Deceptions: A Cainsville Novel (34 page)

“It isn’t true,” he said. “I’m not Gwynn.”

“I know. It’s just a role—”

“No, Olivia. I’m sorry. You seem to believe this, but it isn’t true. In fact, I’m beginning to suspect none of it is true. I understand that you’ve been in a difficult place, your world turned upside down, and it’s easy to get confused—”

“Are you suggesting I’m imagining the visions?”

“Not entirely. I think you’ve been in a susceptible state, and these creatures—fae, what have you—are taking advantage of that.”

I struggled for words, for breath. “Don’t do this, Gabriel.”

“If you’re being manipulated—”

“The only one manipulating me here is you.”

His hands gripped the wheel. “That’s not fair and—”

“In everything that’s happened, who’s been the believer? The one who won’t let me be skeptical, won’t let me make up excuses, forces me to face the truth, however harsh—”

“Exactly.
However harsh.
That’s what I’m doing now. This isn’t true, Olivia. You know it isn’t. You dream of some fairy prince and say I’m him?” A brusque laugh. “I didn’t expect you to fall for romantic nonsense like that—”

“You aren’t my fairy prince, Gabriel,” I said, barely forcing the words through gritted teeth. “Not by any stretch of the imagination. You aren’t him, and I’m not her. In the original, Matilda chose Gwynn. I chose Ricky. Arawn. That alone should prove—”

“—should prove it’s nonsense. All of it. You didn’t choose Ricky over me, Olivia. I wasn’t an option. I hope you realize that. If you didn’t, and I somehow conveyed the impression—”

“You conveyed no such impression.” I managed to get the words out, my chest frozen, my gut on fire, brain numb. “That is exactly what I meant. Gwynn and Matilda were lovers. Arawn and Matilda were only friends. That’s how things have changed. I’m with Ricky. You and I are friends.”

He snorted. And of everything he’d said, that was the flaming arrow that cut deepest, scorched hottest. The snort that said we weren’t friends. Not even that.

The Jag slowed at the first stoplight we’d hit. As soon as the tires stopped rolling, I opened the door.

“I can get myself back from here,” I said, and climbed out.

Did I pause a second, giving him a chance to protest? Yes. He said nothing. I slammed the door, and when the light changed, he sped away, leaving me on the street corner.

I
expected Gabriel to come back. I really did. It was 1
A.M
. and a look around told me I was more likely to hail a rapist here than a taxi. Empty streets. Dark buildings. Two guys on the corner, locked in a drunken exchange, me moving my gun from my purse into a pocket.

Gabriel would realize what kind of neighborhood he’d left me in, come screeching back, put down the window and say, “Get in.” He wouldn’t be happy about it, but even if he’d all but said
We aren’t friends
, that thread of basic human decency would bring Gabriel back.

Gabriel did not come back.

I called a cab company and gave them the intersection. They said it would be “hours.” In other words, they weren’t coming here. I started to walk. I headed toward the two drunk guys, only because I didn’t dare turn my back on them. They stopped arguing and fixed me with assessing stares. I stared back. One grumbled and resumed the argument. The other gave in after a pause, and they went back at it, ignoring me.

I called Ricky. “I hate to do this,” I said when he answered. “But could you pick me up?”

“Sure.” The
thud-thud
of his feet hitting the floor, followed by a stifled yawn.

“I woke you, didn’t I?”

“Nope. Just finishing a very boring reading, waiting for my good-night text. What happened? Where’s Gabriel?”

I paused and then said, “You were right.”

“And from the sound of you, I’d rather I wasn’t. What was I right about?”

“He found out about Gwynn and Arawn. That he’s Gwynn. He . . .” I inhaled. “It went badly. Really badly. We argued. I got out of the car. He took off. I waited in case he came back, and I did phone a cab, so I wouldn’t bother you—”

“Call me first. Always. Where are you?” The click of the door and the scrape of the key as he locked the deadbolt.

I told him.

“He left you
there
? God-fucking-damn him. What do you see? We need to get you someplace safe until I arrive. Restaurant, coffee shop, corner store—hell, even a twenty-four-hour laundry. I’ll stay on the line until you’re there.”

—

Ricky picked me up and took me back to his apartment, where we made love. It really was making love, not having sex. It was my apology, even if he’d never know I had something to apologize for.

I remembered everything Gabriel had said in that car, lashing out in the way guaranteed to hurt the most. Telling me what, in my gut, I feared most—that I’d been tricked, that this was all a ruse, and I was steering my life based on hallucinations. Telling me that I was also hallucinating anything between us, that if I thought we were friends, then I was a silly little fool.

That’s the guy I’d considered leaving Ricky for. Just so I’d be free to be with him, however he’d have me. Exactly how pathetic was that?

I really had been a silly little fool, and now I made it up to Ricky. Afterward, we lay there, Ricky on his back, me curled up against him, my hand on his chest, feeling his heart slowing as I traced the edges of his triskele tattoo.

“Can I see the designs for ours yet?” I asked.

“They’re on my phone,” he mumbled sleepily. “You get it, and we’ll look. If I can open my eyes.”

I smiled. “It can wait until morning. Go to sleep.”

“No, get it. I’m just resting for round two.”

“It’s almost four
A.M
.”

“Which is why there probably won’t be a round three. However, if you insist, I’ll try to accommodate, because I’m selfless like that.”

I laughed, fetched his phone, and held it out.

“Go ahead,” he said. “Nothing on there you can’t see.”

He directed me to a project management app.

“You’ve got a lot of projects,” I said as I skimmed the files.

“I’m organized.”

“Trip list? Don’t tell me you make packing lists, too.”

“Yes, I do, but that’s not one of them.”

“Can I open it?”

He flipped onto his side. “Did I say there’s nothing on my phone you can’t see?”

I opened the file. It was a list of places. The Three Sisters, Texas. Tail of the Dragon, North Carolina . . .

“Top ten motorcycle roads in North America,” he said.

“How many have you done?”

“Zip.” He looked at me. “You want to change that?”

His fingers rested on my thigh. His tone was confident, but his gaze was slightly lowered, in that way he had when he suspected he might be pushing into territory that could send me backpedaling. I’ve never backpedaled, but Ricky intuits better than anyone I know, and I couldn’t help wondering if he’d picked up on my confusion with Gabriel.

“Are you offering to take me away from all this?” I said.

“More like take you away when
all this
is over.”

“Let’s do that.” I held up the list. “Pick a spot.”

“Nope.” He turned the phone around. “You.”

“I’d have to research—”

“Uh-uh.” He scooched me over against him and covered my eyes. “Pick one.”

I did and opened my eyes. “Cabot Trail, Nova Scotia?”

“Hope you have a passport.”

“I do. But if you want someplace closer—”

“Nope, I do want to take you away from all this. As far from it as we can get.” He rolled onto his back and pulled me down with him. “At least for a little while.”

“God, I love you.”

“You’d better. ’Cause you’re about to spend two weeks alone with me in the middle of nowhere.”

“Perfect,” I said, and leaned down to kiss him.

—

I awoke to a text from Gabriel, telling me not to come in to work.

“I think I just got fired,” I said.

Ricky got out of bed fast. “He sure as hell better not.” He peered at my phone. “Bastard. It’s a temporary overreaction, but still, that’s your job. Your only source of income after he convinced you to quit the diner. He’d better not fuck with it because he’s feeling pissy.”

Ricky grabbed his jeans. “I’m going to go chat with him.” Before I could protest, he cut me off with a lifted hand. “No, not to give him shit for that text. He’s freaking out about the Gwynn shit, and he’s pissed that you didn’t tell him, and I’m part of both those things. I just want to talk about that.” A half smile. “I promise not to hit him, however tempted I might be.”

“Maybe I should try first and . . .” And if I did and Gabriel failed to reply and then Ricky showed up, it really would look like he was taking a message from me. “Okay, go on. After breakfast.”

—

Ricky returned an hour after leaving, barely time for him to have made it to Gabriel’s office and back.

“He won’t see you?” I said.

“Oh, he did. For five minutes, during which he said exactly seven words, though admittedly he did repeat them a few times.”

“What’d he say?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So he’s playing it like that?”

“Yep.” Ricky headed for the bathroom. “Try texting him later. See if anything changes.”

I texted Gabriel three times that day. On the third, I said,
Can you answer please? So I know you’re getting these?
He replied with
I am
. I stopped texting.

I spent the day investigating my parents’—my
father’s
—victims. Ricky helped.

I heard from Tristan twice. The first time, he left a message hinting that he was onto something. I ignored him. The guy had left a girl’s
head
in my
bed
. He’d lured me to an abandoned psych hospital in the middle of the night, pretending to have kidnapped the young woman who ultimately tried to kill us. He’d turned James from a sweet former fiancé into a crazed stalker ex. Call me a grudge-holder, but I was having some trouble getting past all that.

And yet . . . Well, as I’d been told—and shown—many times in the last few months, the fae didn’t think like us and couldn’t be expected to act like us. To them, the psych hospital and the James manipulation and even the surprise body parts were cattle prods, guiding this reluctant human in the direction they wanted her to go. We
were
cattle to them. Useful. Perhaps even necessary for survival. But not terribly clever.

Tristan texted later that afternoon.

Solid lead. Need GW 2 chk P Larsen visitor logs. OK?

I showed the message to Ricky.

“I find fairies with cell phones disconcerting enough. Do they really need to use text talk?” He shook his head. “You going to answer?”

“I am curious—what the hell would he need those logs for? But one, I can’t trust Tristan. Two, I don’t dare ask Gabriel to do anything right now. And three, I don’t trust Tristan.” I put the phone away. “I’ll ask Lydia tomorrow if she can get the logs. I don’t like going behind Gabriel’s back, but . . .”

“One, he’s being a dick. Two, you’re doing this to help him avoid jail time. Three, he’s being a dick.”

I smiled at him. “Exactly.”

Four hours later, we’d just returned from a late dinner when I got another text from Tristan.

Must talk. Big problem. Need privacy. Come 2 place we met 2nd time. Trust no one.

“Seriously?” I said, showing the text to Ricky. “
Trust no one
. Now fairies are watching
X-Files
?”

“He just wants you to believe.”

“No shit. Well, he’s officially piqued my curiosity. I’m calling back.”

I did, as we walked up the stairs to Ricky’s apartment. I called twice. Tristan didn’t answer. The first time, it went to voice mail, and I hung up to try again. That time, I got a “number not in service” message. I called a third time, in case my redial had screwed up somehow. It hadn’t. The number was no longer in service.

“Okay. Apparently, his number doesn’t work anymore.”

“So we’re still going?” he said.

“To an abandoned psych hospital? Once was enough. I’m not playing his game again.”

Inside the apartment, I slowly took off my shoes, so lost in thought that I didn’t realize Ricky was gone until I looked up and saw him coming out of the bedroom.

“Okay,” I said. “I know this will sound crazy, but—”

He handed me a new switchblade. “You’re going to need this.”

Y
es, heading to that psych hospital suggested I might belong in one. I’d like to think I’m not the dumb blonde in a B horror movie, saying, “You’re a supernatural being with an agenda that might involve killing me, and you want me to come to an abandoned psych hospital at night? Well, okay, then!” It was almost certainly a trap, but I couldn’t sit at home, playing it safe, when taking a risk meant answering the question: What was Tristan really up to? Proceed with extreme caution and take what I could from the situation, because if I refused, then maybe next time he tried to trap me, I’d stumble in without realizing it.

I called Gabriel on the walk to Ricky’s bike. That was part of exercising extreme caution. Yes, he’d made it clear he didn’t want to hear from me, but this wasn’t
Hey, I’d like to talk.
For this, he would answer. I was sure of it.

I called and got his voice mail.

“I need your help,” I said. “Just hear me out, please. Tristan wants me to meet him at the psych hospital. I’m sure it’s a trap, but you know that won’t stop me from going. Ricky and I are on our way. I could really use your advice, though. You’re probably too busy to talk”—
meaning that you don’t want to, but I’ll give you an escape route here
—“so I’ll e-mail the details. If you
can
talk, for a minute, I’d appreciate that, but even an e-mail reply will do. Hell, I’ll take a text, Gabriel. Am I making a really dumbass move here? Is there anything I should know? Any advice you can give? Thanks.”

I hung up.

“He’ll answer that,” Ricky said, handing me my helmet. “Guaranteed.”

For once, Ricky was not right.

When I started to worry, Ricky pulled over at a gas station with a graffiti-covered pay phone. I called Gabriel from it. He answered, which took away every possible explanation except the one that hurt the most: I needed him, and he didn’t give a damn. I hung up without a word.

—

The psych hospital. It had a name, I was sure, but I’d never looked it up. I would have preferred never to think of it again.

There was an unconnected local cemetery beside the hospital grounds. The first time we visited, we’d walked through it and I’d reflected that, as creepy as graveyards are supposed to be, it didn’t bother me at all. But the abandoned hospital? It was the most frightening place I’d ever seen—in real life, in movies, even in nightmares.

The hospital buildings sat on at least ten acres of overgrown decay. I should have been fascinated, as I was by Villa Tuscana. I was not fascinated, except perhaps in the most basic definition of the word, where you can’t look away in spite of yourself. The visions I’d had there were enough to make me not want to go back. Yet it was more than that. It was the pervasive sense of the place, a dread and terror that crept under my skin and nestled in the marrow of my bones. Whatever one’s faith, death means the end of life on this earth. The prospect is unpleasant, but I figure once it happens, it happens, over and done. The hospital represented a very different kind of death.

There is no escape from the prison of the mind.
I’d seen those words there. Phantom words left imprinted on my brain. Madness was inescapable. The hospital wasn’t an old-fashioned lunatic asylum, with chains welded to the floors, but you’d be imprisoned there nonetheless. In my visions, I’d seen people trapped there. Women. The little girl said that I was tapping into hereditary memories. Were those women like me? Tainted by fae blood? Driven mad by it?

Could I be driven mad by it?

Like before, the chained gates had appeared locked until we got close enough to see that the lock itself was undone. The gate gave an ominous whine as Ricky swung it open.

“A word of warning,” I said as we walked in. “The last time I was here, I saw visions.”

“When you were with me?”

“Yes.”

His gaze settled on me, not angry that I’d kept that from him. Only concerned. “Well, if it happens this time, tell me. Please. That might make it easier.”

“It will. Thanks.”

We headed up the overgrown road, picking our way past chunks of pavement, the grass and weeds breaking through, leaving a cobblestone of old asphalt. Trees stretched over us, the branches reaching out to one another but not quite meeting. I could imagine this road fifty years ago, in the bright summer sun, a cool and dark passage with a wind whispering through the leaves. A pretty sight, I’m sure, but I’m equally sure that no one was thinking of beauty when they planted these trees. They were a landscape transition, hiding the buildings beyond from the outside world. You’d turn in from the country road, pass through this leafy tunnel, and come out in the stark, cold reality of the hospital grounds.

After a quarter mile, squat industrial buildings replaced the trees lining the road. In their day, they’d have held little architectural interest, and even as ruins they weren’t any more enticing. Ugly cinder blocks with boarded-up and broken-out windows.

“Eden . . .”

The voice came as a whisper on the breeze. I turned.

“Hear something?” Ricky asked.

“You didn’t?”

He made a noise that sounded like a no, as if reluctant to admit to it, reaching over at the same time to touch my hand, his closed switchblade refreshingly cool against my fingers.

“We’ll go that way, then,” he said, nodding in the direction I’d turned. “Whatever happens, stay close. No splitting up this time, okay?”

I nodded, and we headed along a narrow passage between two buildings. There was no path there, not even a worn strip of dirt, but we walked through and found ourselves at a gate so ivy-choked that, from the road, it had looked like a bush.

“Where’s the path?” I said. “If there’s a gate, there should be something leading to it. More than a gap between buildings.”

“Yeah.”

I took a closer look at the ivy. “I’m no gardener, but I helped ours enough to know this isn’t native to Illinois. It was planted here.” I eased back and looked at the thin wrought iron, completely engulfed in flora. “It’s almost like they tried to hide the gate. Or is my imagination just running away with me?”

“Then we’ve got the same imagination.” He cleared enough ivy to peer through the gate. “Okay, that’s weird. We have a fenced yard of nothing.”

He took hold of the gate and yanked. The ivy fell away easily. Too easily.

“Someone’s opened this for us,” he said.

“Yep.” I took the gun from my pocket. “I think we’ve found our trap.”

“Then it’s a very strange one.” He threw open the gate. “Because if someone’s hiding, I don’t know where.”

It really was a “yard of nothing”—unless you counted weeds. The wrought-iron fence encircled a patch about two hundred feet square. And there was nothing inside except grass and weeds.

Before he let the gate swing shut behind us, Ricky examined the fence. He knocked his boot into a space between the slats and heaved himself up.

“Yep,” I said. “Even if the gate mysteriously locks behind us, it’s a six-foot, climbable fence. At worst, you could boost me up and over.”

“Weird.”

“Uh-huh. So maybe not a trap?”

He grunted, meaning he wasn’t going to be so quick to dismiss the possibility. “We’ll have a look around, in case there’s something we’re supposed to see here, but don’t take a step without clearing it first.”

“In case we walk into a literal trap.”

He nodded. We each moved forward, testing the way as we went. I got about three paces before my sneaker nudged something unyielding. I started to bend.

“Hold up.” Ricky came over and prodded it with his boot. “Go stand by the gate.”

“Um, so if it blows up, you’ll be the one who loses fingers? Very chivalrous, but I found it. You go stand by the gate.”

He rubbed his mouth. “Sorry. This place . . . I didn’t like it the last time and it’s worse now. There’s something that makes me want to sling you over my shoulder and carry you out, and it’s bad enough that I’d almost be tempted if I didn’t know you’d kick the hell out of me.”

I moved closer and rubbed between his shoulders. The tension there was rock-hard. His face was just as tight, pupils constricted despite the darkness.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“Honestly? Leave.”

“If you feel strongly about that—”

“Nah. I’m not the one with psychic powers. I’m just . . .” Another look around. “Uneasy.”

“Check whatever I found, then. I’ll stand by the gate.”

A light kiss, and some of that tension fell from his face. “Thank you. Next time, the dangerous part is yours. I promise.”

“You’re so sweet.”

I backed up to the gate. Ricky knelt and prodded whatever was buried. His brows pinched. He grabbed a handful of undergrowth and ripped it off. Then he kept going, clearing it and sweeping away the dirt.

“Not a bomb, I’m guessing,” I said as I came close.

“Death-related but not death-causing.”

It was a grave, its marker set so deeply into the ground that it was almost as if whoever planted it there hoped it would soon be covered.

I looked around. “That’s what this is. A cemetery.”

“For those who didn’t have family willing to claim them. A necessary part of the hospital, but obviously not one they cared to advertise to the other patients.”

That’s why it was hidden away back here. No path to the gate, tucked behind buildings, without standing stones to advertise its purpose.

Interesting, but did it mean anything? I’d heard someone call my name. Was that to get me here?

Gabriel always told me to follow my instincts. Well, he did before he decided that my instincts were all in my head.

I eased back on my haunches and looked around.

“Want me to start clearing the stones so you can read them?” Ricky asked.

“And you say you’re not psychic.” I forced a smile, but my heart wasn’t in it. The same sense of foreboding that niggled at him pressed down on me, the darkness closing in despite the bright moon.

I searched for an omen. Even a raven or an owl gliding overhead would have been a sign that everything was all right, that I was under someone’s protection.

“Do you have your tusk?” Ricky asked. “As much as I can’t believe I just said that.”

He got a real smile for that. “Yes, I have my handy-dandy evil-repelling tusk, which has never actually been proven to work, but since I didn’t have it when we were attacked by elves, I’ll presume it does. You have yours?”

“Yep.”

“Then let’s start clearing.”