Page 63 of Killing Time

I’d already tried the door handle multiple times, and it had never budged. I did it again anyway, mostly because I was just stubborn like that.

This time, though, it turned.

For a second or two, I could only stare down at it in astonishment. But then I recovered myself and pushed the dooropen, glancing either way to make sure no one was lurking nearby, just waiting to pounce.

No, that was silly. Whatever horrors Jasper had planned for me, I doubted he would waste his time hanging around in this upstairs hall just to be there when I emerged.

Acting as if all this was the most normal thing in the world, I went to the wide staircase with its elegant, squarely carved balustrade and headed downstairs. I’d already noted that the day outside was much grayer than it had been earlier, and even if it wasn’t snowing now, it would probably start in the next couple of hours.

I didn’t like that idea very much. Unfortunately, though, unlike Addie Grant — one of the “orphan” witches my cousin Jake had found, a woman he’d ended up marrying — I had zero control of the weather.

Come to think of it, I had pretty much zero control of anything.

But I shoved that self-pitying thought aside and headed toward the kitchen, figuring I could raid Jasper Wilcox’s fridge if nothing else.

As I headed in, though, the warm scent of coffee met my nose, and when I entered the room, I saw that the man himself stood in there, leaning against one of the counters and sipping from a big white mug as though he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Did you sleep well, Miss…?” he asked as he lowered the mug.

“Deborah,” I said quickly, then grabbed the most innocuous last name I could think of, one that probably belonged to at least a couple of the civilians who’d married into the Wilcox clan. “Deborah Smith.”

“I see,” he said politely. “Did you have a pleasant night’s sleep, Deborah?”

I sent him a narrow glance from under my eyelashes. This was the first time I’d been able to get a good look at him, and I had to admit the 1940s movie star vibe was still pretty strong, from the heavy black hair combed straight back from his high brow to the long nose and sculpted mouth and jaw. He wore a black argyle sweater and gray dress pants with a white button-up shirt under the sweater.

Yes, he and Lana would have made a very attractive couple. Too bad for everyone involved that he didn’t seem interested.

I’d already been brooding over what had happened to her and Adam, and — for what felt like the hundredth time — could only hope they’d gotten safely away because Jasper had been focused on blocking the highway that led to Payson rather than watching the roads that went back into Flagstaff.

“I wouldn’t call it ‘sleep’ when I was really knocked out,” I said, and he shrugged.

“You were only unconscious during the drive back here,” he told me. “After that, it was a normal enough sleep, albeit one that was magically induced. Coffee?”

And he nodded toward the pot that sat on the big white-enameled stove a few feet away.

Maybe coffee would make me feel a little more human…or at least allow me to better process what was going on with Jasper. He was acting awfully casual for a man who had just kidnapped two women in a row.

Some people might have warned me not to drink or eat anything theprimusoffered, but I knew he didn’t have to resort to such clumsy methods, not when he had so many other magical tricks at his disposal.

“Sure,” I said.

He got another mug out of the cupboard and poured me a cup, then handed it over. “I don’t have any cream,” he said. “Never cared for it.”

No, Jasper definitely seemed like the kind of guy who would take his coffee black.

I didn’t like it that way, but I’d drink it undoctored if I had to. Wrapping my hands around the mug, I blew on the liquid inside a few times to make sure I wouldn’t scald myself when I took a sip.

God knows I already had plenty to worry about without adding a burned tongue to the mix.

“How did you know I would be going that way?” I asked.

“It was the only logical escape route,” Jasper replied. “I doubted anyone capable of stealing Ruby from that hotel room would do something as foolish as drive back through Flagstaff.”

Since his comment was pretty much what I’d been thinking only a few minutes earlier, I couldn’t really argue with him on that point.

“I’m curious, though,” he went on. “How were you able to undo all those protection spells? That would have been some very advanced magic.”

So, he had no idea about Lana’s involvement and thought I was solely responsible for breaking Ruby out. Or rather, he had to guess I had an accomplice of some sort, because otherwise theprima-in-waiting would have been in the getaway car with me, but it seemed he thought I was the one who had unwound all the enchantments keeping her trapped in that hotel room.

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