Deceptions: A Cainsville Novel (2 page)

G
abriel didn’t say a word on the walk back to the elevator, on the ride up, or even once we got through his door. I shot the bolt. At the click, he turned, as if startled, and then nodded.

He changed his shirt, walked to the window and stood there, fingers drumming against his leg. Then he came my way so fast I stepped aside. He unlocked the door and walked out.

He was in the elevator by the time I caught up. The doors were about a hand’s breadth from shutting before he stopped them and leaned out.

“You need to come with me,” he said.

“I’m trying to.”

We returned to the parking garage. Our attackers were gone. Gabriel walked to his space and stood staring at my VW.

“Um, yeah,” I said. “Your car was totaled, remember? That’s why you need me. Unless you plan to take a cab.”

He grunted. Letting someone else drive was a relinquishing of control he couldn’t abide with anyone except me and his aunt Rose.

“May I have your keys?” he asked.

“I’m going with you.”

“Of course you are. I’m not leaving you alone after that. But I’d like to drive.”

I passed them over. We got into my vehicle—an older-model Jetta that I could justify borrowing from my dad’s garage, even if it wasn’t quite up to my standards for speed and handling.

Gabriel peeled out of the garage. Or he attempted to. It’s a diesel, and when he hit the gas, he got a whine from the engine instead of a growl.

“Sorry,” I said. “If we were closer to the north end, we could swing by my parents’ place and pick up the Maserati.”

“If I thought you’d
keep
the Maserati, I would agree to the detour. You insist on depriving yourself—”

He clipped off the rant so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had nipped his tongue.

I checked my phone. I had a good-morning text from my boyfriend, Ricky, who was in Miami on business. That business . . . well, I didn’t know and didn’t ask.

I’d met Ricky through Gabriel, whose main clients are the Satan’s Saints. It’s a biker gang—sorry, motorcycle club. Ricky’s dad runs it, and Ricky is a member. He’s also an MBA student at the University of Chicago, not as an escape from the life, but so he’ll be better prepared to take over when his father retires. I’d called Ricky last night to give him a heads-up on the accident.

I texted him back and when I looked up, we were in the city core.

“Where are we going?” I said.

“To see James.”

“You’re going to confront him at his office?” I struggled to keep my tone even.

“Yes.”

“That is . . .” I lost the battle and twisted to face him. “Are you out of your mind?”

“No.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“I know you’re upset—”

“Upset does not begin to cover it.” Each word was razor-edged.

“He insulted you,” I said. “I get that.”

“I could not care less about an insult.” His ice-blue eyes swung my way. “This is about sending men to kidnap you at gunpoint.”

“If you confront him in public—”

“This requires more than a tersely worded e-mail or an angry phone call, Olivia. If I don’t confront him publicly, he will skew the story to paint me as the aggressor. I made that mistake once. I won’t do it again.”

Last week, Gabriel had confronted James at his house after James had sent me a private investigator’s dossier on every illegal and unethical thing Gabriel had ever been accused of doing. Gabriel had taken that dossier and systematically sorted it into “truth, lies, and damn lies.” He didn’t care; neither did I. What set Gabriel off was the call James made afterward, to inform him that the dossier was only the first strike, and he wouldn’t stop harassing me until I came back to him. Gabriel had briefly ended up in jail charged with assault after James’s mother had called the cops.

We stopped for a red light. When I looked up, I saw a bird sitting on the signal box.

“Gabriel?”

“Hmm.”

“What kind of bird do you see there?” I pointed.

“A robin.”

“I see a magpie.”

He didn’t say there shouldn’t be magpies in Chicago. We both knew that, just as we knew there wasn’t really one sitting on that box.

“One for sorrow,” I said. “That means you’re making a mistake.”

“Are you sure?”

“If you’re implying that I’d make up an omen—”

“I’m saying I don’t agree it has anything to do with me visiting James. You’ve had a hellish twenty-four hours. First you find out that Cainsville is populated by fae. Then you have visions and a fever. Quickly followed by Macy Shaw trying to kill us. An hour ago, you had a gun put to your head.” He waved at the bird. “One for sorrow.”

He knew that wasn’t how it worked. Omens aren’t retroactive. Yet he drove through the intersection and refused to spare me even a sidelong glance. He’d made up his mind, and no mere omen would stop him.

—

Of all the problems that came with the revelation about my notorious birth parents, the most bothersome was the media attention. I’d been a delicious story in a slow news week. And I continued to entertain.
Oh, look, she dumped James Morgan. Oh, look, she’s hanging around with Gabriel Walsh. No, wait, she’s dating a biker.
I was the Lindsay Lohan of the debutante set.

In the lobby of James’s office building, I felt the stares and I heard the whispers. His employees had known me before the media firestorm. To them, I wasn’t just the daughter of two convicted killers—I was the stone bitch who’d cut the heart from a really nice guy.

When we got on the elevator and Gabriel said, “Which floor?” I hesitated. He turned to the young man beside him and said, “James Morgan’s office?”

The guy pressed the button.

The elevator cleared out before the top floor. As I watched the last numbers pass, I turned to Gabriel.

“Can I handle this?” I asked. “Having you speak for me isn’t going to help.”

After a moment’s thought, Gabriel nodded. Then the elevator doors opened and we stepped off.

W
hile the top floor is reserved for his company’s executives, James likes to maintain a non-corporate feel, with open areas where people can congregate. That’s where we found him, standing at the espresso machine, laughing at something one of his employees had said.

When I saw him, I felt as if I’d woken from a nightmare. The encounter with the deprogrammers was so ludicrous it couldn’t be anything but a figment of my overworked imagination.
This
was the James I knew, making coffee for himself and those gathered around him. Down-to-earth, easygoing, always helpful and considerate.

When James noticed me, he smiled, eyes crinkling as he turned toward me, as if thinking,
Huh, that deprogramming stuff works fast.
Then he spotted Gabriel, and I saw exactly what Gabriel must—something twisted and ugly simmering behind James’s eyes. No, not “something.” Obsession.

“I take it Palmer didn’t tell you he screwed up,” I said.

“Palmer?” James looked from Gabriel to me. “I have no idea what this is about, but we should talk in my office.”

“Sorry,” I said. “But if we do this in private, this time it might be me who ends up in a jail cell on charges of trespassing and assault. You may know Palmer by another name, but that seems to be the one he used in his e-mail exchange with you.” I stepped toward him. “I really don’t appreciate being held at gunpoint.”

“Gunpoint? Is this about last night? If you think I had anything to do with that—”

“I mean this morning. Yep, it happened again, and this time you had everything to do with it. Palmer confirmed you’re his client, James.” I took out my phone. “Let me forward you the e-mail where you discussed terms with him in case you’ve lost it.”

“E-mail . . . ? I’m
completely
lost here, Olivia, but if you have an e-mail that appears to come from me, someone has set up a dummy account.”

“It’s your personal address.”

“Then it’s been hacked or spoofed. Yes, send it to me, and I’ll have my technicians prove that.”

“I’m sure they will,” Gabriel murmured behind me.

“Is anyone talking to you?” James snapped, and when he did, several employees who’d been wandering off looked over. This didn’t sound like their boss; it sounded like a peevish little boy.

“Whatever this is, Walsh,” James said, “it’s none of your business.”

“Anytime you hire someone to put a gun to Olivia’s head and kidnap her, I’ll make that my business.”

James turned to me. “Why the hell would I hire someone to kidnap you?”

“Because, apparently, I’m being brainwashed by . . .” I jerked my thumb toward Gabriel.

“Well, that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said since you got here. I wouldn’t call it brainwashing, but it’s clearly something, and obviously someone else is as concerned as I am about it.”

“And hacked your e-mail to hire people to ‘deprogram’ me? Who would do that?”

James paused, mental wheels turning. Then he looked straight at Gabriel. “Only one person.”

“Yes,” Gabriel said dryly. “I hired men to waylay us in my parking garage.”

“I’m sure you’d use whatever scenario would allow you to play the white knight.”

“Actually, Olivia extricated
herself
from the situation. But your choice of wording is interesting, given that the men who attacked us used a similar phrase.”

“We know what you did, James,” I said. “We have proof. Back off. Now.”

“Or else?” James said.

“I think we’re civilized enough to avoid threats.”

“But if you’d like one . . .” Gabriel said, his voice a purring rumble. “I’d be happy to oblige.”

James stepped in front of Gabriel. When he saw he had to look up, he inched back, seemed to realize that looked bad, too, and stood his ground.

“I have no intention of abandoning Olivia,” James said. “So tell me—tell
everyone
here—what you plan to do about that.”

“Change your mind.”

Gabriel’s voice was low, almost soft, but the look in his eyes was bone-chilling. James took another step back and caught himself again.

“You
will
leave her alone,” Gabriel said. “One way or another.”

“That sounds like a death threat, Walsh.”

“Then you lack imagination.”

With that, it was time to walk away. I headed for the elevator. Gabriel followed.

—

I took the driver’s seat this time. Gabriel relinquished the keys without a word.

“I’m going to get a restraining order,” I said as we drove away. “Yes, having worked in a women’s shelter, I know they aren’t worth the paper they’re written on, but I need to establish a record of harassment.”

When he said nothing for two blocks, I asked, “You don’t think I should?”

“I agree that a record is wise. I’m just not certain I can help you obtain one.”

“No problem. I’ll do it myself.”

“I don’t mean . . .” He cleared his throat. “No matter how you obtain it, your connection with me will . . . I’ve used restraining orders in the past to establish a record of harassment against a client. Except in those cases . . .”

“Your clients weren’t actually being harassed.”

“I’ll fix this, Olivia.”

“It’s not really your problem to fix,” I said softly.

“Actually, it is. I’m the one who . . . made that deal with him.”

“To protect me and get us back together again.” Gabriel had accepted money from James, to look after me and help me reconcile with him.

“It wasn’t—” Silence. Then, “Whatever my intentions, it’s clear that he interpreted our arrangement to mean reconciliation was a strong possibility. You said it was over, and I muddied the waters. I miscalculated.”

Two words. Simple enough.
I miscalculated.
But they weren’t simple at all. They were an admission of fallibility, and that didn’t come easy for Gabriel.

“I’ll fix this,” he said. “I promise.”

—

As we drove to the dealership, Gabriel got a call. It was Pamela Larsen, my birth mother, phoning from prison. He told me it was her, but he didn’t answer.

My relationship with Pamela was strained. When I’d discovered I could see omens, I’d remembered her teaching me all those superstitious ditties as a child. So I’d gone to her for answers. She’d brushed it off as nonsense passed along by a young and foolish mother trying to entertain her baby. I’d refused to see her until she agreed to talk.

She was trying to reach me through Gabriel because he was her lawyer. She’d hired him a few years ago to win her an appeal. He’d failed to do so. As much as she hated him—and hated me having any association with him—she hadn’t hesitated to hire him back for her latest appeal. Begging him to be allowed to see me would be difficult for her. I regretted that it had come to that. Yet I didn’t regret it enough to visit. If she wasn’t going to give me answers, I’d try Todd. Which was turning out to be a lot more complicated—logistically and emotionally—than I could have imagined.

Todd Larsen was a convicted serial killer. A monster. My memories of him should surely be equally monstrous. Except the ones I’d dredged up were bright and warm. By all accounts, I’d adored my father, and he’d adored me. When I’d been unable to get in to see him—we still weren’t sure why—he’d sent that letter, and it was everything I could have wanted . . . and everything I didn’t want.

I’d had a dad. Arthur Jones. An amazing father I lost to a heart attack a year ago. And now I had Todd, who, from that letter, had been just as good a father. I was struggling to reconcile that. I’d have to face him. I would, when I got the chance. I just hoped I could handle it.

A
t the car dealership, Gabriel set me loose and said, “Find me something.” I tried to get his opinion, but he was having none of that. I don’t know if he was too distracted or he honestly didn’t give a damn, but he seemed serious, so I had fun.

The new Jag I chose wasn’t that different from his old one. The style suited him, and I was loath to change that. I started rhyming off options.

“I usually just pick one from the lot,” Gabriel said.

“That’s your first mistake.”

The salesman cleared his throat. “I can offer a discount on the lot models. We’ll be starting the new year soon.”

“How much of a discount?”

“I can’t say exactly, but if you come inside, we can negotiate—”

“Ballpark it for me,” I said.

“Maybe a thousand dollars.”

“Not worth it.”

Gabriel’s lips twitched in amusement. “Whatever she says.”

I listed the options I wanted and then said, “Black, inside and out. He’ll need it by next week.”

“That’s not poss—”

“I’ve picked common options and colors. You’ll find one on a lot somewhere. Have it here next week, and in the meantime . . .” I waved at their stock. “He’ll borrow one of those.”

“We can arrange a loaner, but first we need to settle financing.”

“It’s a cash sale,” Gabriel said.

Despite the cool June morning, the guy began visibly sweating. I’ll blame it on the fact that a big guy in a suit wanted to pay cash for a new Jag, suggesting . . . well, it suggested he might not really be a lawyer.

“I know your previous car is a write-off,” the salesman said. “But it will take time to get the insurance money.”

“It’s a cash sale regardless.” Gabriel lowered his shades, fixing the man with a cool stare. “Is that a problem?”

“N-no. Of course not. Come inside, and we’ll do the paperwork.”

—

The dealership visit lifted Gabriel’s mood immensely. I think my handling of the situation amused him. While I’d been following in the career footsteps of my philanthropist mother, I really was Daddy’s girl. My father had turned the family business—the Mills & Jones department store—back into the Chicago landmark it’d been in the fifties, and he hadn’t done that by letting salespeople tell him he couldn’t get stock in until next month.

We had an hour before our appointment with Chandler, so Gabriel decided to swing by the office. It’s a Garfield Park greystone, a beautiful building but not exactly the prestigious address you’d expect from a guy who pays cash for a six-figure car. It is relatively close to the Cook County jail. Given Gabriel’s clientele, that may be the main attraction.

We parked my car and his rental Jag in the narrow lane between buildings. I was telling him a story as we walked inside.

“My poor mother was on the verge of cardiac arrest,” I said. “Here we are, at this thousand-dollar-a-plate dinner, and Dad’s wrangling exclusive rights for a line of designer handbags from another guest at our table. He doesn’t see the problem because, to him, if you’re going to shell out that kind of money, you’d damned well better get the chance to schmooze someone who can give you exclusive rights to his handbag line.”

“I would agree,” Gabriel said, opening the office door for me.

“So my dad says . . .”

I trailed off as I saw three people in the reception area. One was expected—Lydia, Gabriel’s executive assistant, a trim woman in her late sixties who looked as if she had a yoga mat and green-goo health shake behind her desk and could throw a would-be mugger over her shoulder.

In front of her stood an elderly couple. Handsome and well-dressed, but not overly so. They looked like retired professors—perfectly pleasant people. Except they weren’t any of that. Not professors. Not elderly. Not particularly pleasant. Not people, either.

Ida and Walter Clark were Tylwyth Teg. Welsh fae. Fairies, though they didn’t like that word. With others of their kind, they’d founded Cainsville centuries ago and interbred with select humans. That’s how a population survives when the “other” outnumber them. Not everyone in Cainsville had fae blood, but enough did for Tylwyth Teg to work their compulsions and charms and keep us from asking questions. Now I knew better, which is why I’d left Cainsville—and the resident fae—behind.

Lydia rose from her desk. “I was just telling the Clarks here that you weren’t expected at the office today, Mr. Walsh. I presume you’re just stopping by?”

“I am, but I suspect I’m not the one they came to see.”

“Actually, we would like to speak to you as well as Olivia,” Ida said. “We won’t keep you long.”

Gabriel visibly struggled to refuse. It shouldn’t have been difficult, all things considered, but we both had fae blood and that inbred compulsion demanded we listen to them.

He glanced at me. I nodded, and he turned to Lydia. “Olivia didn’t get her mocha this morning. Could I impose on you . . . ?”

“I’ll go grab one.” She stood. “When I return, though, there’s a case we need to discuss before you leave for your appointment.” Which was her way of putting the Clarks on notice that this meeting would indeed be short.

As soon as the door closed behind Lydia, Walter said, “We understand that you’re upset, Olivia.”

“Mmm, I’m not sure
upset
is the right word.” I perched on Lydia’s desk. “I mean, I completely understand why you wouldn’t tell me what you were. What do you say? ‘Hello, I’m a fairy.’ Sorry,
fae
, right?”

“Actually, we prefer Tylwyth Teg,” Ida said. “You
are
upset.”

“No,
upset
is what I’d get from learning that people I trusted aren’t what they seem to be.
Pissed off
is what I get when my life is in danger, on account of said people not telling me what the hell is going on. Cainsville welcomes me with open arms and I think, ‘Huh, that’s really nice,’ only to discover the town is run by supernatural beings. The reason they’re being so nice to me? Well, I haven’t quite figured that all out yet, but I know I sure as hell can’t trust any explanation you give, so I’ll keep digging. I know my family is connected to Cainsville, on Pamela’s side. I know you two had something to do with getting me adopted by the Taylor-Joneses and making me disappear from the system—and from my birth parents. I know that’s all somehow connected to my parents’ alleged crimes. And I know that, apparently, I’m very, very special.”

“You
are
special, Olivia,” Ida said.

“I don’t want to be. It is, as Gabriel would say, highly inconvenient. I’ve got you trying to woo me, and the Wild Hunt—sorry, the Cwn Annwn—trying to woo me, and it’s like I’m the top NFL draft pick when I didn’t even realize I knew how to play football. I’m being waylaid everywhere—”

“That’s the Cwn Annwn, not us.”

“No?” I looked around Gabriel’s lobby. “Huh. This certainly feels like waylaying.”

Ida stepped toward me. “Olivia, I can assure you that we have your best interests in mind. The Cwn Annwn do not. Stay away from us if you must, but stay away from them, too.”

“And end your association with the Gallagher boy,” Walter added.

“Ricky? Seriously? After everything, you still need to bitch about me dating a biker?”

“It’s not—” Walter began, but Ida shushed him with a look.

Gabriel cut in. “I believe I know Ricky well enough to vouch for him, but if you have some insight that I don’t, anything that would suggest he’d harm Olivia . . .”

With obvious reluctance, Ida said, “Not intentionally. We simply don’t think it’s wise for her to associate with a known criminal—”

“Ricky Gallagher is not a criminal. He has never even been arrested. He’s an MBA student and a member of a motorcycle club. Neither is a crime. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Olivia and I have work to do.”

—

Once Lydia returned, we headed off to Cook County for our visit. Edgar Chandler had been a psychologist working on MKULTRA, the CIA’s brainwashing experiments in the sixties. MKULTRA was a flop. Yet Chandler had continued working in the pharmaceutical field. With help of the fantastical kind, he’d attained one of MKULTRA’s goals: discovering a way to turn innocent people into unwitting assassins.

We couldn’t tell the authorities that he’d killed using mind control because, well, rational people don’t believe in mind control. Or omens. Or fae. The state attorney’s office had settled on charging him with accessory to murder.

“So why didn’t Chandler get bail?” I asked as we walked from the parking lot to the prison. “I’m certainly not complaining. It just seems odd, given his age and spotless record. Is it set too high?”

“Edgar Chandler could put up a million-dollar bond as easily as I paid for that car. But he hasn’t.”

“Which means what?”

“That he’s not in any rush to get out.”