“August was also there the day Eliza disappeared. I saw her go into the moors with Cordelia. He came out of the stables, where he’d been with you. He went after them.”
“Yes, he did. He attempted to join their walk in hopes I’d come along, which would please Eliza. Yet Cordelia sent August back before they even reached the path. He was with me until my sister returned hours later after losing Eliza, and he stayed at my side as we searched.”
I consider, and then I say, “Who took Teddy upstairs that day to see Cordelia?”
“Harold. And yes, I am certain of that.”
I pause. Then I say, “I’ve seen Harold carry a body into the moors.”
His head jerks up, eyes blank with confusion.
“I saw him bury a body out there,” I say. “Then, I was led to it. That’s what happened this morning. I was led into the moors to find the body of a young woman.”
“Eliza.” Pain shadows his eyes.
“I’m sorry.” I lay my hand on his knee, and he takes it, our fingers entwining. After a moment, I say, “I’m sorry about Eliza, but I’m even more sorry that it wasn’t her body I found.”
His gaze lifts to mine, a line creasing between his thick brows.
I shift uneasily, the distance between us suddenly vast and awkward. I don’t want to tell him like this. I want to climb onto his lap and hug him before I confess that his beloved sister is long dead. Yet that feels wrong, as if I’m inserting myself into a hole in his life. She is gone, but you still have me.
I inch forward until our knees touch. Then I clasp his hand tighter, his fingers warm in mine.
“I found Cordelia, William.”
He rocks back so suddenly our knees bash, and I have to catch myself before I fall.
“No. That isn’t—” William shakes his head. “I’m sorry if you found another poor girl out there. That must have been terrible. But Cordelia left. Harold took . . .”
The words trail off. Three beats of silence follow. Then his eyes meet mine again, dawning horror in them.
“Harold took her to the rail station,” he says, his voice barely audible.
I don’t speak. I can’t. I just wait. I hold his hand in mine, and I watch him, and my heart breaks as I see him putting the pieces together.
“You say you saw Harold . . .” He swallows. “You saw him with a young woman’s body. Carrying her into the moors.”
“Yes.”
“You found . . .” His eyes close, and he shudders.
“I found the body that Harold buried,” I say softly. “He carried her wrapped in a shroud, and that is what I found. Her body in a shroud.”
He shakes his head. “The private detective I hired . . . He was lying to me, wasn’t he? Giving me scraps and promising more if I kept paying his fees.”
I nod. “It was Cordelia I found, William. This was on her finger.” I lift the ring I took from Cordelia’s body, and the jewels catch the midday light. “Is it hers?”
“Yes. It’s part of a set. I got the necklace for my future wife. She got the ring.” He trails off, as if remembering where I found this family ring.
“Cordelia . . .” he whispers.
In the silence, his hand grips mine.
“You fought with your sister,” I murmur, “and you told her to leave. You gave her money. You rode into the moors to get away from her, and when you returned, Cordelia and her things were gone, and Harold . . .”
“He was coming back from driving her to the rail station. Except that wasn’t where he took her, was it?”
He shudders, and again, it takes every bit of strength not to go to him. I just keep holding his hand as his thumb strokes mine.
I know now what his fight with Cordelia was about. I’ve felt the answer prickling at the edges of my mind.
There is a third solution to this puzzle, and it’s the only one that truly fits.
Did it make any sense that William sent Cordelia away after a simple argument? Didn’t tell her to get out of his sight temporarily but gave her enough money to leave forever?
Earlier, this had poked at my mind, whispering there was something wrong with William’s story, a whisper amplified by Cordelia accusing him of her murder. A whisper that wondered whether they’d fought, and there’d been a shove, a slip, some unintentional blow in the heat of the fight, and Cordelia died.
Yet there is another explanation. One I didn’t see until now. And the more I think about it, the more certain I am, with horrible clarity, that I finally have the answer. The terrifying, tragic answer.
“You fought,” I say softly, “with Cordelia.”
He says nothing, just keeps staring into the past. He’s lost there in a place I can’t reach him. A place he’s never entirely left.
“Can you tell me more about it? Please?”
His gaze lifts to mine, such dread and grief and sadness in his gaze.
“You need to tell me what it was about,” I say. “I think you realize why.”
He nods, the movement barely perceptible. Then he says, his voice a whisper, “I would never have let her leave if I thought she truly had . . .” He swallows.
“She killed Eliza, didn’t she?” I struggle to keep talking, to wrap my head around this new theory. “Cordelia led Eliza into the heart of the moors and left her there to die. That’s what you fought about. You’d found proof and confronted Cordelia with it.”
He shakes his head. “Not Eliza. August.”
“August?” I frown.
“Harold caught Cordelia taking rat poison from the stables. He warned me she had it. Warned me she was planning something, and it was not killing rats. I thought he’d lost his mind. And yet . . .”
He pauses. “And yet, I did not relieve him of his post, which proves that I was grappling with fears and doubts myself. The next day, Cordelia brought lemonade to the barn, a cold drink for August, teasing me that I could fetch my own. My suspicion sparked immediately. While bringing her fiancé a drink may seem a small and ordinary kindness, it was not the sort of thing my sister ever did. She was . . . ill-accustomed to considering the needs of others. Still, though, I told myself I was being foolish. I took the glass myself. As I lifted it to my lips, she knocked it from my hands. I quickly sent August away on some pretext. Once he was gone, I confronted her. She denied it, obviously, told me I’d gone mad. Then I demanded the truth about Eliza. I always suspected Cordelia lied when she said Eliza wandered off. Not that she’d hurt her intentionally, but that she’d played a trick. Snuck away to give Eliza a fright.”
William continues. “That’s all I thought it was. My sister’s sense of humor could be cruel, and I suspected she’d played a trick that had gone horribly awry. I even felt sorry for Cordelia, saddled with that guilt. But after August . . .”
He takes a moment before continuing. “My accusation caught Cordelia off guard, and she accused me of wanting Eliza gone myself. She didn’t admit to anything, but the way she said it told me the truth. That she was responsible for Eliza’s disappearance. And that it wasn’t an accident.”
My stomach clenches, and in my memory, I see a girl chasing after her brother. I remember William’s face when he spoke of Cordelia, exasperation mingled with affection. Seeing that, I’d longed for a sibling myself, an older sister to trail after, a little brother to dodge and spoil. Now, I see a very different look on William’s face—a pain so deep it takes my breath away, and I steel myself for what comes next. What must come next.
I rise, take a deep breath and say, “Cordelia Thorne, I accuse you in the deaths of—”
An invisible hand grips my arm. I twist to pull away, but a jolt of electrical shock hits me. I dimly hear William shout, “Cordelia!” and then I’m yanked through time and pushed hard, landing on the sitting room floor in my own world.
I leap to my feet and spin to face Cordelia.
“Cordelia Thorne—”
“No! Please.” She lunges toward me but stops short, her hands hovering in front of my mout
h, as if fighting the urge to physically silence me.
Tears shimmer in her blue eyes. “Please, listen to me. Just listen. He’s tricking you. Accusing me of his crimes. If you name me their killer, Eliza and Teddy will never be free. This is their only chance. Please.”
“I believe William.”
Her ghost pulses, anger sparking, but she reins it in with a deep breath. “You love him. I understand that. I did, too. Deeply and completely. But I’m the one who confronted him with his crimes. That’s why he killed me.”
“And Teddy? Harold sent him up to see you. You said Teddy never knocked, but he did, didn’t he?”
“No, he did not. Harold . . .”
She trails off, and I can see her mind whirring.
“Harold murdered him?” I say helpfully. “But if that’s true, then William didn’t kill Teddy, did he? You led Teddy into that passage, Cordelia. You pushed him down that hole, and closed it up and planted his coat in the moors—”
“A mistake,” she blurts. “Yes, that was my fault. I showed Teddy the hole, and he leaned in too far. He died, and I panicked and put his coat by the bog.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe you pushed him, playing a cruel prank. You didn’t expect him to die, but he did. So you planted his coat to hide your crime. No one suspected a thing, and Teddy was gone, no longer stealing William’s time. Then, when you were older, you remembered how easy it’d been, and you set your sights on Eliza. You talked her into walking in the moors, and you told August not to follow. Then you abandoned her there.”
“I did not. We became separated—”
“You abandoned her, hoping she’d become lost and die. An ‘accidental’ death, like Teddy’s. Except Eliza found her way back, and you chased her in again and murdered her.”
“I did not—”
“You murdered her. You have killed—or tried to kill—everyone who came between you and William.”
“No!”
The word slices through the room, and Cordelia’s face twists in rage. And with that look, a memory slams back, and I know I’ve seen this face before. On the ghost who woke me twenty-three years ago.
The ghost who woke me that night, the one responsible for my uncle’s death, the one responsible for my stay in a mental hospital.
Cordelia Thorne.
36
Recognition punches me in the gut, and I double over, gasping. I look up to see Cordelia in her rage, and the memory flashes fresh and new, released from whatever bonds held it.
That night twenty-three years ago, I woke to Cordelia’s face, twisted with hate and fury, spitting at me to leave William alone or she would destroy me. I hadn’t recognized her at the time. When I’d caught glimpses of her in his time, she’d been a girl of ten, and this was a young woman more than twice that age. I’d looked at her face and seen William’s bright blue eyes, only twisted in unimaginable hate, and it had terrified me.
I’d run from Cordelia, and my uncle had died, and my battered mind remembered the connection to William even when I’d forgotten it, twisting that into a subconscious certainty that my visits to William had caused my uncle’s death. I’d broken some cosmic law, and my uncle had paid the price.
That wasn’t what happened at all. I’d enraged a little girl by stealing her brother’s attention, and centuries later, as a ghost, she’d seen me passing through time to visit him, figured it out and tried to stop me.
Now she’s come for me again to turn me against her brother. Only, I’ve uncovered her secrets, which means I can banish her forever, and she can’t allow that.
“You killed Eliza,” I say. “You killed Teddy, and you killed my uncle. Cordelia Thorne, I accuse—”
The air sizzles between us, and Cordelia disappears. I say the words anyway. When nothing happens, I begin to make my way upstairs, every muscle tensed for her to reappear.
I crest the top of the steps. As I do, something flickers by the linen closet.
I stop. Then I say, “Theodore Wakefield, I name you, and I name your killer as Cordelia Thorne. You are free—”
Teddy bursts from the closet door so fast I fall back. He stands there as clear as when I saw him outside with August, wearing the same clothing but streaked with dirt. He rushes at me. I stagger back, but he only catches my hand. I feel his touch as a faint chill, like being seized by a cold breeze. He tugs me toward my room.
“Quickly,” he says. “You must go quickly.”
I stumble after him through the door into my room.
He wheels and grabs both my hands, cold enveloping them.
“Now go!” he says. “Back to William.”
He shoves me, and I tumble through time, landing in a room that, for a moment, is unfamiliar, as I stare at a writing desk.
My new office.
William’s old bedroom.
No sooner do I think that than William roars downstairs. “Where is she?”
A voice responds, female and urgent, but pitched too low for me to catch more than the sound. I remember his last word as I disappeared.
Cordelia.
He’d seen her. As she was pulling me through, he’d caught a glimpse of her, and now she’s with him.
“Either you tell me what you’ve done with Bronwyn—” he begins.
Cordelia cuts him short with protests that I’m fine. She swears I am, but he keeps asking, panic lacing his voice, the panic that something has happened to me, and he can do nothing about it because I’m no longer in his world.
I could be dead, and he won’t even know it unless she tells him.
His worst fear come true.
As I scramble to my feet, Cordelia begins to tell him that she took me away so she could speak to me alone and set the record straight. But I wouldn’t listen, and so now she’s appealing to him.
“You killed me,” she says. “You made a mistake. You thought I was a murderer, and you killed me for it. I understand why, but now you must listen—”
“I did not kill you.” His voice has changed. Tension still raises it an octave, but he’s fighting for calm. Threats haven’t worked, so he’s trying something new. I slow my steps as I listen.
He continues, “I sent you away. I gave you money and told you to get out of my life, and I have regretted that ever since. But I did not kill you.”
Cordelia’s gone quiet, drinking in his words like water in the desert. He regrets sending her away. He did not kill her. It is exactly what she longs to hear.
I stand poised on the steps, listening. This is what I need. Let him calm her so I can name her crimes.
William continues, “I thought you were alive, out there somewhere. Harold said he’d taken you to the rail station with your trunk, and I believed him. Others saw him driving the coach through the village.”
“Because you paid him to do so. Constructing your alibi.”
“I rode off after our fight. You saw me go.”
“You must have come back.”
“Must have?” He pauses, as if assessing. “You do honestly believe I killed you . . . because you didn’t see who did.”
“I went to the stable. I planned to ride after you, but you struck me from behind. I never awoke.”
“You saw me ride off, Cordelia. I know you did. You were in the yard, and I all but rode you down.”
“You pretended to ride off in a temper so you could circle back and kill me.”
“Silently circle back? My saddle has enough metal to ensure anyone walking in the moors hears me coming.”
I begin making my way downstairs, step by step.
Keep her calm, William. Please.
“I-I do not know how you came back silently,” she says, “but you managed it. You returned and struck me over the head.”
“That was Harold. When I came home hours later, you were gone, and he was returning in the coach. He said he had taken you to the rail station, and I believed him.”
“Why would that old man kill me?” she says. “I was his mistress, and I
did not ill-treat him.”
“He saw you take the rat poison. He must have heard me accuse you of trying to poison August, and he decided I was wrong to send you into the world where you could hurt others.”
Was that Harold’s motive? Perhaps partly. But I think it was more about protecting William. Cordelia would never have left her brother. She still hasn’t. She will forever try to come between him and anyone he cares for.
I will not say that. William has extended a kindness Cordelia doesn’t deserve, and I understand why. What good does it do to rage? There is no punishment he can inflict on her. William only wants her gone. Gone from this place. Gone from our lives. If kindness will achieve that, then I’ll swallow my gall and let her have this small mercy.
I take another two silent steps.
“You did not kill me?” Cordelia says.
“I could not, no matter what you had done.”
A sigh and a rustle of fabric, then sobbing, as if she’s collapsed against him.
“You can be at peace now, Cordie. That’s what I want. For you to be at peace.”
“I will be,” she says. “We will be. Together.”
A ragged, choking breath.
William. Gasping. Choking.
My feet tangle as I race down the steps, shouting, “Cordelia Thorne, I name you as the killer of Theodore Wakefield and Elizabeth Stanbury.”
A thud from the other room, and I imagine William falling to the floor, getting his breath, as Cordelia disappears. Then another thump. A crash, and I realize that’s not what I’m hearing at all. It’s William, fighting for his life as his sister tries to kill him.
I run faster. “Cordelia Thorne! I name you as the killer of Theodore Wakefield! Cordelia Thorne! I name you as the killer of Elizabeth Stanbury!” The words come out in a rush as I tear through the parlor.
I fly into the kitchen, and that’s where I find them. Cordelia holds William’s face between her hands. Her body shimmers and glows, that glow snaking around William as he gasps, his eyes bulging.
A Stitch in Time Page 28
