Visions (Cainsville #2)(100)



The first question: What is he?

It was hard to even acknowledge the need to ask that. What was Patrick? A young writer who lived in Cainsville and made the diner his office. Yet I knew that wasn’t the whole truth. I was also damned sure I couldn’t find my answers by plugging search terms into a browser.

I thought Patrick was the man Gabriel had spoken to as a child. More significantly, I thought I knew why he’d sought out Gabriel, and why that had upset Seanna. To confirm my suspicion, I’d need to confront him. Once I had ammunition.

If Patrick was the man Gabriel had spoken to twenty years ago, then he could not be human. And so the questions circled in on themselves, threatening to tangle me in impossibilities. I had to pluck out this single thread and follow it to the end.

I knew Patrick’s pen name. Patricia Rees. Yes, he used a woman’s name, not surprising considering he wrote paranormal romances. Given what I suspected about him, his chosen genre was all kinds of ironic. I’m sure he was well aware of that. Even his pseudonymous surname came with a nudge and a wink. It’s Welsh, derived from ris, meaning “ardor.”

Patrick told me he’d published six books. That was not entirely true. Patricia Rees was credited with six in paranormal romance—and another four in gothic romance before that.

Gabriel remembered Patrick being a young man when Gabriel returned to Cainsville before college. I had assumed he was misremembering. Seeing Patrick’s publication history, I knew he was at least as old as Gabriel thought. Yet that still meant he could not have been the man Gabriel remembered speaking to as a boy. It was noon before I had my answer.

Patrice Rhys. Novelist in the seventies. Author of a dozen best-selling novels of “gothic horror.” Patrick Rice. Novelist in the fifties. Author of twenty novels—noir thrillers “with a gothic touch.” The connection came through a master’s thesis written five years ago—one of the many pieces of flotsam and jetsam that wash up on the Internet. The student had been writing on the evolution of gothic romance and had compared the works of Patrick, Patrice, and Patricia. She’d found enough thematic and stylistic similarities to decide that Patrice and Patricia had been heavily influenced by Patrick, down to using a variation on his name for their pseudonyms.

Or they could be the same person.

I found a photograph of Patrick Rice from the fifties in an archived interview. Otherwise, Rice was something of a recluse, as were Patrice and Patricia, none of them touring or giving interviews. But for Patrick, there was that one photo. And I had only to look at it to know, beyond a doubt, that Patrick Rice was Patrick from Cainsville.

I was printing the photograph when Gabriel swung into the office with “Lunch?”

I handed him the picture. “Meet Patrick Rice. Noir author from the fifties.”

Gabriel’s brows lifted in a flash of surprise before his expression settled into a pensive frown.

“Yes, I know,” I said. “We could argue it’s his grandfather or some relative who looks exactly like him—and shares his first name and occupation.”

As Gabriel studied the photo, I could see that compulsion sliding in, insidious and overwhelming, manifesting in the undeniable urge to say, It’s a coincidence.

“That’s him,” he said finally. “I don’t understand how, but that is undeniably Patrick. You found it on the Internet?”

I nodded.

“Then it could have been planted or—” He stopped so abruptly his teeth clicked shut. “I’m sorry. Yes, that’s him.”

“And I have checked the source. It’s from the archives of a Chicago magazine. I found a secondary reference, too, in a biographical sketch that references the article. Patrick has become much more careful about interviews, but in the fifties no one would have guessed that one day we could locate that photo from the comfort of our homes.”

“It’s still risky, though. Living in the same place, staying the same age. We’re mistaken. We must be—” Another emphatic stop. “Why can I not stop doing that?”

“Part of it is simple logic. We’re reasonably intelligent, educated people. If we saw a man biting a woman’s neck in an alley, we’d presume kinky sex, not vampirism.”

“Please don’t tell me you think vampirism is the explanation here.”

I shuddered. “God, I hope not.”

“We do see Patrick during the day,” Gabriel said.

“Bram Stoker’s Dracula went out in the daytime.”

“You aren’t helping.”

“Sorry.” I wanted to tell him what I suspected, but I couldn’t bring myself to, not until I had more. “The specific answer isn’t as important as the general one, which is that Patrick isn’t human. That something is going on in Cainsville, and we’re caught up in it, and Macy Shaw seems to be caught up in it, too. So we need to talk to her.”

“Give me two minutes.”





CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR


Macy Shaw lived in Bridgeport. In Chicago’s distant past, the Irish ruled the neighborhood. It’s a lot more diverse now, but you can still see its roots, including unmarked pubs that you’d best not enter unless you know a regular.

Bridgeport is working-class. There are signs of gentrification, but that’s common everywhere people see cheap property and think they can change the landscape to better suit their tastes. Bridgeport is a strong enough community to hold out, and I’m glad to see it. The city is for everyone.

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