CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

As promised, the Gallaghers’ auto shops had my car fixed and waiting for me by noon. An hour later, I was headed back to Cainsville for my diner shift.

Patrick arrived around four, and the moment he walked through the door I was at his table, filling the mug. When Larry made banana nut muffins for the evening crowd, I brought Patrick one straight from the oven. Yes, I was not subtle about courting his favor. But Patrick doesn’t need subtle. He practically purred under the attention.

The elders noticed, and they were not nearly so pleased. Some game was in play, and they were stuck on the sidelines.

At eight, as Patrick was preparing to leave, I sidled over to his table and pulled out a chair, leaning in to speak to him privately, while making sure everyone else saw me speaking to him privately.

“I need to talk to you,” I whispered.

A satisfied smile. “I thought you might. Why don’t I come back and walk you home after your shift?”

“Thank you.”

As I moved away, I felt Ida’s gaze on me. She sat with Walter and two of the other elders I knew less well—Minnie and Roger. When I headed for the kitchen, she waved me over, ostensibly for pie.

“How are things, Olivia?” she asked. “We really haven’t had time to chat lately. You’ve been so busy.”

“I have.”

“Anything interesting?” Walter asked.

“Not really.” I refilled their teapot with fresh hot water. “I met a girl with a connection to Ciara Conway that I’m trying to puzzle out. Someone mentioned she might have lived in Cainsville. Macy Shaw?”

“Doesn’t sound familiar,” Walter mused. “We may have had a family by that surname, but it’s been years.”

“Many years,” said Ida.

The others nodded.

“I’ll keep digging, then,” I said.

“You’ll let us know if you find anything?” Ida asked.

“Of course.”

—

At eleven, Patrick was waiting outside the diner.

“I presume this chat will take longer than the five-minute walk to your apartment?” he said as I joined him.

“It will.”

We headed for the park.

“The elders aren’t happy with me,” I said. “Seems I was paying a little too much attention to you.”

He smiled. “Their old egos are so fragile.”

“And you do love to see them dented.”

The smile grew. “Perhaps.”

“Then I’ve done you a favor, haven’t I?”

“You have.” He slanted a look my way as he held the gate open. “For credit, I presume. Which you intend to call on now.”

“I do.”

Normally, people don’t like to think you’re only being nice to them because you want something. Patrick didn’t seem to mind at all. Quite the contrary—from the look on his face, he was pleased with me. I understood the game and played it fairly.

“How old are you?” I asked as we sat on the bench.

His dark eyes gleamed. “How old do you want me to be?”

“Gabriel remembers you when he came back before college. You were older than him then.”

“Then presumably I still am.”

“Presumably. He told me a story today,” I said. “When he was young, a man in Cainsville used to speak to him. He’d give him hints about the hidden gargoyles. One day, Gabriel’s mother—Seanna—caught him talking to this man, and she was furious. Made Gabriel swear never to speak to him again.”

“How rude.”

“It is, isn’t it? The man didn’t try to lure him off with candy or any such thing. They just talked. Gabriel never understood why Seanna was so angry.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“Here’s the thing. When Gabriel remembers the man, he seems to think it was you, though he knows it couldn’t be. Clearly you’re not old enough.”

“Clearly.”

“But in his memory, he associates the man with you. Do you know why?”

Patrick shrugged. “Memory is a mystery we cannot hope to solve. I grew up in Cainsville. I have family here.”

“Then would you know why his mother told him not to speak to this man?”

“She must have had some reason for disliking him.”

“Because Seanna herself was from Cainsville originally.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“And you don’t know what she’d have against this man, who was obviously not you.”

Patrick looked at me, and I waited for him to say he had no idea. Instead, he smiled. “Perhaps he gave her a gift she did not want. It happens, between men and women.”

I went quiet for a moment. Then I said, “If I ask you what’s going on in Cainsville, will you tell me?”

Again, there was an easy answer: play dumb. What’s going on? Do you mean local news? Events? But that was one game Patrick didn’t play. He said only, “No.”

“Can I earn the answers?”

“By currying favor with me? No. I like my life here, Olivia. It’s very comfortable. You need to find your own answers. Or get close enough to them that I can help.”

“Will you help?”

“If it’s in my best interests. Currying favor goes both ways.”

“Let’s change the subject, then. Mind control.”

“Ah.”

“We discussed it right before Gabriel and I solved the mystery of my parents’ last crimes. You’ve never asked if that solution had anything to do with mind control. Because you know it did, don’t you?”

“Or I’m simply not interested in knowing. As a possibility, mind control is intriguing. In reality? I have no interest in making people do anything they don’t want to. Far too much effort.” He paused. “Unless it could compel them to buy my books . . .”

“Compel. That’s an interesting word.”

“Is it?”

“You said I need to find my own answers. But what if I was somehow being compelled not to ask the questions? Mentally influenced to avoid even posing those questions?”

“Brainwashed, you mean? Compelled to accept the unbelievable based on faith alone?” He peered at me. “You aren’t going to church, are you?”

I gave him a look.

“Religion exists to instill false security and blind faith,” he continued. “Yet it is imperfect. To accept the message, you must hear the message. You must ‘drink the Kool-Aid,’ so to speak. But how would that work on a practical level? Disseminate something in the air or water to keep people from asking questions about Cainsville? That’s science. Otherwise, if there is a message—or charm or compulsion—it would need to be delivered in person, repeatedly, to be maintained. Completely impractical.”

“So you’re saying it couldn’t happen.”

That maddening curve of his lips. I was clearly frustrated, and that amused him. What did he see when he looked at me? A child. I was sure of that. Like the Huntsman. Like Tristan.

They were one thing and we were another, and to them we were children. Adorable and entertaining toddlers, fumbling in the dark. Like Macy, when she’d gotten angry at the hospital. I bared my teeth and I hissed and I flashed my claws, and Patrick saw not a wildcat but a kitten. Adorable in her infinitely tiny fury.

“For the purposes of transmission, consider it a disease,” he said. “A condition. How does it pass from source to recipient?”

I shifted, not wanting to play his game but not wanting to walk away, either. “Methods of transmission . . . Air. Water. Direct contact. Consuming infected material.”

“None of the above.”

“Heredity?” I said. “Passed through the genes?”

“That would be a convenient method for an isolated little town.”

I opened my mouth to argue that I wasn’t from Cainsville. Neither was Gabriel. Except both of our families came from here.

He pushed to his feet. “And there ends tonight’s conversation. When you have more, ask me more. Until then, have a pleasant night, Olivia.”

He started to walk away.

“You lied about the hound,” I called after him.

He turned, brows arching, and a memory twitched, telling me—

I inhaled. I knew what it was telling me. And I pushed it aside. For now.

“The hound. I asked you about big black hounds, and you said the only folklore you knew of was the Black Shuck. You forgot Cwn Annwn.”

He tensed. I saw a flicker and . . . nothing. I saw nothing. But I sensed a reaction.

“The hounds of the Otherworld,” I said. “That’s what it means, literally. But not necessarily what it is, right? Cwn Annwn is the Wild Hunt. The hounds are only part of it. Like the horses. The real Cwn Annwn are the hunters.”

Patrick’s gaze bored into me, and again that look tweaked my memory. Again I knew why and ignored it for now.

“I met one,” I said. “A Huntsman, I think they’re called. He gave me this.” I opened my hand to show the boar’s tusk. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you can decipher what it says?”

After a long moment of silence, Patrick said, “I suppose this has to do with the boy.”

“Boy?”

“Young Mr. Gallagher.”

I fought to hide my confusion. “No. I was at dinner with James. The Huntsman lured me into the back hall.”

“James? Ah, yes, the former fiancé.” The grim intensity fell from Patrick’s face, the old amusement bouncing back. “So many men hovering about you, Liv. It’s hard to keep them straight. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Variety is the spice of life, they say. As for that”—he pointed to the tusk—“it’s a pretty bauble. Keep it with you, for now. Just don’t get too attached to it. Or to Mr. Gallagher.”

He turned to go.

“What does Ricky have to do with this?” I said, walking after him.

Again, he turned. “Nothing. Everything. It depends on the perspective. From his? Nothing, I’m sure. He knows nothing.”

“Like me,” I said, remembering Tristan’s words. “Like Gabriel. We’re pawns.”

“Only if you allow yourselves to be,” he said, and walked into the night.

—

I had the next day off at the diner, which meant a full day working for Gabriel. I was expected in by nine. Before I left, I got an e-mail from Howard asking me to call.

He had two items of business.

“Your mother is coming home,” he said.

“Great. Have her call me when she gets settled.”

“She’d like you to pick her up at the airport.”

“No.”

Silence. Apparently not the response he’d expected. “Your mother is looking forward to seeing you, Olivia, and you should make an effort to mend fences—”

“I didn’t break any fences. This isn’t me being petty, Howard. She doesn’t want me to meet her. She wants a chauffeur.”

“She could well afford to hire a car. She’d like you to pick her up. And she’d like you to stay at the house.”

“Until she finds a live-in housekeeper and chauffeur? Again, no.”

“If she wished that, I could hire them before she returns. What she wants is a reunion with her daughter. She’d like you to come home.”

Come home. There’d been a time when I longed for that. Now I couldn’t imagine it.

“If she wants me to meet her at the airport, she needs to call me. Herself. What else is there?”

“I have a package for you. From James. He doesn’t know your address, so he’s asked me to send it along.”

I stifled a sigh. Probably clothing I’d left at his place. At least he was accepting that it was over.

“Send it to Gabriel Walsh’s office,” I said.

A pause. “You’re still involved with Mr. Walsh?”

“I was never involved with Mr. Walsh. He’s representing Pamela. I’ll be at his office today. You can have someone run the parcel over.”

“Your mother will not be pleased when she hears of this continuing association.”

“I’ll be at his office for most of the day, and I’d appreciate receiving that package. Thank you for your time, Howard.”