Betrayal from Beyond (The Kier and Levett Mystery #6)

Prologue

Kingston upon Thames

“B ack so soon, miss?” Mr. Norrey gave her a nod.

Miss Katherine Prentice blinked at the owner of Kingston Larder and Goods. “Yes. The weeks do seem to pass quickly, don’t they?” Moving quietly through the shop, she selected a jar of treacle, a tin of tea, and a sack of dried currants. She hovered over the rack of chapbooks, but reluctantly moved on and took her purchases to the counter.

Mr. Norrey began to pack them into a basket with brisk efficiency. “Going out into the market today, miss? Shall I have this sent out to your cottage along with the goods you picked out this morning?”

Katherine froze. Swallowed. “Yes, of course,” she said faintly. “Thank you.”

“Enjoy the market, miss,” he said cheerfully. “Be sure to stop by Mrs. Hayview’s. My nose tells me she’s got her famous ginger cake available today.”

“How lovely.”

The shopkeeper handed over her items and took her payment in exchange. As she was turning away, he looked up suddenly.

“Oh! Will you be wanting to pay for this morning’s goods now as well, miss?”

A shudder of dread made its way up her spine. “I… Uh… I… No, thank you. Not now.”

Katherine dashed out of the shop, but did not set out to explore the market as she had meant to. Instead, she headed back the way she’d come, back to the little stone cottage that had become her retreat.

The man’s comments—could they mean what she feared they did? She’d been later than usual with her shopping this morning because she kept pausing, losing track of what she was doing. Something felt…off. She kept looking over her shoulder, expecting to find someone there.

The loud bustle of the busy village faded as she hurried along the river path. The Thames grew narrow through here. It rushed by, swollen from all the recent rains. There was only a bit of birdsong to compete with the noise of the current, moving fast and full. The air was crisp, but the sun shone bright.

All in all, it was too light and cheerful to match the shadow that had settled over her.

Had it come at last? The day she’d feared and waited for?

She spotted the evergreen shrubbery and bare branches and shoots of her mother’s garden ahead as she rounded a curve in the path. She’d spent the last weeks cleaning the winter debris, readying the garden for spring and summer. The little plot had been her mother’s pride and joy. Katherine had made it a habit to come here at this time of year to remember, to care for the garden her mother had loved, and to honor her memory.

The bank leading down to the river was steep at this spot, and it gave out into deep water. Over the years, the path alongside had veered away from the water. The vantage on the turn allowed her a better view of the cottage—and she noticed suddenly that the door stood open.

Her steps slowed. Her heart began to pound. She knew she had closed that door.

The little stone house had been an oasis, a place of comfort and rejuvenation. Now the open doorway beckoned her like the empty, hungry maw of a restless spirit.

A chill crept up her spine. Something was not right. The eerie feeling returned. She started forward again, moving slowly.

But—no. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t go in. She considered turning, running back to the village, but she decided to speed up instead. To go past the cottage as if she were in no way connected to it. She kept her gaze forward and her head high. She was moving quickly when she heard a noise behind her.

She turned—and gasped as she discovered the ghost standing directly behind her. Perhaps it was the wrong word, but it felt right. It was the living representation of what might have been.

“Good morning,” it said brightly. “You have yourself a charming little place here, don’t you?”

Not a ghost at all, perhaps. A trickster. Enemy, her heart whispered. It recognized the guile, the threat that lived behind those familiar eyes.

“You should have come to me. Back then, when I invited you.” The figure spoke in flat, disapproving tones.

“I did come.” She frowned. “I mixed in with the crowd. I listened. I saw you.”

A hint of respect showed. “I never knew you were there.”

Katherine shook her head. “It was too much hate for me. Too much vitriol. All of you—you had plans to tear everything down, but no word or whisper for how you meant to build it back up.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “I could see it. You meant only to stir up trouble. To get your revenge, and to line your pockets along the way. That’s no way to live.”

“No way to live,” the trickster echoed her before turning away to contemplate the water rushing by. “You grew up in the city, right on the river. What was that like?”

She gaped. “How do you know that?”

“I know a great deal about you.” A side glance. “Not much of it is impressive.”

Katherine raised her chin. “I daresay I climbed higher and accomplished more than you, if you take into account where we each started.” It had rankled, in fact—when she had discovered the truth. When she had learned about all the vast opportunity and knowledge she’d missed out on.

“Perhaps you are right.”

“What was it like, you ask? It was difficult. Unsteady. There were booming times and lean times. My father carried all sorts of people across the river. He moored at the Vauxhall Stairs and ferried the lords and ladies in their fancy dress, hiding behind their gorgeous masks and dominoes. But I preferred the men he carried at the Lambeth Stairs. The businessmen and priests, the supplicants to the archbishop, the clerks and secretaries and speakers and members of Parliament who were heading to Whitehall and Westminster. Those men knew things.”

The trickster nodded. “You wanted to know things.”

“So help me, I did,” she whispered. “When I was young I wanted to know the how and the why of everything, but as I grew older I only wanted to know how to help my father when the steam packets stole his business. I wanted to know why he was forced to add on work for the Customs Office. I wanted to know how we were going to live, who was going to help us when he was injured, fighting in one of their smuggler’s raids.”

Her enemy turned and met her gaze directly. “Somebody helped you. You went to see him , then. After your father was injured. And that’s when your parents moved here from the city.” It was a statement, not a question.

Katherine nodded. It had been a desperate move, but it had ultimately paid off.

“How did you do it?” The trickster seemed genuinely interested—and perhaps a little impressed. “How did you get near enough to actually speak with him?”

“I watched him. Learned his routines. Hired a group of street urchins to make a ruckus and distract his servants—and I climbed into his coach and waited.”

The trickster waited for her to continue.

Katherine’s mind went back to that moment. Her heart had pounded then as it did now. “I might have been anyone. A prostitute. An enemy spy. An actress sent by a political rival to start a scandal. An assassin. But he knew, almost the moment he climbed in, sat down, and faced me. He only stared at me, quite calm.”

The trickster turned away, crossing to the far side of the path, moving into the green swath beside it. “He must have said something.”

“Eventually, he did speak. Which one are you? That was all he asked.”

Her adversary’s head rose at that. Something dark flared behind those eyes. “And what did you answer?”

Katherine threw her shoulders back. “I told him I was the waterman’s daughter,” she said, her tone deliberately ringing with pride.

Her enemy’s lip curled. “The waterman’s daughter, so foolish that she never learned to swim.”

Before she could answer, the trickster reached into the tall grass and came up with a long oar in hand. Before she could puzzle it out, her enemy rushed her, held the oar high and horizontal and struck her hard with it, pushing her back. The bank dropped quickly away beneath her feet. There was nothing to stop her, nothing to grab on to. Her arms whirled, and she fell backward into the river.

The water closed over her head. She sank down, down, and finally her feet struck the bottom. She pushed off, rising until her head broke the surface and she could gasp for breath. “Help! Help me!”

She’d already been swept a few feet down river. She was going under again. She flailed, fighting the heavy drag of her skirts, trying to stay afloat. Her enemy stalked her, gripping the long oar.

She reached up a hand. “Please!”

The oar extended, heading toward her. She reached toward it and slipped under the water once more. She let herself drift down so that she could push up again. It was a slower rise this time. When she broke the surface at last, the oar pushed her down again.

No. She tried to grab it, but it was snatched away. She went under again. No . She fought, reached out, and found a root extending beneath the water. She gripped it desperately, tried to use it to pull herself closer to the bank, but the oar was there again, the edge sharp against her chest, pushing her away.

She was still being dragged by the current. She watched in horror as she swept by the cottage, her enemy still following, watching, waiting. She couldn’t stay afloat. She swallowed river water and panicked, fighting to keep her face out of the water, but her heart was nearly as heavy as her sodden skirts. The rushing water pulled her out further toward the middle. She kept sinking, and it grew harder and harder to push up, to reach the surface. At last, she failed to make it and knew it was over.

The last thing she saw through the watery veil was the trickster, standing high on the bank and smiling down on her defeat.