Jaclyn the Ripper (32 page)

Annoyed, he dropped his head back on the seat.
What the devil's the point?
He gazed out at the night sky that glowed orange from the reflected light of the gargantuan city. Even if he could discern “Judgment Day,” he doubted anyone would listen. There were already Bible-thumping madmen on television predicting the end, and should he add his voice, the twenty-first-century tabloids would call him a bigger fool than Nostradamus.

“Amber seems awfully nice,” said Amy.

“Right.”

She chuckled. “How did you ever persuade her to become your guardian angel?”

He frowned, gazed tight-lipped out the window, then sighed and told himself that he hadn't come all this way, he hadn't saved Amy just to start another regimen of deceit. “I didn't.”

Amy raised her eyebrows at him.

“You see, she's in love with me.”

Amy stared at him blankly.

“No, no, there was no passade, nothing like that. She knew about you from the beginning, yet she insisted on helping me find you, and thank God for that.”

“Are you in love with her . . . ?” she asked, her voice small.

“No,” he said, “definitely not.”

“Are you attracted to her?”

“Yes,” he said, blushing crimson. “That, I cannot deny.”

“Well,” she said patiently, “it isn't the first time.”

“Yes, but this time it doesn't matter.”

Suddenly, the doors to the taxi opened.

“Welcome to the Four Seasons, sir.”

 

They took a bridal suite on the fifth floor, the desk clerk assuming it was their anniversary since they only had an overnight case borrowed from Amy's mother. H.G. stiffened at the rate, yet insisted on paying in advance. Tight-lipped, peeling off hundreds from the money he'd changed at Xerox's, he realized that two nights at the Four Seasons was ten times more than the advance William Heinemann had paid him for
The Time Machine.

The Wellses dutifully followed the bellboy up to their suite, half-listened to his patter about restaurants and amenities at the Four Seasons and waited as he opened the French doors to the balcony. Next, he turned down the enormous bed, left flowers and chocolates, offered to turn on the Jacuzzi. Amy smiled shyly and nodded. The bellboy complied. H.G. tipped him handsomely, and he finally left.

A silence.

H.G. had been worried that once alone in 2010, he and Amy wouldn't know what to do or say to each other, that there would be this interminable gulf between them, and they would hide behind their familiarity with each other, and that the gulf would become enormous with their collapsed marriage forever lost in between, and that not even
The Utopia
could save them.

He felt Amy's presence. Surprised she wasn't in the bathroom suite, he turned, and then suddenly she was in his arms, trembling and holding on for dear life. His breath whooshed out.
My God, how wonderful, how perfectly wonderful she feels.
His heart surged; he felt warm and whole and connected, and it had been such a long, long time. His worries evaporated; he forgot his obsession with the end of the world. Everything fell away and left him with Amy, such was the power of this woman. He held her tightly, fiercely. He buried his face in her hair and realized that he cared more about her than anything else in the cosmos.

“Oh, Bertie. . . .” Tears ran down her face. “I thought I'd lost you.”

“No, no, never,” he whispered, filled with love for her, driving the terrible knowledge of her death from his brain.
I'll ride the damned time machine like a shuttle to keep her alive and happy in my life, in our boys' lives.
“I was acting like a spoiled child. I had no right to treat you like anything less than the most wonderful woman in the world.”

She smiled through her tears. “You have a way with words.”

“You have my heart in your hands.”

“I'll hold it dearly.”

“As I will yours.”

 

The sound of bubbles from the Jacuzzi broke their reverie, and Amy went eagerly into the bathroom suite. H.G. followed, blissful with the closeness that had blossomed between them. A silly smile on his face, he sat backward in the vanity chair and watched her, in his mind's eye her movements unusually fluid and graceful.
This is not the same woman who ran away from Spade House, is it . . . ? Or is it yours truly who is changing?

Amy kicked off her shoes, added bubble bath to the water and tested the temperature with her foot.

He nodded toward the cut on her arm. “Shouldn't you have a bandage on that?”

“It's only a scratch, Bertie. I took the dressing off this morning.”

“I'll put a new one on if you'd like.”

“Thank you, darling, but it's almost healed.” She smiled radiantly and gave him a breezy, yet meaningful glance.

He took it for what it was.

“I'm so sorry about Daddy tonight,” she said, moving on.

H.G. shrugged. “He's proof that dinosaurs aren't really extinct.”

Amy laughed. “You know, if I hadn't run off with you in 1979, I might very well have ended up in an institution.”

“I would've found you anyway.”

She blew him a kiss, then said, “Isn't Sara delightful . . . ?”

“Only because she looks like you,” he said playfully.

“You're sweet. . . .” She smiled. “You have no idea how wonderful it is to discover that one has a sister.” She began undressing, shedding her modesty with her clothes, her constant chatter: No, she wasn't sorry that she'd come to the future; even if Chichester, the seismologist, had been wrong about the earthquake; she was happy to find her parents alive, grateful she had finally reached an understanding with her father, and when the time came, could say good-bye properly. She went on about the boys, hoping they were all right, though she shouldn't worry because Mrs. Vickers was the best nanny in all of Kent. Finally, she paused, her clothes neatly folded and on the stool.

“We'll be back before we left,” H.G. reminded her.

“Yes, but according to you, that will be in another universe.”

“So it will.”

“Shouldn't we be worried about them now?”

He gave her a bemused smile. “You're much too clever, my dear.”

“That doesn't help.”

“Then why don't you think of them as they are in the universe that we never left . . . ?”

She frowned and stuck out her tongue at him, then turned away to take off her bra.

In deference, he started out of the bathroom.

“Have you ever soaked in a Jacuzzi?”

“No.”

“It's quite relaxing.”

“I'll undress in the bedroom.”

“Don't bother to hurry,” she said mischievously, and threw her panties at him, until now an uncharacteristic gesture.

As he was taking off his shirt and tie, Brahms suddenly greeted him from speakers in the ceiling with a romantic symphony. Startled, he forgot where he was and looked out the French doors for a symphony orchestra, then blushed, realizing that Amy had merely pushed a button on the panel by the Jacuzzi.

“Bertie. . .?” called Amy.

“Yes?”

“What's taking you so long?”

He kicked off his shoes and socks, took off his trousers and padded into the bathroom.

A perfumed steam rose off the bubbles in the Jacuzzi, reminding him of a rite done with incense though no religion, exotic or otherwise, had an altar that could compare to this. Amy had put her hair up and lit a candle, was smiling and sublimely lovely in its warm light.

My God, she's more beautiful than she was just minutes ago, she's beyond herself. Is she Catherine . . . ? Has Catherine come to 2010, as well?
He wasn't quite sure. Until now, he had never gotten more than a glimpse of Catherine before she vanished inside Amy. But if she were indeed Catherine, he was more than pleasantly surprised.
May she remain so.

He took off his glasses and placed them on a chair, groped for the Jacuzzi and started to climb in. She giggled.

“You don't want to get your undies wet, do you, dear . . . ?”

 

“Now I know how Nero felt when Rome was burning around him,” murmured H.G., immersed in the Jacuzzi, bubbles fizzing in his ears. He was utterly relaxed. He felt as if he were melting, becoming one with the water, metamorphosing into a warm, fragrant sea. Every woman he'd ever touched flashed through his brain, and he envisioned himself entwined with one after another here in this magical liquid luxury, yet even their collective sensuality paled in comparison with Amy. Then he felt toes nibbling up his legs.
Speaking of . . .

Her playful touch brought on a wave of sadness, but not because of his passades. Rather, he recalled earlier today in that previous lifetime—getting to Franklin Canyon too late and discovering her body. He wondered if deep in her subconscious she remembered being cut up by the Ripper—if memory could in fact hopscotch between parallel universes. He'd like to think that her murder had been erased permanently, yet given the nature of the cosmos, nothing was permanent, time machine or no. He shook off his melancholia, opened his eyes and almost gasped. He had expected the Amy of old, but, no, it was Catherine again.
True, his vision was blurred, yet he couldn't mistake that translucent aura hovering around her like lace. She was his lover-shadow.
How wonderful. I've never been alone with Catherine. She has never touched me before. Perhaps I should introduce myself.

“Hullo, Catherine.”

“Hullo, Bertie.”

“We finally meet.”

“I thought it about time.”

“I'm glad that you did. . . . So how are you tonight?”

“Floating in goodness.”

“Likewise.”

“Amy went to bed early.”

“Ah, that explains it.” He smiled. “And how is our favorite person?”

Catherine sighed. “Amy is feeling horribly guilty because she's responsible for Leslie John Stephenson coming back from hell.”

“Tell Amy that the only thing she could possibly be guilty of is shooting the messenger.”

“Amy isn't sure what you mean,” said Catherine, perplexed.

“Amy didn't build
The Utopia
in a prolonged fit of unbridled optimism,” he replied.

“Go on.”

“If I hadn't built the time machine, Leslie John Stephenson wouldn't have stolen it in 1893 to escape Scotland Yard. He would've been caught, duly tried and executed at Newgate.”

“So you blame yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Why not blame cause and effect?”

“Cause and effect didn't invent the time machine.”

A silence. Catherine's beauty had turned thoughtful. She blew a strand of damp hair out of her face, and the candle flickered. She sighed, then smiled wisely. “Amy wanted me to remind you that if you don't try to make the world a better place—if you do nothing for fear of the unforeseen—then you become a slave instead of a free spirit.”

“Um,” he said softly and closed his eyes again. “Sometimes Amy can be downright prophetic.”

“Yes, she can.”

“I love Amy. . . . I love Amy with all my heart.”

“As she loves you.”

Her toes walked up his leg, paused on his thigh for what seemed an eternity, and then nudged his penis. Startled, he sat up, his eyes opening wide. “Oh, I'm terribly sorry.” She laughed low. “Please forgive us. We didn't mean to disturb.”

He stirred—as in loins. A foolish grin lit up his face. This woman was indeed his lover-shadow. “Quite all right, Catherine. I doubt these Jacuzzi tubs are endorsed by the Catholic Church.” He captured her feet and began massaging them.

“Mmmm.” She went limp. “Wonderful.”

“Deservedly so.”

She smiled dreamily, then wagged a finger at him. “Amy tells me you haven't made love to her in over a century.”

Jaclyn descended into the underground parking for the Holiday Inn Express on Santa Monica Boulevard, the tires on the Mercedes squealing urgently. She parked close to the lift and got out—smashing the concrete pillar with her door, but she couldn't care less. After Holland had called, she had prepared as if for a religious ceremony. She had leisurely washed Peterson's murder off her body, dabbed exotic perfumes from Heather's toiletry in the right places, brushed her hair until it shone like black sapphires, then slipped into a lavender silk pantsuit sans panties and bra. She had used a Revlon ad from
Cosmopolitan
as a guide when she did her face, finally pronounced herself beautiful.
Should I ever tire of killing, I can always become a cover girl.
A glass of Absolut from the Trattners' bar had calmed her nerves, but now she was randy in the worst way and couldn't wait to get upstairs. High heels clicking, she hurried to the lift, pressed three. It stopped at the lobby for a wedge-shaped giant of a man wearing his cap backward. She assumed he was one of those millionaire athletes from the television—
They must be the rage these days
—and was pleased that he undressed her with his eyes. As she stepped off the lift, she gave him a little flutter wave.

She knocked softly on 317, and her lieutenant let her in, yet as he was coming toward her, she was disappointed. His eyes were hollow, his stance ordinary. He seemed a cut below the man he had been before, his T-shirt and jeans having replaced the more elegant light-brown suit and tie.
Could losing a wife make that much difference or was it merely his wardrobe?
A moot point. He crushed her against him. Already he was hard, and she imagined him gigantic, and that was all that mattered. They kissed, and she explored his mouth with her tongue, promising dark rainbows beyond this, their own little garden of Eden. He broke the kiss and gasped for breath, and she emitted little laughs, dropped her purse by the bed.