Time Crossed: A Time Thief Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet) by MacAlister Katie Page B

jerked the wheel in the opposite direction, pissing off the car behind me. “Right. Krispy Kreme it is. But when we get there and it’s closed, and there’s no entrance to Anwyn, you guys will owe me a great big apology. And a hot chocolate. With extra whipped cream.”

Chapter Three
    The fireworks were over, but Gregory Faa felt as if he’d been caught in some sort of residual whirlwind that left him baffled, intrigued, and with an overwhelming sense that he’d just been duped.
    “And I don’t like that feeling,” he announced after arriving at the spot where his cousin’s wife, Kiya, was sitting on a small woolen blanket.
    “What feeling?”
    “That someone has just pulled the wool over my eyes—a lot of wool, at least three or four sheeps’ worth. Perhaps a small flock.”
    Kiya scrunched up her nose, pursed her lips, and looked thoughtful. “That’s kind of odd, isn’t it? I mean, you’re not the easiest person to pull the wool . . . over . . . on. That got mangled. How should I end that sentence?”
    “—on which the wool can be pulled. At least, that seems a fairly grammatically correct version.” Gregory scanned the area, but didn’t see his cousin. “Where’s Peter?”
    “He went to the north gate to watch for the lady you guys are after. I’ve been stationed here with this”—she showed him the blurry printout from a security camera that showed a short, round woman stuffing a tiny elderly woman into a blue sedan—“and strict instructions that if I see either woman, I’m to call Peter immediately and not attempt to talk to the lady myself.”
    “I take it you haven’t seen anyone?”
    “Lots of people, but none who look like this lady.” She studied the picture for a moment. “She doesn’t look like a kidnapper.”
    He continued to scan the crowds of people moving to and fro in the night, many of them beginning to drift out of the park now that the fireworks were over. “Finding her would be so much easier if it was daylight. There would be fewer people about, for one.”
    “Ah, but then your canny kidnappers seldom flee to parks with their victims when they would be noticeable. In fact, I think it’s downright odd that she came here to begin with. I mean, why? Why would you go to the trouble of kidnapping an old woman out of a nursing home only to take her to the park?” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure she really kidnapped the woman?”
    “I’m not sure of anything yet. The only thing we know is that a police report came across the radio, and they gave her name as being attached to the car.” Static and unintelligible conversation burst out of the small electronic device concealed in his pants pocket. He pulled the police scanner that all Watch officers used when a case involved someone who wasn’t a denizen of the Otherworld, listened for a moment, then shook his head. “The mortal police are still trying to find her car. Thought they had spotted it, but it turned out to be someone else.”
    “So she’s still in the park?”
    “To the best of our knowledge, yes.” He made another visual sweep of the area, mentally cursing the fact that he and Peter had been in the area when the call came through that one of “their” cases had suddenly come to the attention of the mortal police.
    Why hadn’t he left Wales two days ago, after arresting the man who had killed Gwen? The memory of that day rose up in his mind again, just as it had approximately every hour for the last two days, the sight of the broken, bloodied body on the rocks before him driving him to do the unthinkable—steal time.
    His shoulders slumped.
    “You’re not still brooding over what happened, are you?” Kiya’s voice penetrated both the soft night air, and the dark, twisted cloud of his thoughts. With a gesture of surrender, he plopped down on the blanket next to her, leaning his arms on his knees while staring glumly into the darkness. Pools of artificial light drove away some of the