The killer was perhaps strong, but he hadn’t used his hands. There were no livid finger marks on the old man’s neck, just a single ligature mark, meaning something had been looped over his head, twisted, and pulled. A belt, maybe. Could have been a rope, a long scarf, anything that was long enough and pliable.
It wasn’t Knox’s crime scene. The mayor lived within the city limits, so the scene was being worked by the city detectives. There was a great deal of cooperation between the two forces, though, effectively combining the experience, manpower, and budgets. They knew each other, formed specialized task forces together, and each helped the other as needed.
They didn’t need Knox to work the scene, but the city detectives were always interested in hearing his observations; his reputation for being insatiably curious was well-known. He wasn’t the only county investigator present; Roger Dee Franklin was also there, pretty much doing the same thing Knox was doing, which was watching.
The murder had occurred shortly after dark, by the next door neighbor’s reckoning. She’d seen Harlan let his cat out as he did every day, late in the afternoon. It was the cat that had led her to check on Harlan, because the poor thing was standing at the door yowling to be let in, and he never ignored his cat. The racket had finally gotten on her nerves and she had called him. When he didn’t answer the phone, she then called 911.
Roger Dee heard the cat story and drifted over to where Knox was standing. “Good thing the cat was outside,” he murmured. If cats were trapped in a house alone with a dead person, they had been known to start snacking on the body. People forgot that cats were predators as well as pets. After seeing a few instances where someone old had died alone, with only a cat or cats for company, Knox swore to himself that if his lifestyle ever allowed him to have a pet, it would be a fish. He liked cats, but not enough to be their food.
Knox let his gaze drift back to the murder scene. There was nothing similar to the scene at the Allen house; the method was different, and on the surface the two victims had nothing in common, one being a fairly prosperous lawyer with a trophy wife, the other a retired, widowed old gentleman who owned a cat and had lived in the same house for fifty years. From what the neighbor said, Harlan Forbes didn’t leave the house much, content to putter in his flower garden or sit on his front porch watching traffic pass by. His daughter or granddaughter usually brought his groceries once a week or so, or would pick him up to take him on an outing. He’d grown increasingly frail over the past year, and had begun talking about maybe selling his house and moving into an assisted-living apartment. The poor old guy didn’t have to worry about that anymore.
With nothing to connect the two murders, Knox was amazed at his own conviction that they were, somehow, related. He wasn’t crazy enough to mention that to anyone, however. He’d be laughed out of the county. If he hadn’t known Nikita, if he hadn’t seen someone materialize right in front of him, if he didn’t know a killer from the future was in the area, the idea would never have occurred to him, either.
The weird things that had been happening were all linked. The time capsule, the flashes out at Jesse Bingham’s place, Nikita, the time traveling, Taylor Allen’s murder—those were definitely linked, though Nikita didn’t know exactly how Taylor Allen figured into it. She knew only that her UT had killed him, not why, and not who. So . . . how did Harlan Forbes’s murder connect?
Harlan hadn’t been robbed. There were no signs of forcible entry, but neither had his doors been locked. Most people around town didn’t lock their doors if they were at home, until they went to bed. Both the method and the fact that nothing had been stolen said that the murder wasn’t drug related, because an addict would have been looking to score some cash or something to sell.
“Poor old guy,” said Roger Dee, echoing Knox’s earlier thought. “Who’d want to kill someone like him? Retired, living off his pension—and God knows, being mayor of Pekesville never paid much. If he’d been robbed, at least there would be some sense to it, but to just come in and kill him—why? Reckon one of his relatives was in a hurry to inherit this old house and some beat-up furniture?”
“Could be.” If Harlan had a hefty life insurance policy, maybe, or a nice nest egg in the bank. He hadn’t lived as if he had money, but then a lot of old folks who’d gone through the Depression squirreled their money away and lived as if they could barely make it from month to month. Knox tried to think of all the possibilities, but the fact was he was still convinced this was somehow connected to Nikita’s case. Well, it wasn’t his scene to work; the city boys would check out the insurance/bank-account angle, and he’d help out here with interviewing the neighbors.
He and Roger Dee set out with their notebooks, knocking on doors and asking questions. This was an old, established neighborhood, and most of the residents were retired, which meant they were usually home at night watching television. None of them reported seeing anything or hearing anything unusual. They were all aghast at the violence done so close to home, and to someone they knew and liked, but not one of them was any help at all.
It was after two AM when he wearily drove home. The day had been a very, very long one, and when he pulled into his driveway and saw the lights still on inside the house, he knew it wasn’t over yet.
Nikita sat at the kitchen table, a cup of coffee steaming close to her hand as she read one of Knox’s books and waited for him. When she heard the car pull into the driveway, she got up and looked out the kitchen door to make certain it was him, then unlocked the door and opened it for him.
He looked tired when he came in, but why shouldn’t he? It was late, he needed some sleep. Instead of going to bed, however, when he came in he sniffed the air and asked, “Is that coffee fresh?”
“I made it about an hour ago,” she said as she returned to her seat at the table. She was proud that she’d figured out what the coffeemaker was, and how to work it. She had done the first because she’d seen a machine at Knox’s office with the name “Mr. Coffee” printed on it, and though this one didn’t have that name, it was essentially the same machine, the carafe differing slightly in shape. Without any instructions, she had puzzled out the procedure: the big empty space had measuring marks on it, so something went in there. The coffee? But if the coffee went there, then what was the box of paper coffee filters for? By experimenting, she discovered that the filter perfectly fit in the little basket, so that was where the coffee had to go. That meant the empty tank was for the water.
She found an unopened bag of coffee, read the instructions on how much coffee to use for each cup of water, and carefully measured both into the machine. Then it was a matter of pressing the On button, and after a moment the water began hissing and spewing into the carafe. Simple. And it tasted wonderful.
“Guess coffee’s still around two hundred years from now,” he said as he got a cup from the cabinet and poured some for himself.
“Definitely. It’s the largest cash crop in South America.”
“Even bigger than oil?”
“The oil market crashed when technology moved on.” She remained in her position, book open, and kept her gaze on the book even though she was no longer seeing the words.
He pulled up a chair across from her and collapsed heavily into it. He rubbed his eyes, then folded both hands around the coffee cup. “The victim is a former mayor, Harlan Forbes. The MO is totally different, strangulation. Harlan was eighty-five, physically frail. There’s nothing that ties his murder to Taylor Allen’s, except my gut feeling.”
“Could the mayor have written some sort of research paper that went in the time capsule?”
“No, he didn’t even go to college. He was just one of those good old boys with the ability to glad-hand and schmooze, intelligent enough to be a good administrator, but not a go-getter.”
Most of that, she mused, was in English, and she could understand the meaning of the idioms she didn’t know by the way he used them. Glad-hand. She had to remember that.
“Perhap
s it wasn’t related to the other murder, then,” she suggested.
He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking, and remembering who was at the ceremony twenty years ago when the capsule was buried. The football coach, Howard Easley, was found hanged the next morning. Coroner ruled it suicide, but now I wonder. The coach was close enough to see what exactly went in the capsule; in fact, he helped bury it. The mayor was right there. And now that I think back, Taylor Allen was there, too. He was just getting started in his law practice, and he was doing all sorts of civic things to build a network of contacts. He was part of the ceremony.”
“But the coach died twenty years ago,” she pointed out. “Why wait twenty years to kill the others?”
“I don’t have an answer to that, but I think I’m beginning to see a pattern. I need to refresh my memory. First thing tomorrow we’ll go to the library, look up the newspaper article, and see if it mentions who was there. There was a photograph, too, because I remember looking to see if my dad and I were in it, but the angle was wrong.”
She nodded and looked back at the book.
After a minute he sighed. “Look—I’m sorry. I didn’t ask if you were a robot because of the sex thing, I swear.”
“There is no ‘sex thing.’ You’ve kissed me a few times, it was pleasant, and it won’t happen again.” She kept her expression as blank as possible, fighting down the urge to weep that swept over her again. She would not cry in front of him again.
She closed the book and got up. “I’m going to bed, if you don’t mind.”
“You won’t be able to sleep, after drinking that coffee. We might as well sit here and talk.”
“I didn’t drink much, and I’m very tired. Good night.” Taking the book with her, she went to the small bedroom he’d designated as hers and turned on the bedside lamp. She hadn’t lied about being tired; she was so exhausted she could barely think.
He appeared in the doorway right behind her. “Do you have everything you need? Something to sleep in?”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“Are you sure? You can have one of my T-shirts to sleep in if you need it. The nights are warm, and the air conditioner in this house isn’t the best. A T-shirt will be nice and cool.”
“I have my sleep garments. I’m fine.”
“Okay, then.” He lingered in the doorway. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Are you asking for reassurance that you will, indeed, see me in the morning? I’m not leaving. I have a job to do.”
“I know you’re not leaving. You’ve had plenty of chances, if you wanted to go. It’s just . . . damn. I hurt your feelings and I didn’t mean to, but I don’t know how to make it better.”
“You’ve apologized. That’s sufficient.”
“No, it isn’t. You’re still hurt.”
“Then I’ll get over it,” she said coolly. “I’m an adult. Would you close the door, please? I’d like to undress and go to bed.”
He stood there for another minute looking extremely frustrated; then with a muffled curse he backed out and closed the door behind him. Nikita heaved a tired sigh of relief. She didn’t want to deal with personal conflicts at all, but especially not when she was so tired.
Her clothing that she’d brought from her time wouldn’t wrinkle, but she unpacked her suitcase and carefully hung the garments on some of the empty hangers in the closet, then did the same with the clothes Knox had bought for her. Those she was wearing, she removed and draped over the lone chair in the room. When she was nude, she put on the single, seamless garment, a sanssaum, that she wore for sleeping. It was very comfortable, made of an opaque, fluid fabric that was gossamer in weight and adapted to body temperature. If you became too hot, the material wicked heat away from your skin. If you were too cold, it conserved heat. She couldn’t imagine any of Knox’s T-shirts were even half as comfortable as her sanssaum.
She turned back the covers on the bed and wearily climbed between the sheets, then stretched to turn off the lamp. In the sudden darkness she lay awake, far more aware of the strangeness of being here/now than she had been even when she first arrived. A scant thirty-six hours ago she had been full of plans and optimism. Now she was marooned in a time that wasn’t hers, she had been betrayed by one of her own, and she didn’t know if she would ever get back or if another assassin would be sent to kill her.
That must mean she would succeed, and they knew it.
Otherwise, why kill her? If she was destined to fail, they could just leave her here and no one would ever know. She hadn’t been able to tell her family where she was going on her mission, because time missions were top secret, used only by the military and law enforcement. The technology was still too new—twenty years since the first one, and for the first ten years the transit had been fraught with danger, resulting in death often enough that every volunteer knew the odds of returning alive were, at best, fifty-fifty—the ramifications hadn’t all been worked out concerning the effect of changing history, and the terrorist groups would love to have the technology.
If she didn’t return, no one would ever know what happened to her.
So much had happened that she didn’t understand. The time capsule was a surprise, but someone from her time had transited in and taken it. Who, and why? Knox knew the people in his town, and he said neither the lawyer nor the retired mayor could have had any sort of knowledge that could in any way be used to develop time-travel technology.
Who from this time was trying to kill her, and why? Who could have known about her?
A: The killer had been warned about her arrival—and probably about Houseman and McElroy, too.
B: The killer had recruited local aid. But why not just tell the sheriff that she wasn’t a real FBI agent? Her credentials couldn’t be verified in this time. She would be in jail, and out of the way.
Was it possible he hadn’t wanted her in jail? Just being out of the way wasn’t enough. He wanted her dead.
She yawned, too tired to think straight. Turning on her side, she blinked her heavy eyes. Now that her vision had adjusted to the dark she could see the outline of the two windows, and she wished that she could open them. The room was a little stuffy, and some fresh air would be nice. But an open window was also a security breach; in her time, windows were never open. Training and custom kept her in the bed, wishing instead of doing.
The air here in these mountains was so fresh, and the rustling of the breeze in the huge old trees was an almost constant, soothing whisper in the background. The grass was green and fragrant, and flowers provided bursts of color and scent. Trees and grass and flowers still existed in her time; trees, in fact, had flourished now that they were no longer used to make paper. New varieties of flowers, in every color and scent, grew in great masses.
But it wasn’t the same. This was . . . newer. And it wasn’t home. It would never be home.
17
Knox got up at his usual time and heated two cups of the leftover coffee in the microwave. Reheated coffee never tasted quite right, but he couldn’t see the point in letting coffee go to waste just because it had been cold for a few hours. Thank God Nikita drank her coffee black, so he didn’t have to worry about how much of what to put in it. Right off the bat he couldn’t find the single tray he knew he had, so he improvised and put the coffee cups on a baking sheet, then carried them both to her bedroom. As a peace offering, warmed-over coffee wasn’t much, but it was the best he had.
He deliberately wasn’t wearing a shirt, not to show off his manly physique, but because in his own experience the best way to get a woman to touch him was to take off his shirt. Pheromones, he guessed. For whatever reason, it worked, and he needed her to touch him. Physical contact would help bridge the gap between them, pull her closer to him.
He knew he was invading her privacy in a big way, but that didn’t stop him from knocking once, then twisting the doorknob and walking in.
Startled awake, Nikita sat up in bed. “What’s wrong?” she asked urge
ntly, pushing her tousled hair out of her face.
Knox’s heart nearly stopped, and the baking sheet wobbled in his hand. The flesh-colored gown she was wearing was like some sort of fluid, pouring gently over her torso. It wasn’t tight, and he couldn’t see through it, but he almost didn’t need to, so faithfully did it follow every curve, every outline.
He swallowed, and managed a halfway normal tone. “I brought you a cup of coffee. I figured you might need it to jump-start you this morning.”
“Jump-start?” she asked, confusion wrinkling her brow.
He suppressed a grin. She probably wouldn’t like it if she knew how much he enjoyed her verbal miscues caused by her too-literal application of the language. “Jump-start means use an external source of energy to get you started. It’s a car term.” He took the tray over and set it down on the bedside table, then took a seat himself, settling beside her hip. He picked up both cups and extended one to her.
“Oh.” She accepted the cup. “Thank you.” She took a cautious sip of the steaming liquid, then made a face. “This doesn’t taste like it did last night. What did you do to it?” She glanced at his chest, then looked away.
“Nuked it.” He sipped his own coffee, glad for the hot liquid even if it wasn’t the best in the world.
Appalled, she stared at her cup, and he had to laugh. “It’s the same coffee from last night; I just reheated it in the microwave. It isn’t really radioactive,” he reassured her.
She took another sip, then said, “I would advise you to pour out the old coffee and make a fresh supply.”
He chuckled. “It’s hot, and it’s caffeine. That’s all I need. A fresh pot is brewing, but this tides me over until it’s ready.” He was chatting casually as he tried to keep his gaze from locking on her breasts, but, God, he was only human, and she had a fine looking pair: not too big, not too small, just round enough, and with soft-looking nipples. He wanted to pull off his clothes and climb into bed with her, but she hadn’t given any indication that she would forgive him any time within the next decade, so he didn’t push his luck. If she hit him again, she might break his jaw.