Speaking of curtains … as I walked down Rowan I noticed another pretty place, this one a fraction of the size. A dollhouse of a two-story Victorian, narrow and shallow, its height making it seem bigger than it was. Weathered boards cried out for a fresh coat of paint. Ivy covered every surface. The yard was well kept, though. Exceedingly well kept, with a golf-course-perfect lawn and gardens so lush they seemed to have time-warped into midsummer. It was jarring, that juxtaposition. Like something out of a fairy tale, the perfect yard enticing the unwary into the witch’s abode.
The witch herself seemed to be in residence, peering out from that open curtain. Below her, in the first-floor window, a sign read “Tarot, palmistry, and astrology. By appt. only.” A fortune teller? Seriously? I squinted to get a better look at the woman. The curtain fell.
As I crossed the road, I noticed the apartment building had gargoyles, too. Under the eaves and tucked into the corners of the fake window balconies, stone gargoyles standing watch. I marveled at them, then climbed the steps and reached for the doorknob. There, above my head, was yet another Gothic touch, this one far more subtle and definitely unintended. A massive spiderweb, dew-dappled and glistening in the morning sun. The spider was there, too, big and black, waiting in the middle of its web.
If you wish to live and thrive,
Let the spider stay alive.
That was a new one. Just what I needed. More superstitious crap filling my brain.
I shook my head and pulled open the door.
Cards Don’t Lie
Rose ducked back behind the gauzy curtain as the girl squinted her way. The red hair had thrown her, but only for a moment. She’d known the girl was coming. The cards never lied. So Rose had been watching. Now she was here.
Eden Larsen. Olivia Taylor-Jones. As for what her arrival in Cainsville portended … The cards were, as usual, long on declarations and short on interpretations.
The girl had stopped on the stoop of Grace’s building. She was staring up into the corner of the front doorway.
What was she gaping at? Whatever it was, it held her attention for at least a minute before she opened the door and walked through.
Rose picked up her binoculars from the table and peered out. She looked where the girl had been staring. Nothing. She adjusted the lenses and looked again. It didn’t help. She was looking right at the spot.
There was nothing there.
Chapter Sixteen
The front door opened into a vestibule with stairs going up and a perpendicular hall for the apartments. No locked door to pass through. No panels of buzzers to alert the residents to company. Not even names on the mailbox slots.
The hall was paneled plaster with a wooden floor. My knowledge of architecture was confined to the external, so I didn’t know how historically accurate this was. It looked right, though. It was definitely nicer than any of the apartments I’d visited so far. Yes, the floorboards were worn, unvarnished paths showing the main routes, and the walls could use fresh paint. But it had a comfortable, lived-in look. Benign neglect.
I looked down the main hallway. Two doors on each side, four apartments on each floor. Twelve overall, then. Small, but it certainly didn’t feel full. The long corridor was dimly lit and cool, like a cave. Smelled a lot better than any cave I’d explored. I picked up teasing traces of sandalwood. The sounds were as muted as the smells. Hushed. Not so much a cave, then, as a church after hours, dark and cool and peaceful.
I knocked on 1D, the number on the note. It took three tries for the landlord to answer, and when she did, the look she gave me said I should have taken the hint after the first two.
She was at least as old as her cousin in Chicago. Steel gray hair pulled back in a severe bun. Sharp nose. Sharp chin. Even sharper gaze.
“What?”
“Are you Grace?” I handed her the note without waiting for a reply. “Your cousin Jack in Chicago—”
An abrupt wave, silencing me as she snatched the paper. As she read it, her frown deepened, until she wouldn’t have been out of place perched on top of her building.
“Got one apartment,” she said. “Three hundred a month.”
“Could I see—?”
“No. Wasn’t expecting to be showing apartments today.”
“Is it one bedroom?”
“You need more? Too bad. It’s one.”
“One is fine. Separate kitchen and living area?”
“It’s five hundred square feet, girl. You won’t be doing much living in there. But if you’re asking if it’s all one room, like one of those bachelor pads, no, it’s a proper apartment. Kitchen, living room, bedroom, bath.”
“Furnished?”
“If you call a fridge, stove, twin bed, and sofa ‘furnished.’ Might not be up to your standards, though. Got them at a yard sale.” A pause. “Twenty years ago.”
“Could I replace them if I wanted?”
“Can do anything you want. Replace the furniture, paint, carpet. Hell, you can even clean the place. Might need it. Haven’t opened the door since the tenant moved out last year.”
Lovely …
“Okay, so three hundred a month,” I said. “First and last’s makes that six—”
“Did I say you could stay two months? You pay one. Then I decide if you can have it for another.”
Renting a place unseen was ridiculous. But three hundred was a steal, especially with no second month’s rent or damage deposit.
I took another look down the hall. I wouldn’t even want to think what I’d pay in a place like this in Chicago.
“I’ll take it.”
A grunt that might have been “good” but probably wasn’t. She held out her hand, and it took me a second to realize she wanted her money. Now. I peeled three hundred from my wad and handed them over.
She took a key ring from inside her doorway, then strode along the hall so fast I had to scamper to keep up. No arthritic knees or hips here, despite her age. As we walked, she didn’t say a word, just worked on getting a key off the ring.
We went up the stairs to the top floor. She walked to one of the front apartments and swung the door open. Left unoccupied and unlocked for a year?
The stink of must hit me as soon as the door opened. Nothing worse, though. A few hours—okay, a few days—with the windows open, and it would be fine.
As I followed her in, I realized she wasn’t kidding about the cleaning. There were newspapers and empty boxes littering a floor so thick with dust that I kicked up clouds with every step.
Still, as with the rest of the building, the apartment was in good shape. Pretty even, with worn wood floors and plenty of decorative flourishes. It just needed a thorough scrubbing. The mauve painted walls would have to go before they gave me a headache.
Grace handed me the key. Then, without a word, she walked out.
If it hadn’t been for the smell, I think I’d have collapsed on the bed and called it a day. But that stink got me out—with the windows left open.
Grace was on the front stoop, in a ratty lawn chair, surveying the street as if expecting an invasion of Mongols. I offered a cheery “Have a good morning!” as I started down the steps.
“Where you off to already?” she said.
“Job hunting.”
“You just got here.”
“I need a job.”
“Well, you won’t get one here. Not this fast.”
I walked back up the stairs. “The town doesn’t look like it’s hurting too badly. There must be jobs for someone willing to take what she can get, which I am.”
“Oh, there are jobs. But folks don’t know you yet. Not going to hire you until they do. Only ones who’ll take you so fast are other new people.” A dismissive wave at a young woman herding two preschoolers toward Main Street. “They’ll hire you to clean their houses and look after their brats.”
“Then that’s what I’ll do.”
She snorted and shook her head as I went back down the steps.
“Waste
of time,” she called after me. “But if you insist on going out, might as well stop by the diner.”
I turned. “Do they have an opening?”
“No. I want a scone. One of those cranberry orange ones. If Larry says he’s out, you tell him Grace says he’s full of shit and he’d better find one.”
Chapter Seventeen
Grace was right. I hit every shop on Main Street. Some people said they weren’t hiring. Others peered at me and asked me who my folks were.
My parents, they meant. I definitely wasn’t answering that. But what they were really asking was whether I was local, maybe gone off to college and come back and they didn’t recognize me. When I told them I was new in Cainsville, they said they didn’t have any openings, but I should come back in a week or two. In other words, once people around here got to know me.
I’d just left the last store when I passed a sign for the library. It was in the community center, which was an amazing building. It looked like a small version of Altgeld’s castles, the Gothic Revival halls built at five Illinois universities. When Altgeld was governor in the late nineteenth century, he’d expressed concern about the ugliness of public buildings and suggested a style that would be both functional and attractive. The result was those five buildings.
The Cainsville community center was clearly modeled after them. It was a long, gray stone building, complete with turrets, battlements, a front tower, and of course, gargoyles. It should have looked horribly out of place, but it fit right in.
I walked through the front doors. There were lots of postings on the community board for local activities, everything from book clubs to karate lessons. None for jobs. Oddly, none for commuting partners, either—I’d considered whether I could carpool to a job in Chicago. Before I left, I popped into the library to check out the computers. They had a row of them, all with free Internet. It might look like a sleepy town, but the computers were relatively new. Very nice.
I considered sending a message to James. I could create a new e-mail account—that would be safe, wouldn’t it?
Um, no. The guy owned a tech company, and I was seriously thinking he didn’t have someone on staff who could track the e-mail’s originating IP address? And after he tracked it to the library, how long would it take to find someone who would tell him that, yes, there was a new young woman in town.
Did I want him to find me? Or did I want to test him, see if he’d bother? Or test him another way, see if he’d respect my privacy and my ability to take care of myself?
If I truly intended to make it on my own, I had to send him a message the next time I was in Chicago, not from here.
I finished my job hunt in the Corner Diner, which looked like someone had transported it from the fifties. Red vinyl seats. Gleaming chrome. The smell of fresh coffee and apple pie. A cool air-conditioned breeze, just enough to lift the heat from the midday sun streaming through the windows.
There were plenty of windows. As the name proclaimed, the diner was on the corner, so glass wrapped around both sides, giving a street-side view to as many patrons as possible.
The worn linoleum floor squeaked under my shoes, and people glanced up at me. A few curious looks. A few smiles, not overly friendly but warm enough.
There were a couple of people eating a late lunch, but most seemed to be on a coffee break. Three tables of postretirement couples. Two of construction workers. Two more of shopkeepers, all of whom I’d met earlier in the day, and all of whom greeted me with a nod and a smile. And, finally, one table occupied by the obligatory “guy working on his novel.”
As I crossed the diner, the would-be novelist looked up from his laptop. He was in his early twenties, with a lean face, dark eyes, and darker hair tumbling over those eyes. I’d have thought he was seriously cute if I were five years younger. And if I went for the tortured artistic types. As it was, I smiled and continued to the counter.
“Margie?” called a rich tenor voice behind me. “I need a refill.”
I glanced back to see the novelist holding out his mug. The server—a wide-hipped woman in her early thirties—picked up the coffeepot … and headed for a patron on the other side of the restaurant. I walked to the counter, where a beefy man with prison tats frowned as he watched the server.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Is the manager in?”
“That’d be me.” He extended a thick hand. “Larry Knight. Owner, proprietor, and chief cook.”
“Only cook,” said a reedy male voice behind me.
“Which is just the way we like it,” a woman chimed in. “Best in the state.”
As Larry blushed, I turned to see the elderly couple that’d greeted me this morning when I’d gotten out of the taxi. We exchanged smiles.
I asked Larry if he was hiring.
“Mmm, no,” he said with what sounded like genuine regret. “This is a small operation, miss. Me at the grill, Margie and two other ladies sharing serving duty. Have you tried the—?”
One of the construction workers started coughing, his face screwed up as he spat on the floor. He lifted his coffee mug, peered in, and let out a roar.
“Margie! The cream’s turned. That’s the second time this week.”
“Count yourself lucky,” one of the shop owners said. “Three times for me, plus once with salt in the sugar container.”
Larry scrambled from behind the counter, cream carton in one hand, fresh coffee mug in the other, sputtering apologies.
“Not your fault, Larry,” the construction worker said. “We all know who’s responsible for condiments around here.” A glare at Margie, who squawked that she checked the creamers every day and those ones weren’t due for another week.
“Then you’d better check the fridge,” Larry said. “Make sure it’s working right.”
“Any chance on that refill?” called the writer. “I don’t even take cream.”
Larry apologized some more, took the pot from Margie, and hurried over. The old folks nearest me watched Margie disappear into the back, then one murmured, “Larry really has to let that gal go.”
“He’s too softhearted,” the other replied.
They both nodded, half approvingly, half not, then checked their tea before sipping it.
“Sorry ’bout that,” Larry said to me as he returned to his place behind the counter. “And sorry about the hiring situation. Can I get you something to eat? On the house? My way of saying welcome to Cainsville.”
I took him up on the freebie, but ordered the cheapest thing on the menu—a grilled cheese sandwich. “And I need to buy a cranberry orange scone for Grace over on Rowan, please.”
“We’re all out of—”
“Don’t even try it, Larry,” one of the old ladies cackled. “Not with Grace. You should know better by now.”
Larry sighed. “I’ll bake up a batch from the freezer.”
When he went into the kitchen, the elderly couple waved me over to squeeze into the booth with them. They introduced themselves as Ida and Walter. As I waited for my lunch, they gave me—unprompted—Larry’s life story, at least as it pertained to Cainsville. To them, that was the only part that mattered, despite the fact that he’d only been here a few years. Before that, all they’d say was that he’d spent some time traveling the wrong road, which I could have guessed by the prison tats.
“Got mixed up with a bad crowd,” Walter said.
“He’s too trusting. People take advantage. Like her.” A poisonous glower in Margie’s direction as she took an order.
My sandwich arrived, and as I ate Ida and Walter filled me in on the town’s inhabitants, an endless litany of names I’d never remember. When I finished, I got Grace’s scone from Larry. As I was heading out, the would-be writer was trying to get another refill from Margie and, again, being ignored. He glanced at me as I passed the coffee station, then lifted his mug and eyebrows simultaneously.
I looked at Margie. She was on her cell phone. Well, as long as I was trying to make a good impression…
/> I took the coffeepot over and refilled his mug. He thanked me and said, “Now I bet you expect a tip.”
“Um, no. I was just—”
“Being nice?” The smile that tweaked his lips was mischievous, but with a twist that was more devilish than boyish. “Didn’t your momma ever tell you never to give something unless you can get something in return?”
“That wasn’t how I was raised.”
“Then you were raised wrong. As for that tip…” He lowered his voice. “If you want to work here, I’d suggest you come back for breakfast tomorrow. Then maybe for coffee in the afternoon. Repeat as needed. I have a feeling that opportunity will knock.” A pointed look at Margie. “Sooner rather than later.”
“Thanks.”
“No need to thank me.” He lifted his full mug. “It was a fair exchange of services.”
He gave me that same unsettling smile, and I had to check my pace so I didn’t hurry away.
When I stepped out of the diner, I noticed a black cat grooming itself on the diner windowsill. As I watched it, a voice whispered in my ear. Black cat, black cat, bring me some luck.
I spun. There was no one there. I rubbed my ear and made a face. Another forgotten ditty, resurfacing from my subconscious. I guess it was a testament to my mental state. I could act like I was motoring forward, doing fine, but something inside me had fractured, and this was what came bubbling up.
“Superstitious nonsense,” I muttered.
The cat gave me a baleful look, then rubbed its paw over its head, flattening both ears with one swipe.
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