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She opened her eyes and gulped in a lungful of air as if she’d been holding her breath.

The station filled her senses as if she had exited another space and reentered the one she sat in. The scent of burnt coffee, the low hum of conversation, the smell of clean wool and Gideon’s juniper shaving soap. He sat next to her, and his nearness was an anchor. She resisted the urge to reach for him.

“Electra?” he said, anxious tension in his tone. “Please say something.”

She reached for him, and he immediately took her hand, as if to clasp it. She dropped the pendant into his palm and pressed a hand to her middle.

“I…saw her.”

“Miss Collier?” Hardy asked.

Electra nodded. “And Miss Delacourt too.”

Gideon handed the pendant to Hardy, and she watched as the A on a chain dropped into the sergeant’s palm.

“They were being watched. Whoever’s memory I was in, he was watching the two of them from across a tea shop. The same one we went to with Seaton. They had cups in front of them and were chatting, seemingly amicably.”

“And then what?” Hardy asked.

“When Miss Delacourt glanced over, the person watching them ducked back. He did not wish to be seen.” Electra glanced at Gideon. “And then I saw another memory.”

“Of?”

“A shopgirl. He approached her and they exchanged cards. I saw her name on her card as he held it in his hand. I believe that pendant may have belonged to a young woman named Aurora Fretwell.”

Hardy looked stunned. His mouth fell open, but he said nothing.

“Fretwell?” Gideon asked.

“I don’t understand,” Hardy finally said.

“Is the name familiar to you?” Gideon asked.

Hardy shot up from his chair and went to a cabinet in the corner of his office, opening the door and rifling through documents until he pulled out a bundle.

“Aurora Fretwell was a young woman found in the bushes of the Victoria Embankment Garden nearly a year ago. The case was never solved.” As he reviewed the documents, he said, “She had marks on her neck, and the police surgeon determined manual strangulation.”

“Any other wounds?” Gideon asked.

“Shallow cuts below her waist. The constable thought they might be a scavenger animal’s scratches, but the police surgeon believed they were deliberate cuts made by a knife or bladed instrument.” Hardy looked at them, eyes bleak. “I should have made the connection.”

“Then the same man killed both women,” Gideon murmured.

“There’s another oddity with Miss Fretwell’s case.”

“Which is?” Electra asked.

“An object found in her possession could not be identified by her family. A small notebook inside of a silver case, inscribed with the initials D. L. B.”

Electra licked her lips and thought of the feelings that had overtaken her when she’d held the pendant. Had the killer placed a previous prey’s belongings with the next young woman whose life he’d stolen?

“Were there any cases involving a young woman with those initials?”

Hardy’s eyes had taken on a stark, haunted look. “Three years ago when I was transferred to E Division, the detective inspector was attempting to solve the murder of a young woman named Diana Braxton, a young dressmaker who left work one evening and wasn’t seen again for several days.” He swallowed thickly and settled hard into his desk chair. “I must search for her file and determine her middle name. When I investigated the Fretwell case last year, I never thought to connect the notebook to her.”

“The case remains unsolved?” Gideon asked.

Hardy nodded. “I think of it sometimes, that it was a case we could never crack. It was the first case I worked on as a detective here at E Division.”