I exhaled in relief.

“Is that an omen?” he asked.

“I have no idea. But I saw that exact same dog in Cainsville this morning. I’m sure it was the same one. It’s huge.”

“And very distinctive.” He tapped the phone, frowning. “In Cainsville, you say?” He rose. “We should speak to Rose.”

Before we left, I reset the house alarm.

“You need one of those at your apartment,” Gabriel said.

“I have a gun. And a cat.”

He gave me a look.

“I cannot afford a security system, Gabriel. I suppose I could hock some things. I left most of my jewelry upstairs. I could go get it…”

“No, you’d be lucky to get a fraction of the value.”

I’m sure Gabriel had enough experience with pawnshops to know, though most of what he would have hocked as a youth wouldn’t have been his to begin with.

“You need a security system,” he said. “One of Don’s men installs excellent units at very reasonable prices.” He meant Don Gallagher, his primary client. Don headed the Satan’s Saints. It was not a heavy metal band.

“Uh-huh. A biker who installs security systems? Does he keep a ‘backup’ copy of the code?”

“Petty larceny is hardly profitable enough for the Saints to bother with—if they involved themselves in criminal activity, which they do not. Any system I buy from them would be both secure and affordable.”

Having survived that fall off the back of a truck without a scratch.

“I still can’t afford—”

“I’ll deduct it from your pay. Now, I seem to recall you saying once that your father had a garage full of cars?”

“Yes…”

“You should take one.”

“I’m not—”

“Let’s take a look.”

He limped off, leaving me to follow.

CHAPTER THREE

Gabriel scanned the two rows of cars. His Jag might reach six figures, but he could have bought two of them for the price of any of these vintage sports models.

I stifled any twinge of guilt. Yes, Dad had inherited the Mills & Jones department store, but it’d been close to bankruptcy when he’d bought out the Mills family. He’d earned every penny to buy these vehicles, the same as Gabriel had for his.

“My dad loved fast cars,” I said as I walked over.

“As does his daughter.”

Gabriel’s Jag had five hundred horses under the hood, but for him it was only a status symbol¸ a mobile business card that said, “I might be young, but I’m a fucking genius at what I do.”

“Which is your favorite?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t have one, but he’d already noticed where my gaze slid. He walked behind the two-seater.

“A Maserati?” he said. “Not much trunk space.”

“You don’t buy a 1961 Maserati Spyder for trunk space.”

“All right, then. Where are the keys?”

“I can’t—”

“Does your mother use these cars?”

“No, but—”

“Does anyone else use them?”

“No, but—”

“You need a vehicle, Olivia. The fact that your mother continues upkeep on these suggests she considers them yours, for your use, the same as your laptop or your clothing. I suspect if you checked the will, your father left them to you. If you feel the need to check with her, do that.”

“I don’t. But a waitress with a Maserati? That’s not who I want to be. Yes, I need a car, and once I’m working for you I’ll rent or lease something. Right now—”

“Whose vehicle is that?”

He cut in as if I’d stopped talking a few sentences ago. For him, I probably had—or at least I’d stopped saying anything worth listening to. I followed his finger to a decade-old VW diesel Jetta tucked behind the Rolls.

“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.