AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gabriel touched his lips to hers before he added, "Fated."
"Do you know who killed me?"
His face went hard. "I suspected Derek. It's why I'm working at the Scarcliff Foundation and why I left you last week. I've been tracking his movements but..."
"But what?"
"Now I'm not so convinced that it was him. He was there, at the party, and I saw him in the hall heading away from the solar right before I found you. But from what I've uncovered, he seems like a dirt bag but not a killer."
"What does he look like in the future?"
"What?!"
Quinn almost laughed at the startled and angry expression that flashed across Gabriel's features. She touched his face before she asked, "Does he look oddly old?"
"No, he looks about forty. Why do you ask that?"
"A theory. My friend Tessa called me yesterday and guess what Derek's partner's name is? A partner who seems to have disappeared from sight?"
"What?"
"Constance Danvers."
"Why does that name mean something to me?"
"It was the same last name Derek used when he went back to the 18th century to con Archer."
"Clearly not a coincidence."
"I don't think so." Quinn stood and started pacing the room.
"Derek was interested in something of the Scarcliff's, something that had him wanting to go back in time to find it. So let's assume before anyone did any time travel, Morgan and Archer both lived, had children, and the Scarcliff name carried into the future. Something in that future enticed Derek enough to make him want to go back and find the treasure for his own." She paused. "If he's looking for a Scarcliff treasure he's more than likely going to start at the beginning with Archer's father. But what if what Derek sought hadn't yet been created in that time?"
Gabriel nodded his head following her logic. "Go on."
"Tessa has a theory about time travel: when a person goes through time they age when they return to their own time. The amount of aging depends on how many times they've traveled into the past. If Derek looked his age in the future then he can't be the one moving constantly through time finding those rare finds. It has to be his partner doing it, burying them for Derek to find. That would explain why she disappeared because she wouldn't look as she should, she would look significantly older. So maybe it wasn't even Derek who went back that first time but his partner. She jumped too early but, being an archaeologist, when she learned that there were Danvers living she couldn't stop herself from investigating to see if there was any connection to her. She hung back in the past for a while learning all she could on the Danvers but at the same time, unrelated to her being there, Morgan is killed. Killing Morgan though definitely would change the future, at least as it pertains to Derek."
"Which would explain why Derek appeared in the past because the future and, presumably his treasure, was no more," Gabriel completed her thought.
"Exactly! What's interesting is both Morgan and I are killed. Derek is the obvious link but he isn't smart enough to pull that off. I think, especially now that we know people can actually walk through time, that it's very possible whoever killed Morgan could have also killed me."
"Why?
Quinn shrugged. "I don't know."
"Who?"
"Again, I don't know but I think it might be interesting to look a bit harder at Archer's father."
"Why?"
"Murder 101. The killer is usually someone close to the victim. He went to the trouble of covering up her death, and of everyone close to Morgan, Archer's dad was the only one with a motive."
Gabriel and Quinn arrived at Shane's pub just as the lunch menu was being written on the board.
They picked a table in the back of the place and while they waited for Shane to join them, Quinn asked, "Tell me about our wedding."
There was wistfulness in his expression when he replied, "We had the wedding at Whispering Winds near the river's edge. You were the most beautiful bride as you walked down the slopping hills of green towards me in your white gown. I see you, every time I close my eyes, I see you walking toward me looking only at me. You were clutching your bouquet of white roses so tightly and I could tell you were nervous but it was only love looking back at me. It was a small ceremony, only our very close friends and family, and after, we celebrated in the great hall where Nick spared no expense." A slight grin touched his lips as he thought of it. "We spent our wedding night in the rose room of Whispering Winds before leaving for our honeymoon in Tuscany."
