Visions (Cainsville #2)(5)
Rose’s relationship with her grandnephew isn’t an easy one. Gabriel discourages emotional attachments the way most of us discourage door-to-door salesmen. They’re inconvenient, intrusive, and liable to end up saddling you with something you never wanted in the first place, at a cost far higher than you wish to pay.
If Gabriel is attached to anyone, it’s Rose. Yet when his mother left him, he didn’t tell her. When Rose found out, he ran until she stopped looking for him. That’s hard to understand, but there was something in Gabriel’s psyche, perhaps arising from his family’s con-artist past, that said you don’t take anything from those you care about. You took only from marks, and marks were always strangers. If Rose had learned that Seanna had abandoned him, she’d have looked after him, and he couldn’t accept that. Or maybe he just couldn’t believe she’d actually want to.
Gabriel stayed at my place for an hour, prowling the apartment, checking the windows, and engaging in stare-downs with the cat. Then he declared Rose wasn’t returning anytime soon and stumped off to speak to my landlord, Grace, about the security system before heading back to Chicago.
—
The next morning, I had the seven-to-three diner shift. My fellow weekday server, Susie, has a second job and we work around her schedule. Which means I have a mix of day and evening shifts that my body hasn’t quite adjusted to yet.
I don’t love my job. Oh hell, let’s be honest—I barely like it. But as impressive as a master’s degree from Yale might sound, it doesn’t qualify you for shit, especially when you have no work experience and you majored in Victorian literature.
If there was one thing I did like about my job, it was the people. The owner—an ex-con named Larry—was a dream boss. The regulars were mostly seniors—I swear half the town collects social security—and they’d embraced me like a runaway come home. Even finding out who my birth parents were hadn’t changed that.
This was my first shift back after Edgar Chandler’s arrest. Everyone had heard what happened and they were all so pleased, so very pleased. Which seems a little odd, but in Cainsville “a little odd” was the norm.
“Such an exciting adventure,” Ida Clark said when I brought her lunch. Ida and her husband, Walter, are probably in their seventies. It was their car I’d borrowed.
“A terribly exciting adventure, don’t you think?” she said to Walter, who nodded and said yes, terribly exciting.
“Liv was shot at,” said a voice from across the diner. “She watched a man die and had to hide in the basement while being stalked by a killer. I don’t think ‘exciting’ is the word you’re looking for.”
That was Patrick. The diner’s resident novelist. Also the only person under forty who’d dare speak to the town elders that way.
Ida glared at him. “It is exciting. She proved her parents are innocent.”
“For two out of eight murders,” I said.
“Still, that’s grounds for an appeal. But what exactly happened to that poor young couple? The newspapers weren’t very forthcoming. Did—”
“Good God, leave her alone,” Patrick said. “You’re monopolizing the only server, and some of us require coffee.”
He raised his empty mug, and I seized the excuse to hurry off.
As I filled Patrick’s mug, he murmured, “Don’t tell them anything. I’m sure it’s a messy business, and we don’t want to tax their old hearts.”
There was no way Ida could have overheard, but she aimed a deadly scowl his way. He only smiled and lifted his mug in salute.
—
After the lunch rush passed, I brought fresh hot water for the Clarks. Several others had joined them, most notably Veronica, one of the elders I knew best, though I can’t say I knew any of them well, despite hours of chitchat. Mostly, they just wanted to talk about me, and if I swung the conversation their way, they’d deflect. “We’re old and boring, dear,” they’d say. “Tell us about yourself.”
With Veronica, it was more of a two-way conversation, but only because she’d talk about the town and its traditions. An amateur historian. And, like all the elders, a professional busybody, though I say that in the nicest way. They don’t pry—they’re just endlessly curious.
Veronica had brought in a sheaf of papers. I only caught a glimpse of a dark-haired woman’s photo. When I filled their teacups, she said, “You’re in the city quite often, aren’t you, Olivia?”
“Oh, we shouldn’t bother her with this,” Ida said.
“With what?” I asked.
“Posting notices for Ciara Conway,” Veronica said. “I’m sure the police are doing all they can, but every little bit extra helps.”
“Olivia hasn’t been around since Friday,” Ida reminded her. “With everything that was happening, I doubt she’s even heard one of our young women has gone missing.”
There were very few “young women” in Cainsville, and I’d met none named Ciara. When I said as much, Ida explained: “Her mother grew up here.” Meaning Ciara had likely come to visit her maternal grandparents, which in the eyes of the elders made her a local. That was Cainsville. Gabriel had never lived here, either, and they considered him one of their own.
“When did she disappear?” I asked.