“I’ve repaired the wards around the house, by the by,” Kincaid said, following her train of thought effortlessly. “Not quickly enough to keep Mr. Hartgrave here, alas, but I was too distracted to think how fully they must have been breached. Your work, I assume. Impressive. Unfortunate, but impressive.”
She gaped at him for just a second before dashing to the nearest wall and pressing her hands against it.
Nothing. No spells.
“They’re on the outside of the house,” Kincaid said in a kindly sort of way. “Now then—shall we?”
“There’s no reason I should trust you,” she said.
“I haven’t harmed you. Surely that’s one reason.”
She rubbed her forearms, trying to stop shivering. Where was the vicious wizard Hartgrave had led her to expect?
“Come along, Dr. Daggett,” Kincaid said.
And she did. The front door was upstairs, so maybe, just maybe, she’d have a chance there. Hartgrave could be waiting for her even now in the tiny clearing.
Kincaid stood aside to allow her to go up first, but then he sucked in a breath and rushed behind the stairwell. “Jack!”
She’d completely forgotten. Guilt gnawed at her as he unfastened the man’s bonds and gag.
“Mr. Hartgrave’s work, I assume,” Kincaid growled.
The constant undertone of the motion-detector alarm stopped. Someone must have switched it off.
“Sir!” A vaguely familiar voice. “Sir, are you here? Something’s wrong—”
“Gwendolyn—the basement,” he bellowed. “Hurry!”
The woman who appeared was either Crawford or Shaw, the one whose long, fiery hair had made her think of Rose Red. Crawford-or-Shaw saw her and stared, mouth open. “What ... ?”
“This is the young lady we were trying to rescue,” Kincaid said.
“Rescue!” Emily cried.
But he’d already barreled onward in the quickest of introductions: “Emily Daggett, Gwendolyn Crawford. Now help me see to Jack! He’sinjured.”
“Of—of course,” Crawford said. Her face was a picture of confusion and alarm.
Emily gripped the railing as the distressing scene unfolded. The wizard Jack was still unconscious. Kincaid lowered him carefully to the floor, exclaiming over the blood on his face. Reminding herself these were terrible people didn’t much help.
She took a small step forward. “Is there something I could do?”
“Yes.” Kincaid fixed her with a gaze that seemed to take her measure. “Go to the kitchen and fetch a glass of water. Up one flight of stairs, straight down the corridor.”
She almost gasped. Had he ordered her out of his sight—alone?
“Right,” she stuttered, and ran up the steps to where the only thing that stood between her and freedom was a door.
She leapt at it, trying to calculate the time it would take to run across the lawn and into the forest. Not long. She’d be out of sight in this darkness before the motion-detector alarm would bring Kincaid and his deputy outside after her. She could do it. She’d get out, and then Hartgrave—
Your source of information is suspect.
The words sounded even worse in the recollection. She paused, hand on the doorknob, nothing moving but chill sweat down her hairline.
Anyone who had seen only the events of the last half-hour—anyone uninfluenced by emotions about the players involved—would insist Hartgrave was the villain, notKincaid. Which of them callously left the man down there for dead, and which was trying to save him? Who destroyed tonight, and who mourned?
She tried to pull herself together. Kincaidkilledpeople.
