Betrayals (Cainsville Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

“If you would prefer to investigate alone, Olivia, I’d appreciate it if you’d say so. I’m hardly goingto the gym to swim laps while one of my primary clients is under threat of arrest.” He turned off the coffeemaker. “I would prefer to accompany you, but I won’t insist. And yes, I’ll feed your cat.”
    “You don’t have to,” I said. “He’ll just be less of a pain in the ass if you do.”
    Gabriel didn’t return my smile. He just headed to the cupboard and took out a can of cat food. As I opened the front door, TC raced out and nearly tripped me. Then he sat in my path and fixed me with a baleful stare.
    “The food is that way,” I said, pointing.
    More staring. When I tried to walk around him, he darted into my path again and planted himself there.
    I sighed. “You want me to take Gabriel.”
    TC lifted a paw, cleaning it, as if to say,
Whatever do you mean? I’m just a cat.
    “Nice try,” I said. “But I’m not snubbing him. I’m just …”
    I looked at the apartment door. Then I went back in, with TC trotting at my heels.
    “Okay, I lied,” I said as I walked into the kitchen, where Gabriel was throwing out the cat food tin. I took it from the trash and rinsed it. “I want to talk to Patrick.” I tossed the can into the recycling bin. “I want to look at his books. See if I can find the answer there.”
    “The books that gave you visions the last time?”
    “Yes, and I didn’t want you trying to stop me. Also, the last time we did this, you decked Patrick, which I suspect is a very bad idea.”
    “So is asking to use his library, which puts you in his debt. As for the visions, while it’s true that I don’t like you encouraging them, I would hope that if you plan to do so, you wouldtake along someone who might actually help you if you collapse unconscious on the floor again. Because Patrick will not.”
    True. While Patrick wouldn’t let me die of fever on his floor, if I fell and banged my head, he’d calmly observe the results and then wander off when that proved dull.
    “I think it’s worth the risk.” I paused and added, “And I’d like you to come.”
    He set the cat’s dish down and followed me out the door.

CHAPTER FIVE
    W e found Patrick in the diner. He’s almost always there, writing at a table, playing his role as Cainsville’s resident novelist. He’s been published in several genres, under multiple pen names. Currently, he’s Patricia Rees, writing paranormal romance. I don’t comment on that. I wouldn’t know where to begin.
    The other Cainsville elders usually affect the guise of, well, the elderly. There’s a distinct advantage to that. One could grow up in Cainsville and never realize the elders weren’t aging, which is exactly what Gabriel had done. They’d been old when he was a child; they were still old. He had never stopped to consider exactly how old they might be. I remember a teacher I hated in second grade. In my memory, she was ancient, and then I met her a few years ago and discovered she was only now nearing retirement.
    Presumably, the Cainsville elders will occasionally abandon their guise to live as younger residents. I suspect it’s tough to seduce the local ladies when you look like you’d need a whole bottle of Viagra. But most times, they’re seniors. The exception is Patrick, who appears somewhere between my age and Gabriel’s.As for why no one notices that he doesn’t age, chalk that up partly to fae compulsion and partly to the human brain’s need to find explanations. Before we knew about the Tylwyth Teg, Gabriel had told me he remembered a man who’d taken an interest in him as a boy. In his memory, it was Patrick, but as an adult, Gabriel had realized that was impossible and decided the man must have been a relative of Patrick’s instead.
    Patrick is a hobgoblin. I remember the first time Rose said the word, and I made the mistake of equating it with “goblin.” She’d been quick to correct me. She said I