The Orange Cat and Other Cainsville Tales Read online

"Please tell me you aren't giving your aunt a cat," Grace said. "She has about as much use for one as I do. Or you, for that matter. What--?" She peered at the beast in the carrier. "Something's wrong with it."

  "Yes, it's missing an eye."

  She rolled hers at him. "Obviously. I mean something else."

  "Apparently, as of yesterday, it was dead. Then it came back."

  "Huh."

  "That's what I said. It's somewhat troubling."

  Her thin shoulders lifted in a shrug and she said, "It happens." Gabriel couldn't tell if she was joking but decided it best not to pursue an answer.

  "What are you going to do with it?"

  "Find a place for it, I suppose. It keeps returning to its owner. I thought perhaps if I left it here, in Cainsville, and it appeared in Chicago again, I could be certain unnatural forces were at work."

  "Because returning from the dead isn't proof enough?"

  "I didn't actually witness the death."

  "Well, give it to me, then. Patrick's been looking for a cat. I'll drop it at his place." She smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, and he was quite certain the young local writer had no need of a cat, but if it took the beast off his hands . . .

  He set down the carrier. "And in return?"

  Her smile then was genuine. In other places, one might take offense at the suggestion that a favor was not given freely. Cainsville was different. "Two scones and a coffee," she said, and Gabriel nodded and headed off to the diner.

  #

  When the phone rang at two the next morning, Gabriel was expecting it. Indeed, that's why he'd given Patton his cell number. If the cat returned, Patton was to contact him immediately and Gabriel would be there in twenty minutes, regardless of the time of day or night. Because while Gabriel could tell himself that he simply wanted to know if the cat returned, that promise suggested that, perhaps, he had developed a certain respect for the feline. Far more than he had for Patton. The man was a bully and a coward. There had been plenty of those in Gabriel's life. The cat, however? It was a survivor, and that was to be admired. Despite the possible inconvenience of the hour, Gabriel would intervene to ensure it did not suffer further at Patton's hands.

  Then he answered the phone . . . and discovered there was, perhaps, even more to worry about than the life of a cat.

  #

  Gabriel arrived at Patton's house twenty minutes later. He sat in his car and watched the crime scene technicians coming and going. Then he climbed out and headed for the front door.

  He stepped over the yellow tape and continued up the walk. One young rookie looked over, but made no move to stop Gabriel. If he acted as if he belonged, he was rarely questioned.

  He climbed the steps and went into the house. He found a crime scene tech--a girl no older than him--and said, "Gabriel Walsh. I'll be handling the case. Can you tell me what happened here?"

  The woman nodded, presuming he meant he was with the State's Attorney's Office. Not a lie. Simply misdirection.

  "Vic was found over there." She pointed at the blood spray on the sofa. "And the other vic was supposedly there." She waved below a dent in the wall.

  "The second victim being the cat, I presume."

  "Yeah. The perp woke up with the cat sitting on his headboard, staring down at him. He said some nonsense about the cat being dead or in some other town. I don't know. Anyway, he chases the cat out, saying he's going to kill it. Wife goes after him. She sees him throw the poor thing against the wall and totally freaks. Then he goes ballistic on her. Killed her with a penknife. A penknife. Can you believe it? Coroner lost count of the stab wounds."

  She shook her head. Gabriel walked to the dent in the wall. He could see orange fur embedded in it. He bent and noted the dark stains on the carpet.

  "And the cat?"

  "Well, he swore the poor thing was dead. Said its head was all bashed in. Hell, he said he stomped on it, just to be sure. Sick son of a bitch."

  "Did someone take the cat's body?"

  "Wasn't one to take. By the time we got here, it was gone. Apparently, the crushed kitty got up and walked away."

  #

  The orange cat was on the back porch. It sat there, patiently waiting for the people inside to leave and for its target to return.

  Gabriel crouched in front of the beast. Its jaw seemed off-kilter, as if it had been broken and healed badly. When Gabriel put out his hand, the cat let him rub its neck and he verified it was, indeed, warm and breathing.

  "You know he isn't coming back," Gabriel said.

  The cat gave him a level look, as if it realized that was the theory, but was not yet convinced it was necessarily fact.

  Gabriel shook his head, rose and headed back to his car.

  #

  "Your client is crazy, Walsh," Assistant State's Attorney Pena said as they left the prison two days later.

  "Would you care to state that opinion for the record?"

  Pena snorted. "It wouldn't matter if I did, considering he's refusing to cooperate with a psych eval." They walked from the building. "If you can't get him to bargain, he's screwed. You know that, right?"

  Unfortunately, Gabriel did know that. Patton may have hired him as his counsel, but he wasn't actually taking counsel. He refused to plead diminished capacity. He refused to consider a plea bargain. He insisted on being tried by a jury of his peers, convinced they would understand.

  "I'll speak to him," Gabriel said.

  #

  First, Gabriel had to bribe the guards. That was easy enough. It wasn't as if he was trying to smuggle in an automatic weapon. They'd rolled their eyes, said "Whatever," and held out their hands. Bribery was usually a simple matter. The tricky part was figuring out how to include the expense on a client's bill.

  Gabriel sat across the table from Patton after the guards brought him in. He laid out the terms of the plea bargain--what the State's Attorney's Office offered and what Gabriel thought he could negotiate down to from there.

  "You're wasting your breath, Walsh," Patton said. "I'm going to a jury. They'll understand. I killed that cat because--"

  Gabriel put the pet carrier on the table. The orange cat peered through the wires at Patton, who backed up fast, chair legs screeching across the floor. The guards made no move to interfere. They'd been well compensated for their inattention.

  "You did not kill the cat," Gabriel said.

  "Th-then this seals it, right? I can show them the cat and prove that--"

  "That it came back from the dead? No. There's no way to prove this is the cat you allegedly killed, and the SA would simply accuse me of a very poor trick." Gabriel adjusted the carrier so the cat could better see its quarry. "Do you know where I found it? At your home. Waiting for you." Gabriel looked at Patton. "Would you like me to try for bail again?"

  "What?"

  "Pursuing your bail request. Would you like me--"

  "You said the cat was at my house. Not here."

  "Of course. It can hardly come in here. Security would remove it. It will be at your house, waiting for you. Not that I'd suggest you allow that to influence your decision. It is, after all, simply a cat."

  Patton glowered at him for at least a full minute. Then he unhinged his jaw just enough to say, "What was the deal again?"

  #

  Later that day, Gabriel returned the cat to Patton's house. He opened the carrier on the front porch. The cat came out, sniffed and planted itself in front of the door.

  "He's not coming back," Gabriel said. "He took the plea bargain. He'll be in jail for a very long time."

  The cat looked at him.

  "You don't need to wait."

  The cat seemed to consider. Then it rose, stretched and trotted down the steps onto the sidewalk. It took one last look at the house, head tilted, as if committing it to memory, planning to return when the time came. Then it headed off down the street and disappeared.

  #

  "I would have made more if it had gone to trial," Gabriel said, with deep regr
et, as he took a bite of his cookie. "But I couldn't have won the case, and I decided my reputation was better served with a decent plea bargain."

  "It is justice," Rose said. "For his wife . . . and for the cat."

  "Hmm." That was, of course, the least of his concerns. He was simply glad he'd insisted Patton wire him the money before sealing the plea bargain. The man had not been otherwise inclined to pay his bill.

  "Do you think the cat's gone for good, then?"

  "I doubt it." He took the last cookie from the plate. "It's a very patient cat."

  BAD PUBLICITY

  October 2000

  Patrick loved postal-box offices. He loved the people who used them. Some, of course, had legitimate reasons for not wanting mail sent to their home address. His fell into that category, and he was far from the only fae to conduct mundane business this way. But for humans, the reasons were so much more interesting. Today, there was the young man, furtively collecting his plain-paper-wrapped treasures, having apparently not realized he could find porn on the new marvel known as the Internet. Then there was the middle-aged woman, acting as if she'd come to collect her Tupperware order, yet her trembling hands suggesting the small box did not hold a new set of plastic tumblers.

  The one who caught his attention, though, was a woman who couldn't be more than mid-twenties. Dressed in business attire, but a little too bright and perky to be taken seriously, smiling at every newcomer as if she were a greeter at Walmart. Her gaze landed on him.

  "Patrick?" she said. "Patrick Rhys?"

  He could play dumb. He was rather good at it. And the problem with being a bocan was his damnable curiosity. Add "fiction writer" to the mix and he was doomed.

  "Yes?" he said.

  She brightened an extra twenty watts. "I'm Lisa Grant. Your new publicist. You are a hard man to get hold of. Can we talk?"

  "Is that a question? If so, the answer is no. Politely, no."

  She giggled. "They said you were funny. Just like your books."

  "My books aren't supposed to be funny."

  She froze, eyes widening, her panic suggesting she hadn't actually read his novels. He let her dangle a moment before freeing her with, "There's a coffee shop down the road. Let me get my mail first."

  #

  On the way to the coffee shop, Lisa talked nonstop, every line punctuated by an interrobang, as if she were both uncertain and terribly excited at the same time.

  "Do you know how hard it was to find you?!"

  "I finally called the post office and they said you come in every other Friday?!"

  "I had to wait in that office forever?!"

  "And the people in there?! So sketchy?!"

  He'd been planning to continue on to a funky little shop where he would write after collecting his mail, but that was two more blocks, and he'd never endure this conversation that long.

  When he veered toward a diner instead, Lisa wrinkled her nose and said, "Are you sure this place is"--she lowered her voice--"sanitary?"

  "I hope not," he muttered.

  They went in. He ordered coffee. Lisa asked for a cappuccino, and the server looked at Patrick for an English translation.

  "Just bring her coffee and a cup of hot milk," Patrick said.

  "Okay, let's talk publicity," Lisa said when the server left. "Because I am, you know"--giggle--"a publicist."

  "I don't do that."

  "Publicists?"

  It took him a moment to answer. He had indulged in such seductions in the past. Perhaps he was growing old and picky, but however dire this situation became, he'd find an alternative way to distract Lisa from her goal.

  "I don't do publicity," he said. "According to my contract--"

  "I know, contractually, you don't need to do publicity, but I have the most amazing ideas, ones that will propel your amazing novels into the stratosphere, where they belong."

  "And what if I don't want to be in the stratosphere? If I'm happy exactly where I am?"

  She blinked at him, uncomprehending.

  "I like my privacy," he said slowly. "Selling more novels would mean surrendering that. I want to sell enough books to make a living. I don't want to be famous."

  More blinking.

  Patrick sighed. "You know I write under a female pen name, right? That makes promotion tricky."

  She shot upright, crackling with energy as if someone had flipped her On switch again. "No, that makes promotion easy. It's an angle. You're not some old dude in his fifties writing romance. That's just creepy."

  "Fifty isn't actually that old." Especially to a fae with a few centuries under his belt.

  "But you're, like, half that. You're a hot, hip guy writing hot, hip romance. We can totally exploit that. Women will come just to get your autograph--forget reading the books."

  "What if I want them to read the books?"

  Lisa laughed. "You're so funny. Women are going to love you. First, we'll set up a tour."

  "I don't travel. I have . . . family obligations. A son."

  Her eyes rounded. "Tell me you're a single dad. Please."

  He thought of Seanna. "You could say that."

  "Oh my God. This is amazing. I bet your son is adorable."

  Adorable hadn't ever been a word anyone had applied to Gabriel even as a baby.

  "My son is . . . remarkable."

  "Of course he is. And a little cutie, too, I bet. You can bring him to signings."

  "He has school."

  "He's in school already?"

  "His first year." Of college.

  "Kindergarten. That's perfect." Lisa vibrated with excitement. "When I saw you, I knew we had gold. Now it's like . . . platinum. Maybe even diamond. Maybe we'll start with interviews. In person, of course, so they can take photos. We'll arrange them for your house, when your son is home."

  "No interviews."

  "Okay, we'll wait on that. I'll start with booksellers and librarians. They love hot male authors and, trust me, their standards aren't that high. Author-attractive is a whole different scale."

  He rose. "No tour. No interviews. No booksellers. No librarians. It's in my contract. If you have a problem with that, please speak to my agent."

  #

  Patrick walked along the corridors of the old lecture hall, in search of the son he hadn't seen in three years. Three years since Seanna flounced off and left their fifteen-year-old to fend for himself on the streets of Chicago. Then Gabriel himself had vanished, only surfacing long enough to contact his great-aunt Rose and assure her that he was fine. As for his father? Well, as far as Gabriel knew, his father--whoever he might be--was long out of the picture.

  Last month, while Patrick was traveling, Gabriel had shown up in Cainsville. Just appeared on Rose's doorstep as if returning from a summer vacation. Oh, and by the way, I've finished high school and I'm starting college next week. Gabriel had lived on the streets for three years, and yet managed to stay in school without raising any alarms while earning both the grades he needed and the tuition fees for college.

  A remarkable boy.

  Fae compulsion and charm had won Patrick his son's schedule, and he was making his way toward the lecture hall when he spotted him.

  He's grown.

  Patrick rolled his eyes at the thought. Terribly cliche. But also true. Gabriel had always been tall for his age and too thin for his bone structure, all elbows and knees and jutting shoulders. Now he'd fulfilled the promise of that build.

  Gabriel had to be six-foot-four and over two hundred pounds. He strode down the hall like a linebacker with a ball, other students scrambling out of his way. Unruly black wavy hair. Strong features. Square face. Pale skin and pale blue eyes. He looked like a Walsh, which meant that Patrick suspected his new young publicist might not use the adjective "hot" to describe his son.

  The eyes didn't help. On Gabriel, those Walsh eyes were almost freakishly pale. Right now, they were fixed straight ahead. He steered clear of other students as much as they steered clear of him. No companions st
rolled at his side. No classmates hailed him in the hall. No one even offered a smile or a greeting. And, yes, perhaps Patrick had wished for more, but this was the Gabriel he knew. On his own. Happy to be left there.

  Gabriel slowed and steered right just a little, putting him on a trajectory with a gaggle of older students, laughing and talking together. Pulled to them in spite of himself? A subconscious longing for that kind of camaraderie? Or just envying their upper middle-class attire, the expensive sneakers and designer jeans contrasting with his thrift-shop clothes.

  Gabriel continued in their direction, moving faster, closing the gap. While there was room to slip past, he walked right through the group, weaving and dodging, not making them step aside, just politely moving through. Then sharp movement rippled through the group, one boy jostling another, who shoved him back with a, "Watch it!"

  Patrick smiled. Gabriel continued through the group unnoticed and, sure enough, as he moved past them, his hand slid into his back pocket, depositing the money he'd picked from one boy's pocket.

  "Well done," Patrick murmured.

  He watched Gabriel walk away and thought of going after him. Making contact. But the moment had passed. Gabriel was swinging into his classroom.

  Another time, then. Patrick was going to take that step. Make contact. Forge a relationship. Not as Gabriel's father, of course, but as something. His son was back, and this time, Patrick would be something to him.

  #

  A week later, Patrick received an urgent message from his agent. Lisa had done an end-run around him already, going straight up the chain of command to his publisher. She'd discovered a loophole in his contract. While he didn't need to tour or give interviews or meet with booksellers, he was apparently obligated to attend any local events honoring the literary merit of his work.

  Patrick's agent took responsibility for the loophole, but it wasn't her fault. They both knew the clause was there, and Patrick had told her not to bother fighting it. He wrote paranormal romance. The chances of him getting an award for literary merit were about the same as the chance of the sun colliding with the earth tomorrow. What they hadn't counted on was Lisa. She'd found--and likely bribed--some obscure Chicago literary society to bestow an award on him next month.

  Patrick could rail at that. But he was a bocan. Tricks were his stock in trade, and all he could say to this particular one was a genuine "well-played" to Lisa. She'd won this fairly, and he would comply.