As it turns out, whoever said "you can't focus on the future when you're living in the past" didn't know the half of it. Ask history professor Patrick O'Connell, who is learning the hard way that fresh starts in life rarely come without complications. Moving out of the small apartment the university found for him to become the caretaker of Julia Wirth's beautiful old house in Portland's West Hills, Patrick quickly finds that there are two not-so-small problems with the arrangement. First, there's Julia's granddaughter, Rachel, who is determined to help Patrick move on from his divorce. But her persistent-if not entirely unwelcome-attentions are the least of his worries, it seems. No, the far bigger problem is that, in Julia's house, the link between past and present is much more than simply a matter of history. And when Patrick finds himself drawn back to 1929 to solve the long-forgotten murder of Julia's father, he can't be certain whether his actions will keep history on course, or jeopardize the futures of the very people he's trying to protect. --Back cover.