Darknight(36)

I waited until we were both inside and he’d gotten the engine going and the heater running before I asked, “Just how rich are you?”

He let out a sound that almost sounded like a snort. “Whoa. Are you after me for my money, Angela?”

I shot him a pained look.

“We do all right,” he replied as he backed the SUV out of its parking spot and then headed down the alley. Just after that we turned onto a one-way street, and then another, until we were out on the main road.

The side streets hadn’t been plowed yet, and I noticed Connor had engaged the four-wheel drive and then kept it slow.

We cut through an area of mixed residences and small businesses, then turned onto Highway 180. Well, it called itself a highway, but as with 89A back in Jerome, it was really a two-lane road. Here there were heaps of snow piled up along the sidewalks, and I couldn’t help pitying the poor snow plow drivers who had to get up at o’dark-thirty on Christmas morning to make sure the streets were clear. At that point we were heading out of the town, toward the snowy peaks to the north and west of Flagstaff proper. I wondered where we were going, and hoped Connor wasn’t planning to take me cross-country skiing or something.

“Just all right?” I pressed.

Although the highway was plowed, it was still slick and treacherous. He didn’t take his eyes off the road as he replied, “What does it matter?”

“I’m just curious. I mean, the McAllisters are certainly comfortable, but we’re not riding around in brand-new Range Rovers, either. Just part of the whole flying-under-the-radar thing.”

“Let’s just say we have a different attitude about that.” He paused at a stop sign, then turned right. Here, the road wasn’t plowed, and we were back in four-wheel drive as we headed up the steep, narrow lane. “If people in our clan have the power of seeing, then we don’t have a problem with using that power to…help things out a little.”

Which I supposed was his way of saying that there were people in his clan who could see the future and use that knowledge to play the stock market or bet on horses or whatever it took to generate some extra income. One could say it was a victimless crime — I mean, I sure wasn’t going to shed any tears over someone taking advantage of a few Wall Street types — but that just wasn’t how we McAllisters did things.

Oh, well, Dorothy, you’re not in Jerome anymore. I shrugged and said only, “Well, it seems to be working for you.”

He grinned. “What, no lecture on the immorality of us Wilcoxes using our powers for selfish gain? You must be tired.”

I stuck my tongue out at him and turned to look out the window. Dark pine forest surrounded us now, the branches of the trees only lightly dusted with snow, but the ground beneath them was obscured by what looked like at least two feet of drifts.

The badly paved lane gave way to…nothing. Well, I supposed in the summer it was probably gravel, or maybe even dirt, but right now we were just plowing our way across virgin snow. I gripped what Sydney liked to call the “Jesus handle” on the roof of the SUV and hoped that Connor knew what he was doing.

To my relief, he stopped the Cruiser a minute or so later. “I’ll come around and open the door for you,” he said. “The footing can be a little tricky.”

I didn’t protest. The last thing I wanted was to climb out of the SUV and slip and slide down the mountain. Or hill, I corrected myself; off to my left I could see the top of Humphreys Peak, probably several thousand feet above where we were, wisps of cloud sitting on it like a halo, and so I knew we weren’t on a mountaintop. Not technically, anyway.

Snow crunched as Connor came around the back of the vehicle, then paused on my side and opened the door. “Here you go,” he told me, reaching up to take my hand and help me down to the ground.

Those rubber-soled boots had been more a prescient purchase than I’d imagined. Even with his strong fingers holding mine so I wouldn’t lose my footing, I could still feel my feet begin to slide and then catch as the treads on my boots finally gained a purchase. I clung to him as we walked a few paces away from the Cruiser, then asked, “So what are we doing here, exactly?”

“Look,” he said, and used his free arm to make an expansive gesture toward the pine woods around us, the looming San Francisco Peaks, the glistening snow banks. Here, you would never think you were close to a city of sixty thousand. We might have been the only two people in the world.

“It’s beautiful,” I murmured. Funny — I never thought I’d use that word to describe the home of the Wilcox clan, but it was true. This didn’t look like Mordor at all.