Ripped, a Jack the Ripper Time-Travel Thriller

by Shelly Dickson Carr

  “Katie?” Her father’s baritone voice broke into her thoughts. “Truly, honey. Why all the tears? Is everything all right?” He looked so unbearably worried, it pierced daggers into Katie’s heart.

  “Everything’s fine, Dad. I was just . . . missing . . . you. And I had . . . er . . . this horrible premonition that something happened to you . . . and mom.”

  He lowered his head thoughtfully and Katie noticed the hint of a double chin. She remembered him saying that all the men in his family—when they grew older—had a tendency to have jowls. When they grew older.

  “You’re going to grow old, Dad. I promise,” Katie said aloud, though she hadn’t meant to. It just popped out.

  “Well, I plan on it!” His hazel eyes twinkled with amusement. “Now, sweetheart. Why don’t you introduce me to this young man hovering in the doorway. And if he’s in any way responsible for my precious girl’s tears, I’ll string him up.”

  “No. He’s not responsible for anything. That’s just Toby. The other Toby. I mean . . . er . . . Tobias Becket.”

  “The other Toby?” Her father’s eyebrow shot up. “How many Tobys do you know? How many boys in London do you know? We just arrived yesterday.”

  “Toby is . . . um . . . related to a friend of mine from school. He’s British. I mean, she’s British . . . my friend at school. She asked me to look him up.”

  “Really?” Her father smiled.

  “We’ve been communicating on Facebook-of-the-Future, sir,” Toby said quickly, striding into the room and extending his hand. “It’s a sort of time-travel, social-networking portal.”

  “Then you’re a better man than I, Gunga Din. To quote—”

  “Kipling, sir. And why is that, sir?”

  “Yes. Kipling. Nice to see young men still read these days. You’re a better man than I because my own daughter defriended me on Facebook. Imagine! If I were a fighting man, we might have to duke it out with fisticuffs.” Again, the twinkle in her father’s eyes.

  He was trying to be funny.

  Katie laughed. Her father’s humor used to drive Courtney crazy. She and Katie would roll their eyes at him. Now Katie was laughing so hard that happy tears streamed down her cheeks. She threw her arms around her father’s neck and hugged him all over again. “I love your jokes, Dad. I always have. All of them. Even if they are—”

  “Fantabulous?”

  “Fantabulous.” Katie squeezed harder. She used to squirm when he used that word, especially in front of her friends.

  “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she whispered in his ear.

  Looking over his shoulder, Katie caught sight of Lady Beatrix’s portrait hanging above the mantel—instead of in her bedroom as it was when this longest day of her life had begun. Clutching her father’s arm tightly in her own, she tugged him across the room to the fireplace. Katie wasn’t about to let go of him, not even for a nanosecond. She stared up at the oil painting, with its brass plate that read “1865–1933.” It was completely finished, but the signature was still missing.

  “Dad? Did you know Whistler painted this?”

  Her father chuckled. “If that were so, lambkins, we’d be millionaires. No. It was probably done by one of those second-rate portrait painters back in the nineteenth century. It’s a shame it was never signed, though. Maybe you and Grandma Cleaves can take it on that Antiques Roadshow program. Might be worth something after all. But Whistler? I highly doubt it.”

  Katie met his amused gaze then swiveled her eyes back to the painting. Faded, with tiny cracks in the surface, Beatrix’s face appeared more animated and happier than the earlier rendition. There was no arrogance or defiance in the tilt of her chin, no hint of accusation in those dark blue eyes—so dark a blue they were almost black—just like Courtney’s. And in this painting, unlike the other, Lady Beatrix’s expression seemed suffused with wonder and a sparkling sort of contentment. Katie smiled. Beatrix must have found happiness. The world had been good to her.

  “It’s amazing how much she looks like Courtney,” Katie said, taking in the beauty mark above Beatrix’s top lip.

  “Who?” her father asked.

  “Lady Beatrix. In the portrait. She looks just like Court—” but Katie stopped herself. “Courtney? As in the lead singer in the Metro Chicks? . . . as in your daugh—”

  “Is that one of those girl bands?” her father asked, peering up at the painting. “You know I’m a die-hard Tom Petty fan. Stuck in the past, as your mother says. What sort of music do they play?”

  “Dad! Dad, look at me! Do you know anyone named Courtney? Anyone at all?”

  “Don’t think so,” he said. “Funny you should ask, though. That’s the name your mom almost gave you. She loves that name. Always said she was going to name her firstborn daughter Courtney. But when you came along, we went the traditional route and named you after your grandmother.”

  Katie’s pulse raced. Dread spiked through her body as she frantically scanned the photographs lining the bookshelves. Framed in silver, not one family photo included Courtney.

  Courtney’s not here!

  Katie gritted her teeth against a violent wave of nausea. Bile rose up her throat and she tried hard not to gag. The dark, ugly truth of what she had done loomed in front of her like an oncoming train. With sudden clarity, she remembered that her parents had been visiting Aunt Pru in Paris when Courtney was conceived. But if Prudence Farthington never married Collin in 1889, generations of little boys named Collin and girls named Prudence had never been born! Aunt Pru never studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. Therefore, her parents never visited her there!

  My sister doesn’t exist!

  “Dad?” Katie cried, holding both his hands so tightly in her own she could feel the gold band of his wedding ring digging into her fingers. “W-what if you had a moral dilemma—a terrible, terrible decision to make—and you didn’t know what to do?”

  “That’s an interesting question, Katie. I suppose . . . after weighing all my options . . . I’d try to do what I thought was right.”

  “What if you didn’t know what was right?” Her voice held a pleading whimper.

  Her father raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  Katie bit her bottom lip so hard it drew blood. “What if . . . you had two daughters . . . not just one . . . and you could save the oldest daughter—but you’d have to give up your own life—what would you do?”

  “But I don’t have two daughters.”

  “Hypothetically, Dad. What if it was me? What if someone with a magic wand came along and told you I could live . . . but you’d have to forfeit—”

  “My life?” Her father looked thoughtful. “I’d do what any man who loves his child would do. I’d gladly sacrifice anything for my children. If I had just you or if I had ten. It’s hypothetical, I know. But I’m your father. I’d trade my life for yours any day of the week. But as that’s not going to happen, Kit-Kat, let’s not hear any more of it.”

  “But what if I had to make the decision?” Katie wailed, the urgency in her voice growing louder.

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “What if I could keep you and mom alive . . . but I had to sacrifice others . . .”

  Horizontal lines creased his forehead. “Katie. My sweet, sweet Katie. When faced with life-altering decisions, you need to look into your heart. Always choose the hard right over the easy wrong . . .”

  The hard right over the easy wrong. Those were Mrs. Tray’s words.

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  Illness and Loss say the Bells of Charing Cross

  Two hours later Katie was standing in front of the London Stone at Madame Tussauds, tears streaming down her face as Toby, towering next to her, clamped his hand over hers and guided her trembling index finger toward the pitted hole in the Stone.

  “It will be all right, luv. You’re doing the right thing.”

  Katie smiled weakly. “You sound like your great-great-grandfather.”

  “Give him my regards, eh?” Tob
y winked and kissed her softly on the cheek.

  “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m not.”

  “But what if—”

  “Do you want to take that chance, Katie?” Toby inclined his head. “You’re already starting to fizzle in and out. Like a doomsday sparkler. You don’t have much time.”

  Katie looked down at her hand, then her wrist. It was as if the molecules in her skin were dancing.

  “If you don’t go back and change things to the way they were, there’s no guarantee your parents won’t die in a car accident tomorrow or the next day. And then where will you be? You’ll have lost your parents and your sister. Not to mention your aunt and cousin.”

  “You don’t understand. If I do this, I’ll lose my mom and dad all over again.” Katie yanked her finger from his grasp, scooped up her backpack from the floor, and raced out of the glass-enclosed room.

  Half blinded with tears, she shot down the hall toward the bank of stainless-steel elevators, past the Old Curiosity Gift Shop, and didn’t stop running until she came to the Chamber of Horrors where fake candles flickered on either side of the arched entrance, throwing shadows on the neon sign above:

  The Demon Duchess of Devon

  The most notorious murderer in British History!

  Enter If You Dare!

  Katie blinked at the sign. It should have announced the Jack the Ripper exhibit. But I can’t go back, she told herself. I won’t. Her heart pounded furiously against her ribcage. Behind her, flush against the wall facing the entrance, was the Victorian-style bench she had sat on with Toby so long ago . . . another lifetime it seemed. She took a deep breath and made her way to the bench, but stopped midway and tugged out her iPhone. Pressing the Safari app, she Googled Jack the Ripper.

  Her hands shook, making the iPhone jiggle in her fingers, but she kept scrolling and searching, all the while trying to ignore the fact that the molecules in her hands seemed to be jumping, absorbing and reflecting light. Like an optical illusion.

  Katie scrolled faster. The only hit she could find about Jack the Ripper was a short passage from an obscure religious periodical stating that in the year 1888, a murderer dubbed Jack the Ripper by the London press was believed to be a Cockney officer at Scotland Yard named Major Gideon Brown. “Brown’s short killing spree ended when he drowned himself in the Thames out of remorse for his evil doings.”

  Major Gideon Brown, Katie thought. He was innocent, and I helped kill him!

  Feeling sick to her stomach at the thought of Major Brown, Katie sank down onto the bench. She felt the thump-thump-thump of her heartbeat pounding furiously against her ribcage, the queasy clenching of her stomach. Drawing her knees to her chest, she closed her eyes and pressed her eyelids into her kneecaps until she saw black spots.

  She thought about her parents, who hadn’t died in a car crash on their way to pick up Collin . . . because Collin had never been born.

  Aunt Pru had never been born.

  Courtney had never been born!

  At the sound of heavy footfalls, Katie glanced up and saw Toby striding toward her, his duster coat rippling in his wake like a Victorian cape. And as he lowered himself onto the bench next to her, dull light from the fake candles at the entrance to the Chamber of Horrors made long striations in the hollows below his cheekbones.

  A minute later, a group of school children scampered down the dark hallway, their voices high-pitched and excited as they pushed and jostled and lined up to see the Demon Duchess of Devon.

  “Way cool!” came a little girl’s voice at the front of the line. “A real live ax murderess!”

  “Double-cool!” came another young voice.

  “Is she real?” asked a boy.

  “No, William.” This from a school-marmish woman dressed in a navy skirt and blazer. “These are just wax figures.”

  “But she was real in the old days?” the boy persisted.

  “Yes, William. Now remember, children. The Duchess of Devon was a wicked young woman, but she deserves our pity, not our condemnation.”

  A snicker rose from the group, followed by a giggling whisper: “Teacher said condom! Teacher said condom!”

  “Are we going to see her dead body? Are we?” came William’s eager voice, shrill and excited.

  Katie watched the children plow through the archway, their high-pitched squeals fading as one by one they disappeared into the exhibition chamber. Murder and mayhem seemed to thrill all ages, all genders, all centuries. Whether it was Jack the Ripper or an ax-murderess, murder knew no boundaries.

  Toby, slouched on the bench next to her, turned penetrating eyes on her. “For what it’s bloody well worth, Katie, I know exactly what you’re going through.”

  “You don’t know,” Katie whispered, fresh tears pricking her eyes. She pounded the bench with her fists. “How could you possibly know what it’s like to lose your parents a second time? I can’t do it, Toby. I can’t go back in time and have them die all over again.”

  Toby leaned in closer. A lock of dark hair fell across his forehead. “A year ago I lost m’dad, Katie. He fell off a frickin’ scaffold, painting a house. That was his job. He was a house painter. I never told this to anyone, but after he died I came here—well, not here, but the Victoria and Albert, where the London Stone was on display. And I traveled back in time just like you.”

  “I know that, Toby. You told me the last time we sat here, on this exact bench.”

  Toby swiveled his eyes up and down the dark hallway, then clamped them back on Katie’s face. “We’ve been down this frog and toad before, have we, luv? Sitting on this bench? In this exact Loch Ness? Just you and me? Bloody hell. Thought I was going rental.”

  “Rental?”

  “Mental.”

  “Loch Ness?”

  “Mess.”

  “Don’t tell me . . . frog and toad?”

  “Road,” they both said in unison.

  Katie smiled through her tears. “We were here. Sitting just as we are now—only the Chamber of Horrors was a multimedia exhibit about Jack the Ripper. You were blowing smoke rings from an imaginary cigarette.

  Toby grinned. “Sounds Isle of Wight.”

  “Isle . . .”

  “Right. Sounds right.”

  “Isle of Wight. Got it.” Katie swallowed hard, remembering the other Toby. The long-dead Toby. “You look so much like him.” Her gaze took in his strong nose, wide mouth, dark eyes. “Except for the nose . . . you look just like your great-great-grandfather.”

  “Had a god-awful fireman’s hose, did he?”

  “Not such a bad nose. Just a broken one.”

  “Bit of a Molly Coxer, was he?”

  Katie nodded. “He was a bit of a boxer, yes.”

  “Shall we do this, luv?” Toby entwined his fingers in hers. The skin on her hands was settling back now. It looked less jumpy. Soon I won’t be able to go back.

  “In life, as in death,” Toby said, leaping to his feet, tugging Katie up with him, “there’s always a soupçon of pleasure and rain.”

  “A what?”

  “Soupçon means—”

  “I know what it means.” Soupçon, along with pedantic, was one of Katie’s vocab words this week. “I meant pleasure and—” Katie stopped herself. She knew instinctively what pleasure and rain meant.

  Pain.

  “Toby. I’m not going back to the nineteenth century. I can’t. I won’t. I’ve made up my mind.” But she tightened the grip of her fingers, interlaced with his.

  “Okay, lass. Close those beautiful mince pies of yours and think back to what your father said to you. His exact words. Remember?”

  Katie closed her eyes and envisioned herself back in the library at her grandmother’s, standing in front of the fireplace with her father. After he told her to always choose the hard right over the easy wrong, he had hugged her and whispered the old English nursery rhyme he use
d to recite to her.

  If wishes were unicorns

  Maidens would ride

  If you call forth dead ancestors

  They shall abide

  But long ago ghosts

  From their graves shall collide

  So if wishes be unicorns

  Please do not ride.

  Then her dad had held her at arm’s length and said with a touch of wistfulness, but in the kindest voice imaginable: “Beware of what you wish for, Kit-Kat.”

  “Because it might come true,” Katie had whispered back.

  Chapter Sixty

  Once a Wish, Twice a Kiss, Thrice a Letter, Four Times Something Better

  Dizziness. Searing hot pain.

  Katie tugged her finger out of the fissure in the London Stone and made a dive for her backpack on the floor.

  Had she done it?

  Had she changed things back to the way they were?

  She tore open the nylon flap at the top of her backpack and rummaged frantically through the contents, then unzipped the front pocket and finally found it. Her cell phone. She tried to scroll through her contacts, but her palms were so sweaty, the phone kept sliding through her fingers like a bar of soap.

  Get a grip!

  She spied the empty water bottle in the mesh side pocket of her backpack. Her mouth was cotton-wool dry, her throat parched, her hands sweaty. I’d kill for a mocha Frappuccino!

  Kneeling on the cold tile floor, Katie tried again to scroll down her list of favorite contacts.

  And there it was! Courtney’s cell number.

  Katie let out a giant sigh of relief and raised her hand to high-five the air. My sister’s alive! But an image of her parents’ car crash popped into her head, and her throat closed up. She gasped hard, trying to fill her lungs with air, sputtering and coughing. When she was finally able to take a normal breath, she glanced around. There was no smell of gas fumes in the air, only the musty, mothball odor of the museum.

  The hard right over the easy wrong reverberated in her head.

  Katie hoisted herself to her feet.

  Her feet.

  She looked down.