Deceptions (Cainsville 3)

"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."

CHAPTER FIVE

Chandler looked every month of his eighty-five years. I wouldn't have said I was sorry to see it. Not only had he ordered the deaths of Jan Gunderson and Peter Evans, but he'd used his mind-control drugs to murder Jan's father and a friend of Peter's as a test of his new toy. Two innocent people had died and two equally innocent people were now charged with their murders.

Chandler tottered into the visitors' area on a cane. Not because the weight of his crimes had finally become too much to bear, but because he hadn't recovered from being shot in the leg by Gabriel last month.

When a guard strode over to help him, Chandler peered at him.

"I don't know you," he said to the man.

"Name's Ransom. I was here last week when you talked to your lawyer."

"No you weren't. I've never seen you before."

Ransom rolled his eyes and took Chandler by the arm to help him into his seat.

Chandler shook the man off. "I don't know you."

"Someone's a little paranoid," I whispered to Gabriel.

Chandler turned to us. "Mr. Walsh. I don't believe you were invited to this tete-a-tete. If Eden feels threatened, I can assure you both I'm quite harmless here."

"Gabriel stays," I said. "So you've decided to speak to me?"