Page 30 of Killing Time

“That’s my hope,” I replied. “But we won’t know until we get there.”

“Then let’s get going,” he said, and glanced down at his watch. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes before everyone goes to lunch.”

In my experience, a lot of civil servants were already mentally checked out way before they left for the noon meal, but I wasn’t about to quash Seth’s enthusiasm.

I reached for my purse and scooped it up.

“Okay, let’s go.”

It seemed I was probably a little too jaded, because when we got to the planning office, the older woman who was working there seemed just fine with our request, and in fact appeared almost perky as she went off to search through the stacks of blueprints and sketches in the shelves and file cabinets I could see just past the counter.

“We’re probably the most exciting thing that’s happened to her all day,” Seth whispered in my ear, and I had to fight the urge to giggle.

Most likely, he was right.

She came back a few minutes later with several blueprints rolled up in her arms and a file folder full of what looked like different sketches.

“Can I ask why you want to see these blueprints?” she asked, even as she laid them out on the counter in front of Seth and me.

Luckily, I’d noted the architect’s name in the upper left of the top blueprint, so a ready lie sprang to my lips.

“Oh, my husband and I just recently bought a house on Aspen Street, and we were thinking about adding on. A friend of mine suggested Mr. Harkins, so I thought we should take a look at one of his bigger projects.”

It didn’t seem as if the woman thought anything strange about that request, because she nodded at once.

“He’s very in demand. This work was completed almost six years ago, not long after Mr. Wilcox was married and had recently inherited the house from his father.”

I wondered what Jasper had done to the home, since even my brief glance at the blueprints had shown that the house looked to be quite large and not the kind of place that you’d think would need any additions.

“What was the scope of work, if you don’t mind me asking?” Seth put in.

The clerk glanced down at the blueprints. “It looks as though the master bedroom was enlarged and anen suitebathroom added. And there was also the studio.”

“‘Studio’?” I repeated.

Now the woman looked almost sad. If I’d had to guess, I would have said she was probably in her late forties, just like my mother, but her fussy pin-curled hairstyle and flat red lipstick made her look at least ten years older.

“Rebecca Wilcox was a very accomplished cellist, I believe. Mr. Wilcox built the studio for her so she would have a private place to practice.” The clerk paused there, then shook her head. “Poor thing only had a few years to enjoy it, though, since she passed away not long after she had Mr. Wilcox’s son Joseph.”

Joseph Wilcox, who would grow up to one day be Damon and Connor’s grandfather. I didn’t know much about him, although,according to everything I’d ever heard, his son Jackson had been one mean son of a bitch.

Not that I could really blame him. Dealing with an intergenerational curse that effectively made sure he wouldn’t have a mother to raise him would have made anyone cranky.

Otherwise, the tale was familiar enough. Back then, giving birth to theprimus’sson was a guaranteed death sentence.

“How sad,” I responded, doing my best to sound as if I’d never heard the story before. However, since Seth and I were there to supposedly be researching a remodel for our nonexistent house, I didn’t think dwelling on Wilcox family history was the best way to handle the situation. “But Mr. Wilcox was satisfied with Mr. Harkins’ work?”

“Very,” the clerk said immediately, her suddenly brisk tone letting me know she was all too happy to move on to less fraught subjects.

“May I look at the blueprint a little more closely?” Seth asked.

“Of course, sir.”

She pushed the oversized sheet of paper across the counter toward him, and he leaned close, clear blue eyes scanning the layout of the updated and expanded bathroom and the studio Jasper had built for his cellist wife. It looked to be fairly large as such things went, a little over five hundred square feet and with its own bathroom. Rebecca Wilcox could have gone in there for hours to play if she’d wished.

The question was…had she? Just because I had every reason to take a dim view of Jasper and his methods, that didn’t mean he and his wife might not have had a few happy years together.

Until the fateful day she gave birth, of course.

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