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The woman walked to the door and flipped the lock before gesturing toward the back room.
"Come, we can talk back here."
They followed her into the back and watched as she prepared tea before she joined them at the little table.
"I can't lie. I'm relieved you figured it out. I was growing rather tired of the whole thing."
Up close, the marked aging of the woman was frightening. Constance seemed to know what Quinn was thinking when she offered, "I'm only 33."
"Jesus," Gabriel hissed and Quinn silently agreed. The woman sitting before them looked to be at least in her 70s.
"I didn't know about the side effect, none of us did, and it was such a rush that we didn't think of the consequences until it was too late."
"You found the necklace at the Mayan temple?" Quinn asked.
Constance hesitated then answered, "Yes, I knew immediately what I had found, recognized the markings from my dissertation on a theory related to them." Constance stood and walked over to the one side of the room before turning back to them, her face lit with wonder.
"We're talking about time travel. The concept is so far out there, teased about in movies and books, but to actually hold the secret to it in your hands. It was overwhelming as you can imagine. I should have known better, should have known the impact on the future by going back into the past, but the chance to do what no one ever had, it was just too tempting. I think I knew, after the first walk, that the cost of walking through time was very high but I was addicted."
Quinn scrutinized Constance, who moved to join them at the table, before she asked, "You were the one leaving the treasures for Derek, weren't you?"
A self-deprecating grin lit up her face. "I thought if I was going to prematurely age then I might as well see as much as I could, see all the time periods that fascinated me in my studies. The stealing was an after thought, I did it for Derek since he really is a very mediocre archaeologist."
"It was you who jumped to the 18th century?" Gabriel asked.
Again the hesitation. "Yes, Derek and I attended a party where an announcement was made that the Scarcliff treasure was going to be unveiled at some gala event. Derek has always been greedy and he's always lived in your shadow, Quinn, so when the opportunity of traveling through time presented itself, Derek wanted to go back and get the treasure, wanted to come out on top for once. He's greedy but he's also a coward. So although he wanted the treasure, he was too afraid to go back for it. So I volunteered. I wasn't sure where to look so I went to the beginning, to Bryon Scarcliff's time, and man was he a piece of work! I needed access to his house to search it so I got myself employment within his household staff but it didn't take me very long to realize that there was nothing there, that whatever the treasure was I was too early for it. Later, I realized that the treasure was related to Archer and Morgan."
"Were you there when Morgan was killed?"
She looked down at her tea for a moment before she answered. "I was. I never knew what happened to her but I know she met with foul play."
It was Gabriel who asked, "Do you have any idea why the father made the son believe he was married to another after Morgan's death?"
She looked almost guilty in response to that question which had the pieces falling into place for Quinn. "You were Connie Daniels."
"Yes. That was my employment, his nurse."
"And you pretended to be Archer's wife. why?" Quinn asked.
"Bryon insisted and, frankly, I was scared of him especially after that woman started coming around. It was why I was so damn angry all the time, why everyone thought I was such a cold bitch. I didn't like the part I was being forced to play. I feared if I let onto Archer what was really happening that Bryon would retaliate. I couldn't keep up the charade and eventually, I jumped back into the future."
"What woman?" Gabriel asked.
Constance couldn't look at them when she answered. "I was careful to avoid her. She was interested in Bryon but I didn't stick around long enough to learn what for."
She sat back and her expression was very sincere when she offered, "I always felt wretched about being a part of the conspiracy especially since Archer was such a good man and he loved his wife so much and never got a chance to mourn her. It wasn't right."
"Any idea who killed her?" Quinn asked.
"No, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that it was Archer's own father. Bryon hated both of them, Archer and Morgan. He was a very ill man but it was his hatred that kept him alive."
"And the Danvers?"
"You're an archaeologist; would you have resisted the temptation to learn firsthand about possible ancestors?" Constance challenged.
"No, I wouldn't have but you shared what you learned with Derek, didn't you?"
"He needed a cover and I knew of one. I'm not proud of that, Quinn, of deceiving people but that was all I thought it was, deception, not murder."
