, she mused. There were always a lot of stressors when you started a business. Maybe he'd had a financial setback.

She considered his background: affluent family, father a doctor. A doctor was more prestigious in this era than a surgeon. For the first time, Kendra wondered what was behind Dalton's decision to become a sawbones rather than a physician. Some sort of rebellion against the father?

She remembered the small cuts on Lydia's torso. Fifty-three in total, four different knives. A surgeon was familiar with knives. Was it a taunt against a society that thought less of him because of his profession?

Then there was Dalton's wife, who'd left him for another man. Kendra didn't believe for a second that Dalton didn't know how his wife had died. So why lie about it? Unless he'd killed her. She could've been the first victim, triggering the killings that followed. The timing was right.

Kendra moved on to Harris. He was the least likeable of the bunch, the one who openly expressed his contempt for prostitutes. And beneath that, a disdain for all women.
Arrogant asshole.

Like Dalton, Kendra didn't know much about the vicar's background other than the fact that his father was an earl who'd fallen on hard times. What had Rebecca said?
Punting on the River Tick.
That had to be a blow to Harris's ego. He'd been forced to marry a woman he considered his inferior, to take a job that, although respectable for younger sons of the aristocracy, was not one he'd have chosen.

That time line was also interesting. He'd married his unwanted heiress a year or so before the prostitutes began vanishing. And a young maid had been murdered in a similarly brutal manner down the street from where he and his wife had lived in London. Was the maid the first victim? An impulsive act, to release the pressure building inside because of his unwanted marriage? And then, perhaps, he'd found that he'd liked it? It was possible.

And that was the problem. Each scenario was possible, each suspect viable.

Kendra studied the slate board, and again felt that whispery sensation at the back of her neck. Someone had said something . . .
what?
She couldn't get a handle on it; the thought remained as elusive as ever.

Fresh air. That's what she needed. And she might as well get it on the walk to Thomas's shack, as she still needed to interview him about yesterday. He'd been the last person to see Rose. Maybe he'd seen someone lurking nearby.

As she reached the door, it swung open and Alec entered. He raised his brows when he saw her. “Miss Donovan. I had hoped you were still in bed. Did you sleep at all?”

“Long enough. How about you?”

“A few hours. We plan to resume the search in the next hour.”