Downtime (48 page)

By the third kiss, I knew that whatever need I wanted to fulfill, it wasn’t a need to be with Reese. “Hold on a second,” I said, drawing back to catch my breath and figure out how the hell to let him down gently. But I didn’t have to. He looked at me with a small, rueful smile and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid.

“Who’s the guy? I hope it’s no one I know.” As he got up, he finished off the beer in one long swallow and put the bottle on the coffee table. “Because I don’t think I want to spend all my time six months from now listening to some buddy of mine alternately cussing you out and whining about you after you’ve dumped him.”

“No one you know.”

“Yeah? So who?”

“A guy I met in London.”

He looked dubious, but didn’t pursue it. “Whatever. I came by because I had this weird dream that someone from your office came and told me you’d been hurt and I was concerned about you. As pissed off as I was, I didn’t want to leave you to fend for yourself if you’d been shot or something.”

“I’m fine,” I said, not even sounding convincingly fine to my own ears.

His gaze narrowed. “Maybe there was something to the dream, because there’s something going on with you. More than just hooking up with someone new. You want to let me in on it?”

The ache in my throat wouldn’t go away. “Nothing’s going on with me. I just wrapped up a case and I’m taking a little time off—” Even as I said it, I realized I shouldn’t have.

“You’re taking time off?” His eyebrows lifted. “Damn. You must be in love.”

I could tell him the whole story and he would still make a case that I was fleeing commitment as usual. And maybe it was true, to a degree; but to give up everything in my life for the slim chance of turning a two-week affair into a forever thing, that was a lot to ask of anyone.

Then again, who had asked?

When Reese had gone home, I shucked off my clothes, wrapped myself in a blanket, and curled up on the sofa. I hadn’t meant to hurt him. I never meant to hurt anyone, but I always seemed to. A pretty neat trick, considering I usually never stayed in a relationship long enough for it to get so complicated.

I lay awake for a while, occupying myself by wondering what Ezra was doing. As far as I was concerned, he was still living and breathing, even if a hundred or so years existed between us. He was really only a backward step through time, and no logic in the world could convince me otherwise. A little research into what had eventually become of him might. But I couldn’t do that.

There was only one hope of rescue left. Bright and way too early Friday morning, I was at my desk, shuffling through some paperwork left behind when I’d gone to London. Faulkner eyed me dubiously as he passed by on his way for coffee, then again when he came back. On his third trip to get coffee—or go to the bathroom, I wasn’t sure which—he stopped by my desk, set down his cup, and stared at me until I tore my eyes from the computer to give him my best worker bee smile. The suspicion in his face deepened noticeably.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“I ended the vacation early. Never heard you complain about it before.”

“I never had to sit for days in a hospital, waiting for you to get your sorry butt out of a coma, Nash. You bring a doctor’s note?”

“What is this, fifth grade? I’m fine.”

He sat and studied me even more directly than Reese had. “No, I don’t think you are. You didn’t have one of those near-death experiences, did you?”

A near-life experience, maybe. “I promise you, I’m fine. Really. I just need a little time to get back in the swing of things.”

He sized me up another long moment. “Yeah. Well, get to it.” He pushed out of the chair and took his cup. “By the way….” He pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of his pocket and tossed it onto my desk. “Found that in the elevator. Your handwriting. You must have dropped it.”

My heart skipped a few beats, then struggled to catch up as I realized he had gotten hold of my Ripper file. I picked the paper up gingerly, smoothing it out, and caught Faulkner’s faintly amused look from the corner of my eye. “Guess you were wondering what this is all about.”

“Hey, if you’re going to exercise your imagination, Nash, at least it’s work related. When you nail old Jackie boy, you’ll let the rest of us know, won’t you?” He was chuckling between sips of coffee as he walked off.

I turned to the keyboard and hauled up a search engine. I’d been missing Ezra so bad, I hadn’t bothered to check for a record of Sid’s arrest. The first site I went to recorded another woman’s death, the worst one yet, in November. So did the second site and the third. I hunted up the most scholarly sites I could find and they all contained the same information. Jack had never been caught.

I remembered what Sully had said to me in the hospital. But even if the truth had been buried, Sid couldn’t have killed Mary Kelly—unless he had escaped. Or someone had let him loose.

“Those bastards.” I shut the computer off. “Those goddamned bastards.” I hadn’t changed a fucking thing. Sully had let me know as much, but it hadn’t really sunk in at the time. When he’d told me to drop the case, he hadn’t doubted my ability to catch Sid. He just believed it was better that I didn’t.

Maybe he was right. After all, he had a loftier view of past, present, and possibly future than I did. He’d just been doing his damnedest to keep me from throwing the Eternal Plan out of whack or getting myself killed. It was still disheartening to think all my searching had been in vain, not to mention all the shit I’d put Ezra through.

Dropping a hand to my waistcoat, I held the cool weight of the watch in my palm, then lifted it to the light and popped it open. I let my gaze trail along the engraving, word by word. He had known me two weeks and he’d remembered my birthday. I had no idea when his birthday was. Maybe there was a record of it somewhere, but it would be alongside the day of his death and that was something I couldn’t bring myself to find out.

Not even work was proving a distraction. I left the office at four and picked up some takeout on the way home. The guys were probably sitting around Kathleen’s table now, stuffing themselves with roast and potatoes and gabbing about their day. I was sure Derry and Kathleen were doing their best to keep Ezra’s spirits up. Was he working at the museum again, enduring Henry’s petulant complaints and avoiding the storage room where we’d last seen each other? Had he spoken to his father since I’d gone? Was he being pressured to reconsider a “proper” marriage? He couldn’t do that, not when he knew what he’d be missing—could he?

Maybe tomorrow, in the reasonable light of day, I’d feel better. Or maybe I’d just plan to sleep in and not feel anything at all.

Plan B went awry and Plan A wasn’t looking good either when an insistent doorbell woke me at eight. Two bright and shining voices smote me with a simultaneous “Happy birthday!” and I winced and tried to close the door. Maggie, all hundred pounds of her, pushed it open and grinned at me from under a shimmering cap of black hair. “No escape, Nash. Suck it up.” She pushed a box wrapped in orange paper and purple ribbon into my hands and headed for the fridge.

Donovan followed her in, cake plate cradled in his arm, and lifted the cover long enough to show off his handiwork. “Sugar free and fat free.”

“Yum.” I took the book-sized package from under his arm, and he headed for the kitchen table as Maggie reappeared with a beer. He nudged her back toward the kitchen with the instruction to find plates and forks. I sat down and looked regretfully at the cake. “You guys realize it’s eight in the morning, right? On a Saturday?”

“We said we’d take you out on the town for your birthday.” Donovan pushed a geometrically flawless circle of white candles into the smoothly frosted surface. “You do remember, don’t you?”

“Sure, Van.” Maggie dropped into a chair and propped her feet on another one. “Why wouldn’t he remember an offhand suggestion you made three months ago?”

“Claws in, dear,” Donovan said cheerfully. “The B stands for bureau, not bitch.”

“Yeah? I thought it stood for butt-brained, anal retentive psychopath,” Maggie retorted, tossing her lighter on the table. “Come on, fire it up so we can take Morgan out for a decent breakfast.”

How they’d worked side by side for ten years without killing each other, I still couldn’t guess. Van wrinkled pale brows at her, but lit the candles and the two of them sang the requisite song, painfully off-key. I took a piece of cake without much hope that it would be edible, but it was surprisingly good. Then I noted Maggie was grinning from ear to ear as she stuffed a forkful into her mouth.

Donovan knew on the first bite. “Jesus, Mag, you trying to kill us?”

“Huh. Better fifty years with sugar and butter than a hundred without them. Let’s go get some donuts and coffee and hit the market before it gets crowded.”

By ten, we were at the mother of all flea markets, tables taking up a city block, antique and secondhand shops further in. I wasn’t in the mood for it, but sitting home would have been worse. I knew I was in trouble when I came across a lacy old shawl that reminded me of Kathleen. Knowing I’d never give it to her, I put it on my credit card, then wondered if there was anything Derry and Ezra might like.

When Van found me at noon, I had a bagful of trinkets that would end up in my hall closet, and I was grateful he didn’t ask what I’d bought. We went in search of Maggie, Van stopping occasionally to pick through stacks of books. My growling stomach and I were ready to push him along when the strains of a familiar tune seeped through the noise of crowd and traffic. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“That music.”

“What music?”

I moved past him toward the shops. “Don’t you hear it?” I was pretty sure I wasn’t cracking up, though the bagful of gifts for people I’d never see again was a disturbing indicator I might be heading in that direction.

Van hurried to keep up. “What? The waltzy stuff?”

Then I saw it, outside on the sunny porch of Weatherley’s Antiques, a record player with its brass horn turned like a morning glory toward the sun. The scratchy record played music that seemed to slip straight out of the past to my ears. “It’s a mazurka.”

“Yeah? Since when do you listen to anything besides the Stones?”

I wanted to get closer, close enough to shut out the noise of the crowd and let the memories wash over me along with the music. A petite, elderly woman in an apron and name tag kept the music playing for a couple who were apparently interested in buying the machine. I listened as she told them it had belonged to her grandfather, as had the stack of records beside it.

“Do you have a waltz minuet in that pile?”

Friendly hazel eyes alight with curiosity swung my way. “Do you know how to waltz, young man?”

“As a matter of fact….” I caught Van’s smirk and gave him a dark look. “Yes, I do.”

The woman, whose tag read Caroline, seemed as amused. “Well, I just may have—oh yes.” She changed records and started the music up again. With the first notes, I was back on the terrace with Ezra as he took my hand. He’d shown me more than a few dance steps that night. His heart had said yes and he’d trusted it, to hell with the consequences. It was the sort of bravery I’d never match, no matter how many loaded guns I faced.