Chapter One

In which our heroine meets an occultist and is mysteriously transported to another dimension.

Since the night I traveled to 1890, I’ve tried not to obsess over where I might have turned left instead of right, or not opened a door that should have stayed closed. Perhaps if I were a Sex in the City kinda girl, things would be different. I can’t imagine ever chatting about shoes or my romantic escapades over mojitos. I don’t think I’ve even had an escapade—aside from being thrown back in time. I don’t drink mojitos, whatever they are.

It’s not that I never had a boyfriend or alcohol, but the guys I met and beer were alike—you knew what you were getting into, and that the effects wouldn’t last long. You were best to combine the two. You could blame the sex on the booze and pretend you didn’t care about the guy. A loathsome existence, I know. My theory was, a female cop’s odds of meeting a straight, attractive nonfelon in New York were about as good as a large meteor dropping into the Hudson.

I went to Central Park on a hot August Saturday night fantasizing about a Tom Hanks You’ve Got Mail type guy strolling with his dog—not that I ever thought Tom Hanks was hot. Yeah, that’s just how it worked out. I met a guy all right, and he’s way hotter than Tom Hanks.