Page 56 of Killing Time

“Won’t people figure out sooner or later that Ruby got away?” Seth asked. “That is, it seems as if most people in your clan know of his plans.”

“They might have heard of them,” she replied without even blinking. “But that doesn’t mean they’ll know he was actually successful at taking her from Jerome. The only people who know that for sure are those in his inner circle.”

I shot a dubious look at Adam. “You’re in his ‘inner circle’?”

He seemed almost sheepish. “I wouldn’t phrase it that way. Jasper tends to be a little closer with those of us who work for Northern Lumber, since the company has been in the family for nearly eighty years now, and he has a vested interest in the whole thing. But he knows that I don’t agree with what he’s done here. Not at all.”

His tone was so firm that I guessed it would be better not to probe too deeply. As Seth and I had discussed earlier, we’d already rolled the dice on trusting Adam Wilcox. Questioning his motives now wasn’t going to improve the situation.

The waiter came by then to inquire about dessert, which we all declined. By mutual agreement, our little party broke up soon afterward, with Adam insisting on paying the bill and Lana looking on in some amusement.

And since we’d already agreed on what we needed to do the following day, Seth and I went out to the car and drove back to the hotel. Both of us were subdued, and I knew I was starting to have a little buyer’s remorse, wondering if we should be jumping into this so quickly, thinking maybe we should have taken more time to plan.

No, this was the right thing to do. The longer we waited, the greater the chance that Jasper might move Ruby to some other hidey-hole. Also, if the escape attempt got botched somehow but we were able to get away, we’d still have time to regroup and come up with a different plan. Waiting until the last minute would only lose us a chance to pivot.

My thoughts rattled around, and when we got to the hotel, Seth still didn’t say anything, and instead only held my hand as we rode up in the elevator. Once we were inside our room, though, he finally spoke.

“You’re worried.”

“Aren’t you?”

“A little,” he admitted, and then shrugged off his overcoat so he could hang it up in the closet. “But Lana seems confident.”

“I have a feeling she’s confident about pretty much everything.”

He chuckled. “You’re probably right. I wonder if Jasper wasn’t interested in marrying her because he’s a little afraid of her.”

Somehow, I had a hard time imagining that black-haired warlock being afraid of anyone or anything, but I had to admit I didn’t know anything about how he interacted with women. I supposed part of the reason abducting someone like Ruby might have appealed to him was that he thought it would be easy to overpower someone so much younger than he.

Well, except for the part where it sure didn’t seem as if Ruby would ever allow someone to overpower her, even if he did happen to be a Wilcoxprimus.

“His loss,” I said. “I don’t have much respect for men who’re afraid of strong women.”

Smiling, Seth came closer and took my hands in his. “Strong women are what make the world go ’round.”

“Damn straight.”

We kissed then, the faint afterglow we had from our wine with dinner making it seem as though the smartest thing we could do in that moment would be to fall on the bed and kiss one another, over and over again, until at some point our clothes were on the floor and we were just two naked bodies pressed together in the darkness. Reassuring to feel him against me, in me, our contact letting me know it would all be okay.

It had to be.

That Thursday felt like one of the longest days I’d ever endured, even though Seth and I found a movie theater over on San Francisco Street and managed to use up a good chunk of time by going to a double feature, one that also included a newsreel and a couple of cartoons before the main event began. Too bad we couldn’t have really gone to the Grand Canyon, but those plans had obviously been canceled.

But at least we walked out of the theater just a little before four o’clock, the perfect time to retrieve our car from where the spot where it was parked near the Weatherford and to point it east toward Winslow. Seth and I had already decided that I should be the one behind the wheel, since that would give me a chance to get familiar with the Chevy before I had to drive it all the way back to Jerome by myself.

Due to our lack of cell phones, I had no idea whether Lana had left Flagstaff or not. We’d already planned to meet near that gallery room on the upper level, the one closest to the spot where Ruby was being held, so it wasn’t as though we had to worry about trying to connect with her in the parking lot at La Posada or anything.

As we were driving, though, I kept looking in my rearview mirror, wondering which car on the road might be hers, and what kind of vehicle she would even drive. Probably a convertible of some sort; she seemed like the sort of person to go around town with the top down and a silk scarf covering her head, her eyes shielded by sunglasses. She might not have been an actual movie star, but she sure looked like one.

But I didn’t see any convertibles, and I supposed that even if Lana did drive something that flashy, she might have borrowed a less conspicuous car from a friend or relative. Even doing that would have been problematic, though, since she would have been tipping them off that she needed a different vehicle that day, for whatever reason.

The sun had slipped behind the horizon, and a hazy, purple dusk had settled over the landscape by the time Seth and I pulled into the parking lot at La Posada. Several more cars were parked there than we’d seen the day before, but I told myself that wasn’t so strange, not with it now being Friday and more people probably on the road.

Maybe it was better that way. Anything that might help us to escape notice had to be a good thing.

We walked into the hotel as if we had every right to be there, although we bypassed the reception desk, where another couple, maybe ten years or so older than the two of us, were talking to the clerk. Glad of his distraction, we headed toward the rear corridor, where we could take the stairs up to the second-level gallery.

Lana was already standing there, studying the Navajo pottery on display as if it was the only reason for her to have come to this level. Not looking directly at us, she said, “The spells are powerful, but I’ve already begun unwinding them. It should be only a few more minutes.”

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