Eden suited her better. It wasn't perfect. A little too cute, conjuring up images of idealistic young parents searching naming books to find just the right one for their little treasure. Still better than calling her "the girl." As long as she remembered not to say it aloud. She couldn't afford to alienate Eden. Not now.
Speaking of alienating...
Rose looked over at her cell phone and stifled the overwhelming urge to call Gabriel and deliver a verbal smack upside the head. That was the price of having her grandnephew in her life. She must not meddle. A lesson she'd learned when he was fifteen, after his mother left.
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A deplorable situation. Her niece had the parenting skills of a ... Rose didn't even know how to finish that sentence. Any creature in nature so incapable of caring for its young would have died out centuries ago.
Rose pushed the phone aside, then swept the last hawthorn petals from the desk. A test for Eden. There were others, but this was the one she'd noticed. The power to innately detect and decipher omens was a strange skill, one that most psychics would deny even existed. And yet Rose had seen it once before--an old woman who could read omens. She'd been accepted and even quite celebrated in the community; Cainsville was an odd sort of place that way.
Rose had been only a child at the time, the woman merely a vague memory now, and she knew no more about her and her power. But when she'd seen signs in Eden, she'd set out the tests and Eden had detected one. Only one, though, meaning it was an ability as yet undeveloped. Rose could help with that, and she would, because it was in her best interests. For a Walsh, that's what it came down to. Eden Larsen or Olivia Taylor-Jones or whomever the girl was becoming would be useful, and it behooved Rose to take advantage of that.
Chapter Thirty-seven
The cat never did leave. When he finished his mouse, he started meowing at me. I opened the door. He ignored it. I quickly laid out newspaper. He kept meowing. I got a towel--one of only two I owned--and reluctantly surrendered it. He curled up on it and went to sleep.
My Internet access wasn't smoking hot, but it was decent enough if I set up close to the front window. I spent the evening scouring the web for anything on Jan Gunderson, Christian Gunderson, Tim Marlotte--anyone and anything that might help me make a case against Christian. Or proved he was innocent and the Larsens had been rightfully convicted. I found nothing.
I woke up, let the cat out, and went to work. Or something like that. I attempted to let the cat out. But he had apparently stuffed half the dead mouse behind my stove, and when I tried to kick him out, he recovered his breakfast and set about eating it. Then he jumped into my sink and meowed until I got him a bowl of water. At least he didn't expect cream.
When I was ready to leave for work, I opened the door again, and even prodded him in that direction. He pretended not to notice. So I scooped him up and carried him out.
I reached the front doors just as Grace, dressed in a housecoat and a scowl, was retrieving her morning paper.
She glowered at the cat. "No pets allowed."
"Tell that to whoever let him in." I shifted the cat under my arm. "Also, you have mice."
She squawked as I left. Once I reached the sidewalk, I put the cat down. He gave me a baleful look, then tore back into the front yard, leapt onto the porch, and crouched behind a stone urn, gaze fixed on the door, waiting for it to open.
"So that's how you do it," I said. "Just don't let Grace catch you or you'll end up baked in a pie."
As my shift ended, Gabriel called to say we had evening interviews with one of Jan's old friends and a former teacher of Christian's whom the police had questioned about his association with the first female victim, Amanda Mays. It seemed like retreading well-trodden ground, but nothing else was popping up. Should I really expect it to? How many professionals had taken a crack at this case? I sure as hell wasn't going to prove the Larsens were innocent by questioning two people.
Gabriel knocked at my door at ten to six. When I let him in, he sniffed the air, frowning slightly. Then he noticed my guest.
"You have a cat."
"Not by choice." I shut down my laptop. "He came in last night chasing a mouse and apparently he likes it here. I kicked him out in the morning and found him at my door when I got back. I left him in the hall, but he started caterwauling. Grace came. She tried taking him outside. He scratched her arms, so she threw him in here and told me I have a cat."
"I see. Does he have a name?"
"That would imply I'm keeping him." I scowled at the cat, who simply tucked his paws under himself and continued ignoring me. "He gets a towel, some kitty litter, and that empty tin can for a water dish."
"From the looks of him, he'll settle for that. And maybe a flea collar."
On cue, the cat scratched behind his ear.
"Great," I muttered. I started for the door, then I handed Gabriel a box from the counter. "My thanks for getting me through the interview."
He took the box gingerly and stood there looking down at it.
"What? Is it ticking?" I reached over and pulled off the lid. "Cookies. That's what you smelled earlier--I hope. My first batch ever. Well, actually, my second. There was a test run. I'll feed them to Grace."
He looked down at the cookies.
"I asked your aunt what I could do to thank you," I said. "She gave me the recipe. Said they were your favorites."