A Sexy Time Of It

“Yes. The ability to psychically travel into the past runs in families…the gene lies dormant in one generation and becomes active in the next. Less than one-half of one percent of the population carries the gene. We have records, and anyone born with the active gene is implanted with a tracking device at birth. There are no exceptions.”

“No exceptions that we know of. If he’s from the future, the security rules might have changed.”

Deirdre sighed and shook her head. “I was hoping that you weren’t going to say that.”

So she had thought of the possibility of a time traveler. It shouldn’t surprise him. Deirdre Mason was one of the smartest women he’d ever met.

“I don’t believe he’s from the future. Everything that I am as a security agent tells me he’s from our time. This is his home. I also believe that he’s established identities in each time where he’s killing.”

“Why?”

Max shrugged. “I figure he needs a base of operations and an identity in other times, also. The profilers who’ve written about the other Rippers agree they’re planners. For the most part, they selected their victims. That requires a familiarity with the times. And I believe this kind of killer would want to be able to live in the time period and enjoy his notoriety.”

“If you’re right about the killer being the same man, there might be some significance to the cities he’s choosing. Or the time span—exactly 120 years.”

Max said nothing. She’d been giving his ideas some thought. He took that to be a good sign.

She raised one hand. “Okay. I prefer your gut instinct to the theory that this bastard is from the future. But if he’s found a way around our security, how are you going to catch him in another time?”

“I’m going to discover the identity he’s using in 2008.”

This time the noise she made was a snort. “The size of your ego always amazes me. I’m concerned about rules, namely, our Prime Directive. You can’t change anything he’s done in the past or you run the risk of changing the future.” She waved a hand toward the panoramic view of San Diego. “Of destroying the present as we know it. You’ve taken an oath to follow the Prime Directive.”

“I understand that.” Nothing the Ripper had done in any of the times he’d killed in could be altered. If even one of his victims survived in 1888, 2008 or 2128, ripples of change would occur that could affect the present. That was the fear that the Prime Directive was based on.

“I’ve never broken the rules,” Max said.

“We both know that you’ve skirted around them on occasion.”

He tried to control his impatience. “I’ve gotten the job done.”

This time she didn’t laugh or snort, she merely met his eyes very directly. “The problem is that you’re still beating yourself up for not finding a way around them when you arrested your sister six months ago.”

Max said nothing as pain and regret tightened his chest. He had tried to bend the rules a bit for Suzanna. When he’d learned that his sister and a group of her friends were traveling without any authorization, he hadn’t waited to be assigned the case. He’d just gone after her. He’d wanted to bring her back and hire legal counsel. But she’d refused. She wouldn’t desert her friends.

She’d been eighteen, a freshman in college. This type of illegal time traveling happened fairly regularly. Eighteen was the age at which citizens with the time travel gene could apply for a license to travel. But that was the same age at which students often adopted very idealistic causes. Suzanna and her friends had been studying the bloody tribal wars that had raged through the continent of Africa in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and they’d decided to travel there with the goal of saving lives. A laudable objective but totally against the Prime Directive.

When she’d refused to return with him voluntarily, he’d had no choice but to arrest her. She’d declined his help again when they’d returned to 2128, preferring to make a statement against the unfairness of the Prime Directive. Suzanna and her friends had paid the price for their violation of the law by having their time travel gene neutralized. She’d never forgiven him.

“Suzanna is the reason I’m so sure the Ripper is a time traveler. She refused to see me since I arrested her. But on the day she died, she visited my sailboat and left a note.”

He hadn’t found the note until he’d returned from the crime scene. She’d put the time at the top of it—3:00 p.m. How long had he stared at the time, knowing that she’d been alive then…that if he’d just been home, she might still be alive.

“Remind me what was in the note,” Deirdre said.

Max dragged his thoughts back to the present and his proposal. “She said she had something to tell me that was ‘right up my alley.’ Her roommate said she’d been seeing someone. I think Suzanna had met the Ripper and that she suspected something. So he eliminated her.”

“Perhaps.” Deirdre folded her hands on the desk. “You’re too personally involved in this. For that reason alone I should turn your proposal down flat.”

Should. Max latched on to the one word, but he didn’t allow himself to feel relief. Not yet. His eyes never wavered from hers as he leaned forward. “I can get him for you, Dee. That’s my only goal. I swear. Yeah, I’m personally involved. I admit I want to catch the man who murdered Suzanna. But I’d want this case anyway. If I’m right and he’s a psychic time traveler who’s managed to breach our security, he’s got to be stopped. What if the Ripper is only one of his personas? What if he’s used other methods on other victims?”

She rose, throwing up her hands in a gesture of surrender, but she wasn’t quite ready to give in.

“I have another question.” On the screen she brought up an image of Cornelia—Neely—Rafferty and enlarged it. “The Ripper killed and mutilated six women in 2008, and Cornelia Rafferty was his last victim—he killed her in the early-morning hours of May 17. You’ve made several trips to New York to observe each of those women. Why have you singled her out as the one you’re going to get close to?”

Max had anticipated the question, so he had an answer prepared. Some of it Deirdre already knew. The Ripper had selected prostitutes in 1888—women whom Victorian society cared very little about. In 2008 he’d selected middle-class women, all single, all living alone. The slew of criminologists who’d studied the cases over the years all agreed that the 2008 Ripper had established some kind of relationship with each victim. All had been found in their own homes. There’d been no sign of forced entry, no sign of struggle. The experts across time had concluded that the 2008 Ripper had to have been someone the women knew, someone they trusted enough to invite into their homes. Hell, he was doing the same thing in 2128.

“In the time I’ve spent observing the six women, I discovered that besides being single and living alone, each of them had some kind of connection to books. One was a librarian, one was a college professor with several publications in the field of psychology, two were high-school English teachers, another was an editor at a publishing house and Neely Rafferty was a bookstore owner. If that’s what he used—an interest in books or a specific topic—to get close to them, I figure she’s my best bet. The Ripper might even have used her store as a base to select his victims.”

“Gut instinct again?” Deirdre asked.

“Yes. I believe she’s the key to identifying the killer.”

Max waited then. This was the trickiest part of his proposal. What he intended was to get close enough to Neely Rafferty to find out who in her circle of customers or friends might be the Ripper. Most time travelers were required to make themselves psychically invisible when they visited another time. This made it easier for them to follow the Prime Directive. Becoming personally acquainted with anyone in a previous time was prohibited—unless it was absolutely necessary for security enforcement purposes. He’d argued that in this instance it was.

Deirdre studied him very closely. Anyone worth their salt in security had a sixth sense for recognizing a lie when they heard it. He prayed that she wouldn’t see through him. He’d spoken the truth. It just wasn’t the whole truth. As seconds ticked by, Max had to put some effort into not glancing back at Neely’s picture.

The first time he’d seen it, he hadn’t been able to look away for a very long time. There was something in her face that pulled at him. No. That was too weak a word for what had compelled him to study Neely Rafferty’s image for hours.

Seeing her in person, watching her go about her business, had only deepened the effect she had on his senses. He had no idea why, but he knew that she posed a threat to him. Walking into her store that day had been a mistake. Everything that had pulled at him from a distance had intensified during those minutes he’d spent in Bookends. But when he’d touched her, held her wrist in his hands for those few moments, he’d known beyond a doubt that she was the key. Without her, he was not going to avenge his sister’s death.