Kelley Armstrong - Omens

Still … moving to a town I’d never heard of? There had to be another way.

As I stood there thinking, a truck pulled up to refill the newspaper box out front. The Chicago Tribune . It was day two—any story would have moved off the front page by now. I’d try the Tribune ’s classifieds today, and with any luck, find different ads for apartments and jobs.

I waited until the truck pulled away. Then I walked over to the box, bent to put in my money, and saw the headline, just above the fold.

“A Mother’s Desperate Jailhouse Plea.”

Then the subhead: “ Pamela Larsen Collapses at News of Long-Lost Daughter.”

I straightened and walked back into the drugstore.

Cainsville, Illinois, here I come.

An hour later, I was in a coffee shop restroom. I wore a fresh shirt, the blood-spattered one deep in my bag. I should probably have thrown it out, but that motel clerk wouldn’t dare call the cops, and I couldn’t afford new clothes.

On the counter was a box of hair dye. Red. Or, as the box proclaimed, dark copper. Strands of my hair snaked toward the drain. More filled the trash. I’d dyed it, then I’d cut it more. As it got shorter, the light curl became more pronounced. When I got it down to a few inches and added some gel, I ended up with a tousled, coppery mop. The new cut even made my glasses look different, the dark green frames funky and playful. In other words, I didn’t look like me at all.

Perfect.

It was barely six. So I hung out in the coffee shop, feasting on caffeine and sugar—as if I hadn’t had enough of both already. I spent a few dollars on cell phone calls, searching for a method of public transportation to Cainsville.

Greyhound had never heard of the place. Neither had Amtrak. I was starting to wonder if it existed outside the old man’s imagination when a clerk at a regional bus line said she knew it.

“I grew up a few towns over,” she said. “But you’re not going to find a bus heading out that way, hon. Too far from the interstate.” She laughed. “Too far from anywhere anyone wants to be, if you ask me.”

Which made it exactly where I wanted to be.

Is there such a thing as an adrenaline hangover? I certainly had one on the trip from Chicago to Cainsville. Maybe a better analogy would be laughing gas wearing off after a dental visit. I’d felt fine—better than fine—until I sat down on the cab’s cracked vinyl upholstery, and then what I’d just done hit with the force of a sledgehammer.

I’d attacked a man. Stabbed him. More than once. I’d left him there, bleeding, and I’d stolen his money before I went. Yes, I could argue that I’d been defending myself and maybe three blows weren’t warranted, but I couldn’t risk the guy coming after me. Still … taking his money?

It wasn’t just what I’d done that bothered me. It was how easily I’d done it. There’d been no hesitation. I’d reacted on instinct.

And where did that instinct come from? That was the real question, wasn’t it?

Ida and Walter Clark left their house that morning at nine, as they did every day. Or roughly thereabouts. Ida had risen early to do the laundry. Then Walter hung it out to dry, which meant they actually left at 9:10. Still plenty of time to make it to the school for morning recess, which was the objective.

They didn’t lock their door. No one in Cainsville did.

“Do I have time to get a cup of tea?” Ida asked as she looped her arm through her husband’s.

“From the coffee shop. Not from Larry’s.”

She sighed.

“We should support the coffee shop, too,” Walter said. “They’re good people. Even if they don’t know how to make a proper cup of tea. But those coffee drinks are good.” He smiled at her. “I know you like the vanilla ones.”

True. The concept of putting so much milk in your coffee still struck her as foreign. Italian, wasn’t it? But it was delicious, and her bones could use the extra calcium. They’d pick up a bag of the almond cookies, too, for the others who’d be at the school.

Watching the children at recess was a ritual for the elders of Cainsville. There were even benches along the fence, like bleachers at a sports field. There was joy to be found in watching the young, so carefree and happy. It reminded them what this town stood for, the way of life they worked so hard to protect.

There weren’t nearly as many children as the elders would like, but they had no one to blame except themselves. The town was a mere hour from Chicago. These days, that was considered a reasonable commuting distance, and Cainsville could easily become a sprawling bedroom community, with hundreds of children, even a high school of its own, and a real sports field, where they could cheer on their home teams.

It was a pleasant dream, but like so many dreams, it masked an uglier reality. To get those children, the town would need to grow significantly. There would be new housing developments along every border. Strangers moving in. Strangers who didn’t understand what it meant to live in Cainsville.

The town’s location had been chosen specifically because the geography forbade expansion. Nestled in the fork of a river, with marshy, inhospitable ground on the only open side. That meant it was protected.

It also meant there was no room to grow. The city council wouldn’t permit bridges over the river forks. They hadn’t even allowed an exit to be built off the highway—to reach Cainsville, you had to take one miles away, and it fed onto a narrow county road.

The few children who lived here were happy, treasured, and coddled. Once they reached adolescence, that coddling could become suffocating. The elders understood that. Teenagers didn’t want everyone knowing their name, watching over them, however indulgently. They didn’t want to live in a town you could walk across in a half hour. They graduated from high school, left, and stayed gone … until they married and had children of their own. Then they looked around at the world and looked at their children and decided it was time to go home. Back to Cainsville.

Not everyone returned, of course. So the town stayed roughly the same size as it had always been. Which was for the best, all things considered.

It wasn’t that they didn’t welcome newcomers. Look at the people who owned the coffee shop. Been here about a year and everyone tried really hard to make them feel welcome, even if they didn’t know how to fix a proper cuppa. They were the right sort of folks. That’s what mattered here. In that case, new blood was welcome. Or old blood, as the case may be.

Ida and Walter had just walked onto Rowan Street when a taxi pulled to the roadside. An odd sight in Cainsville.

A young woman got out. Hair as bright as a copper penny, worn in loose, short curls. Glasses that seemed designed to mask a pretty face, and were doing a poor job of it, judging by the look Walter was giving her.

“Is that the Larsen girl?” he asked.

Ida looked closer. “Hmm. It just might be.”

As they approached, the young woman shut the taxi’s door and the car sped off, spitting up gravel, making the girl step quickly back.

“Rude driver,” Ida sniffed.

“City folk.”

She nodded. As they passed the girl, Ida offered her a smile and a good morning, which her husband echoed, and the girl returned.

“Yes, it’s definitely the Larsen girl,” Ida said after they’d passed. “She’s ahead of schedule.”

“That’s not a bad thing.”

“True. We should tell the others.”

“We will. After we get you your coffee drink.”

She smiled, took his arm, and they continued on.