Daring Time (4 page)

She shed her long-sleeved, high-necked linen nightgown and shoved the negligee over her head before she could second-guess her impulsive actions. The sheer fabric fluttered across her naked skin as softly as a butterfly's wings, thrilling her heated flesh. Her eyes went wide when she saw the gown barely covered the dark hair between her thighs.

Her breath burned in her lungs as she raced across the room and opened the wardrobe door wide. She stared into the full-length gilt mirror for several seconds before she finally exhaled harshly. Her cheeks turned a vibrant shade of pink.

Who was this lush, wanton creature?

Her breasts heaved shallowly in excitement, the slight abrasion of the fabric making her nipples prickle with pleasure. She watched as the crests stiffened and distended, the tea-rose pink hue darkening in color. Hope resisted an almost overwhelming urge to put her hand between her thighs. It was one thing to rub that secret, delicious place beneath all of her covers in the darkness, but touching herself while she wore a whore's nightgown and stared at herself in the mirror was quite another matter.

Hope turned, her chin craning over her shoulder as she inspected her appearance from the back. She gasped. The rear view was even more scandalous than the front. The filmy negligee left the bottom curves of her buttocks completely bare! How could the women at the Marlborough Club even
consider
walking around in the company of men wearing this thing? It somehow seemed more lewd than complete nudity. How did they keep a straight face?

Hope snorted with a burst of laughter before she spun completely around, her loose hair flying around her shoulders. Her mirth froze on her tongue when she found herself staring into the startling cerulean blue gaze of a tall, dark man who looked every bit as shocked to see her as she was him.

Hope barely stifled a scream. She tripped on the edge of a rug in her anxiety to get away from the mirror and the man. By the time she'd grabbed her robe, flung it around her and scurried toward the door, a modicum of reason penetrated her panic. A quick survey of the room assured her she was completely alone.

She panted shallowly in fear a second later as she peered into her large wardrobe. Of course it was empty. And the only image that stared back at her from the gilded mirror was her own pale, shocked face.

Hope shook her head in amazement and guiltily removed the negligee, shoving her modest nightgown over her head. Unlike the gossamer-thin gown, the linen felt scratchy and uncomfortable next to her skin. She seriously considered burning the Marlborough gown for a few seconds before she tossed it back into the dark corner of the wardrobe and crawled into her bed, throwing the covers over her head. Her heartbeat thundered alarmingly loud in her ears.

She'd heard of drugs causing phantasms but had never before known that sexually sinful behavior could promote hallucinations. Because if her wickedest desires had been given free reign to conjure up a man, surely it would have been the man she'd just seen in the mirror.

She peeked over the covers cautiously and stared at the wardrobe.

Why had he been dressed so strangely? His trousers reminded her a little of the thick hickory cloth the men who worked for the railroad wore, but the man's in the mirror had been uniformly dyed indigo blue. She would have assumed those pants marked him as some sort of laborer if it weren't for the short coat he wore made completely of sleek, supple leather.

He'd been so large—not fat, if anything his hips had been trim and narrow—just
big.

Taller than any man she'd ever seen, with wide shoulders and long thighs the size of a sturdy, young tree trunk. She blushed as she recalled how well those blue hickory cloth pants fit those strong thighs. He'd worn an unusual sort of beard that reminded her of the kind she'd glimpsed on Chinese men. It'd been as dark as his hair, short and well trimmed.

Who—or
what
—in God's name had he been?

If everything about him seemed strange and exotic, his eyes had Struck her as wholly familiar. They'd been a singular greenish-blue hue that brought to mind the color of the Mediterranean Sea on a crystalline day. He'd clearly been shocked to see her, just as she was him, but when he'd glanced down over her ever so briefly something else had flashed into those compelling eyes; something even more exciting than the illicit thrill of seeing herself in a Marlborough gown.

After several minutes Hope's heart finally began to slow. She sat up in bed and sighed shakily. Had her bizarre, hysterical episode entirely passed? She felt jittery, her nerves still jangled by the incident. Knowing she wouldn't be able to sleep for hours, if at all tonight, she reached for her book of sonnets on the beside table and flipped it open.

For a long moment, she stared in rising confusion.

Someone had written in a bold hand in the margin of her favorite sonnet
Ryan Vincent
Daire, 1807 S. Prairie Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, 2008.

The book trembled in her hand. The page had been clean just before she'd stood and put on the Marlborough gown. She'd have bet her life on it.

She flipped through the pages anxiously but found no other anomalous messages. After staring at the name, her own street address on Prairie Avenue and the number—surely that wasn't

supposed to signify a year, was it?—for several more minutes, Hope realized that the mysterious writing had been placed directly next to a line from the sonnet. 7

Love is not time's fool.

THREE

Ryan studied a translated statement from a twenty-year-old illegal immigrant who was being extradited. The kid claimed his sister and cousin had disappeared at approximately the same time two men had come to their village in Mexico recruiting men for work in the United States. One of the men fit Anton Chirnovsky's description, the other matched that of a former Colombian drug importer named Manuel Gutierrez. Gutierrez had apparently joined the recruiting division of Donahue's white slavery operation. A file suddenly plopped down on his desk. "You going to explain to me what that's all about or not?" Gail Edgerton asked archly when he looked up. Gail worked in the Computer Crime Research Lab. She'd kindly agreed to do a little digging for Ryan earlier this morning even though her blonde eyebrows had shot up on her forehead in disbelief when she'd seen his written request.

"Thanks, Gail. I owe you one," Ryan muttered as he opened the folder. The words
Hope
Virginia Stillwater, born: 1881, died: 1906
immediately leapt out at him,
She'd been
twenty-five years old when she died? What the hell had happened to her?
Ryan wondered as something that felt akin to panic unfurled in his gut.

"How about if we take you to lunch to return the favor, lovely lady?"

Ryan kept his head ducked when he heard Ramiro. Damn. He hadn't particularly wanted his partner to know about this bit of research he'd requested from Gail. He hadn't expected Gail to bring him the information in person. It was a given that Ramiro would be all over Gail once she came into the vice squad room. Ramiro'd had a letch for the attractive blonde for years, not that Gail ever gave him the time of day.

"You trying to tell me you wanted that information as well, Menendez?" Gail asked doubtfully. "This has gotta be one for the record books. There isn't enough crime in the year 2008, so you two top cops gotta go solving hundred-year-old murders?"

Ryan's head reared up.

"Murder?"

Gail grinned, obviously pleased she was telling him something he didn't know. She tilted her chin at the file. "It's all in there, and you
do
owe me for it, Daire. Extra. I had to call the Chicago Police Department Regional Archives Depository to get information on a homicide from 1906. The guy up there was a real pain in my ass. I think I deserve a lunch with tablecloths and waiters, don't you?"

"Definitely," Ryan murmured evenly, despite the fact that it felt like ice water had just been shot down his spinal cord.

"Nineteen hundred and six? What the hell are you talking about? That doesn't have anything to do with the Donahue case," Ramiro said with a scowl. Ryan deftly moved the file away from Ramiro's fingers when he made a grab for it.

"I think I'm coming down with the flu or something. Not hungry. But I've got a great idea, Gail. Why don't you let Ramiro take you to lunch? You can pick the spot and I'll spring for the check. I really do appreciate this."

Ramiro's attention was instantly diverted. His eyes zoomed over to Gail's face. Gail's expression of slight disappointment deepened to stark suspicion when Ramiro pumped his eyebrows and flashed a white smile, shamelessly using the single, deep dimple in his right cheek to seduce his wary prey.

Gail sighed.

"All right. It's got to be better than the cafeteria food."

"You won't be disappointed, beautiful lady."

"Especially if Daire's going to reimburse you for the check, right?" Gail asked, her amusement tinged heavily with skepticism as she gave Ramiro the once-over. Still, Ryan heard her laughing at one of Ramiro's dumb jokes as they exited the squad room together.

Ryan's stomach growled for its lunch but he turned his complete focus onto the meager file about Hope Stillwater's life.

About Hope Stillwater's murder,
he added to himself grimly.

Ryan lay in the old-fashioned claw-foot porcelain tub and stared into space while the water cooled around him. He should get up and move or his well-used muscles would stiffen and ache. He'd both worked out at his gym and moved a pickup truck full of items from his loft to the Prairie Avenue mansion. It was past midnight. He should go to bed.

Still, he remained unmoving, his mind churning.

The sound of water splashing made his head swing around. Funny. He knew he'd been preoccupied but he hadn't moved. The sound of lapping water followed by what had sounded like a soft sigh hadn't matched with any of his actions. The dim overhead light cast shadows in the corners but Ryan could still see that the large bathroom was silent and empty except for him and his thoughts.

Ruminations about a woman long dead.

His jaw tightened at the thought. He used his toe to turn on the hot water tap and forced himself to relax once again.

She's not dead.

Despite his stubborn, illogical assertion he'd discovered today that Hope Stillwater, of 1807 S. Prairie Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, had been reported as missing by her father on November thirteenth of the year 1906.

"Three days from now—give or take a hundred and two years," Ryan mumbled out loud.

The woman from his dreams had been declared dead four days after her father reported her missing when her severely beaten and disfigured body had been found floating in the Chicago River. For a few seconds the image of her luminescent pale skin, lithesome limbs, lush breasts and curving lips flashed into his mind's eye like a perfectly clear film clip. His muscles tensed.

He couldn't make it work—
couldn't
rectify that breathtaking, vibrant image of stunning beauty with the report of a beaten, bloated, lifeless body.

Ryan hadn't been able to reconcile those erotic photographs with what he'd learned of Hope's background, either. What he'd read about her life seemed to suggest that the bizarre things he'd been experiencing since stepping into the Prairie Avenue mansion must be wrought by an overworked, stressed-out brain.

Hope's father had been rather famous in his day. Gail had made a few photocopies of old
Chicago Daily Herald
articles about Jacob Stillwater, a wealthy minister, social reformer and alderman of the first ward who had campaigned vociferously against the white slave trade and the shutting down of Chicago's notorious red-light district. A few of those articles speculated that his open warfare against graft, prostitution and white slavery had been the motive for the murder of his daughter.

Hope's murderer had never been found, although one man, who had been colorfully dubbed Diamond Jack Fletcher, had been a prime suspect. The police had investigated Diamond Jack, a man one article had called the "King of Vice" of the Levee District, the area where most of the houses of prostitution could be found.

Although Gail had complained about the person at the Chicago Police Department Regional Archives Depository being a pain in her ass, whoever had compiled the data had done an admirable job finding public and police records in regard to Hope's life and death. In fact, the file had included photocopies of old, handwritten notes from a detective on the Chicago police force, a man by the name of Connor J. O'Rourke.

In his notes, Detective O'Rourke described Jack Fletcher as the most powerful crime boss in the city, owner of multiple brothels and gambling dens, extortionist, blackmailer and white slaver. He ruled the first ward and the Levee District with an iron fist. Jack and his cronies conducted the majority of their business dealings at one of his seedier brothels on the 2400 block of South Dearborn Street. Detective O'Rourke had no difficulty painting a black picture of Jack Fletcher in his notes, although he admitted with a hint of frustration that "certain foul circumstances" prevented him from pinning Diamond Jack with the murder of "that angel of mercy," Hope Stillwater.

Ryan had long taken an interest in the history of Chicago and especially the Chicago Police Department. He had a suspicion that the "certain foul circumstances" O'Rourke referred to was the rampant corruption and graft that plagued the CPD's commissioners and captains in the early 1900s. Detective O'Rourke's boss was likely indebted to Diamond Jack for his heralded position and received some healthy payoffs in order to ignore the vast landscape of illegal activities that occurred in the Levee District.

At any rate, if Diamond Jack Fletcher had thought to silence Jacob Stillwater with his daughter's abduction and murder, he'd made a critical mistake. Jacob Stillwater became even more vocal and active after his daughter's death, spearheading a political campaign that eventually closed down the Levee District. Stillwater launched some of the first federal anti-white slavery legislation. Apparently he was one of the pioneers for drafting laws that Ryan upheld even today by investigating scum like Jim Donahue.