Page 26 of Carved Obsession

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“Is that what I think it is?” Vincent asks as I hold the offending object left on my driver’s seat.

We checked the Range—no devices. Nothing stolen. Nothing moved.

“It’s a puzzle box. A complex one, at that,” I say, flipping the wooden contraption, similar in size to a Rubik’s Cube, in my hand.

“Do you think it’s a trap?”

I look at the symbols and shapes etched into the cube, the seams and divots serving a purpose I have yet to identify. “No, I don’t. But whatever it is, I’m fucking pissed.”

“You want to go inside and give it a go?” Morrigan asks. When I look up, she’s nodding toward the club.

“I’d like to check your cameras.” I have to wait for Otto to come pick up the car and drop it at my house anyway.

“Come, then.” She turns and heads straight to the club without checking to see if we’re following.

Ten minutes later, we’re in the office, rewinding through the footage.

“There.” I point at the screen when a hooded figure dressed in loose black clothes finally shows up. “Rewind until you find the moment they came to my car.”

“There it is.” Vincent stops her. “Play it.”

Three seventeen in the morning. The club only closed an hour before.

We watch in silence as this person comes from the shadows, walking with a grating confidence straight to my car. There’s no hesitation, no cowering. I notice something in their hand, and I tense as I wonder if I missed a device stuck somewhere.

“They had a key?” Morrigan exclaims as the person simply unlocks the door.

The lights start flashing and the alarm goes off as they climb in, and we lose sight of what they’re doing. My shoulders relax when I realize they were holding one of those immobilizers that disable car alarms. Forty-two seconds pass, and then the lights go off and the sound stops. That’s fast. Very fast.

“Did you hear it? The alarm?” I ask.

Loreley owns the four-story period building which houses the club in the basement, her apartment on the top floor, and Morrigan’s on the third. She and Vincent slept here last night; they didn’t go back to their house in the woods.

He nods, but Morrigan answers. “I did. From up there, you can’t really localize the sound, though. I got up to go to the window, but it stopped by then. The thing is, we’re in the center of Queenscove... Alarms aren’t uncommon, especially on the weekend and with the tourists that we get.”

As much as I want to be frustrated, it’s illogical. This is not on them. And whoever did this was impressively quick.

“Can you download the footage, the whole thing, from just before I arrived?” I ask her.

“Yeah. I’ll pop it on our server. You can access that, yes?”

“I can. Thank you.”

Vincent cocks his head as he watches the end of the clip. “After they disabled the alarm, they spent a bit more time there. Only a minute or so, but longer than it would take to leave a puzzle box on the seat.”

He’s just pointing out the obvious as we watch the hooded figure climb out of the car and carefully push the door until it just catches the latch. Then they stroll away from sight.

I want to hope that a different camera angle would give me a view of their face, but I know I won’t see a thing. They’re wearing all black from head to toe—sweatpants, and a baggy hoodie pulled over their head so that it shades their face too. Though, that also appears to be covered with a ski mask or something.

“I think you’re right,” he continues. “I don’t think the box is a trap, and it might tell you why they lingered in the car.”

My phone vibrates, and I take it out to find the text I’ve been waiting for. “Otto is outside. I’ll give him the key and head home.”

For the first time in a long time, I’m uncomfortable. These last two days seem to have been dominated by states of mind I’m largely unfamiliar with. This one, I don’t like. I’ve been given a task by a complete stranger who broke into my fucking car, and it seems I have no other choice but to do it. I’m being controlled, and it’s awakening that simmering creature within me that demands satisfaction in pounds of flesh and spilled blood.

But things have been unseasonably quiet lately...I have no people on the roster to torture.