Page 36 of Killing Time

Seth’s brows drew together. “So that means they could be hiding Ruby in one of those smaller towns, or even on a ranch somewhere.”

“It’s possible,” I replied. “You’d think Jasper would want to keep her closer than that, but it’s a lot easier to get around now than it would have been in the 1880s or even in your time. No, Route 66 isn’t as fast as a real freeway. Still, it’s probably only anhour drive or so to get to Winslow and even less time than that to reach Williams.”

“But if she’s on a ranch or something, she’s going to be really hard to track down.”

I definitely liked that possibility the least. Although I knew the Wilcox clan owned plenty of land in this part of the state, I had absolutely no idea how many individual ranches had existed in the 1940s or how reachable any of them might be. Also, Seth and I would be totally conspicuous trying to make a rescue attempt in a place like that, whereas even in a small town, we’d have a bit more cover.

“That’s the problem,” I said. “Even if we were somehow able to get a complete list of all the various Wilcox holdings — and I don’t see that happening, despite how helpful the people at City Hall have been so far — we’d have a hell of a time trying to investigate all of them in the next eight days.”

Technically, it was nine days until the dark of the moon, but since it was going to happen in the middle of the night, we didn’t have as much time to work with as we would have liked.

“Let’s think about this logically,” Seth said. His fingers were still wrapped around mine, comforting and real, but all the hand-holding in the world wasn’t going to fix our current predicament. “It has to be someplace private. It has to be a place where they won’t have to worry about neighbors or passersby noticing that a young woman is being kept there. Ideally, it would be a spot that no one else knows about.”

As soon as he spoke that last sentence, I wanted to smack myself in the head.

How could I have been so stupid?

Now that it had surfaced in my brain, the answer seemed almost painfully obvious.

“I know where,” I said, and immediately Seth straightened, his grasp on my hand tightening just a little.

“Where?”

“The cabin in the woods outside town,” I said. “The one where Samuel Wilcox shot my father.”

Although Seth seemed cheered by my theory, I could tell he didn’t want to jump straight into a rescue attempt without analyzing the situation further.

“They still own the place in the 1940s?”

“We still own it in my time, remember?” I replied. Back in 1884, I’d explained to him that my mother had gone to the cabin for some peace and quiet, and that was where she’d seen my father’s ghost…and come up with the plan to go back in time and save him. “No one lives there — it’s just a place we use as a sort of vacation getaway. From what I’ve been able to tell, I get the feeling it’s been used that way for decades and decades. After all, the Wilcoxes would much rather have their fancy houses in town for daily living. But it sure seems like the perfect spot to hide Ruby.”

For the first time, a small crease appeared between Seth’s brows. “But wouldn’t she try to get away?”

“I’m sure Jasper has plenty of people watching her,” I said. “And I’m also sure he’s got the cabin warded up the wazoo.”

Seth’s frown only deepened at my comment, but, as with so many other more modern idioms I’d used over the past few weeks, he seemed to decide it was better to let it go.

“Then how will we get close?”

“Well, they won’t know we’re witch-kind, for one thing,” I replied. “And I know the land around there pretty well.”

His gaze grew speculative. “Wouldn’t it be better to teleport right into the cabin, grab Ruby, and go?”

That would be the easiest thing to do. But….

“Even with the amulet’s help, that could be hard, considering you’d have to go in without me to get her and I’d have to meet you later,” I pointed out. Although neither of us had had the time to really test the limits of what Seth could and couldn’t do with his talent when it was enhanced by the amulet’s powers, I didn’t know for sure he’d be able to blink out of the cabin while holding on to two full-grown women in addition to transporting himself. “Also, getting inside might not be as simple as you think.”

“Why not? You’ve been there, so you can just draw me a sketch of the cabin and I can take us there right away.”

Again, not as easy as he wanted to make it sound. “The problem is, the cabin’s been added on to and remodeled a lot over the years. I have no way of knowing whether the place I’m familiar with is anything close to the way it looks right now in 1947. But,” I went on, doing my best to forestall any worried comments on Seth’s part, “I’ve hiked there a lot, and I know the woods around there couldn’t have changed much because a lot of that area is on Forest Service land and no one can develop it. I think it would be better to teleport to a spot in the woods and then reconnoiter from there.”

His lips pressed together, and I could tell he wasn’t hugely thrilled with this alternate plan, thinking it would be better to blink in and blink out and be done with it. But since neither of us knew whether he was even capable of such a thing, it just made sense to be cautious.

One thing was for sure, though — the skirt and hose and black pumps with their cute ankle straps I currently had on were not the sort of thing I wanted to wear while tromping around in the woods.

Did they even have outdoor shops in Flagstaff in 1947?

I supposed we’d find out soon enough.

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