The coffee was good, strong and hot, with just enough cream and sugar to take the edge off. Goddess knows I needed it, after getting only about four and a half hours of sleep.
Connor waited until I had taken my first sip before saying, “I have to leave you here for a little while. There are some fresh towels in the bathroom, and I think there should be a bag with a toothbrush and that sort of thing in the duffle I gave you last night.”
Only one word seemed to register fully. “Leave?”
For the first time, he smiled. Just a little, but it reminded me of how he’d smiled at me when I’d believed him to be Chris Wilson, just a cute guy I’d met at a dance. No agendas, no lies. He gave a sort of apologetic lift of his shoulders and said, “I own the gallery on the first floor. I need to open up and get things going. When I have a break, I’ll come back up.”
He seemed awfully confident that I wouldn’t try to bust myself out of here the second he left me alone. Then again, he’d pretty much proved last night that the spells locking me in were more than effective at making me stay put…at least for the moment.
“You don’t have anyone to help with your business?”
The smile faded. “I do have someone who works in the gallery, but she just helps with sales. I’m the only one with keys.”
“You Wilcoxes aren’t exactly the trusting sort, I suppose,” I remarked, then swallowed some more coffee.
He didn’t rise to the bait. “Some of the pieces I have for sale are very valuable. It’s easier this way. So I’ll be back in a while. There are some bagels in the fridge, if you’re hungry.”
So casual, still behaving as if I were merely a friend who’d come over to crash at his place for a day or two. I wanted to snap at him to stop acting so normal, that there was absolutely nothing ordinary about our situation, but I realized there wasn’t much point to that. The situation was bizarre all around. If this was how he wanted to handle it, fine.
Besides, it would be a lot easier to take a shower if he was safely downstairs handling business in his gallery.
“Okay,” I said, affecting an air of supreme unconcern, and began to turn back toward the guest room where I’d slept.
He hesitated, as if he wanted to say something else, but then shook his head and headed downstairs. I waited in the doorway of my borrowed room, listening as his footsteps sounded on the wooden floor in the living room. That wild, strangely melodic guitar music stopped abruptly, and a minute after that I heard the front door shut with a soft, heavy thud.
I was alone.
For some reason, that realization was not as reassuring as I’d thought it would be. I waited for another minute, just in case he came back for something, but it seemed as if he was truly gone, at least for now.
Yes, I needed a shower, but first things first. After taking a large swallow of coffee, I set the mug down on the table. Then I moved over to the window in the guest room and pulled the wooden blinds up and out of the way, pressing my hands against the freezing glass, even as I took in a breath to try one of my unlocking spells. At once an excruciating jolt of energy shot through me, and I backed away immediately, hands stinging and body shaking from the aftermath of my contact with the glass.
All right, so the usual methods weren’t going to work. That didn’t mean I couldn’t try a little brute force. After flexing my fingers to get the worst of the tingles out, I picked up the heavy wooden chair next to the table and went back to the window, then swung with all my might.
The chair bounced off the glass as if the window were made from rubber, the rebound feeling like it was about to pull my arms out of their sockets. Immediately I dropped the chair onto the rug, and reached up to rub my aching biceps. So much for that idea. I had no way of knowing who had cast the containment spell — Damon Wilcox or Connor or someone else in their clan — but whoever it was, they’d done too good a job of it.
On to Plan B. Or Plan C, I supposed.
I went back out to the hall and peered into Connor’s room. It was a good deal larger than the guest room, and had a king-size bed with a dark brick-colored comforter on it. More paintings hung here, but they looked different from the ones I’d seen in the rooms downstairs. These pictures still depicted local landscapes, as far as I could tell, but the style was more delicate, more feminine.
But I wasn’t concerned with Connor’s choices in art. I spied what I’d been looking for — a MacBook Pro sitting closed on the round table beneath the large picture window. Well, all right, I’d been hoping for a phone, but his laptop would do just as nicely.
Luckily, he didn’t have it protected with a password, so when I opened the lid, the screen came alive right away, showing a scene of Mt. Humphreys still topped with snow, but with meadows of yellow flowers beneath it.