Only Jaime could hear Irene, so the conversation was pretty one-sided. After a few minutes of confirming her identity, based on some basic facts we'd gleaned from the newspaper, Jaime was about to let her go.
"Not yet," Clay said. "Gotta be sure."
"Sure of what?" Jaime said, whispering so Irene wouldn't overhear. "You don't think this could be Jack? But she's a wom--" She shook her head. "Of all people, I should know better. There's no reason Jack the Ripper couldn't be a woman. But she answered the questions right."
I shook my head. "If she had contact with the real Irene Ashworth in that portal, that wouldn't be hard. You have to ask her something only someone from our time could answer, like what the Internet is or a DVD."
"DVD?" Jaime's voice rose as she laughed. "At her age, we'd be lucky if she knew what a VCR was." Jaime froze, then turned. "Oh, y-yes, of course you could hear that."
Pause.
"No, you're not deaf. I didn't mean--"
Pause.
"Well, yes, I'm sure the Internet is great for online brokerages and, yes, you're right, voice-over-Internet protocol must be a cheaper way to talk to the grandkids..."
Strike missing person number one off the list.
"There's another one already," Jaime said. "I wish trolling for ghosts was this easy. Okay, here he comes...Got a male. Midthirties. He's almost here..."
While the description sounded promising for Jack the Ripper, it also matched that of the second missing person, Kyle Belfour, the thirty-six-year-old systems analyst who lived one block over and had vanished while jogging. Initial probing suggested the spirit was Belfour, but Jaime ran into some difficulties with the questioning.
"We just need your name and some basic--"
Pause.
"To confirm your identity--"
Pause.
"Why do we need to confirm it?"
She looked back at us for help. I murmured a suggestion.
"Right," she said. "Because, when we pull you out of there, we need to be sure it really is you."
Pause.
"Who else could it be? Er, well..."
"Just tell him to answer the damned questions," Clay said. "Or we'll leave him in there."
Jaime started to respond, then stopped. "Government conspiracy? Uh, no, this isn't--"
Pause.
"No, it's not part of a military test either."
Pause.
"Well, yes, I suppose sending enemies of the state into a dimensional holding cell wouldn't be such a bad idea, but neither the CIA or the mil--"
"CSIS," I said.
She looked over her shoulder at me.
"In Canada, it's not the CIA. Remind him that if this was a Canadian intelligence or military operation, it would have to have been