Jonas seemed pensive the next day as he walked beside her to Andrew’s office.
“Amelia?” There was a tentative note in his voice.
She turned to him, her eyebrows raised.
“Have you— Have you ever thought about what it would be like to do something else? To leave the club, I mean?”
She gaped at him. “Why would I? Working at the club is perfect for us. Assuming Sabine will have me back, once I’m out of here.”
He was about to reply when one of the ward doors opened and Klafft emerged. Jonas stiffened, a look of guarded alarm on his face. He relaxed once the doctor was out of earshot and looked at her.
“Now that he’s on the mend, we really need to try for his apartment again. I saw him with Connolly at the Union League Club last night. If Klafft can afford the fees there, he’s got far more money than he’s making here.”
Amelia frowned. “What were you doing at the Union League Club?”
Jonas glanced away and began walking again. His voice became studiedly nonchalant. “Having dinner with Sidney.”
Amelia stumbled. Jonas caught her elbow.
“I thought he was in Europe.”
“He’s back.” His next sentence stunned her. “When all of this is over, I want you to meet him.”
Amelia was saved from having to think of a reply by their arrival at Andrew’s office.
The doctor was inside, and Jonas outlined their suspicions about Klafft as Amelia sat mulling over Jonas’s casual declaration. When he’d told her Sidney had left, she’d assumed it meant their affair was at an end. Clearly, she’d been wrong. His talk of leaving the club—that had to be Sidney’s influence. Jonas would never have suggested it, never even considered it, before Sidney came along. And wanting them to meet? He’d never proposed such a thing before. At least she still had a little time before she had to actually do it.
With a pang of bleak amusement at the idea of her current predicament saving her from a tedious social engagement, Amelia wrenched her attention away from Jonas’s romantic foibles and back to the matter at hand: Klafft and his suspicious wealth.
“I agree it’s suggestive,” Andrew was saying, “but it doesn’t mean he’s involved. He could have some other source of income—family money or the like.”
“I’m just saying, he bears watching,” Jonas replied. “It’s clear he doesn’t think much of women, and it isn’t so great a stretch to imagine him being part of the scheme. Remember, Elizabeth said he was the first to examine her after she arrived. He’s exactly—”
Jonas broke off at the sound of footsteps in the hallway and plucked a sheet of paper from Andrew’s desk. He pretended to read it as Tyree appeared in the doorway, his coat thrown over one arm and carrying a valise. It was meant to be his weekend at liberty, although Amelia had assumed he would stay on the island with so many patients ill. It seemed she had guessed incorrectly. Perhaps while he was gone she would get another chance at that dratted lock.
“Headed out for the weekend?” Andrew asked.
“Indeed,” Tyree said, shifting his coat from his right arm to his left to shake the hand Andrew offered. A muffled jangle came from the pocket. His keys.
Amelia straightened and caught Jonas’s eye. He’d heard it, too. Amelia leaned forward, wondering if she dared make a try for them.
“I meant to ask you,” Andrew said to Tyree suddenly, and somehow Amelia was certain he’d known what she was thinking. He was making a credible effort at sounding as if he had just remembered something. “There’s a woman in three whose case I’d like your opinion of. I don’t want to make you miss the ferry,” he went on, “but if you can spare a moment before you go, I would appreciate it.”
Tyree set the valise on a corner of the desk. He laid the coat across it.
Amelia was careful not to look at it as Tyree pulled his watch from his vest pocket and clicked open the cover.
“I have precisely forty minutes before the next ferry,” he said.
“Fifteen minutes, at most,” Andrew assured him, looking at Amelia as he said it. “Just down the hall, a quick look, and right back here for your things. Mr. Vincent,” he said, turning to Jonas, “would you mind remaining here with Miss Casey until I return?”
“Of course, Doctor,” Jonas said.
“Well, then.” Tyree tucked his watch away and gestured to the doorway. “Lead on.”
The moment the two men were out of the room, Amelia plunged her hand into the pocket of the coat and withdrew a heavy ring of keys. By the time Andrew and Tyree disappeared around the corner, she and Jonas were at Tyree’s door. The hallway was empty in both directions.
“Hurry,” Jonas said. “I’ll keep lookout this time and give you a knock at twelve minutes. Tap when you’re ready to come out, and I’ll open the door if it’s clear.”
Amelia’s hands shook only a little as she tried the keys one after another. The third slid into the lock, and it clicked open. She was inside in a flash.
Twelve minutes—less now—until the keys had to be back in Tyree’s pocket. Not time enough to search the whole place. Amelia wasted a second on indecision before turning toward the boxes beside the wall. Andrew had mentioned Tyree was storing Blounton’s belongings. The scrap of paper bearing Julia’s name might have been left behind when the killer removed Blounton’s notes, but it was also possible Tyree had left it behind while cleaning out the desk after Blounton’s death. If the rest of the page was still with Blounton’s things, it might contain the solution.
Amelia knelt beside the boxes and glanced at the knots tied in the string—simple enough to re-create—then opened the first box and scrabbled through its contents.
Books. A bundle of letters addressed to “John” and signed “Mother.” A half-finished reply. The handwriting matched that on the scrap Andrew had found. Definitely written by Blounton, then. There was also a small black notebook, mostly blank. A few telegrams. A note from Tyree, suggesting a time and place for dinner in the city.
Amelia turned to the second parcel. Along with Blounton’s medical bag, it held a small shaving kit—Blounton must have stayed overnight on the island as Andrew sometimes did. There was also a wrinkled shirt and collar and a single cuff link—the mate to the one she’d found in Andrew’s office and used to summon the man—in a little padded box.
Nothing else. Amelia sat back on her heels with a muttered oath as Jonas rapped on the door. The twelve minutes were gone. She’d guessed wrong, and now there was no time to search elsewhere. She retied the boxes and hurried to the door. Jonas opened it at her tap, and she slid back into the hallway. They hurried back to Andrew’s office, where she stuffed the keys back into the coat pocket and resumed her seat.
The doctors returned no more than a minute later. His workweek done, Tyree bade Andrew farewell with a smile, his keys jingling in his pocket as he strode away.
Andrew looked between them as the other doctor vanished around the corner.
Amelia shook her head. “Not enough time for a full search. There was nothing helpful in Blounton’s boxes.”
Andrew slumped against the doorway, disappointment on his face.
Jonas sighed. “I should get back to the wards. I’ve got two hours left in my shift.”
“Hold on,” Amelia said, reaching for a pencil and paper. “I’ve got some more names we can cross off the list.”
The lead of the pencil snapped at the first stroke.
“There should be another in the desk,” Andrew said from his place by the door.
Amelia slid open the center drawer. The familiar photo of Julia was there. But beside it was another, one Amelia hadn’t seen before. Julia, plain and solid, sat on a bench, one arm wrapped around a pretty little girl with golden curls.
Something restless moved at the back of Amelia’s mind as she looked at them. “What’s this?”
Jonas leaned over to look as Andrew walked toward them.
“Ned gave me that one along with the other photograph.”
“You never showed it to us.” She focused on the little girl’s face, then traced it with a finger.
“I didn’t think it was much use, since you can’t really see Julia’s face.”
“This is her daughter?”
“Yes,” Andrew said. “Catherine. Although I believe the family calls her Kitty.”
Kitty.
The word slammed into Amelia’s mind like a mallet, and the restless thing slipped its bonds.
My cat. She’ll wonder where I’ve gone, my sweet little kitty.
Amelia’s blood froze in her veins. The world dwindled to a single, brilliant point of light. It pulsed in time with her thundering heartbeat, and each blinding, infinite flash loosed another revelation.
A woman in a dream, following a yellow cat through a field of flowers.
A woman in a cell, weeping, a stuffed cat at her feet.
A visitor in the night, and a gray-wrapped corpse carried away with the dawn.
My Cat. She’ll wonder where I’ve gone, my sweet little Kitty.
Amelia mouthed the words through numb lips as their import seared through her: They’d failed before they had ever begun.
Julia Weaver was dead.