Page 26 of Killing Time

Seth supposed that made sense. “If it’s on Aspen, we can walk there, right?”

“Yes.” Devynn paused to put a hand up to her hair, as though trying to determine whether it was still too damp to take down. It must have met her approval, because she headed back into the bathroom so she could start removing the curlers and the hairpins that had held them in place.

He followed and paused by the doorway. It was fun to watch her take out the curlers one by one and set them on the counter, and to see the more structured waves they’d left behind. While her hair was still probably a little longer than most women in this era would have worn, it did look more polished, and he thought the new style would certainly help her pass muster.

“Did you want to head straight over to city hall?” he asked next, and she wrinkled her nose.

“No, I want to get some breakfast in me first. There’s a café just down Aspen Street that’s been there forever, so I’m hoping it exists in this time. If not, I’m sure we’ll find something else. We passed lots of restaurants yesterday.”

That they did. Still, he hoped the café she was thinking of was there, just because it would be fun to sit down in a place that had survived in the same location for more than a hundred years.

“All right,” he told her. “The sun’s out, so I’m not going to worry about an overcoat, but you might want to bring a sweater.”

“Already planning on it.”

Soon enough, they’d left their hotel room and taken the elevator to the lobby, where Devynn told him to turn right out the front door and keep going for another block. Just as they were passing an alley that separated two large brick buildings, however, her hand clamped down on his arm, and she murmured, “Oh, my God.”

“What is it?” he asked, alarm sending unwelcome tingles of worry through his limbs.

“Across the street,” she said in the same undertone. “It can’t be him…canit?”

As best he could, Seth followed the very small tilt of her head.

His stomach clenched.

The man was Samuel Wilcox.

But no, that was impossible. As far as Seth had been able to tell, Samuel had been right around thirty when they’d had the displeasure of meeting him in 1884. That would have made him in his nineties now, while the man across the street looked as if he might be twenty-eight or twenty-nine at the most.

And although he didn’t want to stare, he couldn’t help noting a few subtle differences — how the stranger’s hair wasn’t the same coal black that Samuel and Jeremiah — and Jasper — shared, but a dark brown a shade or two lighter. Also, as he talked to the man running the newsstand where he’d stopped,his expression was open and friendly, and he even grinned and clapped the newsstand worker on the shoulder as if in response to some joke.

Seth couldn’t claim to have known Samuel Wilcox very well — thank the Goddess — but he was fairly certain he would never have seen their former adversary behaving in such a jocular way with a civilian.

“The resemblance is crazy,” Devynn said. “But obviously, it’s not him. I guess I just sort of freaked out there for a moment.”

“I can understand why,” Seth replied. “This must be his, what…grandson?”

Her arched brows — now darkened slightly with some sort of pencil — drew together for a moment. “Probably his great-grandson. You know how people in witch clans tend to get married early.”

For some reason, that piece of speculation made Seth feel a bit better. Maybe in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter so much, but having the man across the street separated from Samuel by one more generation made him seem much less close to the not-so-pleasant ancestor who’d been their nemesis.

The man finished his business at the newsstand and continued along the sidewalk, heading toward San Francisco Street.

“Should we follow him?” Seth asked, and Devynn nodded.

“We’d be stupid not to,” she answered at once. “But we’ll need to stay on this side of the street — it would be way too obvious if we crossed now.”

Again, that observation seemed sensible enough. The two of them walked along, doing their best to carry on a conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with their real reason for being here in Flagstaff, commenting on the restaurants where they might like to eat, discussing when would be the best day to go visit the Grand Canyon, depending on the weather report.

As far as Seth could tell, the man wasn’t paying any attention to them at all. He nodded and smiled at several people as he walked along Aspen Street, showing all the confidence of a man in his element, surrounded by those who’d known him for years.

It wasn’t too surprising, considering Seth knew he felt just about the same way when he roamed around Jerome.

He had to admit that he wasn’t too surprised to see the Wilcox warlock cross San Francisco Street and enter the building he and Devynn had identified as the home of Northern Lumber Holdings. No doubt plenty of Wilcoxes worked there, keeping up the guise that they earned their money just like any regular civilian and weren’t instead sitting on vast troves of generational wealth.

Devynn paused with him at the southwest corner of Aspen and San Francisco. “Well, I suppose that’s that.” She slanted a glance up at him, her eyes taking on that dancing glint he knew all too well. “Unless you want to go inside.”

“Talk about walking into the lion’s den,” he replied, and she chuckled.

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