Visions (Cainsville 2)

"That belonged to our former housekeeper," I said. "She lived in and didn't have her own car, so Dad bought her the Jetta."

"No one drives it now?"

I shook my head. "She retired and our new housekeeper lives out."

"Then take that." When I opened my mouth to protest, he said, "Is it too ostentatious to drive in Cainsville?"

"No, but--"

"Do you expect you'd find any leased or used car with lower insurance or better gas mileage?"

"No, but--"

"Then it meets your standards and overrules your objections. We'll pick it up later."

He headed for the door. I looked at the VW. He was right. For now, this would be no worse than borrowing the Clarks' Buick.

As I came up behind him, Gabriel said, "Catch," and tossed his car keys over his shoulder. "Take the Jag. If you did indeed have a vision of yourself dead in that car, you shouldn't get behind the wheel. I'll follow you back to Cainsville and we'll speak to Rose."

"You don't have to--"

"I have business there."

When I still hesitated in the driveway, he waved at his car. "Take it. Go."

I handed him the Clarks' keys. "Thanks."

I wanted to say thanks for more than letting me drive his car. Thanks for dropping everything and coming out here. Thanks for not making me feel like I'd panicked over a false alarm. But Gabriel doesn't do well with gratitude. He prefers cash. So I settled for that simple "Thanks," which he brushed off with a wave as he limped to the deathmobile.

--

Cainsville, Illinois, was an hour's drive from Chicago, a perfectly reasonable commuting distance, which should have ensured the town became a bedroom community for the big city. While some residents did work in the city, it wasn't easy. No train. No bus. Not even a local taxi service. Commuters had to drive, which started with a slow twenty-minute trek along a country road that took you in the opposite direction to Chicago but led to the nearest highway exit--"near" being a relative term. Even those who wouldn't mind the commute would have trouble finding a house in Cainsville. Hemmed in by the highway, a river, and marshy ground, there was no room for expansion.

It was a small, insular community, still "fond of the old ways," as the elders liked to say. Yet every modern convenience--including screamingly fast Internet service--was available to those who wanted it. A strange little town. And I adored it.

Driving back that afternoon, I took it all in, as if I'd been gone for weeks. The only road into town became Main Street, the commercial center of Cainsville . . . if you call a dozen shops and services a center. I would. Almost anything I could want was there, within a few minutes' walk of my apartment. Life doesn't get much more convenient than that.

Main Street looks as if it belongs in a small town preserved or restored for tourism. Except, without so much as a bed-and-breakfast, tourism wasn't the point for Cainsville. That's just how it looked--picture-perfect storefronts, mostly Renaissance Revival architecture. The street was as narrow as it must have been in the days of horses and buggies. In contrast, the sidewalks were wide and prettied up with overflowing flowerpots, freshly painted benches, and ornate iron trash bins.

This was a town for ambling, as those sidewalks suggested. No one was in a hurry. No one was much inclined to take their car, either, not unless they were leaving town or had the misfortune to live too far from the grocery store. There were a couple dozen people out and about, and if some of them didn't wave, it was only because they were too engrossed in conversation with a companion.

As I drove in, I looked for gargoyles. That had become a habit. I was too old for the annual May Day gargoyle hunt, where kids competed to see who'd found the most, but I still looked in hopes of spotting a new one, because in Cainsville not every gargoyle could be seen all the time.

I turned onto Rowan. My street. I pulled up across the road from my apartment building, and Gabriel parked behind me, in front of his aunt's tiny dollhouse Victorian. Rose's car was gone. Gabriel didn't suggest calling her cell to see when she'd be back. If he did, she'd rush home to help him.

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 bef

ore 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.