Daring Time (25 page)

hallway hand in hand, Ryan in the lead. Before they reached the brightly lit entry hall, however, the sounds of men talking reached Ryan's ears.

He pulled Hope back into the shadows.

"You will contact me immediately when you discover anything, won't you, Mr.

O'Rourke? I won't rest until my daughter is returned to me safely."

Ryan's brows crinkled in puzzlement. The man who had just spoken possessed a rich, resonant voice that sounded strangely familiar. He could easily imagine him holding a crowd enthralled with his speeches. The Reverend Stillwater must not only be a fine political orator, but popular among his parishioners for his sermons at his church.

"Indeed, Mr. Stillwater. But as we've told you, missing persons investigations are difficult in the city. Every day people go missing in Chicago and are lost without a trace,"

a man who must have been Detective Connor J. O'Rourke replied, his voice flavored with only a trace of an Irish brogue.

"But my daughter—such a singularly lovely young woman— surely
someone
must have noticed her when she entered that train station."

"Detective McMannis and I will scout the area first thing in the morning, Mr. Stillwater.

You're right—chances are somebody noticed something. I recommend you place an advertisement with a copy of her likeness in the major newspapers. In the meantime, do me a favor and keep thinking about who might profit from your daughter's abduction. I'm sure you've made some significant enemies with your political agendas."

Ryan wondered from O'Rourke's steely tone of voice if the detective already harbored suspicions toward Diamond Jack Fletcher even if Jacob Stillwater hadn't yet pointed his finger in that direction.

"I will think on it. I can't imagine who would want to harm such a warmhearted, generous young woman."

Ryan felt Hope startle, as though she reacted instinctively to a need to soothe her father's obvious distress. He squeezed her hand in reassurance, however, and she stilled.

"I'm thinking it's just as likely that it's
you
they want to harm," O'Rourke said before he and the other detective left the house.

"Shall I turn out the lights?" a quiet voice asked a moment later.

"No, Mrs. Abernathy. We'll leave on the entry hall chandelier until my daughter returns home."

"You need to rest, sir. It'll be dawn in a few hours and you've been ill."

"I couldn't sleep if I tried."

"Dr. Walkerton left a sleeping draught and I've had it prepared for you. You'll not do your daughter a bit of good by becoming ill again," Mrs. Abernathy said resolutely.

The sounds of them ascending the stairs followed.

"I think we had better take the main stairs this time," Hope whispered after a moment.

"Mrs. Abernathy will use the back stairs on the way back down, as will the maid getting my father's sleeping draught."

Ryan nodded. They crept up the grand staircase and down the shadowed hallway to Hope's room without incident. When Hope closed the door silently behind them they stood in pitch blackness. He heard Hope fumbling by the mantel and soon a flame hissed and flared. She approached him carrying a single taper, her face looking unusually pale and sober in the flickering light.

"We still keep candles and lanterns about. The electricity is wonderful, but it tends to go out easily, especially in storms. Sometimes it seems like the electricity functions only half the time, but we're quite used to it, so fond are we of the modern conveniences of—"

Ryan reached out and grasped her shoulders, hearing the anguish in her shaking voice as she rambled on about undependable electricity. Her eyes rose to meet his and Ryan saw they glistened with tears.

"What's wrong, honey?"

"I—I don't want you to go, Ryan," she whispered miserably.

SEVENTEEN

Ryan studied her face for a long moment. "I'm not parting from you yet, Hope. There's something I need to explain to you. Something important."

They both started slightly when they heard a thumping noise down the hallway.

"The maid must have dropped something," Hope whispered. "You don't think they'll be able to see the candle, do you?"

Ryan shook his head but used his hand to mute the light, anyway.

"Let's look at the mirror and then I need to talk with you about something.

"It's always this clear?" Ryan asked a moment later as he peered into the gilt mirror.

"Clear?" Hope asked, confused.

"In my time, it's grown foggy. But as we began to see one another, to touch, the fog dissipated. Just before I stepped through into the Sweet Lash, the mirror had gone clear in my time as well," he murmured. He experimentally pushed his hand to the surface. Sure enough, he experienced the unusual but increasingly familiar sensation that he could only describe with words as
tactile possibility,
like touching a myriad of different potential realities.

"That's so strange," Hope mused. "I wonder .. ."

"What?" he asked when her voice faded.

"According to my father, the man who lived here before us was a very unusual gentleman. His name was Mortimer P. Chase. He built this house. He was quite an idiosyncratic gentleman and was involved in the spiritualist movement. Some called him a magician. He disappeared without a trace several decades ago, leaving no heirs for an apparently vast fortune."

"Are you saying this mirror belonged to Mortimer P. Chase?"

Hope looked puzzled. "To be honest with you, I'm not sure. We moved into this house when I was eight years old. This wardrobe and mirror have been in my room since then, but—now that I think on it—I don't
recall
it being in my old bedroom on Washington Street."

"I don't know if we'll ever understand the mechanics of how it works, but at this point I wouldn't argue with the idea that it's a magic mirror. God knows I'd believe in stranger things at this point. But there's something more important for us to talk about at the moment, Hope."

He drew her over to an object in front of the fireplace that slowly resolved into a sofa the closer they got with the candle.

"Sit down," he urged. He tore off the constricting coat he wore before he sat down next to her. It felt as if he would burst out of the garment if he took a deep breath and he wanted to be comfortable for this difficult conversation with Hope.

Once he settled next to her on the couch he met her gaze. "I want you to come with me, Hope ... to my time. Through the mirror."

For a moment she didn't speak, just staring at him as though frozen.

"Ryan, I want to," she finally replied in a choked voice. "I'd love to be able to see a whole different world, to—to be with you, even if only a bit longer." She paused awkwardly and glanced down. "It would be like something from a dream. But I
can't.
You must understand. My father is here. He's been ill. He'll only become sicker if I don't reassure him of my safety very soon."

Ryan sighed heavily. This wasn't going to be easy, but he had to find a way to convince her. He wasn't thrilled with the prospect of what would challenge them in the year 2008

given their vastly different cultures. In truth, he had no idea what he would do with her, their situation was so unprecedented. But in all fairness to Hope, he needed to try and convince her.

Especially since he planned on taking her with him no matter if he succeeded or not.

"Haven't you wondered why I came through the mirror? Why I've been trying to warn you about being in danger?"

"I didn't fully understand in the beginning, but now I assume it was because you somehow knew I was going to be kidnapped by Diamond Jack."

"It was, in part."

"What do you mean,
in part?
" Hope asked slowly.

Ryan dug his thumb and forefinger into his eyelids, feeling the burn of a physical exhaustion that had been held at bay by adrenaline. Until now, anyway. He wished he had more energy for this, but he plunged ahead, anyway.

He proceeded to tell her about the newspaper articles and police reports concerning her disappearance. He put his arm around her when he explained about her death, glossing over the gruesome details of the decomposed body found in the Chicago River. She listened with a quiet, avid intensity but showed no signs of distress. At first he thought she might be in shock but then he began to suspect that the bizarreness of the circumstances made the whole scenario seem far-fetched and removed from her.

Ryan had to agree in part. Who could imagine that the lovely woman who sat beside him, studying him with solemn midnight eyes, could possibly transform into a lifeless corpse sometime soon? Ryan couldn't fathom it.

In fact, that was the main reason he was here.

"You say that you read documents—newspaper clippings, police reports, things of that nature—that reported the year of my death was 1906?"

Ryan nodded warily. Bizarre or not, it wasn't news even the most strong of heart would ever relish hearing. "That's why I want to bring you back to the year 2008. If you're alive in my time, there's no way you could have died a hundred and two years ago."

Hope's eyelids narrowed thoughtfully. "And did any of these documents you read indicate what happened to my father after my death?"

Ryan resisted an urge to state point-blank that she was
not
going to die for a very, very long time. Instead he focused on the facts. "Yes. They said that he went on to champion anti-white slavery legislation and eventually successfully closed down the Levee District."

Ryan's sense of alarm grew when Hope merely stared fixedly at the cold hearth. "Tell me what you're thinking."

"There's been some sort of mistake, Ryan."

"Honey, I know it must be hard to take in—nobody would want to learn the date of their death—but—"

She shook her head adamantly. "There
has
been a misunder-standing. Perhaps you successfully changed history by intervening tonight at the Sweet Lash?"

Ryan thought of those black-and-white photos he'd found in the twenty-first century—photos of Hope and
him
in the year 1906.

"I'm not so sure I've changed anything," he stated grimly. "It seems that history has bent to accommodate me."

But Hope continued as though he'd never spoken.

"I don't mean to place undue importance upon my person, but it is extremely unlikely my father would have flourished as greatly as those reports indicated if I died anytime in the near future. If it were true that I'd been brutally murdered, I would expect my father to be devastated ... diminished, not infused with a sense of purpose in the manner that you describe from the historical record."

"But isn't it possible your death would drive him all the harder in his mission in order to change the circumstances that allowed your death—"

Hope shook her head again resolutely. "I see your point, but no. You don't know my father like I do. He was devastated by my mother's death, almost to the point of giving up all hope. His grief was protracted and intense. If it weren't for the fact that he had me to live for, I have no doubt he would have just given up and soon followed my mother.

Perhaps—"

But Ryan cut her off with a slashing movement of his hand. He abruptly blew out the candle.

"What—" Hope asked, forgetting to whisper in her surprise over his actions.

"Shhhh," Ryan hissed. He heard it again, the rustle of someone moving in the hallway, the sound soft and furtive, as though they'd been leaning in to listen with their ear pressed to the door. The latch clicked open and the door swung silently inward.

"Don't move. I have a gun pointed at you," Mario said in a deep, sinister voice. "You didn't really believe Jack would let you get away that easily, did you?"

EIGHTEEN

He's bluffing,
Ryan thought after a panicked second. Mario's eyesight couldn't have accustomed to the darkness yet. The hallway was dimly lit by a distant wall sconce. He knew they were in here, perhaps, but he didn't know
where.

He mentally cursed himself for removing the borrowed coat and tossing it on the couch.

He grabbed it but the gun was buried deep in the one of the pockets. If he tried to extract it, he would waste precious seconds and possibly risk making a noise that gave away their whereabouts in the room.

Instead he delved his fingers into the silky mass of curls piled on Hope's head. She jumped in surprise but had the wits not to cry and betray their location in the darkness.

He extracted one of the combs he knew he'd find and flung it toward the far corner of the room. A second after he heard the sound of the comb rattling on the wood floor as it landed, a shot rang out.

Ryan fell on top of Hope, pushing her down on the couch. He pressed his mouth directly next to her ear.

"Stay low and move toward the wardrobe . .. very quietly."

Hope felt Ryan rise from the couch at the same moment that she did. He pushed down on her back, reminding her to stay low. She held her breath as she moved stealthily in the darkness, deathly afraid the intruder would hear her panting.

Her heart seemed to seize in her chest when she heard the man step into the room.

"Where's the damn light?" he muttered in a guttural, lightly accented voice. Hope imagined him running his hand along the wall. Any second now he would switch on the electric overhead light. Ryan must have realized the same thing because he pushed harder on her back. She scurried silently toward the mirror. "I know you're in here. You can't escape. You made a fool out of me and Jack both and
no one
makes a fool of me and my boss."

He made a grunting noise of satisfaction and Hope knew he'd found the switch. The room flooded with light. Hope had a brief impression of an enormous, brutal-looking giant of a man with a black eye and a snarl twisting his thin lips.

Then Ryan shoved her hard. She heard a shot ring out and she was falling. A pocket of air punched out of her lungs when she landed hard on a wood floor. She scrambled up and waited anxiously for Ryan to step through the mirror. He didn't immediately follow her, however, and then Hope heard a truly horrifying sound.