Kelley Armstrong - Omens

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.”

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.”