Omens Page 8

  He was stretched across the bed, yowling and holding his thigh. Blood streamed between his fingers. I hesitated. Then I ran to the phone and yanked it over onto the bed, within reach.

  I started for the door again. Stopped again. Looked at the wad of money fanning across the carpet. Reached down, scooped it up, and raced out the door.

  Mission Accomplished

  He listened to her footsteps pound down the hallway. Then he rose, wincing as pain shot through his leg. He grimaced as he looked down at the damage. His favorite jeans, too. Shit.

  Another wince as he pulled the scissors from his thigh. Fresh blood gushed and he grabbed a pillow to staunch the flow. Then he looked over to where the money had fallen.

  It was gone.

  He lifted the bedspread and looked under it. No, she'd definitely taken the money. He smiled. Good. Now he could just hope this little scare would send her exactly where she belonged: Cainsville.

  Fate could be as capricious as a drunken piskie, and she certainly seemed to have been amusing herself with Eden Larsen. But occasionally the fickle wench settled down, straightened the road, and posted the appropriate signs. As for what would happen when Eden arrived in Cainsville, that wasn't his concern. He'd played his role. Now he'd bow off the stage and return to its shadowy wings.

  He pulled the pillow from his thigh. The blood flow had stopped. When he stretched back the ripped denim, he could see the edges of the wound, already knitting together. If only it was as easy to fix his jeans. He sighed, collected the bloodied pillow and scissors, and left the room.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I ran from the motel. Kept running until I reached the street, where I slowed to a jog. Two blocks away, I went into an all-night drugstore, where I bought a bottle of Dr Pepper and a Snickers bar. I still had fourteen hundred dollars stashed away, some in my bag and some in my purse, but I didn't use that. I pulled out a twenty from my pocket--the money I'd stolen--and slapped it onto the counter. Then I went out front, under the store lights, guzzled the Dr Pepper, and wolfed down the candy bar.

  Blood still flecked my shirt, hidden under the jacket I'd pulled on before going in the store. I should have been emptying my stomach, not filling it. I should be shivering in an alley as I retched onto the gravel. But I didn't feel sick. I felt hungry. Starving. The syrupy soda and cheap chocolate tasted better than any gourmet meal.

  My whole body still trembled. But there was no fear there. No voice screaming that it was four in the morning, and I was alone in the street and had to get somewhere safe.

  No, I was safe. That trembling in my arms and legs wasn't fear. It was victory.

  Did I feel bad about stabbing him? No. I'd left the phone. He'd be fine. Same went for taking the money. No guilt. For all I knew, it was his life savings. Too bad. I needed it, and he deserved to lose it.

  As the pop and the candy bar settled into my stomach, the adrenaline ebbed and I sobered. Okay, I'd won a round. Good for me. But I might not be so lucky next time. Apparently, I had more to worry about than bloodthirsty reporters and the grief-crazed relatives of the Larsens' victims. There were some serious nut jobs out there, and the next one might want more than a lock of hair.

  I opened my purse and pulled out the folded note the old man had given me. Cainsville. If it was outside Chicago, people might be less likely to recognize me. After what just happened, that had become my main priority.

  Still ... moving to a town I'd never heard of? There had to be another way.

  As I stood there thinking, a truck pulled up to refill the newspaper box out front. The Chicago Tribune. It was day two--any story would have moved off the front page by now. I'd try the Tribune's classifieds today, and with any luck, find different ads for apartments and jobs.

  I waited until the truck pulled away. Then I walked over to the box, bent to put in my money, and saw the headline, just above the fold.

  "A Mother's Desperate Jailhouse Plea."

  Then the subhead: "Pamela Larsen Collapses at News of Long-Lost Daughter."

  I straightened and walked back into the drugstore.

  Cainsville, Illinois, here I come.

  An hour later, I was in a coffee shop restroom. I wore a fresh shirt, the blood-spattered one deep in my bag. I should probably have thrown it out, but that motel clerk wouldn't dare call the cops, and I couldn't afford new clothes.

  On the counter was a box of hair dye. Red. Or, as the box proclaimed, dark copper. Strands of my hair snaked toward the drain. More filled the trash. I'd dyed it, then I'd cut it more. As it got shorter, the light curl became more pronounced. When I got it down to a few inches and added some gel, I ended up with a tousled, coppery mop. The new cut even made my glasses look different, the dark green frames funky and playful. In other words, I didn't look like me at all.

  Perfect.

  It was barely six. So I hung out in the coffee shop, feasting on caffeine and sugar--as if I hadn't had enough of both already. I spent a few dollars on cell phone calls, searching for a method of public transportation to Cainsville.

  Greyhound had never heard of the place. Neither had Amtrak. I was starting to wonder if it existed outside the old man's imagination when a clerk at a regional bus line said she knew it.

  "I grew up a few towns over," she said. "But you're not going to find a bus heading out that way, hon. Too far from the interstate." She laughed. "Too far from anywhere anyone wants to be, if you ask me."

  Which made it exactly where I wanted to be.

  Is there such a thing as an adrenaline hangover? I certainly had one on the trip from Chicago to Cainsville. Maybe a better analogy would be laughing gas wearing off after a dental visit. I'd felt fine--better than fine--until I sat down on the cab's cracked vinyl upholstery, and then what I'd just done hit with the force of a sledgehammer.

  I'd attacked a man. Stabbed him. More than once. I'd left him there, bleeding, and I'd stolen his money before I went. Yes, I could argue that I'd been defending myself and maybe three blows weren't warranted, but I couldn't risk the guy coming after me. Still ... taking his money?

  It wasn't just what I'd done that bothered me. It was how easily I'd done it. There'd been no hesitation. I'd reacted on instinct.

  And where did that instinct come from? That was the real question, wasn't it?

  Ahead of Schedule

  Ida and Walter Clark left their house that morning at nine, as they did every day. Or roughly thereabouts. Ida had risen early to do the laundry. Then Walter hung it out to dry, which meant they actually left at 9:10. Still plenty of time to make it to the school for morning recess, which was the objective.

  They didn't lock their door. No one in Cainsville did.

  "Do I have time to get a cup of tea?" Ida asked as she looped her arm through her husband's.

  "From the coffee shop. Not from Larry's."

  She sighed.

  "We should support the coffee shop, too," Walter said. "They're good people. Even if they don't know how to make a proper cup of tea. But those coffee drinks are good." He smiled at her. "I know you like the vanilla ones."

  True. The concept of putting so much milk in your coffee still struck her as foreign. Italian, wasn't it? But it was delicious, and her bones could use the extra calcium. They'd pick up a bag of the almond cookies, too, for the others who'd be at the school.

  Watching the children at recess was a ritual for the elders of Cainsville. There were even benches along the fence, like bleachers at a sports field. There was joy to be found in watching the young, so carefree and happy. It reminded them what this town stood for, the way of life they worked so hard to protect.

  There weren't nearly as many children as the elders would like, but they had no one to blame except themselves. The town was a mere hour from Chicago. These days, that was considered a reasonable commuting distance, and Cainsville could easily become a sprawling bedroom community, with hundreds of children, even a high school of its own, and a real sports field, where they could cheer on the
ir home teams.

  It was a pleasant dream, but like so many dreams, it masked an uglier reality. To get those children, the town would need to grow significantly. There would be new housing developments along every border. Strangers moving in. Strangers who didn't understand what it meant to live in Cainsville.

  The town's location had been chosen specifically because the geography forbade expansion. Nestled in the fork of a river, with marshy, inhospitable ground on the only open side. That meant it was protected.

  It also meant there was no room to grow. The city council wouldn't permit bridges over the river forks. They hadn't even allowed an exit to be built off the highway--to reach Cainsville, you had to take one miles away, and it fed onto a narrow county road.

  The few children who lived here were happy, treasured, and coddled. Once they reached adolescence, that coddling could become suffocating. The elders understood that. Teenagers didn't want everyone knowing their name, watching over them, however indulgently. They didn't want to live in a town you could walk across in a half hour. They graduated from high school, left, and stayed gone ... until they married and had children of their own. Then they looked around at the world and looked at their children and decided it was time to go home. Back to Cainsville.

  Not everyone returned, of course. So the town stayed roughly the same size as it had always been. Which was for the best, all things considered.

  It wasn't that they didn't welcome newcomers. Look at the people who owned the coffee shop. Been here about a year and everyone tried really hard to make them feel welcome, even if they didn't know how to fix a proper cuppa. They were the right sort of folks. That's what mattered here. In that case, new blood was welcome. Or old blood, as the case may be.

  Ida and Walter had just walked onto Rowan Street when a taxi pulled to the roadside. An odd sight in Cainsville.

  A young woman got out. Hair as bright as a copper penny, worn in loose, short curls. Glasses that seemed designed to mask a pretty face, and were doing a poor job of it, judging by the look Walter was giving her.

  "Is that the Larsen girl?" he asked.

  Ida looked closer. "Hmm. It just might be."

  As they approached, the young woman shut the taxi's door and the car sped off, spitting up gravel, making the girl step quickly back.

  "Rude driver," Ida sniffed.

  "City folk."

  She nodded. As they passed the girl, Ida offered her a smile and a good morning, which her husband echoed, and the girl returned.

  "Yes, it's definitely the Larsen girl," Ida said after they'd passed. "She's ahead of schedule."

  "That's not a bad thing."

  "True. We should tell the others."

  "We will. After we get you your coffee drink."

  She smiled, took his arm, and they continued on.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The taxi had barely gone thirty miles past Chicago before it turned off the highway. I expected the town to be right there, but it was at least another twenty-minute drive until we passed the sign welcoming us to Cainsville. Actually, "welcoming" might be an exaggeration. The sign was so small I had to squint to see it. It didn't even say Welcome. Just Cainsville, Pop. 1,600, as if state law decreed there be one or they would have left the population sign off altogether.

  It looked welcoming enough, though. Classic mid-to late-nineteenth-century architecture--heavy on brick and stone and flourishes. A pretty town, in better shape than most. The main street--called Main Street, naturally--was heavily Renaissance Revival, red brick with the occasional yellow brick facade thrown in for variety. Arched windows topped by simple keystones. Elaborate cornices of tin or painted wood. Trees lined the road, and there were flowering pots and raised beds everywhere.

  Almost every shop on Main Street was occupied, and from the looks of the signs--J. Brown and Sons Grocers, the Corner Diner, Loomis Bros. Fine Fashions--they'd been there for decades. That was a huge accomplishment these days, where many town cores were filled with For Rent signs, dollar stores, and pawnshops.

  A flicker of movement near a roof caught my eye and I looked up to see a bluebird alighting on the long nose of a gargoyle. A spring bluebird. That was a good sign.

  As the cab paused at the crosswalk, I took a better look at the gargoyle. It was a real one, the mouth opening in a spout for water draining off the roof. It was far from the only gargoyle, too. Now that I looked, I saw them everywhere--on rooftops, on gateposts, over doorways.

  "A town filled with gargoyles," I said. "Must be well protected."

  The cabbie looked up and muttered something in a language I didn't recognize. Then, as the light changed, he said, "This is Cainsville. I let you out here."

  "I have an address," I said. "Five Rowan Street."

  "I do not know where that is." He pulled to the side. "You get out here."

  "No, I have an address." I put the window down and called to a young woman pushing a stroller. "Excuse me, do you know where I'd find Rowan Street?"

  She gave me directions, friendly as could be. Even warned us that there was no parking on the east side of the road.

  Rowan adjoined Main Street, making it an easy drive. The cabbie turned onto it but didn't park. He barely stopped. Just took my fare and left me on the side of the road. I didn't tip him, either. A first for me, and I thought I'd feel guilty. I didn't. Instead, I was happy for the excuse to keep the money.

  An elderly couple tut-tutted as the cabbie sped off, then gave me smiles and good mornings, which I returned before they carried on.

  I stood on the curb for a moment, waiting for that sensory overload after the cocooning quiet of the car. It didn't come. I smelled lilacs and freshly mown grass. I heard the wind and the distant ding-ding of a bicycle bell. But that was it.

  I relaxed and looked around. The apartment building was across the road. When I saw it, I had to double-check the address. The building was gorgeous. Three stories of Renaissance Revival beauty. Smooth, yellow-gray stone walls forming a rectangle. A recessed, arched front entrance topped by a triangular gable. Red-clay tiled hipped roof. Deep eaves with huge, decorative brackets. Balconies under every window, most too narrow to use.

  On closer inspection, I could see the signs that the building had not been kept in the shape befitting such a grand old dame. Disrepair is harder to spot with a place like this--the stonework will survive anything short of a bomb blast. No factories in the area meant the stone had stayed reasonably clean. But there were little signs--the crumbling edge of a window rail, the slight sag in the roof--that it was only good bone structure that left her looking so fine in her old age. Even the plain ivory curtains in the windows seemed as if they hadn't been replaced in decades.

  Speaking of curtains ... as I walked down Rowan I noticed another pretty place, this one a fraction of the size. A dollhouse of a two-story Victorian, narrow and shallow, its height making it seem bigger than it was. Weathered boards cried out for a fresh coat of paint. Ivy covered every surface. The yard was well kept, though. Exceedingly well kept, with a golf-course-perfect lawn and gardens so lush they seemed to have time-warped into midsummer. It was jarring, that juxtaposition. Like something out of a fairy tale, the perfect yard enticing the unwary into the witch's abode.

  The witch herself seemed to be in residence, peering out from that open curtain. Below her, in the first-floor window, a sign read "Tarot, palmistry, and astrology. By appt. only." A fortune teller? Seriously? I squinted to get a better look at the woman. The curtain fell.

  As I crossed the road, I noticed the apartment building had gargoyles, too. Under the eaves and tucked into the corners of the fake window balconies, stone gargoyles standing watch. I marveled at them, then climbed the steps and reached for the doorknob. There, above my head, was yet another Gothic touch, this one far more subtle and definitely unintended. A massive spiderweb, dew-dappled and glistening in the morning sun. The spider was there, too, big and black, waiting in the middle of its web.

  If you wish to liv
e and thrive,

  Let the spider stay alive.

  That was a new one. Just what I needed. More superstitious crap filling my brain.

  I shook my head and pulled open the door.

  Cards Don't Lie

  Rose ducked back behind the gauzy curtain as the girl squinted her way. The red hair had thrown her, but only for a moment. She'd known the girl was coming. The cards never lied. So Rose had been watching. Now she was here.

  Eden Larsen. Olivia Taylor-Jones. As for what her arrival in Cainsville portended ... The cards were, as usual, long on declarations and short on interpretations.

  The girl had stopped on the stoop of Grace's building. She was staring up into the corner of the front doorway.

  What was she gaping at? Whatever it was, it held her attention for at least a minute before she opened the door and walked through.

  Rose picked up her binoculars from the table and peered out. She looked where the girl had been staring. Nothing. She adjusted the lenses and looked again. It didn't help. She was looking right at the spot.

  There was nothing there.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The front door opened into a vestibule with stairs going up and a perpendicular hall for the apartments. No locked door to pass through. No panels of buzzers to alert the residents to company. Not even names on the mailbox slots.

  The hall was paneled plaster with a wooden floor. My knowledge of architecture was confined to the external, so I didn't know how historically accurate this was. It looked right, though. It was definitely nicer than any of the apartments I'd visited so far. Yes, the floorboards were worn, unvarnished paths showing the main routes, and the walls could use fresh paint. But it had a comfortable, lived-in look. Benign neglect.

  I looked down the main hallway. Two doors on each side, four apartments on each floor. Twelve overall, then. Small, but it certainly didn't feel full. The long corridor was dimly lit and cool, like a cave. Smelled a lot better than any cave I'd explored. I picked up teasing traces of sandalwood. The sounds were as muted as the smells. Hushed. Not so much a cave, then, as a church after hours, dark and cool and peaceful.