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Is it Sunday? I actually need to pause and think about that before I recall us hurrying off this morning and Isla saying something to Mrs. Wallace about not joining her and Alice. She must have been saying she wouldn’t join them at church. That’s why the house is empty.
And without Mrs. Wallace here, how the hell am I supposed to know whether Gray stopped in?
Um, detective, right?
I check the rear door for the telltale clumps of dirt that Gray would have tracked in. Nothing. He could have come through the front, having Simon wait at the curb. No dirt there either, which means Gray hasn’t arrived yet.
I pace back to the rear door. That’s where he’ll enter, because Mrs. Wallace locked the front, leaving the rear open in case Gray and Isla were too distracted to find the key.
As I walk to the door, I turn on the hall lighting. Another step, and I pause. There are footprints coming in the rear door. No clumps of dirt, but the distinct outline of prints on the clean floor. Small prints. Like a woman’s boots.
Uh, because I just walked through there. In women’s boots.
True, but I’d come down the middle, and these are off to the side.
Alice’s footprints? Mrs. Wallace’s? They’d have been in their Sunday best, walking out after the floor had been cleaned. Yes, these prints head inside, but maybe they came back for something?
I take off my own boots and follow the prints. They head straight up the stairs. That would mean Alice, heading up to her room to fetch something. I bend. The prints look a little large to be Alice’s. Also, the heel is small. A woman’s fancy boot rather than a preteen’s Sunday best shoe.
I head up to the first floor, with the main rooms. A dusty print on the steps says the person kept climbing. Up to Gray and Isla’s bedroom level? No, the footprints continue past that. It must be Alice then. There’s nothing on the fourth floor but our rooms and…
And Isla’s laboratory.
I remember Annis’s face when I mentioned her siblings. Her firm promise they’d be fine. Which meant Sarah has threatened them.
Last night, Crichton might have suggested Isla was involved, but he’d done nothing about it. Then, this morning, she’d been taken for questioning.
I follow the boot prints, and they lead right to Isla’s laboratory. I throw open the door, my knife at the ready, but the room is empty. I still stride in, stockinged feet silent as I check behind the lab table. Nothing. I snatch up the lantern, light it, and hunker down. The prints are harder to see now, as the dirt wears off the soles, but I pick up one over by the bookcase.
I find the right book easily. There’s a smudge in the light layer of shelf dust. Thank God for Isla’s insistence on cleaning in here herself… which means it hasn’t been dusted in weeks.
I open the book. The inside pages have been hacked away in the middle to make a hiding place. And in that hiding place? A vial of thallium.
I drop the vial into the bottomless pit of my pocket and head back into the hall. I’ve missed Sarah, but I’ve found the thallium she planted. Now I just need to wait for Gray—
A drawer shuts in my bedroom. The clack of it has me freezing midstep. I turn on my heels. My door is ajar. I hadn’t noticed that because I don’t care if Alice sneaks in. I’ve actually shown her my hiding spots, and I know she’d never steal from me. As for Mrs. Wallace, I doubt she’d steal and the unlocked door proves I have nothing to hide. I’m not exactly keeping a diary of my experiences as a time traveler.
I walk to the door and press my hand against the wood. The door opens a quarter inch. The click of someone rifling through my toiletries drawer.
I peek through. A figure stands with her back to me, as she paws through Catriona’s belongings. She is slight of build, but her hair is dark.
Jack?
Is Jack the one who planted the thallium?
My stomach clenches. We did wonder if she could have hidden the thallium in Fischer’s room, but we’d gotten caught up in our whirlwind of more likely suspects: Fischer and then Annis and now Sarah.
I know Sarah is the killer. That doesn’t mean she’s working alone.
I step in and clear my throat. “Hello, Jack.”
She spins, and I blink. It’s Sarah, wearing a dark wig.
“Oh!” she says, her hands flying to her mouth. “Oh, Miss Mallory. I am so embarrassed. I can only wonder how this must appear.”
“As if you’re searching my room for any notes on the case?”
“I…” She leans one hand against the dresser, as if needing the support. “I am sorry. I simply had to know what you and Dr. Gray had uncovered against poor Annis. His room is locked, and I do not share your skill with prizing them open, so I checked your room, as you are his assistant.”
